Why are some people "disappointed" by the 6.X patch story?

[Hallarem]

The one thing I liked about 6.5 was the fact they did not leave Gaia out of the MSQ here. I would’ve been mega disappointed if they completely forgot about her after her and Ryne made friends and kicked Mitron’s ass. I took the time to appreciate the patch for the nostalgia(because let’s be real: The Nostalgia is huge in this one, from the Baron theme in the Lunar Subterrane all the way to Zeromus).

My big problem stems from the fact that Zero’s progression was not very telling until the end because of her demeanor; most times when there’s character development, there’s something that happens to make them be that way or change. I know people got tired of the ‘milady’ hat tips, but it was used as Zero’s way of expressing her feelings I believe - what they should’ve done is take her monotone demeanor and grow out of it. Sure, they did by the end, but the whole change into a PLD was literally too on the nose. I get it, I really do; but I was expecting something more climactic than turn into PLD and overcoming darkness. They rushed her progress at the end to make everything fit.

I don't think it was PLD, those are the weapons she has during the contramemoria war before she became a voidsent, no? Exactly why I wish we'd have Zero for longer, too juicy of a character to toss away after all that development, to see how she further develops.

I wished Unulkahai had been a more than sidenote though, a character actively trying to heal the 13th being just a sidenote mention is a bit of a miss from SE tbh. I hope they are saving it for ACTUAL voidcontent, but who knows.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

While I totally understand the complaints, I do feel like people are way too hard on the patch MSQ imo. I think maybe its been caught in the crossfire of other more legitimate grievances about EW.

While it did drag a little, I think there’s a lot to like overall. For one I think Zero and Golbez are great characters and I found the latter to be another interesting villain. Another thing I enjoyed is that it felt like a mini void expansion, and it drives this home by going the extra l miles with small areas you can explore in the 13th.

It also doesn’t really feel like filler to me since the void has been an often touched on but never fully resolved part of the world for a while now. Also it has a lot of fun small moments like Y’shtola’s magical girl scene

Not perfect by any means but it’s not the “garbage” people make it out to me. Even Shadowbringers had pacing issues during the patches

[Amenara]

Not much to say other than the 6.x stuff bored me enough to skip cutscene for the first time in the MSQ. For whatever reason I just never connected with the story or the characters and I am just glad it's over so hopefully we can move onto something completely new with DT.

[Palladiamors]

No Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Edge, or Rydia but all of the major villains ((spoilerish)) sorta and a main character that screams "Original character do not steal!" The dialogue was atrocious and Zero gets shoved into every scene as suddenly everyone's best friend. She does at least get her face kicked in a few times and have to grow from it which I do appreciate.

But that didn't start here. It started at the end of Stormblood then got worse in Shadowbringers before really ramping it up in Endwalker. Whoever took over writing completely sidelined everything up to Shadowbringers and mostly ignored it in favor of the story they wanted to tell and the narrative has suffered for it.

That being said, I would FAR rather go on adventures in the 13th as opposed to going off on Happy Trails.

[Batbrat]

Myths of the Realm's was horrific. It was like? What's even the point. Lol. Sigh. Like, what was the reason for that. It was getting all exciting, and then THAT'S what they did????? THAT'S what they did!??!? And now we're back to tired boring same old scions. That's it. Just focus back to yshtola everyone!!!! Really sick of the main cast now, at this point every patch I'm praying for them all to die. Very tired of them finding ways to keep forcing the main characters to remain the main characters at all costs. Don't you dare like anyone else!! Get BACK to aw'ing at tataru!!!

[Myon88]

I'm really curious when some of you started playing, because MSQ interlude patches have always been at this level to me. It feels like par for the course.

SB: Black rose, black rose, more black rose teasing for months that ultimately amounts to nothing because Zenos deals with it offscreen.
SHB: Boring logistics busywork to do with getting Eulmore standing on its own two feet again, painfully slow soul vessel research.
As for HW, I actually started playing in gordias but its been so long I honestly cannot remember what happened during those patches. Whatever happened it didn't stick in my mind.

The only interlude patch that has ever had anywhere close to expansion launch hype was 5.3. That was the Seat of Sacrifice trial, as well as the scions and G'raha finally returning to the source. Not every patch is fortunate enough to host that kind of payoff, and serve as the actual MSQ epilogue like that. Endwalker wrapped everything up in 6.0 and had to start fresh from there.

I feel like a lot of people joined after Shadowbringers (I can see your join date) and got to binge two great MSQs and all the 5.x content at one go, and now have to deal with what a normal patch story cadence is like. I mean, it's not a bad thing to have high expectations, but it's going to be very hard to top that.

