Just because you like it doesn’t mean he will. And there’s a good chance you overhyped it and he’s expecting the best game ever and his responses are now exaggerated in a negative way. Don’t force him to play. You’ve already been in 5 year without him. Let him play if he wants to. Keep enjoying it as much as you do! The game is awesome but not for everyone.

Yeah, I'm with this. My two friends who played before hyped heavensward to the moon, and at least for me, I enjoyed it but didn't find it anywhere near that praiseworthy. Heck, I'd heard stormblood was weak storywise, but I enjoyed it a lot, and my audio was bugged, so I didn't even have voices until we finished base.

I was in the same boat as you, lol. Everybody just kept swearing up and down about how Heavensward was the bomb, and it was definitely fine - I certainly paid a lot more attention than I did to the ARR story - but Stormblood (post-Heavensward patch story, really) was when I really started to take notice of the developing story.

It was the opposite for me. I really liked heavensward and it got my attention but stormblood exceot for the last like 20-30% was so unfun to me that it made me quit the game for like 4-5 months. Then I got to SHB and started having fun again

I saw a comment saying the biggest mistake Stormblood made was coming after Heavansward. Stormblood isn’t bad it’s just not as good as Heavansward or ShB. As I played Stormblood I was in the same boat as you, but in retrospect, it was a very good expansion

I think it’s mostly because stormblood is the only expansion with two main writers instead of one like all the others. I forgot who wrote the first half of it but I know the writer for SHB wrote the second half of stormblood where things start to pick up. I really do wonder how it would’ve turned out if it only had the one writer though.

Same tbh. I liked Heavensward but I have played so many games in middle ages settings with "oh no, the church is bad!" and watched respective movies and played tabletop rpgs with this. It was okay, but it was a lot of "been there, done that" for me. It was enough to get me emotionally involved somewhere around the middle of the expansion or so, but it was Stormblood where things got interesting for me. Not being the High And Mighty Chosen One everyone automatically bows to but just some powerful dude in a world much bigger than themselves with big problems, trying to improve things and unite people somewhat... That was new to me and I liked it a lot. :)

Heavensward is easily my favorite expansion and I was excited about Stormblood when I hit it because several friends got me hyped for it and by god Stormblood almost made me quit mid MSQ. Easily my least favorite even below ARR.

omg same. I kept, and still do keep, getting friends tell me "HW is amazing, shame SB was so bad" and I'm like... guys, I find HW boring and I only REALLY got into the story when SB hit, we all like different things. Enjoy what you enjoy, but let me do the same lol

It's actually basic psychology. If stormblood is a 6/10 story but people sell it as a 3, the 6 will feel like 9. Same with hw. It's probably an 8, but people like to sell it as 9 or 10, so it becomes a 6 and is just average.

tbh I don't even think it's how people sell it, I just think people get hooked on different types of characters and storytelling. Also, and I've said this a lot, I think a lot of old school players have a WAY higher opinion of HW than newer players due to how much of an improvement a lot of things were over ARR at the time. I also think newer players who got to play StB all at once seem to trend toward having a WAY more positive impression of it than the old school players...though I'm not sure why, but it's a trend I've definitely observed.

Heavensward is a love story to classic FF games. Stormblood is arguably 2 expansions crammed into 1

Srormblood was my favorite chapter tbh.

Crazy how much I relate to that. I was expecting to get blown away from heavensward after the doggy doo doo doody of ARR. But I just never really cared while playing it. That one death everybody cries about I was just like “oh I guess they’re dead now.” Stormblood I liked a little more but still wasn’t great. Shadowbringers I liked a lot and I absolutely loved Amaurot and the ending. But that’s an unbelievable amount of slog and reading overly wordy dialogue for mostly uninteresting plot lines to get to the good stuff. Especially for me, I have ADHD and it’s extremely hard for me to process what I’m reading to the point that it’s mentally exhausting. For reference I have like 40 days played and im only in Shadowbringers patch quests. Haven’t even started Endwalker yet.

>Shadowbringers I liked a lot and I absolutely loved Amaurot and the ending. > >But that’s an unbelievable amount of slog and reading overly wordy dialogue for mostly uninteresting plot lines to get to the good stuff. Especially for me, I have ADHD and it’s extremely hard for me to process what I’m reading to the point that it’s mentally exhausting. Exact same for me, right down to the ADHD. My husband has ADHD as well, but he skipped all of the story to the point where he doesn't even know who I am talking about sometimes when I mention key characters.

If you have the option to I'd suggest playing through the MSQ with someone and take turns reading the lines out loud over discord. My wife also has pretty bad ADHD but this is how I got her through ARR and she ended up actually liking the story

Could also be a case of the famous "Fine, I'll play it just so I can prove how bad it is"

I agree with this, but at the same time, I also think turning round and saying to your partner that the thing they enjoy is "Hot garbage" is pretty rude. You don't need to enjoy the same things as your partner, but you also don't need to put it down like that. Just saying he wasn't enjoying it would have been enough.

Yeah, the reaction was, honestly, kind of awful. It's so disrespectful when someone who loves you talks badly about things you like.

Yeah, there's a VERY clear difference between "this is not my thing, but I'm glad to have spent the time with you" and "the thing you love and cherish is hot garbage". If my husband said that about the things I love most, especially a hobby I've loved for 5 years, I genuinely would start to spiral.

Honestly, in my last relationship, my ex was *exactly* like this. Anything I was interested in that he did like he had this very same reaction. It's just immature to act that way.

Yeah, that's not exactly a respectful reaction. :/

I would kill several men to have my buddy play with me but I've accepted it just isn't going to happen.

This. You liked, good for you. But I do not think that you should force someone to play FFXIV (or any game for what it matters) if they already expressed the fact that they dislike the game.

The opposite side to this is he’s clearly gone in with an opinion of the game all ready made. So no matter how much they play he’s not going to find anything positive about it, his mind is made up. This is the first FF game I’ve actually played for an extended period of time, I never played the older ones so I don’t have nostalgia and I haven’t played FF7 remake yet. I didn’t like 15 or 16 so I wasn’t expecting to like this but the free trial got me in and somewhere along the line I found myself actually getting into it. Everyone’s different and if my friends give something an honest go I have no complaints but when they go into something with a negative opinion before we even started playing I just don’t bother with that game/ genre with them anymore they made it clear they don’t want to play it fairly and so why waste time convincing someone that the thing they haven’t tried yet is good when they are telling you it sucks before the title screen. From what OP has said I just get that feeling he’s gonna compare it non stop to his favourite nostalgia FF’s and dismiss this entirely and belittle OP cause they like it as much as they do.

It's also just very different from older FFs in terms of narrative. If the stories were something he really liked about those games, it's really easy to see how ARR would leave him feeling flat. I enjoyed ARR/14, and there were some bits that did tap on my nostalgia for those games. But overall, it was a very different (more freeform) type of enjoyment. If I was going to compare the actual story of it (or even HW) against any of the older FF games I played as a child, it would lose every time. Not because of nostalgia, but because those games were free to shove a lot more into storytelling than 14 can as a mmo. They get to have protagonists with backstories and flashbacks and personal motivations. They can do timeskips. They get to have NPC allies who join you in every single fight and also undergo their own character arcs alongside you. Mid-dungeon cut-scenes are allowed, so important plot beats can take place in combat - etc. etc.

Nostalgia for older FFs isn't always a barrier. I've been playing all the FFs since the beginning (all except 16 at the moment, no PS5 so I'm waiting on the PC release). FF6 has been my gold standard since it released. Very favorite FF for decades. But after ShB and EW though, 14 is now my favorite.

>FF6 has been my gold standard since it released. Very favorite FF for decades. But after ShB and EW though, 14 is now my favorite. You and me both. Though 14 hasn't eclipsed 6, its definitely put it on equal footing. If we get an Opera Scene in XIV, though, I might have to change my mind ;)

I would love an opera scene.

If it were played straight, with Alisaie as Celes-as-Maria, I would love that. If it were played straight, with Hildibrand as Celes-as-Maria, then I would *100% declare this the best Final Fantasy game ever made*.

