Why I like SB MSQ more than HW

[Derio]

I feel like SB has been dragging since 4.0 was over.

[Enla]

I feel like SB has been dragging since 4.0 was over.

Same on my end. Both 4.1 and 4.2 almost made me quit the game both in terms of progression content and the sheer terribleness of how they handled the story. With 4.3 being a shining light for the simple fact that everyone suddenly grew a brain and stopped mindlessly following the plot railroad towards a terrible telegraphed resolution. Though, to be entirely fair that's been a failing of FF14 from the very beginning. They have something good going and the writers muck it up from time to time because they have to get to 'Point A' by a certain deadline. HW is an example of this where the story was mismanaged and the plot set far too easily aside to make room for SB, but the same could easily be said of SB as well. Especially in the initial patch where all character development was pretty much suspended or regressed after the Azim Steppe for the sake of plot convenience.

Both of them have their issues and I really feel like SE needs to hire better story writers going forward who can pace out the MSQ properly from patch to patch, not relying on plot convenience and bad writing to get where they need to go faster for the sake of convenience. However I still feel HW benefited from being a fully realized and contained story. SB was hindered, and still is hindered, by the fact that our attentions are divided across the entire game world.