Thread: Making the case for a new starting point in 7.0

Originally Posted by Jennah

... why? The game is essentially over once you hit maximum level and complete the MSQ.

I disagree. While I don't have a set journey to follow when the MSQ's done, I still find plenty of enjoyable things to do. Perhaps it's because I'm a casual magpie that does whatever I feel like doing at that moment rather than a more serious person focused on fully completing one or two aspects of the game, but I can always find something to do when I feel like playing.

In some respects, once the MSQ's done, the game begins. All the zones are unlocked, you can fly, and there's no pressure to focus on the MSQ to the detriment of other things. That freedom really opens up the game to me.

Originally Posted by Jennah

... why? The game is essentially over once you hit maximum level and complete the MSQ.

Personally I didn't spend several thousands of hours just doing MSQ stuff. For how important it seems to be, it's such an insignificant amount of time there's to spend on the game compared to repeatable stuff. The problem is that despite being proportionally small, it's still hundreds of hours gating the actual gameplay loop. And if Yoshida wants to keep the game going for 10 more years, that's gonna be two decades worth of really bad questing gating the more fun parts of the game.

Despite what those with survivor bias would like to believe, it's not how you grow your playerbase. As story focused as it is, it remains a MMO.

I love the hipocrisy of people who insist players MUST go through MSQ or else, but same people dismiss the increasingly undertuned experience of past duties as "good because it's not relevant content anymore".
How would you feel if all duties were just as hard as they were for you in Day 1, and when you complained you just wanted to go through the story their suggestion for you was to pay 25+ USD to auto-clear all duties pre Lv80?

Originally Posted by ReynTime

I love the hipocrisy of people who insist players MUST go through MSQ or else, but same people dismiss the increasingly undertuned experience of past duties as "good because it's not relevant content anymore".
How would you feel if all duties were just as hard as they were for you in Day 1, and when you complained you just wanted to go through the story their suggestion for you was to pay 25+ USD to auto-clear all duties pre Lv80?

I began this game day 1 of ARR. I would vastly prefer if earlier fights/dungeons at least had some level of fun to them as opposed to how completely fallen apart the state of ARR combat has become. I cannot think of any fight until level 50 that lasts for more than 2 minutes. I would not subject myself to hours on end of that level of gameplay while being forced to tolerate being Minfilia's errand-boy, nor do I recommend for anyone to start at that point anymore.

When I recommend this game to people, I straight up tell them to start at Heavensward because the first 50 levels of this game are so horrifically boring. People will tolerate story-weak games with great gameplay, and games with great story but maybe not the best gameplay. However you cannot expect for people to sit through a game whose initial story takes forever to get good, along with the present state of ARR gameplay. I've played nearly every Final Fantasy game and similar rpgs out there-I would not be able to put up with ARR in its current form and would subsequently quit if not for the option to buy a skip.

The new additions to the Trust system will hopefully make those early dungeons more fun, and will hopefully serve to make going through the "basic" ARR story more tolerable. In the case of Season 2 however, it remains unclear how much this initial adventure story will build upon Season 1's foundations. It wouldn't take more than a cutscene to give some fundamental exposition, "The Empire fell and now here you are with your best friends in a new land (assuming we retain some/all of the Scions)..." and they would be well-prepared to start their journeys. You shouldn't need to play through 8+ years of content to start Season 2 at what is otherwise a clean slate.

Originally Posted by SieyaM

It sounds like people believe that 7.0 is going to be a PSO New Genesis situation where they are going to retain job names and skill names but drop us in a completely new area with no affiliations to previous content and I don't think that is the case. We will most likely start 7.0 interacting with people we know and have a history with, and they will speak with us as though we have already done all the things in the previous arc. I can't imagine any beginning of 7.0 where we will be in a position where we know no one and nothing about the world around us when we spent the last story arc on nearly every continent playing a major role in historic events. Even if we start 7.0 on a different shard they would have to explain how that happened.

To be fair, we do not know the full consequences that the events of Endwalker have had for the world and we could very easily enter into a new era of gods who "inherit the will" of their predecessors and in regards to the remaining world, it's unlikely that the WoL's existence is known to people in the New World or Meracydia. We are casting away the title regardless, so I also don't think it would be particularly relevant in the previous Imperial territories should they choose to send us there either.

