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

Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

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.

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 love how you ignore how all of the Scions Shb arcs had a conclusion. Thancred with coming to terms with Minfillia and Ryne, Urianger with him trying to do whats best for everyone, Alphinaud's entire character growth, and G'raha Tia finally being able to let go of his burden and to live out his dream with adventuring with the WoL. There was never the need for them to carry all that ShB baggage going into Endwalker because they all had their conclusions prior to it. Also I really dont care if you like to criticize certain characters, I for one share some of your criticisms, especially regarding Y'shtola but Im not going to just ignore the stuff that worked with her and all the other characters that still keeps them relevant. This story is an on going narrative, and whatever story comes in 6.1-6.5 we'll just have to wait and see how potentially accessible it'll be for new players to just skip everything prior and jump into 7.0

Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

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.

So we would end up ignoring the fact the we have already made contact with Dalmascan resistance forces and our name would be known to them for all of our effort in the Ivalice raid series?

The OP should notice that EVERY other mmo on the market is not so story heavy. FFXIV has its niche BECAUSE its so story heavy.

Originally Posted by JudgeRAW

Although I know one of the main attractions for Final Fantasy XIV is its story I think we all have to come to the realization that many, many players just are not interested in the story and want to enjoy the game all the same. Many players have friends they'd like to recommend the game to but can't because of the hundreds of hours of content new players would have to get through in order to join them in current content. I think with 7.0 (really 6.x) being the start of a new story in game it might be time to allow players to start there. How to do this?

Well there are a number of solutions. One would be to introduce a new experience for new players in order to introduce them to the mechanics of the game while quickly leveling them to the current level cap. Take something like Palace of the Dead where you have a leveling system separate from the main games and you can level from 1 to 60 in about an hour. While I don't think it needs to be quite that quick it could be something like 10-20 hours, which is much more of a reasonable ask than 100s. THis could even be a more condensed way to get players caught up with the world of FFXIV, though they wouldn't need to do that. During this 10-20 hour new player experience you'd get introduced to basic mechanics of the game, a dungeon or two and a trial before being put into the main game.

An alternative idea (though less interesting IMO) would be to give 1 free story skip and job skip to all new subscribers (not Free Trial players.)

So what do you think?

They should go back to FFXI/RO and see if they can take elements from those games. We need something more engaging!

The story is content. Your problem is you see it as an obstacle to the "real" content when it is the real content.

Originally Posted by JudgeRAW

Although I know one of the main attractions for Final Fantasy XIV is its story I think we all have to come to the realization that many, many players just are not interested in the story and want to enjoy the game all the same. Many players have friends they'd like to recommend the game to but can't because of the hundreds of hours of content new players would have to get through in order to join them in current content. I think with 7.0 (really 6.x) being the start of a new story in game it might be time to allow players to start there. How to do this?

Well there are a number of solutions. One would be to introduce a new experience for new players in order to introduce them to the mechanics of the game while quickly leveling them to the current level cap. Take something like Palace of the Dead where you have a leveling system separate from the main games and you can level from 1 to 60 in about an hour. While I don't think it needs to be quite that quick it could be something like 10-20 hours, which is much more of a reasonable ask than 100s. THis could even be a more condensed way to get players caught up with the world of FFXIV, though they wouldn't need to do that. During this 10-20 hour new player experience you'd get introduced to basic mechanics of the game, a dungeon or two and a trial before being put into the main game.

An alternative idea (though less interesting IMO) would be to give 1 free story skip and job skip to all new subscribers (not Free Trial players.)

So what do you think?

You can already buy a story and job leveling potion on the mogstation. I do not see them offering one for free when the devs focus so heavily on story for the players.

Don't see the point.


Basically just a free story-skip/level skip for new player.



I don't recommend new players to skip everything up to 7.0, because unlike other MMOs where leveling and story is just a chore to reach the colorful end-game contents, FF14's journey is a colorful content itself, and end-game will likely be very barebone when 7.0 launches until patches come.



New Game+ doesn't offer the same feeling of growth for players to feel more attached with their characters via story elements and strength with new skills added during their level-up journey and more window time to get used with their growth (running dungeons on-level with shiny new skills...). Which I considered very bad for a game where journey matters like FF14. Certainly, there are players can just level-skip/story-skip but still find the game enjoyable, but at the same time, there will be players who fail to have themselves attached to the game due to not experiencing the intended growth.



So I don't see having a new starting point does anything good.

Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

Don't see the point.


Basically just a free story-skip/level skip for new player.



I don't recommend new players to skip everything up to 7.0, because unlike other MMOs where leveling and story is just a chore to reach the colorful end-game contents, FF14's journey is a colorful content itself, and end-game will likely be very barebone when 7.0 launches until patches come.



New Game+ doesn't offer the same feeling of growth for players to feel more attached with their characters via story elements and strength with new skills added during their level-up journey and more window time to get used with their growth (running dungeons on-level with shiny new skills...). Which I considered very bad for a game where journey matters like FF14. Certainly, there are players can just level-skip/story-skip but still find the game enjoyable, but at the same time, there will be players who fail to have themselves attached to the game due to not experiencing the intended growth.



So I don't see having a new starting point does anything good.

My thought exactly. I think the majority of players I found had a good time going over the story, slowly learning their class and unlocking side content within that expansion's context. I think an easy fix for having engaging new players to play with their friends more when they want to take breaks from the msq is to introduce some amount of group content early in ARR like an exploratory zone or rogue-like dungeon (which I hope the Criterion dungeons would be accessible to ARR players) that correlates to current end-game in a way. It'll be tricky but I think that would be a good general direction to have going forwards. Granted not all new content should be like this but basically have some stuff updated for players still in the early expansions to play with current players would be enough.

The 800~ MSQs you need to do to get to the end without a skip is excessive.