The story is great, but it blatantly gets in the way of the rest of the game

[BrokentoothMarch]

What if.


WHAT IF

The story is the content people play the game for? And the story getting longer and longer is only more content for those players and thereby not a bad thing? It's like complaining about a TV show going on too long "Man if I want to get to the latest season I gotta watch all these other seasons first!".

Your entire problem is you see the story, along with all other content prior to "Endgame" (whatever that even is in your mind) as an obstacle. This is the way the game is. This is what it's about. If you don't like it, PLAY ANOTHER GAME and stop trying to change the game to suit what you want. You are not being forced to play this game. You CHOSE to play this game out of countless other MMOs. You have no excuse.

I am so sick of these FOTM kiddies and narcissists who think every game should cater to them and cannot accept the existence of niches that cater to a more limnited, but specific pool of people. They can either buy a skip, just speedrun the MSQ and skip all the cutscenes, or play another game better suited to their interests.

It's not why I play for and I've played since HW. The story has been a snoozefest for two out of the four expansions we've had, so I'll admit to trying to blitz through it. If Ii wanted purely story, I'd play a more carefully constructed singleplayer RPG. Like FFVI.

So, with me not enjoying the story, clearly not being a "FOTM kiddie", I guess I just have to be a narcissist because I think the story is a bit too obtuse in gating gameplay. Cool. You sound very even-handed and reasonable and not at all a blithering banshee with more fangs than brains.

I'll stop being coy: You're an elitist and you're one in an ultra casual game. Calm the hell down. This is as much "their game" as it is "yours". You don't own anythinig. You're not privy to dev team project direction. You're barely a drop in the ocean. So take deep breaths, sit down, and be another catgirl in the ocean of catgirls since you're apparently so keen on being special.

EDIT: Also lmao. Thinking this game isn't going for mass appeal since ShB. You don't pay attention too good.

[YukikoKurosawa]

All they want is the MSQ to not gate so much in the game.

Then, as I said, they should be going into the game fully aware that's the way it is. They can skip the story if they don't want to do it. Beyond that, what more do you want? This is not like many story games where you can't even skip cutscenes (not even on second playthroughs). The only cutscenes forced on your is Praetorium, beyond that a player who isn't interested in the story can just press ESQ and click "Skip Cutscene" from the moment they log in. There's many people who play the game and have never done the story and don't complain because it ISN'T completely forced upon them, but they still accept the story ties into the game and a lot of content is going to revolve around that leaving them not as much to do as opposed to less story-focused games.

Again, I repeat, just play another game. Why can you not accept this as an answer? There is nothing wrong with catering to a niche audience, going for mass-appeal and trying to be like every other MMO is not necessarily the right move and I'd strongly rather they did not, and it's certainly not how the game became as popular as it has.

[YukikoKurosawa]

So, with me not enjoying the story, clearly not being a "FOTM kiddie", I guess I just have to be a narcissist because I think the story is a bit too obtuse in gating gameplay. Cool. You sound very even-handed and reasonable and not at all a blithering banshee with more fangs than brains.

No but feel free to think that. Nothing wrong with not caring about the story, lots of people don't. I bought boosts for most of the jobs I play because I think leveling alts is a slog and 90% of job quests were clearly written by unpaid interns or they certainly have the quality of being so, so I don't care to go through them. I just wanted to play those jobs for gameplay / glam. However, outside of making arguments for making leveling alts not so much painfully slow (which just encourages buying boots, working as intended though I guess), I accept that my options (since job quests give you a number of your abilities) that I either bought a boost or went through those quests to level up and get all my abilities. I'm not complaining about it.

You don't seem to be able to understand what I'm saying, there is nothing wrong with not giving a dam about the story and playing the game for other things. Just don't complain that the game is not catering to you primarily and likely never will.

[FoxyAreku]

I want to get to the content my friends are playing.

If you mean endgame, there's barely any of it, and if your friends won't play the content you are at with you, then I'm not sure why you need to rush to play with them. That's pretty lame and one-sided of them, I say.

Don't rush, the game is about the story and there's barely anything to do at endgame in comparison, if you want to play with your friends there's nothing stopping them from joining you for roulettes or the content that you are actually able to access.

[TaleraRistain]

I've been thinking a bit on the quoted point specifically though and I do think it raises a valid point as well. It's not necessarily just about The Story because it really is that the entire levelling progression process for a first character is based around the MSQ. Not that there aren't other ways to level of course as we always have extra jobs to level somehow but the general course of character progression does run straight through the MSQ. If SE completely detached the story from the progression then we'd largely be left with a fairly hollow levelling experience. I can understand someone being discouraged by the amount of story to play through to get to "end game" if they're just starting out new, but I'm not really sure they'd be more encouraged by being told "Okay, just do your dailies/weeklies and grind dungeons/FATEs for a couple of months and you'll be able to play with us!" any more. At least the story can be clicked through and the cutscenes can be skipped in a way that the grind can't.

