FFXIV's current story is less compelling and interesting than a gacha games

[Mayli]

For anyone needing to feel something, being starved of anything truly good from FFXIV: I highly recommend Wuthering Waves.

It has its ups and downs and honestly the gacha aspect is very minimal as the story is made in a way where you need basically 0 investment in the game itself to complete.

I won't call it Shadowbringers 5.0 level but the most recent patch 3.1 and also some that come before it has some of the best storytelling in any game (gacha or not). Being free to play also comes with the territory as well.

Give it a go, I did and I experienced something really special!

[PercibelTheren]

I tried WuWa and gave up after a few hours because the writing was absolutely atrocious. The game had me piece together a story and then gave me a long-ass cutscene recounting what I had just learned. XIV is also guilty of this but not to that extent.

[hydralus]

Already playing genshin, I don't have the time for another gacha.

That said I do enjoy genshin's story and characters (especially its characters) more than FFXIV. Its more consistent, whereas FFXIV is written by wildly different people and it shows.

[CCheshire]

I've got to say that I've found reading the back of cereal boxes to be way more compelling than compared to all gacha and F2P game's attempt at a coherent plot which is let down by the fact they want more money each banner so there's no real sense of progression unless it's opening your wallet for the next waifu banners.

Also, another reminder that gacha/F2P games are not free but funded by children, whales, and gambling addicts.

[Bubert]

I play Wuwa. It’s a great game and very F2P friendly.
I do love the story also, it’s very good. However FFXIV is still better at it.
And I guess current Ffxiv expansion makes more sense for those that have played Ff9.

[Sunhwapark]

Eh, they're okay I guess.
A shame their daily loop is not that interesting for me, and neither is praying for lucky pulls on gacha things either.

No hate to them of course, they're good for printing money at the moment.

[Aidorouge]

Depends on the gacha game I guess. Just going by the ones I'm playing...

Blue Archive: Mostly light-hearted anime fluff, and the very times it tries to be "dark" it just ends up cringe.
Azur Lane: The multi-verse plotline is such a mess I just skip all cutscenes and look at the ship booba.
Kemono Friends Kingdom: Literally never finished because the game got sent into maintenance mode until whenever it shuts down. But even before then it was as cute and simple as can be.
Zenless Zone Zero: Fell off incredibly hard during season 2.0 when we went from "cyberpunk corporation espionage plots involving hackers and cults" to "melodramatic magical swordland adventures in not-Genshin town with the two lamest siblings ever". And man... if you folks disliked Wuk Lamat, you'll bloody HATE Ye Shunguang, lol.

[Ankhira]

Sorry but, you can not be serious? I know this is your opinion and I'll respect it, but you can not in good faith believe that gachas, ESPECIALLY Wuthering Waves has a better story than FFXIV. Dawntrail was not great but this constant "Dawntrail bad" is getting old tbh.

I have played quite a lot of gachas and most of their stories are mid at best, they often are so convoluted with terms you'll hear once every 6 months and designed in a way to just sell the current banner character. There's some good ones, but most of them are just self insert waifu dating simulators which has no depth at all.

Wuthering Waves story boils down to: Main character meets the current banner character and needs to help them with a massive threat, the banner character falls for the main character (not directly stated but heavily implied), the main character fixes everything without any issues, repeat next patch but with the new banner character while the old ones never show up again.

[hydralus]

Zenless Zone Zero: Fell off incredibly hard during season 2.0 when we went from "cyberpunk corporation espionage plots involving hackers and cults" to "melodramatic magical swordland adventures in not-Genshin town with the two lamest siblings ever". And man... if you folks disliked Wuk Lamat, you'll bloody HATE Ye Shunguang, lol.

Man do I ever agree with that. Same thing happened with Star Rail. Like, I get it. It's like every Western fantasy game being about elves and orcs and every Japanese game being about 16 year olds killing God, they just can't stop themselves, PROBABLY because their audience loves that shit. Don't stop me from being a little bummed it keeps happening.

[Immut]

Man do I ever agree with that. Same thing happened with Star Rail. Like, I get it. It's like every Western fantasy game being about elves and orcs and every Japanese game being about 16 year olds killing God, they just can't stop themselves, PROBABLY because their audience loves that shit. Don't stop me from being a little bummed it keeps happening.

Those are Chinese games. And they're also all terrible soulless trash that are almost certainly using LLMs for their story development and in some cases even using it for in game dialogue.

You want gacha games with good story and gameplay that doesn't suck ass, Arknights (not Endfield), Limbus Company, Another Eden, Wizardry: Variants Daphne, or even watch the story compilations from dead games like Mobius Final Fantasy or Echoes of Mana. I'm not sure I'd say they have a better story than FFXIV, but they're better than Hoyoslop and Diet Hoyoslop.