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Imagine a game that’s fun right out of the box… Boring right? Yeah… Let’s put 150 hours of filler at the start before it gets fun.
Some business exec somewhere.
Well I mean, it’s not really like that in this case. Every story expansion just requires you to have cleared the previous parts of the game.
The base game/before the first expansion isn’t bad per se, I had a fun time with the game at that point. But there happens to be a remarkable step up in quality starting with the first expansion, and the game pretty much keeps getting better from there.
Also during the last few years they have been revamping the early-game extensively, adding modern visuals and refreshing the design of the dungeons and boss fights. But having played before these changes, I still wouldn’t call the beginning of the game “filler”. I found it quite charming, and the multiplayer aspect is also fun in its own respect at that point.
Just my 2c, I’m not one to defend large corporations but I don’t think the trope really applies to XIV
It’s always funny when you see the exact personification of a meme in the comments.
Not a big fan of nuance, I presume?
Bet they didn’t even play for 100s of hours before making up their mind smdh
Perhaps the confusion is my fault for acknowledging that the game did indeed improve over the course of its ten year run, which is…obviously…the best possible case scenario.
But if you read my comment again, you may notice that my point is the exact opposite of what you’re joking about. I don’t believe there really is a multi hundred hour “rite of passage” to get to “the good part”. Not only is the beginning already pretty good, but, as I said, they are actively modernizing it to bring it more in line with the later parts (which are even better).
Is there a subtlety here that I have simply failed to convey? Is the idea of a decent game becoming a masterpiece really indistinguishable from the idea of a fundamentally worthless game dangling the hope of a better game out in front of you like a carrot on a stick? Really help me out here
Someone told me something like that once: “one piece it’s interesting from episode 90 onward” and he wasn’t joking.
The thing is, One Piece does get exponentially bigger and better as the story unfolds but if you don’t like it from the start then it probably just isn’t for you.
During the darkest moments the pandemic, I needed something to take my mind off of reality. So I skipped to One Piece 500ish and just started reading. Didn’t really love it, but didn’t really hate it. Then around 600ish, it started clicking. And then by 650, I couldn’t believe I was rooting for Luffy and the Straw Hat crew.
Now I’m at 1100 and part of the extremely annoying crowd who talk about One Piece.
I feel like this complaint only applies to other mmoheads coming from endgame in WoW or some other MMO, or already established gamers with little to no experience with MMOs that are trying it out for the first time.
Every MMO is a slow burn at the beginning because you have little to no skills and they’re just trying to introduce you to the characters and the setting.
Meanwhile the literal thousands of newcomers fall in love with the game as soon as they start even when it’s “nothing but fetch quests” or “boring as hell” according to the aforementioned vocal minority.
Came here to say this, the complaint has no idea how MMOs work (not to mention how much better and more story XIV has, even in— and sometimes especially in— all the side content)
I got 650 hours in and I’m only about halfway through the MSQ.
I just can’t anymore.
It’s too much.
If you’re halfway through the MSQ then you’re already well into the parts people widely regard as good. If you’re not having a good time yet you probably never will.
I’d go as far to say Heavensward may be the benchmark for whether people will enjoy the rest of the game. It’s where the voice acting and general presentation upgrades to a level that, to me, remained consistent throughout the rest of the MSQ.
Most importantly, at least to me, you get new plot twists to some earlier events which tells you A LOT about the narrative structure going forward. There’s a reveal during the middle of Heavensward that basically killed narrative tension for me throughout the rest of the MSQ.
It’s not that their direction there is bad, I had just gotten swept up in the “omg it gets so DARK” hype so I was dissapointed when it consistently walked back major events. It took me until the middle of Endwalker to realise “oh, right, that’s not the kind of story and experience they want to tell”.
What part, if I may ask? Unless it’s in Endwalker, then don’t tell me.
Keeping details minimal because I can’t for the life of me get spoiler tags to work on kbin:
In the middle of Heavensward we learn that a very dramatic death sequence that led to some major events was a ruse. The character is alive and things will quickly return to normal.
I get what they wanted, but big fakeouts like that are not my thing. It felt like the consequences were walked back so I could never take the rest of the story seriously. Anything bad that happens could just be reverted.
Endwalker has a point after a lot of stuff goes down where I was thinking “Yeah this is edgy and all, but they really held back from doing anything actually substantial” then we get introduced to a bunch of cuteness and silly things. It took until then to really settle with me that they mostly want to tell fun and uplifting stories, so making stuff look dark and dramatic but keeping the lasting impact down is more of an objective of theirs than a narrative flaw.
I can appreciate that, and a lot of other things about the game and its story, but that in particular is just not for me.
Gonna repeat what someone else here said: This is a dumb, dumb complaint that clearly doesn’t understand MMOs in general, nor the slow build-up to you being a hero, nor how much better XIV is doing writing-wise than literally every other MMO. Also the side content can be really freaking good. I’ve cried a few times and got close many others— and that’s just the poignant stuff— not the hilarious or badass stuff.
XIV ain’t perfect, but this is one of the dumbest complaints someone could have about an MMO; and they picked the worst MMO to complain about the writing on.
