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

[LalaLlama]

@OP: Yyyes, this is a jrpg that happens to be an mmo, not world of warcraft's design of a collection of endgame raiding/grinding systems with a few recognizable characters stapled on every so often.

The game is in service to the story, not the other way around.

Whether it happens to be an MMO or not does not matter, it's still an MMO. It sells itself as being an MMORPG, not a JRPG with very few MMO aspects time-gated behind 200+ hours of solo questing with rare occasions of Duties/Trials.

It's absolutely fine that you like the story, I do too. What I don't like is it is REQUIRED. It is a MANDATORY slog of 200+ hours of story of very linear progression.

The majority of people who don't want changes are those who played the game cycle by cycle, so they haven't had to do it from start to finish. So, here's a challenge for you all, Go back to ARR with a level 1 character, NEVER touch any of the other side-stuff that doesn't get unlocked by the MSQ, do the REQUIRED dungeons/trials and see how long it takes before you give up and go back to the end-game.

I'm also tired of people throwing the "It's a Final Fantasy franchise" argument around as well. I've played, completed and 100%'d the majority of Final Fantasy games, and NONE of them required 200+ hours of story before getting to the "end-game" grind. In fact, The ones that I've 100%'d (Doing everything in-game) I've done so in LESS time than it has taken me JUST to get to Stormblood.

The problem isn't that it's a story-driven game, the problem is that it's REQUIRED to do and there is NO OTHER WAY TO GET TO END-GAME. It's linear and becomes nothing more than a job.

Not only that, when a new player decides to voice their problems with the fact that the MSQ gates pretty much everything in the game, only to be met with so many people telling them to "play something else" and "final fantasy games are not for you". It's sad, and it's toxic.

I came into this game alone, I didn't join because others were playing it. I joined because I wanted to meet people, make friend's and be able to enjoy the game with others. The MSQ discourages this, because 90% of it is solo content. Yes, I'm apart of an FC, but, in the 120+ hours I've played so far, I've had people do 3 duties with me and 1 trial. 120+ hours in an MMO and the ONLY time people have played with me is less than an 2 hours, but, this is fine, right?

From what you all keep saying, maybe SE should just completely remove the end-game, and everything else and just stick to the MSQ and that's it, right? Because, you know, "You should be playing this game for the MSQ". So, removal of everything else will keep you playing, right? Since the MSQ is SO good!

Then to top it all off, the other thing people throw at you is "buy a skip potion" Why? Why should I pay FULL PRICE for a game that has a SUBSCRIPTION to then have to pay to get to the point of the game I want to play?

[Jojoya]

If you can't attract and retain new players, the game will eventually die.

They've continued to attract new players for years now and they end up retaining many of them. So where's the problem?

No MMO retains all of its new players. Not even WoW did. Outside of the rapid initial launch growth in Vanilla, the number of players subscribed was always a minority of total accounts created.

It's players that try to twist numbers into "this game is dying". It's not the numbers that do it. What usually kills a MMO is diverging too far from what had been a successful formula trying to attract a demographic that had no interest in the game and alienating what had been a happy and loyal player base in the process so those players quit.

Whether it happens to be an MMO or not does not matter, it's still an MMO. It sells itself as being an MMORPG, not a JRPG with very few MMO aspects time-gated behind 200+ hours of solo questing with rare occasions of Duties/Trials.

It's absolutely fine that you like the story, I do too. What I don't like is it is REQUIRED. It is a MANDATORY slog of 200+ hours of story of very linear progression.

The majority of people who don't want changes are those who played the game cycle by cycle, so they haven't had to do it from start to finish. So, here's a challenge for you all, Go back to ARR with a level 1 character, NEVER touch any of the other side-stuff that doesn't get unlocked by the MSQ, do the REQUIRED dungeons/trials and see how long it takes before you give up and go back to the end-game.

I've done that multiple times, and I will continue to do it again in the future. Why?

Because I enjoy going through the story and the character progression. I get the alt to level cap and then delete it. When I'm in the mood to repeat the process, I'll create a new alt and start again. Eventually I'll finish MSQ and delete it.