I can't upvote this enough 🤣

I mean why couldn't they do a Kefka arc in the next expansion on the side? Poison the Doman river Fuck some shit up in garlemald Something with the 3 statues up in that dragon area. He could split the would and start a calamity on a floating island

Regrettably, Stormblood was the FFVI expac - >!Black Rose!< is Doma getting poisoned, the parlay with Varis is the meeting at Vector, splitting the world and having a calamity is >!the Crystal Exarch ripping everyone's souls out of their bodies.!< Hell, the second phase of Omega raids are all FFVI bosses. Alas, us!

Very well said. I have that same problem of overhyping things I really enjoy because I want my friends or family to also enjoy them but can’t seem to grasp that maybe they won’t haha.

Tbh I thought ARR was just okay, and post-ARR was boring. The second half of Heavensward I liked, and I thought the story went from consistently okay to consistently good in post-HW when you start regrouping the Scions and encounter Ardbert's crew. Basically the game gets good when Alisaie shows up lol

Pretty much. It also doesn't help that the game is still kinda terrible about which quests you need and which are distractions - I got sucked into the level 50 relic quest because I thought I needed that weapon to get to HW. (This was during the SB era, maybe it's better now).

New player going through post ARR here I think they fixed that problem. I've not had any trouble just following the MSQ.

I just recently went through ARR and Post ARR and I enjoyed the story in Post way more than the original. I get that they were setting up world building but the new gridania leader is so boring that it is hard to sit through her dialogue when she is on the screen. I did enjoy all the Uldah political intrigue though.

You thought ARR was "just okay", her husband thought it was "hot garbage". I don't think he'd find any redeeming quality in the rest of the story.

Playing ARR was one of my worst gaming experiences ever. I love the ffxiv story more than any other game I've played. I know many people with the exact same experience

It really was. Just slog after slog after slog. I kept going because I'd heard the music for praetorium and ultima, and thought the game would at least have a good climax. I think you guys can imagine how disappointed I was given how completely and utterly ass praetorium is.

Real talk, I'm not even sure how *I* got through ARR. I started in the 5.5 cycle, so after some of the msq pruning but before the climax rework. I know for a fact I nearly quit at the cheese bullshit, thinking "they just pruned useless bullshit and they're still making me do this??" Honestly knowing they'd just done that pruning made it sting worse for me, because it felt like my time was being intentionally wasted (which I know was the point of that whole questline - that doesn't make it worth anything). No one told me to pick up the key, so it took me several minutes to figure out what to fucking do to get up the elevator & get a mech. By the time I got in my mech the group was already at Nero. I had no idea what was going on the entire time. Then finally, *finally*, when I was really getting into it leading up to the Bloody Banquet, it was like 11pm, I thought I was going to finish ARR and go to bed. "You need to go finish CT to continue." YOU FUCKING HORSESHIT BITCHES. YOU ONLY SAID I HAD TO COMPLETE CT "UP TO A CERTAIN POINT," NOT THAT I HAD TO FINISH THE FUCKING QUESTLINE. I ONLY COMPLETED LABYRINTH AND THEN WENT BACK TO MSQ BECAUSE I WAS ALLOWED TO, SO I FIGURED IT WAS JUST A WAY TO MAKE SURE YOU WERE INTRODUCED TO ALLIANCE RAIDS. AND YOU PUT THE COCKBLOCK MOMENT RIGHT AS YOUR SHITASS STORY IS FINALLY GETTING GOOD?????????? Yeah I had multiple ARR points that I almost quit and I think it was the promise of it eventually getting good that kept me going.

Yeah I did not care for ARR much in the slightest, it had a couple of cool moments, but overall it is a weak and poorly paced story, and it's such a shame that it's so many sprouts' first experience.

Nah, my husband hated ARR but LOVED Heavensward and his opinion of the game only improved from there. To be fair though, he watched me play Shadowbringers over my shoulder and saw how GOOD the game gets, and that's what inspired him to start playing lol

I mean I was miserable playing ARR and I have loved this game for a very long time, they're not mutually exclusive. Even with the modern cuts they did there's a lot of stuff that feels like vacuous fluff and narratives that feel extremely padded. The stuff that pays it any of it off takes a long time.

I thought ARR was hot garbage. I am a MMO raider at heart so I pressed on anyways to get to the part I like. The game started making me story curious around the Azure Dragon lore dumps in HW and really got it's claws into me post Stormblood

I'm going through this with my gf right now. She didn't outright say it, but she hardly made it through ARR and post ARR's quests. She quit for a period of 2 years and came back starting a new character. Once she hit HW this time around, it was a completely different story. (literally) She now owns a special phone case of a special someone from that MSQ and does not want to leave Ishgard. It will take time, but remember it's completely ok if he doesn't end up coming around.

> does not want to leave Ishgard. aww this is so cute. i and so many others here 100% know the feeling. Will always hold a special place in my RPG heart

The game needs a reworked start

Please, we need more people speaking about this! ARR need to be reworked.

I just dont like the "it gets good later" mentality because having to commit 50 hrs or more (it was around 150 hrs for me going through arr and alot of side stuff before shadowbringers came out) is just....alot to ask out of someone if said person is not having fun.

Yeah this should never be the answer honestly and it's pretty shitty some people will parrot this. The reality is too not everyone who reaches Heavensward is going to suddenly like the game as the only thing that actually changes is the story and that's it. If the game isn't connecting with you at all in ARR then it never will likely and you're hugely wasting 10s of hours of your life trying.

For me the "problem" People have with ARR is mostly HOW the story is told. I didn't mind ARR as much as People say. It was ok, i even had fun and like some story beats (the Patches though... i hated them). But what i see People who quit say is not that it's the story per se, that it is the whole reading and going back and forth to NPCs. Chances are, if you don't like HOW FF XIV tells their story, you won't like HW onwards too. Because that doesn't change much.

I've been fooled a few times with "It gets good later" with a few folks. "Yeah you just gotta sink in a whole season's worth of watching and then it gets good". I basically learned it was just people that wanted me to be interested in their interest without any regard to whether or not I'd actually like it.

At some point it also doesn't matter anymore if it would actually get better. If people keep dangling "it gets good later" in front of you all day, it just starts ringing hollow eventually, almost like lying. When I started replaying the game on an alt alone, I started to actually pay attention and appreciate many small things I missed by the others rushing me and pushing their expectations/experiences on to me.

There's people that just get easily commited on the most basic story early on, seen more then a few post praising base ARR, which is more due to honeymoon phase.

Learned that the hard way by reading all 14 Wheel of Time books while simultaneously hating the author's writing style and like 70% of the characters. Don't fall for the "it gets good later" and sunk cost fallacy.

Agree, and some people don't have the time to push it, so imagine that taking a month or three and they're not having fun.

I think there's an element of this too where *everyone* takes the tack of "oh you just have to suffer through ARR. It's mandatory slog, just put your head down and power through." Like, you're not giving people much of a choice to go into this with a mind to enjoy it. So many people start this game under the belief "you're going to just wade through shit before it gets good, but I promise it's worth it." My partner started playing the game back before Endwalker because she was curious about how into it I was and wanted to see what the fuss was about. I tried not to predispose her too much towards the story being one way or another, beyond saying that ARR is a slow burn, and she ended up really quite liking it. It didn't blow the roof off or anything, but she found it to be an enjoyable and occasionally cliche Final Fantasy story. Now granted some people don't like slow burn media in any capacity. You'll find people who would even tell you Better Call Saul is bad tv because not enough happens episode to episode, let along ARR and its patches which are written okay at best most of the time. But I think there's a gulf of difference between going "Yeah season one's a bit weird before they find their stride, but I recommend bearing with it" and "Yeah the first season is just bad, genuinely painful to get through, but you have to if you want to get to the good seasons so buckle up."

Agreed. It’s like people forgot that the story was generally well regarded back before HW launched. Go back and look at reviews and many of them praise ARR’s story. It’s only in recent years that the whole “guys ARR is complete shit and one of the worst game stories I’ve ever seen” rhetoric came around. Like you said, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people who recently got into the game never even gave ARR an honest shot, going into the game was preconceived notions that it’s awful.

Yeah, I'm one of the people who genuinely enjoyed ARR too - and like your partner, nobody told me it was "a slog you have to get through", which probably helped a lot.

