SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[BlaiseArath]

- Not enough production value for a P2P subscription based game with an additional game purchase fee. Eg. There are F2P games with smaller dev teams that manage to have more dialog, BETTER dialog, and 100% -QUALITY- VOICE ACTED DIALOG. There is no goddamn excuse for the lazy lack of voice acting in a) towns and the open world b) boss fights c) bloody everything. It is appaling, in this day and age, that SE can't be assed to quality voice-act at LEAST the like... 5-10 lines of dialog in class/story/primal fights.

First off, I'm not trying to attack any of your position, but I would like to rebut. I'm no FF fanboy (only really like a handful of them), and as someone who loved FFXI, i can say with great certainty I give XIV no breaks for the numbing casualisation of it (Yah, Casualisation is a word now).

Voice acting is a decent idea in MMOs, but alltogether one I don't consider a must have. I can take or leave it... if anything the chance of getting a squeeky lalafell will just throw me face first out of immersion way more than bringing me into it. I have an imagination and the ability to read just fine, and for a reason.

So I don't disagree with you, I just don't consider it a "Must have" for any reason at all.

Slowest/laggiest/weakest servers I remember seeing in a MMO.

I'm on Sarg too, and I have not once, a single time since I resubbed about 2-3 months ago, experienced any Lag or disconnection issues outside of the recent DDoS attacks... IDK if people actually experience this or are just parroting it.

Rewards are basically worthless and 100% completely replaced every few months. Nothing is unique, special, or actually valuable.

I agree with you 100% here... but thats the name of modern MMOs :\

- World pretty aesthetically but bland, static, and plastic with no threat or adventure. Not even S rank hunt mobs can kill you if you don't let them since nothing chases you outside of it's pathetically small nest-area. Virtually impossible to die outside.

Also, agree with you 100%. but I think most players would disagree with this... most modern MMOs have that very "safey" feeling open world thats more a decoration than a place for content.

- Terrible, toxic community, likely thanks to all of the above.

Welcome to humanity, honestly.

- Garbage expositional nightmare of a script. Limited voice acting. Noticeably worse presentation and plot than any of the 1.0+ writing/cutscenes.

I happen to enjoy it... FF has never been boss story telling (ease of fanboys, you know as much as I do its basically "blah blah Hero save us, Blah blah bad guy, blah blah crystals, blah blah hero wins", I still enjoy the games but its not exactly groundbreaking), but its sometimes the simplicity that has a few kernels of complexity that interests me in Final Fantasy storylines, the bits that make you want to know how the ending plays out, even if you know how its going to end (You win, duh). Still, I can say I'm thoroughly interested in completing Coil if only for the story. I mean, if I want to don my nostalgia goggles, nothing feels quite like CoP(FFXI) yet to me, but thats probably because in those days, going through an expansion opened up a world to you, not a dungeon.

I wish some of you got to experience Chains of Promathia when it first came out so you could understand what I mean when I bring it up... Ignoring that feeling of entering Promyvion, which was housed inside/alternate the Crags... a large mysterious structure that you had been exposed too since the games released... but that moment when you beat all 3 Promyvions, entered your cutscene and came out the other side in Lufaise Meadows... the melody of the land begins to play and you're now in a new area completely locked to you before, making your way to the Tavnazian Safehold. Theres even a place called "Blueblade Fell" where off in the distance you can see the ruins of Old Tavnazia, a place that was mentioned in the original game as well as show cased in the opening cutscene. It was a kinda magical feeling, you were also greeted with new enemy types, "Bugards". They also had different cloud/weather effects for these new areas, so it even felt like a new place.

The whole expansion was difficult, it was actually the center of a lot of complaints... I personally didn't find it so difficult that it was angering... it just felt all that more rewarding when I won. (I Imagine it much like how rewarding it was for a group to beat Turn 5 back when it first came out, with how difficult it was then). Its more of those feelings. Hard doesn't always have to mean "Impossible", and FFXI did not do everything right... but it really did do some things really right.

I mean, I teared up at the end of Chains of Promathia, that final cutscene where Distant Memories played? seriously, Man tears... it was saying goodbye to all the friends you made on the way... and this took me over a year to complete, so it really felt like I came to know these NPCs well, and seeing them all go their marry way while that beautiful song played? *shivers*, even typing about it brings me back to it.

