The MSQ defeated me

[VirusOnline]

Recently got back into WoW and I gotta say, XIV could learn a few tricks in dealing with the MSQ.
I sadly prefer the story system developed in BoA and Shadowlands. It brings you up to speed and tells the story in real time rather than cutscene after cutscene after cutscene. There's quite a lot of choice and control over how to level and what story one chooses to experience.
XIV on the other hand ... sheesh ... I've almost considered investing in a PS5 just to watch cutscenes if I dare level another character xD

[Snowdove]

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

I didn't say I didn't like the story. In fact, I specifically said I DID like the story.


What I don't like is a metric ton of story between seven seconds of gameplay.

[LisSquid]

Recently got back into WoW and I gotta say, XIV could learn a few tricks in dealing with the MSQ.
I sadly prefer the story system developed in BoA and Shadowlands. It brings you up to speed and tells the story in real time rather than cutscene after cutscene after cutscene. There's quite a lot of choice and control over how to level and what story one chooses to experience.
XIV on the other hand ... sheesh ... I've almost considered investing in a PS5 just to watch cutscenes if I dare level another character xD

Got to talking with some people about how both have their ups and downs. I sort of wish the MSQ was its own campaign you can do at your own pace and it wasn't locked to content. You can make arguments up and down about how there's not enough active gameplay in 14, or that having big boss fights in sequence make the story..

However nothing dumps a bucket of cold water than having to wait 30min to an hour to do your trial because you didn't complete the MSQ the week it came out.

Edit to add a thought:
This is why I binge the patch content on 14. Not because I'm scared of spoilers, but I'm scared my enjoyment of the story is going to be weighed down because I no longer enjoy tank and healer ques.

[LaylaTsarra]

However nothing dumps a bucket of cold water than having to wait 30min to an hour to do your trial because you didn't complete the MSQ the week it came out.

I think they will address this with Trusts for story based trials which are 8 person. I agree some Main Story trials take forever to queue.

[YukikoKurosawa]

The writers are particularly bad at showing rather than telling. Their preferred storytelling format is to have multiple people in a room telling you things rather than having you experience things. Not that it doesn't do the latter (it does it alot actually), but they are very clearly comfortable with this far more, uh, lower energy approach to storytelling, let's call it that. The plot will frequently grind to a halt to have a discussion that either adds nothing whatsoever and could be cut, or actually is important, but could've been presented in a better way. Far too much meetings, talking and planning and telling you things that are going on rather than actually showing you things and letting the plot just move. As I said before they badly need an editor, or a better one assuming they already have one.

They also seriously need to learn how to tie story into the gameplay and not be so reliant on cutscenes to tell the story where the player is completely passive. The severe lack of gameplay sections in EW (you do not actually fight anything for like, 5+ hours) was atrocious, especially with how heavily padded and horrendously paced the story was. If the writers are just flat out incapable of telling a good story that's properly intertwined with gameplay I would suggest maybe they write a book rather than a write for a video game. Or just label this a visual novel because at a certain point that's what it becomes.

But Shadowbringers is by far the least egregious with these issues so I'm surprised you're having this problem with it. You sure as hell would not get through EW if ShB is filtering you.

[Kyrj]

And if I fire up Final Fantasy 10 I'll be stuck watching unavoidable, unskippable cutscenes for hours and hours and spending most of the time outside of cutscenes fleeing from battles and dealing with arbitrary boss encounters that are easily cheesed.

And yet FFX still offers more combat inbetween cutscenes than FFXIV. So..bad example.

[YukikoKurosawa]

Recently got back into WoW and I gotta say, XIV could learn a few tricks in dealing with the MSQ.
I sadly prefer the story system developed in BoA and Shadowlands. It brings you up to speed and tells the story in real time rather than cutscene after cutscene after cutscene. There's quite a lot of choice and control over how to level and what story one chooses to experience.
XIV on the other hand ... sheesh ... I've almost considered investing in a PS5 just to watch cutscenes if I dare level another character xD

Now lets not use WoW as a good example for anything, least of all storytelling. WoW doesn't tell you a story at all, it just has you skip 90% of it to get to the latest expansio and basically gives you next to no context for what is even happening, relegating much of the actual plot into external media. That is probably the absolute worst way of telling a story. XIV just needs to learn to interweve story and gameplay better, or just keep the same amount of cutscenes but insert more gameplay segments into the MSQ.

[Snowdove]

But Shadowbringers is by far the least egregious with these issues so I'm surprised you're having this problem with it. You sure as hell would not get through EW if ShB is filtering you.

More like the straw the broke the camel's back.

[Soge01]

I made it though part of Shadowbringers. The story is great. But I finally admit defeat to the MSQ. Two hours of cutscenes and dialogue text (only a slight exaggeration) between getting to kill maybe two enemies is just too much.


I think FF14 is great. I love the combat. I love the community. Far better than WoW's community.


But this MSQ...I just can't do it.


So I lay down my sword and give up.


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.

Felt that way through Endwalker. But for myself, it was just too much casual dialogue in between moments where the characters should be more focused on the world shattering threat.

While I still loved those parts, I think those little moments could have been better served in personal side quests for those NPCs (the scions) or shortened, so the pacing and impact of the story wasn't crippled.

Personally, I feel like the pacing for Endwalker should have been more akin to Shadowbringers, where there was more of a focus on the threat in the MSQ, but you still got plenty of casual moments in between.

Though, these are all my personal opinions. Overall though, I still understand the burn out and I hope you have a nice break from the game.

I highly suggest trying out Yakuza 0, Nier: Replicant and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy. The former two have plenty of combat in between story bits that can easily keep you busy for hours. Lol, sometimes I forget to go back to the MSQ in Yakuza 0 because of all the side quests and same goes for Nier: Replicant! SP:FF, I've only played a little so far, but its cutscene don't tend to drag on for very long, as far as I can tell at and the combat is really fun!

Anyways, again, have a good break and I hope you can enjoy Shadowbringers without feeling so burnt out by the story so much then.

[TaleraRistain]

I disagree. There's by far more combat in the average JRPG than what FFXIV has on offer.

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.