The MSQ defeated me

[Denji]

It's a final fantasy game.

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

I'm here for exactly this.

[Shibi]

I just take it slow, lots to do apart from the MSQ.

The hardest trick... avoiding spoilers.

[LisSquid]

I do this and keep trying to check myself lol.
I also play WoW as well so there's that.

I haven't been able to use transmog or glamour in context correctly in 10 years and I refuse to start now c:

[Atelier-Bagur]

It's a final fantasy game.

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

I'm here for exactly this.

man I miss those ps1 days where they paced out major arcs within a story based on discs. FFIX did this masterfully always leaving a big cliffhanger between every disc.

[Atelier-Bagur]

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.

You're comparing full blown single player games to an MMO though. Granted we joke around the fact that FFXIV is a single player game especially with its msq but the fact is that due to development resources having to go all sorts of avenues this game tries very hard to handcraft the experience akin to single player FF game but despite its efforts it cant do so without fully sacrificing the MMO aspect. This is why we have quests that just involved talking to npcs because it has to adhere to the game design of an MMO and thats really not that fun. It does have its strentghs as an MMO story you have more means of side content to do in-between breaks in the story.

But yeah its still tricky business. I'm saying this as an avid old school FF veteran, the presentation for the single player experience is an admirable attempt...but it cant ever fully embrace it like the older titles that manage to do it much better. And thats not on FFXIV's fault, its just how it is for an MMO game.

[Knot_D]

You can tell a good story without turning it into a movie. XIV has spectacularly failed at that.

I love how you assumed it's failed because of turning into movie, while that's my only reason I still subbed to this game...

Also I wonder what's that other good game that's telling good story without turning it into a movie? Because EW already beats other game's story IMO.

[StriderShinryu]

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.

That's a pretty poor comparison though since FF7R is more of an action game than anything else in the typical FF mainline. It's like saying you do less platforming in Super Mario RPG than you do in other Super Mario games. Of course you do, they're platformers and SMRPG is an RPG.

"But what about old school FF games then? There's lots of combat in those!"
Sure, but how much of that combat is really meaningful? How much of it is just random encounter bloat of the same 3 enemies in each zone thrown at you repeatedly to just pad out time and feed you XP? Or take a game like Crono Trigger where you can literally avoid almost every single encounter in the game perfectly legitimately and just fight the bosses. Most people put CT near the top of their best RPGs of all time lists and yet it had almost no actual forced combat in it.

I can understand liking games with more combat (or liking combat enough to prefer games that let you do more of it), but the idea that you need a ton of combat encounters to have an RPG, even an "old school" one is just silly.

[Theodric]

If a game doesn't have a lot of combat it usually compromises by allowing for dialogue options to change the outcome of quests...which isn't something that FFXIV sees fit to do because - conveniently - it both wants to be a single player game more often than not but also force specific outcomes at every possible turn. Even in terms of looking at other MMO's, however, many of them manage to balance opportunities for combat even as they tell a story.

I guess a lot of people really do want this game to be little more than a visual novel, though.

[Espon]

If you don't like the story but enjoy the gameplay then use the Esc key.

[Darthgummibear]

If a game doesn't have a lot of combat it usually compromises by allowing for dialogue options to change the outcome of quests...which isn't something that FFXIV sees fit to do because - conveniently - it both wants to be a single player game more often than not but also force specific outcomes at every possible turn. Even in terms of looking at other MMO's, however, many of them manage to balance opportunities for combat even as they tell a story.

I guess a lot of people really do want this game to be little more than a visual novel, though.

While I do really like the story it feels like this expansion overall was kind of half-baked. It looks like they cut an entire expansion and tried to cram the story together with what we have resulting in a relatively shallow mess going in too many directions at once. We are now at what is arguably the height of the game's population with all the new players, and they are obviously making more money now so if this continues going forward it won't end well.