I know some of you have experienced what I'm saying... maybe not in an MMO, but an offline game, or a movie.. that was what was great about CoP... it could make you feel things most MMOs can't.. emotional attachment to NPCs. I felt kinda similar at the end of Wings of the Goddess, though not as strongly. For those who never experienced or know CoP, just watch this and try to imagine yourself adventuring for a year or more with these NPCs, and this is the final cutscene you get when the story is done and settles: Has a foreign singer trying to sing in English so if you want to hear the song better, just youtube Distant Worlds

Edit: HEre's a fan made video - but the version of Distant Worlds is much more listenable - BOOTIFUL

Seriously, for those who never played XI, I'm sure you feel this way about something from your childhood, or a game that reached you emotionally... thats how FFXI felt to some of us, so unless you happen to be an emotionless imhuman drone, I hope you understand what type of FF MMO we've come from, and what emotions it was able to pull from us despite its outdated graphics and sometimes clunky Cutscenes... in a game significantly more advanced, it should be easier to portray these emotions.

Instances are 100% completely scripted. Fights are Identical every time you do it to the point you can run them with your eyes closed after one clear, or less if you watched a vid.

What would you suggest? I'm no fight designer, so while I could brainstorm some ideas, I can't imagine them being completely random.

Edit: I EDIT SO MUCH IM SORRY

[WinterSolstice]

And as SE was sending me out as an errand boy for the Sylph still as I was closing in on endgame, it was enough for me. The story in this game has been utter crap straight from the start and all way through to that point, it is very unlikely to get any better beyond that. So I stopped reading.

If SE wants their story to be enticing and worthy enough to read, they should actually have given a damn about it.

I see this argument about the story quite a lot. It's typically from people that actually don't give it much thought - but not always.

In most good stories, the hero tends to do quite a lot of menial shit. Seriously, pick up near any critically acclaimed book in the genre of your choice and see for yourself. This is because a story that only focuses on action or epic shit ceases to be a story at all. If you want an example, look at any of "The Expendables" movies. Or anything at all by Michael Bay, really. Is there a lot of epic shit? Yes. Do the heroes ever do anything menial? No. Is the story good? ...what story?

The Warrior of Light in the story of FFXIV is portrayed to be a helpful and humble hero. Somebody that understands some of the inner-workings of politics and understands it's not just about fight this, fight that, fight more. The "errand boy" stuff will always be there in near any MMO. Why? Because they're easy to make.

The thing is, if you actually bothered to pay attention to the entire story, there are very good reasons for you to be the one running those errands. It not only fits with the story, but it embellishes it. It makes the story seem more like a story, and that your character is an actual person, rather than just some walking silent death machine.

In the end, the story shows that true heroes get where they are by doing whatever they can, helping in any way possible. And yes, that means being sent to the Sylphs because of your relations with them. That means talking to political figures about bullshit. And while you are running around, being an "errand boy", the game is foreshadowing events to come.

However, most people can't see this. Why? Because they're the ones that have to do it. And they find it irksome because they refuse to see the reasoning behind it. The story that SE crafted is much like the story in a book, and it involves a lot of epic nonsense as well as political/menial stuff. Not saying you have to like it, but please don't call the story "utter crap" just from your own lack of understanding.

[Almalexia]

People should stop using the term "horizontal progression" as it does not exist. Like choice and options, it is an illusion.

Edit: At least in RPGs.

You hit your head on your way to this thread, son?

[Avarghaladion]

First off, I'm not trying to attack any of your position, but I would like to rebut. I'm no FF fanboy (only really like a handful of them), and as someone who loved FFXI, i can say with great certainty I give XIV no breaks for the numbing casualisation of it (Yah, Casualisation is a word now).

I called myself a fanboy but that'd be the category I fall into as well, especially with all of the latest FF titles. Loved XI and played it until just before the last expansion but in general it's the older NES/SNES titles I'm nostalgic about. Noting the casualization is an astute observation. Even coil feels casual, just less so.

Voice acting is a decent idea in MMOs, but alltogether one I don't consider a must have. I can take or leave it... if anything the chance of getting a squeeky lalafell will just throw me face first out of immersion way more than bringing me into it. I have an imagination and the ability to read just fine, and for a reason.

Another good point. I went off the rails a bit there about voice acting and I think my rage at the VA is because of the bad writing and that there is VA in some places and not in others. Find it jarring and inconsistent and it bothers me. Feels very half-assed. I don't really care about the non-combat VA so much but when they have an actor for a character and they don't do the few combat lines they have, it's a piss off. More immersive to have VA combat dialog as opposed to an annoying pop-up window or chat log entry and I do feel that immersion should be a priority in a MMO.

