Dev team, please do not remove the importance of the MSQ

[gumas]

on personal level, iam on OP side, iam one of the people who really enjoy the MSQ in this game, i love the story, i dont mind the mundane fed-ex objective, i dont crave for the top 5% of the endgame, i play this game simply to enjoy the tale of the adventures.

on general level however, people tend not to like it yeah. everytime i see a thead (not in just this site) regarding mmorpg like "suggest me good mmorpg" or "is FF14 good?" etc, the answer is always... always the same, 'yes its good, its friendly, its fun, BUT, the pre 50 quest is a chore / the quest suck" kind of answer.

you cant help it though, this day many people play mmorpg so they can be the badass top 5% player so they can boast around, or just simply want to reach max level asap and get epic gear. these kind of people has almost no regard to story, and again the answer is mostly the same, "you want story? go play singleplayer game". for the defense, its does not limit to FF14, its pretty much happen with every game that has level progression system.

as for raid and dungeon, cant they just use something like "trust" system? instead of grouping with other people, you can just solo them with npc company. but this type of run will not give you "proper" reward, if you want the real reward you must play and group with real people. on the good side, you can use this type of run to "learn" the dungeon / boss mechanic.

so basically if you just got MSQ that require you to finish this dungeon, you can either group with real people (which give you real reward) OR use the "trust" system and solo the dungeon but it wont give you reward (maybe just a small sum of money and that's it), but either way if you finish it, you can continue your MSQ.

[LyraKuroneko]

How do you explain XI in that case? Last I checked that is also in the Final Fantasy series, and they didn't force the entire story on you.

I tried it the other day with only 2 explansion on it. And several cs was "forced" onto me when I stepped in a zone.

It was weird for some part because I could do all at the same time, not knowing who was who ans behing introduce to some of the NPC later while I know them in another xpac.

But if I just take the base game, you still have cs and things "forced'' to you. And I tried this game to see what the story was like in the 1st place.

Also from what I read from the guides, there is tons of things loked if you don't prog the story. So it's not that different.

[Skivvy]

I tried it the other day with only 2 explansion on it. And several cs was "forced" onto me when I stepped in a zone.

It was weird for some part because I could do all at the same time, not knowing who was who ans behing introduce to some of the NPC later while I know them in another xpac.

Forced CSs you say? XIV wouldn't know anything about that....right? *coughMSQROULETTEcough*

XI does handle their CSs in an odd way as they will automatically start if you are at that step of the quest. This is also a very old game, and it's outdated in many ways - but that's a moot point as I've not asked XIV to emulate XI in every way.

Anyhoo, with XI, they did not lock the new content from each expansion behind the full MSQ being completed, and every last story from previous expansions. You could choose to continue after a certain point, but it wasn't a necessity for most things. This would be what I am referring to when bringing up XI. I know this forums tends to hate on most things XI, so another game as an example would be GW2. It also has a rather massive story - but it's also not forced on you.

I feel like SE could find a way to keep the story congruent while also not making it 100% required if that's not your thing. This game also does love it's gate-keeping though, and keeping it mandatory is just another way to stretch content out.

[LyraKuroneko]

Forced CSs you say? XIV wouldn't know anything about that....right? *coughMSQROULETTEcough*

How to say... irony you know..., the " " thingy... all that.

Back to rest, yeah you could do the other xpac, which doesn't make any sence because the character seems to know you out of nowhere. I don't think that's a good point.

What I like though would be the fact you can travel everywhere, I don't see the point to not being able to visit other places of other xpac. You might get killed doing so but it's oneself problem.

We know the rest of the world exist, while some place could still be not open, like Ishgard, because we're still kinda unautorised out there at the begining.

To add one last thing because I think I made my point by now. Let the MSQ be, people got skip potion if they want. And don't tell me it's too expensive when people buy a 200€ collector pack like nothing. Especially with how many people seems to buy the said potion. The price doesn't seem to be a problem there.

(I edit because it's useless to make another post because of thing I more or less forgot to add, it's the point of the edit option, sorry)

[Sciwolf]

Hey guys I’m gonna play a final fantasy game but I hate stories ok?

