Can I go to Ishgard right after purchasing Heavensward? Yoshida says "No".

[Erik Mynhier]

All I really remember are shitty level caps that required you to keep ALL OF YOUR GEAR FOREVER.

 

IKR!!!

[Mae]

FFXI's Chains of Promathia. That is all.

I don't remember if CoP required you to clear RotZ first. All I really remember are shitty level caps that required you to keep ALL OF YOUR GEAR FOREVER.

 

Buying CoP didn't give you access to anything except the balls-hard fights required to access the new zones, the new city, the new story and everything that wasn't jobs. Zilart required you to complete everything to unlock Sky. Aht Urghan was different in that regard, opening a lot from the door, but there is a precedent for buying an SE MMO and having it be an empty box save for a pile of IOU: Patch Content notes.

I do think there's a difference between buying the expac and immediately having access to the new content, be it in the form of stupidly hard fights, even if I look back on Promyvion's fondly for how cool they were, in some way as opposed to buying the expac and having access to literally nothing until you clear what is basically all of the content from the base game.

Bolded because that's exactly how I feel. 

 

You didn't have to be level 75, finish a Nation's missions, beat Rise of the Zilart and be partially geared through Dynamis and other HNMs in order to start Chains of Promathia. All you needed to be was level 30 and have some luck to get through the Promyvions. It was possible to have Tavnazia access before you got your AF armor, got your airship pass, and beat the Shadow Lord. There were also zones that were released with CoP and you only needed to have the expansion installed to access -- Bibiki Bay and Carpenter's Landing to name two that I specifically remember bouncing off the zone-line because I didn't have CoP installed, and after installing I could access months before I even attempted my first Promyvion.

 

The ONLY things that were affected by completing RotZ before starting in on CoP? Some minor changes in dialogue, the realization to why Esha'ntarl wouldn't let Nag'molada speak to Kam'lanaut, and the ability to participate in the optional Apocalypse Nigh fight. 

 

And even if you finished CoP before RotZ, you STILL went back and finished RotZ because epic cutscenes and that silly earring that's STILL viable gear in some circumstances.

 

 

You've got three and a half months, if you get started now, you'll be done in time.

We have a little over three and a half months until the expansion hits... Is that not enough time to get the MSQ done for most people?

These... are actually sentiment that I've been sort of dreading >_>

 

Getting to level 50 is easy for just about anyone. I've got my main who's got -most- jobs to 50, and currently four alts that all have at least one job to 50.

 

But when you have a job that requires you to give up such comforts like in-home plumbing, a proper stove, and stable internet access, doing the group content that requires coordination and strict adherence to stratagy... you can end up sitting on something for months. I personally sat on story-mode Garuda's doorstep for three months. The Castrums and all that stuff in that final 2.0 story stretch took me another four months. Then I sat on King Moogle Mog's doorstep for another three months. I got lucky last week and was able to plow through King Moogle Mog and all the way through Shiva before I ran out of both steam and time to go further... but if I'm understanding what's coming up ahead for me IRL, it can be another six months before I get another chance like that again.. and I -still- have to do HM Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda before I can even pick up the next questline.

 

I may be unique in my specific situation, but I doubt I'm the ONLY player in the whole game who's 50 right now and while they on the surface have access to a lot of playtime, they'll be unable to just walk across a bridge and look around a brand new city because their real-world obligations don't give them enough actual leeway to do the progression fights.

 

I'm not saying I want to have access to the personal airships, or new dungeons, or armor/weapon upgrades before finishing 2.55. Hell, I don't even care if I'm not allowed to attune to the aetheryte, NPCs will not respond to me clicking on them, and I'm unable to view the market board or call retainers in Ishgard until I complete 2.55. I just want to be able to go lean up against a wall in the new city and watch people run around.

 

Right now, the feeling I get from the details of this expansion are "Unless you really want to play the new race (and of course granted that SE didn't gate THAT behind 2.55, too /pessimist), don't bother buying the expansion until you clear 2.55". And I really won't be surprised if that's the sentiment that's picked up by the review sites.

