Final Fantasy XIV doesn't actually have that good of a story

[Ranaku]

It's funny how the OP compares a MMO to literally only singleplayer titles. I can understand tho why so many people have problems with the XIV story, FFXIV needs you to immerse yourself into the story. Since FFXIV is an mmo it's clear we play a character created (mostly) at our own terms, it's not a story where we get served with a real prewritten character like in most singleplayer titles. That doesn't makes the story bad tho, it just needs you to bring your own part and creativity in to fully enjoy it. I can see that people who can't identify with their own characters or just care about the pve aspect of the game hate the story cause we are mostly the silent hero archetype.

Also you need brain to understand the story XIV wants to tell you. Most people see ascians as bad. Most people see the garlean empire as bad. And yeah they are bad for us like we are the villain for them. Emet-Selch was as much the hero of his people as we are the hero of ours, showing that there isn't really a good or evil. And XIV shows us these daily struggles in war and people in a really beautiful way since it is not a story told to us, it is as much our struggle to forge a future for our people as it is for all the npcs.

But i can see most people don't care much about the lore or what FFXIV wants to teach/tell us. They ignore all the small hints and details, like Emet-Selch helping us in the WoL fight cause he promised to help us if we are worthy and since we defeated him he saw us as worthy. So yeah, the game needs you to think about it...and i know thinking is not the strength of the majority of players.

[tatatatatata]

It's funny how the OP compares a MMO to literally only singleplayer titles. I can understand tho why so many people have problems with the XIV story, FFXIV needs you to immerse yourself into the story. Since FFXIV is an mmo it's clear we play a character created (mostly) at our own terms, it's not a story where we get served with a real prewritten character like in most singleplayer titles. That doesn't makes the story bad tho, it just needs you to bring your own part and creativity in to fully enjoy it. I can see that people who can't identify with their own characters or just care about the pve aspect of the game hate the story cause we are mostly the silent hero archetype.

Also you need brain to understand the story XIV wants to tell you. Most people see ascians as bad. Most people see the garlean empire as bad. And yeah they are bad for us like we are the villain for them. Emet-Selch was as much the hero of his people as we are the hero of ours, showing that there isn't really a good or evil. And XIV shows us these daily struggles in war and people in a really beautiful way since it is not a story told to us, it is as much our struggle to forge a future for our people as it is for all the npcs.

But i can see most people don't care much about the lore or what FFXIV wants to teach/tell us. They ignore all the small hints and details, like Emet-Selch helping us in the WoL fight cause he promised to help us if we are worthy and since we defeated him he saw us as worthy. So yeah, the game needs you to think about it...and i know thinking is not the strength of the majority of players.

FF14's story is not at all hard to understand. This isn't Finnegan's Wake or Ulysses. Quite how people manage to think you need a high IQ to understand FF14's story is beyond me.

[Ahnog]

I think the story is one of the better stories I've encountered in MMOs; and I've played a lot of MMOs.

[Komarimono]

I know it’s a troll account, but the subject they posted, make no sense to me.

What Hype are they talking about? There’s been no massive hype that I’ve ever seen for FFXIV Story. It’s people who have played it, that enjoy and talk about the story to others, not the developers. That many people, loved the story, so by word of mouth, the game has gained popularity.

They say there’s too much filler, when in actuality every main quest, leads to side quests, which over all connect the sub plots to the main ones quite well. To say the side content doesn’t affect lore, makes me wonder if they’ve even unlocked all the dungeons, raids, trials etc via quests, or did they pay for a content skip?

Then the comment about immersive. This I find another odd statement, saying the game lacks this. For the Story, which is overall single player, it’s been quite immersive, including all the jobs quests. So you have to read what the person is saying in a cutscene, how is this less immersive then any book to ever exist since their creation?

Their other point, of cataclysmic events, with no sense of urgency. Uh… Many of the single player games I’ve played, let’s you totally side track to main story in some regard, to do side quests, gathering collectibles, etc etc. A very poor argument to bring up, imho. They even encourage it, at times with a notice, or pop-up saying. “Hey, point of no return here, do you wish to continue or keep doing other stuff?”

So, in conclusion, there is no hype as they claim. Hype means expectations are raised above normal, which is not the case here. FFXIV does offer in depth, and a long term story that takes many many hours to go through. If you include all the side quests that are connected in some form, this is hundreds of hours of just dialogue and cutscenes. This is not hyped, it’s exactly as people say, a big difference.

[HyperSMB]

It is an MMO, it is inherently gimped by that fact.

The story is straight hot garbage and has been since ARR. It got bad enough as I was going through 3.X that I simply gave up and for the last how ever many years I have skipped every single story cutscene.

I have no idea why I am killing the things I am killing and I have had a much more enjoyable time keeping it that way rather than trying to digest this mess of a story.

[PyurBlue]

It's funny how the OP compares a MMO to literally only singleplayer titles. I can understand tho why so many people have problems with the XIV story, FFXIV needs you to immerse yourself into the story. Since FFXIV is an mmo it's clear we play a character created (mostly) at our own terms, it's not a story where we get served with a real prewritten character like in most singleplayer titles. That doesn't makes the story bad tho, it just needs you to bring your own part and creativity in to fully enjoy it. I can see that people who can't identify with their own characters or just care about the pve aspect of the game hate the story cause we are mostly the silent hero archetype.

I don't think a player created character is much of a hurdle. In some ways it helps with self inserting into the story. A bigger issue is that our character has so little control over the story. The MSQ dictates what we do more than anything else, which kind of goes against having a custom character in the first place. We don't really have an opportunity to insert our character's personality into the game except for a few token dialogue options. This doesn't feel right in a RPG in my opinion.