[Skivvy]

How to say... irony you know..., the " " thingy... all that.

I'm missing the irony in your comment. We're talking about quest completion being forced on you, and you're talking cutscenes. While these two things are related as they tend to occur together, they are not the same.

Anyway, kudos on just focusing on that.

And to address your edits:

1) I've never claimed you can just jump right into content. Each expansion will require you to be progressed to a certain point (bolded the important part for ya), and some do have cross-story line requirements, but that's about it. Yes, there are more rewards and CSs to be had if you DO complete the story-line, but it wasn't required.

2) Again, XI is ancient, and many of its ways are outdated. CSs auto-starting when you simply walk into a zone is one of those. But alas, we're not talking unskippable cutscenes here.

ETA; You edited...again. So I think i'm done addressing that as it keeps changing.

[linay]

Why? What benefit does this offer? Does this make the player somehow better at the game?

The story isn't great. There, I said it. Most of it is derivative (wait til you see shadowbringers! We've totally never seen this concept before!) and some of it is downright offensive. I remember one of our buddy npcs saying something like "I want to stay here and learn more about these people" and I was literally screaming at my monitor "I don't!" But I had to, because SE deemed it important for me to play through the storyline of a sexist faction in this xpac. I gained absolutely nothing of value from that story and it only served to deepen my disdain for the dev team's stance on a lot of things in general.

Really, historical story should be optional. There is nothing so crucial to playing the game in there that there is any reason to gate future content behind it.

The entire game is optional. You don't have to play it if you don't want to.

Meanwhile, I like having a story, and if the dev starts making stories optional, I fear it's a slippery slope that will end up like WoW where there can be a raid that's just there without any story behind why you're there (Uldir for Alliance in BfA expansion). So, no thanks, I'd rather they keep trying to write stories for every content in the game, and if you don't want to experience it, wait until there is a boost to skip past it or don't play it at all if you have a disdain for things that are in the game. Again, it's just a video game, so it's all optional.

[FeliAiko]

MSQ has already been disconnected from Trials and Raids since HW, so I don't get the point of this OP.

Warring Triad did not require you to do Patches 3.2-3.5 MSQs first before accessing. Same with Four Lords and Patches 4.2-4.5.

[Miles064]

The entire game is optional. You don't have to play it if you don't want to.

Meanwhile, I like having a story, and if the dev starts making stories optional, I fear it's a slippery slope that will end up like WoW where there can be a raid that's just there without any story behind why you're there (Uldir for Alliance in BfA expansion). So, no thanks, I'd rather they keep trying to write stories for every content in the game, and if you don't want to experience it, wait until there is a boost to skip past it or don't play it at all if you have a disdain for things that are in the game. Again, it's just a video game, so it's all optional.

The Alliance didnt have a story for Uldir because Uldir was a Horde story. Uldir's story was pretty much the end of most of the Hordes leveling story. I stopped playing some time ago but I would assume the raid with the queen will be Alliance centered from the fact allys were the ones that dealt the most with it(stormsong vally comes to mind). Pretty much every dungeon I can think of in wow had a story that started outside of the dungeon and lead you to completing that dungeon too. Those stories just were not mandatory to go into them. All that story is there for those that care, but can be skipped for those that dont.

Keep the lvling story mandatory for ff14 but let players skip the max lvl stuff for past expac to go into the next ones lvling story imo. If you really want to know what happened in between, then it is still there to be completed and the rewards can still be gotten. For the current expac, leave it how it is with dungeons,raids,trials, etc being unlocked with the quests.

[Pywalli]

A new player has to go through 150+ hours of fedexing that crap to even get to anything moderately ok. And yes, pray return to the waking sands is a meme for a reason. It's a crappy fedex msq.

*note: 150 hours of crappy fedexing is pretty much not even playing the game. That's wasting time between cutscenes or overnerfed, outdated content.

150H HOW ? With 100h afk ?

MSQ optional.

try Mapple story 1