Why does everyone complain about STORY based MMO's?

[Lauront]

I agree with the comments that the MSQ content could stand to be a bit difficult - and no, not muh Dark Souls, or even ex or savage etc. With trusts being rolled out across mandatory MSQ content, you can include an ez-mode option with those. SE may not be doing that, and doing the opposite by "streamlining" content to accommodate them, but they nonetheless could use them that way - if they wanted to - and allow the DF and regular trust versions to suffer a bit less, as a result... the MSQ includes some of the most formidable foes the MC faces; it's just a shame the mechanical difficulty can't fully showcase this, and so often they must rely on story contrivances that don't really cut it for me. Atm I'd rate the story about "meh", especially as a follow-up to SHB, so it's not a strong selling point to me.

You people sure love to dismiss any opinion you dislike with the same old "muh minority".

Sure, but why bring metacritic in the first place then? Endwalker's user rating is based on 1.4k reviews, which are also less than 1% of the "millions who play". It's less than 0.1% actually.
If you want play the numbers game, don't use such blatant double standards.

Forums are not the whole community, but there are representative of a certain demographic of players. Same for Reddit. Same for Twitter. Same for Metacritic. Same for your server's Novice Network. You can't use one as the definitive judge of quality (which is stupid in the first place, because being popular has never shielded anything from criticism like you always love to imply), and ignore the others.

Also, let's not pretend gaming companies haven't cottoned onto the fact that people place far more weight on "user scores" than paid critic reviews and now also target those. As you say though, if we're going to use the tiny sample argument, Metacritic is no different and far from exempt from it.

[Larirawiel]

We also have to consider the immersion for other people though, there is a non zero amount of people who would have quit the game after the disappointment and frankly immersion break that happens when you topple bosses like thordran or shinryu with almost no effort

What about their experience is that not equally as valid

Yes, this is true. But i have not a good solution for this. Maybe the story writers could make the real dangerous enemies optional and not relevant for the MSQ. But then you could not fight Zodiark and Hydaelyn as a part of the MSQ etc. It is a difficult situation to make dangerous enemies really dangerous without excluding not so good players from progress.


Cheers

[ZedxKayn]

That's because it's non-constructive criticism

So? Not all criticism has to be constructive. Saying "x is not fun" doesn't make the criticism worthless, it's player feedback. It's as constructive as "wow I enjoyed the story so much!" yet you never see people say "tHaT'S nOt CoNsTrUcTiVe CrItIcIsM" to that. It's up to the devs to figure out what to do with any type of criticism positive or negative, constructive, neutral or abrasive, to ignore it, acknowledge it, think about it, because the statement "x is not fun" doesn't stop being true for the player because it wasn't presented with a wall of text on how to perhaps make x more fun. Additionally, I'd reckon the feedback of players that quit can be extremely valuable for the devs, probably more than the positive criticism.

Besides, white knights find way to call even constructive criticism "non-constructive" through mental gymnastics and disingenuity just because they can't stand any criticism of the game. Like how can you call any and all criticism from this subset of the playerbase "non-constructive"? Did you read every criticism from people who quit be it at lv27 or lv78? What makes you think that? Because they aren't entirely up to date with every piece of content there's out there? If so then no criticism is constructive until the game's development is thoroughly over, and the positive feedback of the sprout that's still lv40 being thankful for the addition of trust and/or streamlining in ARR stuff isn't constructive either... But you'd never even think about replying to an enthusiastic sprout that's saying nothing more thought out than "this is neat" that their criticism isn't constructive, would you? People who don't even have 20 minutes into the game can give feedback regarding an aspect of the game they have reached, aka character creation, about as well as someone who has thousands of hours into the game. Doesn't make it worthless or not valid.

So yeah, I have seldom seen a community more allergic to criticism.

