The amount of filler content in story is out of hand

[Ashantara.8731]

44 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

It is not a fact that GW2 is in maintenance mode. 

Their claim is nurtured by disappointment and sheer frustration about what is being sold as "major update" content these days. Inner Nayos has been a disgrace so far in terms of story scope, map design, content design (like stupendous grind achievement), etc.

It may not be maintenance mode, but it definitely is "Sorry, we are busy with developing GW3, so this is the type of filler content you are going to get for most part in the years to come."

[kharmin.7683]

1 hour ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Their claim is nurtured by disappointment and sheer frustration about what is being sold as "major update" content these days. Inner Nayos has been a disgrace so far in terms of story scope, map design, content design (like stupendous grind achievement), etc.

It may not be maintenance mode, but it definitely is "Sorry, we are busy with developing GW3, so this is the type of filler content you are going to get for most part in the years to come."

Oh, I understand the frustration there, but to say that the game is in maintenance mode as a matter of fact is simply untrue.

[Sobx.1758]

18 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

Stating facts?

Always.

The only fact here was that you don't understand what "maintenance mode" is. Or you're intentionally misusing it -either way, your post wasn't stating any fact.

Edited May 9 by Sobx.1758

[Inssengrimm.7924]

Guild Wars 2 in maintenance mode must be the most funny stuff i`ve read all day.

On the other hand, people talking smack about XIV is not understanding the huge diference in resources between Anet and SE. Nor the design choices or focus of both projects. 
FFXIV doesn't have any filler, is just its deep narrative that demands a dense text exposition which is for any JAPANESE RPG quite the norm, also because of it's infrastructure and network XIV works focused on instanced content, the exact opposite of GW2 where the focus is in open world content for the most part.

[Shiyo.3578]

36 minutes ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

Guild Wars 2 in maintenance mode must be the most funny stuff i`ve read all day.

On the other hand, people talking smack about XIV is not understanding the huge diference in resources between Anet and SE. Nor the design choices or focus of both projects. 
FFXIV doesn't have any filler, is just its deep narrative that demands a dense text exposition which is for any JAPANESE RPG quite the norm, also because of it's infrastructure and network XIV works focused on instanced content, the exact opposite of GW2 where the focus is in open world content for the most part.

FF14 is a terrible game.

[Futa.4375]

2 hours ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

FFXIV doesn't have any filler, is just its deep narrative that demands a dense text exposition which is for any JAPANESE RPG quite the norm, also because of it's infrastructure and network XIV works focused on instanced content, the exact opposite of GW2 where the focus is in open world content for the most part.

FFXIV is choke full of filler and GW2 is trying to mimic FFXIV since EoD. And it is indeed a terrible game. This is coming from a huge FF fan.

[Inssengrimm.7924]

3 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

FF14 is a terrible game.

Yeah, no.
Not that MMORPG genre is too competitive, nothing has changed much in the last decade, but XIV is a great game, critically acclaimed and well directed, all things we cannot say about Guild Wars 2 for example.

1 hour ago, Futa.4375 said:

FFXIV is choke full of filler and GW2 is trying to mimic FFXIV since EoD. And it is indeed a terrible game. This is coming from a huge FF fan.

Again no.
And is not trying to copy anything from XIV.

For that you would need to introduce characters and develop them for a decade, Guild Wars 2 just moves on with it's story, no character has gotten development at all since Aurene and i doubt something like that will happen again. "Hello Eparch, Bye Eparch". 3 months lasted the big baddie. 

You all confusing filler with lacking content.
Last patch added half a map.

Third of a map really. 3 patches, 1 overworld map, in 3 splits.
Thats no filler, thats Anet not being able to deliver a minimum of a single whole open world map per patch. 

Thats why you have to "go and do events" at every step of the storyline, because there is nothing more there anyways, a third of a map, let that sink in.
And people wants more instanced content? lol.

Edited May 9 by Inssengrimm.7924

[Ashen.2907]

Ive never been able to get past the low level content in order to get to what people tell me is FFXIV's, "good parts." It remains some of the worst gaming experience Ive had, on par with SotO.