Most characters from Season 1 have completed their arcs and again, would have little to do with the regions of the world we haven't been in. Whether or not we're friends with Aymeric would have little impact if we try to restore the monarchies of Dalmasca or Corvos. I also do not forsee us going to another shard anytime soon. When or if that time comes, it'll probably only require a few cutscenes' worth of exposition, which is little more than what we went into with for Shadowbringers and things turned out great in the end.

What exactly will happen in 7.0 remains unknown but we do know that we are starting from scratch again, as adventurers out to see the world in a position no different to how we started in ARR, except with better looking gear. The majority of Season 1's mysteries have been resolved, so new ones would have to be introduced and general concepts like the Void and the shards are not so complicated as to require playing through so much content to understand. As for the cast-I think the best thing that could occur at this point is that the Heavensward/FFXVI team comes back and writes the Scions out of the story for the next few years and replaces the party with more fleshed out personalities like Estiniens, Yysales, etc. instead of stagnant characters whose arcs ended and have no tangible goals, yet they remain for reasons unknown.

Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

You clearly have no idea how story structure works. Your example of Shadowbringers only made sense because of the bread crumbs left from previous expansions prior with, the world set with ARR, G'raha Tia and the Crystal Tower and the Warriors of Darkness and Minfillia. Shadowbringers wouldnt have worked as a story if it didnt had those connections to back its premise up. Also it would be very irresponsible of the writers to just cut all ties to every single Scion or character when a majority of this player base has grown attached to them. We can definitely use more scale-back and introduce new characters that will make them relevant in 7.0 but for you to think that they werent needed and had no goals when they've been stuck with you throughout every expansion is just a terrible take.

I guarantee you that I could drop the average Final Fantasy fan at the start of Shadowbringers and they would get their bearings quite easily within the first 5 minutes of the story. You have your world, and now you're in a new one that's in danger. The bad guys want to destroy that world and doing so would also affect your own because they are connected. This, at a basic level, is not something that is beyond their capacity to understand. They can be filled in on the finer details later-obviously this does not hold for Endwalker because it is specifically built upon the end of Shadowbringers.

In terms of characters, all you'd need to tell someone is that G'raha joined you for a few quests once upon a time and that Ardbert and you fought at some point. It's probably best for new players to view Minfilia as anything but the role she played in ARR-letting them be introduced to her as the Oracle of Light is a mercy. As for the scions I directly oppose your opinion and strongly believe that we cannot deal with another 10 years of this cast. You may have started mid Stormblood or Shadowbringers, but I have been here since day 1. Their stories are over, unless something drastically changes in the 6.X patch series. This isn't about attachment-it's about telling a story that won't bore the audience.

I also maintain that the Scions have very little in the way of goals. At least in Shadowbringers Thancred wanted to bring Minfilia back and took on a more paternal role for Ryne later on. However he was utterly bland and forgettable in Endwalker. He may have wanted to save the world for the First to also be saved, but what then? He isn't even a flirtatious womanizer anymore. He's just boring. Urianger basically boils down to "I totally promise not to lie to you guys" and then proceeds to lie to us or give us some lore/exposition, of which better vehicles of delivery exist.

I'm very open about my criticism of Y'shtola. She is little more than a pretty face whose numerous fakeouts combined with her snarky personality have completely turned me off from her character. She may have allegedly cared about the Night's Blessed but her ego and arrogance clearly prevented her from displaying much of that in Shadowbringers. G'raha Tia was arguably one of the more intriguing characters in Shadowbringers but was reduced to a laughingstock when they turned his personality into that of an insufferable hero-worshipper who is written more like a fanfiction character whose purpose is to make the reader feel good, assuming they like him. His goal is to be our fanboy, and I think it's ridiculous. Give me someone like Morrigan from Dragon Age who actively questioned and argued with us about our choices, instead of a yes-man.

I'll be brief with the twins-Alisae is ok but Alphinaud has gotta go. You can't possibly expect people to tolerate 10 more years of his moralizing, but I will conceded that he does seem to have a consistent goal throughout the expansions: regime change. Unfortunately that's gotten old. So you'll forgive me if I'd much rather start 7.0 with a completely blank slate, and support the idea to offer others the options to start at that point instead of continuing...whatever it was that was going on with Endwalker and its own mess in the writing room. The time has come for another Heavensward style expansion, a self-contained conflict in a new geographic region with well-developed characters that are not only distinct, but believable as well. To grow forward in meaningful ways, and tell a new story worth listening to, the past needs to stay in the past.