More Content, Less Narrative

[Jeeqbit]

A lot of story decisions are made ex-post. Someone comes up with an idea or something cool that they want to put in the raid and they design the story around that. Even the MSQ is designed that way partially.

It's unlikely they would come up with a sin eaters going through portals boss if the story hadn't been about sin eaters. It's unlikely they would have come up with the entire hades fight if the entire MSQ up until that point hadn't existed.

It's unlikely even the SOS fight would be what it is without the MSQ because the concept of having other warriors comes from the story and the concept of those warriors being the same classes we have access to also comes from the story. Therefore most of the mechanics end up as trying to do black/white mage attacks, ninja attacks, summoner attacks and so on.

[Veranolth]

As the title suggest, going forward I would like for SE to focus more on content rather than narrative. Not saying don't have a narrative, but to put content front and center. Open world content, more raids and 24 mans, pvp should be the center piece going forward. Not a narrative driven experience with dozens of hours of cutscenes, but rather something content driven with lore and world taking more of a spot than story.

So WoW except with more actual content?

Also no, I like how it is right now. PvP being center piece makes no sense for FFXIV, it's always been a side-game as far as I know.

[sharknado]

So WoW except with more actual content?

Within one established story there can be more instances. Like Pandaemonium side stuff or dungeons/trials based on existing side quests/stories. Elpis side stories would be great for that. Shoebill Bardam-style trial? Or old stuff like we did Amdapoor Keep, then the "hard" then SHB happened then we can revisit it trying to extend on the similarities...

[Ilisidi]

I don't like story being gated by fighting, especially when it's not soloable. It's what's stalling me on Eureka, knowing that there's no duty finder to feed me hapless team members makes it difficult to muster up any kind of enthusiasm to make time for Eureka.

I enjoyed the whole Ishgard Restoration and all the quests there. I hope that Island Sanctuary gives something similarity fun and chill.

I came back with Shadowbringers and the Trust system which lets me run the story in peace and at my pace. Afterwards is still long enough to speed run them in roulette and do it with other people. I very look forward to full MSQ Trusts and doing a complete replay of the story on another character.

PVP holds no interest to me beyond getting roulette exp on jobs I don't take into groups. The already announced plans for the pvp future sound good to me and make me more interested in pvp since it removes the stress of time gating and just doing it when I want to without losing out.

To me narrative is content and more narrative content is what I enjoy, even the supposed slight fetch quests in Endwalker which I didn't notice at all since I was doing all side quests as the popped up and therefore was in a fetch quests mind frame anyway. I specially like seeing my character interact with the NPCs in cutscenes.

The game currently is moving into a more rtmi direction and I'm very happy with casual side of it.