Sidequests - the bane of my existence

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way - when you turn in a quest thinking, "finally, my map is cleared and no more little quest nodes" and BAM, 30 more pop up after your turn in. Some people can ignore them, I cannot. Don't ask me why, just the way I'm wired I guess.

That said, I believe there is a better way for SE to handle sidequests, and I'd like your opinion. The EXP you get isn't that big to begin with, as it mostly equates to finishing a few FATEs in the area. In my humble opinion, a zone should have one chain of quests spanning the zone's overarching storyline. Usually there's maybe one or two interesting stories in each zone, and the rest are disposable fetch quests. I believe that having your main story + a "zone story" for each area would be a much better approach.

What are your thoughts?

I actually suffer from the same problem as you. Apart from gearing my classes and what not, one of my "end game" projects is to have a clean journal and wipe every stormblood sidequest off the map. The nodes just bug me. Its a thing, I feel your pain

It's something to do while you're rotting away on a dps queue. I agree that more of them can have more substantial stories even if not necessarily more substantial game-play, but I'd rather they invested that time and effort into other things.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

It's something to do while you're rotting away on a dps queue. I agree that more of them can have more substantial stories even if not necessarily more substantial game-play, but I'd rather they invested that time and effort into other things.

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I actually feel if they made one main zone quest, they would free up resources to do other things. There are so, so many quests with a bunch of filler text. They go into a lot of detail for the most mundane things (I mean, I appreciate the effort they put into it), but you're right, that could be spent somewhere else.

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Originally Posted by Prestige

That said, I believe there is a better way for SE to handle sidequests, and I'd like your opinion.

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The better way to handle sidequests is to make better sidequests so that we're happy to see more quests pop.

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Originally Posted by Prestige

I actually feel if they made one main zone quest, they would free up resources to do other things.

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True, but you'll lose out on a source of exp, as negligible as you find it to be, and some of them do have stories and flesh out things a bit, even if they're not very detailed. I think a lot less people would've minded the dreary story-telling if the gameplay was beyond "go talk to these half a dozen NPCs", and all the more if we didn't have as much of it in the MSQ on top of it all

Side quests are atrocious. Good thing I don’t bother reading the corny dialog otherwise I would still be leveling my main. At least if I was killing things i would enjoy them more. But no, most of the time you go from point A to point B to point C and click on npcs. More gameplay less story ffs. If I wanted a good story I would read Tolkien or manga or some shit.

I think they're pretty great - they're entirely optional (other than those needed to unlock specific things such as aether currents) and they serve to flesh out the game world by offering up interesting lore. I do agree that some of them are rather bland...but as of Heavensward and beyond they've steadily been getting better.

Weird I actually want more sidequests..so much lore behind them and most of them are really fun.

They are not too bad if you leave them till you have access to flying in the later areas.I find them useful to knock a load of them out at one go while waiting on a queue while leveling a dps.

i love the lore in the sidequests and some of the stuff in them is super silly and i loves it. (everyone in the ruby sea has slippery fingers and keeps dropping their fishing rods).

I like them. Azim Steppe had fewer but really good ones. Would like more of them when new patches launches.

Since they are optional and the important ones like those who gives aether currents got a different icon, maybe they could put a turn off button for those who don't want to see the markers on the map? Maybe we already can do that nowadays, idk ¯\(°_o)/¯

Personally I love side quest it's a good time killer while waiting for queue times. Besides when you think about it if your sticking with one job it's the fastest and easiest way to reach 70 without depending on queue.

I like side quests too. When leveling up my main for the first time, I stopped doing them, just because it would have taken me forever to clear them all. But once that is done, and I no longer feel "pressured" towards endgame content, I really like how they give an insight about areas, and what problems people living there run into.

Then again, I also talked to every NPC to see what they would tell me, so I guess I'm just into lore and 'feeling' an area's way of life ^_^.

For those who just do it for completion purposes, I agree though - it's probably not as great an experience as it is for me.

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Originally Posted by Ghastly

Weird I actually want more sidequests..so much lore behind them and most of them are really fun.

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Me too! I really love them. Some have great little stories.

Can you imagine the game with few dungeons/trials more interesting feast events if SE didnt spend a peny into making those fetch quests?

But well, without them the game would be pretty cold.
I still remember that side quest where the wolfman was lazy and stupid and could not find a job in the village. xD

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Originally Posted by Nedkel

Can you imagine the game with few dungeons/trials more interesting feast events if SE didnt spend a peny into making those fetch quests?

