Not Liking the Mandatory Main Quest

[Dliver]

Lv30-40 is easily the dullest part of the storyline. You get sent on a long chain of quests where the NPCs even make it clear to you they're just wasting your time and have little to do with the actual story.

After that, things get much more interesting, especially as you approach 50. If you need an indicator, I'd suggest you start paying more attention to the story once you beat the Titan story fight.

I'm trying to remember, is that with the guy who keeps sending you to fetch the wrong type of elemental rock or whatever?

That was probably the only time where I was like "this story sucks so much." That and when you have to play messenger with stupid step and fetch quests repeatedly, which I think was also bad right in that level range.

[Altanas]

The irritating thing is the main story tries to compete too much with the citystates quests. I didn't like all the going back and forth and around and around. It was much more enjoyable once you hit Coerthas and all quests intertwine.

Because everything overlapped early on, it led to a lot of players rushing to get it done because there was a lot to do. It would have been better had the main story take off around level 30ish when the citystate quests die down. Then there would be less contradiction in dialogue (hero v errand boy)

[amnie]

Totally agree on this. I find the story as a whole poorly executed to be honest. It did get better starting around 44, but there was just too much "fetch quest" bloat for me to enjoy it. I'd prefer a shorter storyline over this artificially stretched quest train.

funny, isn't it? that's basically why everyone hated FFXII and now people want it.

I wonder about people sometimes

[Krystalynn]

If they increased the amount of money and exp gained from killing monsters they could remove some of the tedious quests and open the door to more rewarding leveling of sub classes. Also they could increase the difficulty of some areas, add rare spawns and drops and encourage the use of forming exp parties to clear and tackle these areas rather than the fate grind system which they should decrease the exp on and increase the seals for.

Increase difficulty? But then John's girlfriend Jane may quit the game and force him to quit too. We can't have that.

[Astarica]

The fetch quest 101 style is just terrible. That has nothing to do with the game design or difficulty. You can hire a random fanfiction writer and he'll be able to come up with a storyline more interesting than the whole Company of Heroes arc, which didn't even pretend the whole series of quest is literally a waste of time. Outside of Gaius, the time you fought the Garlean guys is literally the first time your character has met them face to face. Perhaps if you actually ran into those guys instead of fetching cheese across the land, it'd at least be more intersting.

[ItzKris]

Completely agreed. The rewards were not very good either. A 6,000 exp reward when I needed 150,000 to level. I thought they were very annoying to do. The money rewards were good though, only reason I kept doing them was to get the five 500gill sack rewards.

[Sylve]

You realize that every single quest, ever, is just:
Talk to X
Fetch X
Kill X

Right?

[Zezlar]

You realize that every single quest, ever, is just:
Talk to X
Fetch X
Kill X

Right?

It's the presentation that determines how good or bad it is, and ARR does it extremely poorly up until the later stages. It is quite embarrassing for a FF storyline actually by today's standards.

[Tupsi]

You realize that every single quest, ever, is just:
Talk to X
Fetch X
Kill X

Right?

Indeed - Except there's generally a good reason to:

Talk to X
Fetch X
Kill X

Rather than what we typically get these days of:

Talk to X - Get my laundry.
Fetch My laundry
Kill 5 dodos.

In the middle of a storyline about the world. How does me fetching your laundry tell me about the world (and eorzea) post Bahamut? I'll be completely unsurprised if Turn 6 is fetching Vrtra's laundry.

[Andrien]

I for one like the mandatory main quest, or main scenario. It felt epic, and made me feel like my character is important. Like an offline Final Fantasy game. Brilliant!

I think one way they can improve the filler questing is by making them more meaningful, and connects with the lore while advancing with the main story.