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Invited 9 people to start playing 14, only 1 reached EW. Majority gave up on ARR with how weak the story and gameplay is, and took you hours to even finish. Me personally love the story, i even did every yellow quests without skipping. But not everyone is the same and if they don't change just expect lower new player counts for every new expansion to come.
I can see where the story would be incredibly daunting for new players, I don't invite my friends to play 14 with me because I know it'll take 200+ hours of play time to reach endgame where I am at. And It's rather difficult to convince someone to get through ALL of that story when there is, let's be real a lot of slog in-between especially in ARR and the longer the game goes with each xpac, the more daunting it will become. I'd even consider this game more RPG than MMO. Also I believe there's a lot of negative stigma from the community if someone 'skips' the story. It's unfortune I can't easily invite friends who enjoy MMO's to play this game with me, because most of them quit before even finishing ARR and honestly I don't blame them.
They should add a "fast version" that basically cuts out most if not all filler and just gives you the most important plots to do. This preserves the story and gives those that dont care too much to do a more acceptable length but still can follow the story. BDO has something like this if you complete a certain part first.
I am a new player and honestly, even I have problems and was about to quit in post arr. What I mean with even I is, that I read a ton of stuff, and get invested even in longer more sluggish stories and books. Even for things that are normally not to my taste, I am willing to read even if I dislike it. The Writing and story in Arr is bad, I really could predict a lot of the stuff that was gonna happen and it did not change much in Heavensward and I am now in Stormblood. At least for me, many things became predictable, after figuring out the pattern and way more than obvious hints at how the story would progress. Many quests be it beginning in Arr and post Arr are a slog, not needed for the overall story, and should have already been cut, or should have been converted to side quests. Not to mention what kind of an emotional slog it is, one bad news after another, get happy or good news? Too bad something bad happened you need to fix it now, with no real room to even breathe. Sure bad things happen and it's clear problems exist in the world, but it feels particularly bad, when you finally do something big, that should be celebrated and instantly you are sent away to do another thing. What I also dislike is the sudden change of the Story or more particular having multiple story strings that you switch between. This is even more jarring when you find out something important and are close to figuring out story A, only to be sent to story C instead. Not to mention the many obvious hints in the story or clues you gather that do not help you at all, since f you, all the information your little club possesses and knows is useless since the plot gonna need to happen right? Not to mention all kinds of other extra or let's say more important parts for the story being locked behind a blue quest, when it could have been in the MSQ and would have made more sense in there, than some other quest we are sent on. Sure Heavensward is way better than Arr when it comes to story, but even then there were moments that felt too played out, and again even at the point where I am, it's still one bad thing happening after another. Which is honestly emotionally exhausting. I know other players had time to actually breathe in between these bigger story moments and gut punches, But I do not have it, as I as a new player need to go through the msq to play the more so-called fun stuff or even have a chance to get the glamour I want, as it's locked at behind lvl 90, yes for the Island managing thing glamour, or higher levels for stuff like the 2b glamour... And each gut punch and each good news shattered by even more bad news make me wanna quit the game or at least take a month-long break. But I know if I do it, I would have to probably sit through 2 more expansions worth of gut punches, I would now have to sit through.
I think the game has reached a point where it might be time for the devs to consider squishing down the MSQ quests again. Like getting rid of the fetch quests that have almost nothing to do beyond padding the length of the quest chains. Like making two trips to pick up some [spoilers] to load into a cart. Too many quests that just involve running back and forth. They squished the MSQ before, so it's not something new.
Only reducing the time for fetch quest wouldn't really matter. You would still have hundreds of hours of just plain story and this goes only up by dozens of hours for every expansion.
The problem isnt the quantity of quests or content. The game is full of exposition bloats where a character will spend 2 full message boxes worth of text articulating something that could have just been communicated in a couple lines of dialog that is further exasperated by the fact that every character needs to comment on everything including eachothers comments
@@safermurderweapon This. The only way to shorten the MSQ in any real way is to compress the story. The stuff you do between the story except for dungeons and trails is extremely short especially in the later expansions.
This. When in between two major threats to the lives of thousands of people, the WoL just gets some random assignment to hunt animals to get materials for BREWING TEA. That threw me off.
I don't really think a simple story skip would work, since it is a major source of gear and exp to level up. If you want to cut that out, you end with what we already have in the game, which is a skip you can pay some money for that allows you to catch up to the latest expansion. Personally I think that is fine tbh. It would be a good idea to cut out more of the kind of lenghty quests in ARR to spare people the needless running around so you can fast track in a day if you grind it. But once we get to newer expansions, the quest design and story improves and cutting out stuff is going to be more difficult. Let's take EW for example. Took me 3 days to clear the entire story. There is no need to really do much there....grinding 3 days to get through the current expansion is decent in my opinion.
I would suggest something like in Lost Ark. There you can skip but it offers you to "replay" important story parts. Something like this could also be done with FFXIV where you get a condensed version of the story and also some single player versions of the important fights adding a few more new skills at a time till you have your full Endwalker skillset. Sure that wouldn't be as good as getting the full story but at the end players would at least have an idea of what happened.
