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[Fmal]

Yes they did, it was just a level gate instead of a story gate. The only difference is that a story gate requires the completion of handful of extra content.

Given that it would have made absolutely zero sense to end up in Ishgard without having first gone through the events in 2.1-.2.55, I can support people needing to go through that little bit of extra content.

You're right, having an NPC you can talk to that skips you right ahead to the first 3.0 quest wouldn't make a lot of narrative sense. Fortunately, the people that would use it don't give a shit about the story. It's a non-issue.

And yeah, there is a level gate for the new content in WoW, but that's literally it in terms of content gates. I got my guy to level 70 like two days before WotLK came out, didn't do any of the quests or raids in Cata, but was still able to go fuck around in Northrend at launch.

Nobody is advocating for getting rid of the level requirements of HW stuff, but there's a gigantic gap between "letting people instantly level their character to fifty so they can do new content" and "letting people skip hours of subjectively boring story stuff so they can do the new, populated content."

 

[fedexpeon]

Yes they did, it was just a level gate instead of a story gate. The only difference is that a story gate requires the completion of handful of extra content.

Given that it would have made absolutely zero sense to end up in Ishgard without having first gone through the events in 2.1-.2.55, I can support people needing to go through that little bit of extra content.

The hell did I just read?
Level gate?
Well of course!
You can't do a level 60 instance with a character at level 10 with no skills.
Seriously...You are moving the goal post into outerspace at the moment.
We aren't talking about "story gate'...we aren't even talking about "gating" in general, we are talking about locking out from the expansion that you just bought.
A little bit of extra contents? Please, only if you have a character at lvl 50.
You are talking about 60+++hrs of useless contents from 1-50 to finally be able to experience the $40 expansion.

Edit: Oh sorry, it wasn't a little bit of extra contents. I got a level 50 and had to waste 3 days doing boring MQS. Someone told me it took 20-30hrs...and wow, they were right.

 

[iammeiam]

Yeah ... most the other DPS all offer at least comparable offensive/defensive support really than Bard/Machinist do. It's really just resource regeneration and they get punished doubly for it so not sure I get their design goal here. The premium on MP/TP to them is weird to me.

That said, it does seem to be a case of "We expect them to be lower so we'll investigate things" is being said. We'll see.

It's mostly frustrating because they've done a terrible job of conveying how the jobs are supposed to function in the initially released content. I really don't know what they were going for with Bard at all at this point; Machinist makes sense as a job but they've done a terrible job showing why the weapon damage reduction plus low overall potency (somebody explain why a skill-slot is wasted on a guaranteed crit skill when the highest thing it works on is a whole 220 potency. Bah) is necessary for balance, especially since the whole ammo system actually makes it semi involved to play. Machinist is forgivable largely because all of the new classes have growing pains, but the whole bard thing is just... why.

 

[Kusagari]

They are going to have to do something eventually.

Can you imagine if we get to a 5.0 and people have to go through hundreds of hours of content to get to the new stuff? They're going to cut off any new player base at all.

 

[Wagram]

Let's be honest here, FFXIV has more than a handful of post 50 content before HW. I quit during second coil and had around 10 hours of story to catch up on (skipping cutscenes).

FFXIV really needs to have something in place where once you hit 50, you can get a recap and move forward. They made a bad decision this expansion and it looks like they are learning from the player feedback. I expect something more streamlined for 4.0.

Can't wait to go from one of the best - if not the best stories in MMO history to a likely mediocre one thanks to this feedback. There will likely be no continuity due to this.

I'm all for abridging the story for people who don't care, but I absolutely don't want to see them destroy story continuity for MMO hoppers.

 

[Sorian]

Can't wait to go from one of the best - if not the best stories in MMO history to a likely mediocre one thanks to this feedback. There will likely be no continuity due to this.

