*Possible EW Spoilers* Yoshi-san, Why Force Binge Through MSQ All At Once?

EW is great, I'm enjoying it for the most part, but we need to talk about the story.
I am fairly far in (the second dungeon which prob isn't far but I'm counting time in hours, not actual progress), and I am resenting the story so much.

With other xpacs after a couple of hours at MSQ you unlock a dungeon fairly quickly. For example (with random numbers) it would take 4 hours to open the first one, with EW it feels like it takes double or even triple+ the amount of time to unlock the 1st dungeon.

I'd love to run around and get aether currants, just doing some exploration to discover the new World, but you can't do that. Because most of the currents are gated behind, MSQ. Other xpacs all had currents that were gated behind MSQ but it never felt like this restricted. After doing 5 hours of MSQ I'd love to run a new dungeon to change things up, but it's only the one dungeon until you're another 10+ hours of MSQ deep...

It's also kinda crappy that we're forced to binge through it. I usually like to take my time. I'm not one who gets on after a patch and burns through the new content. With EW I was thinking I would go slow on the MSQ so I could fully relish it, it's not every day we get a huge amount of story like this to enjoy. I don't want to rush to end it for the sake of ending it. But that is what we're being forced to do. Because if I don't binge through it I won't be able to do anything at all in the new areas.

I am really enjoying it but I have so much freaking resentment over having to binge through it for hours on end that I am at a point I just don't care anymore. I have never been a cutscene skipper, even on non-MSQ quests. Last night I said f**k it and started skipping cutscenes.

Why did you gate the content in such a way that we can do pretty much nothing until we binge through a story we would prefer to slowly savor? Other xpacs were NEVER this bad on release. The balance of new dungeons, new areas to travel to, and gated other parts to those areas worked well with a reasonable pace through the story. You never had too much of a grind in any aspect. You could go at your own pace and know that there were some things you could still do if you wanted to without having to blast through the story.

OT: One last thing would it maybe be possible for future content for you to put a trigger warning prior to certain dramatic events that may happen? I don't want to flat out say what because it's a huge spoiler, but in Garlemald something happens with a gun. I really could have used a trigger warning for that. I'm not upset over the content, it was a good piece of the story and the execution I could tell had been carefully thought out and was very well done. But a "Hey, this cutscene has content that may warrant a trigger warning for some people" right before the scene plays would have been nice.

TLDR: Story good, forced to binge through it bad, pls consider trigger warnings on some cutscenes

Do what? You did not do the first dungeon in Shadowbringers until like 10 hours in.

I don't think this is the problem. I think it's the wonky pacing of the story. It starts off at a snail's pace upon a glacier and then starts to pick up after the first dungeon, but then you suddenly hit a wall again and need to ramp back up. Then it gets really exciting and interesting and back you go to walking around talking to people for hours on end.

The previous expansion's pacing was spectacularly done. This one I've mostly stopped caring about the story because every time I start to get hooked and into it, they shut the door on that part and tell me to go back to escort quests.

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Originally Posted by Rhysati

I don't think this is the problem. I think it's the wonky pacing of the story. It starts off at a snail's pace upon a glacier and then starts to pick up after the first dungeon, but then you suddenly hit a wall again and need to ramp back up. Then it gets really exciting and interesting and back you go to walking around talking to people for hours on end.

The previous expansion's pacing was spectacularly done. This one I've mostly stopped caring about the story because every time I start to get hooked and into it, they shut the door on that part and tell me to go back to escort quests.

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The pacing here feels like how things were back in ARR, HW, and SB. You are entering a new region, people don't trust you, you build trust, then it continues. This is nothing new from what we've seen before. The only reason why the building trust wasn't there in ShB was literally because of the state of the region, things were already at their worst for a century and people didn't have the luxury of not trusting others.

People keep asking for trigger warnings but I hope they don't do this. I enjoy being caught off guard. It's what makes the moment memorable.

I just unlocked the third dungeon myself. I see where you're coming from regarding how the story needs to be binged to unlock everything. But that's always been the case for this game. Story first. The story justifies the existence of all of the content, so you have to do it.

I feel the minority of people who whine about that scene will just end up being responsible for limiting the devs from their creative process in stories as result. That's how it always goes sadly.

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Originally Posted by Rhysati

I don't think this is the problem. I think it's the wonky pacing of the story. It starts off at a snail's pace upon a glacier and then starts to pick up after the first dungeon, but then you suddenly hit a wall again and need to ramp back up. Then it gets really exciting and interesting and back you go to walking around talking to people for hours on end.

The previous expansion's pacing was spectacularly done. This one I've mostly stopped caring about the story because every time I start to get hooked and into it, they shut the door on that part and tell me to go back to escort quests.

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This. 100% this.
Also I feel that the wonky pacing of this expansion is a consequence of trying to wrap up all these loose plot ends established in previous expansions that ShB wasn't burdened with handling.

Pacing does feel way off at times in EW. They play their cards too close to their chest until the absolute last possible second and then BAM, sudden revelation or dungeon or MASSIVE event, then it's immediately back to talking to the locals to gather knowledge for a few hours until something else comes completely out of left field. I don't mind a good mystery, but I think there's a balance between a good oh shit moment and a wtf moment, and some of the stuff in EW has been more wtf than oh shit, if that makes sense. Still an amazing expansion overall though.

I really don't see the difference.

Sea of Clouds, Fringes, Peaks, Kholusia and Ahm Areang were all expansion areas where the other half of the map and aether currents were blocked by msq. This happens every expansion.

Every expansion has you splitting up between two different zones to go and do quests. Then when both branches are done, you're back into one main thread and then get a X1 dungeon.

Maybe EW has more cutscenes but that would be about the only differnce. The actual strucuture of the game is very much the same as prior expansions.

