Today the option of using a Story-skip potion for both ARR and Heavensward has been confirmed in the latest letter from the producer Live.
Additional information and translations are still forthcoming, though from what I've gathered the mogstation potions will have three different types:
1) Rush you to the end of ARR -- 2.5 and allow you to enter Heavensward instantly.
2) Rush you to the end of ARR and Heavensward 3.5 to allow you to enter Stormblood instantly
3) Level a job of your choice (likely only combat) to 60. One time limit per account (restriction may lift after observing its use). RDM and Samurai won't be eligible as they start at level 50.
Availability: June 16th (Subject to official translation)
Price: $18 for ARR story completion; $25 for both ARR and Heavensward. Unsure on the level potion, though I'll update later tonight.
Additionally: A new video showcasing some new Job actions has been released:
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Comments
A new player joining after Stormblood would be looking at several months of MSQ grind and tons of dungeon queues to get through, just to catch up. Unless you have no life and able to play 24/7.
Indeed. The price point is also lower than I'd expect due to being so used to how games like WoW charge an arm and a leg for optional services ($60 for a character advancement). Then again, FFXIV's server transfers and such are usually half of what WoW's are, and you can do them in a bulk of 8 characters for a single $18 as opposed to 25+35 for server + faction transfer, per character.
Just because you can get away with obscene $55 transfers and $60 characters doesn't mean you should, in my opinion. Pricing at what you think is fair (as a company needs to make money, too) is a way to go (and some companies like CD Projekt Red and Larian do this / offer fair deals). Though we're our worst enemies when it comes to that since such things sell, and it's hard to expect western businesses not to be greedy. Something is worth what you are willing to pay for it, after all.
Their main argument is that players will not learn class mechanics and cause wipes in dungeons.
The problem with that argument is that bad players will always be bad players! No matter what. If they are unwilling to listen and learn, it doesn't matter if you force them through all the content or not.
Any willing player will quickly learn the mechanics. SE has added some nice tutorials that teach you Tanking, DPS and Healing mechanics, rewarding some nice leveling gear upon completion.
I think this tutorial is even mandatory before you allowed to use the Duty finder. So as long as this stays mandatory, even after using these potions, I don't see any problems.
As for FFXIV in General I still haven't really thought about playing this because of the housing crisis, and Cosmetic system still not being improved to proper standards because after all it is Square Enix, and FFXI imo was better and more fun for its creation date and time.
What if someone wants to reroll to a different server, without migrating character? Just starting fresh again. I actually did that last year myself. Got fed up on Balmung and started new on Phoenix.
So, since this person has already seen the lvl1-50 MSQ, he/she decides to buy a jump potion. He/she knows all the mechanics, since he/she already leveled through the content and done the dungeons and trials, including HM.
So now people see on his/her profile that he/she used a jump potion and gets immediately kicked out of dungeons groups, solely based on that? As that is what's going to happen then.
Me neither.
The main story line should be soloable by default and if i want to do it with a group then i can choose to do so.
I gave up on the game after wasting hours in queue just to fight Garuda. Coudn't even get to see the first expansion content so i have no reason to come back if im still going to be stuck. Not wasting my money.
This should be impossible with how things are set up. Those who have not completed a story quest are essentially given priority in the queuing and roulette systems. I can see something taking about 20-30 minutes late night, but a max of 9-12 minutes otherwise. I know this is true even today, as I make a new character almost every month on my three legacy accounts and go through the story with FC mates or friends. It's a sort of event we have to help others and just do things together. Even entering solo without the priority, it rarely takes that long regardless if you're DPS, Healer or a Tank (though the latter always get it quicker).
Aside from that, I can pretty much guarantee you will get a group of people together if you're social and use the tools available. Enter party finder (something where everyone on your data server -- dozens of servers -- can see your message and party with you), say you're new and have new player bonus and please help, and you will get several bites almost instantly from people who want the bonuses not only from that, but also Wondrous tails and the like. FCs that are worth their salt also help (They can do it unsync'd in less than 30 seconds if you use the options menu). If you ask in chat and say you're new, it will happen again. If you join the mentor system and ask in the mentor chat, it should as well. They all get bonuses for helping new players.
This is a social MMO that has a lot of tools for such. Heck, there are even a lot of discord channels, fan websites with thousands of active forum goers and a reddit with 5,000+ people on it even at 2AM in the morning.
