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

Originally Posted by JudgeRAW

Although I know one of the main attractions for Final Fantasy XIV is its story ...

So what do you think?

People have to rewire their brains. We sit and listen to endless complaints about nothing to do, too short, not enough value etc etc in the video game industry. Yet when there's a game with hundreds of hours of content people's first thought is they want to skip it all?

Imagine walking into a game store and seeing an RPG on the shelf that said "500 hours content" people would be "holy wth?!?!" and would buy that thing instantly thinking "man I am gonna get my dollar's worth outta this".

Would you buy an action story game like Uncharted or whatever if the end boss fight was in a room next door to the player starting spawn? What would be the point?

Just get the MMO out of one's head and think of it as CONTENT, not a barrier. If the main basis of the content (eg the story based MSQ etc) isn't your cup of tea, that is perfectly fine but that's like buying Battlefield and complaining about having to shoot people.

Originally Posted by Zaniel

People have to rewire their brains. We sit and listen to endless complaints about nothing to do, too short, not enough value etc etc in the video game industry. Yet when there's a game with hundreds of hours of content people's first thought is they want to skip it all?

Imagine walking into a game store and seeing an RPG on the shelf that said "500 hours content" people would be "holy wth?!?!" and would buy that thing instantly thinking "man I am gonna get my dollar's worth outta this".

Would you buy an action story game like Uncharted or whatever if the end boss fight was in a room next door to the player starting spawn? What would be the point?

Just get the MMO out of one's head and think of it as CONTENT, not a barrier. If the main basis of the content (eg the story based MSQ etc) isn't your cup of tea, that is perfectly fine but that's like buying Battlefield and complaining about having to shoot people.

Thank you.

While I'm not opposed to the idea of a little more endgame, it's nice to see someone point out this paradox that seems to be present in all MMO communities. (And to correct something in the original post): this is not limited to FFXIV. These types of complaints are also landing on the WOW forums, a game that is very much focused on endgame content.)

Rush content; buy sesames; don't enjoy instances of previous expansions at all... Then complain, once you reach level 90, that there is nothing more to do.

Some people will tell me that my message doesn't make sense, because what doesn't attract them to leveling is the lack of multiplayer content. Again, another hypocrisy of MMORPG communities: most people complain when a leveling quest is too complicated, complain when you have to wait a while to find a level 60 group, complain when you have to go ask for help in the open world because leveling "should be open to all... Without anyone's help".

On the contrary: rather than offering the possibility to skip leveling, reaffirm it as a real content. I don't know if this is currently feasible in FFXIV, but some sort of "hard" mod where cooperation with an older player whose level is scaled would be a much smarter approach.

A final remark (ironic, but not unkind); OP, I've seen you complain several times about FFXIV not being a "real" MMORPG. If I may say so: MMORPGs were originally games where leveling was a real content. Difficult, demanding: reaching the max level was already an achievement in itself. Don't complain about the fact that the game doesn't assume its "MMORPG" side when you support the total disappearance of one of the bases of the genre, i.e. a content that is far from being limited to an endgame. A world which is living from level 0 to level 90 (and above).

My problem with allowing people to story and level skip is that new players won't know what they're actually doing with the job they picked. IF they did give players free story skips, they should require first-timers to do a tutorial. :B

Also, I think it might be an interesting idea if instead of being part of a linear story, maybe future expansions, 7.x and up, should be their own contained stories and areas where maybe we don't solve all the problems in the initial release. One expansion could deal with New Continent, one could deal with Meracydia, one could be on a different shard, etc.

Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Uh, yeah it kind of has to be. I didn't come here because some elf was bullied as a kid and his girlfriend had to step in, I came here because there was a war against the Empire and a war going on against Dragons that had visually impactful and impressive scenes as we entered Ishgard proper and as we dealt with the victims of the Empire's brutality. The revenge driven soldier was a lot more interesting to have on-screen than some dude who was bullied.

It doesn't help that plot thread was tied in with the second half of Labyrinthos which nearly everyone agrees was poorly paced and a headache to go through. That sure was some payoff. In any case at least his arc is over for the time being, though this again leaves him in a position where its difficult to go anywhere interesting from here. Maybe they should give him a new girlfriend or something. Or make him eat a hamburger. Failing that I welcome a total revamp of the cast and the removal of the Scions in favor of party members with more varied personalities and backstories that are suitable for whatever setting we go to moving forward. They have served their purpose.

