I FINALLY did it

[-aiko-]

MSQ is what tells the story though, you don't get to see or experience the story without doing the MSQ. To use your analogy, it sounds like you're willing to read the story, but not willing to turn the pages of the book in order to experience it.

*scratches head*
This is getting a little frustrating. All you're doing is dismissing all of the arguments I've made, and others have made, in this thread and online in general. It isn't as simple as "if you really enjoy the story, this shouldn't be a hindrance to you". You can disagree with me all you want, that's fine, but to take on this tone that I'm simply wrong and what I'm saying doesn't make sense is condescending.

Consider this: if this wasn't a problem, and there weren't countless threads complaining about this on the official forums and third party forums like this one, Square-Enix wouldn't have had to release an item on their marketplace you could purchase to skip the MSQs.

[Katchii]

*scratches head*
This is getting a little frustrating. All you're doing is dismissing all of the arguments I've made, and others have made, in this thread and online in general. It isn't as simple as "if you really enjoy the story, this shouldn't be a hindrance to you". You can disagree with me all you want, that's fine, but to take on this tone that I'm simply wrong and what I'm saying doesn't make sense is condescending.

Consider this: if this wasn't a problem, and there weren't countless threads complaining about this on the official forums and third party forums like this one, Square-Enix wouldn't have had to release an item on their marketplace you could purchase to skip the MSQs.

My apologies. I never meant to come across as condescending or say that you were wrong, I’m honestly just having difficulty wrapping my head around how you can enjoy the story so much yet not be willing at all to do the MSQ in order to experience it.

They released the story skip potion because they did acknowledge that it was a problem for new players to play with their veteran friends, not that people hated the MSQ so much that they wanted a reason to skip it, though I guess those things could be the same thing.

[Super Kami Dende]

It's not really about being a player that dislikes story, the MMO genre just isn't one that supports story to the extent FFXIV is trying to make it. Especially when the main story content contains group content. No matter what they do, the core playerbase will move on and leave the returning players behind. Have you ever tried to find a Duty for old required group dungeons/scenarios? Maybe they've made improvements to this, I don't know, but it was hell when I tried to catch up to play Heavensward. It just isn't friendly for people trying to return to the game.

I play on a low pop server and never had an issue doing the group content required for the story. I think I at most waited 35mins for a large Raid one. Even then I just did some fates and side Quests and it was good to go.

FFXIV has better story support than most AAA single player game I've played.

- - - Updated - - -

Square-Enix wouldn't have had to release an item on their marketplace you could purchase to skip the MSQs.

Literally every game ever has people that complain they can't just skip to the end. That doesn't make it a glaring fault on the game, just that some people play MMO's for the endgame content only so they were given that choice.

[lucred]

My biggest problem with the quests in FFXIV is how many are solo only... If you are playing with someone else, it is always annoying to have to leave party, enter quest, finish quest, and restart party. It's a freaking MMO, you should be able to party.

If they REALLY wanted it to be solo only, they should have at least programmed it to just shift you to your own instance instead of saying the quest is only completeable while not in a party.

[Eleccybubb]

*scratches head*
This is getting a little frustrating. All you're doing is dismissing all of the arguments I've made, and others have made, in this thread and online in general. It isn't as simple as "if you really enjoy the story, this shouldn't be a hindrance to you". You can disagree with me all you want, that's fine, but to take on this tone that I'm simply wrong and what I'm saying doesn't make sense is condescending.

Consider this: if this wasn't a problem, and there weren't countless threads complaining about this on the official forums and third party forums like this one, Square-Enix wouldn't have had to release an item on their marketplace you could purchase to skip the MSQs.

Oh please nobody is being condescending towards you so lets not go there.

You have had people agreeing about the length of the ARR story. £13 to skip that part imo seems like a fair deal.

Not to mention the boost in general has become commonplace in MMOs for people who want to skip the levelling/story aspects.

[cainejw]

Yeah, I hate playing games and being bothered with story and stuff. Who cares about lore? What do they think this is, a massively multiplayer online role playing game or something?

