3000 character limit lulz

In WoW, a main problem people had was the lack of a cohesive story. After a certain point (I think, maybe Cataclysm?), when one expansion ended, it was pretty much entirely bookended. You'd count yourself lucky to see a reference to past expansions in future ones unless they A. had their roots in the old Warcraft games (see: Lich King), or B. had new races or classes, which meant that they had to be included for the sake of the players playing them. There are some exceptions, such as Gul'dan from Warlords of Draenor being the catalyst for the events of Legion, but otherwise it's exceptionally slim, and it not only made it difficult to immerse yourself in the world, but also made the new player experience horribly fragmented.

FFXIV's long, continuous MSQ made this a non-issue in the past, although I started getting those same question marks hovering above my head in 6.5. The entire post-MSQ was a side story almost completely unrelated to the events that came before it, and then found out in 7.0, also completely unrelated to the events that came after. This is a first for the MSQ as far as I can tell (memory somewhat hazy, although skimming the patch cycles seems to confirm this).

So, is this what we're doing now? Because the Hydaelyn saga is over, we're just going to do the same thing as WoW and fragment the expansion stories to be entirely self-contained?

Before, we could somewhat tell what would come next. Even before 2.1, there were so many established story beats to explore that it was almost certain that there would be more to come exploring them. We get an Ascian story with HW, then a Garlean story with SB, then another Ascian story with ShB, and finally the end of the whole saga. It made sense.

Now... I have honestly no idea where they could go from here. Tural's problems seem solved, and other than the weird cyberpunk city that appeared on Tuliyollal's doorstep, there don't seem to be any threads we can follow. Well, there's also the key/chalice/Azem macguffin that everyone decided it was okay for me to hold onto, but as far as I can tell from the story, it's just 'thing that will help us go to some isolated locale for an adventure and then come home'. The only other people who knew of its existence are now either dead or couldn't care less.

Things seem dim for the progression of FFXIV's story, and with all the complaints most everyone has had with DT's MSQ, it doesn't give me faith that things will improve.