The story is great, but it blatantly gets in the way of the rest of the game

[StriderShinryu]

Eh, I do generally agree that the story can get in it's own way sometimes. Just because FF14 is an extremely story forward experience there are absolutely parts that feel like they are treading water, and those times when you're not really seeing any character progress can certainly be frustrating. I would advocate the devs to continue pruning the older MSQ where they can but I'm not really sure there's all that much they could remove without damaging the story. So, yeah, the best thing to do as a player is really just to push through it as best you can.

Be warned, however, that the whole game is story focused so there's not really any point where you're going to leave the story behind and "get to the actual game." The story is the game, and nearly every component that gets released, even the hardcore raid content, is tied to the story in some way (even if just as reimagined "what if" story scenarios).

[MiaShino]

Just gonna say, yes, MGS does in fact do the thing you're saying it doesn't. In order to sneaky beaky bits in certain areas of the game or against certain opponents in the game you do, in fact, have to progress through its story to get there. The game has sneaking, for sure, and I can sneak certainly anywhere much in the same vein that XIV has combat and you can combat anywhere - but you want to do a specific thing that isn't available until later in the story and unfortunately, you're just now arriving in a game whose been developing a story for nearly a decade.

Yes I can begin sneaking about after roughly five minutes of introductory cutscene perhaps few minutes longer listening to initial codex dialogue. Everything I can do half way through MGS1 I can do in that very first room with the two patrolling guards. Each encounter is threatening and has potential to kill Snake. Resolve the first room and be treated with 007 inspired cutscene showing Snake ascending the elevator where after relatively brief dialogue sequence, oh more gameplay now with new footprint mechanics!

Cutscene > gameplay > codex > gameplay > cutscene + codex > gameplay. Interesting story too because you are being shown events not simply talked through them. You see how this terrorist cell could be threatening because getting detected by them is almost always lethal. Gameplay weaves together with narrative which fuels intrigue.

Now compare this to hmm, let us say the Toto grind.

Mysterious man in red armor appears through echo vision > Empire plotline begins to thicken as you wonder how much of a threat these guys are > go faff about doing pointless favors for Buscarron and his merry band of Qiqirn?? > experience confusion

Gameplay pre Toto mostly involves interacting with something or fighting one perhaps two completely non lethal hostile mobs followed by exposition dump.

Look look here I get some of you enjoyed the ARR experience but many of the extended family struggled to make it through. I struggled multiple times making it through that hot mess. Everyone playing now is fricken lucky because I got to experience the pre culled version and whoooooo boy it was hot stinky doo doo.

Some enjoy five hours of exposition dumping meandering plotlines with nonsense elements while others just do not. This is okay! I did not enjoy it and no amount of telling me I played it wrong or they are playing it wrong will change that. I took my time. I did the things everyone said. I did the mini games. I leveled alt jobs. I went off to do side plots like Hildy (enjoyed the heck out of that!). None of this made me feel ARR - Post ARR was any less garbage and nothing will. Of the fifteen+ people I invited to FF14 land none have been happy about the story blocking them from playing the actual game.

Also if you are really not feeling the codex dialogue or cutscenes in MGS you can skip them easily and be right back into the action. Goooood fricken luck doing that in FF14. Many apologies for my many walls of words and letters but even the lengthiest cutscene in the MGS series pales in comparison to five hours of let's go Ala Mhigo in Rhalgr's Reach. Jeeeeezus Jimmeny I forgot how bad that arc was until I watched best friend go through it with their partner... She currently despises Alphy and wishes to and I quote; "Punch this dumb kid"

[Teno]

I will agree with everyone in saying that it is indeed a very story focused game and it should be seen as that when starting it out. I personally thoroughly enjoy this aspect, and I love super slow JRPG. Took me 2 months to do EW with the side quests.

That being said I can also understand his point. There is little challenge in terms of gameplay until you reach endgame, which is literally hundreds of hours of playtime. Some people run old synced ex and savage for newer players so that's an option but it's rarer. You could say that there is the new pvp but it's very different from traditional gameplay, as well as solo deep dungeons but they are very niche, grindy and outdated now.

I wish they would let people do unreal trials as soon as they've beaten the story version, and the game automatically syncs their ilvl. That would at least add one piece of harder content sooner with fun rewards on top.

[IckeDerTyp]

Most people survived the MSQ, you will too!

If not, that's also fine! There's plenty of games around :3

"never touch a working system"

[KurohNeko]

I can understand wanting to suck start a machinist pistol due to how shit the base game story is. And Heavensward is a slow build. But unlike most MMO's where the story is shit and everyone agrees it's shit and ignores it. This games story is actually a 10/10 (starting halfway through Heavensward) and is something you need to experience and should experience in continuation not with large periods of absence unless it's like between expansions. Also quests, raids, and much of the game is tied to story not simply physically tied but story tied. If you simply bought progression books or somehow didn't do the story and got to current or near current content you'd both not know what the Hell is going on and it would ruin a lot of the game.

My advise is calm your chocobos sprout and do the MSQ.
Plus, you will always have the side content the grind is never ending but you only get that story experience once.

