MSQ Needs Further Condensing

[Vahlnir]

if this game goes the way of world of warcraft where we 1000 hour grind so we can do 5 minute parses on a loop and solve for best class on a spread sheet im out

I prefer a game where what I'm doing in the moment is supposed to be fun, rather than simply chasing an ever moving carrot in the distance, telling myself that maybe when I reach the "end" of the next content release I'll finally be happy. lol to that

Honestly, there are some things that could still be condensed, especially in ARR. Nothing major or game breaking though, just some small things. I don't envy those who have yet to go through ARR's post launch MSQ content because 90% of it is filler and ultimately pointless to the overarching narrative.

[Reyketi]

I am not sure that you have any grasp of my stance. So, I'll summarize it for you.

The MSQ was condensed, and SE is soon to release another expansion, adding more content to the already lengthy, and mandatory, MSQ.

The addition of this expansion is going to undo the progress they made on reducing the length of the MSQ.

At a certain point, this process of going through the mandatory MSQ becomes unreasonable excessive. Or, in Blizzard's case, the leveling process, which they overhauled their entire game to remedy.

I understand that you, or others might enjoy playing a 500 hour game, but not everyone has the time for that, some might not be all that interested in the MSQ, which turns them off from the game.

Best Wishes

-Reyketi

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Then they can play other games. Not everyone has to like this one. Not every game has to cater to every player.

I certainly don't go to Lol or Overwatch forums demanding they remove the pvp aspect of their games and make them coop pve games to suit my tastes.

[DPZ2]

I understand that you, or others might enjoy playing a 500 hour game, but not everyone has the time for that, some might not be all that interested in the MSQ, which turns them off from the game.

This is why there are multiple MMOs out there. If you don't like the MSQ, you can find one that doesn't pay any attention to story, if it'll make you happier.

There is no Law out there that says "You can only play one MMO". Get your kicks for story from FFXIV, get your kicks for PvP from any number of MMOs that encourage that style of play, get your kicks for dungeon running 24x7 from others that encourage that style of play.

There's a bunch of choices out there. Explore them all until you find the one that fits you.

Just don't expect the publishers of this game to change the basic fundamentals. You'll be disappointed.

[StriderShinryu]

That's still pretty much my take as well.

Do I like the story? Absolutely! Do I think it's all in general worth experiencing? Yes! I've personally even enjoyed a lot of ARR and Stormblood, which a lot of even the biggest FF14 fans are occasionally down on.

But, at some point, something does have to give. Even if the story is amazing, when your ask for a new a player is for them to spend 500 hours just to get to the current storyline that everyone is raving about as being the best thing ever, it's just too much. So the option then becomes do you just ask them to skip the story via skip pot and potentially not experience it at all (and incur an extra expense just to do so) OR you condense the story in some way to make the 500 hours more easily consumable.

I don't think there is a perfect answer here but I think it's worth considering, if you do love the story as much as you claim you do, then which would you really prefer? People skipping it entirely (or rushing through it as fast as possible by skipping every cutscene and rushing through all dialogue) or being able to experience it all in a more digestable manner?

[DPZ2]

I don't think there is a perfect answer here but I think it's worth considering, if you do love the story as much as you claim you do, then which would you really prefer? People skipping it entirely (or rushing through it as fast as possible by skipping every cutscene and rushing through all dialogue) or being able to experience it all in a more digestable manner?

From a different perspective - do you encourage your friends to skip the first six seasons of an anime just so they can get to the 'best season'? Heaven help you if you ever pick up Hunter x Hunter or One Piece as a series after your friends have been watching it for 100/700 episodes respectively.

[TurtlesAWD]

I understand that you, or others might enjoy playing a 500 hour game, but not everyone has the time for that, some might not be all that interested in the MSQ, which turns them off from the game.

During cutscene, press escape, hit yes.


Ultimately I think the crux of your argument is that content under max level doesn't matter or shouldn't matter, in favor of what I assume is the parsing-for-lootboxes upgrade roulette end-game content represents. I suppose if that's what you're after I would have to recommend playing Microsoft Excel. Strips out everything you clearly don't like in MMOs - no levelling, no MSQ, no other players to distract you from Progression, no music to mute, no delays between fights, and you can set the difficulty as high as you want.

[Iscah]

I am not sure that you have any grasp of my stance. So, I'll summarize it for you.

The MSQ was condensed, and SE is soon to release another expansion, adding more content to the already lengthy, and mandatory, MSQ.

The addition of this expansion is going to undo the progress they made on reducing the length of the MSQ.

I understand your stance but I think you are misunderstanding SE's reasoning for reducing the length of the MSQ.

They are not trying to keep the overall length of MSQ from 1 to 80 at some arbitrary maximum where to put more MSQ in, they need to shorten it somewhere else. They are shortening a specific and notoriously dull section of the MSQ to be more enjoyable.

Adding more MSQ in 5.5 and beyond does not "undo" the fact that post-ARR MSQ is now shorter than it used to be.

Perhaps the problem is that you seem to be viewing the story as some monolithic lump of an obstacle to reaching the endgame and all that matters is the length of it, which simply isn't the case. It is a serialised, chaptered story and there will always be more chapters being added to it. It isn't designed to be kept at a fixed length.

I don't think there is a perfect answer here but I think it's worth considering, if you do love the story as much as you claim you do, then which would you really prefer? People skipping it entirely (or rushing through it as fast as possible by skipping every cutscene and rushing through all dialogue) or being able to experience it all in a more digestable manner?

