So Long, Thanks for all the Fish

[WhiteArchmage]

To keep the HMs relevant, by that time everyone had their relics, we were getting i100-110 (or was it already at the 120-130?) weapons and new players would wait a long time for the original 3 HMs to pop, so they were added to the MSQ so seasoned players would help new guys, the same as the turtle hest that would always pop on your roulette ALL THE TIME.

SE likes to keep content relevant by making high level players do it.

[MicahZerrshia]

I don't think he was complaining about the story or the hm, I think he was complaining about the hundreds of irrelevant quests that have you kill 3 of this to get 3 of that or go here here and here to collect this, small things that have nothing to do with the story but exist as filler. We could literally strip away over half the quests in the main storyline and in no way effect the story, in fact may improve upon it.

The majority of new players I have talked to have also complained about this. It's easy for us to disregard as we were spoon fed it over 11 updates and mini updates, but when you sit down and do it all at once it's painful, especially when you are playing catch up and the playing field isn't as even as when the game was new. I've said it before and I will say it again. The Devs, including the lead, think they are so imaginative and forward thinking when in fact they are not. They actually seem to have gone backwards in innovation and creativity. Like how they advertised jumping like it was a brand new thing they invented and were the only ones doing in an mmo when in fact they were over a decade behind the times. It's like they have never played a western game or a number of eastern ones before in their lives.

SE needs to remember they do not lead the pack anymore and maybe step it up a notch to try to get that prestige back. Just my 2 cents.

[FunkYeahDragons]

I've played all the classic Final Fantasy titles several times. While Final Fantasy is a story franchise, things like the 100 or so quests between ARR and Heavensward, which are largely things like sniffing chocobos, are in no way how the Final Fantasy franchise was built.

Quest bloat in older content is absolutely a problem in retaining new players in a Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

[MikeWW]

What a shame, you have to roleplay a waiter doing fetch quests for 100+ hours of your life (feels more like 200 hours to me because its so darn boring) to access most of the locations this beautiful online world.

If there's anyone at square enix reading, please try to understand, fetch quests don't belong in a game, it is worse than work. Why are you forcing us to do endless A to B to A quests and sometimes even A to B to A to C to A quests. There's even a quest that's like A to B to C to D to E to F to G to A at moghome. I mean, seriously, why? When you use it to gate what could be good and useful content (dungeons, raids, access to locations, access to npc's with token exchange), then it is degrading to the players to have to slough through it. If I want to do repetitive things I'll go do real life work, something I can actually feel good about doing. Filler content is made to take up the time of gamers and is done by game developers because it takes little effort, FINE, but if you gate content behind such trash content, it is so insulting.

If I don't like MSQ and fetch quests why don't I quit? Because I liked crafting, the artwork and graphics of the online world and its objects, and housing. Yeah I put MSQ off as long as I could, did 1-3 main story quests at a time, took week-long breaks from MSQ, and frequently shut down the game in frustration or because I was LITERALLY falling asleep from boredom, b*tched about how stupid the story is and fetch quests are, until about half a year later I reached the beautiful city of Idyllshire and finally saw a location in FF14 that almost made me feel like I could be engrossed in the world the same way I was engrossed by the well-built worlds in older FF games. But when I finally reached there I also felt bitter. Bitter I allowed myself to be compelled to put up with endless fetch quests and (mostly) poorly written story and voice-acting because I wanted things like access to Mog couch furniture and used to want things like the token gear. Bitter that much of the content offered by Idyllshire was no longer useful to me since I already had all my crafters at 60 and fully overmelded and no longer needed most of the token gear. And bitter there's still dozens of quests to go to access more gated content.

And a little off-topic, but Square-Enix also apparently put a lot of boring fetch quests in the new Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and I hear the story is cr*p also.

[Erudito]

I had to read that first post twice to understand what the complaint was.

Dude, in no way or form is all content going to be unlocked straight off the get go in any story driven game. Even less so when the game in question is an MMO. Most of the fetch quests are basically side-quests. Side stories that unlock stuff are good as they help you level up along the way.