[Edda]

This is my theory, and probably really unlikely actually, but I had considered this when Heavensfall was announced.

 

So like, remember doing the MSQ for the very first time, and then you hit I think 46 and then there was this really awkward gap where you couldn't continue it until you were 49? Would it not be super supreme if they axed the 50-only requirement for a lot of the content patches (say 2.1-2.4), so you could be about 50 by the time you were working through 2.4?

 

Granted, this would probably a real fucking pain in the ass to pull off, and we all know Square won't do any heavy lifting unless it's to save face, but it's an idea. Sadly, this would only help out new players and returning players that couldn't be assed to FATE grind to 49 in the first place. The rest of you capped-out ALTaholics would essentially be screwed in that regard. But you have time! Chippity chop now, these quests won't finish themselves!

[Gone.]

This has always been my biggest complaint with this game. Story is all well and good, but I'd prefer to do it my own leisure, not something I have to do to access every single core thing in the game. It's even worse on alts where I just don't even want to bother and mash A through all dialog or B > Skip Cutscene so I can get through it as reasonably fast as possible. They're just for RP and specializing in other jobs, anyway, I read and watch on Vetiver so I know what's going on but even then I struggle at times just because I feel forced to do it just to keep up.

 

Not only is the game fairly alt hostile, it's also not very accommodating when it comes to RPers, which considering there is no official RP server or community is understandable to a degree. They build things from a design perspective, not in a way that makes things easily accessible and convenient for RPers.

 

Disagree so much. Head tracking, interactive furniture, emotes and poses that are actually usable, housing, etc. actually make this game much more immersive to RP in than anything else I've played.

 

The only things I even miss from other MMOs when it comes to RP is the skin library and dye system from GW2 and SWG's sandbox. Everything else, FFXIV does better for me and I'm willing to sacrifice them because of it.

[Darien Cadell]

In my experience, standard procedure with MMO expansions is some content available for everyone, most available for those who've run out of things to do in the old game, thus already have everything unlocked, so making it available only to them isn't a big negative. That market's already there. They're the ones who want/need their game expanded, as it were.

 

If you want to see the new stuff and haven't done the old stuff, then there's always the option of not buying the new stuff until you've seen the old stuff. Technically you don't lose out on anything, except time, but that's time that was lost somewhere along the line before the expansion's arrival, at least relative to the expansion's usual targets.

 

Alts, though, or rerolls, they're another kettle of fish, yeah. Technically, you've seen the old stuff, just not on that character, but it's something of a self-inflicted inconvenience in this game at least.

 

That's not saying it wouldn't be nice for more of the new stuff to at least be accessible for exploration and visibility for everybody. It would. I just see why it's not a priority.

[Blue]

FFXI's Chains of Promathia. That is all.

I don't remember if CoP required you to clear RotZ first. All I really remember are shitty level caps that required you to keep ALL OF YOUR GEAR FOREVER.

 

Buying CoP didn't give you access to anything except the balls-hard fights required to access the new zones, the new city, the new story and everything that wasn't jobs. Zilart required you to complete everything to unlock Sky. Aht Urghan was different in that regard, opening a lot from the door, but there is a precedent for buying an SE MMO and having it be an empty box save for a pile of IOU: Patch Content notes.

 

Actually the city was behind only a lv30 sequence of figths (promyvions) which wasn't even the max level at the time. It did not require Rank missions progress, and most importantly, the thing I'm talking about from the beginning, Jobs were not gated behing CoP progress, nor were all the areas. Endgame areas were, as they should, but the others required only under-level-cap progress OF THE EXPANSION, not of the main game (and some not even that: Bibiki Bay, Attohwa Chasm, and some others I've forgotten). But again, the areas were not requiring base game progress, only expansion progress, which makes sense, and the jobs were completely separated from it, which I don't see happening in Heavesward (pretty sure you see who should be the Machinist guildmaster in Ishgard in the movie).

