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

[Derio]

The "Lets split up" storybeats. Turned out to be WoL and Wuk Lamat go do something while everyone else does something else. What is saving this MSQ is the encounter design which is a breath of fresh air.

But sadly job design and this MSQ is bringing Dawntrail down.

[GodModule]

Dawntrails MSQ would be easier to stomach if all the cutscenes were fully animated and voice acted. Especially the first half which is basically a visual novel

[Azlith]

I think, for me, this games main problem with regards to its story telling is that it tells virtually all of the story through cutscenes. I would love it if they told the same stories but actually let you play the game while doing so. Make it interactive for the player. Someone mentioned earlier about the intro scene with the storm. In a game like wow we would be actually playing the game, on the ship and doing things like plugging holes, bailing water, helping stabilize the wounded and fighting off sea monsters that washed aboard. In this game we just get told in a cutscene about how great our character is...boring. While reading that guys post I was reminded of my many times playing intros in WoW and how much better they are than this games. In the very first expansion, which came out like what 18 years ago, you are immediately tasked with fighting off monsters that have invaded a nearby mine, investigating the draenor orcs and destroying their siege weapons, and disrupting the burning legions efforts to assault the dark portal. Are any of these little stories as compelling as something like SHB? Of course not. But they are considerably more fun to play through (and far more interesting than watching wuk'lamat deal with alpacas.) I'm no fan of Blizzard these days (and haven't been for a long while) but I have to admit that they are miles ahead when it comes to making a fun leveling experience for their MMOs expansions.

In summary, I would love to see this game embrace smaller scale stories that have their stories told through gameplay rather than cutscenes. You can still do cutscenes for the big stuff but please let us actually play the game while...playing the game.

[KornKob]

as many time as threads like this coming up, i always wonder what is it you think they can do about?

Mini-games like the First-Person Targeting sections, instanced battle sections, really anything the help break up the monotomy and have us interact a little with the world around us during quests.

For example, there's a quest early on in DT where you have to go around applying like resin or something to some poles for the HanuHanu. This is represented in-game by the bog-standard "interacting" progress bar while we do the mime-in-a-box motion. We do this 3 times in a row, then it's done.

If I were to ask for something more interesting, perhaps a mini-game where you are in first-person & actually apply the resin by clicking on spots indicated by a little icon. Nothing crazy, but it'd add just that little amount of interactivity. This is obviously just an example I'm pulling out of no-where, and some would likely just call this sort of thing tedious, but it'd be nice if the dev team used more mini-game templates to give us just a bit more interactivity in quests. And I wouldn't ask that it be EVERY quest, but sprinkled in here and there... A little goes a long way when you are running these quests back-to-back, and it can get old seeing the same ol' "interacting" progress bar and motions used over and over again.

[1313]

Quest design is steaming dingo dung, has been since day 1. Before that even, in other games, it was also garbage. The difference is that other games would allow auto-pathing and afk combat mode. So I say fix the design or give us the brain-off feature to accompany the AWFUL and DISRESPECTFUL quest design.

[RubyNights]

Nonsense. FF is not known for being some sort of visual novel series. FF games have a focus on story, yes, but the question is how said story is presented. And it's disingenuous to claim that other FF games lack gameplay. We went from turn based combat focused games with party management to mixed combat systems, to action combat focus, to something like FF7 Rebirth that is more minigame than story. FFXIV is really the odd one out in how 90% of the game is clicking through meaningless, repetitive dialogue and waiting out cutscenes that have 10 NPCs slowly nodding one by one and then slowly walking off the scene... one by one. Sorry, but no other FF game does anything like this.

The only one that maybe got closeish is ironically FF16. Because despite the flashy action combat, CBU3 still has some sort of issues figuring out how to put any real substance behind the cool stuff. So you yawn your way through all the glowy screen explosions and have to manage anger issues when the game constantly kills bosses for you once they reach 25% hp, because everything good must be a cutscene or something? But even ignoring FF16 issues (that I personally had, subjective and all, I'm not here to attack anyone's favorite game), at least there the combat still makes up more than 4% of the entire game.

Whereas FF14 sometimes feels like they are trying to copy the worst games gacha market has to offer. Yapfest on top of yapfest, constant repetition of what was said a minute ago, stupidly lengthy explanations of the most simplistic of concepts, etc. We could only dream of CBU3 taking a look at other FF games and copying some gameplay from them.

EXACTLY.

Most golden age FF games started off by putting the player directly in the action. They didn't start off with mountains of text, mundane cutscenes, and lore exposition. They began at a critical moment as a way of getting you a taste of the gameplay while hooking you into the story and the world. FF7 started you off blowing up the Mako Reactor. Dawntrail starts off by giving you a history lesson on the journey of the Dawnservant.

When FF8 had a train setpiece, it made it interactive. When Dawntrail does it, it's just a cutscene! It being FF is not an excuse. CBU3 needs to learn to rely less on cutscenes.

[ThorneDynasty]

EXACTLY.

Most golden age FF games started off by putting the player directly in the action. They didn't start off with mountains of text, mundane cutscenes, and lore exposition. They began at a critical moment as a way of getting you a taste of the gameplay while hooking you into the story and the world. FF7 started you off blowing up the Mako Reactor. Dawntrail starts off by giving you a history lesson on the journey of the Dawnservant.

When FF8 had a train setpiece, it made it interactive. When Dawntrail does it, it's just a cutscene! It being FF is not an excuse. CBU3 needs to learn to rely less on cutscenes.

As much criticism as FFVIII receives (most of it deserved) the set-piece action in that game is incredible.

[RubyNights]

Yeah, VIII isn't even my favorite but it was interactive! lol

[Honalee]

The interesting thing here is that they could actually extend, in a pretty big way, the time it takes to get through the MSQ (giving more player content) just by adding better gameplay content.

Now maybe the devs don't want to add a whole bunch of little mini-games, the way World of Warcraft does, but those kinds of little mini-game quests could just be added to become dailies, considering many of them could be fun.

I made a previous post that the Devs really should go and look at some of what WoW does with their question content; if they were to supplement these kinds of gameplay quests into what we have now, it could lead to such a better and richer questing experience for the player.

Truly, the questing "gameplay" needs to take a huge step forward in the next expansion... It's more than due time for this.

[Honalee]

FF7 started you off blowing up the Mako Reactor. Dawntrail starts off by giving you a history lesson on the journey of the Dawnservant. When FF8 had a train setpiece, it made it interactive. When Dawntrail does it, it's just a cutscene! It being FF is not an excuse.

When I was watching this cutscene, I thought the exact same thing. What a huge waste. This could have been such a cool interactive gameplay quest. This quest and others similar to it, could be implemented into the game in such a way that they could end up being used as dailies after. We ABSOLUTELY need more "gameplay" quests in the MSQ.

I hope Dawntrail brings this need to light finally.