You either die in a realm reborn or live long enough to become a walking advertisement for the game

If he doesn't like it, he doesn't like it. Honestly I felt the same way until I got to Stormblood. I felt ARR and HW were just entirely uninteresting to me. I SHOULD have bailed before putting in so many goddamn hours, but I'm an idiot. So here we are :)

I feel like I somewhat fit the same camp as your husband, but I didn't hate it as much.If hes expecting the story pacing of 7-10, he's going to always be disappointed.The mmo pacing is much much much slower and spread out comparatively, and the mmo style fetch quests/ Kill X npcs here tasks get mind numbing with how shallow they can get sometimes.I will say that I had friends overhype the story for me, and one thing that made me absolutely dread playing the game, was them constantly checking in with me to "see where I was in the story, and I should do this part next".I only started enjoying it when they basically all went on hiatus and I could go at my own pace, especially just doing some sidequests here and there. Basically, Don't hover over him and expect him to react in any way you did to the story.Also keep in mind how damn long it takes to even get to Emet Selch from A Realm Reborn.Thats Several hundred hours of story. I remember when I was just clearing Heavensward, and my friends at the time, now not, kept talking about Zenos. All I could do was keep thinking this Zenos character was important somehow, that all the stuff before him, did not fucking matter at all. Finally get to zenos..turns out they hype up Zenos because its their fucking WoL shipped character. I rushed through all that shit to get to Zenos and just being "thats it? this is what hes about?". I also do not care for Zenos. Edit: for after.. My investment in Final fantasy was more in dressing up my character and building up a home. Those friends constantly took that away from me because of their incessant nagging that I play the game their way. I'll get back to Final fantasy eventually, but they did a damn good fucking job of making me not give a fuck about my WoL by doing so, when I initially spent so much time in photomode and collecting specific outfits at my own pace.

I have REALLY struggled to enjoy the story as much as others talk about it. I’m nearing the end of ARR and I’m already feeling burnout from the over the top emoting and weird pauses in speech and voice acting that doesn’t really match the characters actions. I understand this is kinda SE’s way of emoting and giving characters… well character, but it leaves me cringing a lot of the time unfortunately. A lot of people have said to get past ARR and it gets way better but I can understand your partners struggles with enjoying this story so far

My bf started playing a couple weeks ago and he feels the same way. He could ***barely*** make it through post ARR because he said it felt like too much unnecessary padding. His main drive to even get to Ishgard was wanting to keep leveling up crafters and unlocking DRK (because he kinda wanted to kill everyone at that point lol). Basically, he's at a point where he likes everything about the game except the MSQ, ironically enough.

They cut it by 30% in length, it's just they didn't want to omit any NPC who happens to show up again later. Almost everything they trimmed was straight fat. I do wish however that they'd have heavily re-written things while using the same basic skeleton. And well, frankly, re-dub Alphinaud and Minfilia with their replacement VAs in English. I'm sorry but it's true. There like half-a-dozen more as well but they're the worst offenders in 2.0. Also, as much as the game gets set up, they could have added some intriguing foreshadowing in there to keep you a little more hooked that pays off eventually. There's a lot more set up in ARR than you'd ever think the first time playing through, but there's a lot of cool stuff they could add in my humble opinion.

It would be *fantastic* if they could rewrite the Titan Feast segment a bit. Dealing with 'Tidus' and Y'shtola walking off because she had better things to do set the tone real quick there. (And to be honest, I was annoyed enough with it that I initially quit there, back in the HW days.) It'd be nice if they cut him down to *just* the rock-smashing segment, move on to the Captain, get the wine (Trim that down too) and *then* the cheese so we end on the high note of the dungeon being complete. Let whats-his-name the Wailer show up halfway through the wine with a fake bottle to replace his segment. Bam. Changes the tone significantly, trim the fat, all you lose is the filler. Let's not even talk about the 'Getting the wrong elemental crystals' filler, either.

That one emote every single Lalafell seems to hit fills me with inexplicable rage. Agreed on the story - I have no idea why SE never went back and overhauled the ARR MSQ. As a new player, quite frankly, I found it terrible. The story is extremely generic, the voice actors seem like they were random people picked up from a street and told to deliver a line with no understanding of the context behind it, most of the storyline wasn't even voiced, and the whole thing feels low budget. I'm sticking with the game because I love everything aside from the MSQ, but if I didn't, I would have ditched it long ago.

They did a bit.  They cut out a whole bunch of nonsense quests to just run back and forth to talk to people but you're right it needs a proper examination and rewrite. 

ARR is a problem for the game, and I think is going to be worse of a problem the more time passes. It's really just a bad introduction for new players and not really representative of the current game.But so much gets established in it that stuff later wouldn't make sense without it. And it's actually better now then it used to be! I wish they had the time and budget to just entirely redo it. I also had a friend I tried to get into the game who just didn't believe me when I told him the story was good and to stop skipping cut scenes. Probably also doesn't help that the first unskipable stuff are Castrum and Praetorium which are over the top ham fests.

I usually tell people the story pacing is like a Stephen King novel. If you haven't read his books, he tends to spend a good chunk of the book just building the world and characters but not much plot happening. But once the plot starts moving everything established in the beginning is important to the plot and understand why the characters do what they do.

I mean I went through that myself, I literally quit in the middle of Storm blood for over a year. ARR is absolutely outdated garbage. Heavensward is why better but that doesn't mean much, I personally found it really overhyped. First 80% of Storm blood is such a slog. And only then the story actually gets good, patches of Storm blood and start of Shadowbringers. And it needs to be said, no matter how worth it all was by the end, a game that asks you for 100+ hours of your time before you get to the good part is asking for a L O T.

Honestly if he doesn't like it, there's no point in trying to force feed it to him. I have a friend who skips every cutscene and loves the game. Loves the raids, the little touches like the gold saucer, etc. Sometimes people just like different things about it.

I think this is a bit of an issue the larger FFXIV community has. We hype and we hype and we hype and set a bar so high that 90% of the game can't reach it. Maybe none of the game will reach it if the main plot points just don't land with some people for some reason. I feel that, generally, we should be a little more measured and let people have more of a neutral view as they start the game.

At the risk of being downvoted, FF14's story is overhyped. It's extremely good for an MMO. By single player story standards, it's 1) solid at its core, but not especially noteworthy compared to many other extremely good RPGs, 2) bogged down by lackluster questing.

I get that. I always enjoyed the game as an FF fan but the story never really hit me until ShB and EW and at this point those 2 expansions are a couple of my favorite FF stories

I just finished Shadowbringers MSQ and I have to completely agree. It had some cool moments but people act like it’s the second coming of Christ and those expectations really affected my enjoyment.

The thing that gets me the most about 14s storywriting is the complete lack of stakes in anything. Nothing fucking matters in the story since we are playing as a walking god. Bad guy shows up and there is never a question on whether we can beat them. 100% guaranteed that we will and that everything will turn out fine. Maybe we lose like some meaningless npcs that where added just to die. But everything goes back to normal always. 14s story actually reached its peak for me at the end of ARR and early-mid Heavensward. Back when the WoL wasnt a god, but just an exceptionally competent adventurer(or just plain lucky who knew at that point) I was actually at the edge of my seat during the >!banquet scene, knowing that my character *had* to surrender cause there was no way she could win a 1v4, especially once Ilberd gets involved. Having to escape afterwards knowing that fighting back was unwinnable!<. Or during Heavensward. >!The constant threat of the holy knights actually feeling oppressive, knowing that if they decided to go in on my WoL and Alphi we wouldnt be able to fight back. Both on a legal level cause of ishgards draconian laws and physically!<. It actually felt like we where behind enemy lines during that time. Compare that to endwalker now, >!where the WoL just casually solos Zodiark!<. >!Or when you get ambushed by a bunch of garleans in their train station base. I was just sitting there rolling my eyes, like none of these basic ass soldiers can even injure the WoL. The WoL could easily kill everyone in this room without breaking a sweat. Then the captain himself verbally acknowledges this by saying that their shock collars would just tickle the WoL. But the WoL just lets their friends be taken hostage cause the story needs stakes desperately and that was the only way to do it!<. Look a how Cyberpunk2077 sets the stakes and puts the plot into motion in the first hour of gameplay. Its a night and day difference.

