MSQ

[Shougun]

Oh for sure. There are far fewer quests and many quests that are there also had the number of steps within them cut down. I can think of an example around level 25? There's a bartender in South Shroud that wants you to throw a bucket of cold water on one of the drunken patrons. Originally this quest involved going behind the bar, interacting with the bucket to pick it up, interacting with a point in the stream to put the bucket down, interacting with the bucket to fill it with water, interacting with it again to pick it up, then interacting with the patron to throw the water on him. Now, the bartender just gives you the bucket full of water to go throw on him.

The quest is still a bit filler-y in the "before I help you, I want you to help me" kind of way, but they cut down the time it took to do it dramatically.

Another one that really upset me was a 2.1 quest where you spent several quests helping F'lhaminn make a bottle of perfume before she'll agree to follow you to go see her daughter. Now when you find her, she mentions that she wants that perfume before going to see her, but then says that she doesn't need your help and will just pick it up on the way, cutting out all those quests where you were out gathering water and picking flowers, which was absolutely filler fluff. They maybe could do more... but I think they did a fine job so far and potentially they could look to other expansions now to see what can be cut back.

Then indeed, amazing. I've always held for those who know they're into story that it's well worth then to do the story, and basically gain ~230 movies worth of content for a small price- and this makes that better (concern still for the grand scope as we move into 7.0, that's a HUGE wall, but at least the story pacing is going to feel nice until we get there). Where logical continuing to do that could help too. There were a lot of great moments, but stuff like that .. was not as much so lol. It made a lot of sense at the time, they were really trying hard to remake the game and had to get in a lot of content and all this criteria. They've even said themselves one thing they've learned is that the length is not as important as if it's fun. Filler to be filled is not great. So there is a dinner in later expansions but the tone and use of that meeting is so different (good contrast vs 'filler contrast').

Also you're giving me delivery ptsd mentioning these quests lol. Everybody wants my hot body for it's inexhaustible teleporting anima stores @_@, deliver the cupcakes yourself!!!

[ItMe]

Too bad they cut the quest where an imp disguises itself as one of the scions and you have to throw bombs at everyone to figure out who the fake is.
I liked that quest. It had a lot of good character stuff.

[Penthea]

Too bad they cut the quest where an imp disguises itself as one of the scions and you have to throw bombs at everyone to figure out who the fake is.
I liked that quest. It had a lot of good character stuff.

Really???? Omg I'm so disappointed! That quest made me laugh so much especially at the end. What a shame to remove it.

[AngelCheese77]

Having done MSQ at least three times, twice pre and once post patch changes, i found the ARR setup well paced and enjoyable. What you dismiss as "filler" has important elements that cant and should not be skipped as unimportant sidequests

The leadup to Heavensward, the missions prior to Stormblood are essential for the integrity of the entire experience, the msq prior to Shadowbringers should not be missed under any circumstances as it is essential for the storyline

Curious: What do you see as "filler'?

I'm curious as well. Did you know that much of not all of the side quests themselves have wonderful lore and stories about the town or area you're in?

Granted, the quests post ARR to Heavensward could def be cut down (I did those all, but I think some was cut?) or just move them to side quests or something. But I also came into FF14 knowing this is a game about telling a story, and that is what the MSQ does.

[AngelCheese77]

You're absolutely right about! Thank you so much for your generosity of spirit.

I've had too many old school gamer friends quit this game, prolly because they know better.

I've been playing Final Fantasy since it was on the 8-bit Nintendo and absolutely loved them, so really want this game to work.

But at the end of the day, those of us who watched a stump for days in our early days of MMO gaming, can easily recognize it for what it is.


Edited Note: FF14 is still much better than WoW, which is probably the only MMO it can compete with, which isn't saying much. But even WoW at first, was a huge improvement over Everquest.

Uhm yeah hello? Been playing MMOs since EQ in 2001 and Horizons ...

And I don't see FF14 as any sort of TRAP. What are you going on about?

[wereotter]

Too bad they cut the quest where an imp disguises itself as one of the scions and you have to throw bombs at everyone to figure out who the fake is.
I liked that quest. It had a lot of good character stuff.

I remember being stuck on that quest for DAYS because Melt (one of the A rank hunts in East Shroud) decided to spawn right on top of Yda, and with hunt trains not being a thing at the time, I had to just wait until enough people came around to decide to kill it so I could progress the quest.

[Shougun]

Too bad they cut the quest where an imp disguises itself as one of the scions and you have to throw bombs at everyone to figure out who the fake is.
I liked that quest. It had a lot of good character stuff.

Ideally everything possible could be moved into a side quest, hopefully they can try that in the future. Although I think some trims cannot be done like that as they're done within the quest.

On the quests that would go out of sync I actually believe SE could get into using Echo more. Place a flickering sepia like npc with quest marker to represent echo quests.

A. Echo quests could tell stories you were never part of, which could be neat (great chance to tell stories normally not possible). Perhaps with an echo growth mechanic (experience manipulating your ability), so you can interact with the echo to learn things otherwise not possible (excuse for exp / fighting monsters, though it wont be timetravel just a high powered version of temporarily altering a potential reality, or echo beasts come after you.. that could be a new enemy type lol).

B. Slap stuff like this into that. You skipped the moment to play imp games? Can remember it later, just come back to it.

C. Changes over time that are community based might take advantage of this mechanic, allowing people to say for example see Ishgard restoration partially done (and interact with those entities).

Would need to make a difference between when you are generating a temporary alternate reality vs remembering something you just leap frogged though. For example coming back to do the imp side quest would be a memory you just kind of let slip through the cracks lol.

Also all of those sort of goes on my own fan theory on why we're timeless, which is just that we exist in an almost out of time state- so we could technically be helping one individual in one area and doing the same in another at the same time. Which also might go along with our endless stores of anima, when we are appearing somewhere we are not transferring our anima like a standard teleport everyone else does, but just rather appearing at that time in that location, one of multiple entities of ourselves that exist as a collection. "Why the heck would you think of all that?" lol. Mostly because we have a time bubble sort of issue, and my thought was perhaps not a time bubble exactly for everyone else - just more that we're timeless. So you might be doing a task with someone in the year 1050, and then the next hour working in 2060. There are a few quests that do have this out of order effect, if you do them that way, so just my thought on all that- is we're uniquely broken / out of sync. Sort of a our player is a Tidus of Eorzea like concept (well he was a dream, but the drift of that idea of being 'off'). Maybe go as wild as to say we're the echo itself manifest- birth driven by the mother crystal beckoning us to form, because why not.. lol.

I remember being stuck on that quest for DAYS because Melt (one of the A rank runts in East Shroud) decided to spawn right on top of Yda, and with hunt trains not being a thing at the time, I had to just wait until enough people came around to decide to kill it so I could progress the quest.

Oof. XD

[TheMightyMollusk]

I played Vanilla WoW. Anyone who thinks this game is bad about filler clearly never had to hunt the headless raptors and footless quillboars in the Barrens. Or run across half of a continent, without a mount (because you used to not get a mount at all until level 40), through hostile territory (where getting too close to the other faction's guards would not only aggro them, it would also flag you for PVP), to complete a class quest. And let's not even get into the old attunement quests that you had to complete just to enter some dungeons and raids. Or, for that matter, modern WoW's byzantine requirements to unlock flying post-Pandaria.

[Jojoya]

The 2.1 to 2.55 could use a bit more trimming but it's really in much better shape than it had been.

If you don't like playing through story, skip it. If you still feel like the game isn't appealing, why play it?

Being a popular MMO doesn't make it any less of a niche MMO by western standards. It's not going to appeal to everyone - and that's perfectly fine.

It's not about us needing him, this was a very pivotal moment for his kind that he'd show up for so many other things, but not this and this being after that side story would have taken place, in fact he hasn't appeared at all since where you can logically slot that side story into the canon if it was required.
It just felt very out of place for me, the last time we spoke with her, he was there, this was such a large call back to that time and he was a big part of that moment and it being a big moment, and it could have felt far more genuine if he convinced her it was time to move on, not that it didn't feel right coming from us, I just don't see any reason for him to not have made an appearance other than he couldn't and there's only one reason why he couldn't have been able to.

You're trying to assign human motivation to a being who lacks it.

He didn't take part when the Allagans invaded Mericydia, leading to the death of Bahamut and his subsequent summoning by Tiamat as a primal.

He didn't take part in the start of the Dragonsong War, when mortals killed Ratatoskr.

He probably wouldn't have been present for the conclusion of the Dragonsong War if our trip to Keeper of the Lake hadn't woken him and Hydaelyn made her request ("Harken to me, Hydaelyn! I remember... and I consent.").

Suddenly appearing in 5.5 would have made little sense considering what had happened in the past. There's a bit of a difference between we'd like to see a character reappear and that character's appearance making sense.

I played Vanilla WoW. Anyone who thinks this game is bad about filler clearly never had to hunt the headless raptors and footless quillboars in the Barrens. Or run across half of a continent, without a mount (because you used to not get a mount at all until level 40), through hostile territory (where getting too close to the other faction's guards would not only aggro them, it would also flag you for PVP), to complete a class quest. And let's not even get into the old attunement quests that you had to complete just to enter some dungeons and raids. Or, for that matter, modern WoW's byzantine requirements to unlock flying post-Pandaria.

I actually miss the attunement quests in general. The problem with them had been requiring an entire group of people to give up a significant amount of time for the sake of the single player trying to get attuned - and then having to repeat that every time a raid member needed to be replaced.

If Dungeon Finder and Group Finder had existed from the start of WoW, I suspect attunements would have remained a part of the game. The player needing attunement could have found groups to get them done withour inconveniencing the others.

[Chie_M]

I played Vanilla WoW. Anyone who thinks this game is bad about filler clearly never had to hunt the headless raptors and footless quillboars in the Barrens. Or run across half of a continent, without a mount (because you used to not get a mount at all until level 40), through hostile territory (where getting too close to the other faction's guards would not only aggro them, it would also flag you for PVP), to complete a class quest. And let's not even get into the old attunement quests that you had to complete just to enter some dungeons and raids. Or, for that matter, modern WoW's byzantine requirements to unlock flying post-Pandaria.

Mankrik's wife is enough of a meme from those days to make threads like this laughable.