MSQ

[Shougun]

Mankrik's wife is enough of a meme from those days to make threads like this laughable.

There were some filler quests of epic proportions in WoW, indeed- although I kind of like travel quests sometimes. Like was mentioned by another, sometimes contrast is great (you want it to be good contrast though, bad contrast is just filler- with some subjective values on bad). First time I went somewhere in WoW or FFXI (both games with more travel sense than FFXIV) I was absolutely in love with the idea. Missing the boat to get to the exp party which caused a 25 minute MINIMUM delay in playing what was intended (FFXI), was legendarily painful. That Zelda quest in WoW that was cross world and stuff, was quite fun.

On a side note (to TheMightyMollusk as well), just because someone does something worse doesn't inherently take away the point. The point itself may be wrong or right, on it's own merits, but it is largely irrelevant if another game did something worse. Like "but my friends let me do that, why can't you let me run in the active street!!!!" Or kind of reminds me of throw aside improvement because "back in my day we had it worse" lol. Sure, someone else did something worse- that wasn't the point though and it really shouldn't matter either (if the point itself is valid, which would be the argument anyways). Filler is named filler because it's filler, not because it was engaging fun content- ideally your game has zero filler (Realistically and practically is a different story Xd. . .). Contrast, quiet moments, etc, doesn't necessarily automatically equate to filler.

As said the later dinner in FFXIV was nice, but I remember some mindnumbing tasks in ARR which seem to have been removed (trimmed) anyways going off of Otter's post (which is awesome for other people's first time experience), and of course sure a lot of filler in WoW too, but I don't think people are trying to make WoW better, or that there is anything to gain by dissing WoW in that it does worse at something- at least when attempting to provide feedback to / for FFXIV. Which on contrast (calm zen vs hero in the burning village) vs filler- different than saying a steak sandwich is made purely of steak and everything else is filler (bun, vegetables, sauce), clearly a steak sandwich needs more than just steak- that contrast is important else.. well you don't have the sandwich in this case lol, but that you don't want your steak to have secret meat lol (you order steak, not horse bum - filler would be that which is just an undesirable distraction or low quality (with of course a heaping sense of subjectivity, which can make it more difficult to discuss).

[TheMightyMollusk]

I actually miss the attunement quests in general. The problem with them had been requiring an entire group of people to give up a significant amount of time for the sake of the single player trying to get attuned - and then having to repeat that every time a raid member needed to be replaced.

In theory, they were nice bits to build up the raid. In practice, some of them....ugh. Multiple runs of Blackrock Depths, with quest chains that required going in and out and back in again repeatedly to turn in objectives, with each run taking more than long enough for everything to respawn, to attune for Onyxia's Lair; then clearing the way through that ludicrously long dungeon (a full BRD run, even with a party that knew what they were doing and where to go, could take two to three hours) to get to the gate to Molten Core buried two-thirds of the way in; and if you wanted to forge any of the gear from MC, the forges for doing so were in BRD, so you'd have to clear your way in again to get to it, with your crafting mats taking up inventory space. And you would have to do all that forging, because tanks needed full flame resistance gear for MC and Onyxia; and then they'd need scales from Onyxia to make cloaks to survive some of the bosses in Blackwing Lair; which not only had its own attunement, but also required clearing Upper Blackrock Spire. And god forbid a tank quit or got poached by another guild after all of that, because then you'd have to do it all over again to get another tank geared up and ready if you wanted to keep progressing.....Oh, and these are just the first two tiers of raiding, let's not even get into Ahn'Qiraj and Zul'Gurub and Naxxramas......

I may have some parts a little out of order, it's been years, but.......Vanilla WoW wasn't a game, it was a job.

[BlitzAceRush]

You're trying to assign human motivation to a being who lacks it.

While they feel things differently, saying they can't or don't share our feelings and motivations at times I'd says is a bit of a stretch, Tiamat displayed a lot of relatable feelings and motivations for her actions during 5.5, beyond just honoring a pact, atonement and vengeance are very human motivators. I mean Nidhog started a 1000 year war over the rage and sorrow of losing a family member, again a very human response. While I wasn't expecting him to hug her or anything he was the one who last time told her perhaps it was time to let go, so it would have made sense for him to renew those words here, the dragons are different from us, but not so much so that given he's right there with us that he couldn't have taken the few seconds to appear, unless he couldn't.

[Tommara]

Hey everyone. The OP has been a member of this forum since 2013.

They certainly know why there's an "MSQ Roulette" and why there were 100+ quests right after 2.0.

My conclusion is that they're trolling, since there's no reason this couldn't have all been said back in 2015.

Um, no, I've quit and come back at least 3-4 times now.

The first time I quit was when my main toon was mid-30's, because my friends had.

I came back a few years later and started a new toon, and joined an FC (which we hadn't the first time). They later decided to play the The Secret World, which I had played at release and thought it a cool game, so decided to join them. That fell apart once the guild reached Tokyo (which was typical back in those days, when the Aegis system was still around).

