Length MSQ from all the expansions - it is getting insane

[Atelier-Bagur]

That's always going to be a subjective topic, and even if people agree with it, that doesn't mean they can't treat FF14 as a raiding game.



I'm not willing to guess on how many are drawn to what without numbers, but even if it's true that most people aren't playing for the endgame I don't think those that do can just be dismissed as outliers. If someone were to ask for advice on how to approach the game then ideally you would try to figure out what interests them and not immediately shepherd them to what you consider the most popular part of the game. That's just setting up some percentage of people for disappointment, just as only suggesting to play for raids and rushing to level cap would be setting up those interested in the story for disappointment. We can, and should, try to cater to both groups at once as well as the many other types of players that participate in the game.

I fully agree that they should do more work on reworking the msq to be fun gameplay wise.

However with the story skip books at mogstation I seriously doubt theyll just offer free msq skips to new players when the devs are counting for those new players to be invested in the msq (which is always the selling point) that they can forgive the games shortcomings.

Its why a lot of people foolishly bark about an expansions quality based on its story rather than its content with takes like Stormblood being bad and Shadowbringers being good. Its all because of the focus the devs have made with the game which was always has been about the narrative.

Im just stating facts here.

[Troxbark]

Story skipping is already monetized. You really think theyre just going to go back on it and give the skip away for free?

Besides youll still have to chug through whatever current expansion anyway. And besides trying to sell new players for its endgame is just so funny to me. The endgame of this game is horrible. No satisfying substance to the raids, no good retention whatsoever. People who believe otherwise are delusionial.

It only provides the option and nothing more. The monetized level skip is exactly that, a level skip.

[Tulvi]

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

Sorry you didn’t enjoy the way this MMO is built, but it is evident that it is not the right MMO for you. Before FFXIV I played WoW and only WoW for 10 years and I had no clue that there are other approaches to MMOs out there. When I migrated after Blizzard's scandal, the very things you criticise were the ones that opened my eyes and made me see what a poorly designed MMO WoW has been all along.
The fundamental difference between the two isn’t really the approach to alts and classes (as it would seem at first sight), but locking systems behind story progression. For players new to FF franchise (as I was back then) this is really helpful and important part of pacing.
Thinking back, I absolutely prefer FF’s approach over WoW’s.
In grand scheme of things FF is much much more new player friendly than WoW. Imagine you’d be new to WoW and never played Warcraft series, so you would have no clue about the lore. The experience you’d have is rushed levelling to endgame, during which you would NEVER get even slightly close to the story of the expansions (not even with Chromie). Simply put, if a young person starts to play WoW today, they will NEVER get to kill Ragnaros, Illidan or Lich King. They will know nothing about the game’s biggest asset - the story in its entirety. Wow is throwing away its biggest asset and I was fully aware of it even when I played WoW. If I wanted to know the lore of even the most current expansion, I had to look up additional resources outside of the game as WoW’s storytelling is limited to a handful of short cutscenes and progressing through the story doesn’t unlock anything of relevance for your gameplay.

If FFXIV didn’t have major systems locked behind MSQ and would be a clone of WoW in this regard, I’m 100% sure I would quit after a week and went back to WoW with a bad aftertaste.

So all in all, this just really doesn’t seem to be the right MMO for you as you appear to not care about the story and have very specific expectations regarding alts. I hope you find the right MMO for you though.

[DragonFlyy]

Since I am a veteran MMO player, played them since 2001.
I hate this hand-holding that this game has.
Also, the number of hours you have to spend to play through the ALL msq is just insane.
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.
I like playing every class on different characters like in all other games out there.
It feels like SE is forcing me to pay story skip since it takes me more than 30 days to complete msq on single character. Mostly because I hate it, and I hate it because it is not voiced and there are too many fetch quests. The old republic has all quests voiced, maybe because the number of them is so much smaller than FFXIV.

So, FFXIV isn't the MMO for you. Find one you can enjoy.

[Krokov]

Insane? not at all what's wrong with a MSQ taking some time? It fleshes out the story and lore and adds to gameplay. Based on what you said it seems WoW would be more to your liking (though alot of the quests aren't voiced there either).