I'm on Sarg too, and I have not once, a single time since I resubbed about 2-3 months ago, experienced any Lag or disconnection issues outside of the recent DDoS attacks... IDK if people actually experience this or are just parroting it.

It's certainly not gamebreaking anymore in that outside of the DDoS I don't have issues at all in combat, even on tethered cellphone internet or crappy rural hotel internet. My point here was more about how the server capabilities seem very limited for a AAA P2P title. Take DCUO for instance. It's a F2P with millions of users but it's still able to put everyone pretty much on the same server in a given region and it's combat is vastly more fast-paced and reactive. In comparison, XIV can get chuggy as balls if you get too many people in the same area and it feels to me as though the servers are pretty baren, even Sarg. I mean Sarg's one of the busiest ones and I hear from FC members coming from elsewhere that some servers are just ghost towns with nearly useless PF participation.

I agree with you 100% here... but thats the name of modern MMOs :\

This is definitely true, but in my experience other moden MMOs with a vertical progression model don't make you grind as hard for it. I'd have no problem with the disposable nature of rewards if it wasn't for the comparatively excessive grind. We either eat mega-RNG in coil or we get an item a week with Poetics =/ There's Nexus and beyond... but it doesn't look like they'll ever be that much better than the disposable stuff. I resent when what amounts to a never-ending stream of trash drops is gated as a time-sink that, really, makes up the core gameplay.

Also, agree with you 100%. but I think most players would disagree with this... most modern MMOs have that very "safey" feeling open world thats more a decoration than a place for content.

You could be right but I'm not totally convinced. Again, in DCUO, if you let your guard down you can get curbstomped in seconds in PVE open world and mobs chase and CC you. A solid glass cannon build with some CC can survive pretty much anything but it's certainly never a guarantee. Path of Exile, another F2P, does throw armies and armies of trash at you but it's punctuated by the occasional randomly generated mob that -will- get your blood pumping, especially in hardcore mode where death is permanent. Also in PoE hardcore I'd never feel safe AFKing outside of town.

To me, in XIV where death is completely meaningless, there really should be some sort of sense of peril... I shouldn't be able to literally slow-walk into the heart of beastmen/empire strongholds without fear of death. Hell, even Star Trek online has threatening trash. I can't think of another game where I'd feel totally safe running buck naked through a lvl 50 zone as a naked lvl 1.

Welcome to humanity, honestly.

Unfortunately, though in my experience XIV's been uglier than other MMOs I've payed.

I happen to enjoy it...

Yes, coil's story is decent, I will agree. In general though I find the story quality is nothing compared to XI. Like you said, CoP was very masterful and heartfealt in both script and execution. Gameplay served to enhance the plot and it was very immersive. To me it really just feels like they don't care about the XIV story much at all.

What would you suggest? I'm no fight designer, so while I could brainstorm some ideas, I can't imagine them being completely random.

Doesn't have to be completely random but some degree of randomness is required. In XI I'd look up what barspells I'd expect to use but I'd certainly never be able to memorize a whole fight by glancing at a paragraph of text or watching a 5min video.

Right now, every encounter is based on a set move rotation. Every mob uses the exact same abilities at the exact same times every single time you fight it. The simplest way of spicing things up without breaking them, which is what I believe pretty much every other RPG in existence has always done, is instead create move-lists with action use probabilites with checks and balances in place to keep things fair. Basically, checks and balances should exist to keep a mob from doing something back to back that isn't survivable but everything else should be fair game. Examples: You can't let Titan Mountain Buster twice in a row, or do back to back to back Tumult, but there's no reason he shouldn't be able to Landslide randomly or drop back to back bombs. Same for every mob: If attack = Cleave or heavy AoE, add delay before next cleave or heavy AoE. Anything that's forgiveably survivable a mob should be allowed to spam. Additonally, they could randomize the duration or cast time of certain attacks (ie. make Raffie's Blighted Boquet cast time vary from 4-8 seconds or something like T7's voice timers). Anything to keep players more on their toes.

Really all I want is a reason to have to play with my eyes open. Fights can have some scripted moves but the fewer the better. Also, if we had a probability based attack system like I described, mobs could have more moves and fights'd get a lot more interesting. The flipside is they'd actually have to test and QC content more but it's what I expect in a game for which I'm paying a monthly fee.

