MSQ Needs Further Condensing

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Originally Posted by Garnix

Because it is a one and done deal doesn't mean it is the weakest aspect.

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I wasn't implying that it's weak because it's one and done but because the story is really meh to me (the parts I did try to get into).


I agree it needs to be pruned more but they aren't going to want to keep doing it every so often because SE is a very small indie company, please understand. Also just realistically it doesn't make sense to do something that's going to require more work, just make it optional.

The story can still be what it is just make it optional. I actually like WoW's lore (find the game to be boring) and Archeage's lore to the point where I went looking for outside sources to get more of it. Forcing the story doesn't make it good or make the game more lore driven. (The last bit was just me speaking in general, not saying you're implying that)

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New players can really easily get tired of the game before even reaching end game. That's what happened/happens with 2.X, and that could also easily happen with 5.X IMO.

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This is what happened to every friend I brought here, even after the pruning they did. It probably wouldn't be as bad if you could atleast quest together but you can't, so many solo duties, everything is just so single player.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

This is what happened to every friend I brought here, even after the pruning they did. It probably wouldn't be as bad if you could atleast quest together but you can't, so many solo duties, everything is just so single player.

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There are 3 different level skips for different prices. It's pretty easy to skip the story you don't want to do or skip all of it to SHB. A level skip isn't really needed and you can certainly help them level to 70 there are lots of options in game as I'm sure you must know where you can level together. I seriously doubt you'll ever get an optional free story skip for this game. It's simply not going to happen.

Those skips are currently on sale through January 26th.

They just finished ARR and whether or not they have plans to do other expansions remains to be seen. I doubt they'll go back and revisit ARR anytime soon. I've been doing part of that leveling a couple of alts to 30 and I must admit they did a pretty good job of eliminating a lot of the really annoying quests or shortening them. I can't speak for past level 30 given i'm not planning on taking those alts past getting a mount and being able to fight with them.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

There are 3 different level skips for different prices. It's pretty easy to skip the story you don't want to do or skip all of it to SHB. A level skip isn't really needed and you can certainly help them level to 70 there are lots of options in game as I'm sure you must know where you can level together. I seriously doubt you'll ever get an optional free story skip for this game. It's simply not going to happen.

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Nor should it. It's a major part of the game, and the people most whining about wanting to skip it are the same people refusing to acknowledge that the option to skip IS THERE, They just have to pay for it. Why should other players have to suffer a reduced experience through what some are suggesting regular trimming, losing out on the same story that players who happened to start earlier got--all because of the people who can't be bothered to actually play through the game? And don't even get me started on the "story is the weakest part of the game" argument. That's a personal opinion--objectively speaking, FFXIV has some of the better storytelling of any mmo, and Shadowbringers is among the best. It's not lauded with accolades for nothing.

How much of your game time, in comparison to the rest of the game, was spent specifically doing the story?

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Originally Posted by glitteringcosmos

That's a personal opinion--objectively speaking, FFXIV has some of the better storytelling of any mmo, and Shadowbringers is among the best. It's not lauded with accolades for nothing.

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So were SW:TOR and The Secret World and see where they wound up. The former went so far as to only be about story and bled out. No MMO can stand on a single aspect nor should it sacrifice other activities to support it.

Square is well aware that their monolithic story is costing them in acquisition and retention. Those metrics are critically important to measure growth and to cover attrition. A growing game makes for happy investors while a shrinking one makes them cranky to point where they feel the need to meddle. They told us that their metrics indicated that the pruning and compression they did was needed so I think it's safe to say they're concerned.

Maybe you've got so much IRL cash to burn that throwing it away on a paid skip seems reasonable. I'm not one that considers "pay to stop it make hurting" a reasonable concept no matter how cheap it is. It looks like enough other people agree with me that Square shifted resources to address it. IMO they didn't do nearly enough, it's still a massive slog that will chase people away.

