I am tired of being dumb.

[Enkidoh]

Ultima Weapon wasn't from an 'Allagan ruin' -

Minfilia mentions Gaius excavated it from underneath Ala Mhigo.

And as for Titan, the only ones who had ever fought him before the player did (as far as the narrative went), were a bunch of mercenaries whose actual identities were unknown, hence the player was put through hoops trying to first track them down and then finally build up trust with them. Yes it was dragged out, but considering how many players completed the main scenario from launch in a matter of days, one might think SE didn't drag the story out far enough.

I hate to say it Jinrya, but it's obvious to me you're just so jaded about FFXIV SE could have FFVI-level writing and you'd rip it to shreds on minor flaws in the narrative. The game's just started, we have years of story development ahead of us.

[Jinrya-Geki]

Ultima Weapon wasn't from an 'Allagan ruin'

I made a small mistake. It's still Allagan technology though, the concept of the idea those is still find a weakness.

We could have read an old recording saying do enough damage to Ultima's chest would disrupt it's aether absorption processor. Which is why he can't use the primals aftera certain point. That could be a whole new instance.

[Enkidoh]

That's true, although I guess the Alliance was kind of running against time there

- Gaius had given them an ultimatum and the three nations were so sure the Scions had been wiped out (including the player) and hence were a second away from throwing down their arms at Gaius's feet when the player showed up with Cid, Minfilia and Alphinaud, and hence were convinced to resist. Then, defeat didn't seem quite so remote, to the point they decided the best chance of survival was to launch a preemptive attack on the XIVth Legion.

Time really was of the essence - half the reason Operation Archon succeeded was probably due to taking the Empire completely off guard before Gaius could adequately organize his forces (remember, Gaius's arrogance kind of proved to be his undoing here - he was so sure the Ultima Weapon was invincible and could take anything the 'primitive savages' of Eorzea could throw at it, to say nothing of his conventional forces like his ground troops and magitek weaponry). Running around trying to find hypothetical weaknesses in Ultima Weapon which might not have even existed would have just wasted valuable time. They had to seize the moment and they did.

[Themis]

Not every thing that we do has to be some important, world-rests-on-your-shoulders mission or quest. Often, the side stories are about building trust with the people that we need help from, and the best way for an adventurer to do that (who, to me, are little more than hands for hire) is to help with any requests that they have. The other members of the Scion have other roles they are better at like scouting information or talking/getting info from people; they aren't adventurers like we are, and that's one of the many things we do bring to the team.

Personally, I find all these extra quests and taking more of the "grunt work" makes us more humble. Some players do like to have the "make your own fate" style storyline, but the main FF series isn't about that kind of storytelling - it's laid out for you to follow and enjoy. It would be nice if some of the choices you did make changed some of the outcome (even if only by a few different lines and a slight change to the cutscene perhaps) but it's not something I particularly expect when to comes to an FF story, and that's fine by me.

[KoujiGeki]

True not every quest need to be important but when 70%. Is a fetch us so tea we can't move the scions without our tea. Is a little frustrating. That no no named grunt cannot do a coffee run?

[KoujiGeki]

You know I wish that it was like other ff and went off the decisions I make. Like the fact I said no to guias that eorzea is not worth saving. Why not have a mini cutscenes quest of people questioning me about it? Milifina has the echo she would know what we said. But no bland story of hero who blindly follows the "good" guys without question.

[WellGramarye]

What do we put more effort into? Making tea for a stupid person (Minfilia).

I would like some choice. Do you want to help make blonde bimbo tea? No, move on to something interesting.

True not every quest need to be important but when 70%. Is a fetch us so tea we can't move the scions without our tea. Is a little frustrating. That no no named grunt cannot do a coffee run?

You don't make Minfillia tea, yougather the Tea for Tataru because she asks you (her friend) a favor to gather ingredients for her because
1. She is a coward and not a combat specialist thus can't do anything dangerous (you've had to save her up to this point...)
2. She wants to make a surprise for all the scions, because they are all mostly at odds with the situation of moving. Its a big decision to up and leave everything they built behind, and its possible they could lose some of the support they gathered.

It has nothing to do with the Scions moving or "making some blonde bimbo tea." You guys obviously don't read the cut scenes.

[Nialle]

As annoying as the pre-Titan feast chain was, it's supposed to build off the fact that most people see Adventurers as low-talent mercenaries who do anything for money no matter how stupid (something the Ishgardians rub your nose into all the time) and also it's supposed to be funny since the 'important person' that they are expecting in Costa Del Sol that they're making the feast for is actually YOU but they don't realize it until afterwards.

[Sylari]

One of the parts that oddly irked me the most was during the postgame when you hear Yda and Papalymo (and everyone else) talking about all the bribes they've been offered when the player, the only person who's actually done anything of note, doesn't get approached once. It's not anywhere approaching a big deal, it just feels kinda weird.

Also wasn't a fan that the dialog didn't change when I agreed with Gaius that the city-states had weak willed leadership, the scions were inept and the Twelve are just trumped up primals that his response didn't adjust at all.

Considering the Tribuni were nothing but walking cliches anyway, expanding on their storylines wouldn't have helped much

I'd argue you have that backwards. They're walking cliches because we only get a half a dozen lines out of them before we go blow them up. Nero, in turn, is the most interesting because he's the only one that gets any meaningful dialog outside the boss fight. I don't think we'd be calling him interesting if all we got was "he's jealous of Cid and makes terrible puns a lot" and then he immediately died.

On that same note, shame Gaius is gone. Personally I find him leagues more interesting than Nero or Lahabrea and really one of the more fun FF villains in general (mostly because he lacks that "look at how evil I am" characterization a lot of FF baddies tend to have now).

And it's been said before but the storyline being stretched out like it was with filler sections was because the storyline needed to fit with the expected levelling curve for the game. If the story quests didn't grant experience, the story wouldn't have had quite so much filler.

Not quite so sure there either. Sure it's definitely probably some part of it, but it wouldn't have been difficult for them at all either to compress the difference (remove a quest from an arc and pad the XP from the remaining story quests) or taken the TOR route and made the story more direct/short and left the filler as nonstory quests.

[Skies]

One of the parts that oddly irked me the most was during the postgame when you hear Yda and Papalymo (and everyone else) talking about all the bribes they've been offered when the player, the only person who's actually done anything of note, doesn't get approached once. It's not anywhere approaching a big deal, it just feels kinda weird.

But that does make a degree of sense.
You're an adventurer, finding you short of having a linkpearl is as hard as finding a needle in a haystack. After all when you're not saving the world with the Scions you're being a war hero with your grand company or dancing with tonberries, spelunking the depths of amdapor keep, playing a duet with sirens or the twelve only know what feats of stupidity and courage both. How can you be bribed when you are really nowhere in range to be contacted?