We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[KisaiTenshi]

The quests are just boring and most mmo players don't play mmos for story, they play it for the content/gameplay. .

I'll disagree. If you are playing a MMORPG, you are playing it for the story or role-play component. Especially a Final Fantasy game, which has long story components to it (where the "oh no unskippable cutscene" meta-joke comes from.) It's true some of the MSQ feels more like it was padded out, but consider that was the initial game, you wouldn't want people to burn through all of it in less than 60 hours, and you need to get 50 levels out of it.

If ones friends don't like story, they are playing the wrong genre, and should step away from RPG's entirely. If you like playing the game, and your friends do not want to play it, then you can't force them. The complaint I've heard from people who play MMO games and won't play MMORPG's anymore is not the story, it's the "gear grind". So they don't want to repeat content in order to progress. You can play the entirety of ARR without repeating any dungeon if you do the sidequests, or you can skip all of them and play the FATE's or repeat each level 30+ dungeon twice as you get it, since you've missed the sidequest-unlocked dungeons.

The expansions are less of an issue because you only need to get 10 levels out of them, so the story for the expansion can usually be done in a day.

[Skivvy]

I'll disagree. If you are playing a MMORPG, you are playing it for the story or role-play component. Especially a Final Fantasy game, which has long story components to it (where the "oh no unskippable cutscene" meta-joke comes from.) It's true some of the MSQ feels more like it was padded out, but consider that was the initial game, you wouldn't want people to burn through all of it in less than 60 hours, and you need to get 50 levels out of it.

If ones friends don't like story, they are playing the wrong genre, and should step away from RPG's entirely. If you like playing the game, and your friends do not want to play it, then you can't force them. The complaint I've heard from people who play MMO games and won't play MMORPG's anymore is not the story, it's the "gear grind". So they don't want to repeat content in order to progress. You can play the entirety of ARR without repeating any dungeon if you do the sidequests, or you can skip all of them and play the FATE's or repeat each level 30+ dungeon twice as you get it, since you've missed the sidequest-unlocked dungeons.

The expansions are less of an issue because you only need to get 10 levels out of them, so the story for the expansion can usually be done in a day.

I will disagree with you. An MMORPG is a game where you get to pick your class, pick your character, pick your path, gear your character, etc. That in itself covers that "RPG" factor nicely. It does not mean that you also have to enjoy story telling in order to play the genre. That is why MMOs generally have so much varied content - to appeal to a broad spectrum of players. Story lines do exist in MMOs, but it does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that these games are not for you if you don't like the story.

[Mahrze]

I'll disagree. If you are playing a MMORPG, you are playing it for the story or role-play component <...> If ones friends don't like story, they are playing the wrong genre, and should step away from RPG's entirely. If you like playing the game, and your friends do not want to play it, then you can't force them.

The crux of your argument is that because an MMO'RPG" has 'RPG' in it and you only play 'RPG's for the story. It's your view, but it really looks like a very narrow and one-line one.

People don't need to enjoy the story to enjoy the game, but if the only way they can enjoy the game is to enjoy the story than already sounds like a game design problem.

Even more so when their solution to the story issue was jump potions. xD

[OurMom]

I'll disagree. If you are playing a MMORPG, you are playing it for the story or role-play component.

You don't get to decide what other people play mmos for. BDO is a pretty popular mmorpg, it *barely* has a story/lore and majority of the playerbase have absolutely no clue what's going on lore wise. They only care about grinding to 60, pvp, and grinding silver. I mean I personally tried to get into the lore of BDO and there really isn't any. I played Archeage since before Trion picked it up for NA, I have no clue about the story, same with most people that play that game and I can provide a ton of example of other mmos.

This being a FF game means nothing once they slap "MMO" onto it because mmorpg players just simply play mmorpgs regardless of the lore. The only reason I'm here is because it's a mmo I've never played a FF game outside of this and most likely never will.

[KisaiTenshi]

You don't get to decide what other people play mmos for. BDO is a pretty popular mmorpg, it *barely* has a story/lore and majority of the playerbase have absolutely no clue what's going on lore wise. They only care about grinding to 60, pvp, and grinding silver. I mean I personally tried to get into the lore of BDO and there really isn't any. I played Archeage since before Trion picked it up for NA, I have no clue about the story, same with most people that play that game and I can provide a ton of example of other mmos.

This being a FF game means nothing once they slap "MMO" onto it because mmorpg players just simply play mmorpgs regardless of the lore. The only reason I'm here is because it's a mmo I've never played a FF game outside of this and most likely never will.

Archeage has a story, it's just not in exclusively in cutscenes like FFXIV. It's usually a wall of text by the quest giver, and the occasional cutscene. It's cutscenes were not really any more impressive than Wizardry Online's, and Wizardy Online had a story with familiar cues, like FF's MMO's.

The point is that if you are playing a MMORPG, especially one with "Final Fantasy" in it, you do not get to decide for the rest of the fan base what part of it is boring. There are parts of the MSQ IMO were padded out in a way that felt like they could have cut some steps out, or reduced the amount of map traversal for an intermediate step, but everyone points to the Company of Heros quest chain before Titan that leads to Brayflox Longstop, all for cheese. Every quest chain has you do something "important", which leads to the dungeon in the MSQ. It could be argued that the dev's probably should have had the first dungeon at level 5 or level 8, instead of 15, because unlike a single player game (where you're usually thrown directly into the combat) the point of the level 1-15 quests is to show you that there is more to the world than just the starting city.

One of the things that SE fumbled, was when they removed the ability to progress through the storyline as anything other than essentially a DPS. Tank and Healer? Combat is still Combat. You can't start as DoL/DoH, and V1.0 let you get through the MSQ storyline as those. If players are going to play a MMORPG and they prefer to RP as a crafter/gatherer, they are not afforded a means through the MSQ in pretty much every MMORPG, because MMORPG's are principally RPG's to begin with.

A pen and paper RPG, is pretty much all storyline with combat, and a bad GM would recognize when their story-telling is terrible and just improvise ways of putting the party in danger to go back to combat.

[OurMom]

Archeage has a story, it's just not in exclusively in cutscenes like FFXIV. It's usually a wall of text by the quest giver, and the occasional cutscene. It's cutscenes were not really any more impressive than Wizardry Online's, and Wizardy Online had a story with familiar cues, like FF's MMO's.

I never claimed Archeage doesn't have a story/lore I said most players don't care enough about it to read it.

The point is that if you are playing a MMORPG, especially one with "Final Fantasy" in it, you do not get to decide for the rest of the fan base what part of it is boring.

Good thing no one said that or suggested anything like that, actually you're the one that said if you play mmorpg you have to play it for the story. No one is trying to dictate anyone else's playstyle but you.

Every quest chain has you do something "important", which leads to the dungeon in the MSQ.

It's only "important" to the people that care about lore/story which again a lot of mmo players don't. In almost every mmo there is lore that provides reasoning as to why you're in the new map, why you're going into this dungeon and why you're killing this boss. My point is a lot of mmos don't force this on you and a lot of mmo players don't care about the reasons why.

If you're going to create a game like this with tons of throw away content and the "fun" is only ever at end game. You shouldn't gate it behind hundreds of forced fetch quests. This game would probably have a better retention rate if they simply made it where you can at least access the dungeon without being forced to do quests you aren't going to read.