Length MSQ from all the expansions - it is getting insane

[Shinkuno]

They will never, cause of story skips

Little history lesson: the first time they acknowledged the horrendous MSQ slog and promised a solution, that solution was paid skips. Never ever will they allow you skip straight to current expansion unless the sub numbers are shrinking

[Kenarashi]

Let's not pretend the SWTOR is anything great...

Though it has some nice aspects....it's problems are numerous, and long lasting.

I am not saying it is a great game. I am saying that leveling was great because of voice acting.

SWTOR was also the most expensive game ever made when it was launched, and it went f2p shortly after due to a lack of return on investment from subscriptions.

Because other aspect were bs, like they used horrible engine, there were tons bugs, they didn't think about post game content.
I am not saying that old republic is great, i am saying it has a great voice acting.
GW2 or ESO also has voice acting, both of them are popular.

[Ravenblade1979]

again...ITS ON YOU if you "feel forced" to buy skips. they don't have a gun to your head at all. the fact you feel the story is too long is probably why you feel forced. you claim you trying to "create a story for all your characters". not much of a story if you decide to buy skips. "aspiring mage" would be doing everything the hard way, not the easy way. Stop blaming square for what YOU feel YOU MUST DO.

let me give you some advice. step back from the game. reevaluate your alt addiction and spending habits lol. then go play the other ff games including ff11 (their other mmorpg) and see how things are done in the franchise. Hopefully you will realize that this isn't another cookie cutter mmo like so many out there and i doubt they will change their formula just to accomidate a 20 year mmo veteran

[Kenarashi]

Not to state the obvious, but maybe FFXIV isn't for you?

Probably but i am trying to finish the msq. When endwalker was released i was in the middle of shadowbringers main msq.

again...ITS ON YOU if you "feel forced" to buy skips. they don't have a gun to your head at all. the fact you feel the story is too long is probably why you feel forced. you claim you trying to "create a story for all your characters". not much of a story if you decide to buy skips. "aspiring mage" would be doing everything the hard way, not the easy way. Stop blaming square for what YOU feel YOU MUST DO.

let me give you some advice. step back from the game. reevaluate your alt addiction and spending habits lol. then go play the other ff games including ff11 (their other mmorpg) and see how things are done in the franchise. Hopefully you will realize that this isn't another cookie cutter mmo like so many out there and i doubt they will change their formula just to accomidate a 20 year mmo veteran

Firstly, i didn't said i was buying story skips. I said I feel forced to do so.
You getting things out of context. I am not saying i did that in ffxiv in particular but in mmo overall. If the story was account bound and not character bound i wouldn't have a problem. There story could be there for other characters but there would be a hard requirement to go the next expansion. Most of the MSQ is filler and not interesting story. Interesting story is like 1/3 of it. If they removed the filler content i wouldn't complain since it would be interesting story.
There are ton of people who tons of characters on their account. In wow some people choose goblin for their casting animation but when it comes to melee character they choose different race because it has better animations.

They will never, cause of story skips

Little history lesson: the first time they acknowledged the horrendous MSQ slog and promised a solution, that solution was paid skips. Never ever will they allow you skip straight to current expansion unless the sub numbers are shrinking

In previous expansion blizz at least added character boost to your expansion purchase. Now they got greedy and added it to 70 euro edition but at least you do not need to purchase every expansion. You just buy the newest one and you are ready to go.
But still people saying that blizzard is most greedy company nowadays.

[Jeeqbit]

Since I am a veteran MMO player, played them since 2001.
I hate this hand-holding that this game has.

As a veteran MMO player that has no doubt seen new players come and go countless times, you surely understand why that hand-holding is necessary. Most new players quit the game (this happens with all MMO games). The hand-holding helps keep them there by reducing their confusion and guiding them through the game properly.

Also, the number of hours you have to spend to play through the ALL msq is just insane.

It is, but it is a Final Fantasy game and Final Fantasy games are about story, so the developers do not want to compromise on this and make it not about story.

I am the type of player who likes to have tons of alts and does not like the idea of having all classes on one character.

Bad news then. This game is designed around doing everything on one character. Most other MMOs were designed the way that you like with the class tied to the character.

The old republic has all quests voiced, maybe because the number of them is so much smaller than FFXIV.

There is also localization (translation to several other languages) and once they decide to voice something, they have to commit to never adjusting it and that is a big commitment because they have to be certain they will never need to change the text for any reason since it is voiced.

[Stormpeaks]

As a veteran MMO player that has no doubt seen new players come and go countless times, you surely understand why that hand-holding is necessary. Most new players quit the game (this happens with all MMO games). The hand-holding helps keep them there by reducing their confusion and guiding them through the game properly.

It is, but it is a Final Fantasy game and Final Fantasy games are about story, so the developers do not want to compromise on this and make it not about story.

Bad news then. This game is designed around doing everything on one character. Most other MMOs were designed the way that you like with the class tied to the character.

There is also localization (translation to several other languages) and once they decide to voice something, they have to commit to never adjusting it and that is a big commitment because they have to be certain they will never need to change the text for any reason since it is voiced.

Final Fantasy X for example had me hooked to the entire story, I loved every cutscene of that game, every single one, I even replayed it multiple times because its emotional and is an amazing game to re-play.

However FFXIV's story just does not feel engaging to me at all, I really find it quite boring, this is my personal opinion

[Deo14]

SE isn't holding a gun to your head to force you to buy story skip/levelling skip. thats completely optional.

