Why does everyone complain about STORY based MMO's?

[Raoabolic]

This is basically every JRPG that ever existed, though. Even the ones considered masterpieces like Xenogears had fetch quests, and silly breather points because the people telling the story understand that stories need those low and high points. You can't keep everything tense and terse and fast 100% of the time or people become desensitized to it and your big story points lose all of their impact.

Don't drag Xenogears into this, the scene where Ramsus crucifies Chu-Chu was VERY serious! lol

[TaleraRistain]

Don't drag Xenogears into this, the scene where Ramsus crucifies Chu-Chu was VERY serious! lol

Bahahahahahaha the Chucifixion

I love watching Let's Plays where someone gets to that point

It's funny that they crucify the Gears in the first place instead of the people (do they think they can't just get out of them?) , but then you pan over to Chu-Chu

Bart was also super serious 100% of the time and never acted like he'd fall over dead if he didn't make a joke

[Hurlstone]

To me, I play games mostly for story, which is why I do really appreciate how the game actually puts its narrative, world building and characters more upfront and central then most MMOs. To the extent that I would rank Shadowbringers is either the best Final Fantasy game or close to it, which I feel is saying something for a series that is highly know for their storytelling. Heck, I would put all of the expansions up in the higher echelons of the franchise (Even you, poor underrated Stormblood) and even rank the game as one of my all-time favorite due to its story alone. I do like how they actual give you reasons to play older story content too outside of vanity farming or achievements, such as Relic quests requiring things like the Return to Ivalice raids/soon the Manderville quests to be done.

I do think something can be said about perhaps streamlining aspects of ARR in particular. I also do wonder if in time they will add an in-game way to perhaps jump to the newest expansion/story arc. Really 7.0 would be the perfect and only time to do that, if it truly is the fresh start they say it is. Perhaps a bit like with ESO and how every new Chapter can be played by a level 1 new character… although the issue I have most with ESO and its storytelling, which I do love most of the time, is that such accessibility comes at the price of having the play experience a disjointed timeline… would not like to see that happen. Perhaps in the end sticking with a linear story progression is for the best haha.

[Avoidy]

Probably because the story has a lot of unnecessary padding with fetch quests that people flat out mock in other games.
In hindsight, teaching the Loporrits how to sew clothes didn't really affect anything in the plot of Endwalker did it.

This is it, yeah. There's a good story but it's bogged down by MMO padding, i.e. fetch quests and filler arcs done to pad the expansion. This game claims to be story focused, but the cutscenes are stiffly animated and rarely voice acted. And then when the story finally starts to go somewhere, it hits the brakes for several hours at a time to make the player perform some filler fetch quest task so they can pad the expansion and say it's 40 hours long or whatever. Presentation matters more than people in this thread are going to pretend it does. It's why post-ARR turns away so many newbies that it's widely considered a filter for new players. Most people who just want to play with their friends in one of the few thriving MMORPGs left aren't thrilled to discover that 99% of the content is gated behind a 250 hour walking simulator, so they leave or they buy a story skip.

To be clear, I'm not dumping on the actual story that we have. I'm dumping on the way it's presented, because it's evident that the presentation gets in the way a lot. Other FF games have had dynamically animated cutscenes with ample voice acting. I'm not sure why this one doesn't. It sure rakes in the dough, but every optional trial sidequest is unvoiced, every raid cutscene is unvoiced, a significant portion of the msq is unvoiced, the cutscenes themselves are just people standing in a circle nodding, occasionally one guy clenches his fist, like -- it's boring to watch. Which isn't good for a visual medium of entertainment. If they fixed that and then took out a bunch of the filler fetch quests, I think way more people would be enthusiastically enjoying the msq instead of skipping cutscenes like crazy because they gave it a chance in arr and had their faith "rewarded" with post-arr and didn't trust the story ever since.

[Raoabolic]

Because of the long story I can't farm the newest content and afk flex in the town square. :/

[Jaquan]

To be perfectly fair as far as I went I can definitely say that the stories do need some "low" and "relax" moments. Even as insignificant as Moogle quests in HW. Personally the HW "Post game" MSQ started to seriously wear me down with constant high stakes (not to mention half of it was basically the logical conclusion of the 3.0 MSQ) without any breather. Ok half the quest of a breather with the dinner scene with Aymeric. As the result for me the finale of the HW strongly lacked in personal impact since the game and the quests till that point shoved Lyse and Papalymo to the sidelines even in the story they should play the major role. Even Stormblood as tiring as it was took some time to slow down and give us some character time (sadly most of that was with Lyse but oh well).

[Larirawiel]

Yet every day i see the same thing: 'WAH WAH STORY IS TOO LONG'

Seriously? I have never seen that ingame.


Cheers

[Dzian]

That's the point of them.
They're meant to relieve tension after a climax and build towards the next.

If the story was sitting at 100% from the get go, it would honestly take away from from the high points in the story.