Edit: Additional complaint. Being charged unneccesary fees for basic account admin that's free in other games.
Edit 2: You -could- let a mob cleave or heavy-AoE back to back as long as the programmed rules provided sufficient time for a healer to make it recoverable. Again, the key here is quality battle programming. Thingfs need to be programmed to be fair but fun and clean. It needs to flow. It needs to feel unpredictable but still natural.

[Dyvid]

If you think I'm wrong about any of it, provide a counter-argument. Like I said, the game has potential and I'm holding out for the expansion, as MMOs typically get better with time. That being said, it doesn't take the sharpest eye to see the games many faults, especially for a AAA flagship title. Fanboyism is the primary reason the game is even competitive because you get people like me, who enjoy Final Fantasy and are nostalgic, willing to give it the benefit of the doubt while they, hopefully, sort their crap out.

It's not about being right or wrong, but whether you are having fun playing the game. The whole point of gaming is enjoyment. It's been a full year now and fanboyism has it's limits, see SWTOR, so millions aren't playing because they are just waiting for the xpac but are doing so because they are actually having fun with whatever they are doing in the game.

[Avarghaladion]

I see this argument about the story quite a lot. It's typically from people that actually don't give it much thought - but not always.

In most good stories, the hero tends to do quite a lot of menial shit. Seriously, pick up near any critically acclaimed book in the genre of your choice and see for yourself. This is because a story that only focuses on action or epic shit ceases to be a story at all. If you want an example, look at any of "The Expendables" movies. Or anything at all by Michael Bay, really. Is there a lot of epic shit? Yes. Do the heroes ever do anything menial? No. Is the story good? ...what story?

The Warrior of Light in the story of FFXIV is portrayed to be a helpful and humble hero. Somebody that understands some of the inner-workings of politics and understands it's not just about fight this, fight that, fight more. The "errand boy" stuff will always be there in near any MMO. Why? Because they're easy to make.

The thing is, if you actually bothered to pay attention to the entire story, there are very good reasons for you to be the one running those errands. It not only fits with the story, but it embellishes it. It makes the story seem more like a story, and that your character is an actual person, rather than just some walking silent death machine. XIV's numbers are hardly jaw-dropping to begin with and they really don't jive with the visible in game population and participation rates.

In the end, the story shows that true heroes get where they are by doing whatever they can, helping in any way possible. And yes, that means being sent to the Sylphs because of your relations with them. That means talking to political figures about bullshit. And while you are running around, being an "errand boy", the game is foreshadowing events to come.

However, most people can't see this. Why? Because they're the ones that have to do it. And they find it irksome because they refuse to see the reasoning behind it. The story that SE crafted is much like the story in a book, and it involves a lot of epic nonsense as well as political/menial stuff. Not saying you have to like it, but please don't call the story "utter crap" just from your own lack of understanding.

It's the same thing they did in XI but in XI they did it well. The "I am an adventurer on an aduous journey" aspects were well punctuated via intelligent applications of seemingly simple but iconic fights, as should be expected in a RPG. Where there weren't fights there were actually involved quests involving new and mysterious facets of the game, like having to scale the side of a mountain, run a maze, sneak through hyper-deadly zones to acquire specific items etc. XIV is go from point A to point B -> repeat. In XIV we get the same "arduous journey" but the punctuation is in the form of riems of politcal dialog and trash content "encounters" that are over as fast as they start. Yes, the errand boy aspect is important but so is the way it's presented. The politics doesn't have to be an expositional nightmare. It never was in XI or any other RPG I've played.

It's not about being right or wrong, but whether you are having fun playing the game. The whole point of gaming is enjoyment. It's been a full year now and fanboyism has it's limits, see SWTOR, so millions aren't playing because they are just waiting for the xpac but are doing so because they are actually having fun with whatever they are doing in the game.

Or they're caught in the grind. Not like human beings are suckers for repetition or anything... and XIV content is carefully calculated to that effect. Ideally, a game wouldn't have multi-page threads like this but it does and there are enough people who take issue. The alternative to intelligent feedback and rebuttal is the slow dying process experienced MMO gamers are used to seeing.