No, you don't get the point. They are still going to make a fine story and those of us who like story will experience it. The point is they shouldn't be locking people out of content because they don't give a shit about the story. They gain nothing from forcing someone through old story skipping everything possible except for a disgruntled player who is more likely to leave their game.

 

[fedexpeon]

They are going to have to do something eventually.

Can you imagine if we get to a 5.0 and people have to go through hundreds of hours of content to get to the new stuff? They're going to cut off any new player base at all.

User 1: Nah, fuck new players. Don't play the game if you don't 'respect' the masterpiece on a MMO storyline.

User 2: THIS IS A FF MMO! PEOPLE LOVE STORY! THEY ARE PLAYING THE WRONG MMO! GO BACK TO WOW!

Devs: We are announcing that we will be merging servers due to low population.

User 1: Good, it is what best for the players.
User 2: I LOVE YOU SE!

 

[Fmal]

Can't wait to go from one of the best - if not the best stories in MMO history to a likely mediocre one thanks to this feedback. There will likely be no continuity due to this.

I'm all for abridging the story for people who don't care, but I absolutely don't want to see them destroy story continuity for MMO hoppers.

There's no reason to think the main story would suffer at all for putting an optional "skip to new expansion story" feature in the game. Imagine if there was some NPC you could talk to in Coerthas that would just move your main story ahead to the first HW quest.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

This didn't sound as much "Get Good" as we are getting conflicting reports from players and internal testers so we are looking into it. More of a "it's been a couple weeks, chill out while we figure out what to do."

After running Haukke-Stone Vigil as MCH and and often outdoing melee DPS, I can say that while base damage is somewhat lower than expected much of that comes from players not actually being good. Often people don't have Blood for Blood/Eagle Eye/Raging Strikes/Hot Shot up, don't keep Reload and Quick Reload staggered, don't use Wildfire on bosses or use buffs before using it, have their turret on TP heal when not necessary, and have gear 20 levels behind but think it's good enough because it's pink. Can't say much for 50-60 because I have literally not seen any MCH in my parties for that content yet.

 

[WolvenOne]

I'm gonna be frank. If you don't give a crap about story, this MMO probably isn't a good fit for you. This game spends a LOT of resources trying to get people emotionally involved with the story.

 

[Wagram]

There's no reason to think the main story would suffer at all for putting an optional "skip to new expansion story" feature in the game. Imagine if there was some NPC you could talk to in Coerthas that would just move your main story ahead to the first HW quest.

Square-Enix is a company that takes the most simplistic of concepts and turns in on its head to be a complete nightmare. I can imagine all sorts of horrifying things they can do.

 

[Haly]

I leveled a new job (NIN) for HW. I had to take some time away to deal with medical issues and now I play it sporadically while I'm recovering and I'm still not past 2.5. I really underestimated just how much unskippable stuff was added in between 2.3 and 2.5.

I've unsubbed, because I realized it's a bad time for me to sink effort into yet another MMO, but it's a cruel joke that I haven't even seen Heavensward. I would be legitimately sad at the waste of it if the situation wasn't ridiculous enough to make me laugh.

 

[Sorian]

I'm gonna be frank. If you don't give a crap about story, this MMO probably isn't a good fit for you. This game spends a LOT of resources trying to get people emotionally involved with the story.

If this is your attitude then they have less money to do the story you like. I'm gonna be frank too, this is a terrbile opinion and people can play an MMO without being invested in the story.

 

[fedexpeon]

I leveled a new job (NIN) for HW. I had to take some time away to deal with medical issues and now I play it sporadically while I'm recovering and I'm still not past 2.5. I really underestimated just how much unskippable stuff was added in between 2.3 and 2.5.

I've already unsubbed, because I realized it's a bad time for me to sink effort into yet another MMO, but it's a cruel joke that I haven't even seen Heavensward. I would be legitimately sad at the waste of it if the situation wasn't ridiculous enough to make me laugh.