 

How do you eat a chocobo?  One bite at a time.  Just do the missions.  Skip the cutscenes if you don't care about them.  If you skip cutscenes and just grind from checkpoint to checkpoint, they actually go quite fast.

 

 

As I've said in posts before this, I do not want to skip cutscenes. My issue with all this is that I intended to RP the MSQ as a gun job, that I've been waiting for all this time. I'm not going to repeat the example I made with BLU, you'll find it in page 1 or 2. But that was my intention. Again, I am not asking to access Heavensward's storyline, since it's so strongly tied to the MSQ (something that I think I've never seen an expansion do, sans RoZ, but RoZ revealed the connections later, the base game story did not lead you to RoZ with forced railways-style plots like 2.0 did to 3.0, but oh well). I just think only endgame areas should be gated behind Expansion progress, not jobs or Ishgard itself, which I assume to be Heavensward's base area.

 

My only hope now is that what Yoshida meant is that the quest they will add WITH 2.55 is a MSQ quest but does not require all the previous patches complete to be flagged, like a "branch" that sprouts from somewhere along the mid-MSQ, but I doubt it.

[Havoc Snow]

The only thing that will be gated that we know of for sure is Ishgard and the zones beyond it, which makes perfect sense since they're all lvl 50+ zones. Nothing they have said has implied in any way that you will need to have beat the story up to 3.0 and unlocked Ishgard in order to play any of the new jobs, the only information they have given us regarding unlocking them was that they would not start at lvl 1. Please remove your tinfoil hates and cease all the doomsaying, you're essentially working yourselves (and others) into a tizzy over speculation.

 

When Heavensward comes out, if the Jobs are gated behind Ishgard THEN you have every right to be upset, but right now getting all bent out of shape over something that very well may not even be true because of something you saw for half a second in a trailer is just silly.

[Warren Castille]

FFXI stuff

 

This is going to sound snotty, but I can't think of a different way to phrase so, it please prematurely remove the venom from my next couple of sentences.

 

Did you actually DO CoP when it came out? I didn't, I didn't do the Promy encounters until like, 2008, and they were ball-bustingly hard. It wasn't "just" level 30 content, it was synced to level 30. It required practically a strike team of well-geared, good-playing classes (or a flock of summoners, but again, that required a lot of effort too). 30 wasn't the max level, but you could not enter those fights at a higher level due to the way the zones worked. Please don't let memory of the game dull its fangs at all: CoP locked lots of the expansion away behind very difficult fights.

 

Further, SE has announced that the new jobs will be unlockable at level 30. It might be classic SE-MMO obfuscation, but it would see dumb to me to say something is unlockable at level 30 but actually require level 50 to get to the place where you unlock the quest.

[Parth Makeo]

I am just hoping the story quest for 2.55 isn't going to be XX hours long (including if any certain dungeons or ''primal' fights)

 

I really enjoy the story from time to time but by 2.3 i was skipping all cutscenes since i have no time to wait and watch it. i am casual mode with ff14. Strictly RP. 

 

But gating entry to the new land has been done recently in wow (granted it's more of an intro...) But all new 90+ characters MUST go through the Tannan Jungle intro (takes like an hour or so Now) before you go to your side's starting zone and build your garrison. It also doubles as a new player guide for those who used an instant 90.

 

However, we are speaking of a final fantasy game. They could easily just print a summary of the reason people are going to Ishgard on the back of the box and call it a day, but in reality you need to read more of what is going down.

 

 

And for new players, as slow as the start is, it treats your character like a rising hero story. You got off a cart and get involved with a lot of events. though the tutorials are a bit...overdoing it. 

 

 

We shall see in time but for now, for those who have planned mains going, get your story quest done and prepare.

[Blue]

FFXI stuff

 

This is going to sound snotty, but I can't think of a different way to phrase so, it please prematurely remove the venom from my next couple of sentences.