[Nalien]

were well punctuated via intelligent applications of seemingly simple but iconic fights, as should be expected in a RPG

What iconic fights would those be, exactly? I'm having a real hard time thinking of any except the main hitters like the Zilart brothers and Promathia... Treasures had it's fair share throughout I guess. Actually, Treasures was great in that regard, but then again it was its own independent story. Final Fantasy XI up to Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia was a beginning/middle/end sort of deal, as is the existing A Realm Reborn story, and I'd say what we've gotten in this game so far is much better than vanilla XIs "So this is your nations story OHNEVERMINDGOKILLTHESHADOWLORD where were we..." followed by "Lets retcon the ending to that Shadow Lord stuff" for Rise of the Zilart...

Yes Chains of Promathia was amazing, but it was the ending. It's meant to be amazing. The beginning is not, it's meant to establish the world and all it's players. I can honestly say I've enjoyed the Primal fights far more than I enjoyed Rank 2.3 or Rank 5.1 in XIs original story, both in terms of memorability (dem songs) and overall enjoyment, and while I find shit like "Go get Tataru her pickaxe" to be annoying, I find it orders of magnitude less annoying than that thrice damned Sacrarium mission, and all the other Chains missions like it (were they meant to build the world up? They made me hate it, that's all I can say), though that isn't a fair comparison, but I still prefer looking for Tataru more enjoyable than The Rescue Drill and other such awful missions in XI. Most of Chains of Promathia felt like I was trying to read a great book, but the author kept punching me in the face to be honest. Was it a great feeling to finally be done with such awful places as Sacrarium? Sure. I'm sure captives with Stockholm Syndrome also feel pleased when their captor praises them instead of beating them, too. Such places did not enhance the story, they ruined it as far as I'm concerned. I look back on the (handful of) amazing fights and finale with nostalgia, but I brush the rest of it away simply because of what a damn pain it was. Not once have I thought back to Sacrarium and smiled, if I wasn't a bored teenager I'd probably never have passed it, or any of the other such dull pieces of mission fluff XI had to offer.

Only issue I have with A Realm Reborns story is the small map means we end up treading the same places fairly often all the damn time, which sucks, but hey, they did rebuild the world in an astonishingly short amount of time, so I can forgive them for that.

[Bucy]

I don't mind the weapon and armor treadmill so much, but there is a lot of grindiness in the game that often makes me dread logging in.The relic quests can be a drag, but aren't as ridiculous as they once were, with the exception of Novus and retuning the stats after Nexus; materia prices are out of control IMO. The relic quests do lack any epic feeling, to the point that they really can't be called a quest, rather a list. A quest starts somewhere, takes you on a journey, challenges you, then ends with you defeating an adversary, finding the "thing", and growing as a person/adventurer. The current grind for Oaknots is really unwelcome. I spent months grinding the beast tribes to finish them and be done with them so I could focus on other things. Now I have to grind Ixal quests everyday for the rest of my Eorzean experience, because the sealants are needed to make the new crafting and gathering gear, and will take a total of 108 day to get enough just to make my set before I can make any gil. It has been suggested I should just buy the stuff...I don't have the gil for these things. The devs obviously subscribe to the "Log Horizon" economic model, but there is a glaring flaw in it. The malaise that players had in LH was cured by them learning to make food with flavor, which cost more time, rffort, and currency, but they can't log out. They are stuck living in their game. There is no escape in LH. The devs tell us we should just grind more to sell more, or do more dungeons, put in more effort, because that is how we can make the make hundreds of millions of gil needed to buy houses, buy materia, buy sealants. I could do that, or I could find something fun to do. FFXIV is my entertainment and not my career. The sort of effort and time they think we should be exerting is what I reserve for making IRL money to support my IRL family.

[WinterSolstice]

It's the same thing they did in XI but in XI they did it well. The "I am an adventurer on an aduous journey" aspects were well punctuated via intelligent applications of seemingly simple but iconic fights, as should be expected in a RPG. Where there weren't fights there were actually involved quests involving new and mysterious facets of the game, like having to scale the side of a mountain, run a maze, sneak through hyper-deadly zones to acquire specific items etc. XIV is go from point A to point B -> repeat. In XIV we get the same "arduous journey" but the punctuation is in the form of riems of politcal dialog and trash content "encounters" that are over as fast as they start. Yes, the errand boy aspect is important but so is the way it's presented. The politics doesn't have to be an expositional nightmare. It never was in XI or any other RPG I've played.

Hopefully once (if) they decide to move away from the simplistic style of game-play that's friendly towards people new to the genre, that will open up ways in which the filler content of story lines is presented. Or even sooner, since they technically can if they have the creative power behind it.

However people need to absolutely understand exactly the point that you stated: The errand boy aspect is important. Just recognizing this fact makes the tedious bits not as tedious (for most).

