Regarding Stormblood sidequests

Back at the time of Heavensward, this appeared in an interview:

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So you thought about completely removing the experience reward from sidequests?

Y: Even though sidequests are based around story, if you want to progress through the game quickly you can click your way through them without reading anything. Because our questing system is not all that elaborate, the tasks themselves are limited to a small number of variations like "Kill X of that monster" or "bring this thing to that person". Of course we are working on including more varied tasks, and we are also working on main the story itself interesting. Still, we had to ask whether a system that allows you to earn experience just by clicking things was really needed at this point from a game design perspective.

So you had that conversation in the development team?

Y: In the team as well, there were people asking "can't we just remove them already?", but we were worried that if we only allowed players to level through group activities like dungeons and hunting open-world mobs, then we wouldn't be able to provide for those people who want to experience all aspects of the game on their own. There were arguments in favor of both sides, but in the end we felt having experience rewards from the main quest wasn't hurting the game in any way, so we decided to add side quests as originally planned.

How have players reacted to this?

Y: I was expecting a few more comments like "We're sick of them" or "There are too many errands", but I think we were able to make the story interesting enough to cover for the monotony of the activity itself. In the end, expect for one particular set of quests, we didn't receive that many complaints. I think this is thanks to our writing team's efforts.

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More recently - Stormblood era - there was another interview commenting about how the development team has received positive feedback regarding the story quality in sidequests. I want to say that I do agree the writing quality in sidequests is high. If I find myself doing a sidequest chain I didn't think I was going to do, I'm often surprised at how good the writing is.

That said, I quoted this old interview for a reason. From a writing standpoint, they're good. From a gameplay standpoint, sidequests still kinda suck: They're bland and repetitive.

So to any developers that might read this: Please do not keep drowning us in massive amounts of sidequests. I would be quite content if 5.0 halved the number of sidequests. Please do keep up the storytelling efforts, but also please focus more of the gameplay design efforts on other, more interesting content.

I hope I'm not alone in feeling this way. I realize many in the lore forums may enjoy that very lore expositioned in these quests but I ask - how do you feel about the gameplay behind them?

I don't really care about the game play. And by that, I mean that the gameplay is fine. I'd rather the quests stay as they are with us going around in the world doing gameplay things then they just become a series of text boxes we have to read through to get to the world-building stuff in them. Some of us players "fill in the gaps" of the gameplay so that, in our heads, it's not just us clicking buttons on a screen or defeating enemies, but actually doing what the quests say we are doing. Losing any indication of when that happens on-screen would be a loss. It helps the WoL feel like they're doing something in the world that isn't just the MSQ.

There's also the point of view that it helps with leveling other jobs. The MSQ is for my main job and I usually save most of the side-quests for my alts. Having gameplay in them gives me an opportunity to play around with that job's skills in a no-stress zone that's not as boring as a training dummy. I'd rather do that kind of experimentation in Side-Quests then in dungeons where other people depend on me to know what I'm doing.

They're sidequests. They're going to be bland and repetitive, so I don't carry many expectations. I'm more interested in the story told by the sidequests, which is often times interesting. I'm severely disappointed that they've tossed journal entries out the window though. I enjoyed going back through them.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

They're sidequests. They're going to be bland and repetitive, so I don't carry many expectations. I'm more interested in the story told by the sidequests, which is often times interesting. I'm severely disappointed that they've tossed journal entries out the window though. I enjoyed going back through them.

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This. They won't just hide new interesting mechanics in sidequests you might totally ignore.

You know what, Risv? By your logic we should remove dungeon. I mean what's their point? Cool new mechanics, and awesome background music come from trials and raids. Interesting lore is usually tied to endgame trials and raids. For XP grinding the best way is deep dungeons and main scenario quests. Important story battles are done more often with solo duties. Gear can be crafted or bought with tomestone.

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.

I would imagine the idea would be that they contain more instanced fights? But that feels like a lot of dev time for what they are. (Optional quests meant to bridge EXP gaps when you take a break from doing the other leveling things with some world building.)

The other thing I might see is, like, Parley? But dear god NO, DO NOT BRING BACK PARLEY.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

From a writing standpoint, they're good. From a gameplay standpoint, sidequests still kinda suck: They're bland and repetitive.

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Even so they are better than dungeons - dodging AOEs is not fun, and that seems to be the main mechanic in all dungeons.
If they removed sidequests as a way of leveling I would quit the game.

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Originally Posted by Balipu

You know what, Risv? By your logic we should remove dungeon. I mean what's their point? Cool new mechanics, and awesome background music come from trials and raids.

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Please don't put words in my mouth.

And you're wrong on that point anyways. New music and new mechanics are introduced via dungeons as well.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

Even so they are better than dungeons - dodging AOEs is not fun, and that seems to be the main mechanic in all dungeons.
If they removed sidequests as a way of leveling I would quit the game.

