Let's Talk About the Low Quality of Side Stories in this Game

[YukikoKurosawa]

One of the problems I think is the way they're told. Unlike the MSQ, which is a nonstop string of quests with no break inbetween, side stories are generally broken up by several levels in between, or in the case of daily questlines entire WEEKS, which completely destroys the pacing. Each quest ends with you and the designated 2 characters you hang out with going seperate ways for a very long time, then the next quest starts with a recap of whatever the hell they were doing since then, which becomes swiftly formulaic. Hildibrand has this problem of pacing as well, but it doesn't force you to go through a recap each time after a break happens and you can just chain the quests that are already complete like a non-stop story. For a class or role quest you can just wait till you're high enough to do them all together, but for Tribe quests, or in the case of the end of Yorha story, this isn't possible.

It seems the writing team behind the MSQ is not the same as whoever is behind side stories. There is a very, VERY noticeable drop off in quality here. To the point of being jarring. It's as if they just bring in an intern to write them. Had I known how bad the PLD quests would be I would've skipped them and I never skip anything. It leads me to question if YoshiP is even aware of the writing quality outside of MSQ, or even cares. But my opinion is that if they are genuinely just not giving a shit and have nobody to oversee quality of these stories, then they should just stop writing them altogether.

Now I will add that there are notable exceptions, like Alexander, Omega, Werlyt (which I think had horrible pacing despite being a good story). There are actual side stories that work with the short length and do it very well, and are actually just outright good stories. But they are shining gems in a sea of trash.

There is a quality standard set by the MSQ, hell even Hildibrand, even if you don't find it funny they're very well told stories at the very least. I'm not asking for side stories to be just as good, but if they're just gonna be okay at best, then why are they bothering to make them? I don't want okay writing, I want GOOD writing. They seriously need to start putting some sort of quality control over the side story content, they need to consider that having the quests be broken up by levels or entire weeks completely kills pacing and they should stop telling stories this way.

But if we're going to get more of EW role quest quality stories then please just stop and stick to MSQ, raid stories (which are hit or miss), or Hildy.

(El Finito)

[Jeeqbit]

As someone who has done every side quest except some of the post moogle and crafter/gatherer quests, the side stories in this game are definitely not low-quality. Even the ones that appear in little settlements you pass through in the MSQ will tell you all about the life story of this one person who needs a fish or some meat, as if SE actually care about story-telling compared to other games.

So the Endwalker role quests were bad. Really, REALLY bad. Absolutely atrocious, in terms of pacing, presentation.

The one thing I will agree with is that I knew I had to kill something, but they acted like I, the Warrior of Light, couldn't kill it and needed to do some sort of preparation first. It felt absurd and like the quests were filler until max level. Some of the role quests were less filler and more engaging than others. Getting to know the characters in each was interesting but when you know it's filler it's harder to appreciate it.

While the ShB role quests utilized characters previously established in the MSQ and further fleshed them out and gave them proper conclusion, the EW ones revolved around literal whos who became blapshemies, who I could not possibly have cared about.

This is not correct. The EW role quests utilized characters previously established in the MSQ including the city state politicians and other established characters like Fordola and Arenvald, and gave them a proper conclusion.

They barely, or not at all in some cases, justifed the entire reason for needing your specific role, which is the entire bloody point.

They took advantage of the expertise of the city state politician, such as how Kan-E-Senna is a healer and have you fill in the gap. I found that the role quests tested some things about the roles, knowledge of tank interrupts or making you actually have to heal.

it makes zero sense for you to do the EW quests during MSQ, and I do not believe for a second that there are still blasphemies roaming about post EW.

I felt the same way, but one of the quests clarified that it would take time for the final days effect to wear off even though we stopped it.

[Bunnycake]

As someone who has done every side quest except some of the post moogle and crafter/gatherer quests

You even did The Greatest Story Never Told quest...?

[Jeeqbit]

You even did The Greatest Story Never Told quest...?

Yes, I did.

[Bunnycake]

Yes, I did.

You madman!

[DPZ2]

You even did The Greatest Story Never Told quest...?

What a wonderful quest that was. A hint of scandal, a love story -- all set during a period in the past. Almost as good as a C-Drama.

[AwesomeJr44]

There is a quality standard set by the MSQ

I mean, you could argue that after EW's MSQ, that the bar isn't set very high considering how garbage the EW MSQ was for pacing, respecting previous concepts, and storytelling. The EW MSQ eviscerated any standard of quality set up by SHB by disrespecting everything that came before it. Oh that dude Zodiark that's been built up to be the most powerful primal? Yeah, he got completely trashed by the lv x3 quests. The final days that destroyed the ancients? Yeah, those happened because some depressed guy decided to chuck a twitter birb into space. The sundering that destroyed the unsundered world? Yeah, the person who did it decided to sunder everyone because they weren't suffering hard enough for her liking. Not to mention, the final days that previously destroyed an entire world succeeded in killing a total of... oh right, ZERO main characters. Literally everyone of value survived the literal apocalypse.

EW's storytelling has been pretty awful overall, not just in the side stories. So let's not pretend like the current MSQ is some shining bastion of quality writing. You might have been able to say that during SHB, but that's nowhere near the case since 6.0.