The thing is, making the story "shorter and more digestable" by cutting bits out of it is potentially detrimental to what makes it enjoyable in the first place - especially if you're talking about cutting out entire chunks of the narrative and discarding them as unimportant.

And no, I don't think that it's more important for "everyone" to enjoy it in a shortened format than that the people who like it in its current format can continue to see the whole thing. If I don't like a game or story, I just don't play or watch it, and leave it to be enjoyed by the people who do.

I've written before that there are definitely places in which the overall playtime of the expansions could be tightened up by removing busywork tasks or moving them to sidequests, but I don't think that the answer is taking away parts of the story to appease people who didn't like the story in the first place. Even the apparently-necessary changes to ARR have pulled out at least one part of the story I actually liked - while I haven't played the whole thing to see what's been done, I've heard that the lead-up to Ramuh (with the sylphs playing pranks and transforming into copies of the Scions) has been glossed over with a sentence or two of dialogue. That part was funny, especially if you took the time to speak to the characters between objectives, and now it's just gone.

[Ammokkx]

I am not sure that you have any grasp of my stance. So, I'll summarize it for you.

The MSQ was condensed, and SE is soon to release another expansion, adding more content to the already lengthy, and mandatory, MSQ.

The addition of this expansion is going to undo the progress they made on reducing the length of the MSQ.

At a certain point, this process of going through the mandatory MSQ becomes unreasonable excessive. Or, in Blizzard's case, the leveling process, which they overhauled their entire game to remedy.

I understand that you, or others might enjoy playing a 500 hour game, but not everyone has the time for that, some might not be all that interested in the MSQ, which turns them off from the game.

Best Wishes

-Reyketi

First off, this is not a reply to arguments. This is just you stating your stance with no evidence again. You have made it abundantly clear what you think. We disagree. Now start replying to us in earnest if you actually want us to be convinced you have a point and that you're not just some raving madman rocking back-and-forth in a restraint jacket muttering "condense msq... condense msq... condense msq..." to themselves over and over again.

Second, as Iscah has pointed out, the MSQ is not one whole. It is 4-8 chunks, depending on how you view it, which have been chained together to form one whole. It is like reading a serialized book series. You don't just randomly start cutting out chapters of a book because the entire series has become too long of a read.

I have also pointed out before that there is very little you can change in the MSQ without affecting the integrity of the storyline. At most you can make a few more quest tasks streamlined, or take out a grand total of maybe 5 quests, in an expansion. That isn't going to magically make the MSQ an arbitrary number of hours like you seem to wish it will. Even if they did that, it is an immense amount of work to go back and do this literally every time a new expansion comes out. Is that payoff worth it to SE? You seem to argue "yeah, obviously" but if it was so obvious then why haven't they done so in full yet? Why have they only briefly and delicately touched select parts of the game and not the expansions as a whole?

Let me give you a hint.

Because an isolated part of the game was a problem case and not the game as a whole. People drop off at 50 not because they can't get to endgame, but because level 50 is boring as all hell compared to what comes after.

And also, I understand that you, or others, might not enjoy playing a "500 hour game" as you put it (which lol I've put far more hours into this game than that on everything but the MSQ) but that begs the question...

Who's experience is more valid? Yours or mine? Who, of us two, should SE listen to and cater to?

Neither. Neither is the answer. They should stick to their core philosophy when designing this game, extremely carefully consider any feedback from the community, and keep going on mostly the same waters they've charted so far.

Why, you may ask? Because that's what's currently gotten them an ever-growing MMO with success comparable to WoW's monolithic status. FFXIV is an absolutely beloved game by those who play it and for some, yes, I'm sorry to say, it's because of the 666 hours of story content. Not for all of us, certainly not for you. But clearly for enough people that they think it worthwhile to add more high-quality story each expansion, and certainly enough for the lead writer of Shadowbringers to get a standing ovation merely for mentioning the fact she was the lead writer of Shadowbringers.

But go on, please, do go on, about how most players don't care about the story. I'd love to see the statistics you have to back this up. So far you've only been picking out choice quotes from the odd person hopping into this thread saying "i agree with you reyketi!" when people who are against it outnumber you at least three-to-one, if not more. First page says this too: Your post has only about a third of the likes of TaleraRistain's post. People are disagreeing with you en masse and yet you're still pushing your stance as being the correct one for a majority of the playerbase, when the majority of the playerbase seems to want the exact opposite of what you're suggesting.

Now, here's the million dollar question: Are you actually going to address the foundation of my points as I have done for yours, or are you going to continue ignoring my arguments in favor of pushing your one narrow view despite everyone telling you you're wrong and finding new ways to do so? Because if there is one thing I'm tired of, it's people making unsubstantiated claims from an ego-centric perspective that they claim is representative for other people when all they're doing is going "My way or the highway."

[Rinhi]

Now, here's the million dollar question: Are you actually going to address the foundation of my points as I have done for yours, or are you going to continue ignoring my arguments in favor of pushing your one narrow view despite everyone telling you you're wrong and finding new ways to do so? Because if there is one thing I'm tired of, it's people making unsubstantiated claims from an ego-centric perspective that they claim is representative for other people when all they're doing is going "My way or the highway."

their lack of actual arguments throughout the whole thread should have made it obvious that they're just a troll who periodically bumps his own thread with the same post to get people to respond to them

best wishes

-rinh