Good story writing always has highs and lows, so that the high's really feel impactful.

Then what they should do is instead of having tons of brain dead filler crap they should just pause the main story. Make the next quest available at level x sort of thing. Then after the climax as you call it. Players can unwind in there own ways rather than go from slayer of gods to squisher of bugs eating our crops.. that stuff feels like am absolute chore which is why it gets so much hate.
or just make it all side quests instead of main quests.

FFXIs CoP still one of the most memorable stories I've ever gone through in an mmo and it was paced really well. No arduous filler crap. Once you beat a chapter or something you could unwind level up a bit. Chill out and then jump into the next chapter whenever you felt ready without having a wall of chores in-between

An other issue with the story is the difficulty.. It's too easy. Now I'm not saying make it savage hard or anything.. but when the story is trying to paint a picture of inescapable doom any battles that connect to that should at least feel like you narrowly avoided defeat. Instead of feeling like you just bad slapped that peril away.. and i don't mean like the zeons fights where the game essentially cheats.. you can roflstomp the hell outta zenos but magically the game still drops you to 1 hp... cheap..

XIVs problems with difficulty though in my opinion are never actually down to things being too hard to do. But nearly always come down to a lack of guidance in what the game expects you to do..

You can see this all the back in many of the earlier job quests. One of the smn ones I think (35) got so much hate in arr because it was "impossible"... but then players found hey there's fissures all the way over there let's get them and that "impossible" quest became easy peasy.. just the game did a terrible job of pointing out to players what they were meant to do in the first place. And nearly every example of something that was too hard in the msq is the exact same thing.

But rather than offer players a hint of guidance they just nerf the content instead.
Sometimes the player does get a hint.. in the chat window. which is
A: the last place anyones going to look in a fight. and
B: likely to be pushed off the screen before they even see it. if players havent changed there log filters too much from the default.

[VelKallor]

An other issue with the story is the difficulty.. It's too easy. Now I'm not saying make it savage hard or anything.. but when the story is trying to paint a picture of inescapable doom any battles that connect to that should at least feel like you narrowly avoided defeat. Instead of feeling like you just bad slapped that peril away.. and i don't mean like the zeons fights where the game essentially cheats.. you can roflstomp the hell outta zenos but magically the game still drops you to 1 hp... cheap..

Not THIS again...

We have been over this repeatedly. The MSQ is this way by deliberate design because it has to cater to people of all skill levels. it is STORY content not a savage or extreme. There is plenty of hard content in FF 14 ( and more to come ) that can cater to this miniscule portion of the playerbase...the MSQ is not meant to be a brick wall. It is not meant to be completed "by only the worthy".

"The time between seconds" is the one you are referring to. That scene with Zenos? Is a no win scenario. An illustration of just how powerful he is...and to drive home that not even the Warrior of Light is invincible.

This game claims to be story focused, but the cutscenes are stiffly animated and rarely voice acted

Are we playing the same game?

I think way more people would be enthusiastically enjoying the msq instead of skipping cutscenes like crazy because they gave it a chance in arr and had their faith "rewarded" with post-arr and didn't trust the story ever since.

Given that both Endwalker and Shadowbringers received MASSIVE rave reviews for the story, and that millions enjoyed it ( and obviously you can do better?..no you cant...), Ill take that comment with a grain of salt the size of the Titanic...

[ForteNightshade]

Not THIS again...

We have been over this repeatedly. The MSQ is this way by deliberate design because it has to cater to people of all skill levels. it is STORY content not a savage or extreme. There is plenty of hard content in FF 14 ( and more to come ) that can cater to this miniscule portion of the playerbase...the MSQ is not meant to be a brick wall. It is not meant to be completed "by only the worthy".

"The time between seconds" is the one you are referring to. That scene with Zenos? Is a no win scenario. An illustration of just how powerful he is...and to drive home that not even the Warrior of Light is invincible.

Not this again, indeed.

You can increase the difficulty of content without making it anywhere near Extreme or Savage levels. Insinuating otherwise is simply being disingenuous. Presently, the MSQ as a whole is essentially one massive participation reward that's almost impossible to fail. This does undercut the whole epic saga of the story when the supposed big bad can be facerolled. A prime example of this is Thordan. Even as a brand new player only ten months into FFXIV when I first cleared, I was disappointed by how much of a joke he was—to the point I stopped even dodging mechanics because not only was nobody else bothering. When I was hit myself, they did next to nothing. Did it ruin the conclusion of Heavensward? No. However, it certainly left a sour taste. Shinryu, conversely, was much better despite still being easy enough. Sadly, power creep as trivialized that fight but in his heyday, he was good.

As for that scene with Zenos. It's a cheat trope that isn't explained well. We never learn why Zenos can stomp us into the ground so easily yet a handful of dungeons later, we're returning the favor. He's just invincibly strong because the plot needed him to be.