stormblood

[Sorrior]

What exactly do you do in the world once you hit max level and high gear? From what I can remember nothing. The only content at that point is instanced content. PotD while a cool idea and gameplay element, doesn't count as world building or engaging in said world.

It's funny you keep mentioning the bunny hopping gogo crowd, yet the worst ever experience I've seen of that (IN ANY GAME EVER) was in this game. I simply refused to participate when people measured currency in brayflox speedruns. WoW finally had something similar in the Maw speedruns this expansion, and despite every single person in my group trying to get me to go with them I strictly told them I would do not more than 2 in a row (despite needing a really good trinket out of there). I know it's easy to paint something you don't like as the bad guy, but it is kind of hilariously inept to exclude clear and easily identifiable instances of the exact same behavior in the game you're defending.



I actually very firmly believe that homogenization is a good thing to a degree. I'd much rather have Warrior and Paladin be mechanically similar/equal, but be different by thematics/graphics and/or a singular gameplay element. One it'd make balance better and easier, and honestly I don't play a Paladin for its toolkit, I play it because its theme most centrally aligns with myself (you know, like the main reason people play RPGs?).

Yes it sucks if you're friend is playing catch up. That's kind of every single persons argument in this thread. A friend is at max level and you don't want to spend approx. 100 hours playing catch up for content that isn't relevant for your friend. That's the entire point of their argument. They're skipping to get to do content that they can both do together and enjoy and receive meaningful rewards from. What if said person only had 2 hours a night to play? It could very well take MONTHS to catch up before they could even play together. You honestly 100% believe that is a good thing? Do you genuinely believe that the existing design is optimal?



Please tell me you're kidding? The entire leveling experience is very solo driven. Short of a few dungeons every couple levels. I leveled from 1-50 back in 2.1 with my brother and an IRL friend. The amount of times we had to drop group for solo quests was STAGGERING. In fact doing the quests as 3 almost always took longer than just doing it solo and made everything so trivially easy it wasn't enjoyable. Add that to the fact that low level combat in this game is arguably the worst in any MMO in the past 10 years. Having my friend on follow while I am his bodyguard (not being able to see what quest he is on, where his quest wants him to go, etc.) killing mobs that I don't care about or need and pose absolutely 0 danger to me isn't fun. It honestly isn't fun for him either.



I've been trying to help my friend get through HW content and it's been a slow going process. It's just run here run there, do x, do y, all fetch quests with 1 or 2 critical story moments. It's absolutely insanely boring for me to just sit there and be his bodyguard. None of this content offers me any reward for my time or effort. It is not engaging or fun or challenging me. Add to the fact that he has to hunt down flying just to keep up with me is also a buzzkill.

Level sync is bullshit. It isn't fun whenever it happens and it doesn't ever bring you back to the difficulty of the original entry. It overscales you so hilariously bad they honestly shouldn't have added it. The leveling experience is VERY solo player driven short of a few duties/trials, even a significant portion of the quests force me to drop group while he does some event.



What relevant awards are you getting from ST? I don't remember ever setting foot in those places once I was finished getting whatever glamour I wanted. The gear was always DoA and once they added the thing to boost raid gear to it, it was a do once a week and be done. I don't remember the 24s offering any kind of meaningful reward post delivery. Could you clarify that for me? What exactly do you get from doing ST, say tonight? I didn't even get meaningful rewards out of ST when it dropped...



So you are a MMO game systems developer by trade? That's awesome. What company do you work for and what games have you worked on?

Sarcasm aside, how are you so confident in your analysis that you can state your opinion (as fact apparently) that by adding a feature such as a jump potion that it would 100% FAIL to draw in a new audience, and that it would 100% isolate and drive others away.

Explain that to me. How would a jump potion drive YOU away from continuing to play FF14. You state 9/10 IPs of the 2000's died to accessibility. Could you clarify those 9/10 IPs that failed? Which was the one that survived?



Looks like we have another game systems developer here. Just our of curiosity, what credentials do you have that allow you to state so adamantly that the developers would immediately jump to that conclusion?

I'd posit that if I had the data in front of me, I'd pose the data to the developers in the frame of x people are skipping story. What opportunities for improvement do we have here? Maybe there's too much filler? Maybe they want to play with their friends sooner and in a more meaningful manner? Maybe we should open jobs people actually want to play at a lower level? In the business we call this root cause analysis.

