The fantasy MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV is facing a tough decision: Should players be able to skip leveling and questing in the future if they pay for it?
Anyone who wants to start with World of Warcraft now can quickly reach the new maximum level, where the majority of players are. Either they level up quickly with strong boosts or they even receive a level boost from Blizzard up to just before the maximum level as a gift. The new WoW player can essentially start with “the new stuff.”
Anyone who wants to join Final Fantasy XIV today and play the Heavensward expansion must first battle through all the main quests of “A Realm Reborn”, the base game. And that’s not just a matter of a few hours, as anyone who has tried this knows, but it’s real work. Work that newcomers or returning players shy away from.
With the next expansion “Stormblood”, the problem will become even bigger – as players will also have to quest through Heavensward before they can reach the current state and where the bulk of the players are.
In China and Korea, FF14 players can already “buy their way out”
Final Fantasy XIV is aware of this problem and is working on a solution: “Jumping Potions” are the idea here. Another term for “game content can be skipped.”
In the Asian version of Final Fantasy XIV, in China and Korea, Square Enix sells a “Story Skip Potion” that allows a player to skip the main quest of “A Realm Reborn” and completes everything up to and including Patch 2.55. Additionally, there is the option to buy a job directly at the maximum level “before Heavensward”, at level 50.
Both advantages combined cost around €40; if you want just one of them, it costs about €20.
Currently, work is being done on the same potion to skip Heavensward, allowing players in Asia to start right with “Stormblood“, the latest expansion. Patch content up to and including 3.5 Part 2 will be able to be skipped this way.
Stormblood is expected for 2017 and is set to be presented next week at Christmas in Tokyo.
Will this come to us as well?
The current question is whether such “potions” should also be introduced in the western version for Europe, the USA, and Japan. According to Naoki Yoshida, the head of Final Fantasy XIV, such services have become significantly more popular in other MMORPGs.
Yoshida explains in a longer forum post the advantages and problems he sees with such potions. At the moment, the trend is towards games that are easily accessible. An MMORPG is the opposite of that. A game needs new players to survive. So such potions would be good.
A particularity of Final Fantasy XIV is that a character can have multiple jobs, essentially classes. Players with less time could try out a new class here without having to level it painstakingly first.
Yoshida also understands the disadvantages: There would be players who have paid to level up without mastering the character. Furthermore, such an offer could be understood as “Pay2Win.”
The mastermind of Final Fantasy XIV is rather positive towards these “potions” but asks for player feedback. Ultimately, he will decide how it will go forward and he will also take responsibility for it. But the feedback is important to him. If such potions come to pass, it will likely be after the “Stormblood” expansion.
You can find the English post by Yoshida here, the German version is still being worked on by Square Enix.
Schuhmann says: I had to catch up on “rest content” before Heavensward. I had to finish things that were newly added to the main scenario with patches, and I felt like I had to catch up on homework. Essentially, such “Jumping Points” wouldn’t be all that bad. The question is, why should that necessarily cost real money? Surely there are other solutions too. I’ve always found the idea of having to pay money to skip parts of the game rather strange.
Currently, there is a possibility for returning players to play Final Fantasy XIV for free for 96 hours:
