MSQ

[Tommara]

My position's always been that MSQ shouldn't gate the game away in the manner it does, especially when most of it is a drag and, while it's an alright story, it's not going to shatter someone's world to miss it if what they want to do in XIV is located after it.

Like, it's an okay story. It's alright. If someone wants to raid primarily and doesn't care about the narrative, just... let them. Just let people pick an option, or something, that lets them get a massively streamlined story, or just skips it altogether without having to dedicate another chunk of cash for the privilege of not spending 80+ hours clicking on NPCs.

Especially when doing the MSQ is hardly content in and of itself, since it's just a click and point adventure game without anything interesting to do with the games systems and, even when you end up at Thordan with all the build up, the end result is more of a sad joke as your df'd group blows him up in a few minutes and you're back to "click npc, read. Move twenty feet. Click NPC." It's not riveting gameplay, and there's a lot of people who're interested in the gameplay elements that, in XIV, only end up fleshed out at the end game and are miserable to work with before then. I mean, I just go afk on some of the duties on the normal difficulty and somehow win. It's an extremely dull affair.

If the MSQ played like a game and not just the lowest budget movie you could ever ask for, maybe I'd hold a different opinion. But I also don't think the shining feature of a MMO should be the solo player experience, especially when it's more like a solo viewer experience.

Selling a solution to a problem isn't a solution to the problem. At best that's a scam.

And multiple expansions worth of hours to slog through terribly designed quests that promise just about 0 interesting gameplay fun from them is, despite what some people think, a massive turn off to people who do want to play a videogame at the end of the day.

Exactly!

I do want to play video games at the end of the day, and MMO's have been my favorite, although lately I've been leaning toward survival games instead. But I do want MMO's to survive.

Edited Note: I had to add this last part since "Exactly" didn't meet the forum's requirements for being long enough. Although upon further reflection, Alaray nailed it by saying that MSQ shouldn't be gated this way. Reading story should not be used as a gatekeeper before you can play the next expansion. Although absolutely, the story content should remain, just not as a gatekeeper. Gatekeeper requirements should be reserved only for joining public duty finders.

I actually have most fun crafting and gathering, but the latter can't get into zones until my highest level adventurer toon can. A huge step backwards from Everquest2 and other MMO's I've played. And is why I have been spending time in No Man's Sky instead, and Ark before that.

I brought this issue up because I really, really do care about this game. I've been playing Final Fantasy games since it was on the 8-bit Nintendo. Ironically, for their interesting stories.