So Long, Thanks for all the Fish

[Black_Wing]

Yes FF is known for the story but this isnt a single player FF game, its an mmo so they shoved a load of fetch quests in to bulk it up.

All the FF games I've played never had such mundane fetch quests. So the 'but its a FF game' argument is a bit redundant.

Those fetch quests flesh out the world with lore elements that people skip out on by well..skipping cutscenes and ignored text boxes.

[StormDisciple]

Look I'm all for the Story, it's a huge selling point for me, I wish there wasn't a character limit so I could explain and be explained to.

The problem is NOT the story, or even it's length. It's the nonsense between.

Like getting some ribs but they are 75% bones and gristle.

Example. Why the heck do I have to run all the way to Limsa Limosia to pick up a sledgehammer for Tatarou? That quest has ZERO impact on the story.

Shoot even the whole food quest before the Titan fight had SOME barring, even if it fell flat imo.

[Berethos]

Example. Why the heck do I have to run all the way to Limsa Limosia to pick up a sledgehammer for Tatarou? That quest has ZERO impact on the story.

It was character development for one of the Scions, plus a bit of pacing to keep the story from being heroic dragon slaying style moments one right after the other, because if all you do is fight big threats or deal with things that have major impacts, those start to lose their weight in the story.

A good story will have down time. Working with Tataru is down time.

[WhiteArchmage]

So, the main complaint is "WHY can't SE let me do the content that other players did over a year in just a day, tops?!" well, sorry those of us that played since 2.0 needed quests to keep us subscribed and occupied? That content is already nerfed to hell and back as is anyway. If it helps any the devs already said you won't need to do HW to do 4.0 unlike with 3.0 but if you wanted to jump straight into Heavensward (that is, 50+ MSQ) with no knowledge of 2.x... well, sorry, just don't ask "who's this? who's that? why do I care about this thing happening in Ul'dah?"

[Genaxx]

So, the main complaint is "WHY can't SE let me do the content that other players did over a year in just a day, tops?!" well, sorry those of us that played since 2.0 needed quests to keep us subscribed and occupied? That content is already nerfed to hell and back as is anyway. If it helps any the devs already said you won't need to do HW to do 4.0 unlike with 3.0 but if you wanted to jump straight into Heavensward (that is, 50+ MSQ) with no knowledge of 2.x... well, sorry, just don't ask "who's this? who's that? why do I care about this thing happening in Ul'dah?"

OP was complaining about the mass of pointless fetch quests in the main story.

[Mysteltain]

OP was complaining about the mass of pointless fetch quests in the main story.

The majority of which they removed following the MSQ of 3.0. By removing them, they essentially turned the 10-12 hour long 2.x patches into 5 hours long for 3.x patches. Sorry to the TC if he didn't see that SE was listening to the players over time.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The majority of which they removed following the MSQ of 3.0. By removing them, they essentially turned the 10-12 hour long 2.x patches into 5 hours long for 3.x patches. Sorry to the TC if he didn't see that SE was listening to the players over time.

To be fair, you still have to complete all those mindless fetch quests in ARR to get to HW. A significant complaint from newer players or those looking to try FFXIV is the grind to HW. This is the whole reason a jump potion has been discussed.

[Lisotte]

So, the main complaint is "WHY can't SE let me do the content that other players did over a year in just a day, tops?!"

"We all suffered through this years ago, make the new players suffer it too!"

Really the ARR story is all over the place, completely full of filler and paper-thin. I don't know anyone who complains about leveling, but I do know plenty of people who just have better things to do in their time than gather stuff for some banquet for reasons. This is an MMORPG, not a "oh I'm going to do all these solo fetch quests and be the world's secretary for 50 hours" game.

[LineageRazor]

To be honest, most, if not all of the "filler" fetch quests are in place to flesh out the world. To use Tataru's sledgehammer as an example, the quest isn't about getting a hammer for Tataru. It's about learning that the Scions have budget issues, that Tataru is willing to step into some new shoes to try to address the problem (and can very well get in over her head doing so), to reconnect with Forgemaster Brithael and get a reminder that the crafting guilds are actually part of the world (and not just a sidegame for players who like to craft), and so on and so forth.

While they could have just had a wall o' text explaining the Scion's money problems and that Tataru went out to try to mine up some loot to fill the coffers, and thereby bypass the fetch portion - would that really have been better? Traveling from NPC to NPC gives you the feeling that you're actually DOING something, not just reading a book. You're part of the story, not just an observer.

"We all suffered through this years ago, make the new players suffer it too!"

That's the thing, though - we DIDN'T suffer through this years ago. The extraneous fetch quests aren't NEARLY so bad when you only have to deal with them one patch at a time. They really only become onerous when there's two hundred MSQ's stretched out before you, as is the case with new players today (or folks leveling alts).

This, I think, is the real issue, here. New players want to get into the meat of the game, but the game is pretty much telling them that they need to read three novels' worth of story before they can do so. Long-time players were able to read those novels in bite-sized chunks, a bit at a time, all the while staying caught up on game content. A handful of fetch quests between you and your goal is a whole lot more palatable than a hundred or more.

Finding a good solution isn't easy. Story-skip potions have been proposed, but the problem with that is that the storyline later on becomes incomprehensible if you don't have the story leading up to it. It's only really a viable solution for folks who flat-out don't care about story at all.

The solution they went with in FFXI was parallel storylines for the expansions instead of linear: With the exception of the first expansion, all subsequent expansions had storylines that could be advanced at the same time as (or even instead of) the Main Scenario, and did not depend on events in the Main Scenario. That may not be an option in this game, though - it seems pretty evident that the next expansion is going to carry on the story from where it leaves off in Heavensward, and presumably future expansions moving forward will do the same. While Yoshi P has indicated that the next expansion will not lock ALL content behind storyline progression, I think it's safe to say that most of the endgame activities will depend on it, so the problem will still exist - and be even worse.

[Zojha]

Finding a good solution isn't easy.

It would help a tremendous lot if all non-essential quests would simply be reduced to optional sidequests. That way, if you need the XP, you can do them, if you don't, you can leave them and if at some point your interest sparks, you can do them later. We already have precedence of quests involving NPCs that would have no place being in them depending on where you are in the MSQ (DRG/CUL), so I don't think that's a good reason not to do it either.