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

[hagare]

The point isn't that I can't be bothered to watch it, the point is if I play five days a week and I like to PvP on one of them, raid on the next, RP on the third, craft on the fourth and do story the fifth then all the other activities I enjoy are held up by the story, so I have to do story five days a week if I ever want no restrictions on the rest of the stuff. I don't want to pay 25 bucks to be allowed to to access expansion content I already paid for without hundreds of hours of frontloaded story and then replay it with NG+ either.

then skip.
So you get access to do what you really want to do.
Then watch the story later if you want to on the fifth day.
You have the solution to your problem.
It's up to you to do it or not.

Or are you saying you don't want to skip and watch it later?
What? You want SE to change the whole structure of the game for you?

[Broken_Wind]

It doesn't help when the quests are mostly go talk to x, walk with y, follow z. EW was the first expansion as well where I skipped every cutscene in an entire zone, because how can prepping supplies for people to go to the moon be interesting. At least the other expansions had more frequent interesting duties involved in questing.



This being said though, it as unfriendly to new players for the opposite reason of WoW, where there is a lot of stuff that players have to do to reach the end game content to play with other players. I actually do expect the game to change because if it is not new player friendly, new players are not going to join. They need to have a second starting point after EW in all honesty, which is why they need to move away from the scions ASAP so that new starting point can begin.

For all that is said about how new player unfriendly FFXIV's setup is, and I don't necessarily disagree with that, they are the only MMORPG in the last decade that has a steadily growing population. New players generally stay here, while they don't in other games, especially WoW.

I am not convinced that a more seemingly newbie friendly approach (other than what they have already been doing with the pruning) would actually be beneficial.

[Jojoya]

This being said though, it as unfriendly to new players for the opposite reason of WoW, where there is a lot of stuff that players have to do to reach the end game content to play with other players. I actually do expect the game to change because if it is not new player friendly, new players are not going to join. They need to have a second starting point after EW in all honesty, which is why they need to move away from the scions ASAP so that new starting point can begin.

Again, this isn't WoW where prior content becomes obsolete. All the old content still has purpose even to a level cap player. You don't have to be at end game to play with others.

It's a very new player friendly game in that respect compared to WoW where long time players won't give you time of day until you're busting out high RaiderIO scores.

[IdowhatIwant]

Again, this isn't WoW where prior content becomes obsolete. All the old content still has purpose even to a level cap player. You don't have to be at end game to play with others.

It's a very new player friendly game in that respect compared to WoW where long time players won't give you time of day until you're busting out high RaiderIO scores.

WoWs prior content became obsolete because of the level squish not because the content did not add to the story. That is why WoW is unfriendly right now you are dropped in world with no knowledge as to what is going on while being referred to as the champion of azeroth. FFXIV is not friendly because of the sheer amount of solo content you have to get through to play with others in a game that is a MMORPG. It is easily the main reason why most players quit the game before EW. To some that solo experience is the best aspect, to others it is the worst aspect. It being very new player friendly is subjective in the end, but it doesn't mean that people have had legitimate complaints and have quit the game, which should not be ignored. The other thing I see mentioned is go do new game + with your friends. Well the MSQ is about 95% solo content, the only thing you would really be doing with other players is the dungeons. Pruning doesn't actually help new players at all as they are even reaching the point where they would have gotten skills that were pruned.

And the busting high raiderIO scores is like 2% of the player base, WoW is about as casual as FFXIV but can be more hard core than FFXIV, it has a bit of a wider spectrum of difficulties that FFXIV doesn't have to offer but that is a different subject altogether.

[Denji]

it's --

it's a final fantasy game.

y'know. the things that used to come on 4 bloody discs?

[Mirhd]

it's --

it's a final fantasy game.

y'know. the things that used to come on 4 bloody discs?

... There are people alive that aren't even aware of that and happen to play this, you know. Also, thanks for making me feel old.

EDIT: OG FFVII is over 20 years old and I still have my copy from back then... and remember playing Chrono Trigger on the SNES... Ugh.

[Mosselyn]

FWIW, OP, you're in what I consider the weakest part of the story. I had trouble getting through it, too, and I generally love the game and it's story. If you can push through, it'll get better. The jobs start to feel better, too. I'd say if you get some ways into Heavenward and still feel blah about the game, then maybe it's not the right game for you.

If part of the problem is that you feel pressed to hurry so you can play with your friends, then I'm a little disappointed in your friends, and maybe you should be, too. There are ways for you to play together, despite the level gap:

A friend of mine started in Oct., and used New Game+ (NG+) to go through the MSQ with him all the way to 80. When he was online and wanted to work on MSQ, that's what we did together. I started a new job to level with him, but I could just as easily have been playing my level cap jobs. We also did/do roulettes together every day, both before and after he got through the MSQ. You can PvP together. You can do deep dungeons together. You can noodle around in the Gold Saucer together.

In fact, you can do most of the content in the game together, despite level disparity. The end game content isn't the pinnacle of this game, IMO. No real reason to rush to it.

[weebtext]

"This isn't WoW" "If you don't like the story you should leave"
Holy hell, are some of you real?

[TaleraRistain]

... There are people alive that aren't even aware of that and happen to play this, you know. Also, thanks for making me feel old.

EDIT: OG FFVII is over 20 years old and I still have my copy from back then... and remember playing Chrono Trigger on the SNES... Ugh.

You should see my SNES and PS1 JRPG collection if you want to feel old.

[Tychonius]

Unfortunately OP, seeing the story as something to get out of the way seems to be the issue. This isn't a game where the design encourages that. The story is the game and the journey is part of the experience.

The only way in which the game's design "encourages" people to see the story as the most important part of the experience is by making it mandatory to complete to access a lot of the other content.

In all honesty, if the story didn't exist the game would probably be fine. There is a rock solid MMORPG with heaps of content to be played, and MMORPGs were popular long before anyone put stories in them. I personally don't really care for stories in MMORPGs because I'm a roleplayer. I don't get all that much out of the game building up my character as the chosen one for hundreds of hours when I can't actually ever reference those experiences in RP. All characters go through the exact same story so it doesn't make any sense to claim those experiences as uniquely yours while in character.

So, from the perspective of someone who is really into crafting their own narrative and participating in bringing the world to life, having one linear story for every character in the game is actually a significant step down from having a system that chronicles a unique path through life for your character.

I don't mind if people like the story, but the idea that the story somehow makes this game is in my opinion simply not true. There is likely a strong bias in the community to really love the story because if you don't like the story the game drives you away with its insistence that you play the story anyways. The issue is that there is simply no need for that. The people who love the story wouldn't somehow miss out on anything if the people who don't love the story weren't forced to sit through it.

I think the story is OK and I want to see it play out, but it isn't my main reason to play. The story only dominates the play experience of FF14 because it insists on itself to the point where you have to literally pay money to not play it. I don't think that does this game any favors.