MSQ Questing in response to Yoshida's interviews

[Zelda206]

Backseating Wuk Lamat would greatly improve most of the experience, I reckon. I've 'heard, felt, and thought' enough about that character for a lifetime.

[Gaddes]

I will say, it's entirely possible that Yoshida does actually understand what some players have been saying in their criticisms of this point, and it was simply lost in translation or Yoshida simply was being general.

Personally, I think the issues with Dawntrails questing that have been brought up is less about "Players want to get to the combat/dungeons/trials faster" and more that some players would like there to be more gameplay variety during the MSQ. This is actually something I think has been a bit of an issue throughout 14's lifetime, but the conversation is starting to happen more now in Dawntrail.

What I feel like 14 needs is more mechanical variety/minigames etc. that help break up the "Walk here/Talk to this NPC" that starts to get a bit monotonous during the MSQ. It would be good to find more ways to give players more variety in what it is they're doing during a quest, and these don't even need to be too in depth.

I know the "stealth" tailing quests had a mixed reception, but I at least appreciate the attempt to add some variety to the questing gameplay.

Yeah, I wasn't put off by the fact that it took awhile to get to the first dungeon, I was put off by the fact we were given monotonous tasks/quests to get up to that point. There were soooo many "talk to 0/3" bits and mindless exposition and gameplay that just wasn't fun.

For comparison, in Endwalker when the WoL and Thancred/Urianger/Estinien first get to Yedlihmad, there's a fun bit of story with them getting sick, and then dealing with Estinien being bad with money, and then meeting the locals but doing it in an interesting way by trying to help a guy sell some fish. Then later we meet the alchemists and Estinien gets experimented on, the alchemists themselves are unusual, and we're engaged throughout with entertaining moments like that, plus you get insight into character personalities and do a bit more bonding with the ones you're with.
In Dawntrail, when we get to the Pelupelu town, what do we do? Get dry conversations about the locals and get mired in a really boring and LONG trading gameplay which seems nonsensical under the guise of showing how their merchant culture works, make a harness for an alpaca quest we don't even get to see, and generally just feel like we're just being dragged along for the ride.

I think the takeaway is that they need to try significantly harder to make quest/story progression more varied and entertaining from those moment to moment quests. Tossing "talk to 0/3" and dry exposition dump paragraphs at us every 20 feet isn't fun or engaging, and just feels like some bizarre fantasy homework or something. I know it's easier to make and probably faster to design, but it's so boring that you guarantee if anyone does NG+ they'd just skip cutscenes a lot more.

[chizLemons]

In Dawntrail, when we get to the Pelupelu town, what do we do? Get dry conversations about the locals and get mired in a really boring and LONG trading gameplay which seems nonsensical under the guise of showing how their merchant culture works, make a harness for an alpaca quest we don't even get to see, and generally just feel like we're just being dragged along for the ride.

I think this is one of the most notable issues that makes the story feels dragged out, and it happens constantly during the entire MSQ.
We spent a lot of time in very meaningless, unimportant dialogue and 0/3 quests to get information that doesn't really matter, so that the thing we'd actually have fun being a part of would most of the time be done offscreen. Why couldn't we at least watch her get the alpaca, or make it a solo duty, or a new minigame?

During the Rite there were a lot of parts we would spend a quests talking to 0/3 villagers, gathering stones or something else, and then when we get back and talk to the twins between quests, they tell us how something funny happened and how they were having a good time. Good for you, guys...I really wish I was there instead.
In the cooking contest part, we spend a lot of time talking to people see their obvious hints of things about the dish, spend a lot of time getting exposition on their taco-solved war, and the whole thing feels like a school field trip to a museum...and then when we get to the cooking part, expecting being a part of it, not only we get no minigame for us to take part on, but there's not even a cutscene of the dish being prepared.

When we finally get to the portal of the Golden City for the first time, it's just "ok you got here, let's go back and don't talk about this for a while", like oh.
Ok, cool, great. At least you are going to tell us now about the Golden City and the things Krile has been asking THE ENTIRE TIME, while everyone told her "you will get your answers after the rite"...right? No, Krile gets her answers offscreen, and we don't even get to see her reaction.

The Scions figure out stuff after the trial by themselves while we go back to Tullyolal to hear Wuk Lamat telling Koana what just happened while we stand there, even though it just happened and we were there...

And I'm sure there's more.

It's not about "getting to battle content faster". It's about feeling like I'm getting anywhere. In the past the story already felt satisfying and there were fun stuff happening along the way, so we're not rushing to get to the battle content - it was more about being invested in the story and having payoff moments during the quests.

Now the story is escalator land. It gets us nowhere and there's no payoff...and that's probably why he feels a lot of people wanted to get to battle content faster, because those are the only times during the MSQ we feel like we get to do anything fun.

[sindriiisgaming]

these threads seam to be constantly popping up now, it feels like everyone wants to say there only small opinions on a massive thread. im not sure thats going to be the best way deliver this feedback.

yoshiP said "he was not surprised about the feedback" and "that he feels he didnt do good with wuk lamat" i think these responses are fine. hes not going to come on PLL and cry because people were so mad about wuk lamat, hes not going to apologise for DT. because this is an entitled belief, that you were owed this. you paid for this expansion and you are not entitled to your money back if you didnt enjoy the msq, since u paid for more than just the msq. are you enjoying the new ex? the new raid? are u enjoying the double dye, the graphics update? are u enjoying anything dt added. no? then its time to unsub and play something else. yes? then you are not entitled to an apology. you paid to watch a movie and you didnt like it. sorry but thats not grounds for appology. speak with you future purchases

WUK lamat is a bad character. but she is not all of dt, the second half of DT was good, interesting and has me excited for 8.0 and patch story. i also want wuk lamat exiled form msq. but i dont think its fair the to underrate dt because of only her

comming off the msq to adress some of you points

and more that some players would like there to be more gameplay variety during the MSQ. This is actually something I think has been a bit of an issue throughout 14's lifetime, but the conversation is starting to happen more now in Dawntrail.

i agree. the msq is a visual novel at this point, it is not fun to just spam X to progress. i feel earlier msq did this better. i would like to see something more like ffr7(1) where u are sometimes IN the cutscenes and have to move around in them. i also like how the people in the towns talk as u move around.