[Celestial476]

I finally spent the last week playing through and FINALLY got into Heavensward content, and I will say I have mixed feelings on it and generally will echo most of what has been read on the internet:

The MSQ for post ARR stuff had great story, lovely stuff but it was SO FUCKING DULL RUNNING THROUGH. I didn't want to pay to skip all of it because it was my first playthrough and I wanted to experience it first hand. But by God was the mass of fetch-quests and "Teleport here to this distant zone to talk to one or two people then come back" so fucking horrible.

Further more, I'm at about 55 now in Heavesward, it has some of those sidequests with the same crap of just making you run around the zone and talk to X or Y for no reason at all, that can get dull. At least the redeeming part of the content is that it is rather ingrained with story and helps you understand more subtleties in things like beast tribes or locals.

[Melsiren]

Oh please nobody is being condescending towards you so lets not go there.

You have had people agreeing about the length of the ARR story. £13 to skip that part imo seems like a fair deal.

Not to mention the boost in general has become commonplace in MMOs for people who want to skip the levelling/story aspects.

This.

Also, an interesting observation was made about the skip potions. They were not as popular as SE, (Or perhaps just Yoshida, it's been a while since I've looked over old interviews.) thought they would be.

I only really have anecdotal evidence, but everyone I have recruited to the game/started with all agree the 2.X grind was a little too much, and SE clearly learned from their mistakes with the 3.X and the current 4.X story. I personally have not had any of my friends give up on FF14 over the 2.X grind...yet.

I also give them a full before they start though so they're well aware of the road ahead.

[-aiko-]

I’m honestly just having difficulty wrapping my head around how you can enjoy the story so much yet not be willing at all to do the MSQ in order to experience it..

Why? Like I said, MSQ =/ story
Example: the trial by combat in Heavensward. When I first experienced it I thought it was epic, one of the best cutscenes and scenarios they'd released. I wanted to know what happened next and I was pumped. ...Until it ended and I realized it was back to the typical MMO fetch and kill quests. You see, not every single MSQ is tied to the overarching plot or is absolutely necessary to tell the story. There is a ton of filler, and I personally found that filler to be too much. That's it, it isn't any more complicated than that.

I mean, ffs another poster mentioned a few pages ago having another 250 quests to go. That is ridiculous.

I play on a low pop server and never had an issue doing the group content required for the story. I think I at most waited 35mins for a large Raid one. Even then I just did some fates and side Quests and it was good to go.

I don't recall what server I played on, but back when I was trying to push through all the ARR MSQs I had multiple queue times of 1h+. If they've done anything to help with that, like merging servers or doing cross-data server stuff or what have you then that's fantastic. I still think 35 minutes before you can progress the main story is dumb though.

Oh please nobody is being condescending towards you so lets not go there.

It certainly feels like you're not being listened to when you have to explain the same thing more than 3 times.

You have had people agreeing about the length of the ARR story. £13 to skip that part imo seems like a fair deal.

I cannot disagree more. I should not have to pay Square-Enix to skip their boring content. They should work on fixing that boring content. Also, like I said I'm not interested in skipping the story. I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but Bioware offered a much better solution a while ago with SWTOR. They ran a promotion where experience was boosted to the point that you could focus on nothing but the class/main story to hit max level. I took full advantage of that and finished every single class story.

The saddest part about this approach SE is taking is that it only gets worse as they release more content. Imagine that the game is still going strong for another 3 expansions. Meanwhile, WoW dies and a good friend of mine wants to join me in FFXIV. The newest expansion comes with a sick new race and the Dancer class, which my friend is super interested in.

Then I get to tell her that, to play with me, and to play the new race and Dancer, she has to go through: vanilla ARR quests and dungeons, Heavensward quests and dungeons, Stormblood quests and dungeons, Shadowbringer quests and dungeons, Expansion 4 quests and dungeons, and Expansion 5 quests and dungeons to join me in Expansion 6. She's going to think I'm crazy, especially when I tell her she can skip it all if she pays $18-25 per expansion.