You're assuming that a MMORPG must revolve around end game when it doesn't need to. That's some terrible conditioning Blizzard inflicted on the industry with WoW's success and the industry ended up stagnating as a result. Every new MMO kept trying to copy WoW's formula and most ended up failing.

What's part of FFXIV's success? Because it doesn't follow WoW's "everything must revolve around end game formula". It offers a different experience despite a similarity to many design elements. Lower level content remains fun and even relevant to a fair degree. The journey matters to the game instead of just being a checkbox on a "To Do" list.

[LalaLlama]

No, I'm not assuming MMORPG's should revolve around end-game. Please, tell me where I ever stated that. I'm not the one telling people how to play the game, am I? I'm not saying you SHOULDN'T do the MSQ and should get to the end-game content quickly. However, I am constantly being told that I NEED to slog through 200+ hours of MSQ, and that wanting other options to do so is wrong and I should "go play something else". I'm saying that MMO's should have OPTIONS as to how someone combat's the game. FF14 does not have this, because the only REAL progression throughout the levelling is done through the MSQ. If you don't do the MSQ, you don't get the new content.

You want to know what's part of FFXIV's success? The title. The name. The game franchise has been a thing since 1987. That's 35 years the franchise has existed.

If this formula was done in ANY other game, it wouldn't work, especially for new players.

It's perfectly fine to play through the whole MSQ parts at a time like a lot of you have. It's not fine to expect new players to play through 9+ years of solo content so that they can finally branch out and do other things, without it being detrimental to their progression of the game.

If I want to go do hunts instead of the MSQ. I can do, but, doing those hunts changes nothing. I'm still at the same place as I started, just at a higher level. Nothing but my numbers increase, my location in the story doesn't. So, to progress, I NEED to slog through 200+ hours of story.

Also, I highly doubt you do 150-200+ hours of story content before deleting it. But, if you do, then good for you. But that doesn't mean everyone else should HAVE to do it as well. Do you expect EVERY player to do PvP or Ultimate's? How about making everyone be REQUIRED to do RP, because, you know, "it's an RPG game". Do you think everyone will be happy to be FORCED into doing something they don't want to do?

But that doesn't matter, it's only screwing over the new players and will eventually bring the downfall of the game. Nothing too terrible, right? I mean, player numbers don't change 2 weeks after a new patch is out, right? They don't go down or anything.

[TankHunter678]

The really big problem with the story is simply that it grinds your sense of progression to a screeching halt, and simultaneously gates content so any time you spend on other activities only prolongs how long your progression is capped.

You can't really progress your main class because you have no access to higher level content until you've cleared each expansion and post quests.
You can't progress any alternate classes, because the glut of the quests you're stuck on are max level for where the game has capped your progress.


The MSQ just doesn't meaningfully interact with the reward systems of the game, instead it locks you out of the reward system of the game. It just says "No XP or loot for you until you've done all of this". Sure, you eventually hit the point where you're level 90 on every class you want to play and you have item level 600 gear. Maybe then XP and loot don't really matter anymore and you'll be glad for story quests that keep you entertained. But trapping you in a false endgame for two weeks every so often while there is still endless stuff for you to earn is completely obnoxious.

Only ARR suffers from that problem. HW, SB, ShB, all of their post launch patch MSQ can be cleared within a few days and then you are right into the next expansion. And that is if you are intentionally going slow and playing only a few hours per day. You can get it done in 1 day if you sit down and play through it. Not to mention only ARR suffers from the tiny xp rewards in post quests because at the time it was a question of "will the game last to even get a expansion?" where later expansions did not have that issue because the game was stable and not trying to recover from one of the worst launches in video game history.

Which is why they went and massively trimmed the post ARR quests down by just over half. We used to have around 168 quests between ARR and HW.

And the only thing that keeps your main class from progressing is class quests which is the 52-70 block. Aside from that you can easily use the market board to get gear upgrades.
When it comes to alt classes by virtue of the main class being higher they get a baseline +100% xp boost. You can easily get an alt job to level 50 in a weekend with just the hunting log and duty support, much less if you actually do leveling roulette each day.