I really enjoy end game content. I do a ton of raiding and M+ on WoW and really want to get into FF14, but 100 hours of MSQ is extremely daunting. It makes me get bored quickly. I heard the story gets insanely good in further expansions, but realm reborn isn't great from what I heard.
Honestly my solution would be to Completely Voice Act the entirety of ARR with the new voice actors. You would be surprised how much more engaged people are when something has audio.
I'm all for this! but it would make it even longer because the VO is slower than the reading. You'd surely capture more people though I think there would still be a large majority that would give up.
Good for you. I'm currently playing FFXIV, do high end raiding and love the story. But there was a real chance I would not be here because the first time I tried FFXIV, (before Stormblood) I didn't make it through ARR and the second time (during Shadowbringers) I rushed that part and enjoyed everything after it. The majority of people will not get through the base game or even start after they have heard how long it will take. I'm glad you are enjoying it but there is nothing bad about having options for people who aren't as resilient as you.
IMHO: Dawntrail is meant to be the beginning of a "new" saga,. Apart from the NPCs relationships that were developed: a new player who just wants to experience Dawntrail as their "beginning" into FFXIV might find the previous "saga" to be irrelevant. One option that Ive heard from several players in FFXIV would be to have the game split into two starting points. For example: after a character is created, the player is given which "saga" to start with. If the player chooses Dawntrail: the game would "speed run" the player through their job/class, focusing on getting the job/class leveled, and touching on that basic story of ARR through EW. If a player chooses to start with ARR: then the game would progress normally. I do agree that a lot of the "fetch" quests are time consuming; but, they are meant for the player to "see" their surroundings in the game. Havjng said that: i don't think it is necessary to have a player do multiple "fetch" quests to fulfill that purpose. A lot of the "burn out" IMHO comes for forcing players to stay in the same area too long. Its one thing to spend hours in ARR; but, hours on just one small part of the world as a whole gets tedious. One avenue SE should have gone down (IMHO) is to have Viper and Pictomancer be starting jobs right from the start in Dawntrail. ARR through EW should stand alone/apart from Dawntrail. Yes: i know... New players would be overwhelmed with all the new abilities; but, this would have given SE a way to imrpove or redo the job/class trainer. An example would be that a new player would be required to complete a certain "training regiment" before being released into the world of Dawtrail: with said regiment not being rushed but not being super slow either. An existing player could be given the option to do this as well or opt out of it. While I love playing FFXIV and i am still foing through the MSQ: I do find FFXIV to be in an awkward state at the moment as there can't be a "one size fits all" solution for the game. There is no consensus on how things should be done or handled. If a new player comkng from another game or MMO that has the tank/healer/two DPS setup: they could probably figure out their job/class abilities fairly quickly and even develop a basic proficiency given practice. However, gatekeeping or "skip shaming" isn't the answer either. No one should be made to feel like "less" of a player for using a job or story skip. I've seen this happen more than once where a player asked where something was in the game and other players tort back "Ah... A story/job skip per. If you had played the game correctly: then you would know where such and such is." Heck, even i can't remember where everything is within the world of FFXIV. TLDR: the perception of what the right or wrong way a player chooses to take in FFXIV needs to be done away with. What is right for one may not be what is right for another. At this point: mayhap SE should have separated FFXIV into two separate MMOs under the same title. IMHO though, being able to start directly into Dawntrail with the option to go back and play ARR through EW would make more sense for new players who just want to start with Dawntrail. Then again: that would still feel right for some and wrong for others.
So i personally like how it is minus story skip being an option, i like the idea of the other people with me in endgame experienced the story and we made the great journey getting there. But yes i understand that it does alienate new players and that since they are a business they need to address it.
I personally think this is an absolute must! While I do love the story from ARR to EW... it is waaaay to much for most new players. Heck I struggled with it when it was just up to stormblood :/. 100% of my friends that have played FFXIV have quit before getting anywhere meaningful and mostly because it's just too long. Now that the story has ended, and a new one begins it is the perfect time to do this and allow them to go back and to the original story whenever they feel like it (already have NG+ anyway). I do think that tutorials helper quests to 'catch them up' with things is a must too if they do this. Gatekeepers need to chill out.
I was one of the many, many people who were initially filtered out during ARR, particularly the Company of Heroes questline. I just didn't care enough about the game at the time, because the game itself didn't seem to value my time at all with the seemingly redundant fetch quests. Everything after ARR was absolutely exciting and engaging, but I had to hold my own face to the grindstone just to get to that point. A major storyskip to HW is absolutely something I will recommend to other people now that NG+ is something the game offers just so they don't get filtered out like I did, and I think the team has the right idea, but I also think skipping all of the vanilla experience is going too far, as Shadowbringers and Endwalker are some of the most emotionally touching stories I have experienced.
I find the argument of story skippers not knowing how to play the game. Most players do not know how to play their jobs because MSQ has so little combat in it, constantly syncs them down, and even at max level they are not punished for playing badly until they get into savage and ultimates - even extremes can allow players to clear without knowing what mitigation is.
very true. The game is terrible at teaching you how to play your job effectively. Why waste 250-300 hours of your life to then end up being worse off than someone who skipped the story and watched a guide on youtube or read a guide on Balance.