Unfortunately I think you're right in one respect. I'm not sure how much more they can outright remove or compress. At this point I think decoupling the MSQ from gating group content (and vice versa) is the better course of action. The lore nerds get to keep their story while those uninterested in it can play with their friends.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

How much of your game time, in comparison to the rest of the game, was spent specifically doing the story?

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For those who couldn't get trough it? 100% most likely.

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Originally Posted by GeminiReed

Maybe you've got so much IRL cash to burn that throwing it away on a paid skip seems reasonable. I'm not one that considers "pay to stop it make hurting" a reasonable concept no matter how cheap it is. It looks like enough other people agree with me that Square shifted resources to address it. IMO they didn't do nearly enough, it's still a massive slog that will chase people away.

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I don't have a ton of money, and I think it's silly to assume I do just because I think that the paid skips are reasonable. But why pay for a game and then expect the creators of the game to hand out for free a way to not play a major chunk of that game? People who WANT the skips have the option to buy them. Those that don't want to skip, play the game it was intended to be played. "Pay to make it stop hurting" is a ridiculous way to look at it. Why would you buy a game, then pay for a subscription, if you go in with the expectation that you're going to hate this part of the content? At that point why even bother with this mmo and not go looking for one that better suits your expectations? In my opinion it's ridiculous to expect the creators--in this case SE--to bend over backwards to accomodate such a thing.

It boils back down to the fact that this is, at its heart, a JRPG before it's an MMO. That is why the content is story gated. On top of that it's a 10-year-old game with ever-releasing content. Going into the game not expecting to be playing some catch up is an onus on the player, not the developer.

I think that there's definitely aspects of the story that could be trimmed down further and/or made optional. I care about the story, though I don't care about bonding with certain characters and in a typical RPG, that sort of thing is usually optional. Furthermore, a lot of things are just repeats of what we've already seen before already.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I think that there's definitely aspects of the story that could be trimmed down further and/or made optional. I care about the story, though I don't care about bonding with certain characters and in a typical RPG, that sort of thing is usually optional. Furthermore, a lot of things are just repeats of what we've already seen before already.

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I agree that the story is not always interesting or told in an interesting way, as for the people who were talking about free skips, you can basically do it, by skipping all cutscènes, and treat the MSQ as it's any other series of quest
The only real issue i notice with MSQ even now, when i'm streaming my alt levelling, is really that some steps seems to have been made just for the sake of ruining the pace

There are too many exemple like when you go talk to NPC 1- triggering a cutscene in wich he will tell you to ask NPC 2 wich is standing NEXT TO HIM- only for NPC 2 to trigger his own Cutscene.... Where you could have had just only 1 cutscene for both of them with a more lively interaction
Or like, why is there a Cutscene for that npc i will never see again, just to tell me about Haukke's Manor ?

If we were to get more MSQ triming or so, for me it shouldn't be about ( is the story too long ? Not interesting ? ), but more about all these extra steps, here and there, with npc you will always meet once, for the sake of one quest, and who actualy add a lot of tiny extra steps and cutscenes

honestly I dont' think we are going to see anything big like we saw with the consolidation of arr quests,. Besides Yoshi P stated in an interview a few months ago the MSQ is central to the game and the FF series and is going to retain it to keep it in line with the FF series which is about the story first . Honestly from 2.0 to 2.5 felt a lot shorter and such especially with the introduction of flying as soon as you complete ARR. I do think they can remove alot of the aether points for flying in HW and StB and probably just retain the ones associated in MSQ or something because honestly the zones and its real drag on that part.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Cash shop noise

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We aren't talking about cash shop items are we? We're talking about pruning/making the story non mandatory. If you would like to discuss that feel free to let me know.

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Originally Posted by glitteringcosmos

If you don't do quests you aren't playing the game

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Spamming through quests is not "playing through the game" a person still has to go from lvl 1 to max level, that is playing through the game. Regardless of if it's spamming through quests, mob grinding or dungeon grinding getting to max level is playing through the game.