Do you now see how juvenile your analysis was? You make broad generalizations with no actual analytic insight.



This is probably the ONLY constructive for argument I have seen in this entire thread. I agree wholeheartedly that there is value in KNOWING what at a minimum someone had to do to get there.



So lets say I'm level 60 i260. My friend just bought the game and wants to play with me. He's a level 9 Pugilist. He has 2 hours a day to play.

Using this data, at what point can both my friend and I play meaningful content together? meaningful content is defined as content where we both we be challenged as players and receive rewards commensurate with that. Redoing story I've already done is not meaningful. Syncing down to dungeons I don't care about or need loot from, or that pose no danger to us is not meaningful.

Looking forward to your answer.



As a new player playing solo your argument fits. The issue is that some people want to play with other people. That means that in order to experience the MMO side of it you need to be where the most players are, at max level.



1) Weeding out players who want to try and play your game? Dear god I fear whatever business you may try to run. Hurting x amount of possible interested players to possibly reduce the amount of y players is hilariously bad business.

2) Forcing you to go through content isn't adding content... The content merely exists and you must travel through it. It in no way shape or form adds content.

3) Agreed wholeheartedly. That is certainly the main focus/benefit of the MSQ.



That's a terrible idea. That's the kind of solution that an enraged hormonal teenager would devise. That's also not even relevant to the existing discussion.



LOL. I already covered this before, but you do realize this game had one of the worst instances of this ever to exist? Remember when the community WIDELY regarded currency as brayflox runs? it was widely accepted by the community. It wasn't some secret shell. It was on every single PF group.

Also fun fact, FF14 dungeons are some of the most miserable antisocial experiences I've ever had. No one talks. No one communicates and no one does anything. The dungeons are so hilariously trivial difficulty wise that no one needs to talk.



1) The problem with your analysis is that you're assuming that by adding more players you would be directly diluting the quality of the playerbase. You nor I have no real way to determine that. I could just as easily argue that there are nice players who wants to play, but just don't have the time or desire to go through a long solo leveling slog. You assume that by adding a feature you'd be directly increasing the playerbase by ONLY bad players.

Also - LoL/CoD are PvP games. The attitudes there will be MUCH different than what you'd see elsewhere in game, so hardly a fair comparison.

Regarding WoW. People say this on this specific forum a lot. However, in my experience I've seen more toxic shit in this game than I ever did in WoW. Maybe that's because I've always played WoW at a very high level so I've avoided the riff-raff? I've had situations where a DPS says that the tank sucks and is pulling too slow, and I'm looking at ACT and the other DPS is doing less damage than the healer. I've seen situations where someone kicks someone from a PF group saying they were doing low DPS (and they were), but the leader had died 2 pulls in a row and was doing less. I've seen healers literally go AFK an entire dungeon and just let their fairy do maintenance healing. I've seen people question it and get kicked for saying something. That's some backwards shit.

In WoW I've seen people get kicked for all sorts of things, but the overzealous defense or salt was never as bad as what I'd seen in FF14.

2)I'm not opposed to the idea of streamlining. I'd argue it's 100% mandatory honestly. They really need to clean up the 1-50 +xx slog. Then they need to clean up the 50-60 + xx slog. Hit the high points, drop anything that's not relevant to the main story.

With that said, I'm of the camp that I TRULY don't believe that this model is good. It's necessary, but I don't think its good. If I was a game developer I might have a better suggestion, but honestly I don't know what the solution is.

3) Jump Potion =/= killing part of a game. It simply gives more players the OPTION to choose how they want to approach leveling in the game.

4) Timewalking is fucking stupid. It's literally as bad as sync'd low level dungeons. Everytime I have to do 5 timewalking dungeons for the weekly I cringe. They aren't hard. I literally fall asleep every time I do them (no joke I actually fell asleep once). They're boring and the rewards from the actual dungeons are completely useless.



All valid points.

You have cemented time and time again that your style of play and tastes are vastly different from my own abd others. And frankly it feels like the devs which is not bad this just may not be the best fit for you

[Katchii]

I think you'll find that it does influence peoples playing habits. More than you might think, actually. I would have gladly sat in PotD to hit 60 and completely ignored the MSQ. Instead I had to go out questing. No matter what it is that you want to do, you have to complete the MSQ. Be it just play Triple Triad for all the cards, collect minions, or do raiding content. The best way to make the content you want to do availible is just power your way through. You are forced to play the way Squenix intended if you like it or not.