This, most FFXIV players don't know how to "play" this game. But that's fine because most people are not doing hard core content like savage or ultimate and for the rest of the content its enough to just smash your head on the keyboard.
My heart is telling me no, my head is telling me yes. It's just too damn long to be able to recommend to anyone, it's probably easier to tell someone to do ARR-EW msq when they're bored in a lull period than to force them to go through the whole thing to reach current story.
Uhh this already exist though? Story skips on cash shop with gear and Gil to boot. Just brings you to the start of the previous expansion which is a lot smoother experience if you want to jump into it while still learning a bit with gameplay mechanics and even a bit of story.
it took me months to finish ARR because it kept dragging and bored me. I just skipped most of the cutscenes that weren't interesting or voiced because otherwise i would've burned out. I might replay it again later on.
I spent about a month or more from like 42 to 55 to catch up with some friends near the end of the current expansion. I quit before it happened. It felt too much like a solo game most of the time. Still a good game, but doesn't feel like an MMO when most of the time I'm running between NPCs by myself and watching cutscenes (a majority of them I don't care much about) , and I've still got 45 levels to go.
Started the game a few weeks ago and really enjoyed the msq while leveling 3x jobs with it. The only parts that would be nice to get removed are some of post msq and quests which requires doing certain end of expansions dungeon and trials. It takes lots of boring waiting time to wait for them out of peak hours.
lol did you know that they reduced it from what it was before? i'm a 100% with you though because i played the 'editted' version without knowing and I still thought it was too slow.
@@madlinkers8595 how can i complete it unsync it as a low level new player? even on unsync We still need to wait for ppl to join on pf which is kinda hard dout of peak hours.
The story isn't for everyone especially ARR. I know dozens of people who were asked to come and play and only a few made it past ARR despite all of them being very hyped to get into the game. The longer the game goes without a built in option to skip the more it hurts the games ability to grow. If you don't want a skip then having one has no negative impact on you. The story just gatekeeps the game for players who care more about experiencing good gameplay. I hate to say it but the gameplay especially in the early game isn't good and being locked into the story doesn't help with that first impression. There's potentially a massive audience of gameplay over story people who are locked out of this game. And before people start talking about the MSQ teaching you your job etc and so skips bad... No. It doesn't. The ratio of combat to cutscenes is miniscule. Allowing people to avoid that if they want to and experience more raw gameplay right from the start will actually teach them the game faster as well as keeping that type of player engaged and expanding the audience of the game. I should also be clear a skip should not auto complete the story, you should have the option to go back and play the previous story in your own time. Dawntrail being a fresh story is a great checkpoint to start this type of practice. The truth is its going to have to happen eventually. The quality of the game keeps going up, making the earier stuff look worse and worse. Eventually its not going to be a good first impression, ARR already isn't for most. Imagine in another 5 expansions time when you have to tell new players it gets really good after the first 1000 hours of mandatory story.
Just started Heavensward, I have more than 200 hours on the game and started like 5 years ago, but I wouldn't skip it even tho I can't watch most vids bcs of spoilers
Yoshi panders too much to parts of the community. Its obvious the story is hella too much at this point. Why cant they release a movie (or one of those interactable summaries every other game has on the next numbered game) that tells the story up to a point and be done with it? Do people really expect someone coming in in 10.0 to play all the way from ARR?
They have story skips. You just buy them, and believe me, if you already spent the money on the game, odds are you'd have a reason to spend money on a skip as well. Or your homie you're playing with can also gift you a skip to a certain point in the game where you two can play together. They have avenues to circumvent the story and content if you so desire not to mention most ARR and HW has a trust system you can grind through solo. There are lore channels out there that can explain story to a player as well without the huge time sink that is FFXIV story.
I dont think skipping the story is a good idea but they need to improve ARR, bring the current voice actors and improve the game play, give us lv 50 skill at lower levels and just improve them as you level up, that would improve the chances for people to stick around.. I invited 5 friends already and only one was able to finish ARR just to quit mid stormblood.. I need new friends lol
I hope we get the feature, to be entirely honest. I've been playing since HW, and I don't want to pay for every new character to skip past the story. Plus, I hated EW so much, that I quit the game two years ago and haven't started playing again until today. I'm trying to replay the old content, then skip EW content, to help rekindle my love for the game. Having a skip feature would be so nice, so I don't have to play the expansion that made me despise the game enough to put it down for the first time in several years every time I want to make a new character.
Im 120 hours in about to start heavensward and yeah like Im loving the gameplay and story but it does suck to know that I'll most likely not be able to play Dawntrail with my friend (not my fault that I started late, Im on Xbox) specially since getting endwalker before dawntrail seems like a waste of money. Not really an opinion, I'm new to the game but I thought I might share my case.
This really makes me thinks of .Hack//sign. One of the big questions was “how do YOU play The World?” Collectors, raiders, completionists, lore hounds, pk’ers, greifers… all play the game.
