Option to unlock content without mandatory MSQ

[SamRF]

The devs have a vested interest in keeping you jumping through as many hoops as the average player is willing to endure. You either pay your subscription (and time) for however long it takes you to get through the MSQ, or pay for a story skip to "fast forward" that process.

Giving immediate access would essentially cost them money in time that you're not spending on their game.

Obviously people may just quit if it's too long, but they seem to be trying to balance that with things like the ARR re-edit to shorten it. And it's more about the large-scale average than keeping every single player.

I see. They perhaps believe endgame to not be interesting enough to get all those new people invested for long, and thus want to make sure there's mandatory MSQ that will keep players subscribed for many months.

[yukiiyuki]

With the power of money, you can do what you want. People don't gudge if it's real money skip.
Also, there's not much PVE content you can do anyway in this expansion.

[Darkpaw]

I see. They perhaps believe endgame to not be interesting enough to get all those new people invested for long, and thus want to make sure there's mandatory MSQ that will keep players subscribed for many months.

That seems a little disingenuous. The devs are surely proud of the end game content they produce. They work hard on every aspect of this game.

You are looking at this from a weird perspective. Only seemingly looking through the lens of “MMO” and what has made MMOs successful over the years. But no game genre ever gets anywhere by just being a copy of anothers.

Final Fantasy XIV works and succeeds as an MMO because it is first and foremost. A Final Fantasy game. This series is a legendary series in gaming. It has a storied history and is by many considered one of the principal pillars of the JRPG genre.

To cast out all that history and everything it means to be a Final Fantasy game while yes will open the game to some other types of players. You will drive away more than you acquire and this game will fail.

I was not an MMO player before this game and I likely will not be one again after this game, because the biggest selling point to me was the story, and I know several other people who feel the exact same way. If this game gave an alternative to unlocking content that didn’t come from the msq it loses a key feature of this game and more importantly a key piece of it’s identity.

[SamRF]

That seems a little disingenuous. The devs are surely proud of the end game content they produce. They work hard on every aspect of this game.

You are looking at this from a weird perspective. Only seemingly looking through the lens of “MMO” and what has made MMOs successful over the years. But no game genre ever gets anywhere by just being a copy of anothers.

Final Fantasy XIV works and succeeds as an MMO because it is first and foremost. A Final Fantasy game. This series is a legendary series in gaming. It has a storied history and is by many considered one of the principal pillars of the JRPG genre.

To cast out all that history and everything it means to be a Final Fantasy game while yes will open the game to some other types of players. You will drive away more than you acquire and this game will fail.

I was not an MMO player before this game and I likely will not be one again after this game, because the biggest selling point to me was the story, and I know several other people who feel the exact same way. If this game gave an alternative to unlocking content that didn’t come from the msq it loses a key feature of this game and more importantly a key piece of it’s identity.

Would the availability of this option (that isn't toggled on default) drive you away from this game? If yes, I wonder why?

Because it seems to me that your gameplay experience wouldn't really change in any way. You, as well as me would still be doing MSQ to unlock content. I want to emphasize again that I would never use this option myself because I like MSQ and the fact that its a story driven game a lot. I love having the backstory and context for the instances. It's just that I wouldn't mind if others were able to skip all that with an option (which again, isn't toggled on default).

[dangadget]

Would the availability of this option (that isn't toggled on default) drive you away from this game? If yes, I wonder why?

Because it seems to me that your gameplay experience wouldn't really change in any way. You, as well as me would still be doing MSQ to unlock content. I want to emphasize again that I would never use this option myself because I like MSQ and the fact that its a story driven game a lot. I love having the backstory and context for the instances. It's just that I wouldn't mind if others were able to skip all that with an option (which again, isn't toggled on default).

Yes, for my part, I think this would eventually drive me away, and I know at least a few other people personally who would likely feel the same.
What would the incentive be for SE to do this?
There are already ways for people to skip most of the MSQ via a paid option.
Why would they give away this option?
In order to appeal to a playerbase that has demonstrated that they do not actually value much of what the developers are doing?

[Halivel]

There is one important thing: money. As soon as Skip Books became a thing, the chance of implementation your idea (you're not the first one proposing this, believe me) went to almost zero.

Right now a lot of people buy MSQ skip books for the sake of sinking into end-game with their friends, especially those who doesn't care about it because they think that it's another "typical mmo without story". Making MSQ optional will allow all new people and all those who level their alts for end game (yes, there are people like this) just to completely ignore MSQ and go straight into the content. When there already is an option for this, but with money.

Which company in their right mind will do such thing, cutting their profit?

