MSQ

[Penthea]

Very few people are concerned with the amount of story, just why they have to suffer through it. Convincing people to play is hard enough, telling them they have to pay extra just to play at the level their friends are playing at? "LOL, nope" is probably a much milder version of the response you can reasonably expect.

That's the case for every mmo though. No mmo provides you with the option to pay for getting an up to date well geared max lvl character. The best you can get is to pay to skip a lot of the lvling process but you still have to do some work to even reach endgame. Although it may be different for P2W games but I don't consider them to be in the same category as FFXIV.

Furthermore we have lvl sync in this game which means you can play with anyone who has unlocked any group content without depriving them of a good lvling experience by boosting them through one-shotting mobs. Lvl sync is a feature that can bring players together regardless of their lvl which is a wonderful thing. You don't have to wait a long time to be able to play with someone. Many mmos don't have a feature like this at all.

If XIV was some weird niche MMO, then sure, it can get away with the gating. But it's not, in fact it's one of the very few MMO's worth playing and Square's investors know this. Be prepared for further measures.

I strongly feel anyone who doesn't like gating should stay away from mmorpgs. They all have gating whether it's story based, gear based, faction reputation based or lvl based. Gating is one of the main aspects of mmorpgs that make them what they are. They're known for needing a lot of time to achieve goals and this is hugely because of the various forms of gating you encounter.

If XIV was some weird niche MMO, then sure, it can get away with the gating. But it's not, in fact it's one of the very few MMO's worth playing and Square's investors know this. Be prepared for further measures.

I think at most we will see players being given the option to start a new character further in the story. SE said Endwalker is the end of the Ascian arc. Which means whatever comes after is a totally new story arc, which would give the chance for SE to give players the choice to start their new characters in whatever comes after Endwalker instead of only being able to begin in ARR.

I don't see the story losing its place as one of the major core features of the game because it is one of the strongest selling points of the game. I truly believe why FFXIV is so successful is because it wasn't trying to be a WoW killer, it's just being its own game. Unlike many other mmos it never tried to shove WoW from its place, it's instead providing a different type of mmorpg experience. One of the biggest things that sets FFXIV apart from WoW is how the story is told. And given the tremendous success of not just this game, but the FF series as a whole, it's clear that story driven games are not some weird niche. If SE removed the storygating from the game the lvling experience would become very similar to WoW and frankly one WoW is enough.

If anything SE wouldn't be able to get away with storygating if it was a weird niche because that would doom the game to have a tiny playerbase. And well I don't need to tell you that this game's playerbase isn't tiny.

If people don't like dealing with a story fine that's cool we all like different things. What I'm not okay with is people coming to a story driven game...and complain that it's story driven. It really is like complaining that CoD has gunplay. There are plenty of other games out there without storygating to play. I can't play first person games because they make me feel sick but you don't see me demand that the devs make a third person mode which would completely change the gameplay of many first person games. I just don't play them. The people who can't stand storygating need to realise that this game isn't for them, just like how I understand that first person games are not for me.