[Eleccybubb]

Why? Like I said, MSQ =/ story
Example: the trial by combat in Heavensward. When I first experienced it I thought it was epic, one of the best cutscenes and scenarios they'd released. I wanted to know what happened next and I was pumped. ...Until it ended and I realized it was back to the typical MMO fetch and kill quests. You see, not every single MSQ is tied to the overarching plot or is absolutely necessary to tell the story. There is a ton of filler, and I personally found that filler to be too much. That's it, it isn't any more complicated than that.

I mean, ffs another poster mentioned a few pages ago having another 250 quests to go. That is ridiculous.

I don't recall what server I played on, but back when I was trying to push through all the ARR MSQs I had multiple queue times of 1h+. If they've done anything to help with that, like merging servers or doing cross-data server stuff or what have you then that's fantastic. I still think 35 minutes before you can progress the main story is dumb though.

It certainly feels like you're not being listened to when you have to explain the same thing more than 3 times.

I cannot disagree more. I should not have to pay Square-Enix to skip their boring content. They should work on fixing that boring content. Also, like I said I'm not interested in skipping the story. I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but Bioware offered a much better solution a while ago with SWTOR. They ran a promotion where experience was boosted to the point that you could focus on nothing but the class/main story to hit max level. I took full advantage of that and finished every single class story.

The saddest part about this approach SE is taking is that it only gets worse as they release more content. Imagine that the game is still going strong for another 3 expansions. Meanwhile, WoW dies and a good friend of mine wants to join me in FFXIV. The newest expansion comes with a sick new race and the Dancer class, which my friend is super interested in.

Then I get to tell her that, to play with me, and to play the new race and Dancer, she has to go through: vanilla ARR quests and dungeons, Heavensward quests and dungeons, Stormblood quests and dungeons, Shadowbringer quests and dungeons, Expansion 4 quests and dungeons, and Expansion 5 quests and dungeons to join me in Expansion 6. She's going to think I'm crazy, especially when I tell her she can skip it all if she pays $18-25 per expansion.

I don't agree with the boost in any MMO. But it's become commonplace sadly. It's an easy profit route. Simple as that.

And it's not $25 per expansion at all. It's $25 to start in Stormblood. Don't spread misinformation.

Imo I prefer these kinds of story driven games that make you do the story. That's just me. I'd rather experience it at least once to enjoy it. It's part of the reason I prefer this game over WoW. Not denying it has a stupid amount of filler that the devs should cut down to be on par with the post 3.0 or 4.0 MSQ. And who knows maybe they will eventually.

[Veluren]

I don't agree with the boost in any MMO. But it's become commonplace sadly. It's an easy profit route. Simple as that.

And it's not $25 per expansion at all. It's $25 to start in Stormblood. Don't spread misinformation.

Imo I prefer these kinds of story driven games that make you do the story. That's just me. I'd rather experience it at least once to enjoy it. It's part of the reason I prefer this game over WoW. Not denying it has a stupid amount of filler that the devs should cut down to be on par with the post 3.0 or 4.0 MSQ. And who knows maybe they will eventually.

As someone who likes XIV's story and has gone mad for the lore, it's not the story that's objectionable, it's getting to the story in the post-ARR patches, and how little of what they have you doing is actually pertinent. You can sum up the entirety of the post-ARR patches with fighting primals and musing over the universe's metaphysics, with things only picking up once you're starting to deal with Iceheart for the first time in the build-up to Heavensward.

2.1-2.5 needs some major abridging, something I think they've mentioned is in the plans, maybe for SB2.

[-aiko-]

And it's not $25 per expansion at all. It's $25 to start in Stormblood. Don't spread misinformation.

Not trying to spread anything, that's just what I saw when I searched for the prices. If the Heavensward item includes the skips from the vanilla ARR item then my bad, it just didn't say that in the base description and we don't have any pricing for Stormblood yet.

Imo I prefer these kinds of story driven games that make you do the story. That's just me. I'd rather experience it at least once to enjoy it.

More power to you, but this is an MMORPG and many of us don't have that kind of time. In my pretend scenario above, by the time I completed all that shit they'd be on Expansion 7 already. Regardless of your personal feelings, I don't think it's even a debate that it's not friendly to new or returning players though. And again, it's not even that I'm against story-driven MMOs. I'm against story-driven MMOs held back by horrible (my opinion) quest design.

