The removed parts of ARR MSQ didn't save any time at all

It was shortly after the Praetorium. Like second or third quest sent you to Quarn.

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

When was Qarn normal ever required? I remember looking up gear progression online back in 2013/14, when I was around the 30s and seeing that Qarn, this dungeon I'd never heard of and had to access via a non-msq side quest, had my weapon for that level. I went to get it to be able to do Brayflox' Longstop successfully.

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It was very strange recruitment, u had to unlocked it from the quest giver outside of the walking sand and later on you had to run it so u could keep progressing through the msq

Beat me to it i'm so slow writhing things

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

There was a quest in Mor Dhona when the Scions are moving out there that required you to get an enchanted stone from Qarn to shore up the defenses of Revenant's Toll. It wasn't required at the same level as the dungeon, but it was required later.

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Originally Posted by Xau

actually, even when was current the plataform mechanic of glasya was already easy to skip

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Oh yeah I remember, I do still miss the chance that there was to still end up in a group that couldn't make the DPS all the same.

There is a solution and it's on sale buy a skip if you're wanting to get to SHB's that quickly. Buy a story skip and just level to 70.

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Originally Posted by Jin-

Well tbh ARR 24man raids are horrible boring. Nearly zero mechanics and just tank and spank. Few bosses with insta wipe moves so you better hope raid has people with chats open.

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When they were new they were a lot of fun. And there are a lot of mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Tranquilmelody7

Most people said the sheer size of players in alliance raids would give them social anxiety, while playing with 7 or 3 players wouldn't make them uncomfortable

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I've come across this before and it always calmed down the person when I informed them that 99% of the time the three groups act independently, so what you do isn't crazy different to what is required of you in trials. You don't even need to say anything in alliance chat most of the time.

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Originally Posted by Tranquilmelody7

I mentioned how parties generally function in alliances raids, but the fact that you'd still be exposed to potential text from o23 other players was too much for them.

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In my experience most players don't even say anything in alliance chat and if they do it tends to be some silly joke. Sometimes tactics are discussed but this is usually when the content is new or when a group clearly don't know what they're doing and they're causing wipes.

The field markers actually take away a lot of discussion that would have taken place because they silently and clearly inform groups of where they need to be.

Even party chat is often dead for me in alliance raids. The content is designed so that you don't need much communication to complete it.

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Originally Posted by Tranquilmelody7

My Unknown sources verified by my uncle's ass who works at Square Enix indicate that you are very wrong, and that no less than 169% of the playerbase enjoys running dungeons in this game.

I think you should just leave this thread now to spare yourself any further embarrassment.

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I don't think that person is wrong to say around 90% of players enjoy dungeons because the fact is if a large majority did not...well the game would have to go in a very different direction to keep its players, and that change would have came a very long time ago.

Mandatory dungeons gate content from the beginning of the game up to the latest patch content. So it's not like players get a nasty surprise about them being a requirement very late in the game. Most people who dislike dungeons just leave the game when it becomes clear that they cannot escape them.

Yes Trusts exist but they're a super recent development so most players have been around since long before that feature was even announced.

Reads: "60% of people hate doing dungeons..."
Thinks: Okay, maybe. Seems a little high, but a lot of people only like savage raiding, extreme trials and such.
Continues reading: "... because they're too hard."
Thinks: "What."

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Originally Posted by rsod

You come here, you want to do raids with friends, you want to farm your gear, glamour, mounts, that's what mmo is more about.

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Not this MMO

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Originally Posted by rsod

The only problem is that this solution costs still 15 euro, which, after getting a game for 35 and paying monthly 11, adds up to quite unpleasant amount

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It's not that expensive please. If you don't want to pay to skip you'll play/pay with time anyway if you do it normally. There is no instant jump to endgame and won't ever be in this game.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

20 hours sounds far more probable.

I ended up getting sidetracked with hunt logs, but I've done exactly one MSQ quest so far on an alt: the Lv20 one that sends you to check out the sylphs because they might be summoning Ramuh.

I remember it was originally something like "drop in at Fullflower Comb to pick up a gift for the sylphs; get sent to slay a random ochu because sylphs like ochu root; back to Fullflower, probably more talking, now you can continue to Hawthorne". We may have also had to check the beehives.

Now it's "go to Hawthorne".

I think I've saved twenty minutes already.