[Inssengrimm.7924]

Just now, Ashen.2907 said:

Ive never been able to get past the low level content in order to get to what people tell me is FFXIV's, "good parts." It remains some of the worst gaming experience Ive had, on par with SotO.

Not every game is for everyone.
For me A Realm Reborn was better than Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

And if these are your "worset gaming experiences" you must not have played many games, let alone MMORPGs. 

[Ashen.2907]

1 minute ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

Not every game is for everyone.
For me A Realm Reborn was better than Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

And if these are your "worset gaming experiences" you must not have played many games, let alone MMORPGs. 

Decades of experience with games and MMOs in particular. You might want to consider quoting accurately if you are going to attempt to comment on my point. "Some of the worst," is different than, "the worst."

[Inssengrimm.7924]

Not even "some", thats just dishonesty.

XIV didn't reach the place it has by being a bad/worse at anything, not for you i would be belive, but dissing it is just dishonesty, specially in a genre plagued by... Corpses upon corpses of dead games and miss managed projects and trash cash grabs. And neither has GW2 got to where it is because its a worse/bad, SotO has many failures, but still is a better game/play than most of the titles out there. 

... Even if it has delivered a single open world map in 3 patches. 

That silliness started with Borja and Drizzlewood. Needs to stop. One patch, one full map. 

[QueenKeriti.5176]

3 hours ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

Guild Wars 2 in maintenance mode must be the most funny stuff i`ve read all day.

On the other hand, people talking smack about XIV is not understanding the huge diference in resources between Anet and SE. Nor the design choices or focus of both projects. 
FFXIV doesn't have any filler, is just its deep narrative that demands a dense text exposition which is for any JAPANESE RPG quite the norm, also because of it's infrastructure and network XIV works focused on instanced content, the exact opposite of GW2 where the focus is in open world content for the most part.

My guy, I have a meme I made back in 5.3 of Gordon Ramsey saying "Finally, some good effing plot" because 5.1 up until the big reveal/fight in 5.3 were dry af, and then there's that mission where we like help train some kids how to be heroes (but not really?) while the world is literally in the process of ending (I think also in 5.3?)? Extreme and unnecessary filler within the MSQ that doesn't add function or flavor to the world. FFXIV has tons of it, and that's been one of my biggest criticisms of the game since 2015 when I started with ARR->HW.

I'm finally playing Endwalker, and I've only just now done the first trial, and there was a lot of filler leading up to that. I understand not wanting players to just burn through the story in a day, but it's still super grating.

1 minute ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

Not that MMORPG genre is too competitive, nothing has changed much in the last decade, but XIV is a great game, critically acclaimed and well directed, all things we cannot say about Guild Wars 2 for example.

"Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime."

Is all I can think of with this, lmao. It was hilarious when everyone recycled this meme when Stormblood went free, too. I still giggle about it.

One of my friends is a diehard FFXIV fan, almost everything to 90 (all the DoH/DoL are 90, all the combat classes are 80-90), lord knows how many hours played, and even he full on well admits that it's flawed. Even just 20 minutes ago, we were talking in Discord about the 1-50 experience (ARR + 2.X) being awful, how bad a lot of classes feel, how lackluster a lot of encounters were/are, and how things really didn't get enjoyable/good until you get into expac content. Heck, IMO, White Mage doesn't feel "good" until Shadowbringers.

Just now, Ashen.2907 said:

Ive never been able to get past the low level content in order to get to what people tell me is FFXIV's, "good parts." It remains some of the worst gaming experience Ive had, on par with SotO.

Yup. :/ Trying to get my friends through ARR/2.X right now, and it's rough. I blame no one for wanting to spend the $10 or whatever to story skip straight to Heavensward.

GW2 is far from perfect; it's riddled with flaws and mismanagement and the mess of endless pivots in game direction (most notably Champions/Gyala), but FFXIV is no living saint either. FFXIV is a great game, yes, but it has its flaws, too. It can be "critically acclaimed" and still be constructively criticized. That criticism is what has turned FFXIV into a very good game, especially from what it launched as. :/ 

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

Not even "some", thats just dishonesty.

