MSQ

[Ilenya]

(Gods know how loud people would get over being forced to do Ivalice, which while my favorite raid series, is VERY long).

Considering you are forced to do it for Bozja (An NPC from Ivalice is involved), I don't recall many issues with it. Maybe just never looked in the right areas.

[Seraphor]

Story is story, it involves reading a lot of text. If you've played all the old Final Fantasies, then that shouldn't be a problem for you.
I don't see how it's a 'scam' in any sense.

You have to realise that at one point, all of these quests between the end of ARR and the start of HW were patch content. They would come 10-15 quests at a time, and that's all the story you had to hold yourself over for the next three months.
Ultimately you're playing through old content, it's essentially four games in one, and you need to play through them in order before you get to the current story.

If that format isn't for you that's fine, but it's not some kind of 'trick' or anything.
I can't say I understand the mindset of someone who enjoyed old Final Fantasies complaining about the amount of story content, but you do you.

[Tommara]

Story is story, it involves reading a lot of text. If you've played all the old Final Fantasies, then that shouldn't be a problem for you.
I don't see how it's a 'scam' in any sense.

You have to realise that at one point, all of these quests between the end of ARR and the start of HW were patch content. They would come 10-15 quests at a time, and that's all the story you had to hold yourself over for the next three months.
Ultimately you're playing through old content, it's essentially four games in one, and you need to play through them in order before you get to the current story.

If that format isn't for you that's fine, but it's not some kind of 'trick' or anything.
I can't say I understand the mindset of someone who enjoyed old Final Fantasies complaining about the amount of story content, but you do you.

That's just it. I've played enough FF games, and my call is those quests are about time wasters, not story.

[Infindox]

I'm confused about what you are complaining about with this thread? Is it the ARR bit before HW? If it's really that bad to you, skip everything. They've fixed it recently but I'd argue that it's one of the worst parts of the game.
Do you mean that you consider everything in patches after the main expansion to be filler and unnecessary? All the MSQ dungeons (which are in other Roulettes) relate back to the main story, and it's like going through a dungeon in a single player game, only now you have 3 other players with you. (And if you don't even want that, now in Shadowbringers you can bring 3 NPCs to run with you).
Are you saying story is unnecessary in general and a "scam"? Well, this is a FF game first and foremost, and what makes it different from other MMOs. I know people who skip everything cutscene wise and just hang out everyday; that's their choice, much as it is my choice to enjoy it and do dungeons. Both of us enjoy the game because we play it the way we want to.

[Tommara]

I disagree. When I was a Sprout, I finished the whole MSQ in a month (we were at 5.2 at the time) and I wanted more because I had a lot of fun! So maybe the game is just not for you.

You really have no idea how hard this game was when it was released.

You don't even have a clue that my complaint is about boredom.

Edited Note: but that's my fault, and I'm sorry for not making it clear.

[ItMe]

You really have no idea how hard this game was when it was released.

You don't even have a clue that my complaint is about boredom.

Edited Note: but that's my fault, and I'm sorry for not making it clear.

So is your complaint about the story or the difficulty of the game?

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

I just mash the escape key and click that skip cutscene button that shows up. Fixes the problem.


Flight was really the only thing they needed to add to ARR zones as that alone speeds up the post ARR quest-line immensely. That and adding very easy to solo duties.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The only big "side story" content that really feel entirely irrelevant to the MSQ are the Shadows of Mhach and the Four Lords (which gets a lead-in during an MSQ quest, but hasn't come back into anything since). Even Hildebrand has a fairly important bit of foreshadowing, at least in the level 50 quests.

Gilgamesh summons a primal of Enkidu just by standing near a pile of crystals and wishing really hard. At first glance it seems like just another non-sequitur joke, but it foreshadows all of the revelations we get in Heavensward and beyond about the true nature of primals. To a lesser degree, Enkidu being so weak for a primal also shows that the quantity of crystals available determines a primal's power, setting up Shiva losing to Ravana because she didn't have enough power handy.

[Shougun]

Probably not until the end of the saga, so at 7.0, but I imagine if they keep ffxiv as their flagship that there will be a sort of alternative intro, option. 200-300 hours to get to content someone was actually interested, and content designed more modern and competently, is going to become increasingly unacceptable to many types of players who would have otherwise been interested in the game.

On a personal evaluation of the game(s), I felt ARR had some interesting moments, many generally fun moments, usually story was interesting, minus getting people soup.., but there were a few moments I pushed through both in gameplay and story (absolutely not the worst mmo experience I've had, obviously what would be the point of playing a game you think was bad lol, but there were sections or moments that I did because I needed to do them, as the primary reason for engagement). Overall I also don't think the intro, past the cool cutscenes, is as engaging as one might hope. Imo FFXIV ages (evolves) well, improving and getting better as you go. Probably a primary reason I want to see the team with all their experience make a new one, right from the beginning. But it's fine if they want to carry on, they can obviously, just that I don't think all their best ideas and experiences are represented in earlier work and making that mandatory tunnel longer than the longest most well received sRPGs out there doesn't seem like the brightest idea to me.

To be clear I don't regret doing all the MSQ, lol, I enjoy the story- I can just see this sales pitch getting worse and worse each time they stack more onto it (better if you're deeply invested into stories first, worse if you're into gameplay and getting to the best experiences you had invested money for- since most hear about an mmo during media pushes like expansion releases), and I think utalizing MSQ+ replayability with a different intro could be good benefit (optionally). I bet the free to HW feature has helped a lot though, made the pitch far less aggressive sounding.