Having to slog through lvl 50 quests is tedious

[Rasikko]

Will say, this is another thing that XIV's predecessor handles nicely. XI never forced you to complete the full MSQ before being able to partake in the latest content. ._.

Tanaka was at the helm of that game, and this game(1.0). It didn't work out so well with the newer generation of gamers that came.. and thus we are stuck with Yoshida now. As much as I hate to admit, dude saved the game, rather we like what he does with it over not.

[MistakeNot]

This is the reason why I wouldn't recommend FFXIV to any of friends. Think about all the other FREE MMORPGs out there that have better story, better combat, better user interface, and without a monthly subscription.

I am thinking .... and can't think of any MMORPG that matches all of that. Few have better story, and those few that do either have worse combat or worse user interface.

[MistakeNot]

ARR is incredibly tedious and boring when it came to a huge chunk of their patches. However, 2.5-2.55, the cutscenes there are totally worth it because of how it sets up HW. Just be forewarned, the cutscenes can last up to an hour, but at that point, it's purely story, and like I said, it sets up HW and why exactly you are in a particularly rough start in 3.0. I'd have to say that when you go through 2.5, that is when the story gets more serious than usual.

The HW story actually starts as early as in 2.3 - when we start looking for "Lady Iceheart"
The 2.5-2.55 happenings you refer to really has surprisingly little impact on the story itself - though the emotional impact can be quite heavy.

[KaivaC]

snip

Yet...the story is a staple of all Final Fantasy games. Even a huge chunk of spinoff FF games still have some kind of significant story attached to them. One also has to remember that at the time of release, they were staggered off into patches. Dragonsong and post-Dragonsong have almost the same number of quests - imagine if that was 2.0 and our 4.0 was something else...I guarantee that this same discussion would be had. We who are in 4.2 don't feel it anymore because we're in 4.2, but because pretty much every 2.0 quest builds into 'Before the Dawn', it would be hard to condense some of that down.

There is the jump potion option...but in turn, that pretty much takes away an optional free 'watch video summary' to skip into HW option. Honestly, I can't think of a way to deal with the 2.x MSQ because of the story. Yea, you could shave some quests, but the vast majority of it would still be a slog no matter what.

[Shouko]

Did this twice and working on a 3rd character (if friends ever come back into the game that is) so i know the pain all too well, but as others have said once you do it once, if you only have the 1 character, you won't have to do any of them again. My suggestion is to seriously put up with it, it's far more rewarding to get through it without skipping via jump pot. 2nd time around if you get that far then yes by all means jump forward if you can justify the price. I know people that have like 6-7 alts total and all of them pre jump pots, that to me is insanity.

[Frizze]

Honestly, i think it feels more like a slog if you know that its 100 quests from the death of Ultima to walking through the gates of Ishgard. Sure, the first few patches worth really drag(which is probly where you look up this fact), but Iceheart is about where id say the turning point is too. It starts to pick up steam, and the things that seemed pointless start to come to a much sharper point. And the 3.x patch series from HW only added about half as many quests before SB actually kicks in, so they seem to agree that there was a bit too much filler in that first set.

[ChocoFeru]

Standard business practice; create a problem (ARR slog), sell the solution (jump potions)

I'd post my nine no-jump potion alts but I'm at work. With a tenth on the way.

Sounds more like a personal choice, than being a victim of a business practice.

I have only 1 character since 1.0, and whenever I did an alt it was for some funny event, then deleted it. (I have not a single alter right now).

[kikix12]

I just wanted to express, without being (to) insulting that I have an idea why (mainly) men might like her - and at least my idea would be that its because of certain features that arent really part of her character or her personality.

I liked the look of her, more or less. I hated her herself. Looks are one thing, personality are another. A guy won't like a character (nor think it's a good one) just cause it's appealing. If anything, it may bring up sadistic tendencies instead if someone have some.

And replacing Minfilia with a potted plant would actually make a huge difference gameplay wise. Potted plant wouldn't call you on a phone-like device from the other side of the continent (like, La Noscea) only to ask you what mr. X in La Noscea told you, to progress and tell you to go back to mr. X and tell him that she heard him and will send you to him later on with an answer...Seriously, if Square Enix decided to nuke the Waking Sands and erase that whole place from the in-game map, I am all up for another Calamity that would do that...


As for the "trimming of the fat"...that's not an option. Those quests are tedious, but they build the story as it was. Them changing those in any way would result in writing a new adaptation to a story, and that's just not a very good idea. There is already way too much time-limited content in MMO's nowadays (and FFXIV in particular with some locations actually being changed permanently, so that new players will never again see them as they were when introduced). Too bad, but story needs to be kept coherent. If anything, the change they should do is not block unlock quests behind story instead doing that for level, so that you could unlock dungeon X at lvl60 without finishing a single main story quest ever. Except, many dungeons are story related...and yeah. Just the flaw of a design choice.


To those people that don't particularly understand the hate...the reason for that is simple. The rest of the game involves a number of simple quests that is cut down by an instance. The quests at that point however are...small quests chained into huge chunks of all-reading/teleporting without much of any fighting. That makes them monotonous when done at once, unlike when you do something else in-between them.

[Vidu]

I liked the look of her, more or less. I hated her herself. Looks are one thing, personality are another. A guy won't like a character (nor think it's a good one) just cause it's appealing. If anything, it may bring up sadistic tendencies instead if someone have some.

And replacing Minfilia with a potted plant would actually make a huge difference gameplay wise. Potted plant wouldn't call you on a phone-like device

...Tataru could call you to ask you to bring some special spring water from the Slyphlands (you know... aaaall the way in the east), the south part of Southern Thanlan (you know... aaaall the way in south) and from the sahagin camp (you know... aaaall the way in the north) because Potted Plant needs it?
(I now remember again why my friends hate my ideas for quests - please take everything that I say here on the topic of Minfilia with a grain of funny salt. While I do think of her as a very, very poor character indeed, I dont believe that most men are actually to stupid to fall for her looks. I'm fully aware that most people will be intelligent enough to realise that those looks are the only thing shes got going.)

[SannaR]

Will say, this is another thing that XIV's predecessor handles nicely. XI never forced you to complete the full MSQ before being able to partake in the latest content. ._.

Unless you do Raphsody. Then you have to do them. After all you can't do Raphsody's Sky stuff if you don't have access to sky. You also couldn't do fun things in Sky when it was a busy thing unless you progressed far enough to again gain access Sky. Same with Sea or to be able to get to fight some of SoA's more fun bosses. Also had to unlock limbus just so you can up grade some of the best gear so you could do/enjoy the latest content. XI had just as many lockouts. Sure you didnt have to finish all or any of CoP to enter into ToA stuff because they treated each expansion as it's own thing until you run into roadblocks that make some people go how is that unlock needed for this? Then you had to go and backtrack.