Option to unlock content without mandatory MSQ

[linay]

Depends. What's worth more? Skip potion sales or new player retention? The ARR rework suggests their metrics are reflecting the latter is an issue.

I don't think it's about either one. If it's the former, they don't need to change the MSQ. If it's about the latter, they could just bundle a free MSQ potion with every expansion.

They want the player to go through the story, but they are shortening it in that one part from what I can tell.

FFXIV's combat doesn't get interesting at all.

It got interesting for me the moment I fired my first Ruin all those years ago. No other MMORPG combat has given me as much satisfaction as FFXIV's combat up to this time.

[Kalise]

It got interesting for me the moment I fired my first Ruin all those years ago. No other MMORPG combat has given me as much satisfaction as FFXIV's combat up to this time.

I'm curious. What exactly about it do you find interesting compared to other MMO's?

What about that first Ruin was different to literally every other tab target MMO where you target an enemy, press your button and then cast the spell on the enemy?

That really depends on jobs, and assumes that you don't have mechanics to deal with while doing said rotation. Dancer for example has a lot of procs. You cannot play dancer with a macro even on a target dummy. Paladin you could on a target dummy, but not on an actual boss where you have to move, deal with mechanics, use defensive cooldowns on tank busters, etc.

As I said, "Most" jobs.

As far as something like PLD, the only issue comes from any mechanics that cause you to move away from the boss.

Even Tankbusters are not a problem for a macro, given that, unlike other MMO's, bosses do their mechanics on a set timer that does not change ever. So you ALWAYS know exactly how far into a fight you'll need to have a line that casts a particular defensive CD (This also includes healers popping their oCGD heals and AoE heals for the predetermined unavoidable damage)

Other MMO's generally take to having a window of time where a mechanic can occur, giving a little bit of variance as opposed to "Boss will do X then Y then Z then X then Y then Z" - These windows often will include overlap with each other, so the order of mechanic usage can vary. This causes macro only gameplay to be impossible, because you might know about when a mechanic will happen (So will also have CD's available) but won't know exactly when until it happens.

[SturmChurro]

You can't really compare FFXIV combat system to BDO or ESO imo. I greatly prefer FFXIV/WoW type of combat with lots of abilities and slots used. Games like ESO, BDO, GW2 are more action game-ish with their limited amount of abilities, BDO & ESO don't even have tab targeting so it's something else entirely (action combat). In GW2 and ESO you also need to weapon swap to play optimally to make up for the ability shortage. Personally greatly dislike the idea of weapon-swapping in combat.

I do wish more jobs in FFXIV were using procs more often cause also don't like the idea of predetermined rotations set in stone. Still, except for some jobs perhaps (healers), FFXIV combat isn't that bad imo right now. There are few (polished) MMO's I think that use as many slots as FFXIV, even most WoW specs use way less. And that's something I personally like about combat system of this game, which I won't find in many other polished MMO's at the moment. Also, I think the lack of macros get sort of compensated by the amount of abilities and length of some rotations.

Same. I prefer FFXIV combat as well. ESO is hot trash. BDO has decent combat, but ruins it with trash grind, cash shop garbage, overall uninteresting theme, etc. FFXIV is the premier MMORPG right now.

[Kewitt]

They have this it's a jump potion it's will be released when 6.0 drops

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

I don't see the merit in the idea, admittedly. It'd be kind of silly to, say, skip Ultima Weapon so you could unlock a sidequest dealing with the consequences Ultima Weapon had on the world.

[Voltyblast]

Funny because there's a very easy way to make it work for those fixated in keeping the MSQ and those who wanna skip it: if it's your first character, you have to get through the MSQ at least once, and do the game as intended. Finish the msq of that current patch then now you can skip it on your alts - and maybe have account bound stuff, like housing or armoire items. This way they can unlock everything with level instead of story lock, since they already did once, and with NG+ now available they don't even have to redo the story anymore. Heck they could do a system similar to SWTOR with the Legacy System so that your alts are related to your main so that they know what happened and everything the MSQ said.

But considering they gain a lot of cash from the story skip potion alone I doubt this will happen so, sorry for the OP but this is never going to happen: the new players will suck it up and either endure the ARR bore-zone or buy a skip potion and get with their friends.

Or leave the game and never return.

[linay]

I'm curious. What exactly about it do you find interesting compared to other MMO's?

What about that first Ruin was different to literally every other tab target MMO where you target an enemy, press your button and then cast the spell on the enemy?

The pacing, for one. Faster pacing makes me less able to enjoy the impact of each move when I'm just spamming buttons, especially if I'm spamming just one or two buttons. Whereas, in FFXIV, I get to enjoy both the spell effects and animations at the same time I try to do mechanics of the fight.

Then there's the actual rotation. I find FFXIV has, for the most part, intuitive rotation for basic output (aka not optimizing/min-maxing) which does the job well for most content and brings many of the abilities together for a nice feeling of completion. I don't find myself spamming just one or two buttons or pressing different buttons for no apparent reason (to me) other than perhaps cooldown issues.

The mechanics are also fun. I like how they introduce mechanics one by one and then combine them in later portion of the fight and I like how AOEs work in this game in conjunction with cast bar.

Finally, great gamepad support just helps make it all better. I probably would enjoy the other MMORPG more if they had good gamepad support, but even those that have it (ESO, Tera, B&S, Vindictus, BDO? (don't remember this one)) still don't perform as well in my opinion to FFXIV and especially how smooth it is in FFXIV to use both gamepad and keyboard and mouse at the same time.

That is not to say I don't enjoy combat in other MMORPG. I still play WoW and SWTOR regularly next to FFXIV, and maybe other MMORPG now and then, but FFXIV's combat is just fun in its entirety.

Funny because there's a very easy way to make it work for those fixated in keeping the MSQ and those who wanna skip it: if it's your first character, you have to get through the MSQ at least once, and do the game as intended. Finish the msq of that current patch then now you can skip it on your alts - and maybe have account bound stuff, like housing or armoire items. This way they can unlock everything with level instead of story lock, since they already did once, and with NG+ now available they don't even have to redo the story anymore. Heck they could do a system similar to SWTOR with the Legacy System so that your alts are related to your main so that they know what happened and everything the MSQ said.

I think they don't want to encourage alt characters. The alt job system is the focus of this game. You can make alt characters, but you do so knowing that they are truly individual and separate characters and you get few things for free just by having a preexisting character.

[Shurrikhan]

FFXIV's combat doesn't get interesting at all.

Even once you've slugged out to max level, all you have left is predetermined rotations that are set in stone.

The sad thing is that for a few jobs across a few iterations, this wasn't always the case. Some noticeably rewarded rotational variance for purposes of timed burst, mobility, or CD sync.

Sadly, certain upgrades and unaware internal balance decisions (e.g. a job's skill's strength, and therefore potential rotation decision, relative to others') have mostly removed that.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Finally, great gamepad support just helps make it all better. I probably would enjoy the other MMORPG more if they had good gamepad support, but even those that have it (ESO, Tera, B&S, Vindictus, BDO? (don't remember this one)) still don't perform as well in my opinion to FFXIV and especially how smooth it is in FFXIV to use both gamepad and keyboard and mouse at the same time.

SO much this.
Its one of FFXIV's greatest features. This MMO was made with Controllers in mind, and they made a Fantastic system for their Hotbars.