Is it just me?Follow

....or does FFXIV's Main Quest Line seem longer than most Pre-14 Final Fantasy Games (excluding 13 and 13-2 as I've not played them)?

Now that my 2nd character is nearing the end of the original Main Quest Line (Ultima Weapon), it seems to me that if you took a brand new FFXIV character, and did ONLY the bare requirements (Main Quest Line, occasional side-quests to keep your level high enough so that you can continue the MQ, occasional side-quests for armor now and then), you'd have spent more time in FFXIV than you would in many previous Single-player FF games?

I currently have 469 hours logged on FFXIV, though I'm willing to bet that 30 of those were spent downloading updates and the like (Steam counts the time the launcher is running but the game is not), so we'll assume 430 hours to be generous.

Most Final Fantasy games (4 through X) took anywhere from 20 to 40 hours to clear, doing the basic playthrough with only mild grinding (well, except for FF1 because... lol.. I'm not a m*sochist).

Well, 430 hours split between two characters is about 215 hours per character.

Assuming 40 hours, this leaves 175 hours per character.

I surely did not spend 175 hours crafting and leveling a couple extra jobs and occasional dungeon runs. I'm willing to think that the main questline is probably at least 50-60 hours long, not including waiting on dungeons (but including cutscenes, but not the ending credits).

That's pretty darn impressive for an MMORPG.

Edited, Feb 26th 2015 7:09pm by Lyrailis

Longer than a single player FF? No, not even close.

The astounding amount of filler and fetch content makes it seem longer. FF games in general are the most linear RPGs in comparison to some others, even by Square/Enix themselves. It just doesn't seem like it because of the overworld map giving you an illusion of choice.



Most FF games took upwards of 70 hours+ if you did all of the content with FFXII clocking in at 100+ depending, especially the Zodiac version. If you went straight to the finish or had godly speed running abilities, they were all pretty short.



It's pretty typical actually. Other MMOs just doesn't have the same presentation style that XI/XIV does for the most part but they're all basically the same. The MQ in other MMOs usually breaks it down by making you do quests in every hub area/region, much like XIV. So I didn't see any true difference nor extra length, what I did notice though, if they didn't build from 1.x content in general it would have been HORRENDOUSLY short as a lot of 2.0-2.2 storyline were from 1.x concepts, even Titan and Leviathan was initially going to be released in 1.x era but pushed back due to the disasters in Japan.

What jobs did you play on with your two accounts? i.e. I wonder how much of your play time was waiting on DF in order to progress with the main story line (something that wouldn't be an issue with a single player incarnation of FF).

I've been playing about 4-8 hours a day, every day, for about a year and five months give or take a few (playing since beta). I've probably logged 2000-3000 hours. Now considering that I've probably only spent about $300 total on the game (sub fees, game itself, extras), the 15 cents an hour I pay makes this literally the cheapest form of entertainment I can imagine, other than going outside and hitting rocks with sticks.

Hooked since Pitfall. Never really gave it up.

As others have said its all generic for MMO or any online game really. FFXIV is subscription that means you are paying for what you get - a lot of updates.
The recent one is a prime example, just doings bits of it all - there is hours of fun.

I know some one who has gone hard on Chocobo Racing and still has lots to do, even though they have done breeding.

The Cards (thanks to the time limited ones as well) takes a lot of time to earn the cards you want. Not forgetting the ones that you win from doing dungeons and primals.

SE has really out done themselves this time around with an update, so many assumed it would be an area that would be finished in a day or two but even hard players are still working hard.

FF Solo games though do have a lot of bonus content and the more open ones tend to have even more. One thing that makes me love FF games is the content, FF6 -8 being prime examples. Having redone those games so much in my life, spending ages for a weapon, card, chocobo or even a simple thing or "extra story line".. I do enjoy other games but none compare to the above because you are not just paying £40-£50 for a game that lasts 2 days.

I have a feeling they might reduce some of the costs a little bit for some things in the MGS as time passes and they add new things. In all honesty It seems to me like a really great addition, but I also think the fact that they added it in a time where there is nothing else to do anymore you end up with people only doing MGS when it by design should just be a supplement to "the real game".