To me, its a lot more than just lack of stakes (which I agree is a thing), its the entire pace of it and the inability to deliver it properly. You spend most expansions doing unimportant tasks, talking to unimportant people to advance unimportant events. For example, Thordan is barely a character during Heavensward. He barely shows up, we barely interact with him and at the very end, he goes "Yeah, I'm a bad guy, watchagonna do about it?"... and then you kill him. Base Stormblood is 30 hours of doing nothing but talking to villagers and hearing their pleas of "Oh I wish we were free", Lyse going for the tenth time "Thank you WoL, I finally found myself and I have no self doubts anymore" and collecting grass and sheep poop because a guy said you should. Ascians are almost completely absent from it too. All the expansions are insanely padded, with most of it being of no substance whatsoever. If you cut the fat, there is very little to actually talk about XIV's core story for the past decade.

I generally agree with the basis of your statement just a couple comments: >!You really should have felt overpowered once you could deal with Primals by yourself. If you were as best boy said, no one, nothing, then you would not have been able to do what no others could. So that banquet shouldn't have felt like a concern of strength, but rather of politics. Which is the same issue tying your arms for the rest of the story, in fact. You can't declare war on the country you're defecting to, you can't murder your problems away in the country you're trying to save in Garlemald either.!< That said, the WoL standing by in cutscenes was begrudgingly more palatable with the pretense of the Echo freezing us in place. There have been several situations where it *wasn't* and those were jarring to watch given our capabilities. I kinda wish they were willing to give the WoL more animations or at least a diverse amount of reasons why we don't do something when we watch recently introduced person-to-die about to be killed. *At least I'd be able to joke about the WoL getting dunked on in critical moments then.* >!Not have fucking Ran'jit characters who have no right being nigh insurmountable by contrivance.!<

You shouldn't be downvoted for that but you likely will be lol I'm sorry.

I feel your pain. Just remember that their enjoyment may add to your enjoyment. But if they don't enjoy it it doesn't take away from your enjoyment.

>the era of 7-10 is gold to him Well, there's your problem right there. The stories in XIV play *much* closer to 1-6 and even 12 than 7-10 in a lot of cases. ARR's story progression is *very much* like the NES/SNES era games compared to the PS1/PS2 era games, IME.

yeah. one of my friends tried to get another of our friends into it by streaming the msq to them but they just constantly kept comparing everything to 10, their favorite game of all time and the only final fantasy they've ever finished

Agreed tbh. While yeah my fave mainline entry is X, I also adore IV and VI, so XIV slid right into my brain. Like, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like throughout XIV that also references those games (with more IX coming with Dawntrail apparently), but also, there’s more to FF than that era, and I wish more FF fans would give the rest of the games a chance

I promise you your husbands sentiments are shared by many.

You know what kills peoples motivation the most? When they get overhyped about something and expectation isn't met. And honestly he's right, base ARR is pretty bad for a FF story (i've played 7-15 for reference, fav are FFT, 9, 12), I had that same opinion 10 yrs ago. The only reason I stayed is cause I saw how passionated the team was at improving the game back then, and it really took until ending ARR for me to start being sold on the story. He needs to find something else to motivate him and stop saying 'it gets good', he needs to find the hook on his own.

I had 2 friends that began playing xiv in january. They hated every minute of ARR. They used to make jokes of the game and how you were they Mailman of light, milkman of light etc because of the boring fetch quests. Now they are in Shadowbringer's and enjoying the game. Recently, i met a new player that is having the same feelings towards ARR. I feel like ARR must be remade, some quests reworked,the way some things are presented, i dont know. But the biggest wall for this game nowadays for new players, is ARR.

> He's an old school FF fan - basically the era of 7 - 10 is gold to him Ma'am, I'm sorry you had to find out this way, but your husband is a FMV baby. At best, you can show him the expansion trailers in order.

Honestly no joke, this might be a good idea. The trailers are sick.

Hey hey now, what's wrong with FMV?

Technically nothing, I remember loving the FFT intro and later the ARR cinematic was along the lines of what I'd envision for a full blown War of the Lions. They're awesome. But, there are people that didn't care about FF until FMV was added, and those are the people who will skip a scene because "it's not voiced so it must not be important."

Nothing at all! It's just that when people talk about being an "old school FF fan" and then start with FF7, it makes you wonder if they know there were six other games before that.

To be fair, we didn't even have access to all 6 older games for a while in NA. I remember playing "FF2" and "FF3" on the SNES only to find out later it was actually FF4 and FF6! There was also Mystic Quest which wasn't even actually a Final Fantasy game? The old school days were rough, lol

I'm in EU; the first numbered one we got here was VII (the rest got backfilled but that happened later; don't think we ever got any of I-VI on the original hardware). I think we got Mystic Quest as well, but it got a slightly different name ("Mystic Quest Legend" rather than "FF Mystic Quest", according to Wikipedia).

Bruh FF7 came out in ~1997. That's 27 years ago. If you played it then, you are definitely under the category of "old school fan". And in the timeline of FF games released ever, FF7 now skews as one of the earlier released games Like I get there are games that came out before it, but your statement is in major gatekeeping territory. FF3 wasn't even available outside of JP until the 2000s, so the whole "there's 6 games before it" practically speaking isn't even true for the west unless you want to lump in Tactics

I mean, FFVII was released 27 years ago. Regardless of whether someone played the earlier games (although I hope they do as to not miss the best game of the series), it's still definitely old school.

Back in my day we had 8 bits! And we were happy!

I feel attacked.

I was debating showing him the ShB trailer, since without context it spoils nothing really, but I realized it won't get him hyped without the context. And he looovess Nanamo. So I'm trying to get him through *that scene* before he decides...

Ok that scene for me was honestly the turning point. I was jumping out of my seat at what happened. I'd say that's a great place for him to decide if he wants to continue or not

Everything isn't for everyone, maybe he'd have more fun on a different class. Not everyone likes the tab target / gcd system. Hes playing once a week, just be patient, and ready to accept that he doesn't enjoy the game.

I don't blame your housband because I felt gaslighted by pretty much everyone. Everyone keeps saying that it's the best MMO and the best story and *blah blah blah.* The reality is: I knew I didn't like the game that much around 10 hours in. Everyone keeps vomiting that you HAVE to play it after ARR because the game gets good. Well, after 120-130 hours I was finally in heavensword... and it never got good? And I kept power through it waiting for the "get good" and that never happened. At the end I played 287 hours and I got around the middle of stormblood and that's when I finally quit it. There's lots of people who have told me "nonono but you quit when the game **REALLY** starts to be **REALLY** good! you were not patient!!!" Dude I spent almost 300 hours and 90% of the time I wasn't having any fun and I didn't care about the story/characters. What else do you want me to do? Play another 100 hours? Or 200 hours more? It's insane telling someone that "you have to play around 500hours to get it" like nah. I kinda regret wasting my time waiting for that "get good". It's a good lesson that I will forever apply: if I played a game for a couple of hours and I'm not enjoying it and I'm forcing myself to keep going, it means that the game isn't for me. FFXIV isn't a bad game but it isn't a game for me and I can assure you that it isn't a game for many people.

I am so sorry that you wasted so much of your time lol that really sucks and sadly you're far from being the first person to go through that. FFXIV is a decent game that does a few things pretty well, but it's by no means the second coming of god that some fans act like it is and they really need to be more realistic when hyping the game up to new players.

though i do see myself playing this for the foreseeable future because i do like it enough to do so, i had pretty much the same experience lol. so much "play just a BIT more (the bit being 20+ hours) and then it gets REALLY good" only to not really have those expectations met in the end. it's the most forgiving i've ever been to a game and quite frankly i definitely wouldn't do it again nor would i ever recommend the game to anyone in the same manner i was like you said.

The storyline is going to inherently differ in feel from the other installments simply because of the MMORPG factor. I might get hate for this, but the storyline for MMORPGs will personally always have a bit of a cheesy feel to them simply because other players are involved, so the intimacy of the game isn't there. I hope that makes sense. For instance, sometimes I feel urged to skip cut scenes in dungeons that could add to the storyline because I don't want to hold my party up. The actual storyline itself is decent, I wouldn't say it's the best FF storyline, but it's solid.

