When are we as player going to demand from SE a better MSQ experience

[BoltNixter]

Thank you for an insightful comparison.
GW2's strength with zones truly is FFXIV's major weakness, where maps are super static lacking any exploration incentives.

Exactly that. The world in FFXIV apart from looking good is complete boring fest.

Nothing to really worth uncovering/exploring. No level/world design with appearances that people live there and that events happened. No cave exploring, no discovery, or a camp that some adventurer left behind. No Treasure chest, no tough monsters (except Fates), no rewarding sight to behold. Empty, baren, lifeless.

There's so much potential with the world, yet it's a empty husk to run through for the MSQ.

[Roda]

I remember when yoship had his team play world of warcraft to "show them how it's done" when developing ARR.

I genuinely believe they should do a gameplay tour of GW2 to freshen up and expand their perspective on just what can be done with MMO worlds.

[Raikai]

I really feel that the OP's point is precisely what is making me hate Dawntrail's MSQ.

Usually it was less egregious in ShB or even Endwalker, because the story there was much more dynamic and better paced, but in Dawntrail you potentialize how bad this design is because of the very nature of the story being told.

For example (Zone 3 spoilers)

There's the trial that requires you to cook, and all that you can actually do is just chatting with locals and fetching things.

What should've happened is an actual minigame involving cooking in which you control Wuk Lamat (so to avoid conflicts with the WoL potentially being a CUL). There you have it, suddenly something that adds a ton of dynamics to the challenge.

I absolutely hate to compare XIV with WoW (which I don't even play anymore) but there they know how to make the questing experience more interesting even for common quests. A good example is the kill quests.

WoW: You interact in a more dynamic way with the environment, being able to pull a lot of enemies to see how far you can handle and finish a quest more efficiently. Stronger mobs can count more heavily towards the completion in some cases (World Quests), etc.

XIV: You're asked to clear a road from threats. There's 2 or 3 "purple smoke markers" that spawn a couple of enemies that will die in 2 or 3 GCDs... and there is. Almost an 'instanced' experience. And funny because you actually have interesting 'kill quests' right around the corner, and they ironically are FATEs.

In the end, I absolutely don't want XIV to become WoW, but there are some hints that could serve as inspiration for a better player experience.

[xbahax92]

Expansion is full with unnecessary yap cutscenes. Not only the msq suffers from it, but also sidequests and role quests.

Get the quest > cutscene
Run to A and talk to person > cutscene
Cast skill/use emote/say something > cutscene
Talk to person B > cutscene
Return to quest giver and talk > cutscene

[Lyndina]

Friends and me were joking in Discord while we did the msq...just make a 60 hour movie...after watching that you are max level and done with the Story.Because that really is the experience we have. Inbetween 30 minutes cutscenes we walk around and have 3-4 serious fights in the open world, that we cant evade by just not aggroing the open world mobs.

[KisaiTenshi]

There are lots of mobs you can kill outside of MSQ. I typically circumvent them as it is. There were some "fights" in this expansion that we watched rather than took part in. Lots of people complained about playing as another character or role in previous expansions so they seemed to reduce that, but I honestly enjoyed that content because I'm a "gamer". I wish they would have had more of that this expansion rather than having us watch on the sidelines.

The roleplay stuff is actually pretty fun, but it should be kept to specific 1 on 1 situations that would otherwise have no reason for existing. Wuk Lamat fighting (CHARACTER NAME) one on one is incredibly tedious, but it actually had a spark of difficulty at normal mode. But many people just like "I don't wanna RP" and select very easy to get it over with.

[HighlanderClone]

I remember when yoship had his team play world of warcraft to "show them how it's done" when developing ARR.

I genuinely believe they should do a gameplay tour of GW2 to freshen up and expand their perspective on just what can be done with MMO worlds.

Not sure that's gonna help for the story. They should actually read or watch something other than shonen or slice of life anime made for hikikomoris and 12 year olds. Maybe pick up a book for once or watch some HBO.

[Valkret]

Not sure that's gonna help for the story. They should actually read or watch something other than shonen or slice of life anime made for hikikomoris and 12 year olds. Maybe pick up a book for once or watch some HBO.

The story is not the problem. Based on reviews it seems like half the people liked it and half the people didn't. So it seems to be pretty subjective. Make the gameplay more in interesting and I guarantee you half the people complaining that the story sucks would not be complaining.

[jameseoakes]

The story is not the problem. Based on reviews it seems like half the people liked it and half the people didn't. So it seems to be pretty subjective. Make the gameplay more in interesting and I guarantee you half the people complaining that the story sucks would not be complaining.

When you make a story that half your players hate that is a really bad sign

[Eyrilona]

The story is not the problem. Based on reviews it seems like half the people liked it and half the people didn't. So it seems to be pretty subjective. Make the gameplay more in interesting and I guarantee you half the people complaining that the story sucks would not be complaining.

I must disagree. If a restaurant serves food that makes half its customers violently sick, you can't say the food is not the problem because the other half was able to eat it as normal, and that is a better metaphor for the situation we are in, and the scale of consequences this could have for the reputation of the whole brand.