why i quit before reaching endgame (feedback from a new player)

[ElroyDrundan]

Couple other thoughts /questions regarding the MSQ from the perspective of a new player.

The new player experience of leveling a new character is way different than I or anyone else who has been playing the game for while. (I have been playing since launch).

Queues for required dungeons and trials especially the MSQ can be long. When the new player does get in a queue, mostly likely folks will just blast through the content as quick as they can. (granted that was fixed somewhat for the end MSQ parts with full cutscenes) It just isn't the same experience that we had. The ones I have talked with are mostly trying to enjoy the story yet at the same time frustrated about the experience and feeling they will never catch up to their friends.

There is also no wonder or excitement about the story for many new players. They are experiencing the story surrounded by those who have long since moved on. I would definitely vote for streamlining the experience. I would also imagine that many of those new players skip whatever they can because they are of the mind set to get this done so I can do the current content.

The leveling experience of new players doesn't come close to what we experienced, it quite simply can't.


I'm also curious why others are so opposed to this (or fast forwarding through say ARR, and maybe HW). Why do others care that new players didn't experience the story? It doesn't impact them at all. Lest you trot out the "They won't know how to play and will be horrible" Well, I'm not convinced being impatiently sped through the current content is going to help them much as it stands now.

Some one pointed out well if they don't like FF14 well they shouldn't play. I respond with they might not like being forced to slog through dead areas and old content, but they might very well love the game if they could get to the game folks are actively playing.

[Barraind]

It requires a lot of work to:
-unflag everything (sidequests unlock as you progress through MSQ so all these will have to be updated) and add new flags based on level this will also include retainers/gc joining and thus mount unlock
-add new side quests including all translations to any content that was mandatory for MSQ we are talking 15 new dungeon(this is just the leveling ones which means context to the Aery/Vault/Doma Castle are really lost), 3 ARR primals (Mog/Levi/Ramuh), 2 HW primals (Bis/Rav), 2 SB primals (Laksmi/Susano),
-outright change encounters/dungeons/questlines why because Shiva/Nidhogg/Thordan/Shinyru/Omega/Tsukiyomi/Eureka have heavy story significance and well you either get locked out of these so thats 17 fights you cannot do without dong a massive sidequest with all existing cutscenes, fedexing that is still there which also means your locked out from all ponies/birds/dogs and their respective completion questlines their weapons etc etc (and if you think most people would go through MSQ to repeat old content they have done just to do these fights well just XD) or you strip any speech and VA in the fights or you risk spoilering story
-Flying/Diving/inn rooms/levequests/guildhests unlock changed
-Zone access changed you cannot enter the HW and SB zones without MSQ progression after all
-Beast tribes changed specifically HW/SB as they require multiple sidequestlines but also use MSQ with references especially Ananta can't exactly redecorate a bridge if Garleans still holding it XD

Why would you need to do most of that?

You can even leave the MSQ in as an over-arcing storyline, just give everyone the flags for everything currently msq-locked on character creation. It is likely less work than the flags granted through story skips.

For dungeons, raids, beast tribes and other combat encounters, you still have to have the level to enter. Beast tribes still require picking up a breadcrumb quest at the GC's as well. For EX modes, you'll still have to do the Hard version, and for hard, the normal version.

Quests are still locked to level (pre-Shadowbringers), so you still have your own set of progression through areas. You would also be able to do sidequests in level-relevant areas if you can go right to Ishgard proper at 50 instead of likely having 10+ levels of the MSQ and the 100 terrible quests of 'oh god make it stop'.

Theres no good reason not to have Chocobos, GC's, class unlocking, squadrons and retainers available at level 1.

You'd still have to do side-quests and getting taxi'd / running around to unlock flying, which means having adequate levels, and theres no reason not to have diving as soon as you have a water zone.

This thread was started by someone going through the story for the first time. Once is enough for the issues to appear

I've been yelled at by 2/3'ds of the people I introduce to this MMO in particular, and no other MMO we have played since vanilla EQ, for not telling them about the existence of a story skip.

Thats good evidence for me that maaaaybe theres a problem with it.

[MsQi]

Mad at Final Fantasy for Final Fantasying.

[Melorie]

Mad at Final Fantasy for Final Fantasying.

I don't get that argument. I played FF9 recently. Interestingly enough, I did not felt that 90% of my time playing was just reading blocks of text and teleporting to one npc to the next. Maybe because even though the history is a trait of the Final Fantasy franchise, telling that history in a way that is tiring is not.

[MsQi]

I don't get that argument. I played FF9 recently. Interestingly enough, I did not felt that 90% of my time playing was just reading blocks of text and teleporting to one npc to the next. Maybe because even though the history is a trait of the Final Fantasy franchise, telling that history in a way that is tiring is not.