 

Did you actually DO CoP when it came out? I didn't, I didn't do the Promy encounters until like, 2008, and they were ball-bustingly hard. It wasn't "just" level 30 content, it was synced to level 30. It required practically a strike team of well-geared, good-playing classes (or a flock of summoners, but again, that required a lot of effort too). 30 wasn't the max level, but you could not enter those fights at a higher level due to the way the zones worked. Please don't let memory of the game dull its fangs at all: CoP locked lots of the expansion away behind very difficult fights.

 

I have done it when I joined, in 2006. I did just as I hit lv30 actually, because I could. Sure, there were wipes, but it was not super hard. All it took was to collect Animas to stun the bosses in the end.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

What I meant, and still mean, is that it did not require to beat all of the previous game to do. And again, not all areas (and definitely, none of the jobs, and yes, I am SPECULATING jobs will be started in Ishgard because all the clues about them point in that direction, from SE saying that the Ishgardian Astrologians are different from the ones in Coerthas, and from the trailer showing the NPC in Machinist AF inside Ishgard. I HOPE I'm wrong, and there's no hate in my words, I'd like if people stopped insinuating that.), I was saying, not all areas were locked behind even Promyvion. Both I and Mae have brought up example.

 

The same went for Rise of the Zilart. Endgame zones were locked behind mission progress (and yes, I've found out RoZ storyline required the cap of base game storyline back then, I was not aware), but the open regions and the jobs again, weren't.

 

I do not hate SE or Yoshida or anyone, and I hope I have interpretated the Live Letter and other clues wrong, but I'm a type that hopes for the best and expects the worst.

 

I'll go back and edit my OP now because clearly I've worded it in a way that is misleading people, and that is my mistake, but I'd rather to tone down the discussion so that I do not feel so lapidated anymore.

[Tiergan]

I don't mind doing the story over. I just hate all of the running around to unlock every. Single. Trial. And dungeon. All over again. I kind of wish SE would do an account wide flag that indicates someone has finished x-amount of content on a character and thus all the dungeons and such are automatically unlocked for them on alts once their alt hits the appropriate level and point in the MSQ

 

Though knowing how the current team had to work with the old shitty team's code as the foundation, I could understand if doing that would be way too painful an undertaking.

[Zyrusticae]

What I meant, and still mean, is that it did not require to beat all of the previous game to do.

Neither does Heavensward.

 

You don't have to run or unlock the entirety of Coil or the CT series because they are completely optional side-stories. Likewise with Hildebrand, Gold Saucer, a HUGE chunk of the dungeons (though granted, you probably have to run them anyway to hit ilvl reqs), the entirety of the crafting content, and so on and so on.

 

The main story does not constitute "ALL of the previous game". Not even remotely so. I know hyperbole is the order of the day, but you could at least be a little more accurate than that.

 

That being said, it's not like I don't sympathize with your position, but frankly, you still have a LOT of the game to see and unlock to begin with, so it's not exactly like you're currently starved for content and besides that, there is a limit to just how accommodating SE can be towards players that don't... actually... play the 'game' part of the game.

 

While I say that, however, I will agree that it's kind of fucked if they end up gating the new jobs behind that requirement as well. I can totally understand why someone would want to play through the story as their 'correct' class. We'll see how things play out from here. I really doubt you guys are the only ones concerned about this.

[Dravus]

The expansion is intended to add additional content for those who have completed the existing content. That's not a bad thing and I've long since been confused by role-players who show nothing but contempt for the game itself yet demand everything to be handed to them on a silver platter.

 

I'm not without sympathy for those of you who have multiple alts but I have no sympathy for those of you who are complaining whilst only having a single character.

[Weeping Widow]

Smart choice, Yoshida. Smart choice. :cactuar:

[Blue]

Okay... since we have gotten to the point where I am being insulted via /tells by complete strangers, for I suspect this thread (it's the only thing I have written so far that seems to make some people angry, I believe), I'd kindly ask that it is closed and deleted.

 

I have made this thread to ask an information and express my opinion. To see my game experience suffer for it because people cannot cope with the thought that not everyone thinks the way they do, and so feel the need to harass them in game, is a very disheartening experience that I did not expect especially from a mature community as the RPC.

