The MSQ defeated me

[Lustre]

I could have skipped the cutscenes. But I did want to know the story. Just wished the ratio between storytelling and actually doing something was less than 1000:1

Even for people who like the lore and story such as myself, you're right. It's a bit much. I do not refer to the content of either the lore or story here, but instead how they are presented to the player. The ratio is wildly off. There are many ways to tell a story, and XIV's method of storytelling and lorebuilding is extremely heavyhanded. Ie, expressed nearly exclusively in cutscenes and dialogue boxes. Which is fine for a 1990s jrpg, but sometimes I forget I'm playing an MMO. Some games can tell an interesting story with 0 cutscenes or dialogue boxes. Not that I think that would be good for xiv, not in the slightest, but there are other ways. Sometimes I dont wanna read millions of text boxes, I want to press buttons and see some action. I wanna DO something. The funny thing, is when i feel like this, i read the dialogue boxes anyway "just in case" I miss something important but I never do because very little of value is said. Lots of words to say not much at all.

The escort quests seemed like a step in the right direction, and despite them being overused for endwalker I would like to see more of these systems which force gameplay and narrative together. Similar to the rolrplay quests in msq, that was also a good step.

I don't think it would be as bad if characters were more expressive and less stiff. But considering in most in engine cutscenes the most my character can do is nod or put his hands together, it makes for boring viewing sometimes.

[Payadopa]

I disagree. There's by far more combat in the average JRPG than what FFXIV has on offer. In the most recent patch the only mandatory combat takes place in the dungeon itself. Whereas if I fire up, say, the FFVII remake there's a much healthier balance of combat and story to be found.

Oh c'mon. We all have different preferences.
There is nothing 'healthy' about having more or less cutscenes.

[Payadopa]

It's a final fantasy game.

Y'know. The thing that used to come on 4 discs.

I'm here for exactly this.

Exactly. I wouldn't have played since 1.0 closed alpha if it didn't have such a focus on narration. Same with XI back when.

I think the main issue is pacing yourself. I myself still haven't done all role quests even though I could. A only unlocked SGE a week or so ago. For me it's what keeps it fresh. And I actually like sitting down on some evenings to get my lore/story fix for an hour or two. And EW took me 2 months to complete. But I'm slow like that. Haha

[VirusOnline]

No that's absolutely atrocious. Why would you even care about the story if your experience is through a TL'DR? Do you approach a several-installment-long novel series and go "I want to skip to the latest book and just have a TL'DR of the previous installments?". You want to just be able to jump in at any random part of the story you feel like and experience in completely seperate and out of context? This story, and any properly told story, doesn't work that way. It's a long, overarching narrative, it's not meant to be experienced at whatever moment in the several-years long storyline you feel like, it's a start-to-finish type of story.

I'm also a story enjoyer, but hot damn if this isn't a dramatic reply.
To be honest, I love to revisit series I've read and re read through the more exciting passages and there's nothing wrong with that. Choosing how to experience a story should be an option. There's no one way that's right.

On top of that, unlike WoW, you are playing as the canonical main character. It wouldn't make any sense for a new player to just jump in whatever random zone in whatever expansion because not only would it be completely out of context it wouldn't even make any sense to them. You're not playing as some random, faceless adventurer you're playing as the main character who has an actual face and name. That type of approach works when there's basically no story at all and you aren't playing an actual character, or you just don't care about the story and just want the option to play whatever content straight from the begining. This isn't a proper theme-park game so that's not going to work.

It can be done =). Write a nice little summary cutscene, introduce scions, etc, and insert the player starting in whatever expansion they chose.
Also er, we are technically a random faceless adventurer when we start the game.
We are quite literally addressed as "one of those adventurers" upon getting to our starting city and for a good portion of ARR to HW even.
Actually being this widely well known and hailed as the Hero is now an obvious detriment that we see in the current MSQ and will be very interesting to see how SE handles this in coming expansions. The attempt to revert to "adventurer" is failing atm.