Personally I never minded things that were super expensive that only a few people would ever get their hands on. Even more so when those things didn't require a huge amount of resources to produce either. XIV in general is different in that regard though, which is why I expect them to lower costs eventually as they add new things.

I wasn't aware, and you may not be either, but you can buy Grade 1 chocobo feed with gil straight from an NPC, and Culinarians can make Grade 2. The only chocobo feed that has to be purchased with MGP are Grade 3s, and it's not worth wasting that on a first generation bird anyway. Training sessions are free/earned, and birds have a random chance of learning abilities on their own as they rank up so you don't have to purchase them with MGP (and you can win races just fine without the abilities.)

You can also straight up afk during a chocobo race, and the bird will complete the track on its own - sometimes not even necessarily last place. You profit 27 MGP for afking.

Not like the previous FFs were much different.

Replace Fetch Grind with Random Monster grind and lots of hitting the A button.

FF6... let me see if I get this right...

Go through Mine, fight everything on the way.
Kill boss.
Hit the A button about 50 times to get through the dialogue.
Walk south (fight everything along the way), enter castle in the desert.
Hit the A button about 50 times to get through the dialogue, also some random people you have to talk to to progress said dialogue.
Fight boss.
Walk East to cave, fight everything along the way.
Go in cave, go through cave, fight everything along the way.
Exit cave, go to town, fight everything along the way.
Hit the A button about 50 times to get through the dialogue, also some random people you have to talk to to progress said dialogue.

Then you're presented with 3 paths, and all 3 paths are basically the same: "Go here, go there, fight random battles, kill occasional boss, hit A 50 times to progress dialogue"

That's..... not that much different than the "Fetch Grind" you're talking about, lol.


Edited, Mar 2nd 2015 4:17pm by Lyrailis

I agree with Brokenfox actually. It is actually fairly different. "Monster Grind" isn't even forced on you to progress the main storyline until you hit a certain point when the game opens up and even that is more of a "if you don't get past level 12 you won't survive." type of scenario. The better comparison would be...say:

"So Zidane, you want to leave the trope? Well, go and beat everyone in Tetra Master outside the crashed ship then I'll consider it. After you do that go kill 3 plants and bring back their petals. Then you will fight me but only after you've collected 12 flowers from the forest."

Did that happen in FFIX? Nope, while there's "fetch quests", it's normally to piece together more of the story while collecting (usually) useful items. In XIV, it's filler in order to level you.

Another comparison, since people absolutely LOVE FFVII, is the Weapons line of side of quest, you know..collecting the desert rose and such? If that was forced onto you in order to progress the plot THEN it would be similar to what you have to do in XIV. I mean, killing squirrels does not help me learn about the world and storyline, nor does fetching cheese and passing out pretzels and fetching laundry. When it comes to MMOs, they have to force the filler on us in order to level us if they take out over world grinding for example.

In your example:


Broken Down it's:
Get Story
Go to dungeon location, do your thing
Get more story, kill boss
More story relevant to the plot
Next segment, relevant to the plot
More story
Fight boss
More story
Next segment, do your thing
Hit town, get some info relevant to the plot and not "GO GET MY ******** LAUNDRY"
More "Main story" element.

In XIV, there's a good chance unless the NPC is marked, it's not going to give you any info related to the actual plot of the world or current storyline you're working on. That's why it's a bit hard to compare offline and online progression, but at the same time..offline storylines were more relevant. Sometimes you had to wait until you beat a good chunk to unlock side quest that explains some plot devices, e.g Cloud x Zack or the MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF ELIXIRS IN CLOCKS, but never had offline FF games forced you to do fetch quests to progress the plot almost every step of the way.

When you were escaping midgard, it didn't slow the plot progression to force you to slay 40 monsters for the main story. "forced" slaying are called boss battles.



Edited, Mar 2nd 2015 8:22pm by Theonehio

I love FFXIV too but you're white knighting pretty hard on the questing front. There's no defending it. It's just lazy. Hoping it'll be improved in Heavensward.

Don't forget, they consider you kind of a cheerleader too. I'm sure Superman has been asked to hand out lollipops to the kiddies at a volunteer gig at some point.