XIV didn't reach the place it has by being a bad/worse at anything, not for you i would be belive, but dissing it is just dishonesty, specially in a genre plagued by... Corpses upon corpses of dead games and miss managed projects and trash cash grabs. And neither has GW2 got to where it is because its a worse/bad, SotO has many failures, but still is a better game/play than most of the titles out there. 

... Even if it has delivered a single open world map in 3 patches. 

That silliness started with Borja and Drizzlewood. Needs to stop. One patch, one full map. 

You are, again, mistaken. You do not get to decide what was enjoyable for me. Attempting to declare that you know what I enjoyed, didn't enjoy, and to what degree of each demonstrates that it is not I that is being dishonest. 

As to SotO...couldnt bring myself to even continue it. 

[Poormany.4507]

15 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

It may not be maintenance mode, but it definitely is "Sorry, we are busy with developing GW3, so this is the type of filler content you are going to get for most part in the years to come."

While I agree that there is too much filler/weaker content in SotO, it is still extremely far from maintenance mode (as doomers have been claiming for years now). Maintenance mode is GW1 with zero new content or QOL updates or anything. They just posted a giant list of big QOL updates released in the past year with plans on making more, including significant graphics/engine updates, that wouldn't be possible if the game was in or near maintenance mode. They wouldn't be making engine updates if they plan to drop the game in a year or two.

Edited May 10 by Poormany.4507

[Inssengrimm.7924]

17 hours ago, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

My guy

TLDR> Not for me.

Yes, critically acclaimed is a meme, yet also is true.

You don't get to where XIV or GW2 are by being flawed, boring, full of "filler" or anything you have talked, i also have my criticism for that and this game, both of which i have well over 10k hours of gameplay. Nah, just beign dishonest and trashing things for the sake of trashing things is then again the attitude most MMORPG players take - Just a quick glance at the MMORPG reddit to see that attitude.

Talking smack about these games as they were, for example, New World. 

Dishonesty is not getting you anywhere, you are not a critic, you are just cynic. 

[QueenKeriti.5176]

2 hours ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

TLDR> Not for me.

Yes, critically acclaimed is a meme, yet also is true.

You don't get to where XIV or GW2 are by being flawed, boring, full of "filler" or anything you have talked, i also have my criticism for that and this game, both of which i have well over 10k hours of gameplay. Nah, just beign dishonest and trashing things for the sake of trashing things is then again the attitude most MMORPG players take - Just a quick glance at the MMORPG reddit to see that attitude.

Talking smack about these games as they were, for example, New World. 

Dishonesty is not getting you anywhere, you are not a critic, you are just cynic. 

...what?

[Inssengrimm.7924]

1 hour ago, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

...what?

There is a diference between a bad game, and a game not for you, those things are not the same.
XIV nor GW2 are bad games, they might not be for you, but bad? Yeah right.

XIV nor GW2 have any filler to them, they are what they are and are pretty good at what they do. If that wasn't the case, specially in this genre, they would have been long dead. XIV was dead on release for example. GW2 even at its arguably lowest point is still a better MMORPG than the rest of the top 100 that follow behind it assuming is, and rightfully so, in anyone's top 5 among WoW, XIV, ESO, OSR... Where do you think XIV or GW2 are? Next to what? TERA? New World? LotrO and SwtOR? 

If you don't like reading or sidequest or deep, slow paced gameplay or character development/world building, thats all, you don't like those things, you know there are plenty of games out there that are just straight to the point bombastic and fast paced without any of those things? 
 

[Ashen.2907]

3 hours ago, QueenKeriti.5176 said:

...what?

My thought as well. You pointed out that the games had flaws, as anything created by humans will. That is not claiming that the games are bad. 

[QueenKeriti.5176]

1 hour ago, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

There is a diference between a bad game, and a game not for you, those things are not the same.
XIV nor GW2 are bad games, they might not be for you, but bad? Yeah right.

XIV nor GW2 have any filler to them, they are what they are and are pretty good at what they do. If that wasn't the case, specially in this genre, they would have been long dead. XIV was dead on release for example. GW2 even at its arguably lowest point is still a better MMORPG than the rest of the top 100 that follow behind it assuming is, and rightfully so, in anyone's top 5 among WoW, XIV, ESO, OSR... Where do you think XIV or GW2 are? Next to what? TERA? New World? LotrO and SwtOR? 