 

I know the person who has insulted me in-game is a roleplayer (it only takes some search, it's not hard), and I have tried to apologize to them via in-game, but they've already logged off or blacklisted me, because I cannot reach to them in-game. If you are still checking this thread, after asking "do I know you?" after your offensive tell, I tried to send the following, which did not reach you:

 

"Well, I'm not sure who you are, but I am sorry you were offended for something I have done or said (I honestly do not remember you, I apologize); please know that I do not act with ill feelings towards anyone in this game. I hope you have a good day, still."

 

I hope this will be a sufficient answer even to those who in the future may feel the urge to do the same thing this person did to me. I do not express my opinion to seek conflict or mistreatment, and I definitely have not attacked any player or person in any of my posts before, I am positive. I was taught to treat others how you want to be treated, and this is not it.

 

Please cease the personal attacks and close this thread, thank you.

[Aysun]

1) New players and people that plain haven't done the MSQ up to 2.55 will have a lot of post-50 content to chew through and they'll likely be well above level 50 by the time they get to Heavensward content. It seems a little counter-intuitive to design content that's meant to be done at level 50 but you're physically unable to access it until level 51+ as a new player.

Concerning the bolded... I'm confused by what you're saying here. Are you talking about the expansion content (which is definitely level 51+ content right off the bat) or talking about the patch 2.x series content? The former case is obviously incorrect, but even the latter case makes no sense to me, because you're gated by ilvl anyway and having access to level 51+ gear should only make those ilvl gates easier to reach... right?

 

 

2) SE is going to have to really, really incentivize doing outdated content if they expect queue times for group-related thing to remain remotely acceptable. It'd be one thing if most of that was considered "optional" but doing stuff like the Keeper of the Lake and the HM primals is going to be a treat unless the roulette's are:

• Pruned down to only include necessary things (like the story roulette is now, but expanded slightly).
  
• Highly incentivized more than the current story roulette is. 
  

The main story roulette only gives (now-worthless) soldiery tomes and it still sees tons of action to this day. Not sure what you're worried about here. If anything, I'd be more concerned about the low-level roulette which has always been a bit slow and will likely only be even slower post-Heavensward (especially if they follow through on the new jobs NOT starting at level 1).

 

At any rate, there's going to be TONS of returning players plowing through that old content simultaneously, so this is really only a concern months after Heavensward's release.

 

3) It just seems silly to me to totally lock people out of what sounds like it'll be a new hub area until they reach a certain threshold. Let people go and see why they bought the expansion immediately, even if they can't take any quests or anything. I can understand locking the story content behind a gate, to a degree. You need context to really care. But locking the main new city? Why?

 

Of course, that's all assuming that the quest they mentioned is only completable after finishing the rest of the story up. It could very well be a gigantic catch-up/flash back quest that basically just gets you up to speed after you've hit level 50.

Oh, I can agree with that. Not being able to enter Ishgard at all is a bit much, but then again, the story event that allows us access to it is supposed to be a momentous event, and if you haven't reached that point in the story and yet still have access to it... it's a bit jarring, isn't it?

 

This is just one of those things... gameplay and story separation might be preferable here, but frankly I can see the call going either way, and they chose to emphasize the story side of the equation. That's all there is to it.

 

Please note that it's been confirmed that the new jobs do not have a class associated, BUT you DO have to level starting at level 1. (Source: http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/7/8166645/final-fantasy-14-heavensward-expansion-reveal-yoshida )

[Kismet]

Please note that it's been confirmed that the new jobs do not have a class associated, BUT you DO have to level starting at level 1. (Source: http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/7/8166645/final-fantasy-14-heavensward-expansion-reveal-yoshida )

 

There is a bit of a discrepancy that I caught. I read the Polygon interview first, but then in THIS INTERVIEW, Yoshi-P said that they "definitely will not start at level 1". So I am conflicted on which source to believe...

