Endwalker role quests make no sense (Quest spoilers)

[MoofiaBossVal]

I have done all five rolequestlines. Sadly, aside from the melee DPS one that took place in Limsa, they all sucked. The melee DPS one was good, though.

The melee DPS and the tank rolequestline had good final duties. They weren't brain dead easy and there were points where I thought "we're not going to make it". Sadly the other duties were a snooze.

As for role specific stuff, it's hard to do that in this game when literally every class has some sort of heal or flash step or ranged attack. The premise of the Doman questline is that there is a flying blashemy, so they want a ranged DPS to shoot it down... but there is nothing stopping a Dragoon or a caster from killing it, and ingame it just fights on the ground and gets whacked by NPCs with swords anyway.

[Azuri]

The quests themselves are fine (Except for melee one. SE had no reason to unearth those worthless relics of ARR and focus an entire story of them) but they had no reason being job quests. This time it really didn't work at all.

[KyahAlmasy]

Well,no. You literally do heal her in the quest

You run up and right click two NPCs and heal them on the first quest (which really has zero impact on the story) and then again when you meet her at the camp, besides the last fight of the questline there's no other healing to do be done. The rest of the role specific quests you unlock as you level up have you running around talking to people the entire time, without you, the player actually doing anything at all. I believe one of the quests I unlocked had me go to Gyr Abania, then run all the way across the map to talk to someone and then the quest was over.

Are there minor healing themes throughout the questline? Sure. But it looks like they were tacked on at the end to justify calling it the "healing" role quest, rather than the quest actually revolving the fact that you're a healer. "Hey add 2 npcs for them to heal here!" And then pretty much stopped at that before the final duty of the questline. It's actually silly.

Why not? Magic is involved

It doesn't matter if some magic was involved if you character isn't actually involved with it in any way. We never give any magical insights, or make use of our casting prowess in any way that helps, or involves the story. There's quite literally no purpose for us to be there in the capacity that were originally sent. Again, any role would have sufficed for that storyline, regardless if they used magic or not.[/quote]

You're sent to Gyr Abania as a healer because they need backup. First thing you do is healing the army, and Fordola.

This is literally in the span of one quest you realize, but it doesn't actually serve to propel the story, or relate to in any way either. It feels like something they tacked onto the quest at the last moment to justify it as a "Role quest" In fact, your character even has the option at one point to mention that it seemed like they needed more soldiers, not healers on the field when they send you to search for evidence, to which they agree, admitting that it was the real purpose they called you in the first place. It's like they fully realized their quest made no sense for the role it was designed for.

If you're really trying to contribute her healing from her trauma to justify calling it a "healer" role quest, then I'm gonna have to stop taking you right there. We're not therapists, we're not healing people's trauma, just as a tank isn't "shielding" people from their mental trauma either. That's a metaphorical justification for the role quest that comes off more ridiculous than anything else. These quests are not fortune cookies, we the player shouldn't have to look for the "deeper" meaning of them to understand how they could relate to the roles they're supposedly meant for.

Could all of this been a lot more involved on your part?

I don't think the healer, or caster's stories really had any thematic appeal at all, and could have been preformed by anyone. The healing we did do was inconsequential to the story, and happens in the span of one quest, while the rest was us running around playing politics, and fighting monsters like we always do. Again the quest itself even points out that they didn't even NEED a healer, and that it was just to get you specifically. Look at the class specific questlines if you want a better comparison, those actually delivered a relevant, and cohesive story that plays on the thematics of every class wonderfully. Where as these all feel like reject quests that were altered slightly to fit the role they were tagged with.

The quests themselves are fine (Except for melee one. SE had no reason to unearth those worthless relics of ARR and focus an entire story of them) but they had no reason being job quests. This time it really didn't work at all.

Yeah, my gripe wasn't for the quality of the writing or the quests themselves, but rather their design as supposed "role-specific" quests while lacking literally anything thematic about those roles at all.

[Vercinotrix]

They made a white mage quest and called it a tank quest

[Jennah]

The bigger problem is that most people will do four of the role quests - or all five! - long after their storyline makes any sense.
Sure, the blasphemies would probably still be around after the MSQ - not that we ever see a single other End Beast once we come back from Ultima Thule - but all of the role quests feature other people turning in front of you, or almost turning, or much being made of the possibility of the blasphemy turning others.
Even though the deal with the Dynamis had already been fixed.

[Iscah]

Players want role-specific quests to actually see their role acknowledged within the context of the game, both in the story and in action.

That's what you want, not what "players" want. No doubt a number of players will agree with you, but personally I'm not fussed what they do with these quests as long as they're reasonably interesting stories.

[Raven2014]

The bigger problem is that most people will do four of the role quests - or all five! - long after their storyline makes any sense.
Sure, the blasphemies would probably still be around after the MSQ - not that we ever see a single other End Beast once we come back from Ultima Thule - but all of the role quests feature other people turning in front of you, or almost turning, or much being made of the possibility of the blasphemy turning others.
Even though the deal with the Dynamis had already been fixed.

Yeah, the quest line themselves are fine but their overall placement and pacing are really off. Also, I bet most people just wait until lvl 88-89 and do the whole quest line at once 'cause there is no reason to teleport to it "every level".

Endwalker overall have problem with structure and pacing. The quests don't seem to be integrated very well. It's like they made all the cutsceen/story before hand, then start patching the quests around them.

[DinahDemiurge]

the role quests are 0/10 awful. the story is awful. the gameplay is awful. The reward is awful. I have done tank/healer so far. what a slog.

[KyahAlmasy]

That's what you want, not what "players" want. No doubt a number of players will agree with you, but personally I'm not fussed what they do with these quests as long as they're reasonably interesting stories.

It's the entire point of role-specific quests, to have a quest that plays on the thematic of the role. Them being interesting, or fun stories is well and nice, make them side quests, tagging them with a "role" despite having very little, if anything to do with the actual role defeats the entire purpose. No one is saying they're not interesting, or well-written, just not appropriate for the purpose they were made.

[Averax]

My problem with the role quests was that i could not be bothered to care about them.

They introduced them way too late and at a very interesting chunk of the story. So it's either "go do this really interesting thing right now" or "drop what you're doing and go do a quest that is ultimately meaningless". I skipped most of the dialogue because i was bored, but i still knew exactly what was going on. SE forgot how to do more with less in these quests, they're just so wordy, and i suppose they kind of have to be because they're establishing tragic backstories for people we don't know so they can try to make us care about them.

I suppose the healer one was mildly interesting with Fordola, but the caster one bored me to tears. It covered ishgardian problems we've dealt with for the entirety of heavensward and beyond with a new coat a paint.