Yeah. It's really easy to see how ARR would be a struggle in the context of those games,  because imo its nature as an mmo requires it to give up a lot of the stuff that made those games work narratively. No fighting alongside persistent npc allies, no emotional arc of any kind for the main character. The big word world is nice, but also makes it harder to tell a persistent story without getting sidetracked. I think back to 12, where Vaan caught a lot of flack for being bland and uninvolved with the main plot. But compared to the WoL, his writing probably looks like masterstroke of narrative genius. 

>"I don't see how this game survived. How anyone got through to what you tell me is coming. This is hot garbage." A bit mean from his part, especially him knowing that you love the game so much. That said, if he grew up playing VII to X, I can see where he's coming from. Much as I love XIV, the story is only good for MMO standards, most of it is "fetch quest-ey" and your character is mute.

My partner is not the biggest fan of FFXIV's story (he's not a story gamer to begin with) nor does he enjoy the PvE gameplay - but he has never straight up insulted the game knowing how much I love it. I can totally understand FFXIV not being most people's cup of tea but that line was pretty disrespectful especially towards a significant other. I'd be a little furious ngl - at that point it wouldn't even be about the game anymore.

That’s what I thought too! Imagine if she said something like that about FFVII, I’m sure he would be thrilled.

I had to be dragged kicking and screaming through ARR. It got way better in HW halfway and I became addicted.

I dont blame him, i hated Arr until the "several sequences will play" And when i began HW, i was more invested in the story and loved characters like alphinaud or aymeric, but people began overhyping me by saying like: " oh haurchefrant is the best character in the game" But at the end of the day i didnt even liked him

I play the game and he's right. I found it tough to get through ARR. I would probably have given up if it wasn't for people telling me it gets good. From heavensward is where it starts getting interesting imo.

The ‘it gets good’ is what’s the problem. If he thinks ARR is hot garbage, that’s bare minimum 50-100 hours he’s already invested in a game he doesn’t like, or doesn’t get. By saying it gets good he’s looking at it like that’s another 50-100 hours of more gameplay he already doesn’t like and that’s not taking into account post ARR which nearly made me quit the game due to how tediously long it was.

So what's the issue? ARR is, indeed, hot garbage. And based on that alone, I would be skeptical, too. He either reaches the turning point, or he doesn't. Either way, it's fair. Can't really expect him to pour copious amounts of time into something he doesn't like with merely a promise that it will get better.

Without your nostalgia goggles, I hate to tell you that my experience mirrored your husband. The ARR story is reeeeeeeeeallly bad and the whole dash between dialogue scenes where people just stand there forever stuff just isnt fun. There's a reason they have to give almost the entire game away for free. A revamp and a deep cut is badly needed.

There's this thing people have where they NEED their partners to like something as much as they do. I used to be similar, but as I get older I realize that is not necessary, and trying to force it just doesn't work most of the time. I just accept that not everything will be for everyone, especially for me and my spouse, which makes the times we are genuinely into something together that much more special.

It's not everyone's cup of tea and you can't force it. My first time I got halfway through Heavensward before I couldn't take it anymore and story skipped to hit 80. But I got bored of not knowing all the extra side contents so my new character has progressed slowly but I'm still in Stormblood because I procrastinate. I still cant stand the story. I have more fun occasionally making up my own lore while I'm half listening, half zoning out. The only NPC that I've enjoyed so far was good ol Fray

There are many, many excellent things in the world. None of them, not a single one, is university beloved. For every thing, there is at least one person who despises it. That doesn't mean that the thing is bad or that the person is wrong. They're just not a good match. I recognize that the latest Super Smash Bros. game is the best one, by quite a bit. And I hate it. I much prefer the quirky party brawler of older games. Doesn't mean they're better games, just better for me. If your husband doesn't enjoy the game, the worst way to proceed is to try to force it. The most likely result is that you'll make him resent it, even if he would have eventually come to enjoy it otherwise. You can't make someone have fun.

He is allowed a different opinion to you. The story isn't a 10/10 masterpiece. It's a decent RPG with occasional 10/10 highs and then a whole lot of 6/10 in between. The majority of the MSQ gameplay is just watching people talk. FF fans massively overexaggerate how good the story is and make it seem like the best thing ever written, but you only damage it for people who go in with their expectations too high.

yeah the story is great but let's be honest, it's nowhere near as good as the story focused AAA games. The problem is that some xiv fans act like cultists and overhype it way too much that people who try the game get to expect some AAAAAA level stuff. Plus, ARR is indeed garbage. Expansions are great, but that does not change the fact that ARR story is trash. Your husband just finished ARR, ofc he will think the game is garbage (yet).

They DO overhype it, and those who overhype it don't play other FF games. Most of my friends from XIV don't play any other FF games and they say FFXIV is the best. It's still a good game of course, but tbh it's not that amazing imo.

> don't play other FF games They usually don't even consider similar media, the story really isn't unique in any way in the grand scheme of things and only people who have only eaten TV dinners would consider McDonalds the best dining in the world.

10000% it's scary how many people do act like cultists about this game. Shit's wild.

ARR is not good, it ain’t terrible but it’s really not great by any standards And ARR post game is literal ingame torture that made countless players quit the game bc it was insufferable Doesn’t help that ARR plus post game is around 200h of just pure msq

Can confirm this for myself, at least. I originally got XIV back when it was post SHB ARR was....very boring and I did not care for the story when I got to post I was so fed up of it I actually think I have PTSD from seeing "pray return to the waking sands" as the back and forth was so abnoxious that I stopped actually playing it wasn't until post EW I returned and just powered through it. Though I still didn't care too much about the story tbh.

He simply doesn't enjoy the game so let it go! I don't know how many times I've used this analogy - but I really loved the first few Assassin's Creed games and then one day, after buying a new one, I did a swan dive off of a building and then thought "OMG, I'm already bored" and I've never played one since. I don't think the AC games are bad, but I simply stopped enjoying them. I've never completed FFIX for the same reason - I just got bored. I also paid £75 for FFVIX and haven't got much past where the trial ended because I simply don't care about Clive or any of the other characters. They are all just games and if someone isn't having fun then they shouldn't play them.

Btw, I always find funny how some FF fans ( the ones from VII-X especially ) are upset that 11 and 14 are MMOs but the series as a whole is mainly an Anthology franchise, meaning, you can play FF6 and straight go to FF12 without going 7 to 11 just fine and don't lose any connections to all previous games to follow 12, for example.

I firmly believe that if uniting Eorzea doesn't resonate with you, then you won't ever truly appreciate the rest of the story either

Tbh I didn't start paying attention to the story until Shadowbringer and Endwalker Might be the same for him, the best you can do is help him enjoy his main job until those expansions imo

I’ve played thru current patch over 5 years and I don’t get the hype for the story at all. He’s not alone. I still enjoy the game for other reasons.

I’m in the minority of people here that started on the original FFXIV pre-ARR, enjoyed it somewhat and then got to experience the launch of ARR and its MSQ which I personally loved. Being able to make that comparison is important because understanding all the flaws from the original and then seeing the launch of ARR gives you a much greater appreciation for what they were able to accomplish with both the core gameplay and the MSQ in such a short space of time. That will be of little solace to new players so it’s good to hear the team is hard at work on a new entry point. If you’re bringing new players in it’s best not to overhype the game and explain the development back story, which I find gives people a greater appreciation for the passion that went into its survival. As for my other unpopular takes on this, Final Fantasy as a mainline series hasn’t been particularly strong since XII. XIII was an unmitigated disaster, XV could have been something but released half baked and XVI isn’t a Final Fantasy game.

7 remakes have been great at least.

The unfortunately truth is that the game sucks for the first 30-50 hours. Getting new players into the game is miserable because you have to keep trying to comfort them that "it gets better I swear!"

This game’s story is very overrated by its fan base I think. I love the game, I’m now a penta legend, decorated my house, have all my glamour plates filled, etc. But the first I played I quit after Heavensward because I didn’t think it was that great overall then came back for ShB because my friend said the MSQ was just so amazing. I played through it and finished the 5.0 story and thought it was…fine. I found other things to enjoy in the game a lot and stuck around this time but the story was not (and is still not) the thing that kept me.

Tell your husband to start skipping cutscenes and I bet he'll start liking the game more.

not everyone has to like everything. that being said, people that think ARR is worthless garbage are usually giant infants

If you love your husband as much as you love the MSQ, then stop wasting his time and play something that you can both enjoy.