And my goodness, if the rest of the game has been edited like that then it is absolutely going to speed through compared to the original pace.

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They have also streamlined some questobjectives.
I started a new character just to see what had changed. One of the early Gridania quests used to be "kill 6 anoles, and steal 4 of their eggs". Now that quest is "kill 3 anoles and steal one egg".

You now also get enough XP from MSQ+class quests+hunt log to level up from that alone - at least as far as I have checked. No need to do any sidequests anymore if you don't want to.

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Originally Posted by rsod

To be honest, in my opinion real gameplay begins with level 80.

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No, level 80 is the beginning of the end. The so-called endgame is just that - the end of the game. That part where you run grindy filler content to get better gear which will get obsolete in the next patch.
Some MMOs are all about running the same dungeons and raids over and over and over again. This is luckily not one of those MMOs. You can do that here too, but you never have to do it.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Even if you don't play for story, running the raids is no different than running any other story-related dungeon or trial. Click-spam and cutscene-skip all the lead-in quests, queue up, follow the group, kill stuff. There's, like, maybe 1 or 2 fights in each raid that maybe have a bit of a "pay attention" mechanic. And honestly, even if the raid wipes, it's a lot more fun to meme with a larger group about it. Because it's frankly hilarious that there's still raid wipes that happen in these.

Plus, more glams.

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I had a wipe to five-headed dragon right before the patch.

I think the tank that filled in for one that got DC'd could feel our shame second-hand.

What TC appears to be saying, is that mindless fetch quests are better content than dungeons, trials and raids.

Apparently nobody wants to fight Shiva or do the Crystal Tower, the first 24 man raid, for the first time.
What they really want to spend their time doing is running between NPCs delivering bottles of wine.

Yeah, they said that as they were combing over all of the old content to see what could be removed or condensed, they came up rather short, so they didn't actually remove very much at all, just a couple of unimportant fetch quests. Most of the MSQ was actually important to the overall narrative.

Why would you choose to do old content then complain about it?

If you're new the content is new - make the most of it because it's not infinite.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Seconding this. I took my main character through ARR and HW back when I first started in a month’s worth of very casual play—couple hours each night with a friend that was taking me through to it. Granted, it would take longer now, but definitely not “several years”.

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Did it in about 3 weeks VERY leisurely while netflixing on a 2nd alt. the 2.x series was hella-grindy, but certainly not "years". I was surprised to find myself nearly done with HW in about 2 weeks.

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Originally Posted by rsod

you aren't a developer to speak like that

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There won't ever be an instant jump to endgame for the simple fact that SE make far more money if you need to sub for extended periods of time to get there.

Not to mention how terrible it would be to offer players a way to skip literally everything that teaches them how the game works. I have already experienced quite a few terrible DF instances because of players who used skip potions and it wasn't even in max lvl content. It would be tremendously worse if you could get a sprout in max lvl content.

And honestly I do wonder about people who want to skip literally everything so they can get to endgame. It makes me feel like that this game may not be for them if they want to do literally nothing but a tiny spectrum of what the game has to offer.

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Originally Posted by rsod

To be honest, in my opinion real gameplay begins with level 80. In my opinion in MMO game story should be nice optional addition rather than a chore that locks you out of actual content. It's not a single player game, it's MMO. You come here, you want to do raids with friends, you want to farm your gear, glamour, mounts, that's what mmo is more about. FFXIV is really first MMO that I encounter that forces you to play it's story or pay 20 euro to get into actual content immediately.
When I first was invited to the game by a friend, I did around 20 levels of MSQ and I just refused to play further. Would it be not a skip that they gifted me, I'd not play the game at all. I'm pretty happy with the game as a right now: I'm farming raids, mounts, trials, doing fun stuff with friends and have zero regrets that I never did the story. Though to be honest: I would like to. But I can not tolerate choreful text reading with majority of cutscenes not voiced at all.
At least, like all other MMO do, it would be nice if a story skip book + class boost book would be included into full game purchase, as it is in literally every other game.

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I think the game is really nothing for you then. You’re complaining about Savage, you’re complaining about Story. Final Fantasy stands for games with stories. Nothing changes, even if it’s an MMO. What is wrong with reading texts? Or are you such a person who has never taken a book and read it out of interest?

