Anyone gets tired of the level 50 main story quest? Is this a recurring thread?

[MistakeNot]

As someone who joined during HW and wanted to jump into HW to play with friends as soon as I could, 2.x's slog was about as enjoyable as a root canal- and I love this game's story. 2.0 had some weird paced bits, but overall msq was enjoyable. 2.x's story itself isn't bad, but the 100 something fetchquests in a row stringing the story along is god awful. I hate that part of the game so much, $18 skip is worth every penny on an alt lol

Except the majority of those 100 quests AREN'T fetchquests....

[MistakeNot]

I am running a 3rd alt through it at the moment , and while it can be a bit tedious, doing a few quests and then something else along the way helps.
But could someone tell the other Scions we have link perls ? This run to one and speak there and then "lets all go back to HQ" is funny. ( in a bad way).

Ok , I confess , I am doing it for the Hildegard quests ....

From what I understand it is possible to "tap" linkpearl conversations, so they shouldn't be used for anything even half-way secret or sensitive.

[basketofseals]

Except the majority of those 100 quests AREN'T fetchquests....

A lot of 2.1-2.55 is just "preparing to do the thing" where whatever the thing is being whatever the patch was selling. 3.0+ is just constantly doing things. Not to mention it's constantly doing things with other people. Aside from a few notable exceptions(I particularly liked the bit in the tainted Shroud), you're alone doing something someone else asked you to do because they can't or won't do it themselves. You're pretty much chumming it up with Alphinaud and House Fortempts the entirety of HW, and you have a personal stake in it.

Also the pacing. 2.1-2.55 was just doing stuff. A lto fo it was important stuff and lead to other stuff, but it was still a conglomerate of different events for the time. The entirety of 3.0-3.5 was one proper story.

[Berethos]

I suppose I wasn't clear in my meaning.
I realise there's no way to trim the existing to 5 missions/quests, my suggestion revolves around making 5 new quests that would be somewhat long with the cut scene, and that would be enough to address the key narrative points of the story, just without all the travelling, choco butt sniffing and bag carrying stuff that was bloated on purpose because they were content patches of the time for people that wanted stuff to do.

You're assigning the wrong motivation behind those quests - it's not "bloated on purpose" to fill time, it literally is paced intentionally like that for the sake of how they want the story to play out. What you see as pointless bloat is meant to be character moments to provide additional context for the culture and personalities of these people, as well as prepare for future plot elements. In TV terms, it's the Season 2 start, where the big issue from Season 1 was dealt with (and was written as a single arc since the show may have ended after that first season) and so they need to start moving toward new things but that means taking the time to set-up new things (I think many players view the story here as one would a movie or a single-player game's story, and it just isn't created with that style in mind - Yoshi-P has even made references to how it's set-up more like TV seasons).

This may come as a shock, but the story team isn't trying to waste your time with pointless crap.

Also, I was looking more for a break down of what key narrative points you think would be able to brought into that "5 missions" limit, even with it being longer. What you would cut, what you would change, etc., that doesn't then mean that future characters or events don't need to also be rewritten or redone because the foundation element present in 2.x is no longer there, while also not having it end up being a rushed mess. I've done this myself as a thought exercise (which is why I don't find the "it could be done" to really be a worthwhile answer) before and was only able to trim out about 30% of what's there now plus eliminating the need for travel by using the technique they do now with moving you to the next location whenever it makes sense to do so - which could absolutely be added into what we have now - and it was at that point that future stories start to become noticeably impacted or elements in 2.x begin to feel really rushed.

[MistakeNot]

Also the pacing. 2.1-2.55 was just doing stuff. A lto fo it was important stuff and lead to other stuff, but it was still a conglomerate of different events for the time. The entirety of 3.0-3.5 was one proper story.

That first actually describes all of 2.0 as well. All of 2.0-2.x up until the HW story started was the story of us becoming the Warrior of Light. That was the story being told - which consisted of many shorter storylines with little other connection between them. The 2.1-2.3 quests were no different in that regard than the ones which preceded them.

The Heavensward storyline actually started with patch 2.4 and ended with 3.3. 3.4-3.5 was mainly setup for SB and not part of the HW story - that ended with the death of Nidhogg.


As background we also have the threat of the Garlean Empire as well as the plots of the Ascians - both of which come to the foreground now and then, but mostly are just background.

[basketofseals]

Even if it's background, it was still there. 2.0-2.55 is full of nothing, or at least what seems like nothing at the time. The only real thing that seems like plot is Shiva, but Leviathan and all the other gaggle of primals, the founding of the Crystal Braves, and the move to the Rising Stones feels like filler all the way up until it suddenly isn't. Everything is just very one-tone. You're the warrior of light, do warrior of light things, PRAISE THE WARRIOR OF LIGHT!

[Zeonsilt]

This may come as a shock, but the story team isn't trying to waste your time with pointless crap.

Running/teleporting back and forth for 1 line(5 words) of dialogue can hardly be considered "an MSQ", and those quests aside, it's true that there's a lot of quests without any MSQ context, but you need to do them, because they are part of "MSQ".

Well, they already said that they wanted to change "an early game experience", it's just another question if that involves quests or just low-level [available] abilities.

[Rokke]

Except the majority of those 100 quests AREN'T fetchquests....

Warrior of light pick me flowers
Warrior of light pray return to waking sands
Warrior of light fix my earrings
Warrior of light pray return to waking sands
Warrior of light smell my horsebird
Warrior of light pick up my scales off the floor
Warrior of light pray return to waking sands
Warrior of light pray return to rising stones
Warrior of light hand out my food
Warrior of light pray return to rising stones
Warrior of light pray return to waking sands

It feels like you're running 2 billion errands, which made picking up the DRK questline (once you finally made it to Ishgard) so great :P

Running/teleporting back and forth for 1 line(5 words) of dialogue can hardly be considered "an MSQ"

basically this^

[BillyKaplan]

It feels like you're running 2 billion errands, which made picking up the DRK questline (once you finally made it to Ishgard) so great :P

And then you basically consent to that rubbish regardless. But at least some dark oppressed part of your chara resents it.

I feel like they learned their lesson in SB. It's not that there aren't fetch quests, but personally, there was enough flavor in them to keep me interested and actually increase my immersion. That patch of ARR was horrible, all the more so given how often you still had to run to Vesper Bay instead of teleport to Mor Dhona.

[Rokke]

And then you basically consent to that rubbish regardless. But at least some dark oppressed part of your chara resents it.

I take comfort in knowing that at least there was a voice in the back of my characters head whispering "this is a load of barnacles" while I was sniffing some strangers' chocobo :')