[SamRF]

Which company in their right mind will do such thing, cutting their profit?

Good point, but they could perhaps make even more profit by broadening their market.

They could become a true WoW competitor for example. There are right now a lot of dissatisfied WoW players who have nowhere to go because MMO market is very underwhelming right now when it comes to non niche (WoW like) MMOs. They could create some new Final Fantasy fans by welcoming those players, who will perhaps after having a good time and having experienced the combat and beautiful instances become interested to do the MSQ and see what's the backstory and context for everything. The average WoW player will not have the patience to go through the whole MSQ while being stuck with very slow combat (because combat only gets interesting and faster at higher levels).

Now that we're talking about WoW, there's probably a good reason why WoW offers free level boost with purchase of an expansion. They want to keep the newest content populated and make the game more appealing to players who get interested in the game after seeing an ad for their newest expansion for example. All that would lead to more profit in the long term because they decided to offer free level boost instead of charging players. They comply to the demand so they can get more expansion sales and thus make more profit.

[Halivel]

They could become a true WoW competitor for example. There are right now a lot of dissatisfied WoW players who have nowhere to go because MMO market is very underwhelming right now when it comes to non niche (WoW like) MMOs. They could create some new Final Fantasy fans by welcoming those players, who will perhaps after having a good time and having experienced the combat and beautiful instances become interested to do the MSQ and see what's the backstory and context for everything. The average WoW player will not have the patience to go through the whole MSQ while being stuck with very slow combat (because combat only gets interesting and faster at higher levels).

They can do this, though. Buy the skip book for MSQ, buy the skip book for level, sink into the content, play MSQ with New Game+ mode (ARR coming soon, so they will get an opportunity to replay it from the very scratch).

Now that we're talking about WoW, there's probably a good reason why WoW offers free level boost with purchase of an expansion. They want to keep the newest content populated and make the game more appealing to players who get interested in the game after seeing an ad for their newest expansion for example. All that would lead to more profit in the long term because they decided to offer free level boost instead of charging players. They comply to the demand so they can get more expansion sales and thus make more profit.

It's all good, but there is also 1000 and 1 reason of why people are so unhappy with WoW and Blizzard. And there is a chance, that isn't even nearly zero, that there are people among veteran players who are unhappy with this free level boost system for a variety of reasons - and I personally knew some. Some of those reasons were brought up here already.

Also, we aren't in WoW. And if anything, can we stay FF14, please? If people come from WoW to FF14 to only say things like "In WoW it was better..." - they are honestly free to come back to WoW. Criticism and suggestions are a good thing. Making game A a clone of game B, while actually coming to A because you didn't like the way B was developing is not a good thing. Because mistakes and results will be the same.

Edit. To clarify: I have nothing against WoW. But I came to FF14 to play FF14, not WoW. Keep WoW at WoW, please.

[SamRF]

They can do this, though. Buy the skip book for MSQ, buy the skip book for level, sink into the content, play MSQ with New Game+ mode (ARR coming soon, so they will get an opportunity to replay it from the very scratch).

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).

[Jojoya]

Good point, but they could perhaps make even more profit by broadening their market.

They could become a true WoW competitor for example. There are right now a lot of dissatisfied WoW players who have nowhere to go because MMO market is very underwhelming right now when it comes to non niche (WoW like) MMOs. They could create some new Final Fantasy fans by welcoming those players, who will perhaps after having a good time and having experienced the combat and beautiful instances become interested to do the MSQ and see what's the backstory and context for everything. The average WoW player will not have the patience to go through the whole MSQ while being stuck with very slow combat (because combat only gets interesting and faster at higher levels).

Now that we're talking about WoW, there's probably a good reason why WoW offers free level boost with purchase of an expansion. They want to keep the newest content populated and make the game more appealing to players who get interested in the game after seeing an ad for their newest expansion for example. All that would lead to more profit in the long term because they decided to offer free level boost instead of charging players. They comply to the demand so they can get more expansion sales and thus make more profit.

As someone who originally came from WoW, I don't think it's a good idea. People who skip available content are usually the most vocal about how the game lacks content because development time is being spent on content outside of their personal narrow focus. It's already a problem here even with MSQ being mandatory (unless a player buys the skip potion for their character). It would be even worse under your idea.

As much as the development team admires WoW's original success, they've also stated they don't want this game to be WoW. They've got their own design vision. If there are gamers who don't like story-driven content, they should be seeking out other games to play instead of expecting this game to be changed to suit them.

Or they could give this game a fair chance and experience it as intended. They might surprise themselves.