@@wyred I disagree, people pick up and stick with this game mostly BECAUSE of the amount of depth with the story. Even as an endgame focused player myself in practically every game I play (Played WoW for ~10yrs, SWTOR for ~4yrs, etc., etc.,) I only ever cared about rushing to endgame. So it was a very fresh feeling to jump into FF14 where the journey to the endgame was rich with lore, world building, and just amazing story telling. Sure, I can agree on the point that ARR does tend to drag a little bit, but think about it, most stories don't immediately start at 11 in the first chapter. It's a build up with context, emotional moments, etc., that makes the moments that ARE turned up to 11, that much more impactful. So speaking as an unbiased person, (as I try to think on a subject from multiple sides) I can understand the want for a more readily available story skip, or compression of the story, I feel it would diminish the impact of the story. Not to mention, removing someone's hard work on the dev team completely from the game, is something I imagine they don't want to do willy nilly. If the content is "important"(which is subjective) to the overall feel of the world and characters, it wouldn't make sense to pull it from the game. It's sad that people nowadays ONLY care about getting to the end as fast as possible. This game isn't for everyone, the fact that the story takes multiple hundreds of hours to get through, is incredible in my opinion. It allows you to truly get attached to the world and the characters in it, to make those highs that much sweeter. I don't know, I'm beginning to ramble, I apologize. I will just end with reiterating that I understand the want for a faster catch up to play with friends and such, but I don't think there is an easy way to do it, without harming the overall experience the game is meant to have.
@@syclonepanda1047 ok so what you want is that we won't get any new players in the future? The MSQ is already a major roadblock for the majority of new players but at the moment it's bearable enough to still get new players. But Yoshi P said on the last stream that he has plans to let this game go on for another 10, 20 or even more years. Do you want to force players in the future to play a year or even longer before they can play with everyone? If players want to learn in detail what happened after they opted for a compressed story they always can play new game+. Saying that forcing the MSQ on players is just elitism without any proof that it gives you better or more players. We already can see that it's the opposite by all the toxicity this kind of MSQ defenders are throwing around.
@wyred why are you so angry? I simply stated an opinion that you are trying to spin as me being a villain or something. I've never said we should gatekeep the story or anything of the sort. So calm down if you want to discuss. If you read my full post, you would have seen me say it wouldn't be EASY for them to remove things. I never said IMPOSSIBLE or that they SHOULDNT consolidate a bit. I merely said the story in general is very important to the full scope of the game. Read and understand before throwing accusations around.
@@wyred I don't think story will stop the game from getting new players if anything I believe it will cause then to feel more Isola bc they are missing out. But thanks for your opinions
MSQ is a big obstacle to get over if a player wants to get into the game for the MMO raiding elements instead of the RPG story telling. A story skip that allows people to skip like 100 hrs of story is definitely needed especially as we approach level 100. Starting as a new player in Dawntrail would be so daunting otherwise.
Yes it would be the perfect time because it's a new story arc but I guess they won't have something in place at the time the expansion releases in only a few months. I hope they have something for the next expansion otherwise it will be kinda to late and they can shelve it till we get to the next story arc.
Love the story but the first time I tried FFXIV before the Stormblood I didn't even made it through the base game before dropping it because to be honest the base game is bad (even if the story pay of at the end is good). The second time I tried it was still bad but I pressed trough because I had serval friends playing it and I decided to stop playing WoW so I had more time. This second time after the base game it got better and better and I now love the game but if I had to guess we will lose close to 90% of new players without a story skip. They already offer a story skip by paying for it but I hope we get something better instead.
Yeah. I hate the idea but my wife won't play because she one of those cutscene haters. I don't get it, but some people are like that and as is that market isn't being utilized.
The story is so important for most to really appreciate FFXIV. When they eventually have to do a story skip, they need to include some kind of way to "catch" players up. What if they actually included it in the narrative? Say you use a story skip and and then your character wakes up with "amnesia" and then some important lore characters fill you in and give you a brief recap of what's happened before. Obviously that's not as good as actually experiencing the story, but as the story gets longer and longer it will be harder and harder for new players to jump in without some kind of new entry point. Whatever they do, I'm glad they are taking it so seriously.
What you've described as a problem is something that happens in all serialized media. The more you need to know what happened previously, the more people will drop off. One of the reasons why I don't play the game anymore is primarily due to the story. I love the gameplay, but I feel forced to play through the story because of the sheer amount of hate that will be sent my way if I don't. It's an extremely toxic community if you stick out from the crowd.
@@majesticmagpie4108 It's funny because the same people will complain about the toxicity in WoW. While I don't necessarily disagree, dungeon groups in particular are really bad, I just find it funny because the only difference is the form it takes.
it is just objectively bad for the game to gatekeep new players behind hundreds of hours of story. i keep trying to get friends to play and they don't even make it passed arr before the give up and 60 dollars for the game plus 50 for the story skip/boost plus the sub is not something people wana invest before they even know of they will like it
to answer the question asked in the title, NO it is not, I beat the whole MSQ watching and reading everything in 14 days. If you don't have 14 days to spend on a MMO i don't know how to save you.
yes personally i think so personally, i tried getting my 4 of my friends to play but they didnt wanna spend 100 hours on story :(. I personally enjoy the story but i like a game with choices
no... Install->skip->play with your friends->have fun. at the moment: Install->do a few 100 hours of msq->drop the game before you can play with your friends. The toxicity of the player base to new players who skips the story to play with their friends at the moment is completely unhealthy. A nice condensed version for people who don't want to spends hundreds of hours to get to the current content is important for the long term health of the game.
