Not enough stuff to get me emotionally invested

[Abriael]

I agree that emotional invested should be a very present element in the game (actually there's quite a bit in some class quests, but there should be more and more distributed through the storyline).

The path companion could be very conductive of that as I explained in this thread.
The main story is a tad too slow in revealing the villain (even if he looks like he has a TON of potential), and the main supporting characters (the miquote from limsa, the hyur ninja from ul'dah and the silly lady+lalafell from gridania) disappear for an excessively long time between the rank 20 and the rank 46 quest (returning with no reason given at all).

The story itself isn't the problem, as much as the fact that the quests are too far apart, so the slower development is excessively felt. I personally would speed up considerably the progression of the current story quests (distributing them between rank 1 and 35) and add more and more involved chapters between rank 35 and 50. I doubt we'll see an extension of the level cap before the PS3 release anyway.

[Randis]

IMO Getting to R46 to get a taste of the story is a design flaw.
Introducing things slowly is one thing, expecting people to hit the level cap to get a hint of story is much to less.
This story i would expect to see R1 - R30.

You can't make MMO RPG with a decent story of a offline RPG game? You keep hearing that, but its BS.
There are no universal rules.
What you get in most mmo is not a story, its merely a setting.
What you have in FFXIV is just a setting, there is no story development that involves your character, you have no role in this story, you merely get told what happens in the world without being a part of it.
From the start you have no boundaries, you can travel all world and access all (non instanced) dungeons.
You are not restricted and that partially makes the story so unrevealing.
In a offline game you slowly get to discover the world following a storyline, you experience twists and get to see new things.
It may be somewhat linear, sometimes with multiple choices but hey, that is how stories work! You can’t have a completely open story, coz then it would not be a story…
FFXIV simply does not get you involved, it merely simulates the daily life within the given setting.
Days pass by, you kill, you craft, that’s it.
If you watch any awesome MMO CGI movie, the cool heroes you see, you know, it is not you.
Playing the MMO, the games makes sure to make you feel completely unimportant, random cannon fodder.

You are not the batman, hell you are not even robin, you are just a dude who knows a friend of robins ex GF.

[Ostia]

IMO Getting to R46 to get a taste of the story is a design flaw.
Introducing things slowly is one thing, expecting people to hit the level cap to get a hint of story is much to less.
This story i would expect to see R1 - R30.

You can't make MMO RPG with a decent story of a offline RPG game? You keep hearing that, but its BS.
There are no universal rules.
What you get in most mmo is not a story, its merely a setting.
What you have in FFXIV is just a setting, there is no story development that involves your character, you have no role in this story, you merely get told what happens in the world without being a part of it.
From the start you have no boundaries, you can travel all world and access all (non instanced) dungeons.
You are not restricted and that partially makes the story so unrevealing.
In a offline game you slowly get to discover the world following a storyline, you experience twists and get to see new things.
It may be somewhat linear, sometimes with multiple choices but hey, that is how stories work! You can’t have a completely open story, coz then it would not be a story…
FFXIV simply does not get you involved, it merely simulates the daily life within the given setting.
Days pass by, you kill, you craft, that’s it.
If you watch any awesome MMO CGI movie, the cool heroes you see, you know, it is not you.
Playing the MMO the games makes sure to make you feel completely unimportant, cannon fodder.

You are not the batman, hell you are not even robin, you are just a dude who knows a friend of robins ex GF.

I know i will get a lot of hate for this, but in WOW the NPC are my robin <.< Just saying

Also i agree with abriael this time.

[Abriael]

Another problem is that the class quests (that are mostly very nice and involved story-wide) are, by definition, distributed between classes. There's unfortunately, a lot of high quality quest-related content with lovely cutscenes and characters that many people simply don't experience, because they don't play all classes to level 36.

Just as I suggested above with the main storyline, I would condense the level progression and add a longer/more epic tail to the class quests as well, as proposed in this thread.

[Rau]

I think the worst part of the story is that your character isn't actually "doing" anything.

Such is the flaw of letting crafters participate in the main story. You can beat the final mission without "doing" anything. Just let the NPC get beaten by the environment. Hell, even in the cutscene, your ass is being saved by NPCs.

[Randis]

What do you mean the crafter not doing anything? whaaaaaaaaaat? I made 6 bucklers for Camp Horizon! They told me it was important.

Seriously tho, I really liked the Goldsmith and alchemist quests, they revealed a lot of BG info about the world. I also liked the gladiator quests that told a lot too. In fact I liked those quests more than the 1-3X main story like quests

[viion]

Rank 50 done all stories, including 46 and story sucks, its rubbish, predictable and whoever wrote it should be ashamed, its typical and cheap to the FF series. But coupled with a boring game and (post current patch)bad levelling designs not a lot of people saw it. Rank 46 is the only decent one because it has a pimp fight scene but it lasts about 1 minute and is very typical FF style and the ending was utterly stupid. its like watching a show that constantly tries to kill the main character, but obviously you know hes the main and cant die and some how survive the impossible over something stupid.

Very unhappy about the story so far.

The only thing I can give credits to is the cinematics are amazing because the engine was built on that purpose, and the fact that party members can show up in cutscenes like they belong there, which could make me think in future you might have cross-party cutscenes which would be ultra-awesome. We'll see