BDO has very little story, people still go from lvl 1 to past soft level cap which takes longer than anything in this game, with only doing a few quests max. Did they not play through the game? Is that game not a mmo? How do you guys think people are playing other mmos with optional story? That are all doing better than XIV player base wise?

Making it optional does not hurt anyone, at all or else every other mmo on the market would be dead and gone. The amount of MSQ had to be a problem, hence them removing some of it, one thing businesses will not do is extra work if it doesn't benefit them at all. The retention rate had to be horrible and the feedback had to reflect too many MSQ to get caught up.


Also most people know they will have to catch up is one thing to gate them with story (long ques if dps which is out of their control) and another to gate with actual progression which is what most people play mmos for...progression.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

Irrelevant nonsense

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Why yes, I agree.

EDIT: since the above post got edited, for anyone in future:

The reason I put that there is because Tuska had originally quoted LaylaTsarra's post like I just quoted the above post. Now that that bit of context is lost, feels like I should put this disclaimer here so I'm not just being a dick for no reason.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

We aren't talking about cash shop items are we? We're talking about pruning/making the story non mandatory. If you would like to discuss that feel free to let me know.

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Read my post more carefully.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

Read my post more carefully.

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Nah, people are discussing pruning and/or making the MSQ non mandatory and the first thing is cAsH sHoP. It's not ridiculous for people to want a mmo, that's marketed as a mmo to operate like a mmo without paying $25 (Idr the actual price) extra on top of a sub game. If the first thing you can say after reading the stuff people have posted is "cash shop" you didn't have anything of value to add to the conversation and we can leave it at that.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

Free Skip Noise.

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Oh i did. I certainly did address the issue of pruning the msq's. Your pushing your free skips isn't flying in spite of your snarky remarks. They will never make the story non mandatory in this game.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

Nah, people are discussing pruning and/or making the MSQ non mandatory and the first thing is cAsH sHoP. It's not ridiculous for people to want a mmo, that's marketed as a mmo to operate like a mmo without paying $25 (Idr the actual price) extra on top of a sub game. If the first thing you can say after reading the stuff people have posted is "cash shop" you didn't have anything of value to add to the conversation and we can leave it at that.

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Except you will never have free skips in ffXIV, SE has noticed that a lot of people will pay for the actual cashshop skips, and they want money, so as long as you will have people paying for skips, you will never have an optional MSQ

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Originally Posted by Reyketi

The fact is this game is an MMORPG, with a large focus on end-game content, that being trials, raids, gearing, ect.

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I could not disagree more with this. There's barely anything to do at endgame even as a savage raider, and gear is pretty much entirely a pointless endeavor past just being at the minimum for duty finder, if someone is trying to rush to endgame and 'catch up' they're doing it wrong. The story is 80% of the game and the main focus, if square cared about the endgame we'd have more than a whopping 4 fights every 6 months.

They could stand to condense the post-story of ARR a bit more but that's the only thing I can see happening.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

How do you guys think people are playing other mmos with optional story? That are all doing better than XIV player base wise?

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The only MMO that has a bigger playerbase than FFXIV (and isn't free to play) is WoW, and even they have their story being mandatory now.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

I could not disagree more with this. There's barely anything to do at endgame even as a savage raider, and gear is pretty much entirely a pointless endeavor past just being at the minimum for duty finder, if someone is trying to rush to endgame and 'catch up' they're doing it wrong. The story is 80% of the game and the main focus, if square cared about the endgame we'd have more than a whopping 4 fights every 6 months.

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I will ask again, how much of your game time was spent doing just the story? Was it 80%? I somehow doubt it. :rolleyes:

The MMO has a queue to login in every single day and far worse on patch days. So either FF14 has some of the worst servers in history or these completely packed zones I keep seeing tells me that they are doing something right.

Here want me to save you time? Hit ESC and skip if you think it is boring. Got some nostalgia go on Youtube or use New Games + but no NO MORE gutting the story because you cannot be bothered to read a quest.

This MMO has one of these single best story arcs in the history of the genre and you want them to gut it even more.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

The only MMO that has a bigger playerbase than FFXIV (and isn't free to play) is WoW, and even they have their story being mandatory now.