Hey, you heard what other posters said: Go play other MMO, and get out!
You did the right decision...but you just wasted your money by buying an expansion you will never get to see and play.
SE=smart.

 

[Fmal]

After running Haukke-Stone Vigil as MCH and and often outdoing melee DPS, I can say that while base damage is somewhat lower than expected much of that comes from players not actually being good. Often people don't have Blood for Blood/Eagle Eye/Raging Strikes/Hot Shot up, don't keep Reload and Quick Reload staggered, don't use Wildfire on bosses or use buffs before using it, have their turret on TP heal when not necessary, and have gear 20 levels behind but think it's good enough because it's pink. Can't say much for 50-60 because I have literally not seen any MCH in my parties for that content yet.

Don't take this the wrong way, but it's basically impossible to draw any sort of meaningful conclusions about class performance in pre-60 content.

 

[Rektash]

I'm gonna be frank. If you don't give a crap about story, this MMO probably isn't a good fit for you. This game spends a LOT of resources trying to get people emotionally involved with the story.

Eh, every person has different reasons to play a game. I loved playing this game for year after release as a (mostly) social experience. I skipped every story sequence there was because I just didn't care. I came back each day to have fun playing and interacting with people. I don't think there is this one thing that you have to enjoy to enjoy the whole experience.

 

[Spiritreaver]

Hah, this is exactly why the MMO I want will never get made. It'd have a player base of like 500.

But I'm one of those crazy old fart MMO players that wants shitty grinds back, horizontal gear progression, and removal of group finders. I've just learned to accept things as they are, it's a dying genre anyway. I don't think we'll see the genre change much unless some bizarre game like No Man's Sky really, really, really takes off.

 

[Fmal]

I'm gonna be frank. If you don't give a crap about story, this MMO probably isn't a good fit for you. This game spends a LOT of resources trying to get people emotionally involved with the story.

This game does a lot of things right, and the main story is just one of them. What you're suggesting is really fucking stupid and I don't understand why the idea of an entirely optional "skip thing I don't care about" feature bothers you so much.

 

[Trojita]

Last Time on Final Fantasy Z

You're right, having an NPC you can talk to that skips you right ahead to the first 3.0 quest wouldn't make a lot of narrative sense. Fortunately, the people that would use it don't give a shit about the story. It's a non-issue.

And yeah, there is a level gate for the new content in WoW, but that's literally it in terms of content gates. I got my guy to level 70 like two days before WotLK came out, didn't do any of the quests or raids in Cata, but was still able to go fuck around in Northrend at launch.

Nobody is advocating for getting rid of the level requirements of HW stuff, but there's a gigantic gap between "letting people instantly level their character to fifty so they can do new content" and "letting people skip hours of subjectively boring story stuff so they can do the new, populated content."

Do you mean Burning Crusade? Cataclysm came after Wrath of the Lich King.

 

[Fmal]

Last Time on Final Fantasy Z



Do you mean Burning Crusade? Cataclysm came after Wrath of the Lich King.

That's exactly what I meant.

 

[diablos991]

Can't wait to go from one of the best - if not the best stories in MMO history to a likely mediocre one thanks to this feedback. There will likely be no continuity due to this.

I'm all for abridging the story for people who don't care, but I absolutely don't want to see them destroy story continuity for MMO hoppers.

So summarizing a story for those that want a summary somehow messes up the story continuity for you?

The people that want and choose to use a summary option won't care if it breaks their immersion a bit. I hardly see how this impacts you as somebody experiencing the story in your own way.

 

[Kwixotik]

That's scary. I thought getting rid of my token and moving to the app version would rid me of such dangers. I never appeared to get a removal password for my app token. Any idea how to go about doing that before I suffer a similar fate? Thanks!

The removal password is given to you when you register your token. If you don't have it written down, the only way to get it would be to go through SE support to unlink it and then re-register. It might be worth it to do it now though, so you have your password and don't get screwed over some weekend like I did lol.

