The Main Story of 2.0 is God Awful

[Shadelkan]

No spoilers here, though there's nothing to spoil since the game is just so incredibly predictable that you won't be shocked by anything. I've played up to the end of 2.0, and I'm dreading continuing through to 2.5.

The game play is pretty nice, and I love the crafting system, but the first story of this game is so bloody bad! Fetch quests, banal cutscenes and some of the worst writing for an MMO I've ever seen made me just groan in pain and misery. You'd think you could avoid it and just play the fun stuff, but NOPE! It's all gated behind the main story. For each character you make. And it's 80 hours long. It's just terrible design.

Worse still, people will go on and on about how great the first expansion is, but must have amnesia of the LITERALLY ONE HUNDRED ADDITIONAL QUESTS POST MAIN STORY you need to complete before you get to it! So anywhere form 100 to 150 hours of some of the worst, most trite story content before you're allowed to touch the content of the first expansion: And you read that right, you can't even PLAY the expansion and its content without finishing all of the main story before it!

What makes this story ♥♥♥♥ are the characters. This game is not a Final Fantasy game. Final Fantasy is about the characters, how you get to know them, their strengths, their weaknesses, their hopes and dreams. All they do in this game is make long speeches about how things will turn out better and we'll conquer the enemy! They're paper thin, I don't care about any of them, and I can't even remember their names because they're so worthless. There's only 1 useful character, and they only show up after 3/4 of the main story is over. THEYRE THE ONLY CHARACTER THAT DOES SOMETHING. Oh and your character's a mute, but agrees with everyone, no matter how retarded.

The fans are the worst, you can't say what I'm saying to them or you're nuked from orbit. I can't post this on reddit because no one will see it after it's been downvoted into the stone age. All they say is that it gets better in the first expansion. Or they like to talk about how it was worse before, like it makes this entire miserable experience better! Yes 1.0 was gobshite, but it doesn't mean you have to accept 10th grade creative writing! Seriously it's so bad. To quote someone with sense: "The best part about the ARR arc is that it does finally end."

The worst part of this rant is that I want to actually play the game; BUT THE STORY IS IN THE WAY. I can't not play it (not true, I can pay $11 to skip it; most other MMOs charge for additional content, but this MMO lets you pay to SKIP IT... WTF). It drives me bonkers how they could put such a massive, massive flaw in this otherwise great game!

[Om3ga-Z3ro]

Oh geez here we go again.

[Mosh]

FF14 is a scam imo. Better off watching the story on youtube.

[Seera1024]

If you haven't gotten too far into the post-ARR, pre-HW content you could wait until patch 5.3 comes out as they are trimming those quests down to reduce the time spent between the base game story and the expansion story.

It is a slog to get from ARR to HW, but it is worth playing it and not skipping it. It sets up the starting point for HW.

It should be worth reminding or pointing out that the fact that we got 2.0 at all is nothing shy of a miracle, but due to the failures of 1.0, the team wasn't given that large of a budget to work with. They also likely had to prove it was worth it before they could be given the green light to make an expansion. Which means they had to do things to keep the story going until the expansion hit once they got approval for one.

The number of fetch quests goes down significantly between ARR and the expansions. The writing does get better.

I overall liked the ARR story, but if I had to rank the story arcs as to which I like best vs least (ARR, HW, SB, SHB), it would be without a doubt at the bottom. Whereas, I would have to think about what order the other 3 story arcs would be in

[Seera1024]

Originally posted by Mosh:

FF14 is a scam imo. Better off watching the story on youtube.

How is it a scam?! It's given me everything that it told me the game would provide. Which is the opposite of a scam.

[Mosh]

Originally posted by Seera1024:

Originally posted by Mosh:

FF14 is a scam imo. Better off watching the story on youtube.

How is it a scam?! It's given me everything that it told me the game would provide. Which is the opposite of a scam.

Nah all you did was spam spells, walk from point A to point B, always WALK because the main story won't let you fly until you're done with each area LMAO, skip countless forgettable boring dialogue, and maybe then finally listen to a bit of voiced story content and watch some cutscenes.

[Seera1024]

Originally posted by Mosh:

Originally posted by Seera1024:

How is it a scam?! It's given me everything that it told me the game would provide. Which is the opposite of a scam.

Nah all you did was spam spells, walk from point A to point B, always WALK because the main story won't let you fly until you're done with each area LMAO, skip countless forgettable boring dialogue, and maybe then finally listen to a bit of voiced story content and watch some cutscenes.

A scam is when someone says they will deliver X, knowing full well that they do not plan on delivering X ever. Where X is an item/service of a certain level of quality. FFXIV meets that quality, even if it is not the best quality. And they are continuing to improve on what they've delivered.