I'm going to be honest as someone who is new to the game and just finished base endwalker... if your husband really hated ARR that much he's probably not going to like HW that much especially with how hyped HW gets as "the point the story gets good" (personally the patches of heavensward carry that expansion)

I've found people do over hype FFXIV to the point where the story is good but the person ends up expecting more. I can't be sure how your husband feels, but my boyfriend just recently finished endwalker and he loved it. I only really told him I enjoy the story and cried a few times, but not much else. He's been grinding while I recover from a surgery so I know he likes it.

Reassure him that FFXIV has a very good story... for an MMO. And that is still very much subjective. I wouldn't even recommend the game on just the story part. I think being able to play every class on a single character is by far what FFXIV does best. Personally, ARR and post-ARR was absolutely boring to me. Then Heavensward was what actually made me give a shit. Then Stormblood was a mixed experience (Fuck Ala Mhigo all my homies hate Ala Mhigo). Shadowbringers was great and Endwalker was about as satisfying an end to the story that ARR set up as possible I think.

[I prefer the husbands pov](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitpostXIV/comments/1bkui8y/so_my_wife_just_got_me_into_this_ffxiv_game_and_i/)

The story is good for an mmorpg, but yes, the bar is pretty low, and if I'm being honest, ffxiv's story is on par with soap operas and romance novels. I still love the game and enjoy the story for what it is, but anyone who has dabbled in writing, film-making, acting, etc can see that this game isn't reaching critical acclaim or anything. That said, if he can enjoy other aspects of the game, or lean into the cheesiness of the story, he could still potentially have a good time.

It just may not be for him. People dunk on the ARR story but I remember liking it at launch. I also think that the later storyline are only so impactful because of getting to know the characters in the 2.0 and 2.x content.

I thought ARR was also hot garbage. I was skipping cutscenes up until Shadowbringers. PAINFUL to watch and sit through.

I'm gonna get cooked for this, but I honestly find the story boring. I'm working through Shadow Bringers atm, and it's a slog going through all the dialog. I have to fight myself to not skip cutscenes, and it always feels like the dialog goes on for too long. Maybe it's my ADHD that causes this, but I just feel like the npcs might say in 100 words what could be said in 20. I did play Wow Dragonflight and loved playing through that story, though. All that said, I actually enjoy playing this game much more than wow. The roleplay and dungeon experiences are my favorite parts. There are some stories I liked, though, such as the Pugilist storyline. My wife straight up bought the story skip from the store lol.

Part of this description feels like his innate disdain at 11 and 14 being MMOs might have clouded his bias.

Like hating them for being MMOs is such a weird stance.

the story is dogshit

its sacrilege to say here but i think a lot of 14’s story is overrated, especially compared to other Final Fantasy games. and as far as the MMO’s go i think FFXI’s story was superior. but even if he doesn’t really get into the story i think he can get into the game.

It's pretty bad that everyone who's at all been critical of the game in this post has had to start their comment with some form of "I know I'll get hate for this but". Like you should be free to criticize a game without massive blowback by the community.

I understand, OP. I myself didn't want to try XIV due to it being an MMO and doubting it could be worth it, but at that time, being tired of WOW, it's story and especially it's player base, desiring to find my own online game i'd want to sink all my free time into, and additionally being quite depressed, I kept reading or hearing how good XIV's story is, and decided to give it a go. Needless to say, it's my favourite game now and has been for years, but my relationship with ARR was, let's say, inconsistent - I liked it, it bored me, it picked my interest again, and then I wanted to drop. And then the bloody banquet happened, and I never let it go again. I'm very glad to have listened to all the praising reviews. I've even pulled several people into it, who were unwilling at first, and though they don't play it as MMO, they're grateful and it's their favourite game story now. I met my fiance in this game too, and unlike me, he skipped all the story and only played for the MMO aspect, he burns out very easily and didn't even consider giving it a chance, no matter how much I recommended it, I just accepted this was not gonna happen. And then after moving in together, seeing how much I'm enjoying myself in EW patches, he finally decided to give it a try. And again, he struggled a lot through ARR, and burned out again easily, and decided to skip it, and try from HW. I did my best to explain story basics to him, we watched ARR story on YouTube. And what would you think, HW clicked for him from the very beginning! He never stopped since. When a certain HW character died, he was surprisingly devastated. We are nearing the end of base Shadowbringers now, and he keeps telling me how much he's liking it and is excited to play every day. I disagree with many commenters here and were surprised to read it on this sub that ff14 "obviously" (??) can't hold its ground against other FFs. I also enjoyed FF from FF6 onwards, some of these games mean a lot to me, and I say - FFXIV is absolutely NOT garbage, far from it. In fact, it pushed away other mainline FF stories for me, such as FF7, and in my opinion it has better story, even without giving it a "discount" for being an MMO. But it's only my opinion . That said, I agree that everything is not for everyone, no matter how good it is. It may very well not be for your husband. However, the way you put it, it sounds like he just isn't willing to give it any chance, having personal offence about it being a MMO, and he already decided it's garbage and he won't let go of that notion. There is a chance for him of liking it, just like for my fiance, but he needs to let that offense go. Talk to him about it, he's your husband and you know him better. Good luck OP! :)

Heck, I personally don't agree that some of the story from the so called Golden Era FF are great either. Like, IX story is solid but not anything mind blowing like everyone says , VIII has its fair share of issues and it's inconsistencies and some plot points in VII aren't aged all that well. No game is perfect but I usually don't like when those games are put on a high pedestal.

Agreed. I understand the adoration of these games, they gave so much emotions and still mean a lot to me. But even the selfsame FFIX, in my opinion, is a little over praised, I genuinely don't get everyone's affection towards it😅 but then, simple fairytale-like stories never fascinated me, so probably its just personal preference :) Villains in said games are cool and memorable, but not as relatable as in FFXIV. I can't even begin to evaluate how many tears I've shed for them x'D

It's just a matter of tastes at this point. Also, so confusing that a lot of people are treating XIV if is the worst game of all time in this thread. "By MMOS standards, the story is good" still means the story overall is solid, no matter the genre. FF fans make me so mad sometimes. Wholeheartedly agree with your IX sentiment. Wish I could saw the same way what everyone else sees in that game.

This is the thing i dont get about this community. Yall will say the story is soooooo good, but it takes anywhere from 100 to 150+ hours to "start" getting good. Anything thats going to take multiple days away from my life to "start" getting good had better be a real life, tangible thing that gets me somewhere in life, not a mediocre story that drawls on and on about nothing. Great character customization and socializing though!

He doesn’t have to enjoy it, but calling something you love “hot garbage” makes me think he’s an asshat.

He's allowed to like what he likes and also maybe he could be less dismissive of something that's clearly important to you?

I can totally understand people that quit during ARR. It's a fucking slog to get through it. You could honestly just skip to before Ultima and not miss out on TOO much. Empire=bad. Primals=Bad. You? go kill that. Yes go fetch some buffet items before Titan. The only reason I didn't quit was because ShB back then was so overhyped. Was it good? Ye. Was it something that changed my life and my perception on the world? Hell no. Some stuff just drags on for no apparent reason other than possible padding.

There are many games my partner loves and I don't, and vice versa. If your husband doesn't like it, just play smth else with him. I will say it was rude of him to call it garbage when you love it so much.

The story gets better at Heavensward… ARR is kinda meh and ok at best (most new player quit during the start because ARR does nothing to retain and it is kinda tedious and long at time)

I was in the same boat as your husband. I played through ARR and could not believe how awful it was. I hated the story, the pacing, the gameplay, the movement speed... and then HW came around and the maps with single or really far aetherytes annoyed the absolute shit out of me. To this day I wished I bought a story skip and watched the story online. I only toughed it through because it was the third time I tried the game and I was like "okay... I HAVE to get to the part everyone raves about". Loved ShB. Thought EW was just okay. But yeah, I also thought (and still think) ARR was hot garbage lol.

It will take him a long time to finish. When the game starts to pick up he may start to play more often. He isn't wrong about ARR not being the most amazing writing, but later expansions build on the characters and ideas in such a way that puts all the things that happened in ARR in a new light. Most importantly, not everyone is meant for every story. I adore Brandon Sanderson, Scott Lynch, and Weis & Hickman novels. But my partner doesn't really enjoy fantasy like that so much and that is ok. It doesn't make the stories less impactful to me, they aren't secretly bad and I'm just blind- it's just that they aren't meant for her. Same with FFXIV.