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LITERALLY this. Even Blizzard realized you sometimes have to draw the line in the sand and stand for something. If you do not like story then go play Fornite or something because you only do it once and then never have to do it again unless you queue Prae or Castrum......

Honestly, they should extend the gutting to the expansion storylines next. ARR had some nasty filler, but Heavensward and Stormblood could do with some streamlining.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

We aren’t talking about cash shop items are we? We’re talking about pruning/making the story non mandatory. If you would like to discuss that feel free to let me know.

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Except that in response to your arguing in circles about making MSQ non mandatory, we are giving you our answer: they already HAVE made it non-mandatory. You HAVE the option of skipping the MSQ in order to “get through” to the content that you want. You keep arguing for something that already exists. And if you REALLY want to skip it that bad without paying, guess what? That’s an option too. It’s called ESC->skip scene.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

BDO has very little story, people still go from lvl 1 to past soft level cap which takes longer than anything in this game, with only doing a few quests max. Did they not play through the game? Is that game not a mmo? How do you guys think people are playing other mmos with optional story? That are all doing better than XIV player base wise?

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You’re comparing apples to oranges here. XIV ISNT AN AVERAGE MMO. First and foremost it is a JRPG and therefore is story-centric at its core. Besides which, as someone else mentioned, clearly FFXIV is doing something right, because it’s got the 2nd-largest player base of any mmo in the world, second only to WOW. Comparing player bases here undermines your argument.

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Originally Posted by Tsuka

Making it optional does not hurt anyone, at all or else every other mmo on the market would be dead and gone. The amount of MSQ had to be a problem, hence them removing some of it, one thing businesses will not do is extra work if it doesn’t benefit them at all. The retention rate had to be horrible and the feedback had to reflect too many MSQ to get caught up.

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You’re wrong in this instance about businesses not doing extra work if it doesn’t benefit them. Multiple times we’ve gotten content because the developers worked on it on their own time, because they knew the players asked for it and wanted it. That’s how we got flying in ARR zones.

Making it optional does in fact hurt players. Those who want to play the story are already rushed and pressured to skip cutscenes in group content, or risk getting left behind. Making MSQ optional would only exacerbate the issue.

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Originally Posted by Tsuka

Also most people know they will have to catch up is one thing to gate them with story (long queues if dps which is out of their control) and another to gate with actual progression which is what most people play mmos for...progression.

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Progressing through story IS progression. MSQ remains the single best way to level your main job. That’s the incentive to play MSQ for those who aren’t necessarily in it for the story. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and no amount of snarky comments and whining is going to change that.

Removing the MSQ gate to content is never going to happen in XIV, because there are ALREADY means in place to circumvent it if you absolutely CANNOT be bothered to play it.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

I will ask again, how much of your game time was spent doing just the story? Was it 80%? I somehow doubt it. :rolleyes:

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Between the main story, and the job stories, and the role stories, and the relic stories, and the raid stories, and the alliance raid stories, and the deep dungeon stories.... yes, I can easily say I spend 80% of my time playing story. And that’s not including my annual new game plus run. Before you say “locked just behind MSQ,” job and role abilities are locked behind their respective quests too, and some content is even locked behind other optional content (Ivalice gating Bozja, and E4S gating TEA Ultimate, for example) so you can’t have one without the other.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

Spamming through quests is not "playing through the game" a person still has to go from lvl 1 to max level, that is playing through the game. Regardless of if it's spamming through quests, mob grinding or dungeon grinding getting to max level is playing through the game.

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Also in response to this response supposedly quoting me saying: "If you don't do quests you aren't playing the game" -- I never wrote that. Go back and reread all of my comments. Not once did I say that. I'm here to discuss and debate all you want, but DON'T distort what was said to fit your narrative.

