Do you think they will calm down about the amount of unnecessary dialogues?

[vincexorcized]

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[Carin-Eri]

One element I definitely agree with - "Machinations" needs to die in a fire.

[Exmo]

imo it's a quality not quantity issue. If most of the cutscenes were not so bog standard, if they genuinely employed the artform of the medium, they would be generally more engrossing. I suggested one way they could do this in another thread
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...threads/521757

[UkcsAlias]

The main issue i have with MSQ these days is the lack of fighting that takes place in it. Its from dialogue to dialogue with rarely any fighting going. I have a good idea why they removed these, as most of the time those fights are pointless due to massive overleveling, but surely they can at least fix that part (always apply lvl scaling). Or just more instanced content.

For voiced i dont have that issue as much, as it does feel like its at least a bit more than just clicking and reading. You can toggle on auto advance and just sit back and listen and watch the activity go on. (if only there was a setting where auto advance is ONLY active during voiced custcenes and not all).

But especialy when certain characters play key events, it feels like a waste when you cant even play the encounter yourself. You can always finish it with some nice animations at the end, but at least the build up could be more than just 'click text balloon away'. Sure, for slower readers this might be a nuisance as duty based popup texts often go away too fast, or show up at times where they cant read them. But for this, you could make something that allows you to read it back, or extend its duration in a setting. Or maybe an even better solution.
As long as instanced events do not have a strict time restriction and have decent checkpoints, it doesnt matter if you die or are a slower learner.

These encounters are also something that makes the msq feel longer with less content, allowing the text to be far more direct, which helps with the feel of pacing. And if done well are easy to remember (this also counts for poor ones, but on that, the only reason i hate a certain EW instanced thing was because feeling defenseless and having no checkpoints was just an anoying move). No matter how much i hate a certain character, if i can play an instanced duty with it, ill be more happy than just plain reading/listening to that character. It keeps me far more involved.

[Exmo]

If the only way to make amount of dialogues bearable is by telling a great story only, then it might be a problem.
It feels like they can't find a middle ground.

I always felt "impatient" in this game in terms of MSQ. I understand this is an MMO, but the way they serve the story is not that good and never been. Having one great moment, followed by hours and hours of random quests, to come back again at that one great plot moment is darn annoying.

Maybe they should make their quests longer?
It would help with the feeling of playing a story told by a sloth that teases you next step of the story, by doing fetch quests 80% of the time.

There's different ways to interpret "telling a great story." My perspective is that I am patient and tolerant of cutscenes generally speaking, but definitely prefer when they're "good tv." I think if cutscenes in FFXIV were more engaging to watch, even if they still communicated the same text, players would be far less likely to skip them.

[Valence]

Now don't get me wrong, I do love reading lore and eating it like it's a mukbang.

But the (bad) habit of dragging and dragging and dragging words to express a simple idea is such a frustration to me. And before anyone else says "It's like that for every FF", is a complete liar.

I'm a huge fan of the franchise, played them all, and never ever felt it was a slog to read. From FFI to VI, everything goes smoothly, fluids. From VII to X, it's all big show non-stop action with some little breathing moments that take maybe 20 text boxes to explain what is going on etc etc..

Up until XVI, which surprisingly was made by some of the same team as XIV if I'm not mistaken? It was a pain, horrible sidequests, big show intro but everything else is your typical XIV pacing. Why don't they say right away they love visual novels and want to make a proper one?

I have nothing against VN genre, but the feeling of playing MSQ while knowing you're going to read such boring dialogues because "Machinations" OST starts playing, when you exactly know what NPCs will talk about and how dialogues will conclude, is dreadful.

And now that DT got pretty bad reviews about it, is there any hope for them to actually learn from it and try to do their best about such slow pacing?

I do completely agree as someone that's been playing since early HW. Everything is so verbose that you could cut it down by half and it would flow better. They spend their time talking about the next threat and how they're going about it that the writing leaves absolutely no wiggle room for actual character development. Compare a standard dialog sequence of the scions with what happens when the party gets into a new town or place in any older FF title, or how emotionless XIV's text (and XVI) is in comparison.

Don't get me wrong, they manage to convey a lot of very strong emotions through the story plot itself, but the dialog? The character interaction? That ain't it.

[Underscore]

I wonder if the dialogue would be easier to get through if a lot of it wasn't so stilted and samey in English. I hear it's often more natural-sounding and flavourful before EN localization.

For example, I was recently replaying part of Dawntrail in NG+ (for research purposes) with JP voices and EN text, and I noticed the Hanu Hanu have a speech quirk in Japanese where they'll repeat certain words twice (like "everyone everyone" or "now then now then"), but in English that was removed and they sound just like everyone else. There's other stuff that's lost in translation too, like Alphinaud's code switching when he's talking to the WoL, or Vrytra being changed to talk all fancy just like the other dragons whereas in JP he sounds like a normal guy because he's lived among humans for millennia.

One element I definitely agree with - "Machinations" needs to die in a fire.

There's a new track in 7.3 which according to someone on YT is internally named "Keikaku2". Machinations is called "Keikaku" so I think that means they made the new track to reduce the Machinations spam. Given the unusual amount of new music in this patch, I think they're trying to improve the variety in cutscenes.

[ameliaw]

They should. What infuriates me the most is the unnecessary amount of unvoiced cutscenes where I have to watch every character's reaction and movement to what was previously said before I can read the next boring, verbose piece of text. It makes the already bad experience of reading such dialogue even worse and makes skipping extremely tempting. Not everything needs to be a cutscene.

One element I definitely agree with - "Machinations" needs to die in a fire.

Absolutely.

[Jeeqbit]

I recently started replaying FF9 and was taken aback by how easy it was to read even while skipping. The text is a few words per bubble, extremely concise due to the screen size at the time, yet it conveys the emotion better even than FFXIV. It proves it could be far more concise and not tedious to read.

But the (bad) habit of dragging and dragging and dragging words to express a simple idea is such a frustration to me.

While some of it is taking moments to breathe, what is very wasteful is the entire cutscenes spent showering you with thanks and praise when you just did your job. They also take time to spell things out to you, most noticeably in Dawntrail, in case you forgot everything and didn't follow it properly.

[Verty]

Wuk Lamat: "Hmm, I need milk for my cereal."

Erenville: "In this place, one can find such things in the fridge-known around these parts as the refrigerator."

Wuk Lamat approaches the fridge.

Wuk Lamat: "But what purpose could such an object serve?"

Alisaie: "There's only one way to find out."

Wuk Lamat opens the fridge.

Krile: "Twelve preserve! Milk! My grandfather must have known about this. The more we see, the more the puzzle of his visit to the store falls into place."

Wuk Lamat: "Milk? Surely there must be some use for this."

Alphinaud: "It seems one might add it to one's cereal to aid in its aetherical conductivity. Such a combination would improve both the taste and texture without doubt... but one must be careful, for surely it poses the risk of turning the cereal into naught but a soggy mess."

Wuk Lamat pours the milk on her cereal and begins eating it.

Wuk Lamat, with her mouth full: "Such a boon our companionship has been! Truly it is the spirit of unity that makes such things possible!"

Wuk Lamat asks you to go find three lost socks in her apartment, except two of the ones you can interact with are the wrong color.