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Originally Posted by rsod

Wrong is, that when I want to read something, I just go and read the book. When I want to watch a movie, I just go and watch movie. But when I want to play the game I want to come and play the game. Not want to have to read the story for few months that is not even really interesting for me to be honest. Is it a game after all or just an overpriced interactive book?
Game itself is really nice - I have played it for 1700 hours and I'm not planning to stop it any time soon, even though it has it's big downsides, such as paywalled cosmetics and difficult raids. Though resolving second problem is much less pain than dealing with the boring story.
I don't even want to imagine the amount of people that quit the game due to being bored of the story before even reaching shadowbringers.

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I thought I recognized you. You say the game starts at 80 and you want to play the game and not have to struggle through story. But you also were complaining that the game was too difficult and got combative when ppl tried to give you advice or just told you to actually take the time to play the game and learn mechanics.

So I am confused. You do not want to sit through the story because you want to play the game, but you do not want to take the time into content that the game requires, aka play the game, to get the bis gear you feel you deserve. So what exactly do you want? What have you been doing for 1700 hours if you do not want to put time into the story or the content?

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

It should probably be explained to them that they can knock all of them out in an hour or 2, if that. Quicker still if they want to unsync it. People are really blowing the CT requirement way out of proportion.

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Reminder that the director and producer of this game ran the entire raid on stream just to show what it was like to play in ARR because he knows its a faceroll now.

I think 1 tier takes about as long as a general 4 man dungeon.

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Originally Posted by rsod

I already got all the bis gear I needed. The complaint that raids are a bit too difficult doesn't means I won't do them. It's just my review that they are too difficult for what they give.
That is a conversation for another thread, though.

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24 mans are a face roll with the exception of TG in Orbanne before the nerf. CT honestly is just run spank the bosses in each segment and you are done even with a bunch of sprouts. The most difficult boss tbf in CT is angru manyu in the WoD. it's not as bad as you think it is.

Honestly, the MSQ in ARR should just cart you around the dungeons/trials the instant you hit 15 and blast you full of enough experience that you're ready for the next one after doing it. Even with reduced time on the most atrocious elements, ARR is a horrible introduction to what comes afterwards - speaking as someone that just picked it up all recent-like. I genuinely didn't enjoy the game at all until somewhere around the mid-40s, and it wasn't until the end of the 100 quests that the story showed any spark of being interesting. I sat through all of the cutscenes and dialogue in the hopes that I might find something to attach to, but the only saving grace was making my character look as ridiculous as humanly possible to slog through that awful, awful deluge.

Then you roll into HW, and the storytelling becomes markedly competent and the overall design and pacing works wonders. Jobs feel like they've gotten their basic kits and they're starting to get some fun bells & whistles that really shape how they play, and encounters can start to require you to pay attention. Stormblood marks a return to a 14-year-old trying their hardest to write a boilerplate shounen anime, but the game's at least still fun around then - and the promise of what was seen in HW can be strong enough to motivate you through.

ARR's "ADVENTURER! We needs must mention all these names and locales and people which have no bearing to you whatsoever, and also here is your party and friends but we're not actually going to develop any of them in this game at all whatsoever so don't worry about having to learn them, now run to this random place that you'll click on and teleport to in order to kill 3 turbo chickens in order to forestall the end times before I send you over to this half the continent to hear a super-special-awesome story about how hope and friends are important before they send you right back to me to kill 3 mega-turbo chickens" loop is the real deterrent to anyone new who actually wants to try to get into the narrative. I praised every last simplistic dungeon that popped up when it did, because it meant a fun distraction from more running around. The closer ARR gets to blasting through a dungeon-rush, the better.

Good god, no one is forcing y'all to sub to this game. If you don't want to play it just don't play it D;
Like I don't like using that argument but jeeze, y'all don't want story, don't want group content, don't want gear progression... just go play a game you can at least find something you like in it.

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

I thought I recognized you. You say the game starts at 80 and you want to play the game and not have to struggle through story. But you also were complaining that the game was too difficult and got combative when ppl tried to give you advice or just told you to actually take the time to play the game and learn mechanics.

So I am confused. You do not want to sit through the story because you want to play the game, but you do not want to take the time into content that the game requires, aka play the game, to get the bis gear you feel you deserve. So what exactly do you want? What have you been doing for 1700 hours if you do not want to put time into the story or the content?

