Why are people settling for an "ARR Tier" story?

[ReynTime]

gonna play devil lawyer here (even if personnaly i have no issue with ARR story while i hated DT) but ARR story has a span of 50 levels to take time for world building etc not 10. and that's the main issue : rythm. i know that some ppl will say that shadowbringer tell a good story on 10 levels too but i would say that ShB may be the exception that proves the rule.

The amount of levels is completely arbitrary. 3.0, 4.0, etc, have 10 levels each but they're designed to last about as long as ARR's 50.

[Alice_Rivers]

gonna play devil lawyer here (even if personnaly i have no issue with ARR story while i hated DT) but ARR story has a span of 50 levels to take time for world building etc not 10. and that's the main issue : rythm. i know that some ppl will say that shadowbringer tell a good story on 10 levels too but i would say that ShB may be the exception that proves the rule.

I don't think that flies, I would argue that while ARR does have 50 levels it frankly makes terrible use of them in terms of pacing, there is nothing stopping the writers using 10 levels and covering similar amounts of story and lore. In HW for example, we properly explored the Dragonsong War from having no idea it was a thing to it's origins and I expect sidequests flesh it out further like the final battles of Dusk, Steel and Stone Vigils. We also learned a fair amount more about the Allagan Empire and it's war with the dragons, I often forget just how long HW is - it's a LOT of content and a LOT of story, DT doesn't even compare. As you point out, ShB does tell an amazing story, it does introduce and sell us a whole new world with it's own history and the various peoples of that world DO have histories that put DT to shame. I'd argue even SB (much maligned for good reasons) does story and lore better than DT.

Previous expansions, while still bare of story telling in map design (Ishgard had a ship in a lake... Why? Where did the gates go? Is that not just a cliff? Why are there gates at all? Where did the water for the lake come from? I dunno, maybe there are answers in sidequests I've not done) but Tural is so underutilised and unlike EW there's no good MSQ to mask it.Not to say it's not a problem dating back to ARR, but again ARR has a story that covers for it's lacking map design and there are NPCs everywhere with lines about stuff... DT?

I'm not against the old writers giving way to new writers but if they wanted to do that then they should have been mentoring the new writers through sidequests and then role quests before even giving them elements of MSQ, only once they write good MSQ content should they be allowed to take the lead. They had three or more years to write DT, it wouldn't have hurt them to spend a year of that just doing the worldbuilding and how it was affected by the events detailed or played out in previous expansions.

[Barwara]

I don't think anyone is settling for ARR tier story-telling, since everyone is complaining.

Plus I find the flaw in DT is the execution, not the intention. The whole premise of the expansion is solid in my opinion, as well as the idea of the WOL returning to being an adventurer instead of a hero, but the whole story is written so poorly... We as the WoL have no agency or purpose, Wuk Lamat goes thru 0 character growth since she is already peace-loving and sympathetic right from the start, and there's really little adventuring or exploring, little conflict to resolve as well. The ideas are good however, I just wish they made the game a bit more like the trailer. The trailer sells you something you don't get. The trailer also makes you think Estinien is gonna be around... which he isn't haha.

[Roehann]

Why?

Because half of this game's population treat this game not as a game but as a central part of their personal identity.

Disliking any part of it would lead to an identity crisis. God help you if you criticize it.

You nailed it!

[Kaurhz]

gonna play devil lawyer here (even if personnaly i have no issue with ARR story while i hated DT) but ARR story has a span of 50 levels to take time for world building etc not 10. and that's the main issue : rythm. i know that some ppl will say that shadowbringer tell a good story on 10 levels too but i would say that ShB may be the exception that proves the rule.

I would say this isn't the issue, as honestly the expansions themselves are designed to last just as long, even if there aren't as many quests or levels.

Generally speaking it is just not a good expansion because they tried way too hard with it... they tried way way too hard to try and push a new character into a very much pivotal position in the story, and it was a risk that just went straight into a ditch. Just as they tried way too hard to condense something that should have been its own expansion into a meager 41 quests.