/r/ffxivdiscussion: XIV is becoming too big MSQ wise?

[Swordsman]

Crossposting this over from the r/ffxivdiscussion subreddit because I think it raises an important issue regarding the number of hours needed for MSQ and brand new players who are required to play through it all.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus..._big_msq_wise/

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Original Post:

As title does stay do you think that Dawntrail should slowly introduce a new fresh start for a new players?

If not soon we will have 400h+ of MSQ.

And what with further explanations?

What are your thoughts on this? Myself I do love MSQ of the game however at what point it will be too much for new people to handle?

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Top comment:

"I think Yoshi P has mentioned the same issue before, so at least CBU3 is aware of how long new players have to go before reaching current content. He also mentioned that they were looking at ways to enable players to skip to 7.0, but nothing solid on if that’s coming with Dawntrail.

It’s pretty tough with FFXIV since there’s so much emphasis on the story. Like, how do you easily slot in someone who’s completely new to the world halfway through? But then again, they do sell level and story skips, so maybe if they did set a new start point at 7.0 sometime in the future, you could skip to that and have a big “the story up to now” journal you could peruse."

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Other notable comments:

"I think the devs have discussed a new entry point in the future, because they've acknowledged that it's getting to be too big of a task for new players. Dawntrail does seem to be the logical point for that at this time, but they haven't indicated that it will be."

"It's hard getting friends/family past the arr storyline and slog of quests up to heavensward . Maybe skip that part entirely with a 10minute summary video or something . They did a good job fine-tuning it recently but I think more needs to be done to make it more interesting"

"It's been too big for a long time. There's still a lot of segments of ARR that they could remove and nobody would notice. Like the long build-up quests for Titan and Garuda that just kind of have you running all over the map and teleporting all over the place"

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My personal take? I agree with implementing a way for new players to skip the MSQ and head straight to Dawntrail, and I even say that as someone who's really enjoyed expansions such as HW and ShB. ARR to EW is a huge time sink, and I think it's way too much for a new player to do just to get to the beginning of DT.

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves below. Cheers.

[Jeeqbit]

It's far too late to raise this point... the MSQ has been "too big" for a very long time. We are beyond the point where we can stop that now.

We all thought "the MSQ could end at 6.0 and a brand new one begin". Or that 7.0 could be a brand new start area with a new MSQ, starting at level 1 (and just not giving exp if you are 90). But that isn't happening. So we are just beyond salvaging this.

I have thought about it and I think that the MSQ isn't really that long if you have a lot of time. It's long if you do the sidequests like I do. It takes most people about 1-2 days to complete a core expansion skipping cutscenes, 4 days without sidequests but watching cutscenes, and it takes me about 2 weeks including sidequests.

So skipping sidequests, it's about 16 days for the core expansions, probably double that to account for patches, so let's assume 32 days. Then there is ARR and its patches, which I think is much longer due to all the dungeons in ARR and not having mounts at first. Adding to that, the person is new. So we can add 2-4 weeks for ARR. Someone could probably get through watching cutscenes in about 2 months.

But a lot of people work and can only spare a few hours a day, so they end up taking a year or more.

In summary, I see a few options:

1. Acceptance that spending a year or two doing MSQ is part of the initiation to the game.
2. Making a MSQ skip a free part of the game, then pointing the person to New Game+ so they can experience the story gradually if they want while still having access to late-game content.
3. Make a MSQ skip a free part of the game, then make the new MSQ only vaguely reference old characters and reintroduce old characters as if they are new.
4. Finally create a new MSQ that doesn't acknowledge the old characters unless you have completed the other quests, and don't require the old MSQ quests, and start these quests at level 1.

[Erinellza]

Not sure why MSQ length is an issue. Just do the story at your own pace, endgame content isn't going anywhere. Unless you want to do current Extremes or whatever but 95% of the players are casuals who don't care about hard content. People should learn that they don't have to rush. It's an MMO, it should take a long time to experience every content in the game.

Maybe I'm weird but when I was a new player at the end of 2019 I nolifed the whole MSQ in 3 weeks and I wanted more story, lol. I had an existential crisis when I ran out of MSQ.

[strawberrycake]

What do people think a story driven MMO thats constantly expansing upon it's narrative is gonna do? Like not to be a troll or something, just..........the game being a story focused game is one of it's main selling points, I'm expecting a 400+ hour story xD.

[Kes13a]

I suppose they could just make the OP happy and pull a Destiny 2.

"vaulting" a majority of the game certainly made it easier to jump right into current content... and removed any emotional attachment in the process. when a game developer removes a bunch of early content, it lessens the game and anyone new would look at older players who remember something and think they are crazy.