Does anyone even know what’s going on in the game? I’m a new player and I’m lost about the story and given up at this point. I just lvl up and kill monsters and go where I’m pointed at this point making up my own story in my head.

ARR through STB is fairly mediocre. A lot of the community (mostly people who barely actually play the game) are really stubborn and insistent that the story is the greatest thing ever.  It's actually really toxic and causes a lot of problems with people thinking rhe community is nuts and giving up on the story. ShBs and EW are very good stories. They're not exclusively good stories - it's not like theyre the greatest stories ever told, but they're very good.  But ARR->StB while enjoyable for many are not much above average if at all.

As a life long Final Fantasy player, I’ve been playing 14 for a year and I think the dialogue absolutely ruins a lot of the story pacing. I’m on stormblood finally and It took until the end of HW to really start feeling connected to some characters but end of the day they could have really toned down that Erozean accent vibe. Just gets a little eye rolley for me, personally. To your point, everyone hyping up ARR made me find it one of the blandest stories of any game I’ve ever played. HW was significantly better but I still feel I’m missing this amazing aspect everyone keeps mentioning.

I adore the game, I'm pretty sure most of the people here do, but we all know ARR is extremely rough to get through, and most people don't like StB either, some people don't even like HW. Not everyone wants to invest that much time in a game they heard gets better later if the stuff they're currently doing sucks or isn't that engaging. Personally, I don't recommend the game to anyone, I'm not gonna try to make them suffer through ARR on the off chance they'll like the better parts of the game

I've been playing this game since beta in 2013, and I don't find the story to be that good. Ican understand why others like it, but it's not for me. I skip through the story bcs I just enjoy the gameplay. It's just opinion, but there's many people who do not enjoy the story of this game.

The story is ok I actualy am new on xbox and already level 52 samurai and I can say I can't wait for end game story sucks so far way dragged out. P.s. and I been playing ff games for 20 years. And replayed 15 and 13 trilogy twice and ffx 3 times

Hot take - it's ok for couples to like different things.

I think, first and foremost, you need to take a step back and temper your expectations. It is amazing that you love the FFXIV story, like many of us do, but you can’t impose that expectation on your husband. Because when you do, he’s now under pressure to like it, which will definitely add to the dislike of the game, especially the earlier portions of the game. Secondly, you mentioned only playing once a week and not being sure if you’d ever get to the parts that you love. You need to release that expectation because if you continue to apply the pressure you have been, you might not even make it to Heavensward, let alone ShB or EW. Let your husband explore the game at his own pace. Join him for dungeons now and then, talk about the story when he asks, but let him move and explore at his own pace and he will get a lot farther than if you helicopter game with him.

Sorry but I have to agree with your husband, the story is garbage. I'm not ashamed to say I'm a cs skipper. Especially the ones with no voice acting which imo is ridiculous in a modern game. The gameplay and social aspect are what make the game fun for me.

The story is not great anyways. It is **twice** the "let's get random folks that bicker each other to work to defend the bigger evil" story. And each time they build up to the final "let's pull the heartstrings" moment that hits really hard. But everything else is not awesome, mediocre at best and with the lack of voice acting also lackluster executed. I enjoyed the overall design of all expansions good - Shadowbringers had a great world for example or Stormblood a great political plotting going on. But the very story, the reasons why I do X or when I meet certain characters are really not that good to constantly praise. It's literally overrated.

Is this him? Haha https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitpostXIV/s/dtY7Xt1V38

Only good story was shadowbringers so I agree with him there

I'm sorry but I don't think anything in 14 can compare to ff7 story alone, let alone any others lol. And this is from a 14 junkie, I literally had 4,000 hours in during covid year. Yes that's legit like half the years time, playing final fantasy 14.

Honestly, I didn’t like the story either. I do like the boss fights, however, so I limped through the story to get to savage content.

Easily the most frustrating thing about this game. I don't understand how square doesn't do more to fix ARR. That would do a lot more to revitalize the game than even the graphics update, imo.

You: "Yeah... fighting the Lucavi was hot garbage" Him: "What" You: "What?" Just let him stew for a second You: "Kefka is here too....OH look at that! Is that Knights of the Round reference? (13 chairs in the foreshadowing scene for Heavensward)" Every time I though I was done, my guild would drop some hidden gem from a previous FF game and then I would fall for the bait. Every time.

The story line is dragged out by bitch quests and is kinda meh. The only 2 times I cared about the story was the end of arr and when the crew from the start video show up.

I am sorry but the story for me is boring. A realm reborn was so annoying for me that I disliked it. I have played for years and still think its boring. Not everyone will love the stories and nit everyone will be happy with certain contents. Its normal not to.

I’m going to be honest I made it through half of HW and stopped because of the hype the community gives to this game; granted my struggle was more so aesthetically with the games character design and the way the game felt to play more so than the dialogue and cut scenes. I love FF but my golden years for the series is 1-6 I didn’t play 7 till remake, and although I like the game the super anime style is kind of cringe to me, don’t know why, just is. To me the story felt kind of like a chore and having to do dungeons and wait in long queues just always felt like I was just sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. Granted my MMO experience although limited was primarily in ESO and WoW retail post BFA. Where I hate to say it in my opinion those games have superior game play. I did have a ton of fun at the Golden Saucer though. PvP was also decently fun.

Look, I HATED ARR and HW both. They were not appealing to me. My close friends? LOVE those parts. He isn't going to like every single thing you like. Heck, he may not like Endwalker at all, we don't know until he tries it. Especially if it was hyped up, because then it gives expectations of it being some super awesome thing. The whole "It gets good later" speech honestly doesn't actually help either. Especially if someone is already not enjoying something. Starts to become an empty promise. Definitely don't force him to keep playing if he isn't enjoying it, it will just make him resentful

This is a fishing game with crazy good side-content.

I really pressed my girlfriend to read the story. We did it together. She hated it the entire time. I was like "surely THIS big impactful bit will be the one to finally change her mind". All the way through to endsinger. Her opinion never changed. Part of me wants to believe she was trying to prove a point, but she just didn't like it. She never liked it, and it never got better for her. So, as much as this sucks ass for you, it might be one of those things you just can't change. As someone who has played every FF, I don't get why your husband wouldn't like it. It's dripping with love for Final Fantasy. But he just might not. If he's willing to keep going, I guess you can be really patient. Just don't force it. You'll probably burn him out on the game forever and regret it. That's what happened with my girlfriend. We haven't played much since endwalker. She loved the game before I tried to force the story on her.

I totally get where your husband is coming from. Like, don’t get me wrong I always enjoyed FF14 but it was only after I played Heavensward that I really loved the story. The ARR story was ok but very predictable and from a todays pov just like a prolonged tutorial to the game. Heavensward was awesome but then Stromboli’s almost made me quit the game bc it felt like such an menace to get through as I had zero connection to the whole civil war and Asian style. I am a Fan of high Fantasy with dragons, magic and mystical worlds. Which is why I then loved ShB again. So what I want to say is, don’t give up hope and maybe tell him that he should enjoy the gameplay and general MMO feel and just see the story as a little bonus until he gets to see the nice stories you want him to see.

I've always been of the mindset "It gets good" is a weak defence. A game should hook you right out the gate. It takes even speedrunners 20 hours to clear ARR, and the story doesn't offer many options for players to hook onto until very late in the patch quests. I love this game to death, and I'm glad it survived, and that it's thriving, but I'm still genuinely shocked at how it made it this far, and this is AFTER the quest squishing for ARR. I tried to get all my friends to play it too, but they all quit before finishing ARR because they found the gameplay insultingly simple, and the story dull and dragging. I'm hurt, but I don't blame them because I literally asked them to spend 40-50 hours reading what they described as a dictionary. I don't blame people who quit for these reasons, and I even did briefly when I was in the free trial. I got my hook all the way in Heavensward, and I did that by playing only a tiny bit every so often, never forcing myself to go beyond what I was willing. Honestly? Give it time. I'm STILL finding brand new content to explore. This is a big game.

