Storytelling

[bass9020]

I personally would rather them take the MSQ out and make a new game with it that is single player. No one would spend 15 a month to have a book sit on a bookshelf. What's the difference here? The MSQ is an obstacle to the real game.

I like playing a MMO with other players. You can't do that in the MSQ outside a few dungeons. And lets be honest, the story lovers hate that too. Why not give the solo'ers a solo game and groupers a group game?

Most of us play because it is a story driven game! I know that concept is so hard to take in. Theres a great many of other games on the market currently such as WoW, Rift, Tera, GW2, Black Desert and a bunch of others. Possibly those games will suit the needs of the many who complain about the story. Or better yet wait for that jump potion to come along and use one! BAM instant story complete!

On topic: I think some of the text per quest and story lines could use less lines but a lot of it is because it has substance. I enjoy the different text for how characters would speak it really brightens the game up. I wish most of it was voice acted though, maybe that would help a bit?

[Kaethra]

MMOs are about society in a vitual world not about being forced to play content with others, most soloers would take ofense about what you just said.

Little hard to have a society when the game throws up an error because you're doing a quest in a group.

[Paladinleeds]

Little hard to have a society when the game throws up an error because you're doing a quest in a group.

I think for that, if you're doing a quest as a group, it should allow them to join in, but scale the difficulty up significantly so you HAVE to work together. This should however in my opinion exclude Class/Job quests where duty is required (since it's about your personal understanding of the duty), but any main or side story quest that isn't locked to a certain class/job should be A-OK with the scaling.

[Moomba33]

Pretty much the opposite of me.
I love the story of this game and it's the main reason I play.
I don't find it hard to follow. I've never found the quests too wordy.

[Voltyblast]

Most of us play because it is a story driven game! I know that concept is so hard to take in.

Not really: SWTOR is a story driven game just like ffxiv, only done better in basically every aspect of the storytelling part: better dialogue, better voice acting (even side quests), dialogue option (which sometimes changes the story) and while only a few expansions are united, you are free to take them at your own pace: for example I can directly jump to the KOTFE right away as soon as I have the right level, skipping the Hutt cartel or Shadow of Revan. Heck I can do the first expansion right at 50, even before finishing the main class story: the game will just warn me about spoilers.

Now whether the game itself is better or not that's for another topic (SWTOR is worse), but in terms of storytelling I consider it to be far superior than FFXIV.

Oh and I'm NOT a fan of Star Wars, so that's a plus for drawing non-fans like me!

[Naraku_Diabolos]

I'm autistic and ADHD, and I can find the story easy to read and understand. I did not know what the heck was going on with FFXI's story, though. The way you did their dialogue was awful (well, it was an older game, too) because both story dialogue, player chat, and combat/battle dialogue was on the same window and with how the characters were presented, it was hard to know who was talking. I'd rather see the FFXIV Cid speak rather than the FFXI.

And oh yes, I went there.

[Nixxe]

Not really: SWTOR is a story driven game just like ffxiv, only done better in basically every aspect of the storytelling part: better dialogue, better voice acting (even side quests), dialogue option (which sometimes changes the story) and while only a few expansions are united, you are free to take them at your own pace: for example I can directly jump to the KOTFE right away as soon as I have the right level, skipping the Hutt cartel or Shadow of Revan. Heck I can do the first expansion right at 50, even before finishing the main class story: the game will just warn me about spoilers.

Now whether the game itself is better or not that's for another topic (SWTOR is worse), but in terms of storytelling I consider it to be far superior than FFXIV.

Oh and I'm NOT a fan of Star Wars, so that's a plus for drawing non-fans like me!

There are certainly some things SWTOR does better than FFXIV, but it has come at a price. Any semblance of class or faction flavor is gone right out of the story. You have very few chances to really feel like a Sith or your class, and it suffers from chosen one status even worse than FFXIV. While there is some variation in story and followers based on your decisions, it's still also very much on the rails and that feeling is very strong at many points in time when there's no reasonable way for my character to act in a similar manner to how it acted for the first 50 levels. To some degree this is expected, given what the story is, but they build in a lot of "wrong" choices the game lets you know repeatedly are wrong and kind of forces you in a certain direction (specifically a rather "gray" one), which undermines the value of your supposed choices. In some respects, that is worse than simply not having a choice in the first place.

Also, unless they changed it, the warning about starting new content isn't just that there are spoilers, but that you won't be able to complete your class quests if you haven't already done so.

I'd generally agree the voice acting is better, but it's hard not to be better than FFXIV after they switched to that new studio. I much preferred the ARR actors and many of the characters lost their sort of distinct flavor and identity. Merlwyb in particular was made worse by the change in voicing.

[Voltyblast]

Snip

To be fair I haven't played all expansions in a while, and I only did all of them once on my old Inquisitor when they came out (still had the old tree talent system!), however, I think you're talking of how if you join the KOTFE-KOTET chain you're basically going to abandon the rest. Again, I might be wrong because I did them LONG ago and only recently I've been going a third time, but skipping the previous expansion for going through eternal empire chain.

With that said, you're correct that game is still on rails but there's still one thing that SWTOR does correctly: it's your story. It's about you and your actions, your companions that YOU choose to relate with and while they're not exactly "open", the illusion is still well done.

You see, I highly dislike when the main character is not the main character (and feels like it's a trend with SE lately...but yet again my last FF was 12 so) and my avatar in this game is supposed to be the warrior of light of some sort (which I already hate: I feel like I'm some sort of hippy...I wanna join the enemy!), however I feel like I'm the errand boy/girl more than the actual hero. And even when it's not about fetching stuff, the scene is always about the secondary characters...ehm look, I hate to take it from a past mediocre final fantasy but Tidus said it best: "this is my story". It's fine to occasionally jump around to develop characters but what about me? I'm the hero, not them! And if they're so important to steal my scenes, why am I not playing AS them?

What I'm trying to say is, while SWTOR story is on rails despite the "choices" you have, I still felt like I was part of the bigger picture, while in FFXIV I did not. Yes I'm the chosen one, I'm the Wrath of the Emperor, I'm part of the Shadow Council, I'm the Outlander and it's pretty cheesy alright...but so is being the warrior of light. But while in SWTOR the story revolved around me due to my importance, in ffxiv I felt like I'm just being pulled back into the plot when it's convenient.

Granted, I haven't followed the story in a long while (basically since 2.1) so I might be totally wrong about this and the story might be great, but yet again why do I have to wait 40 hours of story to be good? Why can't it be good from the start?
But that's for another topic...

[Ririta]

And even when it's not about fetching stuff, the scene is always about the secondary characters...ehm look, I hate to take it from a past mediocre final fantasy but Tidus said it best: "this is my story". It's fine to occasionally jump around to develop characters but what about me? I'm the hero, not them! And if they're so important to steal my scenes, why am I not playing AS them?

Don't you want to protect your waifu?

[Berethos]

could've been summed up in two or three lines..

Whereas I, on the other hand, tend to dislike the brevity that some games use - while they can convey the specific information in a few words or a couple sentences, I prefer the approach that feels more like a conversation...and conversations (whether we realize it or not) tend to end up on the wordy side (with exceptions, of course). Feels better when it comes to world-building and conveying a sense of personality from a character - longer dialog gives a chance for characteristics and personality quirks to shine through.

@OP - one thing I do to keep story beats fresh in my mind is re-read the quest summary in the quest journal. You get a fairly succinct description of a series of events, often several dozen minutes of cutscene, text, and gameplay condensed into a paragraph or three, presented in a clear fashion.