Not to nitpick, but people aren't just telling you to go play another game so much as they are telling you to play this one. The MSQ and not much else (which i agree has more filler than it should but still). Saying its objectively terrible is also a bad way to go about it because a lot of people DO like the story believe it or not and a lot don't even skip cutscenes. This is not a completely bumbling dev team, they made a paid MMO thrive after the terrible 1.0 AND in the face of so many naysayers writing off the future of sub MMOs entirely.
Besides, I also think they will do something different going forward. Two exapnsion's worth will probably be asking a bit much for new players. That being said, I would not be surprised if they used some other form of gating (for new gilsellers accounts if nothing else). may depend on Ps3 support going forward what they are willing to try.
The post I was quoting pretty much outright said go play another game. It's a sentiment I have seen before as well, that not caring for the game's story means the game itself is not for you - which is flatout wrong. That's the whole crux of this "issue". It's objectively terrible because it forces a specific playstyle on people to an unnecessary degree. I don't doubt there are people who like the story, hell I even like the story
, and I've never skipped a cutscene either even if I've been terribly tempted to at times. The point is simply that, much like being able to skip a cutscene, the option should exist for people to skip past all the fluff of the 2.1-55 stuff. Even an extremely lazy option like offering a refresh/digest movie akin to the Yakuza series would work.
But yeah, as was said, Yoship has already acknowledged this set up can't work with future expansions. The only debate is whether or not they should implement changes to the
current gating, and by debate I mean a bunch of people essentially saying "
well if you don't like the story you can geeet out".
As to how they would implement things, they could actually do it as part of the story's framework. Upon reaching 50 and watching the credits, you can talk to the Wandering Minstrel and with the power of the echo/yoshipavatar powers replay or revisit certain key moments of the 2.1-5 saga. Basically cut out the fluff and let you see the
actual story, and not the endless uniformpasserhideandseekIhateeveryoneinEorzea game of fetch quests.
Lots of stuff, this post is too big as is
Don't you already gain access to Au Ra just from having the expansion? Is that not already a huge story/game system break?
Look, no one is saying to make the entire storyline of the whole game optional, simply to expedite the brand new 50 > heavensward process. It is, in it's current state, unnecessarily long. It was designed to pad things out and give people new stuff to do at 50, and it's staggered release made the monotony of much of it's activities somewhat more bearable. Being asked to do it all back to back to back is just asking too much. It's not a case of losing the game's "identity", it's simply a case of making things easier for the user.
It's something they do at all levels of the game already to begin with, every time a new set of content comes out the previous set is made simpler as well as less time consuming to complete. Think of what it would be like if a new player at 50 had to go through the entire previous line of gear and content before they could see the new stuff the entire rest of the playerbase is currently enjoying? Grinding in AK for days for DL, and being stuck with only mythology weekly tomes until you reached high enough ilvl to unlock soldiery, and so on and so forth.
Granted, doing the entire patch series of quests wouldn't take quite as long as that, but the point here is the tedium and excessiveness of the grind. The doesn't need to be completely removed either, but it desperately needs a trimming, much like other aspects of the game saw.
