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

Not going to really care to argue for when as I think that's just a decision beyond my desire to make lol, but I believe it'll have to happen at some point. It's like 400+ hours now to catch up to players, and the story skip does both teaching the game lore and battle poorly (aka not at all). 400+ hours by the way is a great thing for some players, it isn't like "oh my god 400 hours how could it be so!! oh no!!!".. just that for some people that is an insane mountain and probably going to be a huge turn off that will grow stronger with each moment. I believe unnecessarily so, too.

Mentioned the alternate start idea before as well, so obviously I'm in favor of it as a concept. I think you could have a lot of fun with it too on a few levels.

A. I personally don't think the start of FFXIV is up there in terms of top exciting starts for an MMO, so in general I think it's an opportunity to make the game hook harder. To be fair not the worst- by far, just not my favorite either.. the pacing and order of operations.. the sense small town journey lost by just arriving at the main city, etc.
B. With the MSQ+ system you can go back as the player who took the story skip / alternate start and enjoy the story later if you wanted, and also the players who don't need the story skip could also use the system to enjoy the extra content as like a mini-dlc. I propose also keeping a lot of the rewards behind the MSQ, such that if you wanted a free fantasia and you used the alternate start then you might later go back and do that content. Similarly there might be a reward behind the alternate start, nothing insanely major but still kind of neat - or at least exp bonuses, and players who don't need the alternate start would still be able to enjoy it as if it was just a quest they can do.
C. Story skip is awful introduction, imo, but a alternate start could help give players a much stronger grasp on not only their job / gameplay ideas but also the lore. Therefore imo if we have to start doing jumps I think the alternate start is a superior (but obviously more costly) solution.

Maybe a bonus D but besides having nice pacing opportunities (A), I think you could hit some fun angles for the starts. Like having a Cloud falls into mako inspired journey (FF7), with some character(s) helping guide you out as you piece together your memories (learning lore and combat at the same time). Can even have wild tie-ins like maybe an Ascian is primarily the guide that helps you sift through your memories (there are two I believe could easily be the ones that do that without even having to 'retcon' anything). Another idea I had suggested was related to taking inspiration notes from the trailers themselves to give a bit of personal connection to them (hey that was me on the Ishgard mountains before the avalanche swept me down), etc.

As should be obvious, and have said before in other threads that this topic was brought up, I don't believe there needs be two stories. Just use the classic, and yes overly used, memory like stuff. Bonked on the noggin, drowned in mako, cursed by a great magic, not worth mentioning event, silent character moment, etc, etc. The game doesn't need to write two different parallel stories... at least depending on where it lets you in, the game will need to add some details in the alternate start so you're not absolutely lost though. But say give ShB for example, most of the important references to old content were re-explained in ShB itself incase you forgot.. this means it's not too big of a deal to be partially lost because depending on the place you might just pick up the knowledge as you go. "Don't you remember that time when we sealed an ascian in white auracite?" WoL: .. . . yep!. Player: (white auracite seals ascians.. good to know, I wonder who I sealed- maybe I should go back later to do MSQ+). This is akin to starting some of the trilogy games out of order, it's entirely do-able. Of course like I said it would depend on where you are let in, and if the alternate start can pad your landing a bit (which a story skip doesn't pad anything at all, hence I think it's a worse solution.. at least compared to a few hour alternate start that doesn't require an entirely rewrite of large sections of the MSQ).

Or think of it like how FFXIV Legacy worked, there were a few changes in dialog but really it didn't create two whole new MSQs. Legacy players started from 1.0 and in a sense you could say 2.0 (ARR) players had the 'alternate' start. Of course it's a bit more complicated than that since there was some retcon and stuff lol, but vaguely similar concept already done in FFXIV. Now just do it smoother and not because the game is dying... ...

I can only imagine if they did nothing about this and they plan on keeping the game going to 10 years that we're going to have like "750+ hours to get to current game ultimate content" and any player looking on from the outside in is just going to laugh and not even bother because they're never going to be able to catch up until the next FF MMO game is out lol. If you absolutely rush, and reduce enjoyment of the journey (or have already done the content before, which adds speed as well), or pay nearly the price of the game itself again to skip poorly then of course you can make shorter time but neither of those seem like very good designs (free potion would of course make it less painful but I don't think that's better than smoothing players in via an alternate accelerated start).