The boss of Final Fantasy XIV wants you to see your friends suffer

With the upcoming expansion Dawntrail, Final Fantasy XIV is starting a completely new story arc for the first time since 1.0. However, there will be no new entry to the add-on. Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida spoke to MeinMMO about a skip system and brought a message to newcomers.

Why is a new entry point an issue? In Final Fantasy XIV there are now several hundred hours of content that is current and can be played, and in some cases must be. These include:

If you want to play the latest content, you must have reached the current maximum level, completed the main story quest and be far along in the gear progression.

In March, Naoki Yoshida announced that he would not be introducing a skip system for newcomers with Dawntrail. MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz thinks this could be the biggest mistake of Yoshida’s career.

Yoshi-P in a dilemma: community or comfort?

Naoki Yoshida has been the director and producer of Final Fantasy XIV since 2010. He is also aware of the challenge that new and returning players face. He tells us this in an interview with MeinMMO: This always gives me a headache when we are working on a new expansion.

In fact, he and his team had already started developing a skip system two years ago: With the push of a button, players should be able to skip the entire Hydaelin and Zodiark saga from 2.0 to 6.0.

According to Yoshida, the system is already finished and implemented. He left it open whether this is a concrete new entry, like World of Warcraft offers with new expansions. However, since there are already so-called adventurer stories as a soft story skip, the system is probably intended as such a new entry.

What are adventure stories?

So-called adventurer stories can be purchased for real money in the in-game shop. This allows the main story to be skipped until the start of any expansion.

There are also separate adventure stories for the classes. These can be used independently of the story skips. However, if you just skip the story, you won’t have a class at the required maximum level.

So if you want to start straight away in Endwalker right now, you have to buy the Shadowbringers adventurer story and one for a class of your choice. But that doesn’t mean you’ve reached the endgame yet: you have to play all of Endwalker’s story and combat content first.

However, Yoshida was torn for a long time. In the end, he decided not to put the new system live. The decisive factor here was what he observed in the community:

When players invite their friends, there aren’t really many that tell their friends, oh hey, come over! You can skip the game by just using this item and then we can play together right away.

Rather, the players who have already experienced the story want their friends to have the same experience. So they tell their friends about it, invite them to the game and say: Oh, we can play together. I’ll follow your progress. Just let me know if you have any problems. We can always play together, together [durch die Welt] run and play combat content. And eventually we’ll be able to play the newest content together.

When I look at the current state of the community over the last two years that we have been working on the expansion, I see that many players have gone through this exact process.

Naoki Yoshida, 28.05.2024

Naoki Yoshida also mentions that many popular streamers, such as Asmongold and Preach Gaming, started playing Final Fantasy XIV in recent years. Their fans wouldn’t want their favorite content creators to skip the story. They would want to see the streamers experience their own journey as a Warrior of Light.

The dilemma was that Yoshida is sure that many players would use a built-in story skip after Dawntrail. But he also thinks that this could destroy the positive atmosphere that players have built up by experiencing the story:

I really didn’t want to destroy that sense of community. So I thought about it long and hard, and I was very torn. But that’s the reason why I decided not to open the system.

More about the reboot in Final Fantasy XIV:

Have the same experiences and suffer with the story

Final Fantasy XIV is praised again and again for its brilliant storyline. For players who are primarily interested in the endgame content, it is probably more of a thorn in the side due to its length. Final Fantasy veterans, story enthusiasts and (J-)RPG fans, on the other hand, celebrate it:

In the basic game, you start as a newcomer in one of three starting cities. For the first 15 levels, you are primarily an errand boy – the tutorial. After that, you earn more and more fame and honor as an adventurer until the ominous Alliance of the Dawn finally takes notice of you.

The group recruits you because of your special skills: you can fight monstrous, summoned deities called Primae without falling victim to them. You also support the alliance in the ongoing conflict with the Garlemald Empire, which would love to colonize your homeland.

As the story progresses, you experience all kinds of adventures with the NPCs – you really grow to love them. The story is gripping and of course players who have already experienced it all want their friends to be just as gripped. They want to see how others experience the important events. For many of them, the following is important:

These shared experiences are what connect most of the community. That’s what happens when you watch a few hundred hours of the same epic story. Naoki Yoshida knows this and wants newcomers and returning players to play the story too.

Enjoy the story at your own pace

Anyone who wants to start playing Final Fantasy XIV or get back into it is faced with the mountain of content described above. There are probably enough players who will just throw themselves into it and enjoy every second. Anyone who has little interest in the story will probably just skip all the cutscenes due to time constraints.

When asked what Naoki Yoshida would like to say to newcomers to motivate them, he replied:

What I would say to a new player just starting out is to take your time. Enjoy the story at your own pace.

A lot of the content is now designed to be enjoyed alone. And even if they don’t want to play it alone, they can ask their friends to join them and they can play the content together.

I think that is [bei Final Fantasy XIV] something completely different from other MMOs. But of course it’s not the same as a standalone game. It just takes time.

But yeah. What I would really say to new players is to enjoy it at their own pace and go for the adventure.

Naoki Yoshida, 28.05.2024

Yoshi-P also has a message for returning players – albeit an unusual one: He advises them not to spend money on Final Fantasy XIV again straight away.

Naoki Yoshida has previously advised players not to always have an active subscription to Final Fantasy XIV, for example. You should play the content you like and when you’re done, unsubscribe and play other games. He recently reiterated in an interview with Screenrant that he is not so keen on particularly high subscription numbers.

For him, it looks like this: returning players should take advantage of the regularly recurring return events. Here they don’t have to pay for their subscription and can play for a certain number of days. Then, according to Naoki Yoshida’s logic, they can decide for themselves whether they want to come back.

Anyone who is afraid of the long road to Dawntrail now has official permission from the director and producer to work through the previous content in peace. If the development team stays true to itself, the new content will still be playable in a few years.

MeinMMO editor Sophia Weiß also had time to play the two new classes from Dawntrail around the time of the interview. In our report we introduce them to you and who they are for. And why Sophia might be changing her main after eight years: I played the new expansion for Final Fantasy XIV and fell in love with the new class like it was from Sword Art Online