That's not what I'm referring to though. The story doesn't affect how you control your character or how the combat controls when you are in the world interacting with it. The MSQ has no impact on the combat system, just want parts of the world you are able to interact with (which instances, battles etc you can do).

For example, you live in Los Angeles and want to go to New York. The current system requires you, and everyone else, to drive across country through major tourist areas so you can see the country and you eventually arrive in New York. You're asking to remove the travel completely, I'd be OK with them making it a flight instead of a drive, or maybe a few instant teleports to areas of particular interest without all the fluff in between but regardless of HOW you get there...what you do once there isn't impacted at all by that method of travel.

I'm OK with being treated as a citizen of Eorzea and learning the ways of the country, so to speak, in similar fashion as someone seeking citizenship to a foreign country. That's part of what gives this game, and therefore the world it takes place in, it's charm. And the developer agrees, so they force you to become familiar with it through the MSQ. But as I said before, it could definitely do with a tune-up and streamline to make it much less cumbersome for new and returning players.

[Deleted]

The way some of you describe and talk about the game makes me think that you hate it so much that I have to wonder why you even play it.

[Wrecktangle]

Heck I'll answer.

Well under this horrible limited definition that you set it would take a long time. However, that's a you and your friend issue, they need to make more time or consider playing a different game together, because every game does not have to cater to everyone.

If I had a friend who could only put in 2 hours a day, I'd be fine doing -anything- with them even if it was "Meaningless Syncing." Which is just like, your opinion.

What about my definition is horrible or limited? By all means if you have a different definition of meaningful I am ALL ears.

So to be clear, what you're advocating is that FF14 should turn away players who want to play because their existing systems are perfectly designed with absolutely no room for improvement.

Cool. Got it.

As far as my opinion regarding meaningless syncing, you are again more than welcome to refute it. So go ahead, tell me, what makes level syncing engaging or meaningful?

Had being the operative word. I haven't seen any of that in Heavensward content, nor have I had a single dungeon run in Heavensward or ARR content where people didn't talk or take their time when the tank or healer piped up and said it was a fresh run.

My experience differs. I haven't had a quiet group yet, either in the dungeon queue or Palace of the Dead. It's not like I play on a super-pop realm like Balmung, either; I get plenty of chatter on Jenova. Fun fact, difficulty isn't what sparks conversation. Talking does, man. I know, cuh~razy.

Anyway, FFXIV is a game that wants players to go through the story; if you (general you, not specifically you) don't like it, it's not the game for you (much like Phantasy Star Online II isn't the game for you if you don't like an overwhelming amount of grinding to upgrade your gear). A story-skip potion should only let you skip up to the previous expansion unless you have a character who's already done the current expansion's base MSQ on your account.

As much as people want to try to argue this is for the newbies, most newbies I've noticed sit through cutscenes and pay attention to the story because they haven't done it already. It's not and people need to quit trying to use that as the justification. What it would be most useful for is rerolls for players who don't want to pay for a server jump or returning players coming back after an extended break who want to get ready for current content.

That's fine that it doesn't exist currently (although you're out of your mind if your'e trying to suggest that ANY dungeon content in the current game isn't a "gogogo" speedrun of sorts, no one wants to take less time doing trivial content than they need too), I just wanted to make sure that if you're going to bash one game where that alleged behavior exists be prepared to defend your statements when its no different on this side of the aisle.

Chatter on Jenova? No. That's a dead server last I checked (fun fact I started on Jenova). On average the PF consisted of completely empty to completely empty. It may be slightly better now, you'd know more than me. If you're referring to the DF you do know that it's a server group right and not just yours? I mean if you enjoy starting convo's so much, why not pick a better place for it, you know? One that's not timed, or one that people would like to just get done ASAP and move on.

The problem with the story is that its so drawn out with filler at the moment that new players WILL be discouraged trudging through it. It may be new content, but it's all new SINGLE PLAYER content and very limited group content for an MMO. Letting people skip to play with others in an MMO isn't exactly an insane idea.

