
Way back in the time of Stormblood, we were told that Final Fantasy XIV was getting rid of combat-based levequests because they were basically redundant and not fun. They were, in a word, pointless. Not strictly useless, but Heavensward had already made them pretty inconvenient and the idea of having “bigger” ones really didn’t pan out. Of course, the real problem there was the fact that the only levemetes were back in Ishgard, but I digress. This content was no longer serving a purpose; therefore, it got put aside.
So why are our maps still covered in sidequests with each new expansion?
To be clear here, I am not saying that I do not enjoy the sidequests of the game or want them to go away. I like that we have these quests that explore little bits of the culture, theoretically. The problem is that most of them don’t, and unless you specifically want to do them for that reason, they are really devoid of any point. And it seems as if the game even knows this, which only raises further questions.
Let’s start by backing up a bit. When the game relaunched, the goal was very clearly to take inspiration from two games that were, at the time, very well-known and successful and had a consistent approach to leveling up. I don’t even need to name them; you know the games they are just because they had walls of sidequests in each new zone and dynamic events that spawned throughout the area. These became FFXIV’s sidequests and FATEs, obviously. They sat alongside the game’s dungeons and levequests as tools to level, tools that were especially important because FFXIV characters have several jobs to level and so players need a bunch of different approaches.
However, there was a problem. It was always there, but it got more pronounced as time went on, and it’s a problem that’s just symptomatic of the game’s design: FFXIV‘s combat is really just at its most fun in dungeons and in parties.
This could be a problem if it were hard to form groups, but it isn’t. It’s really pretty effortless, and even more importantly it’s fast, even fast enough that most players can do some other things that are low-impact while waiting for queues. In terms of structure, this makes perfect sense, and the game’s roulettes double down on this element.
Where this becomes a problem is that it means that open-world combat just is never going to be nearly as interesting. And if we’re being honest, that’s the real reason why levequests got yoinked from combat jobs. Odds are that if a player still wants to level after doing all of the leveling roulettes on a job they will just run a dungeon, especially since it’s more rewarding and the game literally runs on making it more rewarding. So far so good.
But then we still have sidequests and FATEs sticking around, which is content in search of a purpose.
You might point out that FATEs have bicolour gemstones as a reward, which is true, but even then there’s a problem with some FATEs just being more rewarding for the same amount of effort in order to get those gemstones. And they’re not exactly engaging content; the gameplay comes down to “avoid AOEs while spamming your own AOE” for everything but boss FATEs, which require a single-target rotation. Oh, and sometimes you need to talk to an NPC to get credit. Amazing.
Sidequests are even worse. FATEs at least feel brainless in a good way; sidequests usually involve doing a task that is neither challenging nor engaging, and it’s for at best scraps of lore or setting information. And even that is mostly contained in the two zone quests that have a bit more length to them, but they’re usually rather light on point so much as a window into the zone’s existing character alongside setting up NPCs for the later allied society quests.
Before you ask what I have against this content, the answer is nothing. I have the map cleared of sidequests in every single zone. I have done this content. Every single expansion. So believe me when I say that this is utterly superfluous to the game and doesn’t really enhance anyone’s play experience. It feels like content that’s there because it is expected to be there and if you have this zone, you have to fill it with something.
And that is… not good! It’s not how things should be! We’re talking about a game that takes pains to make content viable and relevant no matter what, and yet here we are with a huge amount of content in every expansion that you basically don’t need to do. Some of them reward gear or minions, sure, but what about all the other quests? Do you really want to do them? If you didn’t care about the Cornservant minion, what would your motivation be to actually do those quests? Completionism, mostly!
So what can be done here to make this stuff worthwhile? I don’t think having a map full of sidequests no one wants to do is really a good state of affairs, and while having them sync to your current level makes them more worthwhile that they would otherwise be, they’re still not great experience for the time they take. More importantly, I don’t want to propose “what if doing all of these quests gets you A Thing” because that’s just gating additional content behind a bunch of nonsense. It would also require designing more content.
And I don’t think FATEs or sidequests need that to be relevant. Here’s my thought: First, sidequests should have their experience rewards bumped up, but second, why not convert that experience to something else if you’re already at the level cap?
Imagine if doing a FATE got you extra gemstones if you were at the level cap; if you need a little more gatekeeping, tie it to being at the level cap and also having your free market requirements finished up. And to just drive further participation, have a specific zone in each level band be designated as a hotspot with increased gem/experience rewards. That would drive players both leveling and not to that level, and it would make FATEs at least feel more rewarding if not any more complex.
For sidequests, the obvious thing would be to turn excess experience into gil. But I think turning it into gemstones would also work, and I feel like giving more of the sidequests a wider array of actual rewards would help. While you get gear coffers of an appropriate level band from some, that’s… not really much incentive most of the time. Most players do not really care about that. What if you could also take rare materials that were normally enemy drops? Ventures?
I don’t think any of these ideas is a magic bullet, but I feel like any of them would at least help. The developers spend time making each of these quests to populate a zone, but for a lot of players they’re just irrelevant filler. And if the quests don’t have a reason for players to take part in them… well, they may as well not be there. They are, in a word, pointless.
Feedback is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week, we’ve got that pre-live-letter jitter to calm, so let’s go over the stuff other than more MSQ and a new dungeon that we can expect from the letter.
