New players and the expansion. Massive barrier to entry. You have been warned.

Foomerang

I was caught off guard by this. Been out of town for a while and hadn't been reading up on the requirements to play in the upcoming Heavensward expansion.

I was under the false assumption that you only needed to be level 50 and complete the 2.0 main scenario questline. Wrong.

In order to have access to the new expansion, you must have a level 50, completed all of the main storyline quests up to 2.55 and also have an average gear rating of at least ilvl 90.

As soon as I finished the main story at 2.0, i dropped combat and never looked back. I have had a great time doing all of the non combat activities and being part of a nice community.

I pre ordered the new expansion looking forward to new abilities for botanist and the mastery system, as well as housing additions and airship crafting.

But to my dismay, in order to even step foot in the new area, I must go back to my combat class and finish off a whopping 120 more quests. These quests so far have been mindless fetch/kill quests and also having to rerun old dungeons with most of my abilities missing (since it scales you back).

I am trudging through it, shaking my head at this poorly implemented game decision. Every MMO expansion I have experienced has had little to no barrier to entry. A simple level requirement and a couple introductory quests to the new areas at most.

If you are interested in the expansion but have never played before, here is what you are required to do before being allowed access:

Your journey from 1-50 will require about 220 quests to be done. So no, you can't just grind fates or dungeons to 50 and be finished. A lot of these quests are either forced solo or forced group. Your queue times will be astronomical once the expansion hits because everyone else will be in the new zones with little to no incentive to daily roulette the old stuff.

After you hit 50 and do the 200 or so quests needed along the way, you will still have another 120 or so quest to complete AFTER hitting level cap. A fresh 50 is in ilvl 55 gear. SO even if you power through the 120+ quests after hitting level cap, you must thein decide to drop 3-5 million gil on gear to reach ilvl 90 or grind dungeons for another week or so and get enough tokens to reach ilvl 90.

I've never seen or heard of anything remotely close to this in an mmo before. They might as well put a sign on the door that says "newcomers not welcome"

Typically the point of an expansion is to attract more players while keeping your current playerbase happy. Current players like myself are extremely disheartened, and new players? They are doa with this huge wall in front of them.

I love this game. But this has got to be one of the worst ideas I've seen in an mmorpg.

And of course , SE will gladly take your money for the expansion regardless. There is no mention of the requirements when you go to purchase.

bad form.

vtravi

Thanks for the heads up. I was thinking about resubbing but I only got to level 25. Now I know better

tomdavidson

wow that;'s an interesting way to do an expansion

jacker1991

Long Live FFXIV!

Mikeha

Thanks for the heads up.

Froggie85

Originally posted by Foomerang

I was caught off guard by this. Been out of town for a while and hadn't been reading up on the requirements to play in the upcoming Heavensward expansion.

I was under the false assumption that you only needed to be level 50 and complete the 2.0 main scenario questline. Wrong.

In order to have access to the new expansion, you must have a level 50, completed all of the main storyline quests up to 2.55 and also have an average gear rating of at least ilvl 90.

As soon as I finished the main story at 2.0, i dropped combat and never looked back. I have had a great time doing all of the non combat activities and being part of a nice community.

I pre ordered the new expansion looking forward to new abilities for botanist and the mastery system, as well as housing additions and airship crafting.

But to my dismay, in order to even step foot in the new area, I must go back to my combat class and finish off a whopping 120 more quests. These quests so far have been mindless fetch/kill quests and also having to rerun old dungeons with most of my abilities missing (since it scales you back).

I am trudging through it, shaking my head at this poorly implemented game decision. Every MMO expansion I have experienced has had little to no barrier to entry. A simple level requirement and a couple introductory quests to the new areas at most.

If you are interested in the expansion but have never played before, here is what you are required to do before being allowed access:

Your journey from 1-50 will require about 220 quests to be done. So no, you can't just grind fates or dungeons to 50 and be finished. A lot of these quests are either forced solo or forced group. Your queue times will be astronomical once the expansion hits because everyone else will be in the new zones with little to no incentive to daily roulette the old stuff.

After you hit 50 and do the 200 or so quests needed along the way, you will still have another 120 or so quest to complete AFTER hitting level cap. A fresh 50 is in ilvl 55 gear. SO even if you power through the 120+ quests after hitting level cap, you must thein decide to drop 3-5 million gil on gear to reach ilvl 90 or grind dungeons for another week or so and get enough tokens to reach ilvl 90.

I've never seen or heard of anything remotely close to this in an mmo before. They might as well put a sign on the door that says "newcomers not welcome"

Typically the point of an expansion is to attract more players while keeping your current playerbase happy. Current players like myself are extremely disheartened, and new players? They are doa with this huge wall in front of them.

I love this game. But this has got to be one of the worst ideas I've seen in an mmorpg.