You could clean up the filler, but you're opening up an entire new issue that begs the question of what is the best use of resources to manage new player retention. Is it x or y?

Also it's true that talking spurs conversation. What kind of conversations are you having mid dungeon anyway? Surely it's not about the content because it's not hard. So is it about glamours? Current events etc? Upcoming changes?

When you have friends you want to game with FF 14 is really the wrong game for it. There are all kinds of difficulties you run into where you've constantly got to drop group to complete quests, you can't see what your friends are doing while they're questing and you spend a lot of time standing around waiting for them to finish their solo duties. As other posters have mentioned, it's much faster to drop group and do questing solo. So rather than playing with a friend, you've got to encourage them from the sidelines with the promise of being able to play with them when they're level 60.

I wouldn't subject a friend to that. Instead we'd go and play something like Rocket League or Dota. Something that isn't actively hostile to bringing your friends along.

The most worrying thing about this hypothetical is that Squeenix likely don't have this kind of data to work with. The way the game works makes gathering data like this heavilly skewed in favour of people doing the story. It's a shame, having some actual hard data on just how many people would do the MSQ when given an alternative would be very interesting to work with.

That's kind of the whole point to my post. FF14 isn't well designed for an experienced player to bring in a friend. In fact its incredibly terribly optimized for this. That's bad, especially when this is one of the more common methods MMO's grow, by word of mouth and friends. People advocating turning away from the game are being silly. We should be helping them improve the user experience.

I think you missed the point of the hypothetical. It's not about right now, it's about the future under the assumption a skip was added. I apologize if that wasn't made clear originally.

In our FC, during Heavensward, we've added three or four new members who are RL friends. Two other people rolled alts to play through with them, but you could equally do it with your main, just on a different job, leveling alongside them. Some of the group/drop group challenges were brought up at Fan Fest and Yoshida said they're looking into ways to address that. Since you can queue for duty finder with your chocobo out, my guess is they're closer to addressing this for players as well.

I could roll an alt to level with him sure. Except I'd need to pay more for it. It wouldn't be fun for me to redo all that existing content again on a character that is not ever going to be used again or that I care about. Fair point on them acknowledging some aspects of it though. Didn't know that.

I've seen it in action, players working through the story alongside friends and they've moved at a brisk pace and just got past Thoridan in the MSQ. This is with a friend that's on infrequently and maybe 1-2 times a week for any extended period they've been doing this with. Watching numerous people go through 2.x and 3.x while going to school and juggling work and the trappings of real life, it's not as monumental a challenge as some make it out to be.

You say brisk pace, but give me some hard numbers. How long have they been working on getting up to and past Thordan. You mentioned they play 1-2x a week, how many hours roughly? I mean if they game hard on say sat/sun for 6-8 hours each, that's actually a lot.

I'm not saying it's monumental or impossible, I'm saying its an incredibly un-optimized experience. For reference it took me, my brother, and my friend about a month to hit 50 in 2.1. We played probably 4x a week maybe 2-3 hours a night. I'm curious just how long your friends took to get from 2.0-3.0. In numbers please.

You have cemented time and time again that your style of play and tastes are vastly different from my own abd others. And frankly it feels like the devs which is not bad this just may not be the best fit for you

Lol what? So because I'm not an echo chamber you won't have a discussion with me? You think the dev's think closer to you than me? That's certainly possible, but without actually getting into it I think you making an assumption like that is hilariously inept.

Oh before I go, if what you say is true then why did he highlight the word challenging for dungeons. Sounds more like they're listening to players like me than you.

The way some of you describe and talk about the game makes me think that you hate it so much that I have to wonder why you even play it.

Like who specifically? I'd be curious to re-read it in that frame of mind.

[Aruhen]

Oh before I go, if what you say is true then why did he highlight the word challenging for dungeons. Sounds more like they're listening to players like me than you

They said the same thing about Heavensward dungeons. It doesn't mean anything at this point.

[Melsiren]

So to be clear, what you're advocating is that FF14 should turn away players who want to play because their existing systems are perfectly designed with absolutely no room for improvement.

Cool. Got it.

I'll be blunt, I don't give a flying fuck about people who are not playing the game and not interested in it because of the game play it offers. No game, let alone MMO, should cater to the people not playing thegame.

