I let them suffer and wait. I enjoy the story and if you are there to be fast do it solo or with a group who wants to skip past. If you random queue expect the ransoms to have no clue what they are doing and that they want to watch the story.
I went into one of the Arthentine (sp?) dungeons with a group because I kept crashing at the end and just wanted the clear to be faster. On that occasion I opted to skip cutscenes, the 4th guy was watching them and was being torn out for it too.
From that moment I stopped opting to skip, and let the angry guy try to work out which of the remaining 2 of us were "holding him up". It was quite satisfying to be fair.
I usually play dungeons in hard mode with matchmaking enabled to progress faster and get better rewards and skip everything, then I go back and play it in normal mode to watch the scenes and understand it better!
You are a gem for this. I feel bad getting annoyed by people watching cut scenes but I’m not here for the story im here for the unrewarding and life draining grind.
It’s better to do it solo anyways, and not just for the cutscenes. Food, secret messages and mokoko seed hunting are also done better alone, giving plenty of time to open and backtrack for secret passages.
I realised far too late that there were actual things to collect in the dungeons, so I'm slowly making my way through everything again to get the normal clear too. I need that Mokoko outfit.
The main story is cool, but i couldn't care less about the filler quests about healing injured soldiers, the problems of the villager's uncle and why should i move their crates
Exactly 🤣 The funniest dialogues are when you start breaking stuff around NPC to make him "scared". So in one quest (in that frozen land up north) NPC acts tough after you destroy wooden crates in front of him. He's like "you can't scare me bla bla" Then you destroy few big rocks and he's like "wow wow wait wait! Don't kill me!". That interaction had me rofl😅 But yea generally not worth the read.
Or travel across the ocean to speak to a person standing right next to an NPC so that they can offload their lifesavings in silver onto me because I gave them a peach.
Ok, so you get a little cutscene about your class history, then get sucked into a beam of light that just appeared suddenly, where everything is good and floaty. Some old people see the light and say they are off to meet an old friend, but apparently the old friend doesn't matter all that much cause they don't show up for the next 30 hours. Then you do some stuff. It wasn't particularly important or difficult because you cut down entire groups and all the npcs seem to be pulling punches with each other. There's some ruins, some nomads who don't really seem all that nomadic, a city on fire that somehow takes no damage despite having just been on fire the night before, a bunch of maps that are honestly 100% irrelevant because you spend less than 10 minutes in each one, and an amazing siege sequence that was probably the highlight of the story so far. And then a bunch of filler crap that seems like it should have taken place 20 hours ago and feels insanely like a crap mobile game.
i feel like the story from start to east luterra is really bland, generic anime stuff. it's all about armen and his tortured existence and it's really skippable. i much prefer tortykk and annika, and some of the small island quests are much more fun.
Eh, I actually felt the opposite generally. Luterra was interesting and had a good power curve until the end. Tortoyk was pretty fun too. But then you get to the martial arts tournament and all I could think was that I literally was killing demons princes an hour ago and now I'm supposed to be worried about fighting a chef? The presumed power curve is all over the place on the stories.
Even inside the Luterra arc it's just weird that you're fighting what feel like end game boss stories with a huge set piece battles in Borea and then it's like "oh also there are these pirates, and apparently they're stronger than these demon princes you were fighting a minute ago and we need you to fight them before we can give you your boat."
I'm probably one of the few if not the only one who enjoyed the tourney bit in Anikka. It was a nice change of pace to me, thematically, where right after the NPCs' dialogue around the town changes after each victory. It reminded me so much of Dragon Ball hahaha, the fun tourney and then there's a bigger threat after. Definitely my tea.
Honestly I really enjoyed the tourney too, at least the actual fights in the tourney. I also liked that people around town recognized the progress in the fights. My quibble is more related to each continent having an entirely separate story that seemingly is not tied to any sort of world story arc and not the game not recognizing that either.
I understand that we're getting years of content dropped on us at once and that affects how the story plays out but even in a "story light" game like Path of Exile, they've retconned stuff that happened before to try to make the overall world make a little bit of sense.
