*Possible EW Spoilers* Yoshi-san, Why Force Binge Through MSQ All At Once?

[Kuponutz]

EW is great, I'm enjoying it for the most part, but we need to talk about the story.
I am fairly far in (the second dungeon which prob isn't far but I'm counting time in hours, not actual progress), and I am resenting the story so much.

With other xpacs after a couple of hours at MSQ you unlock a dungeon fairly quickly. For example (with random numbers) it would take 4 hours to open the first one, with EW it feels like it takes double or even triple+ the amount of time to unlock the 1st dungeon.

I'd love to run around and get aether currants, just doing some exploration to discover the new World, but you can't do that. Because most of the currents are gated behind, MSQ. Other xpacs all had currents that were gated behind MSQ but it never felt like this restricted. After doing 5 hours of MSQ I'd love to run a new dungeon to change things up, but it's only the one dungeon until you're another 10+ hours of MSQ deep...

It's also kinda crappy that we're forced to binge through it. I usually like to take my time. I'm not one who gets on after a patch and burns through the new content. With EW I was thinking I would go slow on the MSQ so I could fully relish it, it's not every day we get a huge amount of story like this to enjoy. I don't want to rush to end it for the sake of ending it. But that is what we're being forced to do. Because if I don't binge through it I won't be able to do anything at all in the new areas.

I am really enjoying it but I have so much freaking resentment over having to binge through it for hours on end that I am at a point I just don't care anymore. I have never been a cutscene skipper, even on non-MSQ quests. Last night I said f**k it and started skipping cutscenes.

Why did you gate the content in such a way that we can do pretty much nothing until we binge through a story we would prefer to slowly savor? Other xpacs were NEVER this bad on release. The balance of new dungeons, new areas to travel to, and gated other parts to those areas worked well with a reasonable pace through the story. You never had too much of a grind in any aspect. You could go at your own pace and know that there were some things you could still do if you wanted to without having to blast through the story.

OT: One last thing would it maybe be possible for future content for you to put a trigger warning prior to certain dramatic events that may happen? I don't want to flat out say what because it's a huge spoiler, but in Garlemald something happens with a gun. I really could have used a trigger warning for that. I'm not upset over the content, it was a good piece of the story and the execution I could tell had been carefully thought out and was very well done. But a "Hey, this cutscene has content that may warrant a trigger warning for some people" right before the scene plays would have been nice.

TLDR: Story good, forced to binge through it bad, pls consider trigger warnings on some cutscenes

[Puremallace]

Do what? You did not do the first dungeon in Shadowbringers until like 10 hours in.

[Rhysati]

I don't think this is the problem. I think it's the wonky pacing of the story. It starts off at a snail's pace upon a glacier and then starts to pick up after the first dungeon, but then you suddenly hit a wall again and need to ramp back up. Then it gets really exciting and interesting and back you go to walking around talking to people for hours on end.

The previous expansion's pacing was spectacularly done. This one I've mostly stopped caring about the story because every time I start to get hooked and into it, they shut the door on that part and tell me to go back to escort quests.

[RyuDragnier]

I don't think this is the problem. I think it's the wonky pacing of the story. It starts off at a snail's pace upon a glacier and then starts to pick up after the first dungeon, but then you suddenly hit a wall again and need to ramp back up. Then it gets really exciting and interesting and back you go to walking around talking to people for hours on end.

The previous expansion's pacing was spectacularly done. This one I've mostly stopped caring about the story because every time I start to get hooked and into it, they shut the door on that part and tell me to go back to escort quests.

The pacing here feels like how things were back in ARR, HW, and SB. You are entering a new region, people don't trust you, you build trust, then it continues. This is nothing new from what we've seen before. The only reason why the building trust wasn't there in ShB was literally because of the state of the region, things were already at their worst for a century and people didn't have the luxury of not trusting others.

[Clicked]

People keep asking for trigger warnings but I hope they don't do this. I enjoy being caught off guard. It's what makes the moment memorable.

I just unlocked the third dungeon myself. I see where you're coming from regarding how the story needs to be binged to unlock everything. But that's always been the case for this game. Story first. The story justifies the existence of all of the content, so you have to do it.

[TheJamJam]

I feel the minority of people who whine about that scene will just end up being responsible for limiting the devs from their creative process in stories as result. That's how it always goes sadly.

[Destati]

I don't think this is the problem. I think it's the wonky pacing of the story. It starts off at a snail's pace upon a glacier and then starts to pick up after the first dungeon, but then you suddenly hit a wall again and need to ramp back up. Then it gets really exciting and interesting and back you go to walking around talking to people for hours on end.

The previous expansion's pacing was spectacularly done. This one I've mostly stopped caring about the story because every time I start to get hooked and into it, they shut the door on that part and tell me to go back to escort quests.

This. 100% this.
Also I feel that the wonky pacing of this expansion is a consequence of trying to wrap up all these loose plot ends established in previous expansions that ShB wasn't burdened with handling.

[Thatusernameistaken]

Pacing does feel way off at times in EW. They play their cards too close to their chest until the absolute last possible second and then BAM, sudden revelation or dungeon or MASSIVE event, then it's immediately back to talking to the locals to gather knowledge for a few hours until something else comes completely out of left field. I don't mind a good mystery, but I think there's a balance between a good oh shit moment and a wtf moment, and some of the stuff in EW has been more wtf than oh shit, if that makes sense. Still an amazing expansion overall though.

[Bright-Flower]

I really don't see the difference.

Sea of Clouds, Fringes, Peaks, Kholusia and Ahm Areang were all expansion areas where the other half of the map and aether currents were blocked by msq. This happens every expansion.

Every expansion has you splitting up between two different zones to go and do quests. Then when both branches are done, you're back into one main thread and then get a X1 dungeon.

Maybe EW has more cutscenes but that would be about the only differnce. The actual strucuture of the game is very much the same as prior expansions.

On the trigger warning thing, I'd be fine with them adding them as an option as long as those of us that don't want them can keep them disabled.

[Illmaeran]

Regarding that particular scene, I can understand how the content of that could be upsetting to people, not disputing that. I agree with TheJamJam that putting certain disclaimers or "Player's Discretion" warnings before certain scenes would cause more issues than it solves for the general populace. In fairness to the people who wrote and animated that scene, they did a pretty good job of projecting what was going to happen in plenty of time for a player to turn way if needed. The events of that scene are unquestionably traumatic to people IRL but I don't believe Trigger Warnings/Upcoming Cutscene May Be Disturbing For Some Viewers warnings are appropriate for this medium.


Getting onto the main (SQ) topic- I feel you. I absolutely adore the huge amount of quest and story building that's gone into the game. I also understand that trying to resolve a decade's worth of story into less than a full expansion's worth of content is very difficult. There's got to be a lot of expository content to get through to accomplish this; unfortunately for people who prefer different pacing, it comes at the cost of delaying things like dungeons. This is especially true for Dungeons 1 and 2 and Trial 1, where certain story arcs climax.

I hope you're able to find your best balance between speed and story enjoyment. Maybe one day you should make a giant bowl of popcorn or Cheetos and binge all 2000 hours of EW cutscenes. I'm sure you'll enjoy them.

Regards,
IQ