On the trigger warning thing, I'd be fine with them adding them as an option as long as those of us that don't want them can keep them disabled.

Regarding that particular scene, I can understand how the content of that could be upsetting to people, not disputing that. I agree with TheJamJam that putting certain disclaimers or "Player's Discretion" warnings before certain scenes would cause more issues than it solves for the general populace. In fairness to the people who wrote and animated that scene, they did a pretty good job of projecting what was going to happen in plenty of time for a player to turn way if needed. The events of that scene are unquestionably traumatic to people IRL but I don't believe Trigger Warnings/Upcoming Cutscene May Be Disturbing For Some Viewers warnings are appropriate for this medium.


Getting onto the main (SQ) topic- I feel you. I absolutely adore the huge amount of quest and story building that's gone into the game. I also understand that trying to resolve a decade's worth of story into less than a full expansion's worth of content is very difficult. There's got to be a lot of expository content to get through to accomplish this; unfortunately for people who prefer different pacing, it comes at the cost of delaying things like dungeons. This is especially true for Dungeons 1 and 2 and Trial 1, where certain story arcs climax.

I hope you're able to find your best balance between speed and story enjoyment. Maybe one day you should make a giant bowl of popcorn or Cheetos and binge all 2000 hours of EW cutscenes. I'm sure you'll enjoy them.

Regards,
IQ

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

On the trigger warning thing, I'd be fine with them adding them as an option as long as those of us that don't want them can keep them disabled.

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Did people need trigger warning at the end of Stormblood 4.0? This is an extremely dark MMO. I mean in Haukke manor there was a creature literally murdering women and shredding their faces.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Did people need trigger warning at the end of Stormblood 4.0? This is an extremely dark MMO. I mean in Haukke manor there was a creature literally murdering women and shredding their faces.

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I don't know. I don't need them in general. I just don't mind if they're added as long as i can keep them off on my end. I do have a friend though who lost a friend of his to suicide and that scene messed him up a bit. I don't recall if the SB scene had a similar reaction as I didn't know him back then. But there is a difference between a brief text blurb and what 4.0 and 6.0 show, even if they cut away to not see the worst of it.

If a game's story themes and idea are that disturbing to viewers than the issue is theirs. They don't pull these super hard hitters very often. They put them here and there to emphasize the scale. I will admit EW is a little on the heavy side, but we're talking about the end of the damned world with these monstrous abominations roaming about.

I have sympathy for those that struggle with some of the moments due to PTSD and other mental illness, but should one be triggered then cease playing until you can compose yourself and then skip the cutscene.

Since most people jumped on the "while we're here" topic I want to reiterate what I said in my OP. That scene is the poster child for how content like that should be done in future games. It was skillfully done. It was artfully done. It was tastefully done. It was delicately done. You could tell that a crapload of time, thought, emotion, and consideration went into creating that one scene. I don't think they should have done it any differently, it was perfect. I really and truly hope the devs see these positive comments some have mentioned about how it was done as I'm sure they probably had some level of anxiety about getting it right.

I'm not one to expect the World to change around me and the bit about the trigger warning really was "may as well throw my thoughts about it in there" afterthought. Just a general awareness. When it happened I was talking to my husband about it and whether it should or should not have had a warning on it. What it came down to for *me*, and for *my* responses to these things, for *my* reasons sometimes even just saying "trigger warning" is basically going to make me think about the thing so it doesn't really matter much to *me*. Giving it a warning already turns all those thoughts on so does it really matter?" The other thing was "if it had a trigger warning would I have skipped the cutscene?", the answer is no, I would have watched the cutscene. Obviously, I can't, and won't, talk for other people. So, on my end it wasn't a big enough deal for me to make a thread about it. Hopefully, if someone has stronger feelings about it they will make a post and the devs will hear what they have to say. While it didn't send me in a downward spiral I know that there are who would be affected. I just wanted to throw it out there as something to have some awareness about that could maybe be introduced at some point. IMO there really isn't enough of that kind of content in the game to warrant a new "feature" you can turn on or off, I was just thinking a quick "this cutscene involves scenes that may be triggering to some people" and leave it at that. Add it to the "10 hours of cs about to happen at once, get a drink and a sammich and sit your a$$ down" warnings we get ;p

As for the game getting darker I am loving it! A certain Ascian *snap* is my favorite character, lol. ShB was my favorite xpac storyline and when I saw EW trending down the same path I was very happy, lol. I am also noticing more humor being put in and I am here for it, lol. Last night a few things had us both snort when we saw it. GIVE US MORE OF THAT! For a split second I was shown that Urianger has a sense of humor which, I really didn't think he possessed.

I also heard you all about the balance. It seems most noticed there has been a difference in EW vs other xpacs. As I said before, all xpacs did these things, they just didn't do it this much. Either way, we'll all get through it. Just feedback for them to consider 2 years down the line :)

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Originally Posted by Kuponutz

One last thing would it maybe be possible for future content for you to put a trigger warning prior to certain dramatic events that may happen? I don't want to flat out say what because it's a huge spoiler, but in Garlemald something happens with a gun. I really could have used a trigger warning for that. I'm not upset over the content, it was a good piece of the story and the execution I could tell had been carefully thought out and was very well done. But a "Hey, this cutscene has content that may warrant a trigger warning for some people" right before the scene plays would have been nice.

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https://i.imgur.com/hIInyBi.png

go play my little pony if you can't deal with these things

Not only the pacing is whack, but the delivery is whack as well. For example: after the first Trial, you basically reaching a momentus moment. And the section right after that just ... killed off any tension the story has at that point.

Like, that's portion isn't bad, it was enjoyable, but was placed at the absolutely wrong place in the story as far as pacing concern.

bUt MuH tRiGgEr WaRnInGs