MSQ Needs Further Condensing

[glitteringcosmos]

We aren’t talking about cash shop items are we? We’re talking about pruning/making the story non mandatory. If you would like to discuss that feel free to let me know.

Except that in response to your arguing in circles about making MSQ non mandatory, we are giving you our answer: they already HAVE made it non-mandatory. You HAVE the option of skipping the MSQ in order to “get through” to the content that you want. You keep arguing for something that already exists. And if you REALLY want to skip it that bad without paying, guess what? That’s an option too. It’s called ESC->skip scene.

BDO has very little story, people still go from lvl 1 to past soft level cap which takes longer than anything in this game, with only doing a few quests max. Did they not play through the game? Is that game not a mmo? How do you guys think people are playing other mmos with optional story? That are all doing better than XIV player base wise?

You’re comparing apples to oranges here. XIV ISNT AN AVERAGE MMO. First and foremost it is a JRPG and therefore is story-centric at its core. Besides which, as someone else mentioned, clearly FFXIV is doing something right, because it’s got the 2nd-largest player base of any mmo in the world, second only to WOW. Comparing player bases here undermines your argument.

Making it optional does not hurt anyone, at all or else every other mmo on the market would be dead and gone. The amount of MSQ had to be a problem, hence them removing some of it, one thing businesses will not do is extra work if it doesn’t benefit them at all. The retention rate had to be horrible and the feedback had to reflect too many MSQ to get caught up.

You’re wrong in this instance about businesses not doing extra work if it doesn’t benefit them. Multiple times we’ve gotten content because the developers worked on it on their own time, because they knew the players asked for it and wanted it. That’s how we got flying in ARR zones.

Making it optional does in fact hurt players. Those who want to play the story are already rushed and pressured to skip cutscenes in group content, or risk getting left behind. Making MSQ optional would only exacerbate the issue.

Also most people know they will have to catch up is one thing to gate them with story (long queues if dps which is out of their control) and another to gate with actual progression which is what most people play mmos for...progression.

Progressing through story IS progression. MSQ remains the single best way to level your main job. That’s the incentive to play MSQ for those who aren’t necessarily in it for the story. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and no amount of snarky comments and whining is going to change that.

Removing the MSQ gate to content is never going to happen in XIV, because there are ALREADY means in place to circumvent it if you absolutely CANNOT be bothered to play it.