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Sounds like...they don't want to play the game? They appear to be complaining that everything is too much effort.

Mr Happy is currently doing a playthrough of ARR MSQ quest on an identical job set-up to a test he did in April. It took him 60 hours intentionally avoiding teleports and using the Chocobo travel system.

Currently he says the leveling and XP has been buffed a lot.

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Originally Posted by Yuella

ARR has the best dungeon design. Nowadays it's just long corridors

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Eh, I'm okay with that. The branching paths are neat in theory, but they literally only matter the first time you are running the dungeon if everyone else is also new to the dungeon. Otherwise you are likely to just follow the most optimal route to the exit.

The only way branching paths would work was if dungeons had a level of RNG that made each run potentially different. Like having a path that leads forward in one run maybe being a dead end in the other. Otherwise I'm okay with corridor dungeons. Dungeons were rarely that interesting anyway in either format, so that's the bigger issue.

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Originally Posted by Zer0

The biggest setbacks and what wastes the most time with ARR wasn't the 20 minutes of quests in total you removed. It was the meaningless and waste of time prerequired quests you seemingly left in. The sheer monumental number of dungeons that are a total waste of time and side stories nobody cares about was what wasted peoples time and drove people crazy with ARR MSQ. Every damn 10th quest was a pre-req that you had to do some stupid side crap nobody cared about.

You took out a few meaningless quick and easy quests and left in the long pain in the behind side crude required to move on. No wonder you can't convince new people to play the game unless you've played non-stop since launch you'll forever be stuck behind perpetual catch-up from the monumental number of tedious crap.

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You already leveled from 1 though the end of ARR since the 5.3 patch went live? Seems like it didn't take long at all. Why are you complaining?

Oh because you didn't level and and do the revamped content so you're just making baseless statements.

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Originally Posted by Stepjam

Eh, I'm okay with that. The branching paths are neat in theory, but they literally only matter the first time you are running the dungeon if everyone else is also new to the dungeon. Otherwise you are likely to just follow the most optimal route to the exit.

The only way branching paths would work was if dungeons had a level of RNG that made each run potentially different. Like having a path that leads forward in one run maybe being a dead end in the other. Otherwise I'm okay with corridor dungeons. Dungeons were rarely that interesting anyway in either format, so that's the bigger issue.

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Even with the Minimal colorful hallways, dungeons are still severely lacking. All of the 80s dungeons are so trivial you can do it in your sleep Trash/Boss/Trash/Boss/Trash/Boss. No on route mechanics (Ghmlyit Dark) No hazards (Doma Castle) No Dangerous mobs (Sunken temple (Final Sting))No rooms for navigations (Longstep/Dark Hold) No ailments or very few ailments (The Burn) No DPS Checks (Castrum Abania) No Wild progression (Wanderers Palace) No Traps (Hull isle) No wandering mobs (Hakkue Manor) Nothing Of interest is ever done with pulls while the past have been unique which is worse.

And dungeons don’t exist to get out of them as quickly as possible, it’s Gameplay that’s meant to be played

Uhh, what? Dungeons are the complete opposite of "stupid side crap nobody cared about." Dungeons are gameplay, far better than "Go fetch this thing, oh wait that's the wrong thing, go fetch this thing instead" or "Go talk to this person, oops they can't help us, we need to go talk to this person instead."

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Originally Posted by Katie_Kitty

Uhh, what? Dungeons are the complete opposite of "stupid side crap nobody cared about." Dungeons are gameplay, far better than "Go fetch this thing, oh wait that's the wrong thing, go fetch this thing instead" or "Go talk to this person, oops they can't help us, we need to go talk to this person instead."

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"Pray return to the Waking Sands...now go away. NO WAIT, COME BACK. Well, actually, go grab that thing first and then come back. Oh, and someone wanted to talk to me but I want you to talk to them instead. Hold on, I'm calling you. Pray return to the waking sands with all due haste because I have something to tell you and can't tell you right now while I'm using my linkpearl because reasons."

God I hated Minfilia.