One of those in the FC returned to FF14, and convinced 3 of us to join him. Two of us completed ARR, but we lost one somewhere in the 80 MSQ that needed to be completed after reaching level 50 before they could play Heavensward content. Not because it was any way hard, it was just too tedious for that player. That one was a player who I had played Everquest with, and so I fully understand why (people put up with amazingly tedious things when it's their first MMO, and after having done that once, become jaded about it after that.) There were a lot of other games along this journey, such as returns to WoW, EQ2, Wildstar, Warframe, Anthem, and usually playing the first few weeks of each new Diablo 3 season.

That player found Ark Survival Evolved, so several of us joined him, pretty much all from the first FF14 FC or Everquest.

Then I decided to join another long time gaming friend in another return to FF14. He is also my husband, whom I first met in Diablo in the late 90's, and eventually married him in 2005. He started a new toon, although he also played ARR at release.

I got invited to a most excellent FC, whom we both like a lot. There is nothing we can do to help him (other than money and resources, which of course I've done). Nor help me get through Stormblood. Neither of us will accept a carry, but rather we watch videos endlessly to make sure we understand the dungeon mechanics first (we've done it the hard way when ARR was first released, but refuse to use the roulettes as a carry.)

My apologies for the long post, but the troll assumption needed to be addressed, although frankly, only a multiplayer newb would assume that playing a particular game continuously is more important than playing with your friends you've met online, where ever that leads you.

Edited Note: And I do know why there are so many quests after each expansion phase. The devs are fulfilling their promise for new content between expansions. My ONLY quarrel with that is making all that content MSQ, so that new/returning players have to slog through every bit of it before being able to move on to the next expansion. Maybe created a new category of side quests such as "story recommended" or something? By all means, players who haven't completed group content should not be allowed to use the roulette to complete them (although of course, using the non-roulette functions are acceptable).

The fact that you can pay to skip the MSQ is also something that is behind my comments.

[Iscah]

My only quarrel with that is making all that content MSQ, so that new/returning players have to slog through every bit of it before being able to move on to the next expansion. Maybe created a new category of side quests such as "story recommended" or something? By all means, players who haven't completed group content should not be allowed to use the roulette to complete them.

Stop thinking of it like "an obstacle at the end of the MSQ", because it is part of the MSQ. There is pre-credits MSQ and there is post-credits MSQ. It's a serialised story and if you arrive late, you need to catch up.

And from the perspective of someone who enjoys the story, adding that many fluffy optional quests that can't drive the main plot forward and can't be referenced later (except in further side stories) would not be a benefit.

Additionally, if they can't tell this story across the post-credits phase, they're just going to have to stuff it into the pre-credits phase and make that even longer.

[Iscah]

The fact that you can pay to skip the MSQ is also something that is behind my comments.

Like it or not - and I don't particularly like it either - we have signed ourselves up to a game designed around a subscription model. It is intended to extract money out of us in exchange for game progress.

So from that logic:

Someone playing through the full game will spend a few months' subscription along the way.

Someone paying to skip is probably paying the same amount AND they've saved themselves a few months of gameplay time.

[Tommara]

Stop thinking of it like "an obstacle at the end of the MSQ", because it is part of the MSQ. There is pre-credits MSQ and there is post-credits MSQ. It's a serialised story and if you arrive late, you need to catch up.

And from the perspective of someone who enjoys the story, adding that many fluffy optional quests that can't drive the main plot forward and can't be referenced later (except in further side stories) would not be a benefit.

Additionally, if they can't tell this story across the post-credits phase, they're just going to have to stuff it into the pre-credits phase and make that even longer.

Unless you pay to skip it all.

[Iscah]

Unless you pay to skip it all.

I don't see what relevance that has to my argument. Paying to skip it doesn't make it any less part of the story than the pre-credits part.

Also see my second post above.

[Tommara]

I don't see what relevance that has to my argument. Paying to skip it doesn't make it any less part of the story than the pre-credits part.

Also see my second post above.

You're right.

I don't have any issues wrt paying. If I could pay them to skip the MSQ content, I would, if only I could do them when I felt like like it. Can you?

[Iscah]

That's why I feel they should stop trying to tow the line, they tried it with the Crystal towers till it just didn't make sense anymore and then they're doing it lightly here, it'll also come into play if they ever wanted to bring Ryne back given they even give the WoL a dialogue line that gives Gaia an entry point for the duo.

If they ever brought Ryne back into the MSQ, I would expect her to come alone with a line that "Gaia is busy at the moment but she sends her regards".

I think the simplest way to sum up the writers' approach to side plots is that they're happy for things to seem a little bit off if you haven't done the relevant side stories (Midgardsormr oddly absent, ShB backstory timeline not quite making sense if CT isn't done yet) but they won't say you've actually done something that you haven't.