Island Sanctuaries - End Game Only

[Anura]

The only thing silly is comments like that. Having content released during an expansion being tied to that expansion is normal, in FFXIV and practically every MMO in existence. FFXIV has the advantage of having a veritable mountain of other side content available to people along the journey. Crafting and gathering, the gold saucer (which itself includes games, Triple Triad, chocobo racing, Vermilion, mahjong, etc.), sightseeing, class/role quests, optional raid storylines, optional dungeon storylines...and those are just the ones I can think of because I enjoy them. There's probably even more things I'm not even including there. Island Sanctuary isn't intended in any way, shape, or form to be the "pinnacle" game experience that would be the reason someone buys the game.

What's silly is claiming there's any mental gymnastics involved in defending such a sensible decision. It's not even a warm-up. And I think you might want to re-visit the meaning of the word "gatekeeping"; this isn't it.

Can you read? There's a difference between tying something to the expansion and locking it behind THE END of the base expansion, when the same expansion is LOCKED behind THREE EXPANSIONS worth of story. FFXIV is the ONLY MMORPG I've ever played that lock things behind fucking hundreds of hours of storyline. Got overleveled and want to do a dungeon near your level? YOU'RE FUCK OUT OF LUCK. Do these hundreds of quests here before you can unlock the next expansion, then do MORE quests to unlock a fucking dungeon. Let's see how they'll keep doing this shit when new players get tired of this crap and just drop the snoozefest because it'll hit their patience limit. I'd sooner recommend EVE to someone new to MMORPG than a game that simply locks you at fucking lv50 for more than 50 hours and forces you to use a rotation so boring it melts your brain. Probably the time needed to unlock Heavensward. GREAT design, isn't it?

[Hyperia]

This content is intended to keep players who have finished the game busy and stay subbed. It looks like it will be fun, but never forget it’s intended purpose.

As to the whole Limsa boat thing, this instance is built on the Eureka/Boja system so that’s why we have to go to a teleport NPC. They copied the code from those zones so they could get it out as soon as possible.

There are probably server side issues that prevent normal teleporting. If not server side issues then quality control / new development issues. Copy something that works to keep costs and dev time down.

[Anura]

This content is intended to keep players who have finished the game busy and stay subbed. It looks like it will be fun, but never forget it’s intended purpose.

Players who have finished the game would have access to it one way or another, how does this make sense? Being available early in the game has no consequence. If the Gold Saucer were to release Blitzball tomorrow, EVERYONE would go there and check it out. Being available only at the end of the final expansion would only affect players that want but cannot access it. If Island Sanctuary caught the eyes of advanced players, they'll stay subbed and that's it.

[Nanne]

Can you read? There's a difference between tying something to the expansion and locking it behind THE END of the base expansion, when the same expansion is LOCKED behind THREE EXPANSIONS worth of story. FFXIV is the ONLY MMORPG I've ever played that lock things behind fucking hundreds of hours of storyline. Got overleveled and want to do a dungeon near your level? YOU'RE FUCK OUT OF LUCK. Do these hundreds of quests here before you can unlock the next expansion, then do MORE quests to unlock a fucking dungeon. Let's see how they'll keep doing this shit when new players get tired of this crap and just drop the snoozefest because it'll hit their patience limit. I'd sooner recommend EVE to someone new to MMORPG than a game that simply locks you at fucking lv50 for more than 50 hours and forces you to use a rotation so boring it melts your brain. Probably the time needed to unlock Heavensward. GREAT design, isn't it?

Its almost like this game plays like an actual Final Fantasy game meaning it has a long story that has gotten even longer throughout the years and part of the core design of the game is that the story and the world matters so everything is being built up from the ground up from the start. If you really want to just speedrun to an interesting part of the game then there are skips for you but it seems weird to complain that a video game has content xD

[Anura]

Its almost like this game plays like an actual Final Fantasy game meaning it has a long story that has gotten even longer throughout the years and part of the core design of the game is that the story and the world matters so everything is being built up from the ground up from the start. If you really want to just speedrun to an interesting part of the game then there are skips for you but it seems weird to complain that a video game has content xD

Yes, I'm complaining because the game has content. It's not like you're making a strawman because you're incapable of reading, hmm? And no, the game does not play like a Final Fantasy, because this is not an offline game where the ONLY content is a straight line. This is a theme park mmorpg and it follows THAT recipe, like WoW does, so stop pretending this game is something else. A piss easy game with no challenge whatsover until endgame has to do something to keep players entertained after AND between the story, since the combat is garbage before level cap. Now answer me this: which Final Fantasy besides XI has any similarities to what I described? I'm curious, because right now, to me, it seems like you're larping.