This "optional" excuse is getting really old. You know what else is optional? Retainers. For price of doubling your sub price, you can get 6 retainer, which give you 175*6 bank slots, 120 items to sell at MB and more profits from ventures. All of this is optional, yet it gives you such an insane advantage.

for as long as i can remember, final fantasy has always been a story driven rpg.

Weird thing to argue about, when FF is still to this day viewed as single player, 11 and 14 are mere exceptions. Merging single player, story driven franchise with MMORPG (which often have just basic story) is really unique edge case, there are obviously some compromises to be expected. No FF is also made with expansions that layer on top and you're required to finish the previous one. FF13 had 3 parts, but even then 3rd was very different gameplay wise, so it kept things fresh.

if you feel forced too then might want to rethink the mmo scene altogether.

As for the number of hours...you new to the franchise?

like if you trolling cool but if you serious. might wanna consider playing WoW and other mmo's that more fit your vision of what you want because this is here to stay.

Attack the idea, not the author

again...ITS ON YOU if you "feel forced" to buy skips. they don't have a gun to your head at all. the fact you feel the story is too long is probably why you feel forced. you claim you trying to "create a story for all your characters". not much of a story if you decide to buy skips. "aspiring mage" would be doing everything the hard way, not the easy way. Stop blaming square for what YOU feel YOU MUST DO.

let me give you some advice. step back from the game. reevaluate your alt addiction and spending habits lol. then go play the other ff games including ff11 (their other mmorpg) and see how things are done in the franchise. Hopefully you will realize that this isn't another cookie cutter mmo like so many out there and i doubt they will change their formula just to accomidate a 20 year mmo veteran

It's on you if you "feel forced" to reply for second time with aggressive manner just to suck a corporate dick. If you're raiding, you can feel forced to get alts for split runs, but that's not because of player, but because game is designed this way. Similar with story skips. Nothing wrong with wanting to have more alts, I would definitely make one if I could skip story.

As an afterword, it took me over half a year to finish this game while playing pretty frequently, because so much story just makes you feel burnt out. I don't know when you've done story last time, but chaining ARR+HW+StB+ShB+EW is really draining. I'm definitely not saying that game shouldn't focus on story so hard, after all it's still FF, but problem is that you essentially need to 5 games in a row if you start now. Considering they plan to continue developing game for next 10 years, I cannot imagine someone in 2030 doing some 8 expansions in a row.

[Kenarashi]

As a veteran MMO player that has no doubt seen new players come and go countless times, you surely understand why that hand-holding is necessary. Most new players quit the game (this happens with all MMO games). The hand-holding helps keep them there by reducing their confusion and guiding them through the game properly.

It is, but it is a Final Fantasy game and Final Fantasy games are about story, so the developers do not want to compromise on this and make it not about story.

Bad news then. This game is designed around doing everything on one character. Most other MMOs were designed the way that you like with the class tied to the character.

There is also localization (translation to several other languages) and once they decide to voice something, they have to commit to never adjusting it and that is a big commitment because they have to be certain they will never need to change the text for any reason since it is voiced.

Yes, after cataclysm 95% of my friends left wow and never returned.

Maybe, i said it in a wrong way. I am against hand hold per say, i am against tutorial/hand holding how it is done in ffxiv. On the other hand i love the idea of teaching players their roles. FFXIV has done it perfectly. It is not forced, you earn nice gear, you can see what may happened in controlled enviroment.
I also agree story is important if not most important thing in games but in ffxiv the quests are like this 1/3 are relevant and 2/3 are fetch quests that doesn't advance the story in anyway.
I wouldn't see why localization is a problem. In some single player games i noticed voice and text are not the same. There is no excuse for not do a voice over on a AAA game. Especially it is SE, one of the biggest games company in the world and FFXIV is one of most popular mmo in world.

[AngelCheese77]

My biggest gripe with the MSQ is so much is locked behind it. If they got rid of that, I think it would help.

[Seraphor]

Firstly i haven't touched FF franchise before FFXIV. This is not a single-player game, it is an mmo.

It's also a Final Fantasy game, and it wouldn't be one if it wasn't heavily story driven.

Some things can pass in single player game cannot pass in mmo and the other way around. I have played mmo's for over 20 years and i have never feel forced to buy a skip. I feel it here, so something must be not right with this game.

Are you gatekeeping what an MMO can and can't do here? Most other MMO's force you to play different classes on different characters. FF14 is relatively groundbreaking (relatively because I'm not claiming it's the first or only one to allows one character to do everything, but it's definitely unique in the way it does it) in that the job system allows you to play every class on one character. This is a quality of life feature most players appreciate. Your insistence of playing different classes on different characters "because that's what you do in other games" is bordering on OCD. This is a "you" problem, and indicates this may just not be a game for you. That's ok, not every MMO has to meet Kenarashi's seal of approval to be considered a real MMO.

This game is not an rpg if you tried a true rpg you wouldn't have said that. In rpg you can finish quest in couple of different ways. An example is solving Gecko power plant problem in Fallout 2. There are at least 4 ways to solve it. Proper rpg allows multiple quest resolution. Even in Oblivion you can finish quest more in one way.

Sounds like you've never played a JRPG, which is what the Final Fantasy franchise is. There are hundreds, if not thousands of JRPG's out there, it's not a new concept, and you're not going to invalidate the 'RPG' portion of it now after 30 years of the JRPG genre existing. You can consider FF14 to be a MMOJRPG if you like, rather than an MMORPG. It wouldn't even be the first MMOJRPG, as FF11 has a lot of the same concepts.