FFXIV has lost sight of what it means to be FF

[Temia Eszteri]

Sorry to make this my first post on the forums, but I am quite frustrated at this juncture and need somewhere to vent.

As a has pointed out, Jump Potions are becoming a thing in Final Fantasy XIV, Yoshi-P's stated reasoning being specifically so that new players can join older players for the modern content, despite the highlighted issues with complete ignorance of the plot. There are naturally concerns among the FFXIV userbase that new players will feel obligated to purchase this, which serves as an additional cheap cashgrab. I for one have already felt this pressure before the Jump Potions have been released; being fairly new to FFXIV, I've been hassled to hurry up and reach the Heavensward content from plenty of fair-weather friends I've made and broke during my scant time there already. Nevermind that if catching up the players is what was really wanted, there are an infinitude of ways to trim out excess drudgery from the existing Main Scenario Quests, allowing faster plot resolution -- perhaps even offering the trimmed out quests as those "lore quests" that remain as teased but unused assets.

But that is only the start of it. As of Patch 3.5: The Far Edge of Fate pt.1, I discovered the hard way that the English title--and only the English title--unlocked by the new MSQ achievement is a blatant spoiler for a major plotpoint, not just for the patch content but the game as a whole. The lead translator Koji Fox allegedly took full responsibility and apologised when there was an uproar, understanding that the damage was already done, as well as promised that a hotfix would be released ASAP; however, with one come and gone since then, the offending title remains. Not only was it incredibly shortsighted to put such a spoiler in public view, but I don't buy the excuses people have made in place of SE's silence that the hotfix has go through a rigorous QA as well. It is but one string in a series of language files which may or may not even need compiling (a matter I have not personally looked into, though I may just in order to fix the offending title myself); just run some bloody unit tests to assure sanity and call it a day!

I joined Final Fantasy XIV for the potential to experience a story fitting of the franchise, to play with friends in the process, and even to add to the story in my own way by participating in the role-playing community on Balmung, but if this is the direction the game is going to go in, I'm not sure I want to incentivise Square-Enix to continue by paying for this gross mismanagement.

[Ven]

I would have to disagree entirely. While I would not make use of jump potions myself, I can definitely understand the need for them. The quests of the vanilla game were fine, though the Titan arc dragged on WAY too long (do these people want me to save the world or not?!), but the quests of the 7th astral era were absolutely soul crushing. I spent several days moving through the hundred odd some quests, and for the life of me, I can't tell you anything about them simply because I can't remember them. However, there's really nothing wrong with SE's style of story telling once the game stops spinning its wheels and actually goes places (I.E, Before the dawn was absolutely stunning). There's just a LOT in the main quest line that could afford to get lopped out. It also makes sense from a gameplay stance since, if a new player joins FF14, there's at least 100 hours of play time before they can join their friends in raids and proper dungeons. I can see how that would be very off-putting to new arrivals.