A game designer should always care about the people who are currently playing the game over the people that -might- play the game.

I bought more games than I can name off the top of my head, that I played for about 2-5 hours and set it down and never touched it ever again. Many of said games are ones that I hear praised on a daily bases, people consider them great games but something about them was just not for me. Never had I been so self centered to think, that the things I dislike, that plenty of people clearly like. Should be changed just for me, because I'm willing to accept the fact that I was not the type of player these games were made for.

I am not saying the systems FF14 has are perfect, but things should be improved for the existing players in mind(*), not the people who MAY play.

It's that simple. (*now there is the not so simple aspect of what do you do for your current loyal player base POST, WOTLK till Modern WoW has shown me that. However, that not so simple topic is a discussion for another day.)

As far as my opinion regarding meaningless syncing, you are again more than welcome to refute it

I fail to see the point, we will not agree and we will not change each other's minds. We will just go back and forth until one of us decides the discussion is not worth it while the other has some false sense of victory.

[StrawberryZebra]

That's not what I'm referring to though. The story doesn't affect how you control your character or how the combat controls when you are in the world interacting with it. The MSQ has no impact on the combat system, just want parts of the world you are able to interact with (which instances, battles etc you can do).

I understand what you're trying to say, and you're right. The game doesn't forcibly take over control from you. However you are overwhelmingly incentivised to do the MSQ to the exclusion of all else. It demands that you play it, no matter what your interests in game are, and because of that even people who would be happier wandering off and doing their own thing are rail-roaded into doing it.

It's not in your best interests to stop at 50 and PvP, it's better to push through the MSQ to 60 and PvP there. It's not better to take a break from questing and do some PotD or Fates to level, you're much better off pushing through the MSQ. It's not in your best interests to work on playing Triple Triad, because you need to get through the MSQ to complete your collection. It's not worth stopping to mess around with Housing, the Gold Saucer, any of the duties that aren't relevent to the story or even side quests most of the time. For a new player you absolutely have to prioritise the MSQ over everything else if you hope to do the content you find most engaging. It shapes play habits around the MSQ experience almost entirely until you're done with it.

To put it another way, one is actively punished for choosing to ignore the story, with content walls and serious restrictions on your character growth. And that is wrong. Game designers should not be trying to control what players do within their game to the degree FF 14 does.

Like who specifically? I'd be curious to re-read it in that frame of mind.

I would assume it's refering to anyone being critical of the game. People seem to struggle with the idea that criticism comes from the desire to see the game being better and not out of hating it so intensely that we wish it destroyed.

[Melsiren]

People seem to struggle with the idea that criticism comes from the desire to see the game being better and not out of hating it so intensely that we wish it destroyed.

Just as people seem to struggled that their subjective perspective on better can actually make things worse, not better. At least when we are talking about other people.


We just summed up Politics in a nut shell.

[Katchii]

To put it another way, one is actively punished for choosing to ignore the story, with content walls and serious restrictions on your character growth. And that is wrong. Game designers should not be trying to control what players do within their game to the degree FF 14 does.

It's not wrong, you don't like it. As you've explained in great detail for several pages. As many others have stated, this is a Final Fantasy main series game where story takes a high priority, and according to the developers that is the paradigm they have chosen to embrace and players like myself don't have a problem with it, or enjoy it.

I don't disagree that the journey is in dire need of streamlining at this point, but I wholeheartedly disagree that the answer is the complete disassociation of the story from the content. The game was developed and is intended to convey a traditionally RPG feeling of starting as a no name adventurer and progressing through the world to make a name for yourself via MMO mechanics like group content, dungeons, raids, etc... while still developing your character as a character in their own personal story.

[Wrecktangle]

They said the same thing about Heavensward dungeons. It doesn't mean anything at this point.

Ah is that so? I couldn't find the slides in the limited amount of time I have to search before today ends, mind finding it for me?

I'll be blunt, I don't give a flying fuck about people who are not playing the game and not interested in it because of the game play it offers. No game, let alone MMO, should cater to the people not playing thegame.

A game designer should always care about the people who are currently playing the game over the people that -might- play the game.

