ARR needs two simple fixes until an actual revamp

[GeminiReed]

1. Voice acting. It is seriously lacking. Some of your FF14 players are actual voice actors and will probably do this for free. Just add it already.

Never going to happen. MMO volunteer programs are rare. AOL lost a class action lawsuit for theirs. Basically the Court agreed that it was an employment arrangement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Co...Leader_Program

[GeminiReed]

Well the issue with SWToR was the base game was 100 million dollars built on a bad game engine.

While there are multiple issues with SW:TOR engine issues are very far down the list. Yes their Frankenstein version of Hero is a disaster but that pales in comparison to the other issues that saw their population collapse down to 5 servers.

Essentially they naively though MMO players would be perfectly happy with just story. Even the people who took their time were asking "Where's the beef?" once they hit endgame.

Anybody who scratched the surface of their single player games was well aware that they did not have the technical chops to tackle an MMO. Sadly LucasArts was also significantly ignorant what it took. Story is a nice "extra" but it cannot carry an MMO.

[Liam_Harper]

Have to admit the English voice acting, particularly in ARR is ridiculously bad and I'm surprised so many people are fine with it. That said, it's definitely not a simple fix, especially when adding extra voiced scenes needs to be done across multiple languages.

But yes, it's appalling. I guess players just get used to it over time.

[Awha]

Wouldn't it make more sense to do any of this abridging after the conclusion of the Hydaelyn arc, leading directly to that new arc with a sort of two-pronged focus? (Hell, that could be massive in terms of bringing in new players, as they could go straight to the newest expansion alongside everyone else, albeit it on an adjusted path of discourse and NPC interactions, while the previous Arc is available via Echo for leveling other jobs).

In the meantime, though, we need only make more of the much less relevant arcs (Haukke Manor, much of the Company of Heroes, etc.) optional and improve the early combat experience, much of which could have more universal implications.

Yes, but to be fair I do already think they are going to already do this going forward with 7.0 akin to a soft reboot or new arc after a hiatus. So with that in mind my suggestion—while unlikely—is based around less of a slog since I feel 90% of ARR could largely be seen as optional or text scroll fulfills the same purpose of ARR. From a gameplay POV I cannot say ARR has any real meaningful moments that are tied to gameplay. Sure adjustments to jobs and making the less story relevant arcs as optional would help but just speaking from personal experiences as someone who has tried FFXIV many times prior to story skips I could never get into HW due to the long slog of ARR and even after the rework of the storyline the massive experience gains coupled with a preferred world only make it worse due to the nature of our content and how it syncs you down. Going large chunks of levels without getting new skills due to them being story gated is not a great feeling either.

The structure of FFXIV puts SE in a weird spot I get this much, but personally I did enjoy my time with the game from HW on, and from an anecdotal POV many of those I have referred have felt the same way. Pretty much whenever I ask a friend to join I gift them a story skip. I have still been able to follow the story beats and do not feel like I have messed out in anything by not experiencing ARR. Granted, I have gone back with NG+ And I do still feel the same like I did not miss out on anything, through maybe that will change with endwalker I am not sure.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Have to admit the English voice acting, particularly in ARR is ridiculously bad and I'm surprised so many people are fine with it. That said, it's definitely not a simple fix, especially when adding extra voiced scenes needs to be done across multiple languages.

But yes, it's appalling. I guess players just get used to it over time.

A couple of them aren't bad. I still prefer the earlier voices for Raubahn, Merlwyb, and Midgardsormr. But a lot of them are pretty bad.

Although I'm not sure how much of it is the actual actors' fault versus how much is just bad directing. I still laugh at the scene where we find out about Lahabrea possessing Thancred, with Minfilia's half-hearted "Thancred, nooooooo....." as if the actress just had no idea what was going on and nobody bothered to call for a do-over.

[Artemiz]

I've no idea if changing the voice acting in ARR will change much, I suspect not. I did look back at some of the early cutscenes recently though having not seen them since I played through them at launch and some characters are..... challenging. I have finally convinced my Brother to try the game again after we both started playing at launch so I watched them to see, and hope they would pull him in. Compared to newer cutscenes the quality is very poor and some character are like nails down a chalk board. I hope he accepts my promise it gets better, but from a new player experience its not a great opening act.

[OranKells]

Bring back Vanilla ARR. add all the fetch quests back to the msq. all voice acting in Esperanto please.

[Steinar]

Voice acting is fine as is, and teleporting is a good thing. Sure beats having to walk/fly.

[Lanadra]

I've no idea if changing the voice acting in ARR will change much, I suspect not. I did look back at some of the early cutscenes recently though having not seen them since I played through them at launch and some characters are..... challenging. I have finally convinced my Brother to try the game again after we both started playing at launch so I watched them to see, and hope they would pull him in. Compared to newer cutscenes the quality is very poor and some character are like nails down a chalk board. I hope he accepts my promise it gets better, but from a new player experience its not a great opening act.

Advise him, if he's at all open to the idea, to try the JP voice overs, it'll vastly improve the voiced experience at the very least in ARR.

[van_arn]

Advise him, if he's at all open to the idea, to try the JP voice overs, it'll vastly improve the voiced experience at the very least in ARR.

"The voices are great if you don't understand what they're saying" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, you realize.