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Not suggesting they do that. I just don't want literally hundreds upon hundreds of them.

But, it seems I am alone in thinking this afterall. Oh well...

I enjoy sidequests so long as they flesh out the world more. "Go kill X for its meat, I'm hungry," "Y monster is terrorizing the locals. Go kill it,", "Fetch me X of Y." Those are the sorts of sidequests I hate. If it expands my understanding of the world or has a touching moment I'm fine with that; otherwise I'd rather do dungeons. More dynamic.

I am in the same boat as a lot of folks. As long as there is story reasoning for doing something then it doesn't bother me. They could give the questing system some updates if it allows for interesting game play but I am fine if it was the same. Final Fantasy is known for its story through dialogue. Just be happy it's not Golden Sun tier.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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.

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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?

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

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?

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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...

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

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...

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I don't particularly care how many are added.

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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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.

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.

I have to agree that the devs seem more interested in the Far East. We got the new hub city (Kugane) and the Doman Restoration going on over there while Ala Mhigo proper was regulated to a dungeon.
Here's hoping 4.5 gives it some love.

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Originally Posted by Moomba33

I have to agree that the devs seem more interested in the Far East. We got the new hub city (Kugane) and the Doman Restoration going on over there while Ala Mhigo proper was regulated to a dungeon.
Here's hoping 4.5 gives it some love.

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What baffles me about Kugane is it has nothing to do with anything else in the expansion. It's not related to Doma or Ala Mhigo, and in the story basically serves as a pit stop between the two. They didn't even used the fact that it's a neutral city with a Garlean Embassy in the prisoner exchange plot.

To this day I still cannot fathom the "Ala Mhigo Expansion" not only not having Ala Mhigo in it, but sending the message that we will just never have Ala Mhigo, period, that there's just not sufficient room, resources, or reason for it to be its own city-state beyond The Lochs. In some ways it's almost outright comical.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

To this day I still cannot fathom the "Ala Mhigo Expansion" not only not having Ala Mhigo in it, but sending the message that we will just never have Ala Mhigo, period, that there's just not sufficient room, resources, or reason for it to be its own city-state beyond The Lochs. In some ways it's almost outright comical.

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I don't mind personally. I never cared much for Ala Mhigans. But I can imagine it would hard for somebody who actually likes them.

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Originally Posted by Balipu

I don't mind personally. I never cared much for Ala Mhigans. But I can imagine it would hard for somebody who actually likes them.

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Fair enough. For me it's particularly painful because I was excited for Ala Mhigo and didn't care about the Doma story, so not only did I not get Ala Mhigo, I didn't get it because they split the expansions' focus into a region I don't care about, and made the main city of the game part of a THIRD nation that has nothing to do with SB's plot.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

They didn't even used the fact that it's a neutral city with a Garlean Embassy in the prisoner exchange plot.

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This would have been even stranger. Why would a nation that goes to great lengths to avoid getting caught up in other nations' squabbles agree to host a prisoner exchange for 2 third parties? 2 third parties still in a war that hasn't been formally concluded, no less.

The sad part is the ala mhigo angle was so much more interesting, or could have been, than Doma which felt shoehorned in. We beat back the Garleans way to easily on both fronts.

While I don't mind the eastern theme, even though it is the last aesthetic that I tend to gravitate to, the story suffered for it. They should have either waited and gave the east its own expac. Personally I would have loved if they grew the Indian theme they were building in Ala Mhigo, but they just reduced it to a beast tribe and gave the rest just small influences.

Not to mention there is enough JP and Euro themes in games but very little Indian, it would have been something more fresh than just another heavy handed recreation of old Japan.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

This would have been even stranger. Why would a nation that goes to great lengths to avoid getting caught up in other nations' squabbles agree to host a prisoner exchange for 2 third parties? 2 third parties still in a war that hasn't been formally concluded, no less.

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I'm not saying the prisoner exchange itself should have been there, but that it would have made a great meeting ground for both parties to discuss things, and would have given Kugane SOME relevance the story beyond being a pit stop on the way to Doma.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

To this day I still cannot fathom the "Ala Mhigo Expansion" not only not having Ala Mhigo in it, but sending the message that we will just never have Ala Mhigo, period, that there's just not sufficient room, resources, or reason for it to be its own city-state beyond The Lochs. In some ways it's almost outright comical.