[Wrecktangle]

@Katchii & @-aiko-

I think I can better summarize your disconnect. What I think -Aiko- is talking about is that the story itself is good, but the medium in which it's delivered (the gameplay, fetch quests, back and forth, etc.) isn't when presented all at once. I think the ability to be able to sit down and "binge" watch catchup a la netflix and avoid the tedious gameplay isn't a far fetched proposition. That much back and forth and fetch quests can really burn someone out badly.

I agree with this, but I also think that option 3 is by far worse than option 2, which is the only other viable option. If this was WoW, the community would have lost their minds 20 times over by now if they'd done something similar. Alienating new players is the worst thing you can do, and most people aren't going to pay the $25 for the skip, so the "evil corporation doing it to extract more money" angle this forum is so fond of doesn't really work either.

Speaking personally I agree entirely, but I wanted to present the truth, which is that all 3 options suck regardless of one sucking less.

Also, an interesting observation was made about the skip potions. They were not as popular as SE, (Or perhaps just Yoshida, it's been a while since I've looked over old interviews.) thought they would be.

I only really have anecdotal evidence, but everyone I have recruited to the game/started with all agree the 2.X grind was a little too much, and SE clearly learned from their mistakes with the 3.X and the current 4.X story. I personally have not had any of my friends give up on FF14 over the 2.X grind...yet.

I also give them a full before they start though so they're well aware of the road ahead.

Of course they weren't popular. They cost money. That money is a prohibitive cost. I've had numerous WoW friends who want to try the game, but don't want to have to shell out nearly $85 to be able to play with me. The other's don't want to have to do nearly 100+ hours of solo content to play with me.

Couple that with the fact that the game offers a free trial of OBJECTIVELY the worst part of the game only makes matters worse.

Anecdotally, I can't even get friends to try the game because of the prohibitive cost, the daunting 100+ hour solo adventure, or they're turned off in the free trial because the game is it at its absolute worst in the beginning.

And it's not $25 per expansion at all. It's $25 to start in Stormblood. Don't spread misinformation.

More curiously - what will the price be in Shadowbringers? Will it stay the same? Will it go up to $32 to jump to current expansion? Will they charge another flat flee of a different amount? We don't know. The point is at SOME point this will be an issue (and I argue it already is), but imagine 2 expansions down the line and all of a sudden it's $60 to play the game, and another $50 to jump to current expansion, then a $13 a month sub. That's egregious. Again, we don't know what methodology they'll take, but the alternatives every expansion get worse and worse, both financially and from a time investment perspective, assuming no change.

[Faroth]

Being incentivized to do older content is great. Getting stuck and being unable to progress for an hour or two because no one is doing the scenario you need is not. Two different things.

If someone is queued for a dungeon for MSQ and players are queued for roulette, it prioritizes that match. "No one is doing the scenario you need" isn't a matter of people not signing up for the scenario, that's just not how the system works. An hour or two for a dungeon run, as DPS, is fairly unheard of in my experience and should be further alleviated with the re-distribution of servers on data centers as well.

The MSQ conclusion of ARR is probably the only shot at particularly long queues, though they keep adding heavier incentives to spend the time to run it in roulette.

[Projectmars]

The 100 MSQs between ARR and HW are a slog to be sure, but one likely brought about by not being as familiar with how to do something like that in an MMO, as evidenced by the fact that the ones between HW and SB aren't nearly as bad... and that HW has a phenomenal story in general. (Kinda similar to the difference between the ARR Raids and HW Raids... especially since Bahamut has a couple of sections that lack bosses entirely and Crystal Tower has just one boss in the third tier that's likely to wipe the raid.)

Most of my issues with it is how it keeps ping ponging between different story ideas throughout the quests, leaving several plot threads hanging a bit as it zooms off to pick up another one before returning a bit and moving on to another. It probably wasn't as bad when patches were actually coming out, since you have the patch cycle spacing it out, but it's definitely a mess to go through now, especially since you have to finish it all before you get to the good part.