This is a really solid point. They can tie so much into the story because the story is the main way to level your first class. I've even heard instances where people out-level the story on Road to X servers or if they stick to all the story and side quests on a single class. And if they did just say "Okay story's not required" then those new people would be stuck with the much-less-effective alternate grinds for leveling instead of the story custom-made to get them to the right levels for content. Which means they could end up in an even worse position.

[DPZ2]

Do people not even read the OPs post before they shoot off with their toxic mentality? They literally said they enjoy the story, enjoy playing the game, and are having fun. All they want is the MSQ to not gate so much in the game. It is a very valid complaint and I think they are 100% correct, it is one of the biggest problems with the new player experience.

Am I reading your suggestion correctly here? The answer is to, quite literally, rewrite the entire game to resolve the problems some new players have with content being gated behind the MSQ? How about we do away with the MSQ entirely? That'd certainly mean a much quicker run up to the so-called "End Game" so that people can enjoy two months of content every couple of years. And, while they're at it, they may as well remove all the earlier patch end-game content, since it's no longer current. Dungeons too. That'd certainly resolve the issue.

Yeah, it's a ridiculous read of the OP, and your comment, but it would certainly take care of the "New Players hate slogging through 8 years of content" argument that keeps cropping up. Of course, at that point I'd expect most of the playerbase to bail.

[Skivvy]

Am I reading your suggestion correctly here? The answer is to, quite literally, rewrite the entire game to resolve the problems some new players have with content being gated behind the MSQ? How about we do away with the MSQ entirely? That'd certainly mean a much quicker run up to the so-called "End Game" so that people can enjoy two months of content every couple of years. And, while they're at it, they may as well remove all the earlier patch end-game content, since it's no longer current. Dungeons too. That'd certainly resolve the issue.

Yeah, it's a ridiculous read of the OP, and your comment, but it would certainly take care of the "New Players hate slogging through 8 years of content" argument that keeps cropping up. Of course, at that point I'd expect most of the playerbase to bail.

None of us can see any sort of retention/exit data, but the fact that SE bothered taking the time to rework ARR should be a clue that there is some concern over the MSQ and the player experience.

[MisterNublet]

None of us can see any sort of retention/exit data, but the fact that SE bothered taking the time to rework ARR should be a clue that there is some concern over the MSQ and the player experience.

While not completely accurate, Steam's player count can give you a general idea on how well the population is holding up.

December 2021(EW Release): AVG players: 53,729.2.....Peak Players: 95,102
March 2022(Content Lul): AVG players: 17,937.2....Peak Players: 29,126
Last 30 Days(Patch 6.1): AVG Players: 24,552.6.....Peak Players: 54,905

It's great that SE is bothering to fix the mess that is ARR/MSQ experience, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the endgame (or lack thereof) if they want to keep players around.

[IdowhatIwant]

What if.


WHAT IF

The story is the content people play the game for? And the story getting longer and longer is only more content for those players and thereby not a bad thing? It's like complaining about a TV show going on too long "Man if I want to get to the latest season I gotta watch all these other seasons first!".

Your entire problem is you see the story, along with all other content prior to "Endgame" (whatever that even is in your mind) as an obstacle. This is the way the game is. This is what it's about. If you don't like it, PLAY ANOTHER GAME and stop trying to change the game to suit what you want. You are not being forced to play this game. You CHOSE to play this game out of countless other MMOs. You have no excuse.

I am so sick of these FOTM kiddies and narcissists who think every game should cater to them and cannot accept the existence of niches that cater to a more limnited, but specific pool of people. They can either buy a skip, just speedrun the MSQ and skip all the cutscenes, or play another game better suited to their interests.

You are calling people narcissist, while saying everyone should view the story the same way I do. That is a horrible take buddy.

I don't think there is any reason in 2022, if some one were to pick this game up, did not want to do the story or care about the story to require them to do the story up until the current expansion. There should be an option to level up other ways if you choose to. The key thing is giving players a choice, with out paying a stupid amount of money to do it.

[Raoabolic]

I don't think there is any reason in 2022, if some one were to pick this game up, did not want to do the story or care about the story to require them to do the story up until the current expansion. There should be an option to level up other ways if you choose to.

it's called the cash shop. You can buy your way to the tier before current RIGHT NOW! There's the option!