Also you need brain to understand the story XIV wants to tell you. Most people see ascians as bad. Most people see the garlean empire as bad. And yeah they are bad for us like we are the villain for them. Emet-Selch was as much the hero of his people as we are the hero of ours, showing that there isn't really a good or evil. And XIV shows us these daily struggles in war and people in a really beautiful way since it is not a story told to us, it is as much our struggle to forge a future for our people as it is for all the npcs.

Those two groups are bad. They don't see the people that disagree with them as people. Only their goals matter. Good and evil isn't just a point of view, if it was, then those concepts couldn't exist. You couldn't make calls on morality because it would all be relative and in the end all that would matter is who was able to overpower everyone else and get their way.

It is an MMO, it is inherently gimped by that fact.

MMO stories don't have to be gimped, they just need to fit the genre. FF14 has some interesting stories to tell, but throughout the entire story the game pretends it's not a MMORPG. I guess if people don't mind separating the story from the rest of the game that's not a big issue, but I'd prefer something more unified and immersive.

I have no idea why I am killing the things I am killing and I have had a much more enjoyable time keeping it that way rather than trying to digest this mess of a story.

To each their own, but FF14 usually does provide a reason for what you're doing. It might not always be a good reason, but in general it is there.

[Bright-Flower]

That's the thing though. I really love Dragon Age, but there are plot holes and stuff in the story that aren't very convincing. I love Harry Potter, but Potter is annoying and the ending is a lackluster without proper world building.

My point is: I don't understand why people have to do this 80 or 8 thing. You can still love things while having an eye to tell the low points or cons of it. I know because I'm always telling how the story is great to my friends, and they start playing and get stuck at a lot of points in ARR that's just filler or plain bad-writing and I can't really blame them. It has great moments, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be honest about the entirety of it.

Of course, I have no power in how people should act... I can still have an opinion on the attitude though.



I haven't played TLOU2 because I don't enjoy zombie-themed worlds.

But this argument makes no sense. Eorzea has a bunch of problems inspired by real-world problems. A lot of fantastic games, books, etc are partly great because they use their narrative to question OUR society. These things are not pulled out of thin air. You might disagree with them, but the problem then is because you don't agree with it, not because there are politics involved. Politics is everywhere, you live in a society, and you can't really skip or ignore it.

I hope that the entertainment world do not start catering to this audience that is so sensitive that every time something makes them think twice, they feel attacked. If you feel like you can't relax because something is taking a look at our society, that's on you.

Honestly 99% of the time I see someone saying 'keep politics out of games' they just mean 'keep politics I don't agree with' out of the game without realizing that games, quite often, actually do have political themes and things inspired by real world issues. It feels mostly like a knee jerk reaction to seeing something in a game they don't want to have there.

[Avatre]

I know it’s a troll account, but the subject they posted, make no sense to me.

What Hype are they talking about? There’s been no massive hype that I’ve ever seen for FFXIV Story. It’s people who have played it, that enjoy and talk about the story to others, not the developers. That many people, loved the story, so by word of mouth, the game has gained popularity.

They say there’s too much filler, when in actuality every main quest, leads to side quests, which over all connect the sub plots to the main ones quite well. To say the side content doesn’t affect lore, makes me wonder if they’ve even unlocked all the dungeons, raids, trials etc via quests, or did they pay for a content skip?

Then the comment about immersive. This I find another odd statement, saying the game lacks this. For the Story, which is overall single player, it’s been quite immersive, including all the jobs quests. So you have to read what the person is saying in a cutscene, how is this less immersive then any book to ever exist since their creation?

Their other point, of cataclysmic events, with no sense of urgency. Uh… Many of the single player games I’ve played, let’s you totally side track to main story in some regard, to do side quests, gathering collectibles, etc etc. A very poor argument to bring up, imho. They even encourage it, at times with a notice, or pop-up saying. “Hey, point of no return here, do you wish to continue or keep doing other stuff?”

So, in conclusion, there is no hype as they claim. Hype means expectations are raised above normal, which is not the case here. FFXIV does offer in depth, and a long term story that takes many many hours to go through. If you include all the side quests that are connected in some form, this is hundreds of hours of just dialogue and cutscenes. This is not hyped, it’s exactly as people say, a big difference.

The trolls always post something that is borderline legitimate, but is so full of inconsistencies and loop-backs that unless people actually think and don't react instantly will always end up with what we have now...endless topics that the mods aren't keeping up with(please create a troll task force to deal with these trash accounts!) because they pop up when the mods are done for the day(seriously, spread out the times mods are monitoring this place...hire more if you need to because it's getting out of hand with all the misinformation that is being thrown around)

[Derio]

FFXIV beats out a lot of single player rpgs in terms of story. And in terms of MMOs it is way ahead of those. But you cant compare FFXIV to single player AAA storydriven titles simply because AAA titles like those can deliver storytelling elements without restrictions that FFXIV has.

[Juzjuzz]

If you know another mmo with a better story than FFXIV please tell me the name.

FFXIV doesn't have one the best story of all time but Heavensward and Shadowbringers are great imo. You can't forget that the game is a mmo 1rst, even if it has more focus on the story. Solo games don't even have to think about multiplayer, and we don't even talk about something as big as FFXIV.
The story suffers from the mmo nature of the game sure, but the mmo nature can't suffer from the immersion and story too mutch. Some players don't even care about the story and just want to raid for example. Unlike solo games FFXIV has to think about a lot of type of players/content and has to find a balance between everything.

And when did you start the game btw ? For shadowbringers? When talking about the quality of the story players often think about a particular expantion. Heavensward and Shadowbringers are favorites, but ARR is not that great for some and Stormblood too.

Overall the game has a good story but it's not the "best of all time" like some ppl say.

And gaming sites are not always the best source tbh.