Discuss : Have boosts been detrimental to the playerbase

[Merrigan]

Why TF should any player have to put in less effort than those who came before them?

Because there's a difference between the player who did everything the old-fashioned way, but only had two extensions to do the old-fashioned way, and the player who arrives and has to do five of them the old-fashioned way. It's not at all the same thing in terms of perception and state of mind when you start out.

As an aside: it would be good to stop using the 'I'm a former player' argument to excuse all the pseudo ""purist"" attitudes. If you really have a purist's attitude to the mmorpg genre, can I recommend games like Outward, Star Wars Galaxies, or T4C? These are all excellent games, and have nothing to do with FFXIV or WOW, the current mmorpg titles that are already, in themselves, the epitome of laziness if you compare them to their predecessors.

You shouldn't be allowed to purchase a job skip until you have Lv50 in that role. I often get skippers who are completely incapable of playing their role in dutyfinder with any level of competence. Skippers are also the ones who invariably have major attitude problems, such as screaming at people for "stealing aggro" and having usual the "sit down until you kick me" tantrum when called out on their obvious inexperience.

Very good! In that case, let's force all the players who've taken a big break to build a new character up to level 50. Oh, with a skill test as well, because some people are particularly slow to relearn the game. I'd also like all players below a certain dps to be excluded from my PF. Oh, and anyone who's a bit old too, they're too slow and everyone knows that boomers are unpleasant.

Seriously though, that's a strange argument. You come across people who aren't very good all the time in dungeons. I don't know where you get this prejudice about skipers having a bad attitude (I've never seen it myself), but a simple reminder ("you've skipped, but learning a character can take time; you should probably do a few low-level dungeons before jumping into the content of the current expansion") is enough.

[Kuroka]

I still think boosts should only exist if you already played the game on one char and want to level another one - if you dont want to play the game or job then just... dont play.

[Kaurhz]

I still think boosts should only exist if you already played the game on one char and want to level another one - if you dont want to play the game or job then just... dont play.

Problem here is that there is hundreds of hours of watching story content just to actually play the game in any substantive manner, and this is part to do with SEs absolute poor care to meaningfully breathe life into lower level content, and partly for the point below..

XIV has a great story and all, but MSQ dominates the majority of what people will engage with for a good 200-300 hours, and everything else doesn't even come close. It's not until you finish Stormblood where players actually get a whiff of meaningful content, and this is also a problem because MSQ is heavily cutscene oriented to the point where it is more akin to watching a visual novel than what it is actually playing a game.

Equally going from a player having a full job kit to essentially starting from Level 1, or arguably even level 30 again is a pretty drab experience, that it also hardly constitutes as playing a job, more than what it does playing an absolute shell of a job.

[Kuroka]

Problem here is that there is hundreds of hours of watching story content just to actually play the game in any substantive manner, and this is part to do with SEs absolute poor care to meaningfully breathe life into lower level content, and partly for the point below..

XIV has a great story and all, but MSQ dominates the majority of what people will engage with for a good 200-300 hours, and everything else doesn't even come close. It's not until you finish Stormblood where players actually get a whiff of meaningful content, and this is also a problem because MSQ is heavily cutscene oriented to the point where it is more akin to watching a visual novel than what it is actually playing a game.

Well what is meaningful content? whats actually worth it?

The Lala in my Profile Pic is the 2nd char i did all the story all over again - and id gladly do it again if id had more time lol

This game is story focused, if people dont like it, its just not the right game. We really dont need those ppl who skip every cutscene, rush to endgame, finish the patch and return for the next even numbered Patch or even expansion...

[Kaurhz]

Well what is meaningful content? whats actually worth it?

The Lala in my Profile Pic is the 2nd char i did all the story all over again - and id gladly do it again if id had more time lol

This game is story focused, if people dont like it, its just not the right game. We really dont need those ppl who skip every cutscene, rush to endgame, finish the patch and return for the next even numbered Patch or even expansion...

Well that much obviously varies from player to player, but the fact remains that a vast majority of the content is locked behind an exorbitant amount of story.

Yes, well done, good for you I guess? It's a lot easier to do it, twice, three times or even four than what it is to do it for the first initial time when you don't have a fallback main character that you can simply whisk into a plethora of content to fill the void. A lot of players' only choice under this system would be to trudge through a few hundred hours of story to actually play with their friends in a lot of the games content. It's not a realistic expectation. This would be entirely different if the game did not lock everything behind the story.

I think you can like story-oriented games, but still take issue with the current predicament that this game is in, especially with how long the game itself has been running, and the amount of catchup that people are required to do. But whilst we're on the subject of saying "We really don't need those players" -- What this game could do a lot less with is players feeling like they have some dictatorial position on how others should or shouldn't consume the game for that matter.

[PyurBlue]

Well what is meaningful content? whats actually worth it?

That's up to individual preference.

This game is story focused, if people dont like it, its just not the right game. We really dont need those ppl who skip every cutscene, rush to endgame, finish the patch and return for the next even numbered Patch or even expansion...

The story being mandatory is contributing to the rush to endgame to a degree. FF14 is a multiplayer game and the story seems to try as hard as possible to make playing with friends difficult. Loosening content restrictions may even be a good thing for story appreciation since people would only participate when they were willing to. You can make something mandatory, but that doesn't make enjoying it mandatory too.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Wow, this thread certainly went places.

[Rueby]

I leveled 11 characters manually with 4 in ShB and EW and the rest is in post ARR. I never boosted any.

But I also understand no one is as crazy as I am. I also understand there are people who only have limited amount of time to play the game due to work/irl stuff, and maybe they have money to skip all the tedium or have no interest in the story. This game is a nightmare if you try to speedrun or rush it- it literally works against you. If a player isn't interested in the MSQ and just wants to get to endgame to play with their friends....I feel like SE will lose potential customers there, and I guess there will be a barrier for people to get their friends in.

I'm not a huge fan of boosts and I don't think boosts should be just 10 levels only, perhaps 20 levels is fine....but eh. It's not aimed at me. I don't like it, but I know why it's there and I understand in this day and age not everyone has time.

[Boblawblah]

I think the real money cost of boosts discourages a lot of people from using them, which I think is good. The story is meant to be played, and if you want to skip it...

[TheMightyMollusk]

I haven't noticed boosted players who don't care to learn how to play being any worse than regular players who don't care to learn how to play.