I am extremely concerned about this

[Supersnow845]

1.0’s story was a bit different because nobody remembered that you were the original WOL (except Minfillia and Cid in the legacy cutscenes) everyone remembers you after prae but by that point even ARR WOL’s are famous so them suddenly dropping the original WOL plot works fine

The H+Z story has shifted the entire 7 remaining worlds in a massive way, if they altered dialogue based on if you skipped or not they would be writing functionally two seperate games

[DrForester]

1.0’s story was a bit different because nobody remembered that you were the original WOL (except Minfillia and Cid in the legacy cutscenes) everyone remembers you after prae but by that point even ARR WOL’s are famous so them suddenly dropping the original WOL plot works fine

The H+Z story has shifted the entire 7 remaining worlds in a massive way, if they altered dialogue based on if you skipped or not they would be writing functionally two seperate games

The remaining shards won't know who we are. Based on what we saw on The First, the Final Days didn't impacts the shards. Ryne could sense something was up, and had a vision, but that's it. We don't really need to be introduced as the Savior of the Star every time we meet someone. With Dawntrail being a new adventure, I don't think it will be too hard to let our future fame rest on what we do now.

Really the only people who will REALLY care about what we've done are the 4 remaining ascians, and who knows if they will be antagonistic or not (if they're not tempered following Zodiark's demise, who knows what their reaction will be).

[Swordsman]

I'm still for a story skip because all that MSQ is just too much. Just have SE implement some kind of tutorial and I think it'll be fine.

[Bun_Vivant]

I'm still for a story skip because all that MSQ is just too much. Just have SE implement some kind of tutorial and I think it'll be fine.

As I have six characters at End-of-Content and two currently doing Shadowbringers, I like story skip because Stormblood wasn't to my taste the first few times I played it.

[Asari5]

there are a lot of player thoug who were like 'doing quests? i hate that, i would rather skip'
and after doing the story for a bit they start enjoying it. its not because arr is slow but because people arent used to it.
of course there are always the people who cant get used to it, but those other people will miss out on it

and yes there already are too many people who dont use aoe and mitigation in higher lvl dungeons. people who need 100 dungeons to get used to pulling two groups at once and more ... do we really need more of these players?

[caffe_macchiato]

Curious. Haven't people been going on ad nauseum about how the story is the best part of FFXIV and the main reason to play this game? Yet as soon as Yoshi-P starts endorsing a free skip, people defend him and call those who back the story trolls? Something's not right here. Is he the Second Coming? Why play this game at all if the story is skippable?

They should abridge the story to be 50 hours prior to 7.0 like any other RPG. But as I'm not Yoshi-P, I'm sure that idea would be criticized for not coming from His Highness. As well as all of you who "cry" during every cutscene of this game. Alternately, Square Enix can do like it did fifteen other times and make a sequel, but that would essentially be a story skip too.

Lastly, it's nice seeing how it took no time at all for WoW to be brought up because this skip feature is associated with WoW. You know that FFXIV is a WoW clone, right?

[CaptainLagbeard]

With Endwalker the whole big story arc that's been ongoing since at least 2.0, probably even from 1.x days, was finally finished and with Dawntrail we're supposed to be starting onto a new major story arc. I don't see why they couldn't look into making it as an optional new onboarding point new players.

The problem really is the hundreds of hours of cutscenes and thousands of quests containing important lore that might just leave a new player confused if they know nothing about it. Anyone who hasn't gone through the MSQ probably would have very limited idea of who any of the Scions are and why they circle around the WoL.

[Saraide]

Yea roulettes and DT dungeons would be a nightmare but I think the main problem there is between keyboard and chair. The game isnt rocket surgery, if someone wants to learn from scratch they can easily do so. There will still be tons of rotational errors but the fundamentals are very easy to grasp.

I find the concerns about other people skipping story and then not knowing what happens very weak. It's their decisions to skip. Not knowing what happens in the story because of skipping is the obvious consequence. You dont need to be a long time ff14 player to know this. Even if they do end up regretting the skip that's their problem to deal with. Shouldnt have skipped then.

[Jojoya]

1. Nothing in what he said indicated anyone would be getting 3 expansions for free. They're still going to have to purchase the base game plus Dawntrail.