Sorry for the late reply.

 

[Fmal]

Square-Enix is a company that takes the most simplistic of concepts and turns in on its head to be a complete nightmare. I can imagine all sorts of horrifying things they can do.

You're right dude, people shouldn't advocate for new things from SE because they might just fuck it up and make it terrible. I'm surprised how excited people are getting for Alexander because there's no indication that SE isn't going to completely get rid of the duty finder, reset everyone's levels to one, and lock the last 10% of XP needed to level behind a fifty cent micro-transaction.

 

[Sorian]

Let's put it like this. Bahamut was a really good boss fight, it was challenging in the appropriate gear, had a good learning curve of mechanics, threw some fun stuff out that all 3 types of players had to learn. It was just a generally very well designed PvE encounter. I can promise you, there were a lot of people who loved that fight and did not care in the least that the wonder twins had to activate before the main character could fight Bahamut. For others, they only suffered through T12 and T13 fights to see the conclusion to a story and never went back in again. Why should either of those players be thought of as the wrong type of player for this game. Both pay a sub, and that money from each of them goes towards making something they like.

 

[iammeiam]

I'm gonna be frank. If you don't give a crap about story, this MMO probably isn't a good fit for you. This game spends a LOT of resources trying to get people emotionally involved with the story.

I get infinitely more entertainment out of analyzing/discussing/bitching about/exploiting game mechanics than I would out of the story. I don't mind the time and effort they put into a story I don't care about, so I don't know why people mind that I don't care.

 

[diablos991]

That's scary. I thought getting rid of my token and moving to the app version would rid me of such dangers. I never appeared to get a removal password for my app token. Any idea how to go about doing that before I suffer a similar fate? Thanks!

The simple solution is to not use their shitty tokens until they get a customer service team with their heads pulled slightly away from their arses.

The tokens are more of an account risk than not having them. If your shit gets hacked it will take just as long for them to restore it as it would for you to get through to CS and get a token removed.

Just make a super strong password that is different from every other login you own and never use it on fansites or 3rd party apps. You will be golden and not need to risk this token bullshit.

Spoiler

I'm still bitter

 

[fedexpeon]

So summarizing a story for those that want a summary somehow messes up the story continuity for you?

The people that want and choose to use a summary option won't care if it breaks their immersion a bit. I hardly see how this impacts you as somebody experiencing the story in your own way.

It does impact him more meaningful than crying over storymode-MMO, but he doesn't know it.
He thinks FF14 can keep up with this BS expansion lock stuff with bad peer and press reviews on this non-sense.
And with people like him telling new players to go eff themselves so he can enjoy this masterpiece of a 'story', his beloved MMO will fail to capture new audience and new streaming revenue to continue on to create this beautiful storyline of the WoL going around to collect crystals because the WoL once again lost the blessing in expansion 4.0.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Don't take this the wrong way, but it's basically impossible to draw any sort of meaningful conclusions about class performance in pre-60 content.

You mean like we did before the level raise?

And if you read what I wrote I was speaking about player performance. I also said that I personally have yet to run any 60 content with MCH in my party.

 

[irfaanator]

Eh, every person has different reasons to play a game. I loved playing this game for year after release as a (mostly) social experience. I skipped every story sequence there was because I just didn't care. I came back each day to have fun playing and interacting with people. I don't think there is this one thing that you have to enjoy to enjoy the whole experience.

yooo. I was wondering who this was. you coming back? got a whole new zone for you to call home

 

[tiggerkiddo]

Wow, that Inverness style greatcoat being worn by the MCH at 1:04... I need that in my life. Anyone know the name of that number?

Level 59 story dungeon...though all of the gear sets look about the same there.

 

[Rektash]

yooo. I was wondering who this was. you coming back? got a whole new zone for you to call home

Maybe!

