perhaps it will get better, but until then, i’ll continue watching paint dry😴
enjoy Dawntrail without me, i doubt that i’ll catch up😭
More moopliss content: http://linktr.ee/moopliss
•Twitch•
Explore Eorzea with me: http://twitch.tv/moopliss
•Discord•
Join the Hydrated Gamers Discord here: https://discord.gg/hMY85zXJxg
•Patreon•
Exclusive content & more on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/moopliss
•My Social Links•
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moopliss/
TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@moopliss
Twitter: http://twitter.com/moopliss
•Music•
Outro music by Chris Zabriskie
#ffxiv #newplayer #ff14
source
warning: the entire story is not that good if you've read a book past high school or experienced any good stories. ff14's story is good if you're like, exclusively an anime watcher and game player, since those mediums haven't had a good story in like 15 years
If you want another distraction from the msq, you can always try PvP.
i started playing the game 3 years ago and to get to endwalker from ARR it was almost 1 year of playing the ga me everyday dont rush the game game the content will always be there enjoy all aspects of the game i still am working on leveling up my jobs which after 3 years worth of game play is 80% done the thing is to play at a pace which you find fun to do looking forward to seeing your take on the game
Base story is def boring but the ending is good!
Well do you watch episode 20 of the office before episode 1? Do you start with season 3 before season 2?
It's a story. You want to experience the expansions that everybody else says is great. But ARR is actually better in retrospect. ARR is good its a good game by itself. Sure there are some weird sloggish quests but getting through it makes everything later so much more memorable. FFXIV is a story book. You can't enjoy current expansion stuff without the built up emotional investment from everything that precedes it.
Also u should try palace of the dead if u want a distraction as well
Just a few things that may, or may not make you feel better about ARR, but that can probably explain a bit about what you said:
Be prepared, it will get worst before it gets better
The story of ARR isnt bad(or good), there is no story in ARR. It's pretty much world and characters presentation.
The story is huge and full of references to things you learn in ARR, so for as much of a slug ARR is, you'll be rewarded for paying attention.
GW and WOW stories dont work like XIV, they can't let you play the expansions in the order you would like because the story is sequencial, and things done in each expansion, have consequences and will be picked up ahead.
In the end, ARR is a10 years old game that didn't evolve and is quite hard to swallow now, but, it is a necessary evil giving the story ahead of you.
I don't really know how they'll be able to fix it unless they rework it entirely.
Give it time, try not to think that the sweetest things are yet to come, enjoy it for what it is and everything it has to offer, dont forget Coils of Bahamut and the expert trials, pay attention to the alliance raid.
And do this in every expansion (alliance raid, normal raid, trials side story), those stories get connected.
Besides, most of those are great in it's onw right
I know people say that MSQ is the only thing that matters, but that's just a way to make it even more boring and, it's not true anyway.
The world in XIV, works as a whole, everything is important, most of the little side stories will come back to bite you in the ass.
Enjoy it for what it is, an old MMO with all that entails, the good and the bad.
If you pay attention, you'll realize later, it was a necessary evil.
* Try an ocean fishing trip in Limsa.
* Interesting tidbit: A lot of the HC raiders are also HC fishers, because it kinda requires the same skills. Learning how to catch a specific rare fish, is similar to learning a new raid mechanic.
* The cheese quest with the dungeon is my personal favorite in ARR, not everyday you have to kill a dragon to get a wheel of cheese.
* ARR sets up the rest of the expansions. You probably could have skipped a lot of reading some quests i think the more important parts happen past level 35. However the real slugfest is the post ARR msq until Heavensward.
* There is always an option to buy a skip to the current expansion.
The lala mafia was after the guy who used the purple shampoo (fantasia). It was so funny that stream
I tried the game once when it was rly hyped and yeah i had the same problem, I rly dont care about any story in any game like i have 15k hours in wow and no idea what is happening in the story at all so for me having to play whole story which i didnt even read or anything like that was just pain and theres no way i will ever come back to do this tbh
The base story the first time you play through feels awesome at least for me, but after it's not nearly as fun the second time but it goes faster than any other expansion!
The dungeons to me are quite boring and would rather not have to do them, it's one reason I avoid dungeon roulette etc. as I can't be arsed to bother with them.