If you actually care about the story than why would you want to experience it in such a way? May as well just buy a skip at that point. While yes, it's gotten very long, but if you're actually playing the game for the story it's just more content to experience and not an obstacle. The game up to stormblood is completely free, the story and all the other content prior to that expansion. I'm sure what they'll do is start making even more expansions free. Why does a new player need to jump to the latest expansion? There isn't any rush, the content isn't going anywhere, it's not like WoW where content becomes irrelevant permanently after the next patch.

This entire "gotta get to the latest expansion ASAP" argument that's been repeated ad infinitum throughout MMO's in general is predicated on FOMO, a consequence of games like WoW which make all their content irrelevant as soon as the next patch arrives so as to encourage you to FOMO in so you don't miss out. FF doesnt have that problem since they have managed to do what every one of these games should have done all along and keep their content relevant. You aren't forced to do anything, either go through the content as it was meant to be experienced (half of which is completely free), or just buy a skip. But WoW's approach to storytelling is objectively horrendous, it fundamentally fails at basic storytelling and no game, least of all FF, should be trying to replicate it.

The context here is "new character", not new account, not new player. Choosing which expansion to start at would be a great option.
It's not about skipping or FOMO, getting to the latest ASAP, it's about giving players options in an alt unfriendly mmo - especially players who have already completed MSQ.
FOMO already exists the day of patch drops.

See, I've been playing since HW and leveled 4-5 alts.
I think I know the story =3

Also um, do you know the amount of useless content that is laying around in XIV ? Come now, let's not play WoW bad XIV good.

Dang yo, I'm sad.

[Tehmon]

The context here is "new character", not new account, not new player. Choosing which expansion to start at would be a great option.
It's not about skipping or FOMO, getting to the latest ASAP, it's about giving players options in an alt unfriendly mmo - especially players who have already completed MSQ.

This I agree with. If you have cleared the game from ARR to the recent expansion without buying a story or a job skip, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to start off from another point when you make a new character.

I'd at least make it so that you can start off from ARR, Heavensward or Stormblood if you have cleared the story without any skips, while keeping the current most recent story skip as a cash shop exclusive. And when 7.0 is released, make it so that you can start off from Shadowbringers, while skipping to Endwalker is a cash shop exclusive. And when 8.0 is released, Endwalker becomes available as a starting point. This way they could balance accessibility and replayability for players, while not messing up with the money flow coming from people buying story skips too much, since I'm sure that is the bottom line with a change like this.

[Aluja89]

Yeah, there's no balance in gameplay and story, it's mostly just walk here and talk. Don't blame you for wanting a break.

[Krithas]

JRPGs require a *lot* of grinding because they're not a genre that is designed so you can progress through just something like a main story. XIV is vastly different there because you can progress without the sort of excessive grinding needed in JRPGs. So more combat doesn't necessarily mean more combat of substance.

If you have to grind in a RPG, you're just bad at the game. Never run from a fight from the current area, and actually explore the dungeon/area before going where you need to go and you'll be at a suitable level. I've been playing RPGs since I was a kid, the only time I felt I had to grind some was the original Dragon Quest.

[Thorio]

Well hey you get to save 15 bucks, lucky you.

[IdowhatIwant]

I'll be back one day. But for now, I need something that is paced a bit better between story and actually getting to do something.

Oof, wait until EW. It took me about 4 hours before I killed the first mob.

Oh c'mon. We all have different preferences.
There is nothing 'healthy' about having more or less cutscenes.

No he is right. EW really pointed that out that this games MSQ is very story heavy with very little game play. I am very surprised people complain about this game not being solo friendly when the MSQ is about 90% solo and maybe 10% dungeons / trials. I would say about 75% of that 90% is walking and talking to the next person, picking up something off the ground, going to a location, following some one, or walking with some one. The other 15% is solo duties, go to the location and kill something, or kill x of y to get x of z item. Granted, many MMO quests are like this, how ever many MMO MSQs don't take nearly as long as FF.

[Darthgummibear]

90% is walking and talking to the next person

Emphasis on walking the whole way. My biggest gripe about EW is all the quests where the NPC has to follow you the ENTIRE TIME, and you have to walk the whole distance on foot. Using an aetheryte breaks it, using your mount breaks it, hell if the NPC gets stuck on something and you don't notice that breaks it.