I'm not asking you to cater to new players more than existing, in fact your entire tirade completely validates my point. Adding a jump potion in no way shape or form impacts YOUR personal gameplay. It doesn't ruin your experience. Therefore getting more people who WANT to play puts more people into the community and more money into the dev's budget (ideally). Therefore this change directly IMPROVES your gameplay experience.

Its very evident you have little experience working in the business sector otherwise you'd be cognizant of the fact that more people playing is a good thing. I'm not advocating opening the floodgates here, I'm saying if someone wants to play your job as a dev is to make that experience as easy as possible to get them drawn in. Not slamming a 900 page book in front of them before they can even interact with another human being in content.

Please try to understand what I am saying. I am not saying open floodgates to all players. I am saying help the PLAYERS who WANT to play your game, but are having pains.

. Never had I been so self centered to think, that the things I dislike, that plenty of people clearly like. Should be changed just for me, because I'm willing to accept the fact that I was not the type of player these games were made for.

I am not saying the systems FF14 has are perfect, but things should be improved for the existing players in mind(*), not the people who MAY play.

Funny you mention not being self-centered, but in your previous post you say, and I quote:

I don't give a flying fuck about people who are not playing the game

Using this logic I can deconstruct your statement to say that because you like something the way it is, fuck everyone else who is impacted negatively. LOL, if that's not hypocrisy I don't know what is.

I fail to see the point, we will not agree and we will not change each other's minds. We will just go back and forth until one of us decides the discussion is not worth it while the other has some false sense of victory.

Cool, nice dodge. When you can't stand on the merits of your arguments resort to running away. I'll give you credit though for keeping your composure after being dismantled and not devolving into a name calling tirade.

I would assume it's refering to anyone being critical of the game. People seem to struggle with the idea that criticism comes from the desire to see the game being better and not out of hating it so intensely that we wish it destroyed.

Yeah I gathered that, I was more curious to see specific examples so I can re-read them.

[StrawberryZebra]

It's not wrong, you don't like it.

Video Games are all about making decisions within the rules presented. This is the one common theme that binds every video game together, all the way from Pong to new releases like Halo Wars 2. Squenix have knowingly and intentionally already made an important gameplay decision for you, and that is wrong. Game Developers should not be making those kinds of decisions on behalf of their players.

The game was developed and is intended to convey a traditionally RPG feeling of starting as a no name adventurer and progressing through the world to make a name for yourself via MMO mechanics like group content, dungeons, raids, etc... while still developing your character as a character in their own personal story.

Really? During character creation, I wanted my character to be moraly questionable, prone to quick-fix solutions and rash decisions. Someone who would occasionally achieve great feats of heroism which served to make his deplorable actions all the more despicable. He was also going to be a complete self-serving jerk. Traditional RPG's are totally cool with that.

All that gets swept aside when you end up being the avatar of rightousness and embodying all that is good and just in the world, and you're left with a mute who communicates entirely through stoic nods. It's not my character and it's not my story - It's the character the Devs wanted it to be in a generic tale of heroism. My input was entirely cosmetic.

Just as people seem to struggled that their subjective perspective on better can actually make things worse, not better. At least when we are talking about other people.


We just summed up Politics in a nut shell.

The people arguing for keeping the MSQ in it's current form seem to have a hard time explaining why they think that is is best though. It's largely just appeals to tradition without really articulating on what it adds to the wider game.

Since we're on Politics, Ul'dah should build a wall to keep those immigrants from Ala'mhigo out. And the battle at Carteneau was fake news.

[Sorrior]

Video Games are all about making decisions within the rules presented. This is the one common theme that binds every video game together, all the way from Pong to new releases like Halo Wars 2. Squenix have knowingly and intentionally already made an important gameplay decision for you, and that is wrong. Game Developers should not be making those kinds of decisions on behalf of their players.



Really? During character creation, I wanted my character to be moraly questionable, prone to quick-fix solutions and rash decisions. Someone who would occasionally achieve great feats of heroism which served to make his deplorable actions all the more despicable. He was also going to be a complete self-serving jerk. Traditional RPG's are totally cool with that.

All that gets swept aside when you end up being the avatar of rightousness and embodying all that is good and just in the world, and you're left with a mute who communicates entirely through stoic nods. It's not my character and it's not my story - It's the character the Devs wanted it to be in a generic tale of heroism. My input was entirely cosmetic.



