We should get exp boost in the game.

[PyurBlue]

Ive been vocal about this in the past, but I dont want there to be an easy path to skipping MSQ because it trains players (particularly new ones) to treat the game in a fast food style of gameplay. There is no 'core' content. Just a bunch of things you do, you pick it up and dump it just as fast, and its all about 'End game' and nothing else. This also has the knock on effect that train players to have certain expectations, they will fall more into that sort of gameplay, and expect it overall. So in this case, make MSQ optional, Dont have the core, promote the idea that the goal of hte game is "Get Max Level to start having any fun" and players will expect it. Which means content and everything is altered to reflect that mindset youve trained players into.

I sort of see where you're coming from, but I feel like a big assumption is being made here. Making the MSQ optional doesn't equate to promoting the endgame. It's just adding choice. Players would be as free to ignore the endgame as ever. If anything I see an optional MSQ as increasing interest in it because like I said before, you can't feel like you're being forced into it if you're not being forced into it.

The thing is , atleast from my perspective, the model exacerbates toxicity in player bases and detachment. You can have friends, but youre not really part of a larger whole. Youre just kinda...around other players, and not part of them as a larger community. Dont get me wrong, this was a thing in wow at one point in time (particularly with Horde V Alliance world pvp), but it's not the feeling I get anymore.

Oddly enough I feel like it's the other way around. Leveling content is built around spending a few minutes with people that you may never see again. While at the endgame there are some long term goals that require cooperation and make forming a group more likely. As far as the story specifically goes, that can be a shared experience, but how does making it mandatory help? The uninterested will skip cutscenes (or skip potion) and won't even really share in the experience anyway.

I really like the idea of feeling part of something bigger, but I think FF14 could actually do better in that regard. I'd love so much to see less forced separation of players through level-progression/MSQ-progression/instancing.

But there are several other MMO's that are happy to disregard their own content save the hollowed "endgame" and only 14 that dosen't, why is it wrong that it dose things it's own way?

It's not about choosing one or the other. The problem arises because it looks like we can satisfy everyone at the same time.

If all I cared about is story in WoW, it is there I have the option but it's not the focus and I've got to go find it, read this quest, talk to this NPC do things in order myself, it won't hold my hand or make it easy for me, but it is there. Should I demand WoW add an unskip-able main story because I and people like me would enjoy it? No, the game gives me the option to find what story is has if I'm willing to put in the work, but that's not the kind of game WoW wants to be.

This is a completely different situation. You're asking to control how others play. Making the MSQ optional isn't.