[Striker44]

I mean, you could argue that after EW's MSQ, that the bar isn't set very high considering how garbage the EW MSQ was for pacing, respecting previous concepts, and storytelling. The EW MSQ eviscerated any standard of quality set up by SHB by disrespecting everything that came before it. Oh that dude Zodiark that's been built up to be the most powerful primal? Yeah, he got completely trashed by the lv x3 quests. The final days that destroyed the ancients? Yeah, those happened because some depressed guy decided to chuck a twitter birb into space. The sundering that destroyed the unsundered world? Yeah, the person who did it decided to sunder everyone because they weren't suffering hard enough for her liking. Not to mention, the final days that previously destroyed an entire world succeeded in killing a total of... oh right, ZERO main characters. Literally everyone of value survived the literal apocalypse.

EW's storytelling has been pretty awful overall, not just in the side stories. So let's not pretend like the current MSQ is some shining bastion of quality writing. You might have been able to say that during SHB, but that's nowhere near the case since 6.0.

Actually, the overwhelming majority of the playerbase considers EW to be a great story. YMMV, but please stop trying to act as if you are somehow an arbiter on all things and hundreds of thousands of other people must be "wrong" because...well...you say so? EW's storytelling has been amazing, and the huge positive reception to it practically anywhere outside of the trollish echo chamber here is a testament to that.

It's totally obvious the quests were NOT written as role quests, but just got the role assigned to them after the fact.

Actually, it's "totally obvious" that they were written as role quests. There is a common theme for the role that carries throughout each questline. Healer role? You act as a healer in cutscenes in ways that only make sense as a healer quest, and main fights are specifically designed based on you being a healer. Ditto for tanks, dps, etc..

[Raven2014]

Actually, it's "totally obvious" that they were written as role quests. There is a common theme for the role that carries throughout each questline. Healer role?

That's the "tacked on" part. Nothing about the quests line specifically require the specific role. Patching up a minor wound for Fordola is hardly something that "requires" a healer of the WoL's caliber. It's hardly a healer role quest when the healing could be probably done by a anyone, in the past the job/quest tie specicially scenario where it "has" to be you.

You act as a healer in cutscenes in ways that only make sense as a healer quest, and main fights are specifically designed based on you being a healer. Ditto for tanks, dps, etc..

If anything, the "token" mentioned for role just make it more obvious how they were trying to shoehorn the role into the questline after the fact. I don't recall any situation in any questline where you have to be a tank or DPS either. The worst one is probably the physical range. I mean ... out of the nations, Hien probably has the most competent range army with the entire Au'ra tribes united under him who are born hunter. Not to mention they are also partially airbone with that big birds a lot of them ride on (which they even battles imperial airship with), so there is like ... no reason at all to specifically call for the range version of WoL.

[AwesomeJr44]

Actually, the overwhelming majority of the playerbase considers EW to be a great story. YMMV, but please stop trying to act as if you are somehow an arbiter on all things and hundreds of thousands of other people must be "wrong" because...well...you say so?

And you're right because other people say so? Have you considered the outlandish possibility that they might be... wrong?

You can subjectively like EW if you want, but it's filled with objectively bad writing points, and if you want to say it isn't, you're wrong on an objective level. Again, like what you want to like, but your opinion on EW doesn't make the writing any good.

EW made time travel and space travel a joke by removing the immense amount of effort that it used to take to do it. Now we can just teleport to the moon cause... nethergate thing?
EW made the final days a joke by failing to set stakes for any legacy characters or locations, only having it impact side characters introduced in this expansion. Please name a main character from a previous expansion that has been killed by the apocalypse that nearly destroyed the ancients.
EW made the sundering a morally unsupportable act by failing to create a justifiable reason for it, then bends over backwards to convince you they did and that Venat isn't a villain. We're lucky we got that once choice in the Omega sidequest that let's us actually not be a Venat loving sheep for one time.
EW had a final villain that is far too disconnected from the rest of the story arc that EW was supposedly trying to wrap up, causing her to be tacked on and her character to have come out of nowhere. No, previous Final Fantasy games doing this doesn't make it ok here. If FF4 has a bad writing point, and FFXIV adopts that bad writing point, I can absolutely fault FFXIV for that. And yes, Meteion is the main villain. Not some vague concept of despair. If Meteion wasn't supposed to be the main villain then she shouldn't have been a thing, but we need a big monster to slap at the end so she exists.

I'm not the world's best writer but at least I'm not trying to excuse objectively bad writing by saying 'well, people like it'. Yes, people can like things that aren't good. That's why Disney Star Wars still makes bank even when it's trash tier fanfic writing.

EW's storytelling has been amazing, and the huge positive reception to it practically anywhere outside of the trollish echo chamber here is a testament to that.

Sorry if I don't accept that EW's storytelling is amazing because the community says it's good. Especially when this is the community that will literally eat crap if Yoshi P told them to, and they'd like it. Your assumption that anyone who doesn't like it is a troll is also very telling. There are plenty of people who don't like the obvious glaring and quite frankly objective flaws in this story, but I'd bet you've written them off as trolls.