We do not need to go the WoW route of having the same cast of characters for nearly 20 years. The writing will only continue to suffer for it. It's ok for people to leave the plot if they aren't contributing anything meaningful or of entertainment value. This keeps things fresh and can appeal to more people besides the twitter RP crowd who are probably the only ones capable of tolerating the same characters for so long regardless of what little they actually do.

Honestly it just makes the scions look super snobby, when their only experiences of suffering are from being bullied in school lol. Then you turn around and see some war ravaged veteran who watched his parents be burned alive by a dragon, had his body taken over, and was basically at death’s door. Reminds me of in school when the rich popular kids would scrape their knee and expected everyone to feel sympathy for them lmao.

Originally Posted by Mimilu

My problem with allowing people to story and level skip is that new players won't know what they're actually doing with the job they picked. IF they did give players free story skips, they should require first-timers to do a tutorial. :B

This is a non-issue, since if someone refuses to read descriptions and learn how to play by testing things in combat, they'd do that regardless of if they have access to most skills from the get-go or not.

Of course it's always much more likely that they willfully play wrong for shits and giggles, rather than lack of incentive to test things.

The people wanting to allow players to skip most of the content are the ones trying to turn this into an endgame raid focused game.

To that I will use a phrase I virtually never use.

GO BACK TO WOW.

Originally Posted by Conundrum

The people wanting to allow players to skip most of the content are the ones trying to turn this into an endgame raid focused game.

To that I will use a phrase I virtually never use.

GO BACK TO WOW.

Personally have no interest in 'end game' content now days (in the long past I would have), now I enjoy just doing things at my own lax pace, when I get to it I get to it, the game plays at my pace :3 - and often absolutely beast mode crushing them with stuff like over powered gear and epic echo.

That said, I still think an end game is valuable for people who play the 'current' content multiple hours in a week and for those people who like that, which there are a few at least, when they join a game with 400+ hours to get to that point.. it could feel like it's just not possible to get there (or punishing to get there).

I think for some people 400+ hours of story content is like.. "WHAT? WHY HAVENT I HEARD OF THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED MMORPG BEFORE?!" but for others, it's going to be a huge bouncy barrier to entry that they otherwise would probably have liked the game if they could have actually got to the content they wanted to do (primarily hard stuff primarily in a group of players, which by nature of MMOs, particularly non-hardcore theme park mmos, is the end game content).

Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Thank you for completely misunderstanding the situation and for your continued gatekeeping? It's not difficult to see why more recent additions to the game interest people. Classes like Reaper and Sage start at level 70, not level 1, gear with sufficient texture quality and non-comical design doesn't really start making it into the game consistently until about level 80, aside from a few exceptions from Heavensward. People also simply just would rather fight dragons than run errands for Minfilia, or want to experience a different plot that has nothing to do with the Hydaelyn or Zodiark era.

Who are you to tell these people they are in the wrong? Once more I will remind the story enthusiasts: you lose nothing from others having the option to begin playing wherever they see fit without having to buy a boost on top of the price of the game.

"gatekeeping", "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".

It's not "gatekeeping" to expect people to play the story in a story based game.

It's not "gatekeeping" to fight to keep the game from being turned into the dog**** raiding based game most of them just left.

"Story enthusiast's", that term says a lot more than you think it does. I'll tell you a little secret, we aren't stupid, and we know the tricks the "moar raids" cabal has used for decades. Yes, that's what you are, you aren't fooling people. This start after the current story is just code for "start at endgame". Which means you're going to start demanding more and more "endgame" content at the expense of other content, all because you guys are the loudest on the forums and tend to shout everyone else down. Then of course with more "endgame" content comes the demands that all the cool rewards only come from raiding...because "you worked for it".

I've been playing MMOs and MUDs for over 20 years, history has repeated itself more times than you can imagine at this point.

So don't try to play it off as "everyone benefits" or "innocent suggestions that don't hurt anyone"

So again.

GO PLAY WOW.

The game where they did what you want. And we all see how it turned out.