[Supersnow845]

So? Not all criticism has to be constructive. Saying "x is not fun" doesn't make the criticism worthless, it's player feedback. It's as constructive as "wow I enjoyed the story so much!" yet you never see people say "tHaT'S nOt CoNsTrUcTiVe CrItIcIsM" to that. It's up to the devs to figure out what to do with any type of criticism positive or negative, constructive, neutral or abrasive, to ignore it, acknowledge it, think about it, because the statement "x is not fun" doesn't stop being true for the player because it wasn't presented with a wall of text on how to perhaps make x more fun. Additionally, I'd reckon the feedback of players that quit can be extremely valuable for the devs, probably more than the positive criticism.

Besides, white knights find way to call even constructive criticism "non-constructive" through mental gymnastics and disingenuity just because they can't stand any criticism of the game. Like how can you call any and all criticism from this subset of the playerbase "non-constructive"? What makes you think that? Because they aren't entirely up to date with every piece of content there's out there? If so then no criticism is constructive until the game's development is thoroughly over. People who don't even have 20 minutes into the game can give feedback regarding an aspect of the game they have reached, aka character creation, about as well as someone who has thousands of hours into the game. Doesn't make it worthless or not valid.

So yeah, I have seldom seen a community more allergic to criticism.

I’ve been trying to figure out for a while if this persons comment was in reference to “saying the story is bad” is pointless criticism or “Burger King told me cure 1 spamming is wrong what a toxic elitist” but honestly you’ve more eloquently summed up my opinion on both sides of that discussion better than I ever could considering according to at least 1 person I have a reputation on the forums as a toxic Elitist myself apparently

[LittleImp]

So? Not all criticism has to be constructive. Saying "x is not fun" doesn't make the criticism worthless, it's player feedback.

It's just a cheap way to dismiss negative sentiment.

At my work, we maintain a very close relationship with the people who use our software. We spend a lot of time tailor building or tweaking features to accommodate our customers particulars, and it would be laughably irresponsible for us to ignore negative sentiment towards a feature just because the criticism "Wasn't constructive enough". Customers, particularly in the entertainment space, may not be equipped to understand or communicate effectively exactly why they don't like something. Professional designers/developers are supposed to have the skillset to contextualize and understand negative sentiment about their product, even when it's not particularly descriptive or nice.

[Lauront]

It's just a cheap way to dismiss negative sentiment.

At my work, we maintain a very close relationship with the people who use our software. We spend a lot of time tailor building or tweaking features to accommodate our customers particulars, and it would be laughably irresponsible for us to ignore negative sentiment towards a feature just because the criticism "Wasn't constructive enough". Customers, particularly in the entertainment space, may not be equipped to understand or communicate effectively exactly why they don't like something. Professional designers/developers are supposed to have the skillset to contextualize and understand negative sentiment about their product, even when it's not particularly descriptive or nice.

Exactly. At the end of the day it's up to the business to figure out why the feedback is the way it is. Yeah, sure, they won't lose sleep over a handful of people leaving, but a customer saying they dislike something, or simply ceasing to consume your product without even saying anything, is a data point in itself, and one to explore further. Larger businesses devote entire departments to extracting insights out of their customers' behaviour, because it is so uncommon (particularly in mass retail relationships, like this) that they will give you enough to go on with just the first pass of feedback - and that's assuming they offer any besides their actions. Nonetheless, you as the business are still faced with the fact that they may cease the relationship, they may be spending less than they otherwise have been/could be etc., so whether you like how "constructive" the feedback you're getting or not, it couldn't matter any less. Grow complacent and dismissive about it at your peril. There's other things for a consumer to spend their money/time on. It's very easy to turn that kind of thing into an excuse to not do proper research into what your customers are telling you, either in words or through actions.