[Tychonius]

Being able to grind through stuff, buy gear upgrades from the market or grind up other classes aren't a remedy to the problem that actually doing the quest yields no meaningful progress.

[TankHunter678]

Being able to grind through stuff, buy gear upgrades from the market or grind up other classes aren't a remedy to the problem that actually doing the quest yields no meaningful progress.

The progress you are making is progress on the story which develops the world, the characters, and the conflicts that drive the plot. Everything important to a story based game which is what the Final Fantasy franchise has always been about. So as long as you are doing quests you are making progress by FF standards. This is why the dungeons are all behind the MSQ, because unlike WoW you are going into those dungeons for a purpose and the dungeons serve the plot.

If advancing the plot and experiencing the story is not meaningful progress in a game built around that in a franchise built around that to you then just buy the skips. You won't understand a thing and the game is going to feel really hollow really fast and you will likely quit just as quickly because of how short endgame progress is going to be. This game is simply not designed the way WoW is.

[IdowhatIwant]

It's players that try to twist numbers into "this game is dying". It's not the numbers that do it. What usually kills a MMO is diverging too far from what had been a successful formula trying to attract a demographic that had no interest in the game and alienating what had been a happy and loyal player base in the process so those players quit.

You realize that is what is going on with the game currently right?

You're assuming that a MMORPG must revolve around end game when it doesn't need to. That's some terrible conditioning Blizzard inflicted on the industry with WoW's success and the industry ended up stagnating as a result. Every new MMO kept trying to copy WoW's formula and most ended up failing.

What's part of FFXIV's success? Because it doesn't follow WoW's "everything must revolve around end game formula". It offers a different experience despite a similarity to many design elements. Lower level content remains fun and even relevant to a fair degree. The journey matters to the game instead of just being a checkbox on a "To Do" list.

This game is based off of WoW. Yoshi P has literally said they played WoW and used it as an example how to to develop the game. You think FFXIV made the whole tome stone system attached to a daily roulette? That was WoW.

The most common thing I have noticed, are people that are against being able to skip story and level other ways are people that are willing to play the MSQ multiple times.
Also a large number of people keep bringing up that end game is the only thing that is gated. There is a lot of stuff that is gated by the MSQ, ever normal mode raid, things like bozja, mount farming, hunts in various zones, relic quests, dungeons, your daily roulettes, eureka, ishgard housing, shirugane housing, crafting, I mean it's a long list of things that are outside of the scope of current end game content. It becomes a to do quest line to unlock a lot of stuff in this game. I personally don't see a reason not to allow people to progress levels the way they want to vs forcing them to do the MSQ all the way to the newest expansion. Specially when we are about to start a whole new story anyways. Ideally with new characters but it seems we are sticking with the scions which I find a bit disappointing but what ever.

The other problem is people gain more experience than needed to get into the next expansion. I had coworkers back in ShB that were going into HW at level 57 and the excuse people give is level another job. Well not everyone wants to level multiple jobs starting off in this game, might as well go back to ARR and require people to level multiple jobs for cross skills then if you think that is a good suggestion.

[Amenara]

Now that I am reading more posts the question I have for people opposed to making the MSQ gate less content is how does affect your ability to play or your enjoyment of the game? The MSQ teaches you nothing about how to play your character or be good at the game so making less of it mandatory won't affect the quality of players at your level or in dungeons you are doing, even more so with dungeons in ARR and soon to be every expansion soloable. If you choose to go back and make an alt and go through the entirety of the MSQ that should be a choice you can make, but if you would rather just skip the post ARR MSQ and move to HW I don't see why that is an issue.

And for the argument about just buying a story skip, doesn't that invalidate any point you would make about the importance of playing through the story? If the story is so important why would SE give you the option to purchase a way to skip it? Why not let people skip the post expansion content if they just want to keep pushing forward with their characters instead of holding them back to sit through story they may or may not care about?