In FF9 you don't get to teleport. But seriously 90% is and exaggeration for either game. Though both have points where you may have to spend half an hour or more of reading mostly it's is broken up with dungeons and stuff. In either game you can take a break from the main story and go grind something or play a mini game if you like.

[Crushnight]

I don't get that argument. I played FF9 recently. Interestingly enough, I did not felt that 90% of my time playing was just reading blocks of text and teleporting to one npc to the next. Maybe because even though the history is a trait of the Final Fantasy franchise, telling that history in a way that is tiring is not.

Actually the thing you will probably spend the most of your time in FF9 is cutscenes most specifically the going into and out of combat cutscenes and yes they are cutscenes they wrest control away from the player to be all swoosh whoa do i look cool for a normal battle yet? XD

[Penthea]

I don't get that argument. I played FF9 recently. Interestingly enough, I did not felt that 90% of my time playing was just reading blocks of text and teleporting to one npc to the next. Maybe because even though the history is a trait of the Final Fantasy franchise, telling that history in a way that is tiring is not.

FFIX doesn't have many cutscenes or camera angle changes during dialogue due to the limitations of the ps1. FFX which came on the ps2 had far more cutscenes and skipping through dialogue took longer due the things like camera angle changes during scenes. Sounds familiar?

As technology became more robust the FF games got more and more cutscenes and more chunks of dialogue with fancy camera work. Comparing a ps1 game to FFXIV is very misleading. Those games are at least ten years apart, and when you consider how rapidly technology advances this is a super long time.

Cutscenes and long chunks of dialogue holding you in place are part of the FF experience. It's just how the stories are told. At least in FFXIV you usually would experience each of these only once, because solo duties aren't usually so challenging you need to attempt them more than once. In the solo games sometimes you could experience the same piece of dialogue several times if it was something you had to go through in order to access a difficult boss. I can't comment on FFXV (not played it yet) but at least from FFX and up to then you could skip previously viewed cutscenes, but normal dialogue had to be spam clicked through. Sound familiar again?

People also need to consider that FFXIV is a mmo and often the cutscenes also serve to remove other players from disrupting the immersion of a scene. I'm sure we can all agree that serious scenes such as a character's death would have a very different tone if another player on a fat cat mount was seen running around, or that it might be difficult to see what is going on if a lot of players are crowded around you.

Another thing to consider is in the older FF solo titles combat was randomly thrust upon you by an invisible force and you could rarely avoid it. Therefore it meant that there was a lot more time between story-telling sections due to spending time in these random battles the game threw at you. In more modern games, and certainly in mmos, you can see hostile mobs before engaging with them, so you can choose not to do so thus cutting your downtime between storytelling.

No one has to like how the story is told in FFXIV or any other game. We are all entitled to our tastes, and different types of games exist because tastes can greatly differ. However to say that frequent cutscenes and large chunks of dialogue isn't a typical trait of the FF series is simply untrue. Such a claim is only the case for the older games of the series, and a lot of the time they were like that due to the limitations of technology at the time.

[LilySkye]

hello

i tested this game for 2 weeks now, reached level 60 and quit the game during the dragonsong quests. most annoying game of all time. this is my experience:

go to npc -----> cutscene -----> accept quest -----> cutscene -----> make quest -----> go to npc -----> cutscene ------> accept new quest -----> cutscene -----> go to next npc -----> cutscene
-----> do quest -----> cutscene -----> go to npc -----> cutscene -----> accept dungeon-quest -----> cutscene -----> enter dungeon -----> cutscene -----> arrive first boss -------> cutscene
-----> arive next boss -----> cutscene -----> arrive last boss -----> cutscene -----> defeat last bos -----> cutscene ------> go out of dungeon ------> cutscene-...................


WTF. from 2 weeks of playing i watched at least 1,5 weeks cutscenes without doing anything than watching. i quit this collection of cutscenes yesterday. i don't want to watch cutscenes for weeks just to be able to play the game i paid for! i love good lore and dont have a problem with some cutscenes, but this is absoluteley ridiculous.

see you in a week o/

[RyuSaarva]

I don't even understand how you managed to speedrun the game that fast, it took me 28 days to clear 2.0 main story alone, I don't think you ever watched any cutscenes or read any text at all.

[Crushnight]

will say it seems they are doubling down on MSQ by making 1 set of Role quests mandatory where the other 3 sets you don't do are side content. So i would advise anybody who you try and get interested in this game to be as informative as possible and tell them it has a lot of cutscenes, there is a lot of back and forth between areas, if these are deal breakers then it would be best to find another game to play, because at it stands atm for ShB MSQ is remaining mandatory to do later content, they have plans to trim down ARR but they would still need to go through ARR to SB to get access to ShB if they are not willing to pay extra to get there.