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Originally Posted by Tuska

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Kind of echoing what’s been said, but to reiterate: SE cares very deeply about story, and want people to experience it. They made it very clear when they removed the option to skip cutscenes in the final two 8-man dungeons of 2.0. They don’t want players penalized by wanting to see the story (ie get left behind). If you don’t want to do story content, you can pay so skip it. If you still don’t want to and/or don’t want to pay, why are you playing?

This isn’t meant as a “don’t like it, then leave!!” statement, but rather a request to take a look at the game situation and if you are enjoying some aspect, then great! But if you’re hating it, there are other games that are much better in some aspects or another and maybe try them out? Myself, I check in but I’m kinda done until the next expansion. I could do an alt, or I could catch up on Guildwars or finally dig into Sekiro...

If you are talking about a rush to endgame “where the game really starts” in most MMOs, this one not so much. The end game content has always been fun, but lackluster in the long term.

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Originally Posted by Rasler_Heios

As SE themselves said so, this is not just an MMORPG, it is a Final Fantasy MMORPG... it is a Final Fantasy game too, a main numbered one to top it... the story needs to be there even if it practically resembles a single player story focused RPG. I think they are already trying to balance both as much as they can though there should be improvements.

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THANK YOU. I'm not here to preach and say MSQ is perfection (especially not ARR), but XIV is, before anything else, a Final Fantasy game. People need to get that through their heads. Without the story it wouldn't be what makes FF games so great. And my problem with pruning, even though I acknowledge that ARR is a slog, is that not everyone is going to agree with what gets cut out. For example: the quest "The Warden Works in Mysterious Ways." They cut that from the MSQ for utility, because it was a quest which gave you no significant reward utility wise and made you trek across the span of the map. But I argue that it was one of the quests that SHOULD have been left in, given the emotional impact of that scene and its relation to the story arc then AND the revelations we know now, with post 5.4-o-vision. They're never going to make everyone happy no matter what or how much they prune out, so I say they should just leave it as is now. No more cutting, because inevitably someone, somewhere is going to wish they hadn't done it, and I think leaving it as-is is the fairest way to go about it.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

If you don’t wanna play the game buy a skip, don’t wanna spend money play somthing else don’t have the whole game bend at your whim

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This is it. This is the comment that sums it up.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't know what you're trying to argue. Executives wouldn't want people to be able to pay for a skip? And how does recommending a skip equate to re-raising a barrier to entry that has already been lowered?

If players use skips, that's good for the corporate side of the company because they get more money upfront.

Also you don't need to sign off in every single post. Stick it in the signature field.

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I've explained this, in a previous post.

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The latest xpac, skips, and a subscription will cost a new player ~$115.

What will a new player think when they're told they can either play through hundreds of hours of required story just to catch up to their friends/get to the latest content

Or

Pay $115

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Best Wishes

-Reyketi

Honestly, the only way you can condense anything and keep it staying fully functional with minimal to no problems is if you call upon Ultimecia the do it for you.

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Originally Posted by Reyketi

I've explained this, in a previous post.



Best Wishes

-Reyketi

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Trust me, most of the newcomers, at least mostly oll the ones i know, will gladly pay to skip all the story and actualy '' play '' the (end)game, and that is the only reason why skip exists, because SE understood that

On another note, i red somewhere that SE care deeply about the story, maybe this is true, but as someone who got bored by the neverending Ascian copies, i can't comment on that

Speaking of anecdotal evidence, by the way

I see a lot of "The friends I introduce quit because of the story" n'd all that, but I'm both a friend that got introduced and I introduced a friend of mine on top. Both me and my friend absolutely love the story in the game and it's the thing that kept us playing.

That obviously means there's nothing wrong with the story and should keep it as-is, right?

Well, no, but that exact kind of reasoning is what I've mostly been seeing on the "cut down on it" side of things. The most reasonable arguments in this thread are the ones who actually point to specific sections of the story and say "cut those" instead of just blanket going "cut stuff" since the latter is pretty worthless.

