Anyone else feel like the expansion is slow to start?

I don't know if its just me and I'm not very far in, maybe 6 hours and cleared first dungeon.

But overall I feel like I've just been watching Cut-scene after Cut-scene and I haven't actually been playing the game.

I know they need to build the story, but I can't help but think Shadowbringers had a MUCH more interesting start. I was instantly interested in Shadowbringers and the new world, I actually wanted to explore and I was eager to play.

But this time around the story is just kind of, I don't want to say Boring but it's really teetering on that.

I hope it gets better

Basically a Stormblood start with a Shadowbringer middle and ending if you ask me. They did introduce multiple new zones so it required extreme set-up. It seemed longer because 6.0 is just ridiculously large for an expansion.

Not going to lie I hated the pixie part of Shadowbringers. I thought it was pointless and needlessly childish injection into an otherwise serious MSQ. I really hated the zone design of Khoulusia and The Tempest with an utter passion because it was so devoid of life and boring.

It is really slow in the beginning as they try to tie up stories and build the foundation of the narrative going forward. The easiest way to do this is through cutscenes so we get a lot of them. I do mean a LOT of them this expansion. It's like writing the final book of a series with multiple main characters and four massive tomes preceding it. We've been lucky with past, especially with Shadowbringers, that conflict has either been built up to previously or we're dropped into the middle of it from the start.

If the nuances and details of the story aren't as important to your enjoyment of the game, I can see how the deluge of cutscenes would be tedious. I hope you're able to find enjoyment in this going forward!

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Basically a Stormblood start with a Shadowbringer middle and ending if you ask me. They did introduce multiple new zones so it required extreme set-up. It seemed longer because 6.0 is just ridiculously large for an expansion.

Not going to lie I hated the pixie part of Shadowbringers. I thought it was pointless and needlessly childish injection into an otherwise serious MSQ. I really hated the zone design of Khoulusia and The Tempest with an utter passion because it was so devoid of life and boring.

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Ahhh! okay that makes sense, I will look forward to the rest of the epxansion :) Thanks!

You do have some valid points there, Shadowbringers wasn't perfect but it was pretty dang good!

I couldn't digest the first hours without a few cups of coffee to be honest.

And for some reason (again) SE released a tremendous city (Sharlayan) where you can't use mounts, I swear to god I tried to avoid the Crystarium as much I could.

Kugane and Ishgard were perfectly designed to don't use mounts but they weren't insanely big nor tedious to walk around.

Watching cutscenes is playing the game. I've never understood this complaint as, this is a final fantasy game.

Yeah the start is slow, but it's just setting the stage. You're only past the first dungeon.

Shadowbringers had a more intense start because, as you said, we're thrown into a completely foreign world/dimension coupled with the mystery and urgency of finding your missing friends.

Endwalker is slower because everyone is safe at the start and there is no immediate peril.

Why assume the entire expansion will be slow after playing a few hours? That just seems kinda silly to me, especially if you've seen the trailers.

I'm not bored, but I'm definitely noticing my pace is a lot slower with EW so far than it had been for me with SHB back when I did that in January. I haven't even reached the first dungeon and this is my third day on EW's MSQ. To be fair, I'm not in a rush, I'm exploring Thavnair and Labyrinthos and doing fates for riding maps, all in all I'm having fun, so all good for me.

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Originally Posted by iVolke

Watching cutscenes is playing the game. I've never understood this complaint as, this is a final fantasy game.

Yeah the start is slow, but it's just setting the stage. You're only past the first dungeon.

Shadowbringers had a more intense start because, as you said, we're thrown into a completely foreign world/dimension coupled with the mystery and urgency of finding your missing friends.

Endwalker is slower because everyone is safe at the start and there is no immediate peril.

Why assume the entire expansion will be slow after playing a few hours? That just seems kinda silly to me, especially if you've seen the trailers.

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That's one hell of a strawman you built up to knock down.

Nobody is upset that there are cutscenes in their final fantasy. But I gained 2 whole levels from 80-82 without fighting maybe more than 10 creatures in the wildlife. That is ridiculous. At some point the game stops being a GAME and becomes a movie. The same thing happens later on in the story where I've spent hours just listening to people talk, escorting them around, listening to more talking, etc.

And I LOVE JRPGs. I turned off Endwalker yesterday and spent the rest of the day playing Dragon Quest XI S. Why? Because I wanted an actual JRPG, not a movie. There are a ton of cutscenes and story in that game, but the pacing is excellent always giving you time to run around, explore, fight things, craft new items, find hidden treasures, etc. I also played FFX again a few months back and, again, lots of cutscenes and dialog, but plenty of battling, exploring, mini-games, etc in-between all the heavy dialogue scenes so that you still feel like you are a part of the interactivity of the story.

Endwalker's pacing is atrocious. Even if I like each individual section of story on it's own, together it feels disjointed and so much time is wasted running errands and escorting people rather than actually doing something interactive. And every time the story begins to jump into high-gear, the rug is pulled out from under it and you go back to dialogue-heavy cutscenes like the crap didn't just hit the fan two minutes ago.

It's a slow, badly paced expansion. That doesn't mean that aspects of it aren't great. Some parts of the story are excellent. The dungeons and trials are fun. The zones are neat. But the pacing of the story could have used some polish from some editors.

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Originally Posted by Rhysati

That's one hell of a strawman you built up to knock down.

Nobody is upset that there are cutscenes in their final fantasy. But I gained 2 whole levels from 80-82 without fighting maybe more than 10 creatures in the wildlife. That is ridiculous. At some point the game stops being a GAME and becomes a movie. The same thing happens later on in the story where I've spent hours just listening to people talk, escorting them around, listening to more talking, etc.

And I LOVE JRPGs. I turned off Endwalker yesterday and spent the rest of the day playing Dragon Quest XI S. Why? Because I wanted an actual JRPG, not a movie. There are a ton of cutscenes and story in that game, but the pacing is excellent always giving you time to run around, explore, fight things, craft new items, find hidden treasures, etc. I also played FFX again a few months back and, again, lots of cutscenes and dialog, but plenty of battling, exploring, mini-games, etc in-between all the heavy dialogue scenes so that you still feel like you are a part of the interactivity of the story.

Endwalker's pacing is atrocious. Even if I like each individual section of story on it's own, together it feels disjointed and so much time is wasted running errands and escorting people rather than actually doing something interactive. And every time the story begins to jump into high-gear, the rug is pulled out from under it and you go back to dialogue-heavy cutscenes like the crap didn't just hit the fan two minutes ago.

It's a slow, badly paced expansion. That doesn't mean that aspects of it aren't great. Some parts of the story are excellent. The dungeons and trials are fun. The zones are neat. But the pacing of the story could have used some polish from some editors.

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Yeah! this is exactly the issue I'm having, and I'm so glad you mentioned the first 2 levels with zero game-play aside from some fetch and escort quests.

I know the story is going to be good and I'm not trying to complain about that, but it's just so dreadfully boring game-play wise and so far the story hasn't gotten me fully interested.

There's a lot of talking, I just wish it was a little more interesting, or they trimmed some of the fat so it didn't feel like so much all at once.

I don't feel it was slow. Sure, the first hours weren't about death and destruction, but rather about adventure and discovery of new lands with a group of friends. I knew I was watching the calm before the storm, and personally enjoyed every second of it.