Let's have a round of applause for bringing grind parties front and center in FFXIV

[Tsukino]

What the hell is wrong with quests? I for one play jrpgs for their stories (even the bad ones). Whats wrong with starting off in a zone, starting with a story on why i'm there and giving me a fun ff story doing things within the zone leading up to a big bad arse boss or dungeon at the end of the zone, then leading me into the next area. Throw in the grind in the middle of it. Hell, throw in grp grinds. But give me a f'ing story. The ff sp games do this, why the hell can't it be here?

Thats right..... ffxi didn't do it.

You have got to be kidding me. FFXI has multiple massive main story quests with cutscenes. Together they're longer than any single player game in the series. One of the big draws of the game in its heyday was that it was one of the very few MMOs with a compelling storyline, and for a time the only one with in-game cutscene action. One entire expansion of the game essentially added nothing but story quests and dungeons to contain them, where you had to fight to the end and solve puzzles in a group, then fight a huge dangerous boss.

No one is saying no to quests or story. I even would like them to award SP (which they currently do, in massive amounts). People are saying no to solo quest-based progression being the most efficient way to advance in the game. You know what else was common to all single-player FF games? One character didn't fight through dungeons and destroy forces of evil threatening to unmake the world on his or her own.

[Murugan]

You have got to be kidding me. FFXI has multiple massive main story quests with cutscenes. Together they're longer than any single player game in the series. One of the big draws of the game in its heyday was that it was one of the very few MMOs with a compelling storyline, and for a time the only one with in-game cutscene action. One entire expansion of the game essentially added nothing but story quests and dungeons to contain them, where you had to fight to the end and solve puzzles in a group, then fight a huge dangerous boss.

No one is saying no to quests or story. I even would like them to award SP (which they currently do, in massive amounts). People are saying no to solo quest-based progression being the most efficient way to advance in the game. You know what else was common to all single-player FF games? One character didn't fight through dungeons and destroy forces of evil threatening to unmake the world on his or her own.

Yeah no one is against quests. However quests have been watered down so much in modern MMO's that I really think they are undeserving of the term. Repetitive task is more descriptive to what they have become.

FFXI did quests right, I don't mind that they give XP now but designing them as the primary (only) source of leveling in a system where people can level 7 jobs to 50 on one character invites those types of lackluster "kill 5 rats for no particular good reason" quests that we already have covered quite well with guildleves.