ARR needs two simple fixes until an actual revamp

[Puremallace]

It already got revamped and Yoshi P already stated they dont plan on making further adjustments.

I think the expectation of certain parts of the MMO community is that ARR should reflect similar quality to Shadowbringers honestly. It is just a thing. One big example I keep seeing is people comparing it to SWToR story without the voice acting which I think is accurate.

It is just a lot of reading for people with ADD.

Have you done ARR since they trimmed it down? I am currently on level 46ish MSQ on my alt and I can say it is MILES better than it was, much less fetching pointlessly it feels like. Overall the pace feels much nicer so far and I am really enjoying it. The reason people suggest to Asmon to boost is because the guy doesn't care about story, he has said as much in his streams. If you are a player that doesn't like story and only cares for the raiding aspect. Then boosting past level 50 where the combat is slower is not such a bad idea for that individual.

No but get the general idea for sure of what they changed and my points still remain. You have to remember I also keep up on the Twitch, Youtube, Redd and Twitter scene of how people respond to ARR. When LITERALLY every new player is being told to buy a boost through ARR we got a serious issue with the base game.

Even massive fans are telling people to boost which I find to be extremely silly when you realize what they are skipping in relation to the expansion they are telling people is super cool.

[DPZ2]

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.

Hahahahahahahaha.

No.

The union that voice actors belong to in order to work professionally would not allow it. There's a reason - they expect to be paid current rates for work performed.

[Puremallace]

Hahahahahahahaha.

No.

The union that voice actors belong to in order to work professionally would not allow it. There's a reason - they expect to be paid current rates for work performed.

Look put a dumb mount on the shop and tell the players this money will be used to add voice acting to ARR. I promise you it will sell at a stupid pace. People want ARR upgraded to later quality unless Square Enix wants to sit here and tell us they make more money from people boosting passed it to Hevaensward or later.

Take my word if the second part is the strategy then it is incredibly dumb move for short term money.

[Pirana1]

Sure they trimmed some irrelevant quests and tightened things up a bit but it's still a huge slog.

Paid skips are not the answer. That screams louder than any words that this is irritating by design to make people pay additional money. This is not acceptable.

I only started playing this game roughly five weeks ago, and if it wasn't for the story skip on an alt I leveled up, I would have un-subbed. The purchased story skip is certainly not the answer, but one has to ask themselves, time v money, so for me it was worth paying the $11.00 to skip that mundane ARR quest chain, the portion after the two raids, when the xp drops from roughly 45k down to 5k. I know all about the profession swapping, but I'm also not a fan of having one alt. Something certainly does need to be done about that ARR wall, unlikely it'll happen, simply because people do like having alts, it's only eleven dollars and it's an easy money grab for SE.

On topic and regarding the voice over. Do some research on what it costs SWTOR to develop that game. I played there from Beta until last summer and if I recall, the game itself, cost close to $300 million to develop, so the voice acting probably was somewhere in the ballpark of fifty million, give or take. Almost every aspect of that game has voice overs. It's highly unlikely FF14 will go that route. Only a hypothesis though.

[Lanadra]

Even SWTOR cheapens out on voice acting a lot. I know that the Huttese is a favorite way of theirs to cheese the voice acting while still being able to say 'everything is voiced'.. the Huttese being generally reused gibberish that literally is just there to ensure a character has a voice.

[AngelCheese77]

I feel it’s more the issue on how weak classes feel in ARR areas. The stronger abilities come much later.

The easy chance of outleveling the MSQ is a pain as well. The removal of all side quests could help in that regard.

More voices aren’t neede but could be nice. Coming from a standpoint where I grew up with Zork and games with no graphics let alone voices, it doesn’t bother me. But I guess with this generation of games and gamers they need to feel a part of the story.

[Puremallace]

Even SWTOR cheapens out on voice acting a lot. I know that the Huttese is a favorite way of theirs to cheese the voice acting while still being able to say 'everything is voiced'.. the Huttese being generally reused gibberish that literally is just there to ensure a character has a voice.

Well the issue with SWToR was the base game was 100 million dollars built on a bad game engine. So adding new content when the expectation is always voiced is a problem. I understand why Square Enix does not want to do that because it lengthens your content cycle.

My idea is to make it less of a novel and add voice acting in the same spots you would expect it in Shadowbringers.

[Pirana1]

I feel it’s more the issue on how weak classes feel in ARR areas. The stronger abilities come much later.

The easy chance of outleveling the MSQ is a pain as well. The removal of all side quests could help in that regard.

More voices aren’t neede but could be nice. Coming from a standpoint where I grew up with Zork and games with no graphics let alone voices, it doesn’t bother me. But I guess with this generation of games and gamers they need to feel a part of the story.

I'm right there with you. I grew up the 80's and 90's, so having.... to put it politely, questionable graphics and almost no voice overs aren't really a big deal. Anyone that was around during that era, knows exactly how far gaming has come. The thing that baffles me regarding the ARR story is your own character has nothing to say, notably on the Minfilia quest chain. You would think, the character would at least have some voice overs, other than a few grunts and/or hand gestures... lol It is what it is, not a big deal, just strange.

[Penthea]

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.

I agree voice acting would improve things but this is not a simple fix. It's not simply a case of get a bunch of people to say some lines, record it and slap it into the game. Voice actors do several takes of lines to get it right under the guidance of a director. This is actually very time consuming. Never mind the challenges of doing this remotely due to the pandemic. You would need to make sure the voice actors have excellent recording equipment of their own.

I also don't like how you're advocating for people to do this for free. People should get paid for their work especially if it's done for a huge name like SE. And please no one give the "exposure!" argument. Exposure doesn't pay the bills. And it would be plainly bad pr if SE took advantage of fans to get them to do professional work for no money. It would actually look better on a resumé if the voice actors were paid to do their work instead of volunteering for free. By being paid it would show that SE value their talent and that on its own would say a lot about the voice actor.

[Shurrikhan]

Thing with an MMO as time goes on parts become obsolete and serve no real purpose in terms of raw gameplay that would alter the core experience if they just did an large exposition dump. While a sandwich would not be much a sandwich without the bread.

Sure it is reductive but personally I think it would be better use or dev time to have the lore writers to make a quick abridged scroll and if people want to go back they can use NG+ though I do not think they should try to keep fixing it.

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.