What I feel like 14 needs is more mechanical variety/minigames etc. that help break up the "Walk here/Talk to this NPC" that starts to get a bit monotonous during the MSQ. It would be good to find more ways to give players more variety in what it is they're doing during a quest, and these don't even need to be too in depth. Some of these could even be failable and simly give alternative dialogue, if difficulty for more casual players is a concern.

i would also like more gold saucer activities and i wish the fans could have more contests for these, it might be easier for the devs then. but atm i can honestly say im happy about dungeon and raid changes, there is more mechanics and more challenge. i really enjoyed the spar with galool ja ja

[Balmung_Griffin]

I'd also like more variety to gameplay when questing.

Recently I made a thread with some thoughts about it:

FFXIV and Quest Design

[LisseyCrowe]

Only in your head is going downhill = Stabilized. In numbers, from around 10 million for 8 or so years down to 5.5 then losing 1 million over the next 6 years.

Ask the OP; he's talking about msq content. xiv doesn't have the capacity for deep open world content with the amount of resources and time launch msq takes. The best they can settle for is heavensward/shadowbringers story telling.

For open world content in general they already created them with bozja, and eureka to a lesser extent. Unfortunately they're locked behind instances instead of being a part of the regular open world. And there's benefit for square enix to do this since they wouldn't have to create brand new locations.

Only in your head does "stabilized spectacularly since WoD" includes everything before WoD. But I understand that your point only stands if you ignore what I say. Fact is that for the last 10 years, an aging game has managed to keep 95% of it's playerbase per year, that is commendable. Or at least that's what I'd like to say, but it's also important to state that your "source" isn't reliable. Blizzard doesn't actually release sub numbers, it's all just estimates. If you read the article it even "didn’t consider the popularity of WoW Classic and the pandemic’s rise in players. But there’s no way to know". You did read the article, right? It's impressive, to be sure, but most of it's information is informed guesswork (which is my way of saying the actual numbers possibly fluctuate a lot more and aren't in fact, in a constant decline as you claim).

And I'm not asking OP, I'm asking you. You're the one dismissing ideas because of being "fake" without ever defining what it means. So please, enlighten us, we're listening!

Bozja and Eureka are interesting pieces of open-world content, that's true. But they feel more like mini-games to me than, dare I say, real. They are, after-all, all about killing specific amounts of enemies to pop special events. Great way to turn one's brain off and kill mobs for an hour, but there's obviously nothing else to do in there either.

[Rekh]

Only in your head does "stabilized spectacularly since WoD" includes everything before WoD. But I understand that your point only stands if you ignore what I say. Fact is that for the last 10 years, an aging game has managed to keep 95% of it's playerbase per year, that is commendable. Or at least that's what I'd like to say, but it's also important to state that your "source" isn't reliable. Blizzard doesn't actually release sub numbers, it's all just estimates. If you read the article it even "didn’t consider the popularity of WoW Classic and the pandemic’s rise in players. But there’s no way to know". You did read the article, right? It's impressive, to be sure, but most of it's information is informed guesswork (which is my way of saying the actual numbers possibly fluctuate a lot more and aren't in fact, in a constant decline as you claim).

And I'm not asking OP, I'm asking you. You're the one dismissing ideas because of being "fake" without ever defining what it means. So please, enlighten us, we're listening!

Bozja and Eureka are interesting pieces of open-world content, that's true. But they feel more like mini-games to me than, dare I say, real. They are, after-all, all about killing specific amounts of enemies to pop special events. Great way to turn one's brain off and kill mobs for an hour, but there's obviously nothing else to do in there either.

You're way too emotilnal to comprehend that you've been burned to a crisp with actual proof instead of words. The term you're looking for is a slow decline. You're like those politicians that tell the public we're not in a recession because inflation only went up by some small percent this year as opposed to 20% a few years ago.

Turn your brain off at Red chocobo and Castrum Lacus Litore? Sure.

[LisseyCrowe]

You're way too emotilnal to comprehend that you've been burned to a crisp with actual proof instead of words. The term you're looking for is a slow decline. You're like those politicians that tell the public we're not in a recession because inflation only went up by some small percent this year as opposed to 20% a few years ago.

Turn your brain off at Red chocobo and Castrum Lacus Litore? Sure.

"Quick, quick, distract them with the "You're emotional!" because I don't have any substantive evidence to my claims anymore!"

You are correct, I am having fun with this, which is an emotion. But I think my fun's come to an end, since you've made abundantly clear by now you don't have any opinion or stance at all other than a strong desire to appear in the right, despite not even knowing yourself what right means as you cannot explain it, and so you resort to insults and false data all while hoping the other parties don't look into it.

Have a good day sir, though if I may, a suggestion in return. Maybe study a bit on what open-world design is, you'll be surprised to know it doesn't actually mean combat difficulty. I described Eureka/Bozja as "turn-your brain off" content because all you have to do is kill things, not because the content is easy. But then again, how can you be right if you don't misrepresent someone's point in order to have them defend something they never said?

[Mecia]

I was never really bothered by the MSQ structure pre DT because the MSQ kept me interested throughout. They dropped the ball hard though.