I am so freaking bored of Shadowbringer's story

[Lily_Skye]

great community btw

[Theodric]

I'm still on the fence, personally. One thing I miss about WoW is that faction leaders actually changed and they weren't encased in the same ridiculous amounts of plot armour as their FFXIV counterparts are. Looking back the only characters of note who die in FFXIV are antagonists and secondary characters temporarily elevated to importance. We rarely see anyone on the level as a major Scion or City State leader actually die and stay dead.

That's ultimately why I consider the story to be 'decent' rather than 'great'. The stakes aren't really stakes in the same way as they often were in previous Final Fantasy games. I don't exactly want Game of Thrones level culling of the main cast, but I'm seriously hoping that Zenos will put his money where his mouth is and cut down Cid, Nanamo or Alisae.

There's always some convenient plot device to prevent any meaningful losses. If something bad happens, it always seem to work out in favour of the protagonists. If there's an established rule in place that the antagonists are written to be limited by, the protagonists are made to play by different rules.

(Which'll probably be the method used to justify Zodiark being eliminated but Hydaelyn miraculously being allowed to stick around.)

FFXIV's story isn't terrible or without its redeeming qualities, though it only seems as good as it is due to the poor showing from other MMO's and the habit of JRPG's repeating many of the same nostalgic tropes over and over again.

I'll say one thing, though - for all its flaws, WoW still had some very impressive moments. It's a real shame that FFXIV isn't bold enough to have anything along the lines of the Wrathgate happen in FFXIV. The closest to that was the feast at the end of ARR and that didn't amount to much at all.

[Lauront]

What Theodric said. I'm hoping in particular that they don't just reduce the Ascian plotline to tempering (or worse yet, mere villainy), and that they find a way to justify keeping Zodiark around, or otherwise ridding of both - there is Lahabrea's Praetorium dialogue, which they may pick up on in relation to Hydaelyn, since its meaning is still not fully revealed and may be behind why the Ascians elevated the urgency of their plans. I was a bit underwhelmed by the world design for the First, because for a shard with much thinner aether than the Source, and differential passage of time between them, it really should be much more different; Kholusia was particularly bland, but Rak'tika, Il Mheg and Lakeland made up for it. Still, the story for now is good enough to keep me interested and the gameplay is fun. SE has always excelled at telling a story, even if its world building quality can vary from okay to awesome.

[Tlamila]

Emet-Selch’s reveal that Zodiark and Hydaelyn are primals, which we’ve spent the last 6~9 years fighting against and believing are bad.

There was also the exploration of Light and Dark, and how a balance must be maintained between the two; because too much of one has catastrophic consequences—which is embodied by the First in its entirety.

The first one is an unreliable narrator, however right he might be, the second one uh...we got all that layed out already back in HW when we met the gang, nothing new, just shown in pictures.

[yukiiyuki]

Imagine having more dialogues in bubbles, so NPC could talk while fighting, not staring at each other, while we reading visual novel. Well, majority of typical MMO players want that, weebs are fine with what we have and normal people just read anything, but it would take more than a year to finish everything in their pace.
And yes, this is jrpg, of course they standing, looking at each other and even have flashbacks with sad childhood stories. If you don't feel like you want to read little details about random NPC who you will forgot anyway - just skip.
Just follow main story in your head, use imagination to make what you see as whole picture and follow only scenes that you find interesting, and Shadowbringers have some of those, especially in the end. There is no crime in skipping boring stuff, just don't judge whole picture because of those.

[Iscah]

Imagine having more dialogues in bubbles, so NPC could talk while fighting...

But we already have that? Speech bubbles coming up over the screen during combat - just in the middle of the screen rather than over individual characters' heads where you might miss them if you don't have the camera pointed at them.

(The GNB Lv70 Instance had some 'unlogged' speech bubbles like you seem to be suggesting, and I think I missed some of the conversation because of it.)

I'm also not sure what's "weebish" about not wanting them.

[AriaEnia]

I was actually disappointed, I was hoping that my character enters dying state because of the light corruption and actually be saved from death by our scion companions, and what's with us suddenly on par fighting Ranjit in Eulmore, I was expecting him to be a trial boss like Titania, like, he beats our asses easily every time we meet.

[Rosenstrauch]

and what's with us suddenly on par fighting Ranjit in Eulmore, I was expecting him to be a trial boss like Titania, like, he beats our asses easily every time we meet.

Out of the three times you fought him, he beat you exactly once—and he didn't do so by revealing he was only using some arbitrary percentage of his power. He did so by, essentially, punching you in the groin when you weren't expecting it. The second fight was an even match that ended in him losing by technicality, and in the third fight you no longer need assistance to take him down. I guess maybe you realized you should start wearing a cup?

EDIT: And if you want to be really technical, there was his fight with Thancred, but that'd still leave him at a whole one win.

[Mordraug]

The hope of Alphinaud (or heck, both Leveilleurs) getting killed is what keeps me going through the MSQ =P

[GhostXO]

The forest and desert areas were some of the most boring points of the story of Shadowbringers in my opinion. Didn't skip them but they were dull. That said, don't give up on it just because of a few lame rabbit women and magical clay golems. Learning about the Exarch and Emet Selch is the highlight of the story anyways.