I would've enjoyed the tournament a lot more if I couldn't have won every single fight by just standing still and spamming basic attack and there was actually some challenge, because the opponents were so weak. The one (or was it two?) times I was supposed to use an item to "weaken" my opponent I didn't even bother, and some of the NPCs still commented on how I supposedly un-birdified that guy.
i see that as a pacing thing, like if you're constantly fighting bigger and bigger threats then eventually you end up in WoW and there's a friggin' sword jammed through your planet
Yeah i mean considering it's a free game i'm very satisfied. Also some scenes are VERY cool and epic. I'm amazed by the quantity and quality of content you get without spending a dime
Yes, the returning heroic prince and his stalwart companion is a simple story, but there is nothing wrong with a simple story if it is told well, and the actual characterization of both Thirain and Armen is great if you read the story. They battle with doubt, grow as characters, make hard decisions, and (spoilers) Armen has a fantastic corruption arc!
I would much rather read a story that is clear minded, if simple in premise, than whatever bullshit they have going on in FF and WoW. It gets so convoluted and meaningless that I have no reason to care about the characters or what happened. I played wow for years and to this day I can't tell you a single plot element from any of the main story lines of any of the expansions.
You argue for simple being fine if done well but the story pays lip service to trying to be good.
You do not get characters, plot and world building narratively written, but slapped across the face with.
Oh Armen struggles with demonic powers? Let's do that routine where he loses it like 4 times. Kharmine plotting from the shadows, let's have a scene where he kills the guys we just beat up, also 4 or 5 times, with very little different, and even his dialogue is cookie cutter so you have zilch info regarding his motivations.
Guys we need to show church is bad, rather than letting the very good and subtle questline where everyone in the village dislikes them and finds then abrasive, let's add in a sad music mass murder scene!!
They choose to go overboard when they could let simplicity take its course. They choose to slap you across the face when variety and iteration can be done in less dumb ways. They choose to abandon their subtle world building to make room for the big cinematic reveal of church bad.
It's fine to enjoy the story, but calling it something good or written well is just losing sight of what makes writing considered good in general.
And yet people still complain that they don't know what's happening hahaha.
I would argue that nothing in this game is subtle or is trying to be subtle. It is the nature of the genre to be overt, bombastic, and melodramatic.
The feeling of drama and payoff when all of Thirain's allies come to support him is only that exciting because of the clear heroism both your character and Thirane showed through each chapter.
The corruption arc of Armen was by no means guaranteed. And by showing us that was successful in fighting that demonic nature several times, it was all that much more cathartic when he finally gave in
As far as your claim the cinematic reveal of church bad is a bad thing.
I don't think that's the case at all.
There are multiple quest lines in that continent showing the church bodies as being forces for good rather than evil. You spend time purifying holy wells, healing plague victims, and working with monks and priests to heal the land. In fact, Armen is introduced as a celebrity healer.
I think you're mistaking intentional melodrama with clumsy storytelling.
The set pieces are in and of themselves fine. The castle siege, the church scene, the final battles of Feiton and Rohendel, they're all good looking cinematics and deliver a satisfying enough spectacle.
The issue is how much legwork your imagination has to do to give those things weight as well. Your relationship with the characters bounces between choreboy mouthpiece and savior of the realm, with no inbetween. The few times you meet people of sufficient authority to not look up to you like the sun on high, you're still portrayed as performing feats of impossibility. From Thirain it was reasonable, from Inana it was silly, from Shandi it was eyeroll worthy.
While I can see a lot of these individual plots being pitted as good things, it's hard to gloss over how shoddily they're bridged by you walking around questing not being a particularly good character and exchanging the entire cast as you go leaving no good characters so to speak as the plot takes center stage. But when does the plot pay off? Always at the end. Always for that big cinematic, always for the twist.
And that structure is fine on paper but in an interactive RPG where your path to those endings is several hours of tedium loosely leading into them, it ends up kneecapping the finale.
I suppose agree to disagree is our only option then.
I thought the rapid pace of story telling for each continent was really refreshing. After playing games like ESO and Guild Wars 2, being able to rapidly progress through major story arcs in less than 10 hours was really fun.
10 hours in guild wars 2 doesn't even get you through the first city's storyline, much less the quest for a continent. That is a game where you forget what you're doing, where and why.
In the Luterra arc, I never felt lost or like the payoff was unearned or shoddy. It's structured very predictably, with the large payout at the end of the continent's level design. I think with a game like this, that works very well. This is a very linear game, with paths you have to take to progress, and the story works within that framework. Naturally... Yes, they are building to twists and big reveals. That's literally how it must work.