And of course , SE will gladly take your money for the expansion regardless. There is no mention of the requirements when you go to purchase.

bad form.

My buddy Reapers Edge on Cactuar started a month and half ago and he's all caught up. This is his first mmo ever too.

 

You're an mmo vet. Why are you complaining? Because you actually have to PLAY the game to get access to content that takes place AFTER the 2.55 story.

 

Do you even know why were going to Ishgard? 

 

****SPOILERS******

 

Hey dingus, all the Scions are dead, General Raubahn has only one arm now, Hydlayn wont talk to you anymore. Nanamo was poisened and killed. We are outcasts to to our own land.

 

Thats why were going to Ishgard. 

 

So if you have access BEFORE the story, then it makes it a pretty dumb ass idea for them to let any old anybody in Heavensward. 

 

You're post is so laughable. I used to respect you dude. What happened?

kinido

Originally posted by Foomerang

I was caught off guard by this. Been out of town for a while and hadn't been reading up on the requirements to play in the upcoming Heavensward expansion.

I was under the false assumption that you only needed to be level 50 and complete the 2.0 main scenario questline. Wrong.

In order to have access to the new expansion, you must have a level 50, completed all of the main storyline quests up to 2.55 and also have an average gear rating of at least ilvl 90.

As soon as I finished the main story at 2.0, i dropped combat and never looked back. I have had a great time doing all of the non combat activities and being part of a nice community.

I pre ordered the new expansion looking forward to new abilities for botanist and the mastery system, as well as housing additions and airship crafting.

But to my dismay, in order to even step foot in the new area, I must go back to my combat class and finish off a whopping 120 more quests. These quests so far have been mindless fetch/kill quests and also having to rerun old dungeons with most of my abilities missing (since it scales you back).

I am trudging through it, shaking my head at this poorly implemented game decision. Every MMO expansion I have experienced has had little to no barrier to entry. A simple level requirement and a couple introductory quests to the new areas at most.

If you are interested in the expansion but have never played before, here is what you are required to do before being allowed access:

Your journey from 1-50 will require about 220 quests to be done. So no, you can't just grind fates or dungeons to 50 and be finished. A lot of these quests are either forced solo or forced group. Your queue times will be astronomical once the expansion hits because everyone else will be in the new zones with little to no incentive to daily roulette the old stuff.

After you hit 50 and do the 200 or so quests needed along the way, you will still have another 120 or so quest to complete AFTER hitting level cap. A fresh 50 is in ilvl 55 gear. SO even if you power through the 120+ quests after hitting level cap, you must thein decide to drop 3-5 million gil on gear to reach ilvl 90 or grind dungeons for another week or so and get enough tokens to reach ilvl 90.

I've never seen or heard of anything remotely close to this in an mmo before. They might as well put a sign on the door that says "newcomers not welcome"

Typically the point of an expansion is to attract more players while keeping your current playerbase happy. Current players like myself are extremely disheartened, and new players? They are doa with this huge wall in front of them.

I love this game. But this has got to be one of the worst ideas I've seen in an mmorpg.

And of course , SE will gladly take your money for the expansion regardless. There is no mention of the requirements when you go to purchase.

bad form.

The quests that take you from 1-50 is faster leveling than it would be via spamming dungeons / fates, also, you will not have horrible queue times because level 30 is one of the first quests that you get that makes you go into a dungeon - and at this time, everyone will be level 30 on the new classes pushing dungeons hard - so actually, you will have shorter queue times then there are currently. 

Also, it's an " expansion " ... an " expansion " to the story, everything in this is an expansion to the story, so why shouldn't you have to finish the story before you can expand upon the story into the new areas?, also, the quests you get from level 50 can be done in about 8 or so hours, yeah, it might seem like bad form - but its Final Fantasy, many games make you push to level cap to be able to do any of the new content, well look - so is Square Enix. They just want you to push through the story, which is INTEGRAL in your first characters leveling speed, and with the expansion it will be even faster. 

 

Distopia

Sounds like they don't want anyone to treat this game as anything but a typical achievement grind. 

Jafeeio

The way I see it, if the main game is not fun for you then the expansion won't be either, so there isn't really a "massive barrier to entry" because the expansion does nothing different. It's more of the same stuff, more quests, more dungeons, more raids. 

If you are into that stuff you can pretty easily get ready until the expansion hits.

I quit the game right after the main story too, didn't even touch my relic quest. I came back 2 weeks ago and I finished both the main story and got myself up to ilevel 112 (only 90 is required for the story) easily. 

 

This is not the first MMO that has done exclusive content for max level characters. Trials of Atlantis in DAoC was mostly for max level and required some pretty challenging group content too in order to "complete" it all. 

