Yoshi-P's "new starting point of 6.1" and an alternative idea?

[Keichi]

I hoped to, that the 6.1 part would be a story, where a completly new chara could go into, similary to the start of 2.0.
That is even a reason, why i dislike it, that the scions are sonmuch involved in the new story.
6.0 has ended them very good. The organisation has ended and everyone started to do there own thing. The perfect moment for a new start with new people to meet. And the scions would only be guest, who would showing up for special moments for fanservice (like, in the pokemon specialmanga, where each story is with new chara, and old ones showing up for special events).

But, there would be probally be a problem with a completly new start point and the option to not be a/the WoL.
Azems crystall.

At the moment whe obtained it, was that crystall allways the explanation, where the other players are coming, for the trials. A new chara shouldnt have that stone.
That mean, the writers had to write again, where the new people are coming from (before that was it mostly simplyfied, that it are other people, who was there or was recruited for that fight). And it would question, why the WoL doesnt use that stone anymore.
Having a start point, where ypu simply know, that you has skipped most of the story, make it easier for the story writer (i think).

[Enkidoh]

Actually, that's a misconception based on players not watching the full scene and taking note of all the dialogue, the Scions didn't disband at all at the end of EW, they merely spread stories they did, in order to work more clandestinely moving forward (given a whole lot of trouble and bloodshed that was inflicted on them over the years was caused by them being out in the open and various competing forces trying to manipulate them for their own ends), just like they did when they were still the Path of the Twelve before the Calamity, when they pretended to be a weird Twelve-worshipping cult but were really a safe haven and research guild of the Echo and those possessing it's power.

The Scions of the Seventh Dawn still exists, they're just working independently behind the scenes.

[Cleretic]

Actually, that's a misconception based on players not watching the full scene and taking note of all the dialogue, the Scions didn't disband at all at the end of EW, they merely spread stories they did, in order to work more clandestinely moving forward (given a whole lot of trouble and bloodshed that was inflicted on them over the years was caused by them being out in the open and various competing forces trying to manipulate them for their own ends), just like they did when they were still the Path of the Twelve before the Calamity, when they pretended to be a weird Twelve-worshipping cult but were really a safe haven and research guild of the Echo and those possessing it's power.

The Scions of the Seventh Dawn still exists, they're just working independently behind the scenes.

There's also sort of an element of 'on-paper truths'. The organization known as the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have disbanded, because the purpose of said organization ('deal with that primal problem and its root causes') had run its course; they preferred to dissolve the body rather than leave it without clear purpose. That doesn't mean the group as a more nebulous group of allies stops existing, they just shut down their Facebook business page and moved out of the office.

[Vallavia]

At this point I wish the devs would outright address the public disbandment of the Scions again either in or out of context given how tiresome its endurance is, to speak nothing of its propensity to derail every discussion with semantics as though the intention wasn't outright textually stated. I'm reminded of the first hour in Sharlayan which included conspicuously straightforward dialogue dedicated to dispelling years-old misconceptions such as having completely closed borders. To the topic at hand, though...

The "6.1 as a skip point" was raised ages ago and has only just floated up from the depths of the internet this week. I am not aware of it having been newly stated by the devs.

I suspect the whole idea came about before they actually wrote 6.X and/or was not communicated well to the writers, because the story is not suited to the idea.

6.55 would be a better starting point (even for the official paid skip) to properly introduce the important characters for Dawntrail before it kicks off.

This seems to me like the most likely scenario on all accounts; in my opinion spending the entire 6.x development cycle making 98% of MSQ battle content playable solo would be a strange move if the ultimate plan was to just drop new players straight after all of it. Like Enkidoh said, it would also be doing away with a very valuable revenue stream, but with SE's track record it may be unfair to assume that the 6.1 start wouldn't be monetized.

I'm not sure whether or not the article from last week that everyone's buzzing about is new or a republish, but having read it to the best of my ability it's still rather wishy-washy and lacking in specific details, even outright stating that they're unsure if they'd implement such a thing in Dawntrail.

[Iscah]

I'm not sure whether or not the article from last week that everyone's buzzing about is new or a republish, but having read it to the best of my ability it's still rather wishy-washy and lacking in specific details, even outright stating that they're unsure if they'd implement such a thing in Dawntrail.

The only article I've seen quoted recently is the one still talking about something that is clearly the Unending Codex in vague future terms, so dates back to pre-6.X.

[Kaliesto]

The way I'm seeing it is if this is allowed then the new player character would have to be someone entirely different, and the WoL to you would be someone who just saved the world (which means you're a random adventurer watching from the sidelines) & you were a background character for the Scions (meaning you're just a random adventurer working for the scions) OR you just joined the Scions after Endwalker was over.

The problem here is if the New Player ever decides to go back the older stuff the narrative really gets screwed up for your character and it stops making sense.

So logically there probably isn't going to be a alternate storyline.

Honestly this is on the players that are too damn impatient with the attention span of a gnat which is all too common with gaming now, I'm sorry I gotta be blunt about it.

[Loggos]

I agree. I think it could also lead to this weird cognitive divide between some players' characters being the universe-saving heroes and somebody being just... someone. A lot of our prowess seems to be tied to our being a shard of Azem because the Azems of different shards always end up as some kind of key figure for their world. (I'm not sure if we still possess Hydealin's blessing after defeating her and if the Echo is still a thing but if we still possess either or both then this probably adds even more layers to the lore-based power difference.)

Of course it could be fun to make the deliberate choice to play a "normal" person instead of a hero in Eorzea. To be a lot more like the scions and the allies that helped the WoL along the way, since the WoL is essentially a Chosen One story.

But if you are a completely new player then you are not making this deliberate choice. You probably don't know what this game is about except on the surface and then when you are already in it you notice that you could have been the chosen one and now you are just one rando when you'd like to have been the former.
(And I'd argue that even if you give people the option in the character creator to either hop right into Dawntrail or start with ARR you probably still can't really make that decision.
You don't know how the world, the characters, the story, the magic/sense of adventure feel since you haven't played and gathered any personal experience with the its atmosphere and setting yet. Perhaps after getting to know the world, characters and feel after a bit of playtime you'd come to the conclusion that you would have made a different decision as to where you'd like to start the story.)

So I don't think alternative storylines are necessarily a good idea.

What Yoshi-P is mentioning in terms of "start with season 1" and "making it easier to catch up" could be a good middle ground - in theory of course because somebody already brought up the very good point that story skips are an important revenue stream.

But hypothetically speaking I think it would be better if everyone is the WoL and newcomers in Dawntrail can decide whether they want to go through the entire (but hopefully a little revamped) experience or if they want to get a very condensed version of the events (I don't know if this should involve active gameplay or be more on the cutscene-heavy side with new players getting the choice to mostly passively consume some form of "lore summary") at the self-imposed risk of missing nuances and experiences for a faster entry into the WoL's new adventures.
At the same time, they could also get something like a "new game plus light", i.e., if they decide after the condensed catch up that they'd actually like to play through everything before hopping into Dawntrail they can still return to that path despite having spoiled the story for themselves (the "price" they paid for their previous decision so to speak).

[Eastwall]

Just make it that instanced content only check party leader's story progression for entrance.