Option to unlock content without mandatory MSQ

[Kenky]

Okay. Then, in your almighty wisdom tell me this.

If it moves from required content to Optional content, then why would SE put time and effort into maintaining it? You're asking for it to be optional and with that territory, comes the obvious issue of it just being neglected. There's no real counter to that, especially when other "optional content" in FFXIV has been left alone for quite a fair amount of time. Said time varying wildly depending on which optional content you're thinking of.

And I've still yet to actually get a response from either of you about why you continue to play, when the main appeal of the game (to many, especially with the games design featuring this, mind!) is the story.

And the "rounding out" part was more aimed at Sauc than you, Skivvy. However the "stupid mindset" you state is rather odd, if not laughable at best. What do you personally expect from a Final Fantasy game, exactly. If not its main selling point?

It wouldn't change, not sure how many times I have to repeat it. You like the msq? Cool keep reading everything, I don't so I avoid it and everybody wins. There's no reason to believe the quality of it would drop down, there's already tons of ways to level your secondary classes ALREADY in game that exist only for that purpose. Roulettes potd/hoh fates sidequests exist almost solely for that purpose the only difference is now you would be able to do those on your starter class as well.

See, here's where you fall into a snag. Yes, you can level up secondary classes doing sidequests, hoh, etc. That's the intent. But you need to unlock said content first and i've yet to find a game that doesn't have some form of progression-gating to ensure players go through a general learning curve. Not to mention you already can do all of these on your starting classes. Infact, you can unlock POTD at 20 and do POTD until you're blue in the face, but you still have to go through that learning curve, regardless of your level.

Unless you pay, that is. Which is its own can of worms I'd particularly like to not go back to.

[sauc]

Okay. Then, in your almighty wisdom tell me this.

If it moves from required content to Optional content, then why would SE put time and effort into maintaining it? You're asking for it to be optional and with that territory, comes the obvious issue of it just being neglected. There's no real counter to that, especially when other "optional content" in FFXIV has been left alone for quite a fair amount of time. Said time varying wildly depending on which optional content you're thinking of.

And I've still yet to actually get a response from either of you about why you continue to play, when the main appeal of the game (to many, especially with the games design featuring this, mind!) is the story.

And the "rounding out" part was more aimed at Sauc than you, Skivvy. However the "stupid mindset" you state is rather odd, if not laughable at best. What do you personally expect from a Final Fantasy game, exactly. If not its main selling point?



See, here's where you fall into a snag. Yes, you can level up secondary classes doing sidequests, hoh, etc. That's the intent. But, just like every other MMO out there you need to unlock it first. Guess where that comes in?

In the other mmos I played it's unlocked just by having the required level or at worst doing some sidequest. Example: you hit level 14 satasha is immediately available and queuable for regardless of anything else you've done

And why wouldn't they maintain it if it's as popular as you claim it is? Would be a pretty bad buisness move on their part to do something like that. If it so happens that it isn't worth maintaining anymore cause it's optional and no one is doing it then that would mean it's more a silent majority instead of a vocal minority.

Also I did say it I do raids and endgame in general, I also leveled every class to 80. Pretty much nothing I do is story related, I know the gist of it but none of my friends or my static really paid any attention to it.

On your learning curve thing, I would say people learn how to play their character more from leveling through combat all the way to 80 than talking to npcs and watching cutscenes.

[Kenky]

In the other mmos I played it's unlocked just by having the required level or at worst doing some sidequest. Example: you hit level 14 satasha is immediately available and queuable for regardless of anything else you've done

And why wouldn't they maintain it if it's as popular as you claim it is? Would be a pretty bad buisness move on their part to do something like that. If it so happens that it isn't worth maintaining anymore cause it's optional and no one is doing it then that would mean it's more a silent majority instead of a vocal minority.

Also I did say it I do raids and endgame in general, I also leveled every class to 80. Pretty much nothing I do is story related, I know the gist of it but none of my friends or my static really paid any attention to it.

And you ever wonder what the "sidequest" is meant to do? Let's have a think, shall we?

[sauc]

And you ever wonder what the "sidequest" is meant to do? Let's have a think, shall we?

Big difference in a 5 minute quest that unlocks at level 41 to go into aurumn vale compared to hitting 41 and realizing you have to go through 41 levels worth of msq to unlock aurum vale. Think unlocking raids sidequests.

[Skivvy]

And I've still yet to actually get a response from either of you about why you continue to play, when the main appeal of the game (to many, especially with the games design featuring this, mind!) is the story.

You never asked me why I still play (not a mindreader here, gotta help me out). But as it seems you're curious, I've always liked collecting mounts/minions/glamours, etc. BSing with friends or just hanging out was fun, although most have quit now. I still keep up with the beast tribes (this ties more into the mount/glam/minion collection), and I tend to really like the 24-man raids. I love me some fantasias, and running around as a cute Lala. A while back I also took to leveling all of my jobs & classes to 80, almost done now. I'm sure there is more, but that should be enough for this conversation.

However the "stupid mindset" you state is rather odd, if not laughable at best. What do you personally expect from a Final Fantasy game, exactly. If not its main selling point?