If you don't like reading or sidequest or deep, slow paced gameplay or character development/world building, thats all, you don't like those things, you know there are plenty of games out there that are just straight to the point bombastic and fast paced without any of those things? 
 

Filler also does not automatically equal dead or bad game (or show, or movie, or book, or etc). It's just that: filler. Sometimes it adds flavor to the content/world/story, and other times it does not, and detracts, distracts, delays, or derails the pacing of the plot. FFXIV and GW2 both have that. It's not all bad filler, but it does have filler. GW2, with its smaller story, can have the filler parts be even more jarring than in FFXIV because there aren't enough story quests available to hide the filler, unlike how FFXIV typically disguises it. "Fill this green bar twice and go look at some view points" in GW2 is a huge distraction to delay the fact that there's maybe an hour of story in the update.

I never said FFXIV (or GW2) was bad; heck, if you bothered to read the very last paragraph, I said FFXIV is a great game that has flaws. If I said anything was bad, I said aspects of FFXIV are bad (ARR/2.X, early classes, filler). The only time I can say FFXIV was genuinely a bad game was what it launched as. Closing and remaking the entire game was the best thing SE could have done because they were able to turn around and make a great game.

I like FFXIV, and I love GW2. They're both great games with flaws. They both rightfully belong in the top 5 of current MMOs. I play both. I've cosplayed from both. I've gone to IRL events and hung out with fellow fans for both because both are great games with a generally excellent community.

But, I'm 100% going to criticize things that are bad in FFXIV/GW2, especially if those bad things are gigantic "Quit Moments" that drive my friends to quit.

It's amazing how you seem to presume to know what I like. You know nothing of me, or my video game history, or my likes, or my experiences. You've created this entire shower argument in your head about me, and that shower argument is wrong.

Also, stay off of r/MMORPG; it's a toxic dump that hates everything. Even r/ffxiv and r/guildwars2 are less toxic.

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

My thought as well. You pointed out that the games had flaws, as anything created by humans will. That is not claiming that the games are bad. 

I'm wondering if they're not a native English speaker and maybe something is getting lost in translation. Though it might be them projecting the attitudes of people in r/MMORPG onto me, too.

 

[Cuks.8241]

On 5/8/2024 at 7:24 AM, DoomNexus.5324 said:

What I really hate about the newer GW2 maps is also that the team seemingly tries to adjust for mounts, which in theory is pretty good but I think it's pretty badly executed since you are just making the maps more difficult to navigate and considering the Skyscale has such a limited height and resetting while flying is pretty cumbersome makes everything put together just a more kitten and annoying version of just running around on foot in older maps.
Why even have a dragon if I have to cling on a wall and reset my endurance several times to get up normal walls in the new maps? Doesn't make sense to me..

This is a great point. Mounts up to Skyscale were good, great actually in my opinion. Because they were fun to use. And while the maps did change a bit as you described  - adapted for mounts, it was not such a big deal because they were still ground mounts with some flavour. Yeah we got Griffon but Griffon is one of the most fun mounts ever and it was initially (and even now) considered as a completely optional bonus mounts that didn't really impact maps. 

But Skyscale in Soto on the other hand made things much much worse. I just can't imagine traversing Soto maps without it. And while I love Tangled Depths which can also be annoying to traverse it's not the same. Tangled Depth for me is an open world dungeon with great design. You may love it, you may hate it, it's just that one map in the end and it ticks that explorer, dungeon crawler in me. Soto maps on the other hand while still decent for mmorpgs (Gw2 just has good maps overall) are tailored for Skyscale. But Skyscale is a boring mount. There is no skill in using Skyscale (unlike Griffon), there is not fun or interesting gameplay.  It's just a flying mount with a bunch of limitations. They wanted to avoid a true flying mount which I think is just the death of mmorpg open world so it's a good decision. But in doing this they designed a boring super mount and started tailoring maps to it. And these maps are not fun to traverse, they are not interesting or an explorer heaven. They are just annoying and a bit boring, like the mount that they were designed for. 

[Shiyo.3578]

On 5/9/2024 at 5:50 PM, Inssengrimm.7924 said:

Yeah, no.
Not that MMORPG genre is too competitive, nothing has changed much in the last decade, but XIV is a great game, critically acclaimed and well directed, all things we cannot say about Guild Wars 2 for example.