The toxicity of the player base to new players who skips the story now is nothing compared to toxicity it will create when they jump into the queue at max level with 0 clue what to do with randoms, fail their runs and withing 3 months push them to run everything with Trust. 100% of them will leave since they have no idea whats going on with the story and have no personal investment into the game and leave us with broken game. If you want drop in drop out game to play with friends you got things like League if Legends or Call of Duty. World of Warcraft started giving max level boosts and within 6 months you had to link achievements before someone considered giving you invitation to group.
@@Redharplol... This is already happening have you never played any new content in the queue? Just do the newest Alliance Raid on release and see how it goes. There is a reason players instantly abandon most of the Stormblood alliance raids if they get them in the queue. Party finder is already toxic for the most part with people leaving after the first one or two wipes and they only don't get more toxic in chat because they will get banned for it. Why do you think they made every single dungeon like this: 2 mobs groups -> wall -> 2 mobs groups -> wall -> boss? Because they know their average players are bad. If the MSQ was there to get people to be good at the game it already failed horribly and we can just remove it.
@@wyred So if the problem is that too many players now days don't know how to tackle hard content, instead of finding ways to put more roadblocks in their way that force them to learn you want to open the floodgates and allow every one in with 0 training? If the game is in fact bleeding, we should try to find a way to bandage it not shot it in the head. MSQ is at the moment the only thing that force you to play with your character for hours fighting mobs before you can join the endgame. Also don't queue for raids and you will be fine. It's the type of content that relies on coordination and voice coms and should not be allowed in without set group anyways. I don't raid myself anymore in MMO's but that's my choice and i'm fine with missing that content myself.
@@RedharpAs I said the MSQ doesn't teach you how to play and doesn't make you better at the game. If players would play only a fraction of that amount in the endgame they would be better than most players who are still in the MSQ. So you don't want to let people in with 0 training butt you don't even play the content that needs any training? The current status is proof that the MSQ doesn't help to make people better players. You only get better players when you force them to do harder content. But every content that only looks like it could be hard is optional content. This content is already self filtering for players who want to do it and who want to invest the time to learn their class. So why do you want to force players to do the story? Especially when most players who really want to do the story are the ones who later won't be good at the game. Many of the best players I know bought the level skip because they didn't care about the story, skipped every cinematic in Endwalker and only wanted to do savage and ultimate. But players like him will also join the balance and read a guide. Your average MSQ enjoyer won't do that. I personally love the story but I needed two tries to get into the game because ARR has dogshit pacing. That's why I would never have the audacity to force someone to do hundreds of hours of solo play just to play with their friends in an MMO. I mostly do MSQ and raiding and that's it. Other are more interested in the social part of the game or other optional content. But why do you want to gatekeep people who just don't enjoy hundreds of hours of single player content in an MMO? That sounds extremely unhealthy and toxic. What you really want is better class tutorials but they don't exist and the battle tutorials that exist are optional and placed beside the Tam-Tara dungeon entrance...
Yeah, I am one of the players who thinks the story is kinda mid. But I really enjoy the battle content and only really play for that, and my friends. I dislike this idea that ffxiv is only good if you do the story, the game offers so much more than just a well written story.
I agree. The story is mid at best. There is no real choice in the story, everything is predetermined and your character only exist to help the other characters play out the story.
I started FF14 in 2022, a friend inv to play after a long time playing WOW. I was shocked at how slowly the gameplay got going, having a almost decade old gameplay felt dull and the progression for new skills is terrible. Original WOW is the same, but they changed it giving classes a working toolkit earlier so you can enjoy what the class is about instead using a handful of skills for weeks. And I think FF14 needs to do something similar in addition of shortening the MSQ in some way, ARR suffers so much because of this on top of the very long drawn out story, running around etc. that I fell asleep while playing. Its just that boring and would have been my Nr. 1 reason to quit the game, not the Story. All classes should have an AOE by the level you can do dungeons. Core skills from the job quests should be available way sooner. Pretty sure there are more examples that would make early gameplay more fun. So I think ARR is a turn off for many not only because of the story.
I have a dsylexia. So the amound of reading that i would have to make to reach the end game would salt my game exp to much. As i start playing i only look at the voiced once. Then as i reach storm blood i skiped the rest of the story and played without looking at it. Its not that im not interestes but with out good reading skills its impossible for me to enjoi and i found a outher way to enjoi it. I found a friendly lets player that lets play the hole game and even read the side quests. Because he isnt much into crafting i look the story form the mowen tools resencely and good damn is this cute xD Its the best suloution for me. Skip the story by my own chara and watch the 1400 to 1500 episodes of his lets play ._. Yeah the game story is realy realy big if you read EVERYTHING! XD Thats my opinion at the story. ^^
0:28 Min.: I personal have a mixed point of view at the topic. Clearly a story skip would save me much time but i for my part see the story as somthing wonderfully. I was realy sad that i couldnt see the story because of my dsylexia. In ff14 the endgame isnt the fully goal. Its the travel and the friends that you make. And then the endgame after you see it. Maybe i think difrence later on but hey what knows i i only saw the first 30 episodes of 1500 episodes xD I only be after satasha in the moment so i cant judge tbh ^^
4:46 min.: I for my part have NO interest in getting good at this game that i love. I s*ck anyways at the fight part of the game so why should i bother and try to learn it. Makes no sense to me. I would rather focus my self at creat things. Crafting and gathering is the main part that i enjoi. Clearly i may s*ck at my astro but hey who cares? :3
The story is 10000% too long for new players. An mmo is intimidating enough without knowing JUST the msq is going to take literal months of hard play to complete, not including all the beautiful side content, levelling alt jobs, job quests, all the raids and trials you feel like you've missed out on, so you want to do that too..... it's a lot
Option to skip, sure. Making it an enticing option, no. The story is great, people should do it, but the option should be there for them to skip it too.