 

[BadRNG]

I'm gonna be frank. If you don't give a crap about story, this MMO probably isn't a good fit for you. This game spends a LOT of resources trying to get people emotionally involved with the story.

I'm going to be frank, your playstyle is not the only one that matters, and we wouldn't have the option to skip cutscenes to begin with if SE doesn't realize they need to accommodate to people who don't give a damn about the (frankly mediocre) story.

There is far more content in this game that is not story-related than is, and the vast majority of your time will be spent doing things outside of the story.

 

[diablos991]

Maybe!

My inner german intensifies!

 

[Stuart444]

So...

What I would like is for them to set AV to sync to 50 instead of 49. I mean the level 59 dungeon doesn't sync so you're at 60 in it, would be great if they did something similar to AV so we get our level 50 skills

 

[IvorB]

While we are talking about story options I would like the option to play as the Warrior of Darkness so that I can travel around the land causing sh*t for the sake of it like the Ascians.

 

[fedexpeon]

While we are talking about story options I would like the option to play as the Warrior of Darkness so that I can travel around the land causing sh*t for the sake of it like the Ascians.

The WoD in FF universe doesn't mean doing evil shit.
Everything must be balanced to ensure the realm would not collapse.
Right now, the WoL is destroying this balance and we are endangering the realm.

So yeah, you got your wish.
You are traveling around the land causing unforeseen damage on the Realm in the name of the Light.

 

[irfaanator]

Maybe!

yessssss. not making that 4 hour commute anymore?

also in terms of story i do feel that 4.0 if it ever comes will just be something brand new seperate from the msq now. Definitely too much story after 3.0 to make new ppl or even old to go through.

 

[Menchi]

Hi, I played on-and-off through all of 2.0, did basically every piece of non crafter/gatherer content in the game, and aside from Hildebrand stuff I skipped literally every cutscene I could.

People play games for all sorts of reasons. Not everyone who plays FFXIV gives a shit about the narrative. You know how butthurt people got when they thought Twintania was going to be a PvP reward, because to them it was like something neat was locked behind content they had absolutely no interest in doing? Gating HW stuff behind hours of story quests is kind of like that, except instead of a cool mount it's the entirety of the content of the $40 expansion they just bought.

If you like FFXIV's story and you wish everyone would play it and enjoy it as much as you, that's fine. But there's nothing defensible about the position of "This is a FINAL FANTASY GAME! You're going to play your main story questline and like it you piece of shit."

Nope, I don't care how others play the game, however, I will reiterate, if in the words of the poster I quoted "You've played one MMO, you've played them all" why would you want to diminish the only stand out point of the game and play it over any other MMO?

It just baffles me why people who know this a game that is focused on narrative, would wish to change that, to match their desire of a less narrative focused game... Why wouldn't you just choose a less narrative focused game instead? If you want to stick with FFXIV, why try to change that?

I understand why someone may feel "forced" to do story content to unlock new content as galling, but that is par for the course with both FFXI, and FFXIV. Reams of content is progression and story locked, and I have no idea why people would choose to play a game that is so narrative focused, when they don't care for it, knowing that.

 

[Uthred]

It's weird, because FFXIV does a lot to respect player's time. Roulettes help queues, you can teleport to wherever you want to go, you can DF into dungeons, you can put all your alt classes on one character so you don't need to re-attune to old content etc.

Forcing players to sit through hours of story to get to the newest, most exciting, content in their game seems at odds with their "don't treat players like shit" philosophy.

Yeah its so odd that they dont let players get to the "new exciting content" that they have absolutely no context for, next thing you know they'll be using story as a selling point for their strongly narrative focused game, those madmen

SE could not have been more clear about what they consider the main selling point of the game, acting surprised that they stuck to their guns on it seems a little odd. "But other MMO's do it like this!" isnt particularly convincing when its clear SE are trying to differentiate the game from other MMO's and considering they have been significantly more successful than the other MMO's which stuck to the classic formula they must be doing something right, but of course all those players couldnt possibly be interested in the aspects that differentiate the game from the competition could they?