Also, I don't think skipping the story is an invalid way to play. Not everyone's going to care and that's alright. Thing is, while I don't force my "you should watch the story" viewpoint on you by making cutscenes mandatory or something to that effect, neither should you be forcing the "who cares about the story" viewpoint by trying to hamstring the experience for others through making everything open to the player. It doesn't make a lick of sense for you to be in Norvandt without the Exarch yeeting your soul first, and making that area open to the player without that specific context does hamper the enjoyability to me. Landing in Lakeland and getting the 'ol "oldest joke in the book" treatment when you say night is meant to be dark is one hell of an entrance, and arriving at the Crystarium is a pretty grand occasion for it. The city is beautiful and grandiose and stands as a testament to the resilience of the people willing to build a new life. Just making it an area you have blanket access to without first going through all those steps just takes away from the experience and would reduce the immersion inside of the world.

One of the biggest problems facing WoW's story is that you're just some guy who was there. While this approach works for some, others feel slighted by how their character isn't really relevant to anything that happens, ever. FFXIV's mandatory story and high focus on your personal adventure is, whether you like it or not, a big part of the game's core design.

We do have endgame content, this is true, but we also have so much content before that which will always be relevant due to the duty roulette system. The game doesn't just want you to experience what's at the end, but also what's come before. If you'd rather not, this is also fine, it gives you that option. But stuff like the level 60 and 70 raids are still accessible, the queue times don't take forever and, most importantly, they have a story to tell that it wants you to experience for yourself.

Not all of the story content is good, but the MSQ is kind of the window in which the game frames itself. And, as others have said, there are plenty of options to make it go by much faster. Just skipping the cutscenes alone makes it a chain of quests that get you to level really quickly (and you can purposefully die in duties so you can select the "very easy" option after) and if you can't even be bothered to take the time to do that, a level skip is available that gets you up to speed on latest content. I don't really agree with the practice of monetizing this, but at the very least it signals to the average player that it is not what you are meant to do to experience the base game.

The biggest pushback seems to be from people who want to play alternate characters, and that seems somewhat reasonable on the surface, but you can do pretty much everything save the starting city story quests and a few branching paths on one character. The game doesn't really encourage alts at all, even if it allows them. That being said, I think if you had a character who completed the story up to a certain point, it wouldn't be unreasonable to be allowed to start a character that has reached an equal point of progression. Unfortunately, with level skips being a thing, there's very little chance of this happening.

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Originally Posted by glitteringcosmos

Between the main story, and the job stories, and the role stories, and the relic stories, and the raid stories, and the alliance raid stories, and the deep dungeon stories.... yes, I can easily say I spend 80% of my time playing story. And that’s not including my annual new game plus run. Before you say “locked just behind MSQ,” job and role abilities are locked behind their respective quests too, and some content is even locked behind other optional content (Ivalice gating Bozja, and E4S gating TEA Ultimate, for example) so you can’t have one without the other.

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We are talking about Main Story Quest. Much of the "story" of what you have described is end-game content, or "story" content aside from it. You cannot even get to much of the "story" you have described unless you have already done the MSQ. At that point people can skip dialogue to their hearts desire and play with their friends. "Locked behind MSQ" is a big deal, as described by this thread.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

We are talking about Main Story Quest. Much of the "story" of what you have described is end-game content, or "story" content aside from it. You cannot even get to much of the "story" you have described unless you have already done the MSQ. At that point people can skip dialogue to their hearts desire and play with their friends. "Locked behind MSQ" is a big deal, as described by this thread.

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And as it has been said, MANY, many times, there are already ways in place to get around the "Locked behind MSQ," you just don't like the options given to you and want the game to bend over backwards for you and your ilk. And it's just not going to happen.

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Originally Posted by glitteringcosmos

And as it has been said, MANY, many times, there are already ways in place to get around the "Locked behind MSQ," you just don't like the options given to you and want the game to bend over backwards for you and your ilk. And it's just not going to happen.

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The way is giving SE a large amount of money. That isn't a good "way" at all, and discourages many would be players. - Right, I forgot, as some here would like to say (speaking in general), "this game isn't for them".

