Why does everyone complain about STORY based MMO's?

[Cilia]

Given my day to day interaction with the game consists of 6-7 Roulettes, 6-8 Crystalline Conflict matches (currently; it may go up when I hit the next tier to meet my goal of getting the Archfiend Attire before the season resets with 6.2), and a once weekly run of Aglaia... the MSQ being relatively combat-light outside of dungeons is perfectly fine in my book.

[Amenara]

Given my day to day interaction with the game consists of 6-7 Roulettes, 6-8 Crystalline Conflict matches (currently; it may go up when I hit the next tier to meet my goal of getting the Archfiend Attire before the season resets with 6.2), and a once weekly run of Aglaia... the MSQ being relatively combat-light outside of dungeons is perfectly fine in my book.

That's cool that you find combat related things to do after you complete the MSQ, but when you are a new player going through it for the first time for hundreds of hours and have little gameplay outside of dungeons then you have to see why the MSQ being combat light can be seen as an issue.

[Cilia]

That's cool that you find combat related things to do after you complete the MSQ, but when you are a new player going through it for the first time for hundreds of hours and have little gameplay outside of dungeons then you have to see why the MSQ being combat light can be seen as an issue.

The issue with that is non-instanced content is... really shallow. Since the game sticks heavily to the tank / healer / DPS trinity, anything that isn't designed for party gameplay needs to be pretty simple... and fighting monsters in the overworld gets really boring, really fast, since it's just using the same combo over and over (with a self-heal mechanic if you really need it) until whatever it is you're fighting dies. Solo instances can break that up, but they too come down to the same shallow gameplay (dodge AoEs, kill adds, self-heal if necessary, beat main target until it stops moving). Roleplay mode helps, but mechanically speaking that's just forcing people to play a dumbed-down shell of another Job.

I agree the number of cutscenes, particularly in Shadowbringers and even more so in Endwalker, can be a bit egregious, but if you find yourself bored with cutscenes just go do some dungeons or PvP. Dungeons teach you how to do your role and play your job (functionally, if not well) and PvP is a nice distraction that affords cool glamour options. Besides which, it's a modern Final Fantasy game; boatloads of cutscenes are par for the course and have been so since... the PSX era? Or did it really get egregious with X? Either way, you should know what you're signing up for.

[Amenara]

The issue with that is non-instanced content is... really shallow. Since the game sticks heavily to the tank / healer / DPS trinity, anything that isn't designed for party gameplay needs to be pretty simple... and fighting monsters in the overworld gets really boring, really fast, since it's just using the same combo over and over (with a self-heal mechanic if you really need it) until whatever it is you're fighting dies. Solo instances can break that up, but they too come down to the same shallow gameplay (dodge AoEs, kill adds, self-heal if necessary, beat main target until it stops moving). Roleplay mode helps, but mechanically speaking that's just forcing people to play a dumbed-down shell of another Job.

I agree the number of cutscenes, particularly in Shadowbringers and even more so in Endwalker, can be a bit egregious, but if you find yourself bored with cutscenes just go do some dungeons or PvP. Dungeons teach you how to do your role and play your job (functionally, if not well) and PvP is a nice distraction that affords cool glamour options. Besides which, it's a modern Final Fantasy game; boatloads of cutscenes are par for the course and have been so since... the PSX era? Or did it really get egregious with X? Either way, you should know what you're signing up for.

I think that speaks to the quality of lower level gameplay more so than just blaming it on the trinity system. Jobs are incredibly shallow from 1-50 and it only gets worse each expansion as the level cap goes up and abilities are removed/added with the focus always being max level (Healer gameplay during MSQ is a whole other can of worms). When I think of Final Fantasy game I think about incredible cutscenes but at the same time the gameplay is fun and challenging. The problem is we are only getting one part of it, and it almost seems like the devs know gameplay while leveling isn't great so they keep focusing harder and harder on the story part and we lose out more and more on the gameplay.

Thats like taking Lord of the Rings and just hand them the final chapters of Return of the King...they wont have a single idea what the hell is going on. The story elements of ALL the expacs are part and parcel of Endwalker..the idea itself is utterly ludicrous.

Seriously, I ask you, when you buy a brand new book, do you then flip to the end and read the last few pages? Buy a mystery book and then flip to the end to see whodunit?

I'm not saying it is mandatory at all. The story is still there for those who want to play through it. Hell put a notice that you will be missing context of the story if you skip it and also point them to the NG+ feature if they want to go back and see it all later. The point I am making is that it would be nice to have the option for new players who just want to do endgame things with friends or just want to play all the new stuff to have that option instead of forcing them into hundreds of hours of story that may burn them out and make them want to quit.