[Deveryn]

If it's so easy, then it should be no problem to arrive at the content when you do.

What's done is done and there's no going back and you (and others) keep telling us why it's really no big deal at all.

[Anura]

If it's so easy, then it should be no problem to arrive at the content when you do.

Many things are easy. Many things are also boring as fuck and makes me want to drink alcohol to make it smoother to go through without me wishing for death. I like the game, I love heavensward and I like Endwalker even with those idiotic time travel shenanigans. That didn't stop me from getting extremely bored a lot of times going from one quest to another, to another. The game has a story that is fucking long and it needs things to keep players from dropping it like many dropped during ARR. Island Sanctuary could help with that, like other things do, but they decided to gate it too fucking far. I don't enjoy sightseeing, I don't enjoy mahjong and I got what I wanted (for now) from the Gold Saucer. IS would help me go through the story again on this character and would help new players get through the slog that is the MSQ sometimes. There is NO need to keep it that far and it has absolutely NO ADVANTAGES for players. It's a decision they made that will only benefit them, not the playerbase.

[Jojoya]

It's a decision they made that will only benefit them, not the playerbase.

It doesn't especially benefit SE either. In the end, game sales and subscriptions are what SE benefits from and not how players choose to play the game once they've made the purchase and paid their subscription.

As many have pointed out, Island Sanctuary has the potential to keep someone subbed who is reaching burn out from the length of the current MSQ and is looking for something more relaxing to do with their game time. Housing should be similar in that respect but with the hyper focus on house ownership, lack of availability and purchase prices being a bit of a stretch for new players, it doesn't work very well as a way to retain subscriptions when players want a break from MSQ.

All that's really left is Gold Saucer, and there are players who are turned off by what they perceive to be the gambling aspects in it.

If there was some compelling reason for Island Sanctuary to be gated by completion of the 6.0 MSQ, then I wouldn't have issue with it. I'm not seeing any such reasons, though. I can remember one of the content creators mentioning something about Old Sharlayan being tied in because of the mammets but we see mammets included in the early game and are explained to be constructed through the combined efforts of the Goldsmith and Alchemist guilds, not imports from Sharlayan.

While the decision has been made and can't be changed for 6.2's release, it doesn't mean that SE can't revise that decision in the future and make the content available to players earlier with the unlock quest in a different location. Those of us who have been playing for a few years can remember how glamours used to be restricted to level 50 and you needed to get to Revenant's Toll to unlock them. Now they're available at level 15 in Vesper Bay. There are probably some other examples we can come up with if we put our collective heads together.

I'd like to ask SE to reconsider this decision. Seems like others in this thread likewise would appreciate it. I know my cousin would appreciate having access to it. She was just telling me yesterday how disappointed she was to find out that it requires completion of the 6.0 MSQ. She and her husband started FFXIV at the beginning of the year but they're playing through MSQ together and so their progress is gated by when he's available to play. Right now they're on post-Stormblood MSQ. She had been looking forward to Island Sanctuary as something to do when she can play but he's busy. Now it's going to be several months before she'll have access.

[Velvet_Lunarfang]

Place your bets now that the servers crash with everyone going to an island. With their status so far in each patch this year being bugged like lottery let's see how this fairs XD. Minimum $20 starting bet the game crashes first day

[Toutatis]

She was just telling me yesterday how disappointed she was to find out that it requires completion of the 6.0 MSQ. She and her husband started FFXIV at the beginning of the year but they're playing through MSQ together and so their progress is gated by when he's available to play. Right now they're on post-Stormblood MSQ. She had been looking forward to Island Sanctuary as something to do when she can play but he's busy. Now it's going to be several months before she'll have access.

The progress is gated due to her own personal choice. Why can’t she just move ahead with the MSQ? They’d be able to group up when he does MSQ dungeons and trials. The rest of MSQ is solo. She can even get another job at the same level as her husband’s and they can do activities in the same areas with no penalties to him.

I’ll wait and see what exactly SI is and if I like it. It doesn’t seem like it will allow for much creativity. We will see.