Story should never be forced content. It's a problem as well in FF11 when we get MMO Tourists, it's even longer to go. People should just be able to work towards playing with other players and being able to go back track if they care for the story. Story Fanatics are the real gatekeepers, nothing is worse than joining a discord and ARR stuff still spoiler. It's been 10 years. New players late to the party, too bad for them.
Not at all. All it's gonna do is create players who can't play there job or role at 100+. And more importantly this game is story focused it will be a huge missing element that may lead to fomo. Lastly it's not gonna be free I don't personally think it will be worth it from square it's just gonna lead to faster burn out and More people complain about nothing to do faster.
People act like there aren't any fantastic story recap videos on youtube.. I tried to get into FFXIV like 4-5 times before it finally hooked me. The time it finally hooked me was the time I boosted my level and used a campaign skip. I don't feel bad about it AT ALL because now I actually enjoy the game regularly and I don't feel like I really missed much because I watched story summarization videos to at least understand the jist of the story. Now since I was finally able to get invested, I actually do pay attention to the story as it comes out because it isn't an overwhelming amount all at once. Campaign skips are absolutely a good thing for the game as a whole.
The writing/dev team had a perfect opportunity to so a soft reboot at the end of Endwalker. They tied up all the loose ends and wrapped up all the open story lines. All they had to do was retired the old cast and give all players, both new and returning, a fresh start. With a fresh start, it would have been fairly simple to offer players a story skip into a new expansion where none of the prior story content would have been mandatory. Heck, with a smart level-sync system, they could even allow new players to actually level their jobs from 1 to 100 over the course of the new expansion. But no. Instead of making it easier for new players to join, they continued compounding the problem even more. Each new expansion is asking players to complete another full-length, 60+ hour JRPG. And for some that might be great. But if one of your primary motivations for playing this game was to play with friends already and end-game, I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to go through months of solo play just to get there.
And before anyone says otherwise, I will be a returning player to Dawntrail. I just don't expect the number of new players to increase anymore by any meaningful amount.
not this again, sigh. if you want to skip the story, you can buy something for that, you will likely need a level boost too. should SE give these things for free at any point in the future? absolutely not.
Personally as someone who has a lot of alts, I'd love a feature that lets you choose what expac you want to start at depending on how far you've gone on your furthest progressed character. However, AS someone with many alts, it really doesn't take that long to skip your way through an expac if you're not doing extra content like blue quests. You can knock it out in a few days, easy, and then you have an enormous backlog of content to chew on while waiting for new content. I don't think skipping is wise for newbies. I had a one friend who tried xiv, skipped cutscenes, wasn't happy they couldn't blitz the levelling on the free trial and access all the skills, and then dropped it. On the flip side I have another friend who adores it and drinks up every bit of story. Guess which friend of the two still plays it. The whole thing of 'playing with friends' doesn't stick for me as a pro point for a skip, because you can _always_ play with your friends. I'd argue that it goes even faster when you are playing with friends and real people because they know how to clear a dungeon way faster than Trusts or Duty Support. Skips are already a thing anyway, so...what exactly would this new type of skip be bringing to the table?
Story skip already exists, it just costs like 25$ in the web store. IMHO the story is a great filter and gatekeeper. XIV community is great and we do NOT need WoW people and their toxicity.
You haven't seen the MSQ Andy's from XIV then. They will literally throw you under the bus if you story skip. And try to get you banned/canceled for not playing the game they want you to lol
We need a story skip. The story is mid at best so gatekeeping endgame and DT just so people have to do the story is insane. People like this literally prevent the game from growing. Just add a fast summary of the story and tell through a short video and/or text so people who want a quick retelling get it. A lot of people don't care for the story and just wanna play for the gameplay, housing, glam, clubs, g-pose etc. This community sounds like a cult whenever the story is involved.
I strongly disagree with the story being "mid at best", it didnt resonate with you for one reason or another but it's still odd to put it out in a way that makes it sound like that's what it is when that is only your own opinion on it. I do understand it being too much story to get through for a new player but it also does a good job introducing new players to all the mechanics and new abilities without just pushing you out there to suddenly learn everything so fast before you suddenly 3nd up in endgame content. It's not WoW, ESO or any other MMO. One of the reasons people dont like others to buy storyskips is because they end up in current content without knowing how to play the game like at all and suddenly people see these players with no idea how to play it in their endgame dungeons, trials or raids. I'm not against giving people an option to catch up to the current expansion faster but it has to be done really well or it will be a detriment to everyone, even the person skipping through all the previous expansions.