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Even with the Minimal colorful hallways, dungeons are still severely lacking. All of the 80s dungeons are so trivial you can do it in your sleep Trash/Boss/Trash/Boss/Trash/Boss. No on route mechanics (Ghmlyit Dark) No hazards (Doma Castle) No Dangerous mobs (Sunken temple (Final Sting))No rooms for navigations (Longstep/Dark Hold) No ailments or very few ailments (The Burn) No DPS Checks (Castrum Abania) No Wild progression (Wanderers Palace) No Traps (Hull isle) No wandering mobs (Hakkue Manor) Nothing Of interest is ever done with pulls while the past have been unique which is worse.

And dungeons don’t exist to get out of them as quickly as possible, it’s Gameplay that’s meant to be played

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You bring up some good points here. I have run tons of dungeons but I always enjoy ones that provide some degree of “things to do”. Splitting up to nab keys or turn cranks as in Wanderers Palace was a good way to break up the typical mobs/boss/mobs/boss routine.

Having puzzles/traps or gimmicks is always a good way to go if implemented well.

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Originally Posted by Zer0

The biggest setbacks and what wastes the most time with ARR wasn't the 20 minutes of quests in total you removed. It was the meaningless and waste of time prerequired quests you seemingly left in. The sheer monumental number of dungeons that are a total waste of time and side stories nobody cares about was what wasted peoples time and drove people crazy with ARR MSQ. Every damn 10th quest was a pre-req that you had to do some stupid side crap nobody cared about.

You took out a few meaningless quick and easy quests and left in the long pain in the behind side crude required to move on. No wonder you can't convince new people to play the game unless you've played non-stop since launch you'll forever be stuck behind perpetual catch-up from the monumental number of tedious crap.

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Complaining about playing the story of a Final Fantasy RPG, that's why they sell a story skip. Personally, I enjoy that the game has a real story and not an excuse for PVP and raids story like some other MMO, you know the one from the company in Irvine, the one I played for 16 years, the one I finally canceled the subscription on because Foghorn them and their next expansion.

Sure it takes time to progress the MSQ, sure it unlocks most dungeons and trials, and it now also requires the Alliance raid for the Crystal Tower. Which is a call back to FFIII. And is now required for the MSQ in Shadow Bringer. So buy your paid skip, and let the majority of us Final Fantasy players enjoy the thing that sets this game apart from the pack of trash MMOs.

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

When was Qarn normal ever required? I remember looking up gear progression online back in 2013/14, when I was around the 30s and seeing that Qarn, this dungeon I'd never heard of and had to access via a non-msq side quest, had my weapon for that level. I went to get it to be able to do Brayflox' Longstop successfully.

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As far as I know, it is one of the several sub-50 dungeons that are optional, and the only thing it's needed for is to unlock the hard mode verision for one of the optional zodiac relic quests which requires an item from there.

From what I've read, the aim was to remove the fetchquesting that had very little if any to do with the actual story.

I don't really get why you'd want entire dungeons removed, lol.

I also don't get why you'd expect entire dungeons to get removed.

I'm curious to see what actually was removed, but having played through the story from 1 to 80 on three characters now, I'm not sure I can justify ARR round 4.

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Originally Posted by Raines1337

I'm curious to see what actually was removed, but having played through the story from 1 to 80 on three characters now, I'm not sure I can justify ARR round 4.

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Removed quests are at the bottom.

Guess I coulda just linked the removed ones directly. Eh. Helps having a bit of context to piece in where they were.

I had to go back and run the crystal tower series this week, and the only reason it was quick was because there were many others in the same situation running the raids, so there was very little wait. If I had run them at the end of whatever exp they belonged to a few months ago, it probably would have taken hours for groups to form.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

I had to go back and run the crystal tower series this week, and the only reason it was quick was because there were many others in the same situation running the raids, so there was very little wait. If I had run them at the end of whatever exp they belonged to a few months ago, it probably would have taken hours for groups to form.

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People ilevel cheese all the time to get CT raids because those ones are 'quick' and they're lazy. It wouldn't take very long to get in I'm sure.

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Originally Posted by SamSmoot

I had to go back and run the crystal tower series this week, and the only reason it was quick was because there were many others in the same situation running the raids, so there was very little wait. If I had run them at the end of whatever exp they belonged to a few months ago, it probably would have taken hours for groups to form.

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The CT raids are by the far the most common result of an alliance roulette because enough people artificially lower their ilevel to force them to pop in order to get an easier and quicker raid for faster tomes. There's never been a long queue time for them unless you're queuing well outside of prime time.