Again no.
And is not trying to copy anything from XIV.

For that you would need to introduce characters and develop them for a decade, Guild Wars 2 just moves on with it's story, no character has gotten development at all since Aurene and i doubt something like that will happen again. "Hello Eparch, Bye Eparch". 3 months lasted the big baddie. 

You all confusing filler with lacking content.
Last patch added half a map.

Third of a map really. 3 patches, 1 overworld map, in 3 splits.
Thats no filler, thats Anet not being able to deliver a minimum of a single whole open world map per patch. 

Thats why you have to "go and do events" at every step of the storyline, because there is nothing more there anyways, a third of a map, let that sink in.
And people wants more instanced content? lol.

FF14 is the worst MMO I've ever played.

  

On 5/9/2024 at 5:56 PM, Ashen.2907 said:

Ive never been able to get past the low level content in order to get to what people tell me is FFXIV's, "good parts." It remains some of the worst gaming experience Ive had, on par with SotO.

Spoiler: It never gets good.

4 bosses, 1 ult boss randomly that 1 mistake wastes 20m of your life, 2 kitten easy dungeons and a useless 24 man.

Thats the entire game, since 2.0(besides the ult boss).

Classes and crafting gets easier and more braindead every expac.

Zero innovation, zero creativity, same sterile formula FOREVER.

 

Yoshi-P and his team are uncreative robots.

Don't let catgirl modders(the only people who play that game long term) overhype the game to you. Ignore them.

Edited May 11 by Shiyo.3578

[Inssengrimm.7924]

2 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

FF14 is the worst MMO I've ever played.

 

And yet, in reality, is the one of the best MMORPG at the moment. 
If XIV is the worse, you might be playing the wrong genre for you, give fornite or valorant a go. 

[Zok.4956]

On 5/6/2024 at 4:04 AM, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

Is it though? If you (or rather a version of you who hadn't already made 10.8k forum posts) were happily playing GW2 including SOTO then would you come to the forums and post that you like SOTO?

I would. And I did. However, more so with previous expansions.

[Zok.4956]

On 5/8/2024 at 8:19 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

I did mention more than once in the "we want mounts" threads that mount intoduction will negatively impact map design (and map movement) for anyone not using them. This was my biggest beef with mounts from the very beginning - and even though their design turned out to be way better than i originally expected, that part happened exactly as predicted. Less waypoints, more convoluted terrain, and now flat out requiring skyscale in order to be able to get from any point A to B in reasonable time.

Well, one of the basic ideas of HoT and PoF was to create a metroidvania-like form of map exploration, in which you first explore the map and then unlock "shortcuts" (gliding, mushrooms, etc in HoT, mounts in PoF). I found the specialized mounts in PoF pretty good. They were part of the maps they were built for.

I think the problems only started when these "shortcuts" were allowed to be used outside of the maps they were built for. And of course with the Skyscale as the general "shortcut" for any open world map content.  You can no longer make a good and engaging metroidvania-like map design if all players already have the shortcut for it at the beginning.

[Astralporing.1957]

12 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

Well, one of the basic ideas of HoT and PoF was to create a metroidvania-like form of map exploration, in which you first explore the map and then unlock "shortcuts" (gliding, mushrooms, etc in HoT, mounts in PoF). I found the specialized mounts in PoF pretty good. They were part of the maps they were built for.

I think the problems only started when these "shortcuts" were allowed to be used outside of the maps they were built for. And of course with the Skyscale as the general "shortcut" for any open world map content.  You can no longer make a good and engaging metroidvania-like map design if all players already have the shortcut for it at the beginning.

HoT and PoF design was not that. The gliding, mushrooms, wallows in HoT (and mounts in PoF) were not shortcuts. They were baseline. Only with them unlocked for their respective expansion you were getting to the ease of movement from core maps. Creating solutions for problems that would not exist without those solutions is an approach i heavily dislike. But you're right, since then net went even further in that direction, where baseline consists not only of current expansion movement masteries, but also those from all previous content. Including mounts that originally were supposed to be only optional.