Solutions to the main scenario problem

[kamikrazy]

It’s too long, simple as that. New players will easily outlevel the main scenario as they are leveling up. I’ve a friend who I brought to this game and he started months ago and has hit level 70 and is barely halfway through Heavensward. It’s way too long, and I’m not interested in arguing that. This thread is going to assume you agree with this and is purely for discussing possible solutions to this assumed problem, and I’m not interested in arguing if it’s a valid problem.

Some ideas to get things started:
1) Cut out the 100+ quests between ARR and HW down to 10 or so composite quests that remove all of the unnecessary parts.
2) Create composite quests for everything from ARR to Stormblood that greatly increase XP and greatly lower the number of quests.
3) Start Shadowbringers players in a special story arc in which the WoL loses their memories and strength and have a special questline parallel to the 70+ msq in which they recover their levels and memories of the past, until at level 80 they have fully recovered and unlocked all past cutscenes at the inn.

More ideas!

[Jeeqbit]

Purchasing a story skip potion and using New Game+ to replay any quests you wish is an alternative solution.

The main way you outlevel the main scenario is if you start on a Preferred World where you get double the XP from quests, causing you to be, on average, twice the level of the MSQ. You may also outlevel it if you are trying to, by doing roulettes and FATEs and such things, instead of focussing just on the MSQ.

They will eventually condense the ARR quests when the time is right to invest in it, but they said it will be expensive.

[hobostew]

The best solution is not getting hung up on overleveling the MSQ. A lot of the more interesting parts tend to be instanced and level synced anyway.

[kamikrazy]

Though I think condensing them is a fine solution, I feel that skipping and doing them again later would be better. Perhaps certain new rewards for doing them, or titles.

I feel like the skip now just makes it feel too strange, new players aren’t going to be invested because they can’t find a way to connect to the situation because too much has happened that isn’t explained, and they are being asked to just know it immediately.

If there was some kind of story justification for a skip potion, like a quest where the WoL also doesn’t know anything that happened in the past, I think new players would find the option a great deal more appealing, because not knowing anything previously is actually expected of them.

Just a thought.

[Vanitas]

Condensing all the needless fluff in ARR? Sure. Cutting down the story to a "F I N A L F A N T A S Y" game as a whole? Nah fam.

Also realistically I highly doubt they'd ever add any form of skip mechanic due simply to the fact that it would harm sales for skip pots and would most certainly be a poor business move.

[kamikrazy]

Condensing all the needless fluff in ARR? Sure. Cutting down the story to a "F I N A L F A N T A S Y" game as a whole? Nah fam.

Also realistically I highly doubt they'd ever add any form of skip mechanic due simply to the fact that it would harm sales for skip pots and would most certainly be a poor business move.

If SE thought with Ff14 like Activision does with WoW then you might have a point, but SE doesn’t a a history of monetizing problems with the game like that

[Unholychinchilla]

Though I think condensing them is a fine solution, I feel that skipping and doing them again later would be better. Perhaps certain new rewards for doing them, or titles.

I feel like the skip now just makes it feel too strange, new players aren’t going to be invested because they can’t find a way to connect to the situation because too much has happened that isn’t explained, and they are being asked to just know it immediately.

If there was some kind of story justification for a skip potion, like a quest where the WoL also doesn’t know anything that happened in the past, I think new players would find the option a great deal more appealing, because not knowing anything previously is actually expected of them.

Just a thought.

You story skip potion specific ques idea isn't practical if you want it to actually work. Having the WoL not understanding what's going on and who everyone is won't change the player feeling lost unless you add a lot of exposition to the point where you essentially have two versions of the MSQ; one for story skippers and one for everyone else. The former will either be much longer or sacrifice a lot in order to fit in the required extra exposition. It would also be a much greater development cost than condensing the existing MSQ by cutting out the unnecessary parts of ARR.

It's ultimately the more awkward solution and more likely to make new players feel less invested in the story.

[savageink]

If SE thought with Ff14 like Activision does with WoW then you might have a point, but SE doesn’t a a history of monetizing problems with the game like that

except for the fee for extra retainers to fix the inventory issues people have with crafting and glamour.

[Hasrat]

First, explain why outleveling MSQ is a bad thing.

[Allegor]

The problem is that it's too long if you're new or behind, but if you're doing it in the moment, it's actually short - or at least, gets shorter with each expansion.

Personally, when I started playing I was too engaged in the story to care about outleveling it. That said, I do agree they could weed out a few quests *has PTSD of 2.1-2.55*