[Supersnow845]

Exactly. At the end of the day it's up to the business to figure out why the feedback is the way it is. Yeah, sure, they won't lose sleep over a handful of people leaving, but a customer saying they dislike something, or simply ceasing to consume your product without even saying anything, is a data point in itself, and one to explore further. Larger businesses devote entire departments to extracting insights out of their customers' behaviour, because it is so uncommon (particularly in mass retail relationships, like this) that they will give you enough to go on with just the first pass of feedback - and that's assuming they offer any besides their actions. Nonetheless, you as the business are still faced with the fact that they may cease the relationship, they may be spending less than they otherwise have been/could be etc., so whether you like how "constructive" the feedback you're getting or not, it couldn't matter any less. Grow complacent and dismissive about it at your peril. There's other things for a consumer to spend their money/time on. It's very easy to turn that kind of thing into an excuse to not do proper research into what your customers are telling you, either in words or through actions.

Especially in a game like this where the sub barely keeps the lights on

I wouldn’t be opposed to spending more in the cash shop if I wasn’t pretty much on my last legs with the game because of the design decisions they have made, sure I’m one data point but I’ve also had an unbroken sub streak since the second legacy beta, losing me won’t cause them a wink but it’s still data they should be considering

[Striker44]

So? Not all criticism has to be constructive. Saying "x is not fun" doesn't make the criticism worthless, it's player feedback. It's as constructive as "wow I enjoyed the story so much!" yet you never see people say "tHaT'S nOt CoNsTrUcTiVe CrItIcIsM" to that. It's up to the devs to figure out what to do with any type of criticism positive or negative, constructive, neutral or abrasive, to ignore it, acknowledge it, think about it, because the statement "x is not fun" doesn't stop being true for the player because it wasn't presented with a wall of text on how to perhaps make x more fun. Additionally, I'd reckon the feedback of players that quit can be extremely valuable for the devs, probably more than the positive criticism.

My take is the main difference is how you proceed as a developer. When people say they're really enjoying something, even though it would be nice to know more specifics, it's passable to simply translate that as "the approach we're using right now is working, keep doing more of the same." When someone just says something is "bad" on the other hand, without specifying what, it's a lot more difficult to make changes. Knowing "everything is likely good" is much more informative than "something is not good, but who knows what or why."

I see the issue as less a community "allergic to criticism" (the multiple threads providing specific, constructive criticism on things like certain races, for example, show a community completely accepting of criticism), and more taking issue with people who directly insult and attack the dev team while proclaiming themselves the all-knowing arbiters of what is "good" or "bad," and frequently it ultimately boils down to "the devs wrote a different story than I wanted them to write, so I'm going to call it bad."

And for every person who seems to get on people's cases for disliking something about EW, I can likely equally point to another person who seems unable to accept that many people enjoy it.

Exactly. At the end of the day it's up to the business to figure out why the feedback is the way it is. Yeah, sure, they won't lose sleep over a handful of people leaving, but a customer saying they dislike something, or simply ceasing to consume your product without even saying anything, is a data point in itself, and one to explore further.

This is also a great point. The data points at the moment, though, show that the current expansion is their most successful. The opening and patch-release peaks have seen the largest playerbase yet, and even the between-patch troughs are still significantly higher in terms of active players than similar troughs in any past expansion. Taking specific critiques under advisement is useful, but completely altering your approach when the overall feedback is overwhelmingly positive is generally a terrible strategy.

[ReynTime]

Most Final Fantasy games try harder than this with difficulty in their stories. And XIII aside have better level design.
They also have actual character management as a staple in jrpgs is the prep you do in a fight by fight basis. Even action rpgs like Kingdom Hearts have this.

A lot of text and cutscenes isn't what defines jrpgs. They lost that uniqueness to every other genre with narrative since the mid 2000s.

[SieyaM]

While sure you do need to have some relief after major plot points and heavy scenes there comes a point where it is just ridiculous faffing about. There were too many points in EW where it wasn't so much a little ease after major scenes but more faffing about for hours upon hours. There also comes a point in the story where you can't spend great lengths of time on comic relief and world or character building, the plot is in motion and nearing its climax you need to keep momentum.