I'm not a huge fan of the "it gets better" message that a lot people keep spreading. It's not like they're wrong, it does get better: more cutscenes, more voiced dialogues, more character development, more creative and interesting stories, better pacing, and so on. But I don't think it's fair to set fake expectations: the way XIV tells its story stays roughly the same throughout all the expansions. When you reach Heavensward, it's not a complete 180. The game doesn't get much more interactive (in fact, I believe the MSQ gets less interactive over time), it's still quite verbose and redundant, it will always feel like a linear singleplayer visual novel with no choices. And this is coming from a guy who loves XIV even where most people say the game is at its lowest.
The thing for me is that if I played the game waiting for it to get good, I'd have 50 hrs of play time, instead of 6.5k. What made me fall in love with XIV was its unique flavour, the places, the cultures, the classic FF aesthetics, the references, the humour, the people, the nuance and cleverness of the world and its issues, the ease of approach, the minigames, the emotes, the music… Despite its linearity and the relatively stiff and old systems, I felt completely enveloped by Eorzea. All those things are there from the very start, and once you care about them, you'll probably warm up even to the driest of ARR's dialogues. On the other hand, if somebody dislikes XIV's approach to questing and storytelling (95% talking, 3% resisting the urge to alt-tab, 2% pressing buttons) on a fundamental level, I think it's a bit unfair and counterproductive to trap them in the promise that in 200 hours they will surely like it.
For this reason, my only real tip to new players would be to take it slow, look around, waste time, make friends, try other jobs, craft, gather, /pet lalas. Go on with the main quest only when you feel like it, don't force youself, grind the Gold Saucer instead. You're still young and the game isn't going anywhere. If at that point the game still doesn't click, it's unlikely that reaching Heavensward is going to save it.
Imho, of course. Anyways, I'm glad you're enjoying XIV overall, and welcome to Eorzea! 🙂
The difference of ARR is when you did it. If you did the game as it launched back in 2.0 then it isn't As BAD as a memory because you did them as each patch came out and had to wait a while for the new stuff to pop in. This story was also purposely made longer because of the world building and establishing concepts, ideas and characters that will come back later in the narrative or in sidequests. like a good 1/3rd of the game's content is it's story.
And it's a double edge sword. It's like wanting to read Harry Potter because everyone is hyped for the Half-Blood Prince to come out, but you had to slog through Phiolsopher's Stone and Chamber of secrets before anything really takes off kind of feeling. AS a fan it hurts to hear it and i can make reasoning why the Company of heroes in the titan quest make you go through that as a test of measure and preparation because Titan up to this point was much stronger than Ifrit you fought before…
But not everyone can invest in the MSQ as others. It's the true challenge to get new players to get through it and enjoy it when most of the quests are building up for the future…
Edit: I hope people don't take offense of your legit frustration with ARR MSQ as not everyone can jive with it and as a community there will be some players who will try and deny it because "You just don't get it" in the face of negativity towards it's story.
ARR story is lame. we all suffered here but the story gets better with the other addons. just make through ARR and the fun part starts in Ishgard 😅
Heavensward has a great story 👍
Interesting video you have here. I would I agree with you 100% but until you'd experience Endwalker. I would suggest revisiting this video after finishing Endwalker and see if you still hold the same opinion.
The first time I played FFXIV, I quit in ARR. I made it to around Coerthas (which I think is about where you are now–level 40 to 45). This was before the release of Heavensward.
ARR is…slow. VERY slow. That said, the ARR I experienced is far different from the one you're going through. I've been watching sprouts do it recently, and I'd say around 45-50 is like a completely different game from the one I played, in a very good way.
If you make it there, I hope you enjoy it, sincerely. If not, like I said, I quit once, too. The game isn't going anywhere, and it'll still be there if something pulls at you to stick it out.
Hell, speaking of Guild Wars 2 players, Laranity only just made it to current content in FFXIV, and it took her years. Do it at your own pace. There's no need to rush.😁
but that's the issue. you cannot experience the later expansions without experiencing through the worldbuilding that was ARR. the later expansions would not have the same impact if you didn't play through ARR. you mentioned reading books – skipping ARR is like picking up a book but only start reading like halfway through.