But well, without them the game would be pretty cold.
I still remember that side quest where the wolfman was lazy and stupid and could not find a job in the village. xD

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That was a good one ^_^. Some side quests I even remember better than parts of the main story quest. Like the one with the fishing guy on the Ruby Sea, who keeps pulling out monsters instead of fish ^_^.

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Originally Posted by Prestige

Usually there's maybe one or two interesting stories in each zone, and the rest are disposable fetch quests. I believe that having your main story + a "zone story" for each area would be a much better approach.

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basically just this. The side quests that have linking quests and unique stories are the most interesting and fulfilling, despite the lack of rewards. I don't even bother with a side quest if it doesn't have a unique backdrop on it.

I would love more of these stories in every area. The side quests in Azim steppe were particularly interesting and I'd love more of those.

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Originally Posted by Xelanar

That was a good one ^_^. Some side quests I even remember better than parts of the main story quest. Like the one with the fishing guy on the Ruby Sea, who keeps pulling out monsters instead of fish ^_^.

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I love those too D:

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Originally Posted by Xelanar

That was a good one ^_^. Some side quests I even remember better than parts of the main story quest. Like the one with the fishing guy on the Ruby Sea, who keeps pulling out monsters instead of fish ^_^.

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Loved that one xD
And the one where we go shopping for like 400 things for the mol because their god said so.

I would actually like every patch to bring more sidequests with different rewards (glam, minions, gil), problem is finding good rewards that can be repeatable. Maybe like reputation system where we help villages make money, rebuild, keep people safe, etc and at the end of the week they just give us a lot of gil or something. The situation could be different for every area, at ruby sea there could be like 10 quests centered around going on ship quests where we defend the ship from sea monsters and pirates.......................

Things like that you know

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Originally Posted by Ghastly

I would actually like every patch to bring more sidequests with different rewards

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This would really bring a lot to the patches for me. I wish they had a quest making team that consistently worked on these instead of just introducing new ones each expansion. Im sad i have no reason to be in Azim Steppe anymore.

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

This would really bring a lot to the patches for me. I wish they had a quest making team that consistently worked on these instead of just introducing new ones each expansion. Im sad i have no reason to be in Azim Steppe anymore.

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Yesss Azim!

I did a negligent number of ARR and HW sidequests, but with SB I wanted to do all the Kugane and Azim Steppe quests, so I decided I might as well do ALL the SB sidequests... The problem is that the quality of them varies so dramatically. Any of the sidequests that gives you more lore about the people or locations ends up being pretty memorable and nifty; but it's almost impossible to guess which those are going to be, compared to the uninspired "Kill X monster and come back to me" quests. Even in the long chains of quests that have an overarching story, half the time the quests add value and the other half the time they're just bland fluff.

I would like the same number of sidequests, but more attention to making sure that each sidequest reveals something valuable about the people or location. Even if it's just something small like "Oh, in Ala Mihgo we have this tradition based on so-and-so item you gathered!" I think it would be better than "I'm hungry, go get me food."

I just wish there was a way to turn them off (hide them). I do very little in the way of sidequests on my main and numerous alts. I just don't have time to deal with them and have adjusted to their being there. At least the important sidequests now have a special icon which at least lets you know one should look at them.

We *need* the Delivery Moogle Quests back!!!

Great way to shed some light on the npcs we find during our adventures. I'm aware it must be hard on the lore team but I think it's not something heavy on the programing side.

Sidequests don't bother me. I even like them when - in fact, I ESPECIALLY like them when - they spawn a bunch of new quests, as it means new lore to lap up!

What I dislike are REPEATABLE sidequests. Ones whose icons never go away. Every time I go to Revenant's Toll, there's a half dozen quest markers there, taunting me. I'll catch one out of the corner of my eye, swivel the camera and - nope. Not a new quest. Just the same old Relic quest.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

What I dislike are REPEATABLE sidequests. Ones whose icons never go away. Every time I go to Revenant's Toll, there's a half dozen quest markers there, taunting me. I'll catch one out of the corner of my eye, swivel the camera and - nope. Not a new quest. Just the same old Relic quest.

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I think they should implement something so that if you have all the relics done, those quests disappear and are no longer available. It's not like you need to items from those quests ever again if you have all relics done anyway.