TC dude, this is a Final Fantasy game, take it all in and relax. If all you want from the game is the action while throwing everything else out the window I am afraid that this is neither the game nor even the genre for you.

If you want to just get to the good parts of the story then, again, take it all in slow and relax, the game is not going anywhere any time soon.

The development team learned their lesson from the tidal wave of fetch quest complaints that they had to weather this expansion, the next expansion will not have the same issue. At least not as bad as this one did. I would know, whenever I see moogles in this game a spark of hatred lights up and would punch them to oblivion if they ask something from me in their "I am cute so do things for me" manner.

All in all, take a break from the game, relax, and come back when you want more FF story goodness.

[Enkidoh]

It greatly saddens me that the whole point for the so-called 'fetch quests' in the game is completely lost on most players in this thread - it's part of your job description as an adventurer! Back when you first started the game and signed up at the Adventurer's Guild, the guild proprietor actually tells you right then and there what you are in for - helping people with mundane tasks! And that "rarely will the work be of realm-shaking importance" (paraphrasing how Miounne stated it in Gridania), but that it was still important, as it helps build trust and rapport with the people of Eorzea, a people who have experienced a horrible cataclysm caused by foreign powers.

Even the much-maligned Titan-lead up questline had a method to it's madness - the reason you were being made to do all that running around was again to establish trust with the Company of Heroes, a mercenary force who were the only ones to defeat Titan previously, but they paid a huge price in blood to do so. Thus, this cocky adventurer who claimed to have taken down a Primal already comes up willing to take on Titan, of course they're going to be suspicious and not exactly willing to believe they could do it, and they especially did not want yet another life or mind lost to Titan on their conscience again. Actions speak louder than words after all. So it was a trust building exercise, to show you really did have the stamina and drive to do so, even after doing all that messing around getting food (and even if you failed, at least you would have had a nice 'final meal' beforehand!).

After all, the Warrior of Light's altruism and willingness to help others in need regardless of how trivial their problem actually is the reason why no one believes the Syndicate's lies at the end of 2.55

- the Warrior of Light killing the Sultana? It just isn't possible, the person who helps those in need regardless of how hard or trivial it is? It's inconceivable to actually have done such a thing! It's clearly a Syndicate plot to discredit them and seize power for themselves! If we hadn't spent all that time fetching trivial things for people, and had just been some mercenary who happened to kill a few Primals and assorted Garleans, we would not have been given that same benefit of the doubt by the common people.

And even if you completely ignore the narrative reasons for fetch quests, they also have a gameplay function as to why they drag the story out - as they were designed to be the main method of gaining EXP. Instead of joining a party and level grinding on mobs over and over again for hours on end, you simply play through the main scenario and sidequests and gain exp that way. Of course this resulted in the main scenario having to be padded a bit with filler quests at times out of necessity, but even those ones are usually handled in a more humorous light (such as the aforementioned Titan quests, or the equally-maligned Moogle quests in Heavensward).

Really, if you come into this game expecting nothing but mindless battles and stomping through random environments without a care in the world, you will be disappointed - everything you do in here has a story-reason for doing so, cause and effect and all that. Always there is a reason why you're being sent into that Allagan ruin or Garlean fortress or abandoned mine. It's a FF game after all, and FF games are story-based RPGs, even the MMO titles like FFXI and XIV. How hard is it to understand that?

[MicahZerrshia]

It greatly saddens me that the whole point for the so-called 'fetch quests' in the game is completely lost on most players in this thread - it's part of your job description as an adventurer! Back when you first started the game and signed up at the Adventurer's Guild, the guild proprietor actually tells you right then and there what you are in for - helping people with mundane tasks! And that "rarely will the work be of realm-shaking importance"

That's great and all but how often do you see your mailman taking down terrorist organizations in his spare time.

Also that "helping people out thing" most likely refers to the game as an mmo and is just another way SE is telling us to work together on trivial tasks as well as the big stuff. Sorta like in Answers when the line states "look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after", it's about being an mmo not a fedex carrier for every Roe, Lala and Hyur walking down Ruby Road Exchange.

