MSQ Needs Further Condensing

[glitteringcosmos]

There are 3 different level skips for different prices. It's pretty easy to skip the story you don't want to do or skip all of it to SHB. A level skip isn't really needed and you can certainly help them level to 70 there are lots of options in game as I'm sure you must know where you can level together. I seriously doubt you'll ever get an optional free story skip for this game. It's simply not going to happen.

Nor should it. It's a major part of the game, and the people most whining about wanting to skip it are the same people refusing to acknowledge that the option to skip IS THERE, They just have to pay for it. Why should other players have to suffer a reduced experience through what some are suggesting regular trimming, losing out on the same story that players who happened to start earlier got--all because of the people who can't be bothered to actually play through the game? And don't even get me started on the "story is the weakest part of the game" argument. That's a personal opinion--objectively speaking, FFXIV has some of the better storytelling of any mmo, and Shadowbringers is among the best. It's not lauded with accolades for nothing.

[GeminiReed]

That's a personal opinion--objectively speaking, FFXIV has some of the better storytelling of any mmo, and Shadowbringers is among the best. It's not lauded with accolades for nothing.

So were SW:TOR and The Secret World and see where they wound up. The former went so far as to only be about story and bled out. No MMO can stand on a single aspect nor should it sacrifice other activities to support it.

Square is well aware that their monolithic story is costing them in acquisition and retention. Those metrics are critically important to measure growth and to cover attrition. A growing game makes for happy investors while a shrinking one makes them cranky to point where they feel the need to meddle. They told us that their metrics indicated that the pruning and compression they did was needed so I think it's safe to say they're concerned.

Maybe you've got so much IRL cash to burn that throwing it away on a paid skip seems reasonable. I'm not one that considers "pay to stop it make hurting" a reasonable concept no matter how cheap it is. It looks like enough other people agree with me that Square shifted resources to address it. IMO they didn't do nearly enough, it's still a massive slog that will chase people away.

Unfortunately I think you're right in one respect. I'm not sure how much more they can outright remove or compress. At this point I think decoupling the MSQ from gating group content (and vice versa) is the better course of action. The lore nerds get to keep their story while those uninterested in it can play with their friends.

[glitteringcosmos]

Maybe you've got so much IRL cash to burn that throwing it away on a paid skip seems reasonable. I'm not one that considers "pay to stop it make hurting" a reasonable concept no matter how cheap it is. It looks like enough other people agree with me that Square shifted resources to address it. IMO they didn't do nearly enough, it's still a massive slog that will chase people away.

I don't have a ton of money, and I think it's silly to assume I do just because I think that the paid skips are reasonable. But why pay for a game and then expect the creators of the game to hand out for free a way to not play a major chunk of that game? People who WANT the skips have the option to buy them. Those that don't want to skip, play the game it was intended to be played. "Pay to make it stop hurting" is a ridiculous way to look at it. Why would you buy a game, then pay for a subscription, if you go in with the expectation that you're going to hate this part of the content? At that point why even bother with this mmo and not go looking for one that better suits your expectations? In my opinion it's ridiculous to expect the creators--in this case SE--to bend over backwards to accomodate such a thing.

It boils back down to the fact that this is, at its heart, a JRPG before it's an MMO. That is why the content is story gated. On top of that it's a 10-year-old game with ever-releasing content. Going into the game not expecting to be playing some catch up is an onus on the player, not the developer.