@@pleasedontkillme1185 It isn't just my opinion, many people feel this way. But this community is so up-tight about preserving ways of old. I have seen players who has played the story to endgame and still don't know how to play their job. The game is just bad at teaching you how to play your job to the standard of what is expected in high-end content. Anyone who just look at a job guide on Balance or RU-vid will be way better off than what the game ever could teach you cuz it is that bad. Having freedom to choose to go through the story or skip it is best of both worlds.
just gonna answer the question "is the story to long now?" with my experience over the last month... I have made 5 characters in FFXIV since I started playing, One for each Type of role Tank, Healer, Melee/Phys, Ranged/Phys, and Magic Dps. Why? Cause I wanted to...... Each of them have gotten to Heavensward and one, the healer(i hard main astro/sage), ive gotten midway in to Shadowbringers so far, as of late, I am able to get through ARR pretty quick even though it is by far the longest section of the game, it being like 300+ quests compared to the 150-ish average for expansions, and Ive Identified a few problems/annoyances that might be a problem for Player Retention. -Flying system restrictions basically right after you get access to it -gear not really mattering at all -job restrictions when syncing for dungeons Flying System: Now, I understand them wanting to make you explore and see the areas they've painstakingly crafted for us to do story content in, but rather than just removing flying so people just skip all the areas and enemies, make ground travel more appealing, make mobs more akin to BLU xp rewards for kills, add gear drops to FATES, add a mount or cosmetic gear set to each area that requires finding collectables on the ground. make flying slower until you get the currents and make paths on the ground give a move speed buff to incentivize travel on roads/paths Anything but just remove flying and make us claw our way back to being able to fly in an area after we are done with the are anyway. Gear: it plainly and simply does not matter, I have beaten ARR, HW, and Stormblood, all while barely meeting gear requirements because the game does not promote farming gear from trials/dungeons AT ALL, it literally hands out gear in the quest rewards for free, without any effort, you are being hand held the entire time, and after you beat HW, you can literally just Solo ALL the content in ARR(Extremes included, ive done it for all the horse mounts) the gear score and level gets synced way to often and makes gear useless beyond a certain score being needed for you to access a dungeon, and the stats don't really matter until you start hitting SOME extreme content, abilities/skill make up the vast difference Job Restrictions when Synced to Lower Level Dungeons: HOLY HELL, why punish me for helping people do dungeons by removing my abilities that ive gotten used to? the OBVIOUS option is to just set a Potency Reduction on people depending on dungeon level, that way you don't punish High Level players by jacking up their entire rotation but also don't make them OP like its Unsynced. just and easy blanket %/LvL based potency reduction so that endgame players can do ANY content without fear of their entire job being botched like not being able to DRAW CARDS as an AST or to Partner wit DNC or Eukrasia for SGE at lower levels, their entire class mechanic just goes out the window. Leaving their abilities alone and just adjusting potency will also let lower players see the features of the class, albeit diminished slightly, and they might want to try it out more now, improving player retention and interest. This would also improve the need to play with other for extreme content because you get a good sync with potency reduction and not having your kit gutted
they have put a story skip on the store so actually you can already skip the main story so why they will put a story skip free and now if you only goal is endgame to play with friend you can skip lvling too
Now tell me this, why someone would pay for something that they don't know if it's good or not yet? Having 20-30 bucks for a story skip intended for new players is stupid. Only people with too much money or alts will get them.
@@docf8202because you run into the issue of, by skipping majority of the game you suddenly have alot of mechanics you have to learn not to mention a whole job to learn and now you gotta watch some guides and hit a dummy for awhile to learn your rotations because people expect you to know the basics of how to play the game when you are doing the endgame content with them.
@@pleasedontkillme1185 that's a different topic altogether about what i said but ill humor you. Currenty we have arr and 4 expansions AND 1 more on the way. How many people do you think will stick around learning the 200+ hrs tutorial to finally able to play the game. Sure skipping story to shortened the time is an option, but that's basically the same with buying story skip like what happened to my friends who dislike the story, without watching rotation guide on youtube they don't know how to play correctly in the end all the same. Sure, there are exceptions like us, but can you say for sure there are not a lot of people who quit because of the length of the "tutorial" like you said?
I think common MMO hardcore players forget, Final Fantasy 14 like other traditional final fantasies is meant to be an RPG story first add an MMO second. Thiers already skip options in the cash shop, these aren't really a great idea though... Because the story drip feed teaches you all the different aspects about the game ergo someone wanting to cut the line straight to Dawn Trail it's just going to end up making themselves a worst player in Big boy giga chad content.
Where did you hear that lie? Players who are playing the current expansion are doing the story for the least amount of their time. Do most people unsubscribe after finishing the MSQ? Because if that would be true the game would be dead a long time ago... It only feels like a RPG story first game because people are forced to go though a hundreds of hours long story but afterwards the story becomes an irrelevant amount of time people spend on it. What you are propagating is a self-fulfilling prophecy as long as there is no tasteful story skip. Add to this the toxicity of the community when it's about the story and you can see why many people don't even want to touch this game with a 10 foot pole. Also the MSQ teaches you close to nothing about this game that a RU-vid video or written tutorial wouldn't do 100 times better. This is proofen by the fact that the majority of players who did the MSQ are to bad to even try the high-end content and that's fine nobody has to do raiding and there is so much more to do in this game and close to none of the activities players are doing in the game have anything to do with the story or needs you to be good at the game...