There is far more content in this game that is not story-related than is, and the vast majority of your time will be spent doing things outside of the story.

There is? Care to briefly outline this content that isnt story related?

The WoD in FF universe doesn't mean doing evil shit.
Everything must be balanced to ensure the realm would not collapse.
Right now, the WoL is destroying this balance and we are endangering the realm.

So yeah, you got your wish.
You are traveling around the land causing unforeseen damage on the Realm in the name of the Light.

That seems like a lot of extrapolation based on what can, at best, be described as an unreliable witness

 

[Sorian]

To throw in my 2 cents, I expect 4.0 story to still be in the same type of continuity as 2.x to 3.0 was. The imperials will probably ramp up again and things will come to a head in Ala Mhigo for 4.0. That being said, I still think they will wise up and come up with a way for people to just jump straight into whatever they want to do with the next expac, storyline included. Cause who the hell cares if you don't know a certain character because you didn't play 2.0. We can use a recent example, I'm sure there are people who bought Witcher 3 and never touched W1 or W2. I don't see those devs demanding their game back and throwing the money back at them, if someone wants to go into a game with no story background, that's their problem, not mine.

 

[Jayhawk]

I didn't know all this crafting and gathering I've been doing were all story-related. How does the collectable gathering flow chart I made for newbies relate to the story?

The daily roulettes for law tomestones where I am practicing my DPS rotations and the hunt marks for seals also were important pieces of the story.

 

[diablos991]

I didn't know all this crafting and gathering I've been doing were all story-related. How does the collectable gathering flow chart I made for newbies relate to the story?

A warrior of light needs pants. Where else would those come from? Saving the realm one pair at a time.

 

[Sorian]

I didn't know all this crafting and gathering I've been doing were all story-related. How does the collectable gathering flow chart I made for newbies relate to the story?

The daily roulettes for law tomestones where I am practicing my DPS rotations and the hunt marks for seals also were important pieces of the story.

Careful, someone is going to tell you the whole history of clan centurino or whatever and then explain the mythos behind every single S rank in the new areas.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I think the story locks help keep pugs from being total wastes (which I'm sure doesn't matter for those in FCs/statics but I work 60+hours a week).

With the expansion I've seen some genuinely head scratching play and I think it could get worse.

I didn't know all this crafting and gathering I've been doing were all story-related. How does the collectable gathering flow chart I made for newbies relate to the story?

The daily roulettes for law tomestones where I am practicing my DPS rotations and the hunt marks for seals also were important pieces of the story.

This is your story.

Blessings and shoutouts to crafters

 

[Rektash]

yessssss. not making that 4 hour commute anymore?

also in terms of story i do feel that 4.0 if it ever comes will just be something brand new seperate from the msq now. Definitely too much story after 3.0 to make new ppl or even old to go through.

Well I certainly don't have the time to play 8h+ a day anymore. No chance of me staying up absurdly late either so I will probably miss US primetime throughout the week. Oh well, not like am planning on raiding again, so a more casual approach should be fine with the time I have at hand nowdays.

 

[Stuart444]

I didn't know all this crafting and gathering I've been doing were all story-related. How does the collectable gathering flow chart I made for newbies relate to the story?

The daily roulettes for law tomestones where I am practicing my DPS rotations and the hunt marks for seals also were important pieces of the story.

The first bit, they have their own story stuff just like all the job quests are stand alone. They are technically story related even if not main-story related.

Nitpicky but I had to say it.

 

[Uthred]

To throw in my 2 cents, I expect 4.0 story to still be in the same type of continuity as 2.x to 3.0 was. The imperials will probably ramp up again and things will come to a head in Ala Mhigo for 4.0. That being said, I still think they will wise up and come up with a way for people to just jump straight into whatever they want to do with the next expac, storyline included. Cause who the hell cares if you don't know a certain character because you didn't play 2.0. We can use a recent example, I'm sure there are people who bought Witcher 3 and never touched W1 or W2. I don't see those devs demanding their game back and throwing the money back at them, if someone wants to go into a game with no story background, that's their problem, not mine.