[Payadopa]

This is actually pretty darn good advice if there is honesty. Recommend grabbing some deeps jobs you may be interested in then progress while in the queue to help pass time. That has worked for the friends and extended family to make pacing feel better.

I had a similar experience during Heavensward where I played DRG for so long I got bored. These days i swap jobs when i feel the same tiredness and it works quite well for me. Same with the MSQ and side-content. 6.1 took me like 4 days and that was only following the critical path.

On another note, I disagree with the waiting around for a bar to fill as was mentioned before. I like it. I appreciate that SE doesn't just teleport me around from cutscene to cutscene since I value immersion and the little strolls are fun for me. I don't see it as go from a to b and talk. I also use chocobo porters and ferries instead of teleportation quite often. Makes the world feel more connected. But I'm weird like that.

[DuskTS]

Buy the skip potion then. You can skip all the way to level 80/start of Endwalker iirc.

[Faafetai]

Buy the skip potion then. You can skip all the way to level 80/start of Endwalker iirc.

I don't think they should, but it's their choice. The reason for the millions of fetch quests and needless talk to three people who all say 'i don't know nothing' are still there to milk the value of jump pots/books until they lose that when pruning the content.(conspiracy business practice hat is taken off). It isn't so bad to skip everything. And you can't just skip certain parts you skip the whole thing. But If I could skip everything to do with little ala migho I would so do it. There is no skip needless filler/info dump potions unfortunately. Maybe that needs to be in the mogstation. Instead of solving the problem they should just sell the solution like they pretty much do already.

Instead of wasting money just viva la dirt league skip skip skip than new game plus. Thats what I did on my alt. No way am I giving more money to square. I'll work for my unlocks. The hustle.

[Iscah]

Hey! Handing out those uniforms was thoroughly enriching content I truly hope is never cut from the experience. They hath already removed the real bangers such as "sniff the chocobo". Must also say that "Recruiting the Realm" was real hit amongst the friends as it was for me. By the twelve you do exactly that! Every starter town. Talk to five people. Mmm.

Those sort of quests are important, in a back-to-front way. They seem unimportant at the time but in hindsight it's your first meeting with key people who do more important things later.

We recruited people. My goodness do I regret innocently recruiting some of those people given what happened later.

Same for Mr Snooty Scientist with the aether readings. You're supposed to be doing something mundane and uninteresting until it suddenly isn't. The plot point wouldn't land quite the same if you just stumbled across it on your first reading.

[Illmaeran]

So, I've been playing this game for the last two weeks about. I've owned it for longer than that, but never really got into it until some friends told me they were really enjoying it so I resubscribed and gave it another shot.

For the most part I've been having a lot of fun, but I have run into a problem that really annoys me: The way the main quest gates access to the expansions makes your progress grind to a complete halt in an obnoxious way at several points of the game.

I understand how this can be frustrating for people new to the game who have years of experience playing others that put emphasis on things done at max level. Going through ARR when it was current got frustrating for me at times as I was used to how WoW and LoTRO did leveling and content design. Unfortunately for many people in your situation, the story-based design of the game can be extremely off-putting; I get it. That being said, this is a story-based game with the design philosophy that the journey's the destination and not just something to take up time until you get to "the real game".

You've got three options if you're looking to get caught up with your friends quickly.

1. Buy story and level skips to get to the point you want to be at. I don't recommend this as it will have significant repercussions for understanding what's going on in the game, but if playing with your friends quickly is a higher priority for you than experiencing the story of the game, this can help. This is our hobby and we need to enjoy doing what hobbies offer, so the choice is up to you based on your priorities. I made an alt to replay through ARR and HW after many years and ended up being lvl 72 after finishing Heavensward. I bought a Stormblood skip just so I wouldn't be maxed by the time I hit Shadowbringers and lose all that XP. That unlocked all the normal dungeons and raids as well so I could hop right into them without having to do any unlocking.

2. Suck it up, put your head down, and charge through the MSQ only (skipping all non-aether current side quests), do the daily roulettes, and skip the cutscenes as much as you can. This won't help with expansions being locked away, but you'll max our your level quickly and be prepared to do higher-end content (for that expansion) much earlier.

3. For alts; the daily roulettes are a HUGE amount of XP and will get you up there quickly; especially if you use +XP items and food. Leveling, Alliance Raid, Normal Raid, and Trials take an hour total on average and give massive XP returns. Doing those with your friends may help take the edge off until you're caught up with them.


Lastly, in the context of hobbies being something to be done for the enjoyment of the process, if you get to the point where you don't enjoy playing the game, there's no shame in finding something else. We all have our unique thresholds for what we find enjoyable and with a hobby, getting joy out of doing it is the whole reason to do it. I've invested a lot of time and money into a couple different hobbies and switch between them as interest and enjoyment wax and wane. This is true of XIV as well. There have been times where I've had to put it aside, do other things, and return to it with fresh enthusiasm. I even decided that I was going to put it away permanently at one point, but I missed playing an MMO and this was the only one I enjoyed, so I came back.

It's all about priorities and finding the best way to get the experience you find most enjoyable out of what the game offers.