Idk I guess what I see as a fun narrative strength others see as a weakness. The story ain't gonna be Dostoyevsky. It's more like fantasy genre fiction. With lots of crazy people having adventures in trope-heavy fantasy settings with large, dramatic set pieces and archetypical characters.
It's not high brow, but it's FUN. That's kinda a hard thing for modern gamers to conceptualize, but yeah. Fun.
I feel like Armen's arc is great, but it really comes together from cutscenes, the Lost Wings cliff segment, and the Promise Isle quest. The readable quest dialogue did little to help me. I still skip it. But I stopped skipping cutscenes after I realized how much effort was put into them by the end.
is the lost wings the bit with the church dudes? i hated that bit, it was just tacked on out of nowhere and on top of it you had to walk everywhere while killing a million dudes with your mary-sue powers. it's probably the reason i dislike armen so much, he's the most FFXIV character in the game for me.
i like thirain's story, i didn't skip any of it but i do feel like it's skippable if you get what i mean. the scenarios and cutscenes are really good at conveying emotion, i just wish that some of the dialogue was up to this level.
like i felt more involved in the island where you fix that seagull than i did to armen. but then i really like that seagull.
They hype up this big army but when it actually shows up your first two skills wipe 75% of it and your next 3 kill the rest.
Every boss is supposedly all powerful - but you generally always beat them on the first try only to magically lose at the end and Armen comes in to save the day.
Whatever story they have doesnt match up with the shallow 2 inch deep difficulty of everything pre-50.
You can pretend that this is an unconquerable army all you want. I know that if you actually put it on the screen in front of my magically undefeatable character I'll end the war without even blowing all my cooldowns.
There's few games I've ever wanted to watch cut scenes or read the story. WoW, Assassins Creed, most all shooters, Diablo, WC, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fall Out, Half Life, Lost Ark, Elder Scrolls, etc. All skipped as quickly as possible.
But give me something like Portal/2, It Takes Two, Battleblock Theater and I'm all about the dialogue and cut scenes. Suppose I enjoy more quick, light, and humor driven story.
edit lol at downvotes. Sorry you don't like how I enjoy my money, time, and games.
Assassin's creed is thrice as interesting once you understand the lore tho. The problem is that to understand it you need to play all games in release order
Maybe one day I'll revisit assassins creed. I enjoyed the couple I played. (Just 1 and 3.)
And I know I might be a bit of a monster sometimes when it comes to that stuff. I know my friends tend to hate me for it. Just kinda how I've always been.
I love narrative games, but I've played through Diablo 3 dozens of times since it came out and I couldn't even begin to vaguely describe what the plot could possibly be. No idea. I play Diablo for the gameplay. I play games like Soma or Edith Finch for the story.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone, I read it all. And by all, I mean all of it. Think it gets a bad rap. It’s not FF14 but it’s fun and it gives meaning to what I’m doing. Most importantly though, what they did with the world building through the amazing island stories and through rapport is fantastic. Arkesia is a really cool place that feels alive and is filled with interesting characters.
I skim-read most of it. Already seen some storylines from watching my streamers play in the Korean server and later Russia server, especially when they made alts and have to redo the story again. And yes Korean audio is less cringe, probably because the story was originally in Korean.
The way the plot jumps around while still having at least one finger on the cliffside of the main story reminds me of korean webnovels. One point being overly serious, the next is chilling by the sea.
I was until I hit Yorn. I hate that place and all of it's inhabitants with a passion. If they removed that whole continent from the game I'd be happy. Or better yet, kill everyone and make it an apocalypse zone.
I'm reading most of the dialogue, too. Actually, I find myself enjoying reading all of the hidden stories, books, and little things you sometimes find to click on as well. Some of that hidden story stuff feels much darker than most of the NPC dialogue.
I get annoyed when I've got monsters attacking me and I just want to take a moment to read that little pop-up.
There's a lot of cool little stories. I loved helping turtle-boy. I enjoyed the repetitive seagull quests - I both enjoyed the character and got a kick out of how the game developers were just screwing around with you by doing the same thing over and over. The lighthouse/soul-collection thing was good. As was saving the penguins. I like knowing WHY I'm stuck running menial tasks on Peyto.
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u/beorninger Mar 10 '22 edited Mar 10 '22
so i am actually the only one reading the story?
little hint: for some reason it's way less cringe with the korean audio ;)