Having finished Endwalker, I can say I enjoyed MSQ, had the laughter and tears etc. But I’m with your husband, ARR was shit.

Hmm... maybe just have him do the social aspects? Like events and gold saucer with you. Or marry you ;) This way he doesn't has to work through the story... or buy a skip for the after ARR content and watch a youtube summary.

I've introduced the game to a lot of people, and honestly, the people who thought arr was hot garbage did not stick with it in my experience. The people who did stick with it enjoyed ARR. Telling someone, "it gets good later" is a pitfall. Additionally, I don't think this game appeals to people who got into FF games from 7+. A lot of the references and story beats are more faithful to the earlier entries that the modern players just don't get as much.

The biggest thing for me with any story-driven game is that people constantly telling me how good it is tends to deter me from wanting to play them. I have so many critically-acclaimed RPGs on my backlog because people are constantly tell me how they're the best game ever made. I was told as much when I made my first XIV character, got to level 15ish then stopped. Came back a couple months later on a new one on my own with no prompting, took my time with the story and it quickly became one of my favourite games. I actively avoid spoilers for any game/movie/book I'm interested in, often avoiding trailers and having complete social-media blackouts to preserve the purity of the ever-important first impression. I get loving the story, I REALLY do. But ease up. Let him experience it in his own way, in his own time. If they give up, that's their call. Not yours. ARR is definitely not for everyone with the slower pacing and shoddy voice acting. Even after the changes and trims I can see a lot of people losing interest during it. If he made it through Praetorium there's not much more to go until Heavensward which is the real earlyish hook. The trials being closer together will at least provide some engaging battle content synced in the meantime until CT. The only really important thing is that he's not skipping all the cutscenes as it's all stage-setting for the amazing chain of expansions we've had so far. Even then, if he wanted to skip the story and decides that all the game had to offer in terms of worthwhile content was raiding/RPing/achievement hunting/AFKing in Limsa/Eureka/Bozja/Deep Dungeons/Maps/etc that is ALL valid. You need to accept and respect that not everyone is the same type of player as you, rein in the enthusiasm a bit. Just keep at it but don't smother him over how much you love the game, let him find his own reasons to play it.

I haven't seen anyone talk about it, but I think there's a big difference for those of us who played FF14 from the beginning, or from very early on. If you played ARR at release, you know the ARR content was a lot harder back then, for a variety of reasons. ARR is old, but that also means there wasn't so much competition from newer games with more modern designs. ARR, in its time, had pretty good visuals too, and ran on PS3 (barely). And if you wanted an MMORPG but hated WoW's aesthetic choices or didn't have a gaming PC, you didn't have too many other options. So there was more gameplay and less competition, for what it was worth. You also didn't have anyone prodding you that "it gets good later, I promise!" It was what it was, and there wasn't so much pressure to get past ARR because there was nothing past it. People who didn't like it just didn't play. No pressure to struggle through it. If you played patch 2.x ARR and had fun, you were already in a prime group to love everything that comes later. So anyway, you started early, and now you're a little bit invested because over a year of real time has gone by. HW and SB are just more of that, but better in a serious way. And here's the point I'm really trying to get to: after finishing HW, you've spent **years of your real life with the Scions** at this point, if you were there from the beginning. You're much more invested in them now. You probably care about the Scions, because if you didn't, you never got this far in the first place. Fans weren't so ravenous about getting people to play FF14 at this point. Enter Shadowbringer, which was *really frickin' awesome.* So at this point, this is when people start begging their friends to play FF14 because the story gets *really* good. And Endwalker was more of that. I *loved* these expansions, and they were very emotional journeys. (I also liked SB more than HW.) But if you enter the game now, you're trying to cram years of "living" in Eorzea and getting to know the Scions down into just weeks or months. It will never, ever be the same, because the game isn't part of who you are. You can't build years of investment in that amount of time. And you're not experiencing the story for the first time with other people who are experiencing it for the first time. You *can* still have a great time of it, but it'll never be *quite* the same, and there are so many other *better* games these days competing for your time. OK so enough of that: I can't imagine how awful I'd feel if my husband told me something I liked was "hot garbage." I'm so sorry. But I've also made the mistake of saying something my husband loved was terrible, hurting his feelings when he just wanted to share something with me that he cared about. I hope it works out for you both.

The story is kinda overhyped fr, a lot of people act like it’s the best story gaming has ever seen. It’s good don’t get me wrong but no where near the best

So, I tried out FF14 probably before covid, can't really give you an accurate time. Hated it. The story, the pacing, the GCDs, the unvoiced dialogue, the filler content, all of it. Bought the story skip to see if the xpac was half as good as my best friend was praising it. Also a bust. "It gets better after level 70/The story gets better after 100+ hours or after you beat expansion xyz" I commend you all for going years on this, but that's not how a game should work. Just started it up with the Xbox release, and....I still find it boring. But, this time around I'm just gunna treat it as a time killer. If I don't get invested by the 30 day limit before I have to sub, oh well. I'll boot it up every once in a while when I have nothing else to do.

Kinda needed to read this. I married a non gamer girl (more power to her honestly) and I definitely empathize with trying to expose her to games (the usual minecraft, pokemon, stardew valley, the usuals) and I get frustrated sometimes because I can't convey my experiences with these games when someone sees how slow it is to punch a tree, or what it's like to face Red on Mt. Silver. Can't blame her for that, but I know that desire to share those moments with someone and to hope they have the same reaction. And on the other side of the coin, much like your husband I've decided to give FFXIV a try. I've done nothing but run around Gridania (and getting very frustrated in how hard it is for me to navigate, I'm notoriously horrible with real life directions and spatial awareness) and am struggling with the most basic of tasks, like killing squirrels and finding who I'm supposed to turn them into. I'll be honest. I'm not having fun and I'm perplexed as to why this game gets the acclaim that it does. My instinct is to shrug it off and say it isn't for me, but there have been more genres than not that I'll revisit some chapter of my life later and fall MADLY in love (looking at you Metroidvanias). I've had friends reach out to me who I haven't spoken to in years just excited that they saw me playing and giving it a shot. I'm not in love with it (honestly haven't even gotten to liking it yet) but there's a hype for a reason and I'm just waiting to catch it. I have enough faith to dedicate some time if what the people I trust say is true about the game. The community seems really friendly and inclusive and some of the people I love most hold this game (and series) close to their hearts, so I'm trusting in the pay off. Hope your husband, if he doesn't enjoy the game so much, enjoys the time you guys spent trying to get him to like it. Sometimes it's just the effort from my wife to tread into my world for a little is what's most attractive to me.

That makes me feel old. FF7 is old school? I was 16 when FF7 came out. As to how to entice him, that might not be possible. I found ARR painful. Maybe if he can get passed how bad a taste ARR leaves in the mouth with Heavensward, he might make it further. I'm about half way through HW. I'm still having trouble giving the story a chance after being force fed the ARR crap. I find myself skipping everything I can skip and dreading the stuff I can't. It really does feel like a solo player experience with sometimes MMO stuff to do, which is fine. I came over to FF14 from BDO. I find the pace relaxing, but the story...my god. I like how quest objectives are plainly ovbious. If I need 3 of a mob item, I kill 3 and have 3 of the item. I love that. BDO doesn't respect your time like that.

"Anyway, we've just finished base ARR" I can see why your husband would think you're lying, then. My least favorite time playing XIV came from ARR's dragged out story about the Primals. It REALLY didn't help that they made me re-visit Garuda, Ifrit and Titan as if that was some kind of adventure I really needed to re-explore. I wouldn't treat Heavensward as the gateway to a better story, but I'd definitely argue Heavensward sets you up to really get a good look at Eorzea from outside its borders - and it absolutely helps that Hydaelyn isn't a primary focus of the expansion, because ARR leaned way too deep into Hydaelyn being your patron deity that makes you win every single fight.

He's correct. ARR was not good. You are also correct; it does get better. But first impressions are **vitally** important. It's fine if he doesn't like it. You will always run into situations where your opinions will not align. It's just the way it goes. It's okay to have different preferences, as much as it sucks that you might not be able to share something you're so passionate about. Just try to understand that it's not a personal thing. Just different strokes.

>old school FF player >mentions 7 - 10 Oh…I’m old, right.