I know ARR was cut down but it really needs more done with it.

[R041]

FF14 style questing? ARR isn't the same as questing in the laster expansions which have way less back and forth. Take Heavensward. You constantly are going forward. While there are quest chains in ARR that just have you constantly teleporting all over the place with little to zero combat. A lot of these quest chains could be greatly condensed.

This is pure cope, don't lie to new players. All I ever see is lying. "It gets better next expansion, trust me" - Forever.

MSQ 'Questing' has never changed, it has always been as bad as ARR and continues to be just as bad if not worse in some scenarios. HW is worse because it takes the same 'Walk over there' design and stretches it by using huge maps where A to B are extreme ends of each map.

It. Does. Not. Get. Better.

Ah yes, WoW's many gripping quest styles, like kill ten centaurs, collect 20 bear asses, and go talk to that guy. As opposed to XIV's many quest styles, like kill ten cactuars, collect 20 coeurl whiskers, and go talk to that guy.

Just more lying and cope. Minor questing in WoW even has voice lines and mini-game activities all over the place with unique rewards. It even encourages exploration so you don't feel like you're on rails. Then the fact that combat is just overall fun, it makes even 'collect 20 bear asses' fun.

If you want our game to get better, you have to stop accepting and arguing for a mediocre experience.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Just more lying and cope.

Where's the lie? WoW has literally the same types of quests. XIV was even modeled after it in ARR, and they've gone back and forth with each other ever since.

Minor questing in WoW even has voice lines and mini-game activities all over the place with unique rewards.

They have a lot of stock lines they've been reusing since Vanilla, and most of those activities don't really reward anything all that unique. Unless you're interested in filling out the collectibles checklist, which not everyone is.

It even encourages exploration so you don't feel like you're on rails.

Until you get to a certain level point and get railroaded to the next expansion, regardless of whether you wanted to finish the current one or not. Of course, the ends of the stories are usually told in raids, so if you wanted to see how the Black Temple or Icecrown Citadel or the Bastion of Twilight end, have fun finding people willing to carry you through it.

Then the fact that combat is just overall fun, it makes even 'collect 20 bear asses' fun.

Fun is subjective, but let's be honest here: WoW's class rotations are just as static as XIV's if you're trying to do optimal damage. The only real difference is that WoW doesn't usually light up the buttons for you.

If you want our game to get better, you have to stop accepting and arguing for a mediocre experience.

Yeah, that's why I left WoW.

[R041]

...

Don't have to convince me of anything, I've already played both extensively. Just stop lying to players saying it gets better. It doesn't. The same boring experience from ARR continues to be the same boring experience for every expansion. It's all a copy paste and the only things that ever actually get better are the boss mechs and the overall story. But otherwise, all of the systems have stayed relatively the same, with the same pacing, same back and forth, same massive text walls since the beginning. In-fact, dungeons get MORE boring over time.

So once you experience ARR, you've then experienced what MSQ has to offer as far as 'questing' goes.

Telling yourself, and telling others that it gets better is cope and lying. Story gets better, systems do not.

This type of lying just comes off as petty bullshit by old frustrated wow heads. I get it, wow was bad. But XIV is doing quite a bit worse in that regard. You're just saying XIV copied old WoW, but the thing is - XIV never changed after that. WoW did. XIV refuses to evolve basic gameplay, so saying it gets better is pure bullshit.

The fact that you even bring up vanilla lines to cope away the fact that WoW even has voicelines is petty. You're just trying to dig for something bad in the good.

Where's the lie? WoW has literally the same types of quests. XIV was even modeled after it in ARR, and they've gone back and forth with each other ever since.

This line alone shows how out of touch you are. WoW only competes with itself, there's nothing about XIV questing that anyone wants, because it's even worse than vanilla WoW. Show me where the quests in WoW are all text walls going back and forth for hours on end. WoW even lets me share and sync quests, and has full coop.

[Atelier-Bagur]

This is pure cope, don't lie to new players. All I ever see is lying. "It gets better next expansion, trust me" - Forever.

MSQ 'Questing' has never changed, it has always been as bad as ARR and continues to be just as bad if not worse in some scenarios. HW is worse because it takes the same 'Walk over there' design and stretches it by using huge maps where A to B are extreme ends of each map.

It. Does. Not. Get. Better.





Just more lying and cope. Minor questing in WoW even has voice lines and mini-game activities all over the place with unique rewards. It even encourages exploration so you don't feel like you're on rails. Then the fact that combat is just overall fun, it makes even 'collect 20 bear asses' fun.

If you want our game to get better, you have to stop accepting and arguing for a mediocre experience.