The people arguing for keeping the MSQ in it's current form seem to have a hard time explaining why they think that is is best though. It's largely just appeals to tradition without really articulating on what it adds to the wider game.

Since we're on Politics, Ul'dah should build a wall to keep those immigrants from Ala'mhigo out. And the battle at Carteneau was fake news.

You uhhh you want a wrpg might I suggest eso?

[Katchii]

Video Games are all about making decisions within the rules presented. This is the one common theme that binds every video game together, all the way from Pong to new releases like Halo Wars 2. Squenix have knowingly and intentionally already made an important gameplay decision for you, and that is wrong. Game Developers should not be making those kinds of decisions on behalf of their players.

Really? During character creation, I wanted my character to be moraly questionable, prone to quick-fix solutions and rash decisions. Someone who would occasionally achieve great feats of heroism which served to make his deplorable actions all the more despicable. He was also going to be a complete self-serving jerk. Traditional RPG's are totally cool with that.

All that gets swept aside when you end up being the avatar of rightousness and embodying all that is good and just in the world, and you're left with a mute who communicates entirely through stoic nods. It's not my character and it's not my story - It's the character the Devs wanted it to be in a generic tale of heroism. My input was entirely cosmetic.

In your opinion. Stop stating your personal requirements for what you define as a well made video game as the de facto standard for all video games ever. Your statement is factually incorrect because this definition doesn't even apply to Halo Wars 2 since that game has a defined story where you play through the story in the same manner, the only difference is how you complete the in game mission but that doesn't translate directly in differences in story... In most single player video game RPGs you are playing a specific character story, with specific outcomes, specific pacing and specific plot occurrences with nearly zero power to change anything about it (the only thing I can think of is your character name). In some games as you posted a while ago, you mentioned the ability to roam the world freely and loved that aspect about it (correct me if I'm wrong,I'm working from memory here). But in nearly every video game RPG you only get to do that once you've reached a portion of the story where it makes sense....which is exactly how it works in FFXIV.

The character story portion was poor word choice on my part, I meant individual as in not connected to a group, not necessarily your personally crafted character backstory. I am also using the term traditional with video game RPGs in mind, not table top ones where you are able to craft your own specific character.

[Melsiren]

Ah, yes because there can't possible be negative side effects to appealing to a broader audience

The people arguing for keeping the MSQ in it's current form seem to have a hard time explaining why they think that is is best though. It's largely just appeals to tradition without really articulating on what it adds to the wider game.

Since we're on Politics, Ul'dah should build a wall to keep those immigrants from Ala'mhigo out. And the battle at Carteneau was fake news.

The Mhigans get everything that is coming to them, I take it like many other aspects of the story, you don't know the history between Ala Mhigo and their invasion of the Black Shroud.

We have explained it several times on a couple threads now, but every single time we bring it up anything you refuse to accept the answer as if none was given. -NOTHING- we say will be articulate enough for you. Nothing we say will change your fuckin mind, we will not sway you and you will not sway us.

All it boils down to in the end is this.

We (Including Me and several others.): Enjoy the MSQ, though we acknowledge that some streamlining could be done to remove the endless fetch quests. The MSQ and it being a focus is a positive influence on our experience.

You (and a few others in this thread): Don't like a MSQ for a collective of reasons.


We are not going to suddenly change our minds from anything you say, and we are not going to change yours.

So what is the point of continuing this farce? Let's just agree to disagree.

In your opinion. Stop stating your personal requirements for what you define as a well made video game as the de facto standard for all video games ever.

I feel like this one sentence sums up of the entire last 5 pages.

[StrawberryZebra]

In your opinion. Stop stating your personal requirements for what you define as a well made video game as the de facto standard for all video games ever.

Those "opinions" are literally the definition of what games are.

It doesn't prohibit a game having a story, it helps present the "goal" of the game. That's goal as in the win condition for the game, before you take that out of context. FF 14's open-ended MMO nature encourages players to create any goals they wish for themselves. Getting the best gear is one possible goal. Completing all the achivements is a goal. Players voulenterally set their own goals and boundries.

The MSQ rejects any of the players goals until they've completed it, reducing all of the decisions for a new player to "Complete more of the MSQ". And that isn't a decision at all. Once you've removed the decisions, does one have a game left? By most accepted definitions... No.