I dont think the Witcher series is a particularly germane comparison, The Witcher games are designed as standalone narratives sharing a protagonist and setting, Heavensward is a direct sequel to the 2.0 storyline starting the day after the previous one ended. It's also not a standalone game like the Witcher games, its an expansion. Now I actually agree with you that they will allow players to start fresh with 4.0, it makes sense to do so (in that it allows the vocal minority that dislike it to skip it and removes a barrier for new players). But I disagree that it will have the same type of continuity, I think that in order to facilitate a new entry point they wont have the 4.0 storyline tied so closely to the end of the HW storyline in order to make the change feel more organic Hope it is Ala Mhigo, need some swag garlean helmets for my horns to clip through.

 

[diablos991]

Well I certainly don't have the time to play 8h+ a day anymore. No chance of me staying up absurdly late either so I will probably miss US primetime throughout the week. Oh well, not like am planning on raiding again, so a more casual approach should be fine with the time I have at hand nowdays.

Pretty much what I am doing. Who knows, normal mode Alexander might be easy and puggable so we can still get that story before the echo buffs it.

 

[fedexpeon]

Nope, I don't care how others play the game, however, I will reiterate, if in the words of the poster I quoted "You've played one MMO, you've played them all" why would you want to diminish the only stand out point of the game and play it over any other MMO?

It just baffles me why people who know this a game that is focused on narrative, would wish to change that, to match their desire of a less narrative focused game... Why wouldn't you just choose a less narrative focused game instead? If you want to stick with FFXIV, why try to change that?

I understand why someone may feel "forced" to do story content to unlock new content as galling, but that is par for the course with both FFXI, and FFXIV. Reams of content is progression and story locked, and I have no idea why people would choose to play a game that is so narrative focused, when they don't care for it, knowing that.

And a lot of new players have already quit/canceled their subs.
Your beloved FF14 will never grow bigger.
Their feedbacks should be unheard.
They aren't welcome to this narrative-styled MMO.
It should be gated for people with the right mindset and for people who don't skip cutscene.

It baffles me why you don't support your beloved MMO by opening the option to allow more people to access to this great story of the WoL going around the Realm to collect crystals...the second time.
FF14 will die a slow death with each expansion by locking out new players.
But that is what you want, in term of business sense, it doesn't make sense why you want your favorite MMO to fail and unable to increase its population.

 

[Uthred]

I didn't know all this crafting and gathering I've been doing were all story-related. How does the collectable gathering flow chart I made for newbies relate to the story?

The daily roulettes for law tomestones where I am practicing my DPS rotations and the hunt marks for seals also were important pieces of the story.

Already been covered above, but all the crafting and gathering classes have their own storyline (with some of those stories feeding into in the main storyline). Similarly nearly every single instance in the game is tied to the main storyline. So tell me again about the majority of content not being tied to story.

And a lot of new players have already quit/canceled their subs.
Your beloved FF14 will never grow bigger.
Their feedbacks should be unheard.
They aren't welcome to this narrative-styled MMO.
It should be gated for people with the right mindset and for people who don't skip cutscene.

It baffles me why you don't support your beloved MMO by opening the option to allow more people to access to this great story of the WoL going around the Realm to collect crystals...the second time.
FF14 will die a slow death with each expansion by locking out new players.
But that is what you want, in term of business sense, it doesn't make sense why you want your favorite MMO to fail and unable to increase its population.

Cool, they've published subscription and retention figures along with customer feedback? Could you link them? Oh and could you perhaps show a comparison between the success of FFXIV and its competitors who have stuck to a more traditional expansion paradigm? I mean Wildstar's doing great, right?