[Weeping Widow]

Insulting private messages because your thread, OP?

 

Well, instead of requesting the thread be taken, down why don't you give a report on those that are clearly breaking the terms of service?

 

Nip the problem in at the root, not the bud.

 

Oh, and Polygon is not remotely a reputable source of information... There are conflicting sources, such as Yoshida's Reddit interview, that states:

 

* From http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/pax_2015_interview *

 

"Yoshida: We’re still in the final tweaking stages on where we’re going to have them start but definitely not at level one.

 

If we mention it I’m sure so many people are going to try and get ready and get a head start. We’re going to keep it a secret as long as we can.

 

It definitely won’t start at level one so you won’t have to scramble to get through things such as guildleves."

[Blue]

Insulting private messages because your thread, OP?

 

Well, instead of requesting the thread be taken, down why don't you give a report on those that are clearly breaking the terms of service?

 

Nip the problem in at the root, not the bud.

 

I did, but while this may stop the person, it will not stop more people from deciding to do so... This thread is the root.

[Dravus]

Insulting private messages because your thread, OP?

 

Well, instead of requesting the thread be taken, down why don't you give a report on those that are clearly breaking the terms of service?

 

Nip the problem in at the root, not the bud.

 

I did, but while this may stop the person, it will not stop more people from deciding to do so... This thread is the root.

 

It's a debate that needs to happen. Report the player in-game, ignore them and rise above it.

 

Closing a thread because someone insulted you in-game is only going to grant them victory.

[Kage]

Honestly, I feel like closing threads when it gets heated or derailed is the worst decision to have made. There's certainly more than a few other people who are innocent by-standers who are not -able- to do anything other than have a thread and means to discuss a topic away from them. A decision done instead of taking root of the matter and dealing with the people who are derailing threads, harassing others, etc.

 

On that note, I've always figured that Heavensward would have a gate to certain parts of its content. I've never experiences MMO expansions but Heavensward is going to be where most of the experience for 50-60 levels come from. Unless the old level 50 mobs get buffed, you won't get much experience from them to get to level 60. Why would you dump people level 1-20 there? Especially when the whole way leading to Ishgard and the areas beyond have huge story content behind it.

[Aysun]

Insulting private messages because your thread, OP?

 

Well, instead of requesting the thread be taken, down why don't you give a report on those that are clearly breaking the terms of service?

 

Nip the problem in at the root, not the bud.

 

Oh, and Polygon is not remotely a reputable source of information... There are conflicting sources, such as Yoshida's Reddit interview, that states:

 

* From http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/pax_2015_interview *

 

"Yoshida: We’re still in the final tweaking stages on where we’re going to have them start but definitely not at level one.

 

If we mention it I’m sure so many people are going to try and get ready and get a head start. We’re going to keep it a secret as long as we can.

 

It definitely won’t start at level one so you won’t have to scramble to get through things such as guildleves."

 

I guess this is why I always try to just wait and see for official patch notes. Conflicting crap, and rumors, and mistranslations. Ugh I say! 

 

Also, if you're being harassed and know they're from here or have a name, contact a moderator with your evidence. Pretty sure that's against the rules here as well.

[Blue]

So as per here: http://gyazo.com/ed62d177c244475b02a7fc084ae81dbf

 

It is confirmed and official as my fears had been. Jobs will require full MSQ completion, which means that they have a lv50 and several other things completion requirements.

 

At that point, saying that to unlock an HW job you'll just need a lv30 job is kind of biased. Oh well, condolences to all those who had hoped to continue/redo the story as a HW job like I had. Siiiiigh.... see you in Heavensward.

[Chris Ganale]

Yep, that's why I now have to bum-rush 7 full characters through MSQ, three of them not even 50 yet.

[Erik Mynhier]

The only things I need to do at this point is to level thalmage 3 more levels and archer 4, so I can have DRK to go with me PLD and WAR. (Im betting DRK will require lv50 PLD and a lv30 BLM.)

 

Other then that I have to finish leveling my FCs crafting classes.