In reference to "you and your ilk" I have sat through and listened to and or read all MSQ quests, and every single sidequest I have ever done - I have not skipped. I even go as far as clicking on each NPC to see what line they are given before advancing a quest. So, me being included is, frankly, laughable. Personally, I think of the game as a whole, aside from myself, and what players are being turned away from other great content this game could offer them, because of this hundred plus hour roadblock that is the main story quest.

Have people actually went back and played it after the cut? I found 2.4 was now a jarring horribly paced mess due to the cuts and the Crystal Braves plot feels rather slapped together with all the cuts it received. Don't get me wrong there are other areas that could use some better flow adjustments to them but overall aside from 2.4 the rest of the ARR patch content flowed pretty well. Base ARR only felt long towards the end which well it is the ending you can't adjust much there that wasn't already removed.

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Originally Posted by Xeronia

Have people actually went back and played it after the cut? I found 2.4 was now a jarring horribly paced mess due to the cuts and the Crystal Braves plot feels rather slapped together with all the cuts it received. Don't get me wrong there are other areas that could use some better flow adjustments to them but overall aside from 2.4 the rest of the ARR patch content flowed pretty well. Base ARR only felt long towards the end which well it is the ending you can't adjust much there that wasn't already removed.

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I'm replaying it now in NG+ and I agree with you. But it boils back down to my earlier comment, that no matter what gets removed and what gets left in there's always going to be someone who disagrees with what gets changed. I wish they'd left well enough alone, to be honest.

This is not the game for you OP. This games main focal point is that of every other FF game, story.

You don’t like story, you want raids and dungeons and end game content, I think there’s a game for you. It’s called wow. Go play it.

I do agree that the fetch quests should be removed but even then some of them are like tv shows where you learn more about the characters and what not at the end of a filler episode. (Who remembers tv shows being 22-26 episodes per season)

If I had to speak on arbitrary roadblocks since that's now a topic of conversation, let's talk about the Hard Mode Titan/Garuda/Ifrit Block that requires the Side Quest. We typically aren't given much reason NOT to progress aside from it being there for...well, probably gear gating I'd imagine when we already have strong catch-up gear. In general something as small as this would help improve flow instead of not giving a reason to do them. If they properly baked this into the story right, we would've had to do them because "Beast Tribes keep doing it again and again" in ARR.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SavishSalacious

This is not the game for you OP. This games main focal point is that of every other FF game, story.

You don’t like story, you want raids and dungeons and end game content, I think there’s a game for you. It’s called wow. Go play it.

I do agree that the fetch quests should be removed but even then some of them are like tv shows where you learn more about the characters and what not at the end of a filler episode. (Who remembers tv shows being 22-26 episodes per season)

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I've read comments exactly like yours, above, many times, with respect to this topic.

However, the precedent is already set, with the condensation of the MSQ.

SE thinks the length of the MSQ is a problem, your preferences, or mine, are irrelevant.

Best Wishes

-Reyketi

Quote:

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Originally Posted by glitteringcosmos

you and your ilk. And it's just not going to happen.

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Them sodium levels xD

It already happened.

The MSQ has been condensed, and the leveling process has been streamlined.

With the addition of extra content, further condensation will be done, most likely.

Best Wishes

-Reyketi

I mean while you could be right, they condensed one section that has been complained about for a very long time, nothing else, anywhere else and in addition added more to the MSQ at the same time, so it hasn't really set anything, they've also made no mention about doing it anywhere else. They noted 2.0-.5 has been a problem for some and addressed it, that hardly means they'll do anything else and using your logic of this one instance setting some kind of trend, I guess each of these "streamlines" will also make something optional mandatory as well the "president" has been set.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reyketi

I've read comments exactly like yours, above, many times, with respect to this topic.

However, the precedent is already set, with the condensation of the MSQ.

SE thinks the length of the MSQ is a problem, your preferences, or mine, are irrelevant.

Best Wishes

-Reyketi

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they trimmed the fat. there's no more fat to be trimmed, without affecting the meat itself.