What's your opinion about the game's story?

[Voltyblast]

Let me explain something first: I know this game is based about story and I know many love it because of it, however I do know there are people who don't like the story and simply go for the gameplay - just like me - but I often see this going into fights and arguments that often ended bad. Annoying to say the least.

So my reason for asking this at the forums is to see how "divided" we are without causing any internal fights. I don't want to cause trollings or anything silly with this thread: I simply want to see what the playerbase thinks about the main story and what's their reason for liking or disliking it. No more, no less.

With that said, here's my starter: "I dislike the story because I think it's boring and it takes too long to become interesting and I think the english writing could've been fine without the "olde english" style it uses. And I also think the characters are boring too but this could be related to the above statements"

Addendum about job quests: I actually enjoyed some of them, like gladiator's, dragoon's, pugilist's and even warrior's a little bit (I liked the final battle quite a bit: liked the meaning behind it). However a lot of them just felt rather uninteresting, especially job quests: I barely cared about the monk one, Scholar was interesting but only at times, Bard had potential but it once again felt uninteresting at best and Paladin (especially from 30-50) felt really silly. If not bad, they're just uninteresting or boring.

But my favourite remains the 1-50 DRK quest: Fray was an awesome teacher who not only spoke normally (which for me was a plus), but also thought the same way I did. I'm not evil, but the fact that sometimes evil actions are necessary and how they can drag you in if you succumb is quite charming, if not thrilling, in a game where it's all about light and goodness and kindness and rainbows.
And the final quest is probably one of the most "blasphemic" , considering who your character is, but it made so much sense and I would love to see more quests like this, where the hero's morality is questioned and teased.

And while not amazing, the 60 quest kind of surprised me because I thought it would end in the usual way without anyone dying. I guess I was wrong: not bad there, that got me out of surprise for sure.

[Mugiawara]

It doesn't even feel FF to me.
I feel like I'm always alone in this game lmao. The story is a single player with our characters having no personality whatsoever.
The Scions are boring, and the only time I felt like I had 'friends' was Haucthersadasfant and Ayermic and the time we climbed up to Sohm Al and
the camp fire thing with Ysayle, Eisesitnen and Alps...names are hard...>>;.
It felt like I was on a journey with friends. So 3.0 made me feel like I had friends around.
2.0 was God awful and so slow...so boring...The game is climbing up for the better though, so I'm
hoping 4.0 is really good!

[cammi]

I just wished our character felt like actual main characters instead of some bystander that literally just watches the NPCs do kool stuff. I get why it's that way but I still wished the main character was your character and acted like one more tho. Like when you get into fights instead of just standing there I wish they let our character actually like fight in the story. It feels like what you do in gameplay doesn't relate to what happens in the actual story.

[KitingGenbu]

Even though I know what this thread is in relation to, I won't harp on the creation since it does warrant a separate thread. Personally, 2.0's story was pretty hit or miss. Some stuff was engaging while other things were either just weak or went on far longer than they should have. 3.0 started off weak imo but got a bit better as things went on and I was personally satisfied how everything has come to a point in 3.4. The thing about stories in any games (not just mmorpgs) is that everyone likes different things and the Final Fantasy franchise alone has expanded over various genres if you think about it. They've gone steam-punk, pure fantasy, midevil, etc and not everyone likes each equally. This game is definitely a mixture of every genre and with doing so, some elements will hit while some won't.

I always wanted to bring this thing up as a side note about cloud's bike. People are saying that cloud's bike wont work on a ground level since it wouldn't be realistic, but how realistic is it for your company chocobo to fly as fast as your Magitech Armor? Realism in a fantasy game, people's defenses really make sense sometimes /endsarcasm.

[Voltyblast]

Even though I know what this thread is in relation to...

If you're talking about the Stormblood story lock in the other thread then no, this thread is not related to that: I simply made this thread on my own for seeing the overal opinion of the playerbase and that's all.
Unless I assumed wrong, then I don't know what's the topic in mind sorry.

[Pondera]

I'd classify our character's lack of vocal involvement in the story as something of a weakness, especially when we're involved so deeply in it. All that really happens is that people tell us where to go and what to kill, and we give a stoic nod. The game even lampshades our "stoic nod"! It's 2016 on the verge of 2017. I think we should get past the concept of a silent protagonist at this point.