True they wouldn't have to pay for the story skip but suspect I SE would follow Blizzard's lead and restrict it to one character per expansion purchase.

If SE chooses to implement the new starting point for MSQ, no one is going to be jumping straight into end game anymore than they already are with a story skip. It wouldn't be implemented until Dawntrail and at that point endgame becomes the new raid and trials from 7.0, not 6.1. Those players are going to have to do not just the 7.0 MSQ but the 6.1 to 6.5 MSQ as well.

2. That problem already exists and quite honestly, I don't think there's any way to prevent it short of having some sort of "Proving Grounds" type content.

It's also not insulting to the rest of us. The only ones that will feel insulted are those looking for reasons to feel victimized. The MMORPG industry is way past the point of no return when it comes to level skips. Even WoW's system for training players who are purchasing level skips is near useless. It comes down to the same thing that we're discussed in other topics about player skill - you will never be able to force someone to put in extra effort or learn if they are not interested in doing so.

3. Okay, no problem. SE can change the starting point from 6.1 to 6.55. Problem solved.

No one needs to play through Heavensward to follow what happens in the 6.1-6.5 MSQ anymore than we need to have played through 1.0-1.13 to understand what happens in 2.0. They miss out on the fine detail behind some of the things mentioned but it doesn't make the story gibberish.

As YoshiP says, there can be some sort of message strongly suggesting that the player start with ARR instead of taking advantage of the level skip. In the end, it's up to the player. Many players have zero interest in story, coming from other games with some pretty bad story telling, just to discover they want to know what's going on in this one. Let them discover for themselves if they want to know the story or not. We've got plenty of players with no interest in it as it is, why only penalize the new player?

[Jeeqbit]

is kinda a kick in the teeth to those who had to pay for it and grind through it.

Not a good point, because this happens all the time. I had to "grind through extreme trials" to get the mount just for people to unsync it effortlessly years later or get it via mogtomes. I had to fight through challenging savage mechanics just for people to solo them years later. I had to spend weeks doing beast tribe quests just for people to get a few mogtomes for the mount. It is what it is. That's how the game has been for the last 10 years so it's nothing new really.

2. and this is my strongest point. its not about msq, its about the things u learn through the msq. u learn ur job, and basic mecanics. jumping right into 6.1 is going to birth an insane amount of "skippers" who know literally nothing about the game, its core mecanics and thats going to be reflected in your roulettes.

Although that is true, they can (and probably will) cross that road when they come to it, such as making a 6.1 version of Hall of the Novice that teaches all the basic mechanics seen up to 6.1. It could be in the form of a Sharlayan lecture in a classroom, or a practical test in the rocky mountains of Thavnair by the striking dummies.

I think it's a good point but they will most likely notice it being a major problem, if they don't account for it initially.

tanks who are sprouts but on the same level dng as you with nowhere near the experience you do. Healers completly overwhelmed by the sheer number of buttons.

Honestly though, some people already skip; some people pickup GNB and enter a level 60 dungeon not knowing the first thing about tanking; people already get overwhelmed by the amount of buttons when unlocking higher levels jobs like Sage or Reaper, and I've had plenty of people say how overwhelmed they are even at low levels because although most of the low-level abilities are barely used (like role actions), to a sprout they still look overwhelming/confusing on some jobs.

core gameplay experiences like Grand company ect.

Although it's true they may not know what a Grand Company is due to this, there are likely many people that don't rank it up at all anyway until they have to for hunts or other reasons.

a player skipping the expansions is going to also find the amount of "backwards" content daunting.

They already do because many just do the MSQ and skip the normal raid and side trial stories.

3. starting from 6.1 is an even worse idea than ARR. the story in 6.1 is GARBAGE and also doesnt make sense to anybody who didnt play half of heavensward and ARR (tlaking about void lore)

True. They would need some sort of introduction to the void first, such as being required to do Amdapor Keep.

removing all this content will further send messages that give the wrong idea. wanting to buy a game and just not engaging with 80% of it.. whats the point

They would have the option to start from the beginning. Plus, New Game+ exists to still go through the story from the beginning without preventing their access to end game content.