You can white knight the dev teams decisions all you want but in the end it is a major turn off for a lot of people and has caused a lot of people I know personally to walk away. Other games, mmos included, do it way better because they are more creative about it. Even fetch quests don't always have to feel like a fetch quest, mundane or no. So they could technically keep them in, but by the twelve they do not need to make them so monotonous, broing and unimaginative. A few here and there like that fine, but there are just soooooo many and they are mind numbingly tedious.

[Evumeimei]

You can white knight the dev teams decisions all you want but in the end it is a major turn off for a lot of people and has caused a lot of people I know personally to walk away. Other games, mmos included, do it way better because they are more creative about it.

Well, I've played a fair number of MMOs at this point and none of them were able to hold my interest for long because I didn't really feel like what I was doing mattered. FFXIV has held me since beta because I love all the work they put into including lore tidbits in all their quests. NPCS, cities, regions, dungeons, trials, etc... all feel more important because the game gives me information to associate with them. They feel more alive. So, for me, even if the quests were more "creative" in other MMOs, if it didn't feel like what I was doing mattered in the world (or that the story/lore was badly presented), then I'd surely lose interest.

Regardless, 3.0 fixed the whole tedious side-quests problem, and they'll likely streamline things before or with the release of 4.0 (I should think).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It greatly saddens me that the whole point for the so-called 'fetch quests' in the game is completely lost on most players in this thread - it's part of your job description as an adventurer! Back when you first started the game and signed up at the Adventurer's Guild, the guild proprietor actually tells you right then and there what you are in for - helping people with mundane tasks! And that "rarely will the work be of realm-shaking importance" (paraphrasing how Miounne stated it in Gridania), but that it was still important, as it helps build trust and rapport with the people of Eorzea, a people who have experienced a horrible cataclysm caused by foreign powers.

Even the much-maligned Titan-lead up questline had a method to it's madness - the reason you were being made to do all that running around was again to establish trust with the Company of Heroes, a mercenary force who were the only ones to defeat Titan previously, but they paid a huge price in blood to do so. Thus, this cocky adventurer who claimed to have taken down a Primal already comes up willing to take on Titan, of course they're going to be suspicious and not exactly willing to believe they could do it, and they especially did not want yet another life or mind lost to Titan on their conscience again. Actions speak louder than words after all. So it was a trust building exercise, to show you really did have the stamina and drive to do so, even after doing all that messing around getting food (and even if you failed, at least you would have had a nice 'final meal' beforehand!).

It doesn't matter what excuse the story attempts to offer. If people find the content boring, they aren't going to be invested. I am someone who adores lore and largely found the story quite engaging but I had no motivation whatsoever to care about the company of heroes except when I started to make up stupid voices for their characters in my head. Why? I was bored. Any sense of world building is lost if your audience loses interest.

See, if the questline pertained to preparing you to fight Titan, I wouldn't despise it. But no, I'm off being miss errand girl for some banquet. We aren't proving anything nor are we building rapport. We're just running errands. In fact, it's almost like Chief Moglin except without the self-referential humour. Fetch quests themselves are not inherently bad, they simply need to be fleeting and serve a purpose. Twenty six of them in a row only serves to waste your time.

It's a FF game after all, and FF games are story-based RPGs, even the MMO titles like FFXI and XIV. How hard is it to understand that?

This is a cop out. By that logic, I could defend a whole expansion worth of nothing but fetch quests. If you've played the single player games, virtually everything you do either advances the narrative or provides character development for the main cast. They don't have you running around to fetch cheese or wine.

[Caitlyn]

Just wanna leave those here ^^:



My "review" so far:
I m not being able to play any other games with a different gamepad control scheme any more. Side effect: grew a weird fetish about girls with scales and glasses... 5/5 Lamias would play again

Just kidding.
In fact, FFXIV (including Heavensward) may be the last game which made me play it for years without any interruptions. Even when its not perfect, there is no other MMORPG on the market, like FFXIV.