FF14 Needs To Change Its MMO Formula

[Mirikh]

I like filler quests. I like world-building. I just re-played ARR up to Stone Vigil. While Alphinaud is standing around complaining in the freezing snow the WoL is running hither and yon, fetching, delivering, meeting almost everyone in the area. By the time its over you have a pretty good idea of the factions, the local leadership, and the life of ordinary soldiers. I would have been pleased had Dawntrail done its world building that well. I also enjoy the slow pace and did all the side quests. For me classic MMO narrative is unique in giving one the feeling of living through an experience in time which only works if you have a lot of filler and slow pacing.

[dspguy]

I like filler quests. I like world-building. I just re-played ARR up to Stone Vigil. While Alphinaud is standing around complaining in the freezing snow the WoL is running hither and yon, fetching, delivering, meeting almost everyone in the area. By the time its over you have a pretty good idea of the factions, the local leadership, and the life of ordinary soldiers. I would have been pleased had Dawntrail done its world building that well. I also enjoy the slow pace and did all the side quests. For me classic MMO narrative is unique in giving one the feeling of living through an experience in time which only works if you have a lot of filler and slow pacing.

In my experience, it depends on how the player views it. When they see everything in the MSQ between one dungeon/trial to the next dungeon/trial as filler, then they will be disappointed. But, if they spend the time to read the "errand quests" it does contribute to the "feel" of the region. And in turn, if a player does the sidequests in that area, it fleshes out the zone even further.

But when I read the OP's thread title, I assumed what they had meant is how formulaic each patch is. We all know X.0, X.2 and X.4 is new gear tier. And X.1, X.3 and X.5 are 24-man dungeons and gear upgrades via uncapped tomes, hunt marks or 24-man tokens. And we know that the relic will likely start in X.25. And we know that society quests are coming in patch X.whatever and that in between ranks 4 and 5, make sure to only turn in 2 quests, then do the reputation-up quest before turning in the third to save a day.. etc etc etc.

We barely need to even read the patch notes most of the time. Players that have been here for a few expansions could probably guess about 90% of it.

[Daralii]

In my experience, it depends on how the player views it. When they see everything in the MSQ between one dungeon/trial to the next dungeon/trial as filler, then they will be disappointed. But, if they spend the time to read the "errand quests" it does contribute to the "feel" of the region. And in turn, if a player does the sidequests in that area, it fleshes out the zone even further.

ARR had a lot of meaningless bloat that did not contribute to worldbuilding or characterization or anything else that might give the journey meaning. Dawntrail repeats that, but with even less substance.