More Content, Less Narrative

[Skiros]

Because the raid content would suffer without that story to underpin it, as I explained. If they don't care about the story, then what do the developers have to inspire the raid content to be more than a skeleton in a white room?

The story helps increase our excitement to fight these bosses and to continue playing the game. When there is a new patch or expansion, we are excited for the next chapter in the story. When we unlock these bosses, we are excited to fight them because we have all of the context and reason behind why we are fighting them and why the boss is so cool.

MFW "raid content would suffer without that story to underpin it"

Yeah, which is why Asphodelos had such a great story that wasn't in any way rushed and low quality right?

This game's problem is that ONLY the MSQ matters, as we get into ShB and EW.

That's why even side stories are now becoming trash, Nier raid story sucks, Asphodelos raid story sucks. Eden story was so bland and sparse that some floors had like maybe 10 seconds of dialogue before you unlocked it. Bozja was the only side content that had a decent story last expansion that was fleshed out, meaty, and engaging. But then they decided not to continue with it this expansion ROFL.

Not to mention there's basically no story for Ishgardian Restoration, no story for Heaven-on High, etc., so like LMAO we never even had proper worldbuilding for half the side content in this game. We don't even have job stories now. Literally don't have lore for like half of our abilities on jobs now. Remember when Astrologian had a lore for every single card?

MFW "x content would suffer without that story to underpin it"

MFW people don't notice that we're getting LESS story for side content too!

I love the lore in this game but people are seriously deluded if they think they actually care that much about worldbuilding for side content nowadays. A team focused on worldbuilding would not have put out whatever garbage the Nier raid was.

Remember when job quests actually fleshed out significant parts of the lore and world? Like Monk quests giving you a history lesson on Sil'dih? Yeah role quests in EW are just for players to "uwu we stan Aymeric! XD" now. Barely any lore, barely any character development (other than the Fordola arc), barely any worldbuilding.

Let's not labor under the delusion that the story is great outside the MSQ in ShB and EW. If you are actually a lore/worldbuilding nerd you would have noticed that this entire game is starting to cater towards the true casuals - the people who literally only do the MSQ and nothing else. We're focusing on fan service (like 80% of the Scions) over meaningful character development and meaningful worldbuilding that makes the world feel alive. Think of how much lore there was in ARR in every nook and cranny of each zone, each quest, and each piece of side content, and compare that to ShB/EW.

Right now the Asphodelos raid is literally basically a raid without context, a skeleton in a white room. The story underpinning it is so uninteresting, so badly fleshed out it would've been better if they just released it without a story.

I'll actually buy the argument that "the raid content would suffer without that story to underpin it" if raids actually have story equal to the level of Bozja's storyline lmao.

This entire game is being dumbed and stripped down, whether it's story, raids, PvP, glamours, crafting/gathering, ... all for the purpose of creating what is genuinely an awesome MSQ experience, but that thing literally only lasts for days out of 2.5 years of an expansion life cycle.

If people disagree can anyone even explain who the hell Hesperos is in more than 200 words, other than the fact that he is the master of Asphodelos and for some reason went insane/delusional? Even Twintania had more lore than Hesperos. That Bellular vid also seriously pissed me off, literally squeezing out lore by looking at the choice of Greek words to try to justify that Asphodelos' lore is deep. That's how desperate we are for finding meaningful worldbuilding these days. But let's also not delude ourselves into thinking that FF14's 8-man raids ever had great worldbuilding outside of Bahamut. Coils are literally the ONLY raid series which had any semblance of a story and worldbuilding. Omega raid series was literally a fan service fiesta. I honestly don't even know how anyone can say "the raid content would suffer without that story to underpin it" seriously with a straight face when Omega exists.

I honestly hate that there are so many new players who think whatever worldbuilding we have is deep these days when it has just been on a decline in everything outside of the MSQ.

Rant over.