Originally Posted by
LineageRazor
This is an odd thing to say. This is a Final Fantasy game - and that means, the core of the game is STORY, not combat. This is Final Fantasy as an MMO, which means they took a story and they overlayed a MMO-style combat system on top of that base. They didn't develop a combat system, and then drape a story around it. In fact, that's one of the reasons 1.0 failed so hard - they developed a gorgeous, immersive world, and then threw together a half-assed combat system that was torn between good gameplay and Final-Fantasy-ish gameplay. 2.0 corrected this basically by cribbing heavily from combat systems from other MMOs.
As a story-oriented MMO, I'm all in favor of MORE Sidequests, not less. More opportunity to flesh out the world and story. Quests that actually tell us something about the world, not just getting meat to feed somebody's face.