An option for characters to start at level 50, pre-heavensward, for FREE

[Eriane_Elis]

I agree, they shouldn't be cutting content in an mmorpg, infact I would actually like to replay the story of heavensward, but can only go through it once on a single character. I would also like to play the 1.0 story but obviously that wont ever happen, unless its done with the explanation that your dreaming and thats how you went back in time, that would actually be a really kool concept!

New Game+ is going to be an exciting feature

[Shougun]

Before we get free jump potions (like WoW does) I'd hope/prefer they become condensed new starting to the game. Like how WoW has different starts to the game based on race, here rather you could get a different start to the game based on level. The intro probably lasting about 1-3 hours and with a goal on having a high heat hook (imo SE's first few hours are.., at least after the cutscene, not as good as I'd hope) and that the intro has a goal of giving you some background (where you started, who you are, main naughty boi of the expansion you're going into), with direction, and some gameplay. It works nice with new game plus since if you decide if you want to go back you can easily, that's lovely . Also with new game plus that new start is actually a sort of dlc content update for us all (since we could "new game plus" it, making it more effective use of resources than just for new players).

5 expansions from ARR when there is 400 un-compressible hours of quest line (because it's already been "condensed") I don't think we're (SE) going to have an option but to do something, regardless of how great many people think the story is.

People can argue when that point of no return is but I really believe it'll come, and has already for some people (but maybe "not enough", yet, to do something about it as big as giving a default jump which is a pretty big deal lol).

[SigmaOZ]

It would be a nice addition, starting a new character at level 1 supposes a terrible grind to 50, things move much slower during ARR to the point of being incredibly boring.


It's unlikely that new players will want to start from scratch and not all of them are willing to pay for level potions or MSQ ones, SE could throw in a free level 50 character with each Final Fantasy XIV Online license and additionally ARR could become optional content!...

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

It would be a nice addition, starting a new character at level 1 supposes a terrible grind to 50, things move much slower during ARR to the point of being incredibly boring.


It's unlikely that new players will want to start from scratch and not all of them are willing to pay for level potions or MSQ ones, SE could throw in a free level 50 character with each Final Fantasy XIV Online license and additionally ARR could become optional content!...

Why should your characters creation story be optional content? The story of ARR builds your character up as the incredible force that you are, from a lowly unknown adventurer. Without doing arr, you have no idea why one of the noble houses of ishgard trusts you so completely, basically making you a ward of theirs. You also have no idea why the leaders of the 3 other city states put so much faith into you or the scions. Remember, they all have standing armies as of the end of arr, and yet, every single leader breathes a sigh of relief when you show up.

[MariaArvana]

It would be daunting for new players, to suddenly be given a dozen of combat attacks and abilities without even knowing what a combo is or how the basics of combat works. The big problem with getting into HW is the MSQ filler which grinds the leveling process to a complete halt for about a dozen hours for fetch quests that have no rewards.

Especially for new players to the genre(which there are a lot, considering the FF single player fan draw) ARR is necessary as a teaching tool, so no. I really don't want to subject some brand new, only played FFXV, bright eyed newbie to the Sohm Al bosses just because they think using a sword and shield makes them look like Gladio. And that's just the second dungeon of HW...

ARR is a pretty bad teaching tool besides introducing the player on how to talk to NPCs. Whether you start them at level 1 or level 70, people who want to learn will, and those who don't won't. Take a look at the still large amount of players at level 70 who refuse/don't/etc use AoE when 10+ mobs are pulled, do whacky rotations, don't maintain/use their full toolkits/buffs, don't even read some of their tooltips, etc. Saying they should go through ARR to be taught is pointless when starting them at 50/60/70 with some extremely powerful tutorials (Like a mandatory hall of the intermediate) can accomplish the same thing in 1/100th of the time with 10000% more effectiveness.

I think part of the problem here is people coming in with other MMOs in mind, thinking current endgame is the only thing that matters.

This game is more like a traditional rpg. The entire journey matters.

You wouldn't buy final fantasy 7 and request to only play the last disk, skipping everything else, would you?

Believe it or not, FF14 is still an MMO first and foremost by a VERY large margint. Lots of people like to join to play with their friends and don't care much for the story when there's big, epic bosses to kill with said friends. Half of my friend group has been around since 2.0 and none of those people could tell you the name of half of the scions or major characters in the story due to how little they pay attention. Scaring off potential new long standing, long paying players with a gigantic, forced storyline will only hurt FF14 in the long run as old players leave and new ones aren't staying to replace them. That being said, Jump potions are a good compromise anyway, though I feel their price could do with being cut a bit or a free one being given away for buying a special version of the game.

[Edax]

ARR is a pretty bad teaching tool besides introducing the player on how to talk to NPCs. Whether you start them at level 1 or level 70, people who want to learn will, and those who don't won't. Take a look at the still large amount of dps players at level 70 who refuse/don't/etc use AoE when 10+ mobs are pulled, do whacky rotations, don't maintain/use their full toolkits/buffs, don't even read some of their tooltips, etc. Saying they should go through ARR to be taught is pointless when starting them at 50/60/70 with some extremely powerful tutorials (Like a mandatory hall of the intermediate) can accomplish the same thing in 1/100th of the time with 10000% more effectiveness.

Just because some players can't learn from experience doesn't mean most players don't. I personally have not seen that many dps players not use AOE attacks when 10+ mobs are pulled. For me personally, learning how to Dragoon was far easier for me because I started as a Lancer from scratch then when I became a Samurai suddenly at level 50. It took me 2 days with a house dummy to figure out how to arrange the Samurai abilities onto my hotkeys to get the rotations to even work, more days still to commit them to muscle memory. AAR introduces abilities one at a time, which is far better then introducing abilities a dozen at a time.

[linay]

Imagine this:
5.0 - WoD fails to save the First and everything changes
6.0 - WoD resets to WoL back at the Source and new characters start MSQ at this point from level 1, previous instanced content can be accessed via Echo

[Izanagi_Fiaresu]

They have that! Its called Redmage, Samurai, Dancer, and Gunbreaker!

[Arngrim_Greyashe]

They have that! Its called Redmage, Samurai, Dancer, and Gunbreaker!

To play devil's advocate here, you can't start as those and they are inaccessible until you complete ARR.

[PyurBlue]

I think part of the problem here is people coming in with other MMOs in mind, thinking current endgame is the only thing that matters.

This game is more like a traditional rpg. The entire journey matters.

You wouldn't buy final fantasy 7 and request to only play the last disk, skipping everything else, would you?

If people are only forming opinions based on other games, that's kind of silly. FF14 should stand on its own merits. I just think that the MSQ is very polarizing. It's not universally liked, so whether or not it's intended to be important doesn't really matter. It's just not interesting for some players.

The FF7 comparison doesn't really apply all that well. FF7 in FF14 terms would be just the MSQ on disc. FF14 offers more than that so of course some people will want to skip portions of the game that they are less interested in. Even if people were to skip 95% of FF7 for the end that's not a problem either. They just didn't like most of the game for whatever reason and skipping doesn't take the story away from anyone else.