So that 7.1 msq...

[RinaB]

I'm not even sure what I played through and what the point was....whatever at least I got a new dungeon.

[sindriiisgaming]

i just finished the msq. and im genuinely kinda angry. ive had 3 and hours of my time wasted on plot points that are all over the place, it feels annoying like they're tryna teach me the same stuff DT was supposed to teach me.. we cant we just move on and stop rehashing the same story...

im gonna say this 1 loud for the class, but this is the WORST patch i've ever done and ive been [playing for 5 years

[Raraka]

i just finished the msq. and im genuinely kinda angry. ive had 3 and hours of my time wasted on plot points that are all over the place, it feels annoying like they're tryna teach me the same stuff DT was supposed to teach me.. we cant we just move on and stop rehashing the same story...

im gonna say this 1 loud for the class, but this is the WORST patch i've ever done and ive been [playing for 5 years

The worst part is knowing that they set up this weird cliffhanger and within the first 20 minutes of 7.2 they will completely expose who the baddie is and their motivation

What the actual [Thal's balls!] happened to the writing of this game...

[Raraka]

Alternative title of 7.1 Crossroads

7.1 : Who are my parents

[ZephyrMenodora]

Alternative title of 7.1 Crossroads

7.1 : Who are my parents

Similar writing quality...

[Rehayem]

Yeah I definitely had no idea what the point of 7.1 MSQ was. The quality definitely dipped in recent months and it shows.

[arstoka]

I wasn't nearly as annoyed with the patch story in comparison to 7.0.

I'm in the same camp as everyone else who is wondering why they placed the focus on specific characters. I'm very lukewarm on the 'twist' at the end. I don't have much faith in the writing team for MSQ at this point so my expectations are in the ground.

Overall the writing was very mediocre. I had a lot of fun with the dungeon at least.

[Hallarem]

Now we have: Problem -> Solution within a cutscene -> play happy music and everyone smiles. This is childish and insulting, and I think it all stems from Endwalkers rushed state of storytelling, where they wanted to vomit everything out at us because they couldn't be arsed to write properly and just wanted to cram in as much as they could. So we get a speed version of Thavnair, a speed version of Garlemald, the plot-expositionville of SHarlayan that conveniently knows everything in the world, so we just have to go to them for a solution after one day of research. I hate Sharlayan because it's a convenient tool for the writers now to okay their way out of any problem solving writing, much like how KOANA uses Sharlayan in the New World. "Oh lemme just quickly invent a train whistle that transfers aetheric sounds that mimic a beast, but in an inoffensive way so the Rroneek don't get TOO SCARED in a day! Because Sharlayan powers!"

Dawntrail is way too much of a course correct towards "Oh look at this perfect society where everything is solved by talking and understanding."It's talk-no-jutsu land with rubber bullets, and the occational brawl to try and gaslight you into thinking there's any actual problem happening that can't be solved over some tacos. The shonen anime-level writing is bleeding through really heavily and I cringed with Koana having the fastest ever "oh I love rroneek now" turnarounds and the "I must protect everyone!" suicide jump. In JP it's line for line the exact thing that every shonen anime character yells out too.

Highlights of this MSQ: Someone mentioning that Y'shtola is researching the rift travel (yeah we know) and that she wants to meet us for the key. For her to APPEAR in a scene later to tell us that she is researching the rift travel and that she needs our key eventually. THE SAME THING, 10/10 fan service, 10/10 writing, hand them all the writing trophies and prizes. They still have no idea why they brought the Scions to Tural aside from fan service and problem solving the plot for us.
Oh you don't like Sphene? HAVE TWO SPHENES!

[Hallarem]

I don't know what needs to happen to the writing, if they have a formula in place I don't think new writers will help. if they chose a line of "Make it really happy and anime" I don't know how they are gonna make this interesting anymore. Unless a new writer fights to put in some NUANCE into the writing at the threat of his/her job and having Yoshi-P or Ishikawa yell at them.

- Garlemald destroyed offscreen, MISTAKE. We could've gotten a full expansion dealing with a civil war and change in Garlemald, seen the royal family, given Zenos an actual proper storyarc that wasn't some shonen anime villain wank off of "Oh look, cool guy with sword is edgy and like a mad dog." He could've robbed his father of power and we could've had a hand in a rebellion in Garlemald and seen reform, and having them withdraw the empire from their conquered lands. There was so much to that.

- Even after that, we could've explored how BOZJA, how DALMASCA, How LANDIS, NAGXIA and other regions dealt with the power vacuum of Garlemald going away. DAlmasca already had tensions between civilians and the royal family even before the Empire came in. Bozja has several resistance factions that want a say in how the nation is rebuilt, not to mention every other tiny region in ILSABARD WHICH IS STILL COVERED IN A FOG IN THE MAP, while we gallivant to the edge of the universe!

- Long gone are the moments where we argued with Varis about ruling, and how he points out the hypocricy of the city states of Eorzea on how they treat the beast tribes for example. Long gone are the plots of walking a tight rope in political scheming like it was done in Ul'dah. Any sort of nuance that we had in Ishgard. Any nuance of how crappy the Far East is as an estalishment (Yotsuyu) and could brew tragedies.

In summary: Going to the end of the universe was a mistake, it was like WoW going to the afterlife, did I mention SHARLAYAN has a listening post IN THE AFTERLIFE? (ugh..). If only they could be arsed to write more nuanced storytelling that isn't an instant solution. Have world conflicts, have political conflicts that are ONGOING. Have new wars, in new regions. The WoL might be powerful, but the WoL isn't unbeatable.

Go back to the basics, have people have conflicts and arguments, including the scions. Respect your own worldbuilding from before. Every region has it's own problems and power struggles. Tural is a lost cause I think, writing-wise in terms of the MSQ.

It's more important that they are consistent with the tone of their story, Tural is way too much of an utopia that it borders on unbelievable within the world its supposedly in and it has this weird feeling of being a cultural displaycase instead of being actual living breathing cultures. (Funnily enough AGAIN the sidequests shine with their writing on this compared to the MSQ, I highly recommend the rolequests for example.)

[Hallarem]

Also, speaking of worldbuilding. There's 0 ways of justifying the Ishgard still being stuck in the middle-ages or any other region for that matter, if they just insert whatever tech they fancy from flying mechs to please their plot. If things exist to improve life, it will spread in the world. People argue that Final Fantasy is always a mixture of Scifi and fantasy, yeah.. But there was always a reason in the world for it, there was a reason why one nation had tech and another didnt. And if they insist on just tossing in Allagan stuff that is supposed to be SUPER RARE into the screen all the time, along with space ships, radios and more.

Honestly, FFXIV should just pull the plug on pretending to care about worldbuilding anymore, with their modern clothing glams and such and just make it a scifi game fully with society advancing leaps and bounds. We are getting "SPACE EXPLORATION" in a coming patch. Stop pretending to be fantasy.