Palinrir

Ishgard is blocked off until finishing the 100 quests between 2.1-2.55 patches due to lore reasons. Ishgard is too busy with the Dravanian threat that exists to pay you or any of the other city states any attention beyond "Stay away, we will handle this on our own. Deal with the empire on your own. No Outsiders allowed ever."

It makes no sense story wise to let people just waltz in since FFXIV clearly cares about its story. I expect most, if not all future expansions will be like this. 

Froggie85

Originally posted by Palinrir

Ishgard is blocked off until finishing the 100 quests between 2.1-2.55 patches due to lore reasons. Ishgard is too busy with the Dravanian threat that exists to pay you or any of the other city states any attention beyond "Stay away, we will handle this on our own. Deal with the empire on your own. No Outsiders allowed ever."

It makes no sense story wise to let people just waltz in since FFXIV clearly cares about its story. I expect most, if not all future expansions will be like this. 

Yup and all FF XI expacs worked this way too. 

 

And this dude say's this is a new way of doing thing's.

 

iatesand

OMG, drama much?

lets assume that you have to do the story quest, its is after all the story.  gear is so easy to get. Just run some duty finders, it drops like rain... over and over and over. The normal drop gear now is over ilvl 100.  

just do the duty finder get some gear then play.  

I mean if you dont like combat... you might be a really small minority to start. and if you dont like doing a quest then this isnt the game for you to start, the whole game is 1 big quest.

But if you like to log on and play, then you will get the gear the quest and the expansion all at the rate you set for yourself

Tyggs

An Expansion expands on current content. Why would you need access to the expanded content before completing current content? You don't need to do everything, just complete your story and do steps of fate. And what is the rush? Slow down and enjoy the ride, then grab the expansion at a discount later.

Warlyx

ppl cry that there is no lore , no story and nothing to do at max lvl in other mmorpgs , that outside some daily or raids some games dont follow any story whatsoever...and is just a grindfest just for pixels...

FFXIV changes that , after 50 the story keeps going every patch , new characters , new enemies , plot twists , and of course new dungeons and trials... thats what make FFXIV awesome , that after 50 u are NOT done with the story and the zones keep changing and advancing with you

 

btw to do the whole Main story quest u just need ilvl 90 , u can get a full 100 set with easy and in the process some 120 gear.

ivl90 was the max ILVL when FFXIV ARR was released..... 2 years ago ~~

azurrei

This is the reason I decided against starting back up - too much of a barrier to overcome before the expansion - might pick it up in the future if they come up with a nice video of the 2.x story and allow new players to go right into the expansion - that really is all that should be needed other than maybe a NEW questline everyone is going to be doing to access the expansion content.  If it were all soloable, that would be doable but relying on groups for old content is not fun.  Oh well.

Tyggs

Originally posted by azurrei
This is the reason I decided against starting back up - too much of a barrier to overcome before the expansion - might pick it up in the future if they come up with a nice video of the 2.x story and allow new players to go right into the expansion - that really is all that should be needed other than maybe a NEW questline everyone is going to be doing to access the expansion content.  If it were all soloable, that would be doable but relying on groups for old content is not fun.  Oh well.

 But why do you need to go right into the expansion?

Wizardry

Sadly Square was by far my absolute fave developer but one or two or a few big shots really got greedy and turned aside great moral standards in game building and went south with terrible ideas.

Besides the past, a rushed game even the future is not what i want from my gaming experience.

I wanted a more diverse class system,not one that takes a backseat to ffxi and is very limited.

I wanted actual housing i could reasonably afford and right away,i mean how unrealistic is it that nobody lives anywhere until later in game?

I do not like on the fly weapon/class switching,i liked it the old way of having to go home and switch classes,realistically nobody would carry 10+ classes of gear on them.

The level 50 gear grind is a retarded idea.The Item level idea is nothign but a lazy corner cutting design and i do not approve of it and sadly they went that route in FFXI as well ruining the game there as well.

IMO the old school guys like Tanaka and his Boss at his new studio were the smart guys just trying to make great games.This new regime is more about finding ways to make games cheaper and holding onto subs with lame mechanics.Copying the Wow design is imo a brutal decision,so now Final Fantasy feels like Wow 2.0 similar to the way Landmark feels like Minecraft 2.0.

I look to certain franchises for special reasons,i want to feel like i am enjoying a Final Fantasy game,not Wow.

Sad tiems i guess, i highly doubt this new way of thinking will ever again create another FFXI.I will not lose hope,i get the feeling they will close FFXI down eventually,then perhaps try their hand at another MMORPG or perhaps not,maybe they will sink all their efforts into FFXIV for many years to come,i hope not because i refuse to play FFXIV ever again.

 

 

Tymoris

Originally posted by Tyggs

Originally posted by azurrei
This is the reason I decided against starting back up - too much of a barrier to overcome before the expansion - might pick it up in the future if they come up with a nice video of the 2.x story and allow new players to go right into the expansion - that really is all that should be needed other than maybe a NEW questline everyone is going to be doing to access the expansion content.  If it were all soloable, that would be doable but relying on groups for old content is not fun.  Oh well.

