Why I like SB MSQ more than HW

[BillyKaplan]

I think the split focus did hurt SB a lot. While I was disappointed the Ul'dah conspiracy was retconned out of relevance (the only thing that changed was Raubahn losing an arm, but that didn't change much, and he'd get a magitek replacement eventually), the rest of it was decent. You got to travel but the focus was cohesive.
Meanwhile in SB not only do both narratives suffer from some detours, what bothers me the most is that the quality differs between them. Had the Gyr Abania arc satisfied me as much as the Doma arc, I'd have less to complain about, but it doesn't. Story and characters both it falls short, imo, and when that's half your expansion, that matters.

[LalafellDown]

Stormblood feels like a gimmick. I don’t enjoy the samurai theme, feels completely out of place. The story isn’t interesting compared to HW. Too much of the let’s get the gang together and magically defeat a powerful empire. It’s like the Ewoks in Star Wars defeating the Storm Troopers on Endor with sticks, stones and comedy. Makes no sense. Stormblood is just a filler until we get to the place everyone wants to go to, Garlemald.

[New_Game_Plus]

In my opinion the Ala Mhigan side of 4.0 has been boring. I had more fun running around with alphanerd and co then helping the ala mhigans.

[Theodric]

The Ala Mhigans were never painted in a particularly flattering light. I also never really cared much for Ul'dah...and it was a real shame that Ul'dah ended up tied heavily to Ala Mhigo's story when we'd already had more than enough of it back in ARR. I'm dreading a return to Gyr Abania at this point since Othard and Hingashi are so much more engaging by comparison.

As for Heavensward, I began losing interest when Aymeric was turned into Haurchefant 2.0. He's such an overrated character who is only as popular as he is due to his appearance and voice. He's little different to Lyse when I think on it. I would have found it much more interesting if he'd been forced to live a life of exile and endure the consequences of securing peace at the cost of a considerable amount of Ishgardians. It always unsettled me how he was content to slip into a position of power and push for reform, yet at no point endured the consequences of putting so many Ishgardians to the sword. It's not the sort of thing people forget or forgive, realistically.

I'd love to see a relative of one of those he condemned drive a dagger through his neck so he can choke on his own blood. It's a real shame he served to erode away a considerable amount of what made Ishgard distinct and engaging.

[Lauront]

Aymeric's a pretty terrible character.

I don't care one whit about either of Lyse or Raubahn, so I hope we won't see them again, other than rare cameos. Less Lyse = good.

Stormblood feels like a gimmick. I don’t enjoy the samurai theme, feels completely out of place. The story isn’t interesting compared to HW. Too much of the let’s get the gang together and magically defeat a powerful empire. It’s like the Ewoks in Star Wars defeating the Storm Troopers on Endor with sticks, stones and comedy. Makes no sense. Stormblood is just a filler until we get to the place everyone wants to go to, Garlemald.

It's more that you defeat Zenos, and his forces; he's not particularly interested in furthering the Empire's goals, as opposed to his own desire for the hunt. The Emperor also appears to have reasons to stand back and watch, hence why he did not reinforce Zenos's legion much. The Samurai theme fits in perfectly with Doma and the Hingashi isles, so I am not sure what to make of this comment. In fact, the Far East is far better executed than the Ala Mhigan portion of the expansion. I also disagree on the story not being interesting.

There's some issues with SB, as there were with HW, but those mentioned weren't the ones.

[Vhailor]

I preferred Heavensward, personally. There are several reasons for this, but honestly, it can be summed up as this: Heavensward felt like it had a plan. Stormblood, notsomuch, to me at least; it feels like there's a lot of bait-and-switch going on.

I mean, look back all the way to Stormblood's trailer. Lyrics about a coming 'storm of blood' and build-up for a massive war. Annnnd... we saw fewer NPCs die, and generally saw less of an onslaught, than Ishgard was under. What gives? I was expecting a brutal expansion. What I got felt like a Disney version of a war, almost.

Or look at Zenos. I swear this whole resurrection bullshit feels like a developer said 'hmm, people were a bit upset that Zenos died so quickly - guess we have to bring him back!'. To say nothing of the god-awful shifting perceptions of Zenos: dispassionate ultra-powerful conqueror to bored cat playing with a mouse to a power-hungry idiot who basically sets a 'trap' even dumber than the one laid by Emperor Palpatine for Return of the Jedi. Come on, now. Pick one. Gaius and Nidhogg worked well in large part because they were given consistent core motivators that were then fleshed out over time. Zenos can't even make an appearance without me going 'wait, what?' at this point. It's like SE keeps kicking the can down the road, saying 'well, we'll provide justification for this later'.