Define "a lot of people" many players managed to get to post-Endwalker with no issue, sounds like you just didn't have the patience to keep moving forward. I started playing tail end of when ARR came out, enjoyed the entire time. shrug
Yeah ARR used to be way more fun, I wonder how many players they lose to it today. The story was the same, but back then you needed to spice up your journey with other content because you got little EXP from MSQ. Of course it took much longer to get to level cap but it was much more fulfilling than just story, story, story. You also had more skills at low level, and if you decided to take a break and try another job, there used to be a cross-class system that would allow you to mix up your skills with that of another job and get even more skills.
Unfortunately they had to compress the entire ARR experience to just the MSQ around Stormblood, because every expansion adds about 60 hours of MSQ, and after 4 expansions (soon 5) you don't want new players to be spending their time in your oldest content. It was a necessity, but IMO it also made ARR incredibly dry and lonely, especially for those looking for a proper MMORPG and not just a single-player JRPG.
I don't think they should unlock expansion zones (there are narrative reasons why they are not accessible during ARR) but after Dawntrails I think they need to add a new origin story that branches new players directly into Dawntrails, a bit like how a Guild Wars 1 campaign came with its own starting zone and story instead of having you do Prophecy. There is already New Game+ for those who would want to replay the MSQ, so the OG storyline would still be there for those interested, but at least it wouldn't wall you off from the end-game content.
You should definitely skip the boring dialogues. If you don't like reading, watching only the cutscenes is enough.
Titan storyline is essentially FFXIV"s hazing period. Everyone hates it. Even Y'shtola says it's a waste of time. The follow up murderfest shows the pattern of XIV's story – they try to balance light and dark, fun and depressing, boring and exciting. They did it poorly with the Titan storyline – they got better at writing and pacing, to some extent, later on.
But as others have said in the comments, XIV's stories are a linear narrative, and they build on each other. Endwalker makes less sense without Shadowbringers. Shadowbnringers makes no sense without the Crystal Tower raids in base ARR.
Don't be ashamed to spam through the story early on – if you get confused, you can always go back and rewatch it later in the inn. A lot of stuff only makes sense in hindsight anyway.
Re: chat boxes – yes! we all hope they add that as an option some day for the console players.
Attempted msq twice, both times it bored me back to wow. Now u know u have a problem when retail wow has a better leveling experience
I got through ARR by breaking it up with my job ADHD. I didn't level all the jobs to 50 before finishing ARR, but i did have them all unlocked and had some time played with them.
Thing is, the ARR MSQ was revised. That pre-Titan section is shorter than it used to be. But they can't just not have you go through that. Those characters show up again later. More than once. Everything in ARR is important later. It's world-building or introducing characters or presenting character traits that make sense later. For instance, the whole side quest section relating to the strain of grapevines and wine-making? That is Very Important for Lore Reasons relating to the character of the Warrior of Light.
It'll make sense later, but there are reasons why my shorthand description for the Warrior of Light as presented in the game is "Highly Food Motivated Chaos Gremlin with more Compassion than Sense".
I think for me, I was introduced to it by a friend who played and knew I loved story. I wasn't really told anything else outside of that. My previous MMO experiences was FFXI and a little bit of WoW so I kind of expected the base game story wise to be what it is in each MMO because each base game story is usually "just okay" imo. My mentality going in was just seeing how things improved by each patch/expansion and such and how the writers take with them moving forward. For me, ARR is like reading the start of The Lord of the Rings or 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and you're near the start where you have to get through yet another song describing some random thing sung by a hobbit or yet another marine biology lesson in 20,000. I agree it is dense and dry, but because of that, I get a better understanding of the viewpoints and values that each character has and how it evolves over the story through each expansion. For me, I kind of got into the story early on during the dungeon in the mines cuz I was like… "Wait…why are we putting down a slave rebellion of trolls? These Monerterists that hire us don't seem to be good people…" And then in a short moment when Thancred (I think) mocked my character for blindly completing tasks for random people, something clicked for me. But that's me, everyone is different.
Now that I am up-to-date, I really enjoy seeing what the writers build off of which gets introduced in ARR and other expansions afterwards.