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What do you mean "not having Ala Mhigo in it"? Aren't The Peaks, The Fringes, and The Lochs (and Rhalgar's Reach) all part of the old city-state of Ala Mhigo? They are pretty devastated since the Garlean invasion, but they are part of Ala Mhigo.
We haven't seen all of Ala Mhigo, true - but we haven't seen all of any of the other citystates in Eorzea either. Plenty of geography outside the playable zones.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

What do you mean "not having Ala Mhigo in it"? Aren't The Peaks, The Fringes, and The Lochs (and Rhalgar's Reach) all part of the old city-state of Ala Mhigo? They are pretty devastated since the Garlean invasion, but they are part of Ala Mhigo.
We haven't seen all of Ala Mhigo, true - but we haven't seen all of any of the other citystates in Eorzea either. Plenty of geography outside the playable zones.

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No other city state is missing the city proper though.
The current state of Ala Mhigo is as if we had access to The Black Shroud zones but could only visit Gridania as a dungeon.

Yes, which is somewhat a shame really. What I was hoping for was that after completing the final dungeon to rout Zenos, we would have access to that area as part of Ala Mhigo... was even expecting some shops and citizens that we could interact with.

It would have also given substance to the quest where the WoL travels to Thalanan and assists some refugees in returning home.

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Originally Posted by Moomba33

No other city state is missing the city proper though.
The current state of Ala Mhigo is as if we had access to The Black Shroud zones but could only visit Gridania as a dungeon.

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We have part of the city ("The Ala Mhigan Quarter"),
Sure it would have been nice to have access to more of the city, but we don't have access to the whole of any other city either.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

We have part of the city ("The Ala Mhigan Quarter"),
Sure it would have been nice to have access to more of the city, but we don't have access to the whole of any other city either.

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That small chunk of the Lochs is disappointing compared to the zones we have for the other city states. Especially for people who like and are interested in Ala Mhigo. That's all we're saying, this seems to have become a semantics argument.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

What do you mean "not having Ala Mhigo in it"? Aren't The Peaks, The Fringes, and The Lochs (and Rhalgar's Reach) all part of the old city-state of Ala Mhigo? They are pretty devastated since the Garlean invasion, but they are part of Ala Mhigo.
We haven't seen all of Ala Mhigo, true - but we haven't seen all of any of the other citystates in Eorzea either. Plenty of geography outside the playable zones.

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Not having Ala Mhigo in it, as in not having an explorable City-State. The zones you mention (The Peaks, The Fringes, The Lochs, and Rhalgr's Reach) are part of Gyr Abania, which is the name of the actual region. Similar to, for example, Thanalan being the region with Ul'dah as its City-State.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Not having Ala Mhigo in it, as in not having an explorable City-State. The zones you mention (The Peaks, The Fringes, The Lochs, and Rhalgr's Reach) are part of Gyr Abania, which is the name of the actual region. Similar to, for example, Thanalan being the region with Ul'dah as its City-State.

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Gyr Abania and Thanalan (etc) are geographical regions, not political units.
Ul'dah is the city itself, but the city-state covers a fair bit more territory than just the main city. Places like Camp Drybone, The Silver Bazaar, Vesper Bay, etc. are all under the control and jurisdiction of Ul'dah - and hence part of the city-state.
Same with Gyr Abania - most of it is (or at least was) part of the city-state of Ala Mhigo, which is more than just the central city.

I'd be fine with the ala mhigan quarter if there was...actual stuff there. If they fleshed it out the same way they have the doman enclave.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

Gyr Abania and Thanalan (etc) are geographical regions, not political units.
Ul'dah is the city itself, but the city-state covers a fair bit more territory than just the main city. Places like Camp Drybone, The Silver Bazaar, Vesper Bay, etc. are all under the control and jurisdiction of Ul'dah - and hence part of the city-state.
Same with Gyr Abania - most of it is (or at least was) part of the city-state of Ala Mhigo, which is more than just the central city.

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Technically that's correct. In XIV, people generally refer to Ul'dah (or in this case, Ala Mhigo) as the actual city, while using the region name (Thanalan, Gyr Abania) when talking about the entire region.
This thread being a perfect example. The mention of having an explorable Ala Mhigo is obviously referring to the city itself, not the fact that we can explore The Fringes/The Peaks/The Lochs.

And I don't really call the Ala Mhigan Quarter to be a significant explorable part of the city, since there isn't really much to explore there to begin with. They could remove the aetheryte, and most post-MSQ players probably wouldn't notice.

Speaking of side quests I don't recall them even adding any to the ala mhigan quarter.

There can be a bit of overlap. In RP for example, a character might say "I'm from ala mhigo" generally when they're technically from the fringes and not the city. But int his context when people say they want ala mhigo, obviously what we want is the city. Though I'd also settle for fleshing out the ala mhigan quarter the same way the doman enclave was.

Many of the quests have not changed much in it being fetch quests, grab item from NPC, deliver to other NPC, go back to first NPC.
Now go fetch me my tea again.
Some quests were good however.

To people who think side quests are just fetch or kill please remember the Warrior of Light can also be responsible for a little girl freezing to death in Ishgard, and help a girl jump to her death in the Steppes.