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

[GrizzlyTank]

I didn't mind the 5 individual role quests, they were fine. However the final complete-all-5 wrap-up quest was a pretty wet noodle of a quest. It really went nowhere and I was fairly disappointed and I pretty much fanboy enjoy EVERYTHING storywise in this game, even the smallest sidequest.

The final role quest didn't go nowhere. It concluded

Nerva and the state of the 2nd Legion.

As well as reinforcing that the lopporits are still providing housing.

It also covered the plot-hole of the transformations happening after defeating the endsinger.

[Zaniel]

The final role quest didn't go nowhere. It concluded

Nerva and the state of the 2nd Legion.

As well as reinforcing that the lopporits are still providing housing.

It also covered the plot-hole of the transformations happening after defeating the endsinger.

Eh, at least to me that's a pretty offhand item for a big quest series, I didn't hate it, it just gave me no real sense of gravitas. The Omega mini-quest was MUCH better.

[YukikoKurosawa]

The final role quest didn't go nowhere. It concluded

Nerva and the state of the 2nd Legion.

As well as reinforcing that the lopporits are still providing housing.

It also covered the plot-hole of the transformations happening after defeating the endsinger.

Yet it didn't cover the plot hole of the final Melee role quest where the Blasphemy "sucks in the aether" of other blasphemies to empower itself, despite it being established both in the MSQ and the capstone quest that Blasphemies have no aether.

[Setesh45]

Probably an unpopular opinion, but imo 80% if not more of the quests in the game suck. Not because the plot is bad, but because the pacing is wrong, the ending often falls flat, and there's a huge amount of plot holes.
Good ideas, but bad execution, lacking animations, missing voice overs, I never saw what's so great about the quests in FFXIV. It sure does have some nice and emotional moments, but to get to those you have to go through a boatload of boring, sub-par questing.
FFVIII was my first FF game, a game released in 1999, the quests there are way more engaging than most stuff in FFXIV.

[Liam_Harper]

I honestly forgot the role quests even existed. I haven't done any of them, nor am I really bothered.

[Vyrerus]

In general, I liked the NPC involvement in the role quests, and I did enjoy the melee one simply for the callbacks to the Company of Heroes.

Didn't really think they were well constructed, nor did they have good reasons for why each role was needed to fight each thing. They were definitely moreso for giving us stories with the city-state leaders of Eorzea, since Eorzea was largely absent from what was supposed to be a world spanning, ending threat.

All they really did for me was make me want Nero to join us in our adventuring, cause that dude can fight, and if he truly wants to be at the forefront of technological discovery, he should literally just strap himself to the WoL. Wouldn't even have to be using his discount Scouter on us in secret like in ARR.

Calling them role quests may more be an in joke for the dev team too. They were role quests not for our actual job roles but for a, "What role do these quests have?"

[VelKallor]

Have you ever considered that you may be wrong?

Is a better question to be asked. Nowhere in your screeds do I see you admit that maybe your opinion is wrong. Thats all it is. An opinion. I disagree with you on every point, but thats MY opinion..YOU do not get to tell ME what is good and what isnt.

You are not the arbiter of what is good and bad, thank you. That is for each of us to decide on our own.

I have enjoyed it all immensely. Loved the rolequests, main MSQ was a blast, I have enjoyed the follow on , done ALL the sidequests plus Hildibrand..Im actually sorry that you arent having fun. But thats you, I guess.

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.

Opinion, not fact. You speak for you...and no one else.

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.

You would be far more credible if you accepted the fact that you are entitled to your opinion..and little else. Im sorry you dont like it, but what you dont like , others enjoy..so that kinda leaves us at an impasse..doesnt it?.

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?

A gate empowered by Fandaniel, later not needed as we could attune to the aetheryte.

EW made the sundering a morally unsupportable act by failing to create a justifiable reason for it

Venat was faced with an impossible choice..as Yshtola said in the Aitiascope, the sundering made it easier for us to interact with dynamis..we had to make this journey, to fight out way up, to learn to grow as Her children, for us to be able to face Meteoin, we HAD to be able to endure fear, terror, despair, Eitherys is laced with aether.

Dynamis exists in the ABSENCE of aether.

Which is why those transformed could not be saved, they had no aether and thus, when they died, would not return to the Great Sea. She had to prepare us for this fight.

Some people hated the Time Traveling aspect of the story (my friend swears that any form of Time Travel in storytelling is just lazy writing and hated Elpis with a passion as a result).

It made sense to me...and was also upsetting as Elidibus sacrificed himself to make that path, his time was done, Zodiark was dead, but even in the last extreme, his sense of duty demanded of him to make that choice.

Remember what he said?

"At dutys end we will meet again...we will...we will"

Endwalker for me has been absolutely satisfying..if others didnt enjoy it, Im sorry to hear that. We all see things differently..at the same time, what you dont enjoy, others do. They arent wrong for enjoying it, either.

[MisterNublet]

Yeah, but look at that whole thread and realize it's just the same small group creating an echo chamber amongst themselves, with a few other people disagreeing with them every now and again. Then, go to practically any other place like Youtube or even Reddit and you'll see overwhelmingly positive comments from a much larger variety of people.

Reddit is garbage to use as a metric. It's a place where constructive criticism gets downvoted because how dare you say something could use improvement when their precious game is absolutely perfect. It's more of an echo chamber than that thread you mentioned.

Speaking of the MSQ. It started off okay-ish. Not really bad, but not great either. Once we got to thirteenth shard, the quality has taken an absolute dive.

[FatalFatalis]

One problem is that many questlines need to be inside a very restrictive structure that limits how the story is presented and how it develops. "All these sidequests need to be 5 quests long and only 5", "You need to fit 12 fights in your raid story", etc...
Though the writers try as hard as they can to work with what they have, there are many times where the pacing is a bit awkward or you can clearly see the things you are fighting now are just there because the structure is like that and the story doesn't really advance that much, if at all.