[OgruMogru]

I'm really curious when some of you started playing, because MSQ interlude patches have always been at this level to me. It feels like par for the course.

SB: Black rose, black rose, more black rose teasing for months that ultimately amounts to nothing because Zenos deals with it offscreen.
SHB: Boring logistics busywork to do with getting Eulmore standing on its own two feet again, painfully slow soul vessel research.
As for HW, I actually started playing in gordias but its been so long I honestly cannot remember what happened during those patches. Whatever happened it didn't stick in my mind.

The only interlude patch that has ever had anywhere close to expansion launch hype was 5.3. That was the Seat of Sacrifice trial, as well as the scions and G'raha finally returning to the source. Not every patch is fortunate enough to serve as the actual MSQ epilogue like that. Endwalker wrapped everything up in 6.0 and had to start fresh from there.

I feel like a lot of people joined after Shadowbringers (I can see your join date) and got to binge two MSQs and all the 5.x content at one go, and now have to deal with what a normal patch story cadence is like. I mean, it's not a bad thing to have high expectations, but it's going to be very hard to top that.

I've been playing since 2.4 and it's definitely the worst it's been. It's worse this time because of a number of factors, imo. We have no exploratory zone. We have no relic grind. We have no sub stories or major plot points to ruminate on. No build up, nothing to look forward to. We had no trial story separate from msq that would allow for some variation in story that wasn't the same "I wanna manifest in this world and die" plot that BOTH of the storylines we got this patch featured. There are way fewer dungeons recently and while yeah zzz dungeons big deal, but I'm really missing the lack of variety. People are bored of the 2 minute meta. IS is solitary and unimpactful and the only reason I'm doing it is for the glam rewards NOT the content itself in any way shape or form. Criterion dungeons are not incentivized enough, are hard enough that they require the same amount of coordination and interpersonal planning as a savage but with no rewards. Not to mention the savage mode having stupid arbitrary healing limitations and identical mechanics to criterion. The loot system is garbage.

Sure every patch has suffered from one or two of these missteps and plenty of their own but it's just been a constant barrage of compromises and half-baked ideas. and to top it all off we saw the imo underwhelming conclusion of 2 storylines that set nothing up, demystified and narrowed the world building that the game has spent 10 years establishing. It's very dispiriting.

[Myon88]

Well, I have my own opinion on the other game systems too, but I won't share as it isn't relevant to the 6.x story. I'm just saying patch stories have always been this whelming to me, not great not terrible.

[OgruMogru]

Well, I have my own opinion on the other game systems too, but I won't share as it isn't relevant to the 6.x story. I'm just saying patch stories have always been this whelming to me, not great not terrible.

yeah I kinda nestled the aspects I had with the story/presentation along with everything else because it felt good to reel it off XD but I also feel it's necessary to kinda include all the factors for why people would be less tolerant of a weaker storyline than usual. If everything else was satisfying the lower impact story wouldn't be so egregious. But the point I made about the 2 storylines we got this patch being quite similar and how it has stymied the worldbuilding at large still stands XD Also HW into SB storyline introduced the warriors of darkness, they beat up a bunch of primals and then minfillia disappears.

[Amenara]

I'm really curious when some of you started playing, because MSQ interlude patches have always been at this level to me. It feels like par for the course.

SB: Black rose, black rose, more black rose teasing for months that ultimately amounts to nothing because Zenos deals with it offscreen.
SHB: Boring logistics busywork to do with getting Eulmore standing on its own two feet again, painfully slow soul vessel research.
As for HW, I actually started playing in gordias but its been so long I honestly cannot remember what happened during those patches. Whatever happened it didn't stick in my mind.

The only interlude patch that has ever had anywhere close to expansion launch hype was 5.3. That was the Seat of Sacrifice trial, as well as the scions and G'raha finally returning to the source. Not every patch is fortunate enough to host that kind of payoff, and serve as the actual MSQ epilogue like that. Endwalker wrapped everything up in 6.0 and had to start fresh from there.

I started playing in the ARR open beta back in 2013, just never bothered joining the forums until SB.

As for the individual post patch stuff, as an example I think SB actually had the best for me. It was focused on the politics of Doma and Garlemald, Eorzea and Garlemald, as well as Garlemald's internal politics which I liked. It had the conclusion to the Yotsuyu story, the return of Zenos, and we meet Emet Selch and learned more about the Ascians. It gave us Gaius and his hunt of the Ascians and also started the soul sucking of the Scions to the first so we were figuring out what was even going on with them.

Obviously it's all a personal opinion and I am just a fan of what SB did in the post patch story.