Quests hell

I don't hate the story, I saw it on YouTube, short and fast and yeah FF has always been a game about story, but any MMO is a game about competition, any game where there is one more person in 90% of the competition, so why should I play alone 2 or 3 months in an online game, I feel that this is not the right approach.

And I don't against quests as a way to gain experience, but when you have to do about 100 things for which give less than half a percent of level, it is weird

Interesting. It seems as if we have a very different understanding of what going through these story quests actually entails.

The format is ABSOLUTELY NOT that you do a bunch of story quests and then when you complete them you do a bunch of battles. They are completely intertwined. As you level up and as you go through story quests, there are many battles - many of which you CANNOT do alone. Anyone that you want to play with is completely capable of not only joining you at any point along the way (granted, there are some small pieces that you really do have to do alone, but they are the exception rather than the norm), but they have many incentives to do so. For instance, if it's your first time completing a duty, all present get a bonus reward.

And please don't be discouraged by the sentiments of "if you don't like story, get out." It's totally okay to like certain aspects of the game more than others. That said, if you truly do find them "hell," yes, please stop torturing yourself and move on.

Well playing alone is entirely your choice, their are plenty of Free Companies out there that you could probably join.
And you already answered you do not mind the story and ff has always been about story so....
Also there are plenty of things to do beside Main story were you can earn experience. Run dungeons, do fates, leves, use food for exp, join a Free Company to help you and also have FC buffs for exp, etc..
This game may however not be for you.

Lol you don't have to do it at all. Just leave the game if you do not like how it is set up.
The quests are for a story experience, and also to guide the player about each zone. If you have spoiled that story for yourself; then it sucks for you but you ruined a key aspect of their creation and purpose. If you don't like the quests; just grind through them and then dungeon crawl your other classes to 60.

With some focus the quests could probably be done in a few days. I guess they could add a character booster feature for people who want to experience the game's raiding or pvp as soon as they start without doing any questing or leveling, but on the other hand people who would skip content probably don't have much commitment to the game and wouldn't remain subscribers anyway. Raids are important but this game has much more casual content than it does raids. To love this game you really have to enjoy the whole questing and story experience.

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Originally Posted by ququrama

I don't hate the story, I saw it on YouTube, short and fast and yeah FF has always been a game about story, but any MMO is a game about competition, any game where there is one more person in 90% of the competition, so why should I play alone 2 or 3 months in an online game, I feel that this is not the right approach.

And I don't against quests as a way to gain experience, but when you have to do about 100 things for which give less than half a percent of level, it is weird

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Just because you like games about competition does not make all games about competition. Your personal tastes are not some objective truth to which reality must adhere. Heck, MMOs in general are far more a cooperative genre than anything.

It's a story heavy game, with a slow dialogue heavy presentation. You might not like the approach but the game is what it is, it might be good to simply get out before you dedicate more time to something that is not and never will be what you're looking for. (If what you're looking for is a no story or story-lite competition-focused game).

It's not like the world is lacking for zero story, competition-focused games. Play what you enjoy.

In fairness, every other MMORPG lets you jump straight into a new expansion as soon as you are high enough of a level to start it, prior story completed or not. Square-Enix just likes to do things differently.

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Originally Posted by ququrama

any MMO is a game about competition

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There are some MMO's that focus on competition. This isn't one of them. Its group content is mostly cooperative, not competitive. But it certainly is focused a lot on group content. Its not possible to play solo for long in this game, like you can in many other MMOs.

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Originally Posted by ququrama

why should I play alone 2 or 3 months in an online game, I feel that this is not the right approach.

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Then why would you play alone? Looking at just the level 50 content (since it seems to be the level 50 quests people complain about), there's:

Dungeons:
Castrum Meridianum
The Praetorium
The Wanderer's Palace
Amdapor Keep
Pharos Sirius
Copperbell Mines (Hard)
Haukke Manor (Hard)
The Lost City of Amdapor
Halatali (Hard)
Brayflox's Longstop (Hard)
Hullbreaker Isle
The Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard)
The Stone Vigil (Hard)
Snowcloak
Sastasha (Hard)
The Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard)
The Keeper of the Lake
The Wanderer's Palace (Hard)
Amdapor Keep (Hard)

