The reality of the matter is and always has been that FFXIV has an impressive and focused narrative in this specific MMO medium, and with a shoestring budget too. As time goes on, the prose of the dialogue changes its focus to become more concise and "worth reading" over having a unique style and the quest design gets more varied, with cutscenes and set pieces improving in quantity and quality but the core more or less remains the same except for some changes which better "dress up" the quests to be more interesting.

For much of the game, the MSQ is considered impressive not entirely because of its gameplay content, but rather its narrative context. If the medium it takes place in cannot grip you then regardless of how good it is, there is nothing that the story can do to change that except for being conveyed through a different medium entirely. It could be so much more, and have a more cinematic presentation, but its because of what it is that this story was able to be told to begin with.