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Originally Posted by Sciwolf

Side quests are atrocious. Good thing I don’t bother reading the corny dialog otherwise I would still be leveling my main. At least if I was killing things i would enjoy them more. But no, most of the time you go from point A to point B to point C and click on npcs. More gameplay less story ffs. If I wanted a good story I would read Tolkien or manga or some shit.

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This is Final Fantasy we're talking about. Less story is not gonna happen.

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Originally Posted by Genz

The better way to handle sidequests is to make better sidequests so that we're happy to see more quests pop.

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Would like to add that ffxiv could use a version of the loremaster achievements for completing every sidequest in a zone. It would not only make sidequesting semi enjoyable (see genz's suggestion), but also add a reason, a goal for people to go after. Maybe it we would even see more people in open world zones instead of just chilling in town flagged for duty finder.

Lore sidequests are good.

Repeatable sidequest are bad.

Fetch sidequests without lore are ugly.

I don't mind most of them. A lot of them seem clearly meant to simply make sure you've fought every mob type in the area (perhaps to make sure you're familiar with their mechanics for dungeons?), and those aren't so bad. There's usually also FATEs in the area for most of the mobs, which doubles up purpose.
The ones that really let you get a feel for the area, or characters (if they're interesting) aren't so bad.

But occasionally, yeah, it gets really bad. Just hit the chain in Idyllshire with the roe/lala duo. It was long. It was dumb. It was very nearly painful. Talk to duo, go out to objective, return to duo, go back out to the next objective, go back to the duo, back out once again for the next objective. I think it may have been the first sidequest chain I genuinely wanted to give up on.

In ARR and HW I always did every side quest that I could find and yet in SB a lot were open for a long time and I still have some left in Yanxia. If more sidequests were as interesting as the market ones in the Azim Steppe maybe I would enjoy them much more. But sadly they are often just meaningless fetch quests and only a few gems in it. And this comes from someone that enjoys the lore and story aspect of a game way more than the gameplay.

LOL personally they don't bother me but they do my boyfriend, he has to keep his maps clear of them; I find it amusing how we both play this game together but get very different kinds of enjoyment from it.

If they started by deleting all the fedex quests and only leave the "real side story" ones like the scarlet princess or whatever in the Ruby Sea, that would be much more enjoyable. I'm mostly tired of getting 20 UPS deliveries when I turn one in. That said, I did all the quests at lvl70, that was quick enough I guess, but I didn't even read them, like I think 99% of the players. The problem is the insane quantity. I wouldn't mind having real quality ones, even "longer" but interesting stories about this particular NPC, that would give more consistency and "realism" to the world, while giving a massive EXP reward so that it doesn't feel useless compared to roulette, and without having to deliver barrels of rice or whatever to Random NPC#314 (which is most of the time at the exact opposite of the bloody world)

I had intended to use the SB ones to level up alt dps jobs, but then Kojin quests and alliance raid roulette happened.

At least this time around, I didn’t have to do every single sidequest on my main just to get/keep my level sufficient for progressing the MSQ *cough* Heavensward *cough*

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Originally Posted by Meghann

LOL personally they don't bother me but they do my boyfriend, he has to keep his maps clear of them; I find it amusing how we both play this game together but get very different kinds of enjoyment from it.

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I dont hate them as an idea, but I cant stand seeing exclamation points on my maps. its like a constant reminder that there are things you still need to do and that nagging sense of the incomplete.

Storm blood side quests I've actually really enjoyed, but I freaking LOVE your idea. A zone quest line would be so cool. I wouldn't get rid of the side quests we have now but just have less of them with the zone quest line being the bulk of the optional quest content in the area. Would make for some great new side characters to meet that you'd actually have an opinion on them after ur done unlike the mini 3 side quest chains we have now with forgettable characters.

I take issue how the Developer team handled Side Quests as they're uninspired and with very little effort. The developer team who made those sidequests need to understand Quality is better than quantity which they should take and learn cues from most single player games out there that have done side quests way more properly (and even their own titles like Dragon Quest, Xenogears, previous final fantasy games like FFX, etc). If you wish to build your world and lore through side-quests, creating a side-story should be limited to few side-quests rather than many as your wasting your resources and time when you could be making something long and engrossing without making a bunch of fetch quests or go kill this or that X-amount of times. That stuff belongs in the early to mid 2000s MMOs, let's keep it in the past.

Unfortunately the damage is done, and I see no budging on their present course.

I don't mind the undone quest markers. I intend to do them with alt jobs. It's the triple triad markers I hate.