I've even seen mentors in mentor chat offer new players gil to take them along just for the bonuses. In general chat, as well. It's a commodity, and you could actually sell it. Which kind of sounds wrong, selling your first time. But you can actually profit off of it if you want to take a little extra time getting a group together. Otherwise people will jump at the chance.
The first part will start more problems than not. There is no need to have a way to witch hunt people. If they are serious about being good, they will do the research and practice it requires. While FFXIV provides some nice tutorials at around level 15 nowadays, being competent doesn't equal playing through the story. Yes. There will likely be many who try to do a level 50 or 60 dungeon right away as a tank and have ABSOLUTELY no idea to play due to tanking being so different in this game than a lot of others. We'll be able to spot them just by that alone.
As for the second, the housing situation isn't great, though we now know what the problem is. There wasn't enough room at the old data center, and they've since moved locations. We'll now get 50% more inventory space, double furniture allocations and a large wave of new houses will be open. In addition, they've also had an Apartment system in place for a little while now, similar to FFXI's own. The only thing wrong with the glamour system is that it's a level 50 unlock. They also made it so there is only one grade of item to be used (Which is an improvement). It could be better for sure, but there's little wrong with it as a whole.
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Lot of people are currently catching up, so queue times for dungeons and trials are really fast at the moment.
I finished patch 2.1 to 2.5 in a couple days, including the lvl50 relic weapon quest line (nice for appearance). Which matches perfectly, since the relic questline requires the 3 main trials on hardmode, which is required for patch 2.4 too.
I am now lvl54 and far into Heavensward now, so I will be lvl60 before the 20th of June
The community for this game has always been like this. The myth is the FFXIV community is great....far from truth.
Here you go....the FF community. No different than WoW, "no achievement? No group for you!"
Also important that if you skip so much and you want to start crafting and using materia, you gotta get into the ARR and HW content anyway because I dare to bet that you're not leveling those jobs :P
Furthermore I'm wondering how the potions work. Do they level only one main class, or will you get a job with it as well? If not, then the potion is kinda worthless since only the main class sucks and you'll have to do a lot of job quests as well to get all the skills for that job,
Other than that I don't see much problem here, although I'm shocked those who generally hate the idea of "P2W" aren't all over this lol.
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Bad players don't last long. They will be dismissed from their duty. Even if there is people who mess up bad enough that someone else has to explain and tell them what to do unless you are an undergeared tank you won't get kicked unless you deliberately try to get killed. Might get yelled at a bit though. You have to be really really bad to get kicked from a party.
The general quality of players are usually pretty good with the odd exception of someone who wants to be that player.
I wonder if we can level up a crafting profession with the potion?
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Quite the opposite, in fact! I've written pages and pages regarding this and why the community is, in fact, pretty great on the whole. Most of it has to do with the systems put into place by the game itself. There are dozens of systems in place for veteran players to get rewarded for helping newer players, especially in dungeons (as dungeons say when a new player is in group). Mentor systems, new dungeon rewards, roulette, mentor roulette, Wondrous Tails, commendations, etc. And whenever you enter these, you're typically greeted with a "hello"! You wouldn't believe the amount of reddit posts and comments people make about people being so nice to the point they feel like they have to pay it forward.
With that, there is the whole "end game" mentality which can be like any other game as a whole with some. Though when it comes to cross-realm communication and outside sources like it's super active reddit (having 5,000-12,000 people on pretty much at any given moment), the community of the game is quite lively and pretty nice when considering human nature as a whole. I personally haven't seen any problems since early ARR when there was that rush craze of the last dungeon that had story in it. Though that was wrapped up pretty quickly and most would encourage you to just watch the story now, since most are overgeared for it.
Go ahead and give the current game a try and find out! Even posting on reddit or the data center PF will have you meet some really nice people eager to help you.
There are plenty of systems that encourage others to help new players. And you can get near instant groups for anything at any given time if you know a few tricks. Learning how to use the Data center PF, for instance, will help immensely. Just state you're new and have the new player bonus and people will flock to get the Wondrous tails bonus among other things. Reddit also helps quite a bit. Or talk in the channel and say your new -- or join the new player channel that has mentors from the mentor system. FCs and Linkshells as well, especially since someone can do an unsync'd dungeon in minutes with a high level.
I don't suspect the potions will be very popular at all, to be honest. Maybe 5% of new players from Stormblood on will probably make use of them. Mainly those who didn't play because they didn't want to play the game.