Regarding Stormblood sidequests

[LineageRazor]

Side quests are nice to flesh out little details or tell side stories not important enough to be in the MSQ.

I don't know what they could really add to them? The core of this game is combat. What can they really add that isn't 'kill this' or 'click on that thing' or 'talk to this NPC?' Even that kind of falls under 'click this thing.' I don't really see what they could add to side quests to make them more interesting gameplay wise.

This is an odd thing to say. This is a Final Fantasy game - and that means, the core of the game is STORY, not combat. This is Final Fantasy as an MMO, which means they took a story and they overlayed a MMO-style combat system on top of that base. They didn't develop a combat system, and then drape a story around it. In fact, that's one of the reasons 1.0 failed so hard - they developed a gorgeous, immersive world, and then threw together a half-assed combat system that was torn between good gameplay and Final-Fantasy-ish gameplay. 2.0 corrected this basically by cribbing heavily from combat systems from other MMOs.

As a story-oriented MMO, I'm all in favor of MORE Sidequests, not less. More opportunity to flesh out the world and story. Quests that actually tell us something about the world, not just getting meat to feed somebody's face.

[Bright-Flower]

This is an odd thing to say. This is a Final Fantasy game - and that means, the core of the game is STORY, not combat. This is Final Fantasy as an MMO, which means they took a story and they overlayed a MMO-style combat system on top of that base. They didn't develop a combat system, and then drape a story around it. In fact, that's one of the reasons 1.0 failed so hard - they developed a gorgeous, immersive world, and then threw together a half-assed combat system that was torn between good gameplay and Final-Fantasy-ish gameplay. 2.0 corrected this basically by cribbing heavily from combat systems from other MMOs.

As a story-oriented MMO, I'm all in favor of MORE Sidequests, not less. More opportunity to flesh out the world and story. Quests that actually tell us something about the world, not just getting meat to feed somebody's face.

I'm all for more story in side quests, I was just asking what people would want/expect from them on the gameplay side of things. If 'kill x' and 'click on y' are too repetitive what would people want to see instead on the gameplay side?

[Risvertasashi]

As a story-oriented MMO, I'm all in favor of MORE Sidequests, not less. More opportunity to flesh out the world and story. Quests that actually tell us something about the world, not just getting meat to feed somebody's face.

Well we already get nearly 300* per expac launch, and then more in followup patches. In my mind this is too many... I'd be content with, say, 150 of them and perhaps double the exp rewards, and I don't think lore quality would take a hit for it.

But I am curious. What is your ideal target number? 400, 500, 600?

*This does not include MSQ and job/class quests, which obviously push the number quite a bit higher.

I'm all for more story in side quests, I was just asking what people would want/expect from them on the gameplay side of things. If 'kill x' and 'click on y' are too repetitive what would people want to see instead on the gameplay side?

Same question to you: Just how many hundreds do you think SE should put in per expac?

IMO the quantity is too high for too low quality, but I'm curious around what number the community would find ideal...

[Bright-Flower]

Well we already get nearly 300* per expac launch, and then more in followup patches. In my mind this is too many... I'd be content with, say, 150 of them and perhaps double the exp rewards, and I don't think lore quality would take a hit for it.

But I am curious. What is your ideal target number? 400, 500, 600?

*This does not include MSQ and job/class quests, which obviously push the number quite a bit higher.



Same question to you: Just how many hundreds do you think SE should put in per expac?

IMO the quantity is too high for too low quality, but I'm curious around what number the community would find ideal...

I don't particularly care how many are added.

[Risvertasashi]

Well then - rather than trying force new mechanics on sidequests (and potentially ending up chasing after a holy grail), simply reducing the number would reduce the repetitive nature of kill x, click on y. e.g., if there were say 100 such 'kill xyz' quests before, reducing it to 50 makes it that much more bearable. From my standpoint anyways and 50(+at least 100 sidequests of other types) would still seem like a decent amount of space for the storytellers/writers to do their thing.

[Hazmick]

I really really like sidequests when they add interesting lore and whatnot, I don't really think they need any fancy mechanics or special rewards for completion.

[Moomba33]

I'm happy with the number of side quests we get currently. If anything I felt we got too few in The Lochs (and Azys Lla as well in HW).
I like having low pressure tasks to level alt jobs with while in queue and learning more about the world outside of the MSQ.

I don't understand the benefit of putting fewer in the game. If one finds them too repetitive one has the option of ignoring side quests that don't unlock anything.

I suppose less dev time spent on side quests is more dev time spent on other things. But I don't know what system I would want to see expanded in place of side quests since as I said before I enjoy the quantity we get now.

[Bright-Flower]

I'm happy with the number of side quests we get currently. If anything I felt we got too few in The Lochs (and Azys Lla as well in HW).
I like having low pressure tasks to level alt jobs with while in queue and learning more about the world outside of the MSQ.

I don't understand the benefit of putting fewer in the game. If one finds them too repetitive one has the option of ignoring side quests that don't unlock anything.

I suppose less dev time spent on side quests is more dev time spent on other things. But I don't know what system I would want to see expanded in place of side quests since as I said before I enjoy the quantity we get now.

The Lochs in general feels neglected to me in the MSQ too. The entire northern third of the zone feels unused and the msq felt like it was in full rush mode by the time we got there.

I wondered for a while if there was going to be a beast tribe quest or something put up there to use it but it doesn't seem like it. I'm kid of bummed and wish that the ala mhigan quarter had gotten the doman enclave treatment at least. Such a beautiful zone but little happens there.

[Moomba33]

Yeah. I guess we got that little bit of extra story with The Saltery but I agree the zone as a whole feels very underutilized.
Azys Lla at least had the Warring Triad stuff to make it feel a bit more relevant.

[Bright-Flower]

Azys La had the issue a bit too. But... Azys La also doesn't house one of the two city states its expansion is supposed to focus on.

SB just left me feeling a bit blue in general because I was hyped for an ala mhigo expansion, but it feels to me kind of like the devs were more interested in Doma and the far east stuff in general. Maybe 4.5 will give us something.