MSQ skip sure, but not all the way to Dawntrail, at that point why actually start the game? why not give them max level with full BiS gear too?

[sindriiisgaming]

Crossposting this over from the r/ffxivdiscussion subreddit because I think it raises an important issue regarding the number of hours needed for MSQ and brand new players who are required to play through it all.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus..._big_msq_wise/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original Post:

As title does stay do you think that Dawntrail should slowly introduce a new fresh start for a new players?

If not soon we will have 400h+ of MSQ.

And what with further explanations?

What are your thoughts on this? Myself I do love MSQ of the game however at what point it will be too much for new people to handle?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Top comment:

"I think Yoshi P has mentioned the same issue before, so at least CBU3 is aware of how long new players have to go before reaching current content. He also mentioned that they were looking at ways to enable players to skip to 7.0, but nothing solid on if that’s coming with Dawntrail.

It’s pretty tough with FFXIV since there’s so much emphasis on the story. Like, how do you easily slot in someone who’s completely new to the world halfway through? But then again, they do sell level and story skips, so maybe if they did set a new start point at 7.0 sometime in the future, you could skip to that and have a big “the story up to now” journal you could peruse."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other notable comments:

"I think the devs have discussed a new entry point in the future, because they've acknowledged that it's getting to be too big of a task for new players. Dawntrail does seem to be the logical point for that at this time, but they haven't indicated that it will be."

"It's hard getting friends/family past the arr storyline and slog of quests up to heavensward . Maybe skip that part entirely with a 10minute summary video or something . They did a good job fine-tuning it recently but I think more needs to be done to make it more interesting"

"It's been too big for a long time. There's still a lot of segments of ARR that they could remove and nobody would notice. Like the long build-up quests for Titan and Garuda that just kind of have you running all over the map and teleporting all over the place"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My personal take? I agree with implementing a way for new players to skip the MSQ and head straight to Dawntrail, and I even say that as someone who's really enjoyed expansions such as HW and ShB. ARR to EW is a huge time sink, and I think it's way too much for a new player to do just to get to the beginning of DT.

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves below. Cheers.

if you go to a fish market you get fish

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I suppose they could just make the OP happy and pull a Destiny 2.

"vaulting" a majority of the game certainly made it easier to jump right into current content... and removed any emotional attachment in the process. when a game developer removes a bunch of early content, it lessens the game and anyone new would look at older players who remember something and think they are crazy.

MSQ skip sure, but not all the way to Dawntrail, at that point why actually start the game? why not give them max level with full BiS gear too?

Yeah, and not only that, but the game and dlc you actually paid for is gone, never to be played again. I own the game and first dlc, and none of that content exists anymore. It's gone.



And when I found that out, I un-installed the game and never touched it again.

[Kes13a]

Yeah, and not only that, but the game and dlc you actually paid for is gone, never to be played again. I own the game and first dlc, and none of that content exists anymore. It's gone.



And when I found that out, I un-installed the game and never touched it again.

a friend wanted me to play so I picked it up and they are like Red War and Dead-6, I mean Cayde-6, and all that and how they related to anything meant absolutely nothing

once they remove things it also removes any meaning the game may have once had. sure they added some Cayde memorial, but again.. means nothing to me and was a waste of developer resources in attempt to attach me to a past they had removed.

[Asari5]

what is so special about the endgame you have to rush til you reach it? the fights may be a little bit more difficult than the lvl 50 or 60 ones nowadays, but thats it.

you wanna make the actual game shorter to do what little endgame ff14 has? and yes there really isnt a lot.

some people may wanna say something else about glam and mounts, but thats just nonsense.
your glam journey starts on 15 and your mount collection on 20.
take a msq break and do lvl 50 primals synch. do the void-arch questline or go to the casino.
you dont have people for that? i guess your friends arent really friends and your fc is a bad one.

well, finding a good fc isnt that easy and also the datacenter travel is the death for party finder on some datacenters. sucks to play mmo nowadays

[Fyrebrand]

There is no good way to have a new "starting point" that skips all the old MSQ. Not from a story perspective, and not from a gameplay perspective. Newbies will have a very confusing time, they won't know what any of their skills do, they won't understand any of the various systems and features they're meant to be using at that point, and they won't have any idea what is going on in the plot. It will be a terrible gaming experience for them, but it will also be a terrible experience for us who get matched with them in Duty Finder. You get frustrated with bad players NOW? Try making every new player start at level 90+ and see how that goes. I bet a lot of new players who join under this system would just quit.