6.1 MSQ showcases the narrative problems that continue to plague the game's story

[Faafetai]

I'm a bit worried. I am getting close to endwalker. I fear the writer who is obsessed with ala mihgo, y'shtola, minfilia, lyse (also making lyse the new damsel in distress mary sue) and medieval drama might be involved. They are not suppose to be writing the story. They should be working on another game coming out, but I am getting many vibes that they may very well have done the story for endwalker at least the pacing probably anything to do with ala mihgo, sharlayan to make them as annoying as possible. I will see when I get there, but the worry is there.

[Heavenchild]

I despise those "escort a scion" quests they added simply for the same of adding a few lines of dialog that could easily be placed anywhere else. Then they brought it back with a vengeance with Yshtola in 6.1 making you run all around Sharlayan for no real reason. There was even only 1 chat option the whole time. It makes me care even less for what I am doing and whatever little dialog they have to say. I would much rather use the mini aetheryte system, but oh no, gotta run across a map because...reasons. It breaks immersion for me out of sheer annoyance. At least let us still use the aetherytes if we are one of the many players who just don't care.

Escort quests are always the ones ppl groan about in games, why on earth they tried to make it a feature is beyond me.

You don't have to run through the whole city. You can also use the teleporter. The Npc will be there after the teleport. One reason for this escort is maybe to make the game feel more alive with the NPC's.
And that people can make screenshots with der favourite characters. :3

[Jason_Ashford]

I liked the 6.1 story, miles better than the awful time travel stuff and the shoe-horned in Meteion (because they needed a big baddie after dispatching Zodiark “just like that” after 10 years of build up).

if you genuinely thought Meteion was shoehorned in, then you are extremely unobservant since they've been building to the endwalker finale for a while. They have had a rough idea of how they wanted things to end for a long time and while they might not have had Meteion planned out explicitly until probably around the time Shadowbringers was released, the story was very much there.

[Payadopa]

Mmh I liked it the way it was. Nothing was for me like a filler or felt boring. But I think it's different for everyone. :3

I agree. And I'm a sucker for juicy lore. I want to know what makes the wheels turn in the background. And I really like the quiet moments inbetween stuff to unwind.

[Payadopa]

Escort quests are always the ones ppl groan about in games, why on earth they tried to make it a feature is beyond me.

I could not disagree more. haha

[aveyond-dreams]

if you genuinely thought Meteion was shoehorned in, then you are extremely unobservant since they've been building to the endwalker finale for a while. They have had a rough idea of how they wanted things to end for a long time and while they might not have had Meteion planned out explicitly until probably around the time Shadowbringers was released, the story was very much there.

Regardless of whenever they decided to implement the character, it was still done poorly and the plot surrounding her, Hermes, and Venat's inaction post-Elpis made for a very convoluted later portion of the MSQ.

I would have preferred Lavos as the final boss instead of "ultimate despair."

[Ransu]

World building and the payoff we get later is literally the best part of FFXIV's story telling. OP clearly doesn't read a lot of books and just wants Michael Bay films.

I despise those "escort a scion" quests they added simply for the same of adding a few lines of dialog that could easily be placed anywhere else. Then they brought it back with a vengeance with Yshtola in 6.1 making you run all around Sharlayan for no real reason. There was even only 1 chat option the whole time. It makes me care even less for what I am doing and whatever little dialog they have to say. I would much rather use the mini aetheryte system, but oh no, gotta run across a map because...reasons. It breaks immersion for me out of sheer annoyance. At least let us still use the aetherytes if we are one of the many players who just don't care.

Escort quests are always the ones ppl groan about in games, why on earth they tried to make it a feature is beyond me.

If running around with a side character breaks immersion for you and teleporting from place to place ignoring the world around you doesn't...I question your knowledge of what immersion is lol.

[Silver-Strider]

if you genuinely thought Meteion was shoehorned in, then you are extremely unobservant since they've been building to the endwalker finale for a while. They have had a rough idea of how they wanted things to end for a long time and while they might not have had Meteion planned out explicitly until probably around the time Shadowbringers was released, the story was very much there.

Meteion was introduced at the 11th hour and was about as welcomed as Necrom was after Kuja. The only build up to her was some vague mentions of a sound being the precursor to the Final Days, which was so vague that it literally could have been anything at all. It took all of 2 seconds from her introduction to figure out that she was the villain and I was pretty much ready to strike her down right then and there if the game would've let me but instead it tried to get me to feel some emotional attachment to her, which I wasn't having at all because I already knew she was the problem and I honestly couldn't give a damn about her. She might have been better foreshadowed then Necrom but I still count her as big a flop as him all the same.

[Jason_Ashford]

Regardless of whenever they decided to implement the character, it was still done poorly and the plot surrounding her, Hermes, and Venat's inaction post-Elpis made for a very convoluted later portion of the MSQ.

I would have preferred Lavos as the final boss instead of "ultimate despair."

did you just skip the entire post-Elpis cutscene where she watched the entirety of her civilization tumbling down the same exact path to ruin as every other world that had tried (and failed) to eliminate despair? they were mere steps away from divesting the world of everything that gave rise to sorrow and would have fallen into the same exact pitfall as one particular world that invited their own ruin because joy lost all meaning in the absence of sorrow and they wanted to simply disappear than to continue living a meaningless existence.

She was not sitting around doing nothing. she spent thousands of years cultivating humanity, pushing them to find the answer to Hermes and Meteion's question about what gives life meaning.

[Novae]

+1 OP
I skipped half of the cutscenes, We were supposed to go on an adventure, not being bored to death by uninspired NPCs. I'm not looking forward to 6.2.
And this is coming from someone who loved ShB, and quite enjoyed EW (with the exception of the beginning and its terrible, terrible pacing, and the laughable scions fake death).