Trials:
The Chrysalis
The Steps of Faith
A Relic Reborn: the Chimera
A Relic Reborn: the Hydra
Battle on the Big Bridge
The Dragon's Neck
Urth's Fount
Battle in the Big Keep
The Bowl of Embers (Hard)
The Howling Eye (Hard)
The Navel (Hard)
Thornmarch (Hard)
The Whorleater (Hard)
The Striking Tree (Hard)
Akh Afah Amphitheatre (Hard)
The Minstrel's Ballad: Ultima's Bane
The Howling Eye (Extreme)
The Navel (Extreme)
The Bowl of Embers (Extreme)
Thornmarch (Extreme)
The Whorleater (Extreme)
The Striking Tree (Extreme)
Akh Afah Amphitheatre (Extreme)

Raids:
The Labyrinth of the Ancients
Syrcus Tower
The World of Darkness
The Binding Coil of Bahamut - Turn 1
The Binding Coil of Bahamut - Turn 2
The Binding Coil of Bahamut - Turn 3
The Binding Coil of Bahamut - Turn 4
The Binding Coil of Bahamut - Turn 5
The Second Coil of Bahamut - Turn 1
The Second Coil of Bahamut - Turn 2
The Second Coil of Bahamut - Turn 3
The Second Coil of Bahamut - Turn 4
The Second Coil of Bahamut (Savage) - Turn 1
The Second Coil of Bahamut (Savage) - Turn 2
The Second Coil of Bahamut (Savage) - Turn 3
The Second Coil of Bahamut (Savage) - Turn 4
The Final Coil of Bahamut - Turn 1
The Final Coil of Bahamut - Turn 2
The Final Coil of Bahamut - Turn 3
The Final Coil of Bahamut - Turn 4

PvP:
The Fold (Light Party)
The Fold (Matched Party)
The Borderland Ruins (Secure)
The Borderland Ruins (Slaughter)

And that's not even counting the fact that all the earlier dungeons are also still available, and in several cases include loot that's desirable at any level, so that adds another 12 dungeons and 4 trials. Plus it only lists instances, not open world content, though the Hunt is usually done in groups as well.

Along with all this wealth of group content, there's also quests, at least some of which can be done solo, others of which require one or more of the group instances. But unless you focus mainly on crafting and gathering (which are the only other major source of soloable content), there's far more group content than solo content, no matter where you are in the game.

The presence of a few soloable quests does not make the whole game solo. And there's nothing wrong with an MMO providing, or even requiring, an occasional brief tidbit that people can do on their own. You're still going to be playing in groups the vast majority of the time unless you're actively trying to avoid it (and a significant amount of the time regardless of whether you try to avoid it, since a lot of the group content is required).

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Originally Posted by FinaSel

I wish there was an alternative way to get to Ishgard without having to do the main quests.

The only reason for this is that I put most of my focus on crafting and gathering. (I only have one job that is not crafting / gathering.

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As a crafter/gatherer myself and someone who has multiple characters so have gone through it more than once, the fact you have to go through the main story including dungeons, trials and such to get into HW zones and towns is a good thing in my opinion. The reason is simply because this gating of the expansion content aka new zones has meant there is literally no RMT town chat spammers or bot armies infesting them. You might come across a cheating player or two but RMT has been kept out pretty much due to them not being able to do all the quests, dungeons and trials for each bot. It's a shame when head back to ARR zones that the bot armies and RMT town chat spammers are still there but at least they are 'only' there and not in HW content/zones undermining us legitimate non-cheating gatherers or spamming our chat when visit HW towns.

I actually think it would be a shame to not continue all new content aka zones and areas from after unlocking Ishgard because no RMT spam/bot armies would infest those either if all new zones/towns were also gated behind the HW content/story unlocking. Things like new classes and such could be unlocked at the start of ARR but I would prefer all new zones/town hubs in future required having to have unlocked HW zones even if didn't complete HW storyline like all the way into 3.2/3.3 or 3.4 story completion to get into them. I think it is a bad idea to add new zones to ARR without having at least got into HW past the current gating because if not behind that gating too they will become infested with bot armies like ARR zones currently are and the new towns infested with RMT chat/shout bots. Any gathering done in those zones without that gating will be almost pointless because of the undermining of the value of the materials gained from them legitimately in competition with those bot armies.

I agree. I would never want preventative measures to negatively impact legitimate players. I don't see the "gating" you describe as negative, though. Even without focusing on the bots (Square really should augment their STF), we have ample incentive to go back to old areas and help any new players we want to play with. And even to help new players we don't know yet. So the gating gives us an obvious positive with no real negative.