[Faroth]

Not trying to spread anything, that's just what I saw when I searched for the prices. If the Heavensward item includes the skips from the vanilla ARR item then my bad, it just didn't say that in the base description and we don't have any pricing for Stormblood yet.

It does say on the screenshot the $25 option completes both ARR and Heavensward.

It will be curious to see what the next potion is. Will they make it $18 for ARR + HW and $25 for ARR + HW + SB or will there be a third tier?

I think they want to keep them separate so players can choose since some may want to skip ARR but play HW story and then play or skip SB. Hard to say the best route in that regard.

Question for any who know - if you use a story skip potion, the MSQ is flagged as completed so the quests don't show up anymore, right?

That might be a solution Square could explore. Find a way to let players buy an MSQ skip potion, a level boost potion, but keep MSQ quest chain open for play. That way players could be at current content and able to play with friends for endgame type stuff while going back and playing through the story at their leisure. Maybe that's the purpose of the MSQ "New Game+" they're talking about?

[Projectmars]

The MSQ conclusion of ARR is probably the only shot at particularly long queues, though they keep adding heavier incentives to spend the time to run it in roulette.

Although the Unskippable cutscenes bit makes people grumble a bit. Plenty of time to make a snack or visit the bathroom though.

[Faroth]

The 100 MSQs between ARR and HW are a slog to be sure, but one likely brought about by not being as familiar with how to do something like that in an MMO, as evidenced by the fact that the ones between HW and SB aren't nearly as bad... and that HW has a phenomenal story in general. (Kinda similar to the difference between the ARR Raids and HW Raids... especially since Bahamut has a couple of sections that lack bosses entirely and Crystal Tower has just one boss in the third tier that's likely to wipe the raid.)

Most of my issues with it is how it keeps ping ponging between different story ideas throughout the quests, leaving several plot threads hanging a bit as it zooms off to pick up another one before returning a bit and moving on to another. It probably wasn't as bad when patches were actually coming out, since you have the patch cycle spacing it out, but it's definitely a mess to go through now, especially since you have to finish it all before you get to the good part.

Those dangling plot threads tend to come back into play later on. We had a mid 20s quest NPC come back at the end of ARR and that plot thread became huge leading into Stormblood.

They don't forget about plot threads, but it takes time for things to come to pass, which is a bit more realistic from a story standpoint.

- - - Updated - - -

Although the Unskippable cutscenes bit makes people grumble a bit. Plenty of time to make a snack or visit the bathroom though.

I think that's the big reason they keep putting hefty rewards for running it. Promised reward for the time commitment.

[Projectmars]

Those dangling plot threads tend to come back into play later on. We had a mid 20s quest NPC come back at the end of ARR and that plot thread became huge leading into Stormblood.

They don't forget about plot threads, but it takes time for things to come to pass, which is a bit more realistic from a story standpoint.

They don't, but when they keep about 3 or 4 of them juggled in the air and incrementally expand on them while working on another in the span of 100 quests, it makes the whole deal feel a bit schizophrenic at times and isn't something I like. On top of it being mostly "go here, talk to someone, go somewhere else, talk to another person" quests.

[Florena]

I could agree with this.

ARR was built the way it was because I don't think the game designers truly believed the relaunch would work. When it did, and they had to start talking an expansion, they simply didn't have time to rework the entire quest experience from ARR to work with the expansion model - Now, on the third expansion, many playing the game actually DON'T have the ARR quests done and it would take a very long time for people to catch back up.

Personally, going through it current during ARR, it wasn't bad.

But I agree with people going through it now, it's a slog and would take far too long for a new player to catch up.

I think it was more 'growing pains' and learning lessons along the way. For example Praetorium and the other 8 man dungeon before whose name I always forget. I think by the time HW came around they just got better at it and responded to criticism.

Personally I think those two msq roulette duties ought to just be retooled into solo instance quests with npc help these days, but I suppose they may not have the time to go back and do that for old content. I mean this is the game where until this patch I think we couldn't teleport out of an inn room. I love FF XIV but now and then you find thing sthat make it really seem like the game is straining its budget.