 But why do you need to go right into the expansion?

You don't need to go right into thte expansion but it seems SE didn't learn anything from Chains of Promathia from FFXI.

Hell even in the expansions of FFXI you still could access some of its major content even without doing all the prereq bs.

Zarriya

Sorry OP that this game is not for you. 

It is for people that do not want to skip levels; that like to earn their higher power.

Where it is actually respected that you have achieved that level. Where you do not buy an instant level 50,85, 90, etc.  Its really not that hard to get there either so I think this thread is rather funny.  I am glad they are doing it this way.

fivoroth

I understand your concern but I am really glad they decided to do it this way. Those quests you are referring to form part of the main storyline so it makes sense that the game asks you to finish those main storyline quests before continuing with the expansion storyline.

Why are people in a rush to experience the expansion content especially newbies? Newcomers would benefit from having MORE CONTENT (mindblown!) than the game making tons of content absolete.

Fauzt

So you need to do all that content in order to have the expansion and play the new classes / races?

Bladestrom

Cool, developers actually get that thru don't have to destroy their old content. If the content was good before the expansion it will be better after as the (cohesive) journey is longer.

Much better that the 'screw old content- people want to rush by everything' blizzard approach.

Kyleran

Originally posted by Wizardry

Sadly Square was by far my absolute fave developer but one or two or a few big shots really got greedy and turned aside great moral standards in game building and went south with terrible ideas.

Besides the past, a rushed game even the future is not what i want from my gaming experience.

I wanted a more diverse class system,not one that takes a backseat to ffxi and is very limited.

I wanted actual housing i could reasonably afford and right away,i mean how unrealistic is it that nobody lives anywhere until later in game?

I do not like on the fly weapon/class switching,i liked it the old way of having to go home and switch classes,realistically nobody would carry 10+ classes of gear on them.

The level 50 gear grind is a retarded idea.The Item level idea is nothign but a lazy corner cutting design and i do not approve of it and sadly they went that route in FFXI as well ruining the game there as well.

IMO the old school guys like Tanaka and his Boss at his new studio were the smart guys just trying to make great games.This new regime is more about finding ways to make games cheaper and holding onto subs with lame mechanics.Copying the Wow design is imo a brutal decision,so now Final Fantasy feels like Wow 2.0 similar to the way Landmark feels like Minecraft 2.0.

I look to certain franchises for special reasons,i want to feel like i am enjoying a Final Fantasy game,not Wow.

Sad tiems i guess, i highly doubt this new way of thinking will ever again create another FFXI.I will not lose hope,i get the feeling they will close FFXI down eventually,then perhaps try their hand at another MMORPG or perhaps not,maybe they will sink all their efforts into FFXIV for many years to come,i hope not because i refuse to play FFXIV ever again.

What you want is FFXI 2.0, and it will never be built.  Not just a SQE greed factor, there was no UO 2, AO2, DAOC2, SB2, etc.

Even the games that did have sequels, such as Lineage 2, EQ2, AC2, these games were nothing like their predecessors, in fact, they employed very different game designs from their predecessors.

Developers will always update their new titles with the current game design theory, they rarely will employ what was marginally successful in the past. (anything under WOW's numbers can be considered marginal) so they try something else, hoping to hit the big time.

Your only real choice is to play the current incarnation, find a free shard with a rule set you enjoy, or..simply not play.

Now to the OP, actually, making players start from the beginning and complete all pre-expansion content is somewhat old school, many older titles made you do this, there was no shortcuts, that's a more modern concept and not one that is beneficial to a game trying to make a living off of subs.

 

Jessix

I think the barrier to entry is a great idea. Square Enix are masters at keeping all of their content populated. If they let everyone just skip right to the expansion, then all previous content would be obsolete and new players would have hard times finding groups for dungeons, etc.

The expansion is not for leveling from 1-50. You seem upset that you cant just catch up to everyone else just because an expansion is coming out. Do your work just like the rest of us.

I had to do all of the story quests and gear up, so why shouldn't you have to? because you are new? You just want to skip everything that's been added to the game just because an expansion is coming out?

We all might as well just never play the game and wait until expansion comes out so we can just skip ahead lol.

If you feel that the current content and story isn't worth your time, then why are you playing? Don't envy us because we decided the game was worth our time long before you did.

Christophiza

I like the idea of the game forcing you to understand what has been happening before stepping into the expansion. On paper it's great but unfortunately not many people will want to invest that much time before they get to try something shiny and new.

We gamers love our shinies.

Bitrip

Holy cow! You really need i90 gear for the expansion? That was one of the things that turned me off to the game in the end. I did not enjoy looking for a competent group for that stuff.