[Melsiren]

Those opinions are the published opinions of Random Western people.

Fixed that for you.

Seriously, You didn't notice all the people who defined the definition you used are random ass western white folk?

Just go play a Western RPG and be happy already, like ESO.

[Katchii]

Those "opinions" are literally the definition of what games are.

It doesn't prohibit a game having a story, it helps present the "goal" of the game. That's goal as in the win condition for the game, before you take that out of context. FF 14's open-ended MMO nature encourages players to create any goals they wish for themselves. Getting the best gear is one possible goal. Completing all the achivements is a goal. Players voulenterally set their own goals and boundries.

The MSQ rejects any of the players goals until they've completed it, reducing all of the decisions for a new player to "Complete more of the MSQ". And that isn't a decision at all. Once you've removed the decisions, does one have a game left? By most accepted definitions... No.

1) That's a wikipedia page, which is hardly a definitive source of information of any kind.
2) The bolded part is entirely your opinion.

Every game has parts that don't truly give the player a choice on how to proceed. Chess for example has "check" which forces the player to move in certain ways. In dodgeball, in most forms, you have no choice but to throw a ball at other people..you can't kick it, you can't roll it, etc... In baseball, you're forced to run around the bases in a very specific pattern, you're forced to use a bat to hit a little stitched white ball and you're forced to switch from offense to defense every three outs, football, basketball, ....there's no player choice there either. I can't name even a single board game that gives the player entirely free reign to do whatever they want whenever they want. You're literally making shit up at this point.

Regardless, I'm done with this discussion. You're not changing anyone's opinions here and we're obviously not changing yours...but IMO most importantly, the developers of FFXIV agree with my, and others opinion, regarding the MSQ being a required piece of the game to experience, so no matter how you want to try and define what is or is not a good game...it's their game and you have to play by their rules and their definition of what a game is. If you don't like it, play something else, like Elder Scroll Online which seems to be a game more up your alley.

[Deleted]

What more does it take to see that most players who like this game also like it for its story?

[Deleted]

What more does it take to realise that this is not the topic?

No ones stopping them to like the story, peeps want a way to avoid the backlog though if they start the game now. And I'm already frowning about the possibility that I have to run old, outdated, not being updated - content to see the new stuff. And the new stuff is why I buy Stormblood, not the old stuff.

The last few pages here do really smell like ass, so much ass sniffing and kissing, it's nearly unbearable.
We see this daily in several WoW threads, where people try to defend/attack a certain current system because *they* like/dislike it, even though a different system that has been brought up wouldn't affect what they like in any way whatsoever. (or the system that was initially brought up doesn't affect them in negatively in the first place)

I mean, quite literally, there is a person here that doesn't want additional players in his game, because his social awkwardness and insecurities tell him that this is a bad thing or something.

Also, who are you to say that "most" players play it for it's story? The crew I play(ed) with doesn't. The story is just part of the adventure, we have several other reasons why we play it. Style, music, bossfights, character progression - the story is just part of what we like, not the freaking reason.
Saying that this is the minority, even though you have absolutely no data to back this up, is just ignorant :O. Especially since the question about a story skip comes up again and again and again, even in the past when HW was being released.

On top of that, several liveletters were discussing this very topic, so it seems like it's both important for the playerbase and the devs.. and since this is the case, maybe there is no significant majority either way, which means it should be possible to find a compromise. A skip potion would literally not affect anyone that likes the story (it's quite funny that you think the majority of the players who start the game NOW buy it for the story), it would cost money so people would hesitate to buy it, maybe they could give it for free if you buy Stormblood, maybe not. At least you get new and old players the possibility to access the content, where their friends are playing at, immediatly.

[8bithamster]

this off topic rage is adorable.. but annoying.

"OMG EVERYONE WHO LIKES THE MSQ SYSTEM IS HORRIBUL AND THE GAME SHOULD CHANGE TO FIT MAH NEEDS"
"OMG YOU ARE A SCR00B AND WRONG!"

We get it, different opions, get over yourself.

I am enjoying the MSQ system, because it actually forces me to follow the story, to see what impact events have on the world and their inhabitants. i never cared much about stories in MMO's until now. And I really hope that Stormblood will continue that.
Although it will take me a bit to get there, currently on my second char (other server) and working on the Titan questline (level 30-40)