When are we as player going to demand from SE a better MSQ experience

[Eyrilona]

The story is not the problem. Based on reviews it seems like half the people liked it and half the people didn't. So it seems to be pretty subjective. Make the gameplay more in interesting and I guarantee you half the people complaining that the story sucks would not be complaining.

I must disagree. If a restaurant serves food that makes half its customers violently sick, you can't say the food is not the problem because the other half was able to eat it as normal, and that is a better metaphor for the situation we are in, and the scale of consequences this could have for the reputation of the whole brand.

[Valkret]

I must disagree. If a restaurant serves food that makes half its customers violently sick, you can't say the food is not the problem because the other half was able to eat it as normal, and that is a better metaphor for the situation we are in, and the scale of consequences this could have for the reputation of the whole brand.

Sorry terrible analogy. A lot of stories regardless of medium are based on personal interpretation. So its impossible to make a story that everyone will like. So I stand by what I said, the story is not the problem because this is a video game an mmo, and the MSQ is completely devoid of any gameplay whatsoever.

[Larom]

The story is not the problem. Based on reviews it seems like half the people liked it and half the people didn't. So it seems to be pretty subjective. Make the gameplay more in interesting and I guarantee you half the people complaining that the story sucks would not be complaining.

You're off your rocker if you think 50% of people hating DT's story isn't a major problem.

[Souljacker]

Truthfully?

For me, right now. I finally got some time to sit down and play. So I'm just finishing up the 'intro' and getting to the 'new awesome place'. Never have I been more underwhelmed in my life. SE has completely lost the thread - they don't even make a compelling introduction anymore. A thoroughly predictable 'storm' in which we as players do absolutely no interaction, but get to watch as our WoL presses a button and a companion narrates how awesome she must be because of it. And then well, back to clear blue skies, because of course. It was just a storm because we're sailing, we HAVE to have a storm. And not one that has any actual consequence, just one because we're sailing and narratively it makes sense to have a storm.

What the in actual fuck did I just witness? This isn't even a relaxing intro - if they had put us all out sunbathing or something, that would have better fit the 'relaxing' aesthetic and I wouldn't have felt so... just bored as I'm waiting for the storm to show up.

I used to main a different game, and intros there are always very compelling. I'll never forget watching my king fall to his death declaring "for the alliance" - say what you want about the rest of the game, graphics light years behind SE, some questionable gameplay decisions, could benefit from the more brilliant systems here (although the XI team came up with most of them)... they know how to write a story. They know how to use their characters to their full potential.

The twins are still 13. We're babysitting the least compelling xpac character I've seen yet, and I really wanted to like her. But they made her this loudmouth braggart coward, like serious Harcourt Fenton Mudd vibes here. They never did that with their other characters, why this one? Who wrote this? She's not endearing, she's obnoxious. And I am seriously considering whether or not to even continue playing when there are so many other games out there to enjoy.

I love so many of the systems here, but Endwalker was lackluster, and I was expecting the 'off' expac to really knock it out of the park. Heavensward, epic. Stormblood, meh. Shadowbringers, epic. Endwalker, slightly above meh.

This....

Oh no.

[Tethan]

snip

Oh boy, you are in for a wild ride. Good luck!

It's interesting how different people have different points where they go "no, something isn't right here" in regards to the MSQ.

I used to really like watching other people go through the MSQ, to see their reactions. I'm sure a lot of people are like that. I think that might still be fun in DT, but for entirely new reasons.

[Oextra]

You're off your rocker if you think 50% of people hating DT's story isn't a major problem.

The story, as in the events that take place, though flawed aren't really the problem. How everything is executed is the problem. If it had great gameplay elements and full voice acting with this same story, I guarantee more if not most people would be satisfied with the overall experience.

Since it was executed poorly you can't help to not only criticize the story, but the entire experience as well. Then all the flaws are highlighted and this makes it much worse than it is (as the OP said). Perhaps this is a good thing in the long run IF they legit learn from this. It won't last 10 more years going down this route.

[Rekujin]

When you're running around do your fetch quests, heaps of cool looking mobs that you never have to engage with lol.

When you spend 4-5 hours doing MSQ and haven't killed a single mob, that's boring.

[KisaiTenshi]

When you spend 4-5 hours doing MSQ and haven't killed a single mob, that's boring.

While that is true, there are visual novels and indie RPG's that do this and they're fine.

The problem in a ~MMO~ is that there is a "least common denominator" at play. So you can't make a "smart" story that requires the player to understand 10 years of lore. So a "clean break" from the 1.0-6.0 story would be welcome to bringing new players to the game, but then you get into the kind of problem half the other MMORPG's have, where the expansions are islands ("theme parks") and have no meaning outside their expansion. This is why like certain expansions in WoW (I know nothing of WoW, I just know people gripe over WoW having no understandable story expansion to expansion) are apparently very detached from the gameplay.

Final Fantasy however has a specific "brand" and in a way that hobbles it from being able to make drastic storytelling changes. We can't have "Disc 1 Aerith" happen every expansion, yet we've had one with 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x. Like when you start pulling the same thing, it becomes expected and doesn't feel like anything you do actually affects the story. The only way an NPC lives is by not completing the story.

[RubyNights]

Finally, I don't feel like I'm crazy. I'm glad someone else has this take. This is a video game and not a visual novel. The only meat to the msq are the dungeons and trials and those are so few and far between. The basic questing needs to be better. I feel like DT's msq took this to a new extreme. I don't remember it being quite this bad before.

[SuRge991]

There's no way to avoid visual novelization when you're dealing with this amount of story- but we probably should be trimming down the amount of "story" in FFXIV to begin with. I know- insane take but Dawntrail really was like, I dunno. A lot of MSQ hours for fuck all. I would've liked it more if it was a shorter MSQ but packed with an extra dungeon, trial or hell- even solo duties. Would've been perfect for a "low stakes" expansion. Less story bloat, more dungeon kill kill. That's what adventurers want and do, after all.