Also, they really seem to be getting better at presenting the story line as time goes on. There is a nice amount of humor in 2.4's main scenario...hopefully it's a sign of better things to come?

[Avarghaladion]

What iconic fights would those be, exactly? I'm having a real hard time thinking of any except the main hitters like the Zilart brothers and Promathia... Treasures had it's fair share throughout I guess. Actually, Treasures was great in that regard, but then again it was its own independent story. Final Fantasy XI up to Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promathia was a beginning/middle/end sort of deal, as is the existing A Realm Reborn story, and I'd say what we've gotten in this game so far is much better than vanilla XIs "So this is your nations story OHNEVERMINDGOKILLTHESHADOWLORD where were we..." followed by "Lets retcon the ending to that Shadow Lord stuff" for Rise of the Zilart...

Yes Chains of Promathia was amazing, but it was the ending. It's meant to be amazing. The beginning is not, it's meant to establish the world and all it's players. I can honestly say I've enjoyed the Primal fights far more than I enjoyed Rank 2.3 or Rank 5.1 in XIs original story, both in terms of memorability (dem songs) and overall enjoyment, and while I find shit like "Go get Tataru her pickaxe" to be annoying, I find it orders of magnitude less annoying than that thrice damned Sacrarium mission, and all the other Chains missions like it (were they meant to build the world up? They made me hate it, that's all I can say), though that isn't a fair comparison, but I still prefer looking for Tataru more enjoyable than The Rescue Drill and other such awful missions in XI. Most of Chains of Promathia felt like I was trying to read a great book, but the author kept punching me in the face to be honest. Was it a great feeling to finally be done with such awful places as Sacrarium? Sure. I'm sure captives with Stockholm Syndrome also feel pleased when their captor praises them instead of beating them, too. Such places did not enhance the story, they ruined it as far as I'm concerned. I look back on the (handful of) amazing fights and finale with nostalgia, but I brush the rest of it away simply because of what a damn pain it was. Not once have I thought back to Sacrarium and smiled, if I wasn't a bored teenager I'd probably never have passed it, or any of the other such dull pieces of mission fluff XI had to offer.

Only issue I have with A Realm Reborns story is the small map means we end up treading the same places fairly often all the damn time, which sucks, but hey, they did rebuild the world in an astonishingly short amount of time, so I can forgive them for that.

Don't get me wrong, it's getting better, like WinterSolstice said, and non-main scenario plot is decent. I think the primary issue with the main scenario aside from the tedium is the ludonarrative dissonance. Plot says "zomg we need to fear this swarm of evil" -> character procedes to single handledly decimate hundreds of thousands of said evil's minions. Aside from that I'd agree with you that it's thus far at least on par if not better than vanilla XI. That being said, I do expect a P2P game to learn from it's own company's past experiences and they should know how to make it at least on par with XI expansions, presentation wise.

It would help immensely if instead of the same generic "the person you need to talk to is beside an overturned wagon/is a traitor/needs help/is unconcious" -> get ambushed by the same 3 humanoid trash NPCs that always ambush you they'd just give the errand boy encounters some flavour. The last trash encounter in 2.4 I thought was alright thanks to them giving it a battleground feel and the addition of ninjas in the mix and all. XI errand boy encounters were kept fresh and fluid though. We rarely got generic mobs, we'd get special quest NMs like the Opo threesome or the pots, or the Manticores, and such. They put care into making sure it didn't get stale. My experience with CoP was opposite your though. It felt challenging without being overly difficult and I never felt frustrated. It goes with my earlier comment in XIV that our world is just waaaayyyy too safe. If they'd find a middle ground where players need to at least pay a little bit of attention when they run errands I think everyone could be pleased. The addition of sneak/invis, for me, would be welcome.

Yes, you're right that another big part of it is how tiny our damn sandbox is. Even with our (imo) disturbingly slow movement speed, it's way too small.

Edit: So yes, to rephrase, it's only the main scenario script I find to be lacking. Most of the class/DoH/DoL stories are very well done, Hildebrande is awesome, beast quests are pretty good, coil is good (and should be more readily accessible to everyone considering how fundamental it is to the plot) and CT/ST story is quite good. Come to think of it I'm surprised Main Scenario storytelling isn't as on point as it could be. The secondary plots are actually one of the reasons I'm holding out for future improvements and I especially like that all of the class quests are left wide open for future development with a wink to the audience.