Anyway, that's just my two cents. It feels like the Stormblood storyline is relatively aimless, sprawling, and unplanned. There are characters I like, and I like the broader story backdrop, but the execution is quite lacking. It feels like they're planning one update at a time.

[Linx0r]

I actually liked Stormblood because of the Asian (Doman) culture they have introduced in the MSQ. It's good that there's a lot of Eastern references in this expansion, and I sure hope 5.0 would have more exposure towards Doman/Othard. But I got a feeling that we could be heading into a different world (ahem* Warriors of Darkness Realm*).

This is exactly why I prefer HW. This asian culture metaphor was too much of a deviation from a final fantasy feel. Give me dragons or dwarves not catfish and talking animals

[Theodric]

This is exactly why I prefer HW. This asian culture metaphor was too much of a deviation from a final fantasy feel. Give me dragons or dwarves not catfish and talking animals

It might be a shocking revelation, though FFXIV is a Japanese game. It's also not the first time that a Final Fantasy title has embraced Asian inspired elements, be it in terms of architecture or mythology. Wutai in FF7 and Bevelle in FF10 spring to mind.

[OwlBlackX]

HW was nice. But, I never fan snow/winter and cities style.

When SB made me more loved.
Reason more au ras npcs and Asian style more beautiful and colors than HW.

Also I liked SB's MQS

[Enkidoh]

It should go without saying that, beyond, spoilers abound.

Personally I feel both Heavensward and Stormblood's stories suffered from the same issue of execution, namely, they both had two concurrent storylines and ended up having to sacrifice one in order to concentrate more focus on the other. In Heavensward the 2.55 Ul'dah situation (which was the whole reason the player ended up in Ishgard in the first place) was very unsatisfyingly resolved just when it seemed it was going to get really interesting (you track down Nanamo's handmaiden's identity and location and just as it seems Raubahn was to confront her to get her to confess her part in the plot as part of a longer term investigation to ultimately confront Lolorito and determine Nanamo's status... Lolorito himself suddenly appears from out of nowhere and in the flick of his wrist, resolves the whole thing instantly! Literal Lolorito ex machina! This was clearly done so that the player could get back to Ishgard and their deepening part in the Dragonsong War, but it still seemed like a cop-out. Never mind the Scions were destroyed and their reputations ruined, including the Warrior of Light's! No, we've got to get back to Ishgard and take down Nidhogg, no time to sort out the mess in Ul'dah I'm afraid. ><

Thus Stormblood's story suffered in a similar manner - the whole Ala Mhigan arc was pushed aside abruptly for an extended portion of the game simply to roughly shoehorn in the Far East into the plot (Doma at least had a narrative reason for travelling there; it was clear we would be travelling there at some time ever since Yugiri and the Doman Refugees arrived in Eorzea anyway, the problem was the whole Kugane arc was tacked on and took up far greater amount of time and resources that it should of). What should have been a mere stopover along the journey stole the game's thunder for an extended period... and the worst part is like Vaan in FFXII, it could have been cut out of the game completely and the story would not have been any different! Shorter maybe, but it would not have taken much if anything from the overall plot.

Hence the Kugane arc just dragged on to me and felt so.... borrring. Personally I really didn't start enjoying SB's story til the liberation of Doma, and especially once we returned to Eorzea and Rhalgr's Beacon began (and yes, I was extremely satisfied with the 4.0 story's ending, even you-know-who and his not-death - my character's backstory made that very personal indeed and it felt very satisfying to finally resolve that part of her backstory). It's just the getting there that was lacking.

Tying quests to exp gain also doesn't help - as the main scenario has always been said by Yoshi and the development team to be the main way of levelling your first class/Job, hence the amount of quests in the main story has to be balanced enough to ensure a steady, consistent means of levelling. This unfortunately results in a lot of filler quests and some story arcs being unnecessarily stretched longer than they would have otherwise been (and that has bee a problem since ARR - remember the Company of Heroes/Titan arc?), and it is the same in HW and SB. Unfortunately there is no real easy fix to that aspect sadly. I just hope in 5.0 the main scenario's flow is better handled for levelling purposes as it's been a fundamental problem since ARR sadly.

I must stress this is not an attack towards the writing team, as I have a lot of respect from them (and lets face it, writing a coherent narrative that doesn't end up with at least some contradictions in it is extremely difficult). It's just I was disappointed with some of the pacing of the story for parts of the expansions which did detract from enjoying it as a whole, but ultimately it all worked out for the best.