As much as Im obsessed and addicted with FFXIV (since I actually juggle between 3 endgame alts with a 4th one in its development), I cant argue with some of the simple and outdated design choices in this game compared to its contemporaries. Playing Dragonflight really has given me some needed perspective with how FFXIV could be doing better, and I dont necessarily like the crowd here trying to pin the blame on ARR when its literally the entirety of the game that does these boring design choices. I absolutely enjoy this game's story, more so with ARR and all its little side-plots sprinkled into the msq to better set dress its world. I dont want to see that being cut, but what I rather want to see is to rework the associated quests to be more interesting. I wish we had more open world side activities to do or at least update the FATE system and battle leves to be more viable and interesting alternative to leveling; which in this case, I wish the game had more risk and wasnt so simple and fast to level with just spamming roulettes to quantify the need for alternate leveling methods for progression.

The game shouldnt start at endgame, it should start at level flippin 1. I wish we had more an incentive to party with other players out in the world to do FATEs or quests or ANYTHING to make this game feel like an actual MMO. Classic WoW and og FFXI excels at this so hard and I wish FFXIV adopted the same.

But I'm not stupid, I know that people hate these ideas so they'll never do it.

[R041]

The game shouldnt start at endgame, it should start at level flippin 1. I wish we had more an incentive to party with other players out in the world to do FATEs or quests or ANYTHING to make this game feel like an actual MMO. Classic WoW and og FFXI excels at this so hard and I wish FFXIV adopted the same.

It's difficult to explain these concepts to people that only know Vanilla WoW and XIV. I don't know how else to really frame coop open-ended themepark without telling people to just go try other games for once.

I'm especially frustrated because these things were actually in ARR-HW, so it didn't feel so.. On-rails. We considered the MSQ as the set dressing to the MMO, but now the MSQ is the game. It's become almost obsessed with itself, so it all forgets about the smaller systems it used to have that actually encouraged casual MMO/Coop gameplay.

You have to remember that back in ARR-HW, there wasn't even much of the MSQ to say "Yeah, that's the game.. Just the MSQ", where now most people are content with the game JUST being MSQ. So we forget about all of the things we did outside of the MSQ. We were content with MSQ systems being bad because it wasn't the only thing to do.

[Striker44]

snip

I think the end of your commentary is the key. This is no longer the year 2000. Or 2005. Or 2010. Or whatever. The very nature of an MMO has evolved over time. Back when WoW was new, it was considered earth-shatteringly "casual" that an MMO could feature things like dying without losing xp, gear, etc.. For the "first generation" of MMO players, if you will, WoW itself had aspects that made it feel "not like an actual MMO." Fast forward to 2023. The primary demographic of MMO gamers is no longer teenagers, college kids, and recent college grads with lots of time on their hands; now it's adults with families and full-time careers. Most of them don't have the time players in general had to play 15-20 years ago. I remember having no problem with sitting in the Barrens looking to form a dungeon group, to then walk over to Wailing Caverns, knowing the dungeon itself would take 1-2 hours to fully complete. I had a ton of fun playing that back in 2005. Today? No chance I find that enjoyable. I want to be able to log on and feel like I've made progress or done something significant even though I might have less than an hour to actually play. It's not that people "hate" your ideas; it's that the world has moved on.

Looking at your an R041's posts, I feel like there's a choice. One can either claim they are the arbiters of what is "good" or "bad" in game design, and then get frustrated and throw temper tantrums when the other hundreds of thousands of players disagree with you. Or one can acknowledge that their thoughts are simply that - their own, individual personal opinions - and that they might need to poke around for a game that still fits them. All of R041's cursing and rants come down to an immature tirade because the world disagrees with him. No, people aren't lying when they say the things they say about FFXIV. They're offering their own personal opinions. Just like you. The difference is they're mature enough to recognize them as personal opinions.

My own personal opinion? I don't feel like things "get better" after ARR...because I had a ton of fun all the way through, including ARR. I never felt like playing FFXIV was a "mediocre experience." In fact, the complete opposite. I've found it an awesome, fun experience. I also recognize that that's my opinion, and I feel pity for people who are so bitter they can't accept the idea that a lot of other people can have a lot of fun playing a game they don't personally enjoy.

[R041]

All of R041's cursing and rants come down to an immature tirade because the world disagrees with him. No, people aren't lying when they say the things they say about FFXIV. They're offering their own personal opinions. Just like you. The difference is they're mature enough to recognize them as personal opinions.

I'd like to believe my commentary is relatively thought out and not just an 'immature tirade' - I'm just expressing an Opinion.

These systems are old, they haven't evolved since ARR, they weren't fun back then and they still aren't fun to me. There is barely anyone defending the lackluster gameplay in the actual questing system and saying the back and forth is enjoyable, because the only defense that's given is "Yeah well, in WoW Vanilla.." - All you have is the story.

The 'questing' is not good, it's not fun, and it's okay to say that. You don't have to love absolutely everything about XIV, it's okay to think questing and MSQ systems are a joke and still have fun playing the MMO.
Yes it's a shame the story can actually be pretty entertaining at times, but the MSQ be a slog.

It's a meme that XIV players are toxic toward anyone that doesn't absolutely love the MSQ and it's storytelling. You get that right? There's a reason it's a meme.