My experience with Square Enix games is pretty much XI (their only other successful MMO*), and XIV.

I started playing XI back in the day after a coworker invited me to play with them. I thought the game was amazing. I loved exploring the world, met some really fun people, Dymamis was my jam, got up to drunk shenanigans in Sky, learned how to solo NMs with my Corsair, worked on collecting gear - pretty much your typical run of the mill for MMO* activities. The story never factored into it for me at all. Keep in mind that XI does in fact have an enormous MSQ story to be had for those who want it, quite befitting for an SE title. It's just wasn't my thing at the time. The great thing is that I could simply do the quests I needed to unlock whatever specific content / items I was aiming for, and could ignore the rest until I was needing it (if ever).

Just to note, *MMO is the vital keyword up above and to this conversation. This is not one of their single-player games where linear progression is to be expected. As this is an MMO, it shouldn't try to shoehorn players to follow a rigid path. Some guidance never hurts, but as it is now, if you want to do current endgame, you are required to complete 100% of the old MSQ - and that's just crazy. And a huge turn off for many. There is probably a good reason why Yoshi and crew are working on revamping the old story content. If it was perfectly fine as is, why would they bother fixing 6 year old content?

So yeah, MMOs - they attract people with all sorts of interests. I think I'm pretty decent proof that you can thoroughly enjoy one of SE's MMOs without giving two shakes about the story.

I strongly feel that telling people to find another game simply because they aren't interested in the story is a very bad way to go about things.

[RayddenPrime]

For me I ‘d say, other ways to unlock and access other areas and continents without completing MSQ...if you bought the expansions.
Many things that unlocks through MSQ do make sense tho. But i do agree that the mandatory aspect of it can be quite the drag for many, and the part where you have to pay to skip too. So I’d say maybe at the very least , ways to access other areas and continents without going through msq would be great. And also features, like flying and diving. It Would for example , be a good thing for those who just wanna strictly only do side jobs.

[Halivel]

Newgame+ does indeed kind of make this possible for them. However, buying story + level skip is kind of a dedication and costs quite a lot of money (too much if you ask me). It also seems kind of awkward to play through the MSQ of latest expansion without having experienced former story. The story of previous content will also get spoiled (same when you unlock the instances without MSQ I guess, but likely to lesser extend).

Is it expensive? Well, yes. But it's probably less expensive than the time you would actually spend doing it all, so here is the price if you want to do things fast. Do your choice.

Also, even if MSQ was optional, people still would spoil it to themselves once they go into high end content. Eden alone is deeply connected with both Shadowbringers and Stormblood. It's connected even to A Realm Reborn and Heavensward, as the 50% of main cast there is same, and battles are in deep referencing to what we do in the past. What's next then? Optional high-end content storyline, too? Designing battles in a way so they won't spoil anything? Because making MSQ optional will affect team's freedom in what they can do with side content, either high-end or not. Are we still in FF14 even at all at that point? Or is it another game with same title, torn in order to "please more people", even though it successfully pleased more and more people with every new expansion the way it was originally designed?

And all of this for the sake of people that care only about multiplayer and nothing else? Maybe said people, if it disturbs them that much, should go and play games that are suitable for them instead of coming here and trying to throw its core away, to only cry "you broke the game, SE!" later, because that's what would actually happen?

It's one thing to ask for adding more clothes, character creation options and fixing jobs. Coming here and saying "you know what, can we, just, eh, change the way game supposed to work?" is completely another. There are plenty of games that are already designed the way you want them to be. No need to make FF14 the copy of them.

[scerviche]

I'm only playing this game because of the story. Hell i think this game would be better if it was just single player rather then a WoW clone mmo. But its still fun.

[Packetdancer]

I mean, I think the bigger problem is that unless I've wildly misunderstood, the OP defined the feature not just as making MSQ wholly optional but also not spoiling the story. So that you could, for instance, sign up, skip right to the Eden raids and go into savage raiding, and then go back and play the story later when you had more time... but not have the Eden raids have spoiled you on any of the MSQ.

Even if mechanically they were willing to make the MSQ optional, that has implications for the MSQ narratively.

It's easy to say "oh, if the MSQ was optional and folks could just go right to Eden raiding out of chargen, that wouldn't affect anyone else's enjoyment of the story". But if SquareEnix were to constrain themselves such that no piece of non-MSQ content could reference things from the MSQ (to avoid spoiling the MSQ for folks), at that point you've changed the nature of the storytelling and the pieces don't all interlock. And changing the nature of the storytelling itself does impact how other people will enjoy the story.

Whether or not I care about someone else skipping the story of not, I would find the game a lot less compelling as a player if the story didn't build on past bits of story; if nothing in the MSQ was ever referenced in any non-MSQ content, I'd feel less like it was a tale of a world and more just a collection of disjointed individual events. And personally, that would interest me less.

Would I stomp off in a sulk because people could skip the story? No.

Would I probably lose interest in the story and wander off to something with a story I found more compelling instead? I know myself well enough to say, "yeah, probably."

And while I don't know how many other folks who are here for the story would say the same, I'm fairly certain that the total quantity is greater than 1.