The reason people complain about skippers so much isn't a gate keeping response. Skippers are USUALLY the first ones who say things like "This game is boring, there's nothing to do." Like... You skipped the 100+ hours of story that fills up the most of the game features. If all you want is to raid and then settle in to complaining about "Why is there a weekly cap?" then honestly just move to a different game. The cap is there to keep players invested in the game. It's not a weekend stroll one and done kind of game. Should there be a skip option? Yes, but if you skip it and then complain about the endgame being "boring" you should also be subjected to ridicule.
Why are you acting like the thing you mentioned don't cost you 20-30 bucks which new players don't even know if it's worth it to buy or not because well... they don't know anything about the game? Only people with too much money will do it and that's not a majority audiences. With that money current games like palworld and helldivers exist and they have refund option and no monthly subscribtion, so guess which one is more desireable for new players.
Just checked, it's $25 for story skip and you need lvl boost too anyway to do the current msq so another $25 there, $50 in total and with a lil bit more you basically can buy any games in the market. This is worse than i thought.
I don't think a Story Skip is a good idea. As someone that had to get through all of ARR to SHB in the year before EW's release, I can say with certainty that what made the experience really long and tedious wasn't the main story itself, but all the filler quests in the MSQ. Every zone you have 5-10 msq quests that just have you running around the zone doing irrelevant tasks just to force you to stay in that zone for a while. I think that's fine to do when it's the current expansion and there's no rush to complete it, but once that expansion is no longer the most recent content, for the sake of people trying to catch up, you cut out 80-90% of those filler msq quests and just turn them into regular quests found in the world, and maybe buff their rewards so new players have an incentive to try do them and explore the zones more. Keeping a few to make the world feel alive is fine, but when catching up there are just way too many. I know when I played I over levelled a lot through the MSQ, simply because each expansion I'm not found to the level cap of that expansion. ARR is especially bad for this still. I think I was around 55 or 56 before even getting to HW because of all the quests there that at the time or release would have given no exp to your mains at all.
@@Sneedmeister I'd rather ask why wouldn't you care? It's a good game even without the story. If you don't think the game can live without the story, you think it's a bad game. Do you think FFXIV is a bad game?
@@CottidaeSEAyeah its not that good of a game without the story or worldbuilding. what is there to do? grind tomestones weekly? i've done literally everything in the game already
@@CottidaeSEA im confused why you dont think a cohesive story and characters and good worldbuilding doesn't matter? are you here just for the EPIC BIG NUMBER moments? thats cringe
@@Sneedmeister There's the social aspects of it, dungeons, raids, crafting, leveling, glamour and other random stuff. All of which are really solid. What does the story do for you after you're done?
Imagine telling people how to enjoy their hobby. I DONT play games for story and it's been an absolute slog coming back to ff14 because I love mmos and the roleplaying experience in 14 more than WoW but being able to hop on and jam mythic dungeons in WoW makes it so much more accessable for people like me that enjoy that kind of gameplay loop. I won't ever bash the story of 14 cause, guess what, I skipped it. I'm just finishing up now with the last bits of endwalker MSQ and it's a chore. The only thing keeping me going is knowing I've got some baller end game raiding content to look forward to. Not everyone needs to play games the way you play games, and the same way I wouldn't tell you that you're wasting your time by playing through a story instead of just reading a book, you shouldn't bash people for "skipping to the good part" if that's what they consider good.
Yes it absolutely does need a story skip. It's not even a good story to begin with and it's mind boggling how defensive people get over something of such low quality.
I loved the story. But I'm with you I also can't understand all these cry-babies who don't want to give others an option to also enjoy this great game. If you don't want to skip don't skip but it would be nice to have something for the rest who only want a rundown of the story mixed with a tutorial for the game that doesn't take 100+ hours.
No. There. I answered it without a 6 minute video. You pay for a game and for content monthly. Without that shit, you have people who come to play, skip it all, do raids then sit around and complain they have nothing to do. I'd rather have years of content and story to experience than pay for nothing
Hmm strange... Then why do many people who played the game and loved the story like Zepla are the biggest complainers when someone who only want's to do the raiding like Xenosys Vex doesn't complain about it and can accept that not every content is for him? Very strange... Also nobody is stopping you from still doing the story and there is also New Game+ if you already skipped it and you want to try it on your main.
Uhhhh no. If you don't care about the story, play another game. There's a million other MMOs that dont' care about their story or worldbuilding, so those players would be better off going there. I don't want to play with people that don't have a single fucking clue about anything and are only there for parse-whoring
You are working really hard to make the FFXIV community the most toxic MMO community in existence... Maybe play BG3 if you are only want to play story and have no interest in an MMO?
You mean the game is only for toxic people like you? You are all what is wrong with this game and people like you will be the reason if the game dies in the future.