[silentwindfr]

...snips...

Yoshi-p did look at what wow because at this time the 1.0 was a mess... something that was coming from an another ages... but it end here... Wow barely create anything, they simply did retake what was existing somewhere else for make it part of the game. them amazing insight was to arrive to merge all of this.
but at the same time.... wow did grow lazy with time, refusing to really evolve.
when you play FF14 today and check what it was in the 1.0 or 2.0 the game have changed a lot. they always try to recreate stuff and improve. but they are smart enough for know that some stuff are working and using them too.

that said, people complaining about the story in FF14 are.... weird... FF14 was always known for his story. i agree the quest of the 2.0-2.X need to be redone... but if you think about it... they are quite old now. and they plan to change this for ages, but they need time to redo the quest, the cinematic and such... it's not an easy task especially since they continue to pump content into the game at an insane pace.
and honestly, skip is not a good idea, some part of the story is insane and honestly arrive to endwalker without experience all feel like a loose. because the story of the expansion will feel less interesting, you will not have meet the character nor learn to love them or hate them.

FF14 is a story game with mmo component. if someone come to play the game without doing the story... i feel they have miss the whole point. yes you have tons of different activity you can do... but i feel they have more meaningfull if you know the world in which you evolve. why wow did work soo well... because of warcraft 3 and the character powerfull that did draw people into this world. at least that why i was part of the first wave in wow vanilla.i did play until cataclysm and did stop after... because for me they had loose them way after lich king.
but here i'm always draw back, because this world is loved by the dev as much as we love it... making every patch having an impact on us...

Now that I am reading more posts the question I have for people opposed to making the MSQ gate less content is how does affect your ability to play or your enjoyment of the game? The MSQ teaches you nothing about how to play your character or be good at the game so making less of it mandatory won't affect the quality of players at your level or in dungeons you are doing, even more so with dungeons in ARR and soon to be every expansion soloable. If you choose to go back and make an alt and go through the entirety of the MSQ that should be a choice you can make, but if you would rather just skip the post ARR MSQ and move to HW I don't see why that is an issue.

And for the argument about just buying a story skip, doesn't that invalidate any point you would make about the importance of playing through the story? If the story is so important why would SE give you the option to purchase a way to skip it? Why not let people skip the post expansion content if they just want to keep pushing forward with their characters instead of holding them back to sit through story they may or may not care about?

more i have a question... why play the game? if you want a game where you play with other you have tons of other game similar where story are escuse? why not learn to enjoy the world?
and you say it will not people play better and such, true, but why the fact that they don't want to do msq impact me? i like the fact that content is gated behind the story. it make dungeon, raid more interesting... at least the content gated behind msq are understandable than some content you can find in game a la wow where a dungeon is more an escuse for get loot and do a mission in group.

all in all, why people doesn't wanting to do msq must affect people that love msq? or enjoy the fact that content is gated behind it for make it part of the story...

[Amenara]

more i have a question... why play the game? if you want a game where you play with other you have tons of other game similar where story are escuse? why not learn to enjoy the world?
and you say it will not people play better and such, true, but why the fact that they don't want to do msq impact me? i like the fact that content is gated behind the story. it make dungeon, raid more interesting... at least the content gated behind msq are understandable than some content you can find in game a la wow where a dungeon is more an escuse for get loot and do a mission in group.

all in all, why people doesn't wanting to do msq must affect people that love msq? or enjoy the fact that content is gated behind it for make it part of the story...

I can't speak for everyone, but I play the game because I enjoy playing with the friends I have made along the way. As for the reason other people play the game it can be as varied as they like the story, gameplay, raids, glamour, RP, really any number of reasons. Pigeonholing people into one aspect of the game because you and others think people have to enjoy the story to want to play FF14 is a narrow way to approach any game, especially an MMO. Everything you said is a personal opinion for yourself and may not be the same for everyone else. All I am wanting is that people have the option to play their leveling experience in a way that they enjoy vs forcing them to play through hundreds of hours of MSQ that they may or may not want to.