[Chasingstars]

Insane? not at all what's wrong with a MSQ taking some time? It fleshes out the story and lore and adds to gameplay. Based on what you said it seems WoW would be more to your liking (though alot of the quests aren't voiced there either).

I don't know how many alts the original poster has, the story is fine on the first go, but I can say when your leveling by hand more than one character, you start developing the habit of skipping through dialogue. Which is because you already know what is going on with the story.

To give perspective of why I would make an alt: I get 16 treasure maps a day (112 a week) by botany, 14 alts and my main were leveled by hand, 2 alts with boosts. Aside from maps, I use alts for the purposes of having different characters without having to use a fantasia or name change. Most were made before NG+ was even a thing.

Lets say you make one alt and level it by hand and go through the msq. Thats another 872 quests you have to go through. This is not counting what the game deems as side content such as leves, or eureka, or deep dungeons, or leveling a hand/land job, or other such activities to get them up to speed. For each additional alt you want that has completed the MSQ without buying a skip, that is another 872 quests you're doing. So if you make a total of 3 characters (1 main and 2 alts) that is 2616 quests.

[Krokov]

I can agree with having to go through the same dialogue over again that you want to skip it I do it too. If I'm doing a quest or something that I already know about I'll skip it because I already know what's going to happen. Though I'll say the actual length of the msq can at small points get boring but I guess the length itself never is really bothered me personally. My whole premise was if the OP doesn't like a lot of the things mentioned in their post then they should go check out World of Warcraft as a lot of the stuff she described is like how that game is and I assume other MMO's out there as well

[Chasingstars]

I can agree with having to go through the same dialogue over again that you want to skip it I do it too. If I'm doing a quest or something that I already know about I'll skip it because I already know what's going to happen. Though I'll say the actual length of the msq can at small points get boring but I guess the length itself never is really bothered me personally. My whole premise was if the OP doesn't like a lot of the things mentioned in their post then they should go check out World of Warcraft as a lot of the stuff she described is like how that game is and I assume other MMO's out there as well

Hmm that is fair. I personally think ARR is mostly to blame for it as its got a staggering 244 quests compared to other expansions, 27.98% of the total msq as of writing, a lot of which do lean in to being fetch quests. After that it starts to be more easy to go through subsequent expansions as they don't nearly reach the same amount. Like Heavensward in its entirety that most people tend to like is 157 msq quests total.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Hmm that is fair. I personally think ARR is mostly to blame for it as its got a staggering 244 quests compared to other expansions, 27.98% of the total msq as of writing, a lot of which do lean in to being fetch quests. After that it starts to be more easy to go through subsequent expansions as they don't nearly reach the same amount. Like Heavensward in its entirety that most people tend to like is 157 msq quests total.

Probably needs a trim but even then I still argue the msw quests are just dull and uninspired in terms of gameplay.

Only reason I feel most people give passes to Heavensward and Shadowbringers msq even though its still the same garbage quests is due to the mob mentality of the story being good. Even though its strength lies on what came before in order to make people care about its narrative.

I wish they both trim and redesign all the quests to be more involved but thats a difficult and a tall order to make for how little newer players care about it since a lot of them are goaded to follow the narrative in its entirety anyway. Its why msq reactions become so popular and its not just YT or Twitch. I see this on other platforms like Twitter and Reddit. Its why FFXIV is succesful because it plays into the narrative crowd like a netflix show.

[Nebelheim]

Probably needs a trim but even then I still argue the msw quests are just dull and uninspired in terms of gameplay.

Only reason I feel most people give passes to Heavensward and Shadowbringers msq even though its still the same garbage quests is due to the mob mentality of the story being good. Even though its strength lies on what came before in order to make people care about its narrative.

I wish they both trim and redesign all the quests to be more involved but thats a difficult and a tall order to make for how little newer players care about it since a lot of them are goaded to follow the narrative in its entirety anyway. Its why msq reactions become so popular and its not just YT or Twitch. I see this on other platforms like Twitter and Reddit. Its why FFXIV is succesful because it plays into the narrative crowd like a netflix show.

I miss ff11 and old mmo style quest that gives a sense of danger and exploration. In ff11 i loved exploring zones and how quest built the world of an expansion and brought you deep into dangerous parts of a zone.