You say they delivered Y. Can you show a source that says they would deliver X? Where X and Y are significantly different.

Also can't that be said of all MMO's out there? So you're saying that all MMO's are scams?

Also, please don't assume what I've done. I don't spam spells. I didn't skip a single cutscene and I found the dialogue not boring for the most part, especially from HW and on. And there were tons of voiced cutscenes spread throughout the story.

[Navhkrin]

It is awful indeed, I remember reading as kid fantasy books that are written for kids having better story. It is just uninteresting, and it feels like its filled with bad filler episodes.

People are saying "dont skip story you'll miss important stuff" but i think content of "important stuff" that happens in ARR could be summerized into a 30 minute video.

Truth is ARR serves only one porpuse: To make you pay for 1 extra month of sub.

[Mandodo]

The main story, no.

what happens is you get tons of filler in between and people think those are main story.

The ARR main story, just MSQ is really good.

It's just being whited out due to other quests you have to stop and do.

Did you know, there are more side quests in ARR than there are MSQ?

I'd say wait to judge until after the fix up. Let them stream line the MSQ only and let the filler and other BS quests fall on the way side.

This happens in most mmo's, you do one MSQ quest and 30 side quests and other stuff and by the time you come back to the msq you either need a recap or just accept all quests as MSQ quests.

Level 1 - 15 is pretty much an introduction to people and such. After 30 with the Garleans it gets really good.

The complaint was never the ARR MSQ story was bad, it was all the BS you had to do in between MSQ quests that cause people to be rubbed the wrong way.

Soon, with XP being raised you can now just do the MSQ ONLY and get to 50 and almost no, most optional, quests to get from ARR to HW.

Hell, they even removed the quest to make your chocobo fly.

Well, it's coming this summer.

[Mosh]

Don't listen to these 'people'. They have no standards. The reality is the game has maybe 50-100 hours of good content but stretches itself to 500 hours to make people extend their subscriptions. That is why you cannot fly until you finish the story in every area. That is why you are forced to run from point A to point B so many times before anything major happens in the story.

[Mandodo]

Originally posted by Mosh:

Don't listen to these 'people'. They have no standards.

You have 111 hours on record and your talking about 500 hours lmao.

I see you are sore that you can't find any aether currents and nobody will take you there.

I guess you could always quit the game since it's really bad for you.

[Mosh]

Originally posted by Hellbound Heart:

Originally posted by Mosh:

Don't listen to these 'people'. They have no standards.

You have 111 hours on record and your talking about 500 hours lmao.

I see you are sore that you can't find any aether currents and nobody will take you there.

I guess you could always quit the game since it's really bad for you.

They are easy to find. They are however tedious and insulting. I doubt i'll play again. I got scammed by critics giving Shadowbringers 92. I deserve this for trusting them when it comes to Japanese games.

[Seera1024]

Originally posted by Mosh:

Originally posted by Hellbound Heart:

You have 111 hours on record and your talking about 500 hours lmao.

I see you are sore that you can't find any aether currents and nobody will take you there.

I guess you could always quit the game since it's really bad for you.

They are easy to find. They are however tedious and insulting. I doubt i'll play again. I got scammed by critics giving Shadowbringers 92. I deserve this for trusting them when it comes to Japanese games.

Just because a game/movie/book/etc was highly praised doesn't mean that you'll enjoy it.

One should always research what they are buying in order to see if it is something they believe they will like. Then buy if it meets the requirements a person has to buy something.

Either you didn't do your research or you guessed wrong. Neither of which is Square Enix's fault and does not make the game a scam.

[Mandodo]

Originally posted by Mosh:

Originally posted by Hellbound Heart:

You have 111 hours on record and your talking about 500 hours lmao.

I see you are sore that you can't find any aether currents and nobody will take you there.

I guess you could always quit the game since it's really bad for you.

They are easy to find. They are however tedious and insulting. I doubt i'll play again. I got scammed by critics giving Shadowbringers 92. I deserve this for trusting them when it comes to Japanese games.

Sounds like a personal problem. Should have played the free trial first.

[Navhkrin]

Originally posted by Hellbound Heart:

The main story, no.

what happens is you get tons of filler in between and people think those are main story.

The ARR main story, just MSQ is really good.

Nope, main story itself is mediocre at best. There is nothing "really good" about it. Its lame. I cant speak for expansion stories but ARR story is trash.

[Mandodo]

Originally posted by Navhkrin:

Originally posted by Hellbound Heart:

The main story, no.

what happens is you get tons of filler in between and people think those are main story.

The ARR main story, just MSQ is really good.

Nope, main story itself is mediocre at best. There is nothing "really good" about it. Its lame. I cant speak for expansion stories but ARR story is trash.

Sounds like a personal problem and one the majority do not share.

Just quit the game and move on.