But there are several moments in the story that got me emotionally stirring. The death of Noroxia, saving Estenien and vanquishing Nidhogg, the end of the Alexander raid storyline, so on. With that in mind, I'd give the storyline an A, but our lack of character in our character keeps that grade from being an A+

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I have thoroughly enjoyed the story overall, however A Realm Reborn certainly had more than a few shares of missteps. Chief among them is whenever "filler" quests reared their way into the story and everything grinded to an abrupt halt. This is no better exemplified than during the much maligned Company of Heroes arc-- the only questline in the entire game thus far I seriously considered skipping through. While I like the Scions, they weren't well developed throughout 2.0. We just sort of met them and... became friends. That isn't to say I find any boring-- far from it, in fact. I merely wanted to discover more about them and their individual motivations. Heavensward improved upon this in spades. Not only do we get some inside to Y'Shtola's history, we finally see what motivates Thancred. Oddly, I never disliked Minfilia, even if I did want to ring her neck for the constant "come back to the Waking Sands so I can tell you what I could just tell right now via Linkshell." Alphinaud easily stands as one of the series' most well rounded and developed characters. This arc from The Crystal Braves onward to where he is now has been fantastic. Shifting to Heavensward, the story really began to reach its stride. Deciding to focus on only a select few characters and split away from the ensemble cast significantly improved their individual storylines.

Perhaps my favorite arc in the game is the "campfire" segments with Ysayle, Estinien and Alphinaud since we actually learned about them as people not just their cause. Aymeric, while not a standout necessarily, felt far more interesting a lead advisor compared to Minfilia, I suspect because there were flaws to him, whereas Minfilia came across flat at times. From a villain perspective, I have very few complaints towards either Gaius or King Thordan. Unsurprisingly, Heavensward once again takes the edge, though that may be my personal love for political conflict.

One aspect I cannot praise enough is the challenges depicted once the truth of The Dragonsong War was revealed. Too often in stories do the masses simply accept radical changes in philosophy when realistically, you would see frequent upraises not unlike what happened throughout 3.1 and 3.2. The maid woman in particular deserves props for well crafted storytelling.

Alas, the biggest hurdle to the storyline remains ourselves. While I appreciate the WoL cannot have too branching an opinion given we are the story's catalyst. It would be nice if we had any in lieu of coming across as a static brick. They did attempt to allow some characterization through dialogue choices, even if they were ultimately meaningless, but those options were too few and far in between. What I would like to see is our choices have some impact on the characters we interact with. Let the Scions chastise us for being smug, allow us to show some exasperation. And maybe even have one or two small arcs where our decisions impact the overall plot. Nothing too expansive, however any form of characterization would be nice. Regardless, the WoL doesn't hold the story back, they just do not wholly contribute to it either. At least from a personal perspective.

Overall, I feel the story is quite good and the characters all interested; some more so than others. Heavensward certainly improved upon the areas A Realm Reborn fell a bit short. Hopefully, Stormblood only continues that trend with the Scions.

Edit: Pondera brings up an example point. Silent protagonists is yet another hindrance to our character. Even a few spoken lines with, perhaps us being able to choose from 2-4 options might help give the WoL some life.

[Xiao_]

it's ok. i've been enjoying it ever since i've been max level, enjoying the bi-monthly updates. i hated it before that though, because i was forced to go through the whole thing before i could be the class i wanted, and then HW story was constantly locked behind level limits that the MSQ didn't give you the experience for, so it wasn't a smooth experience and ultimately just a frustration

in hindsight i've enjoyed the story and i enjoy it now that i'm up to date and can follow it at my leisure. but the act of actually playing through it and catching up was just a pain in the ass, which is why i have a lot of sympathy for the weekly "wtf do i seriously have to do ALL THIS" threads

[Snow_Princess]

Spoiler to start heavensward:

I do not like how my character shows no interactions or objections what is going on. I found it ridiculous that my character would not detect the sleep thing and not poison since she was a healer main. Also being skilled in crafting, means you need to be need to be skilled in selling such things, and this requires negotiation skill/ communication skill. So she would be able to know why Teledji Adeledji suddenly spouted nonsense. It was simply get the focus off himself as a cover up. But then you had Raubahn that clearly saw though it. Also there was talk about the major conflicts of the syndicate and the saltaina, so something like this should been expected to happen sooner or later. The exodus of Uldah felt so forced to get your character to Ishgard it was not even funny. There really needed to be a more realsic reason to go to Ishgard. I was very,very disappointed with the way the story went for that.

~~~Momo

[Aylis]

I've tried to enjoy it, I really have....but.....to me it doesn't feel like its either breaking new ground or doing anything differently then past Final Fantasy games. It feels like I wanna say its a generic Final Fantasy story with all the elements to be expected. Magic rocks, light vs dark, etc. It just doesn't feel "new" it just feels like a change of hairstyles.

Secondly as others mentioned...being the silent protagonist doesn't help matters either. Adding nothing but an emote here and there. If my own character doesn't feel or seem to be really involved, its kinda hard for the real me to feel involved either. Even though it does kinda go against my last issue, the npc voice acting. Though that opinion isn't FFXIV exclusive. I've always felt Final Fantasy changed and not for the better when the day came where they decided to give characters voices as most characters deliver their lines in either the most bland, emotionless or awkwardness way possible. It was always more fun imagining what they sounded like as they spoke. I think that is one of my biggest annoyances on how the game likes to swap between voice acting and silent text. Sadly enough the silent text parts at least for me make it feel like I'm imagining characters voices and reactions again. Then they speak and it just ruins it.