Having to slog through lvl 50 quests is tedious

I'd say that as questionable in quality as some quests were, they are offer free experience points, free HQ gear, and gil (all 3 of which I see people take for granted too often.)

Keep in mind these quests did not give any experience points or HQ gear during the ARR patches as they used to be end-game story quests.

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Originally Posted by Yuiipuru

I think only the last 10-something quests are relevant to the story leading up to HW ;;
I was tempted to jump skip it but the finale was pretty amazing to watch!

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I would say youre wrong about the 10 quest estimate. I put the number closer to 40. To cut down on unintentional spoilers, ill S-block the explanation. Within there will be spoilers(ill try to be a bit vague) about the end of the pre-HW quests.

Looking back, the story starts hinting more at an Ishgardian direction after the Ramuh fight. The patch after that(2.4) has you fighting on Ishgards behalf several times. You strike out against heretics, you track them to their lair, you clear a dungeon to find a hidden aetheryte, and you fight the heretics primal Shiva. Along the way you also deal with some Crystal Braves stuff, notably a spy. The next patch(2.5) has you investigate another dungeon because the Ishgardians are worried about what's inside. Along the way you deal with more Crystal Braves stuff and an unexpected offensive from the ascians. And the final patch pre-HW(2.55) has you do a ton of Ishgard stuff, then fight a dragon at their doorstep to keep the city safe. Along the way you go to an eventful dinner party. The last 10 quests would literally be everything after that dragon fight, half of which are more related to dinner.

So counting the quests from those patches, its 43. If you discount the quests from those 3 patches along the way dealing with "side matters", thats still like 27ish. And... possible minor HW spoiler...

some of the people you think that you're done dealing with will pop up again during the HW story.

As for Minfilia, yeah she's annoying. But there are certainly 2 scions i like less then her. I cant imagine anyone here would stick up for Alphinaud or Lyse too strenuously.

I'll defend Alphinaud and Lyse all day. Lyse in particular, who is certainly a victim of Stormblood's writing being rushed, but still far from being a bad character.

(Curiously, I've noticed people using non-EN voices tend to find her less of a problem than people who do. Pure anecdote, though.)

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Originally Posted by Iscah

By that logic, the Heavensward story actually starts right back in the Coerthas story arc (Lv35-40ish), which introduces some important characters and the general 'idea' of Ishgard and its problems.

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Depends on how one defines the story I suppose. The lv35-40 Coerthas quests do set the scene for the later HW story, but are not part of it as I see it.
I consider the HW story to be "The Ending of the Dragonsong War", and that story starts with us looking for Lady Iceheart and ends with The Final Steps of Faith.

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And then there's the dragoon quests. If you are not yet at Heavensward and intend to play dragoon at some point, this is a good time to do that questline. The Lv30-50 dragoon quests are an early introduction to a character who is involved in the Heavensward MSQ, so if you do it later it will be "out of sequence" as if the Heavensward story hasn't happened yet.

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Heh. I am currently taking an alt through the 2.x quests - an alt with Dragoon as her main class for precisely this reason, and because I hear several dialogues in HW are slightly different if you have done the DRG quests already.

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Originally Posted by TThibi

Working on a new alt now that for some reason I felt the need to make and level the week before housing was released. I went 1-26 on pug, switched to rogue just because and took that to 50, then unlocked and playing as Sam. All of this while losing no time whatsoever grinding msq, unlock quests, side quests, and first clearing leves and dungeons, not to mention the class book for rogue, and maelstrom, as well as soloing fates. It's been a busy few weeks, my ninja is lvl 56, my sam lvl 54 about to tick 55, and I am just now unlocking Shiva Hard as we log out for 4.21 maintenance. I'm also burning 2-3 hard mode lvl 50 dungeons a day to clear them.

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If you insist on doing all the level 50 endgame dungeons and sidequests - then of course there is a lot to do. Pretty much all of that is completely optional though.
If you only did the MSQ and the mandatory dungeons you'd be around level 53-54 in your main class (and not past level 50 in any other class) by the time you enter Ishgard - and would probably already have entered Ishgard by now.

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Originally Posted by Frizze

I cant imagine anyone here would stick up for Alphinaud or Lyse too strenuously.

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Unless he becomes spectacularly unlikeable during Stormblood, I'll stick up for Alphinaud. He's got good intentions, he's learning from his mistakes, and I can't think of any reason to not like him right now.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

(Curiously, I've noticed people using non-EN voices tend to find her less of a problem than people who do. Pure anecdote, though.)

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I ended up putting the voices on mute, and a number of characters became less annoying after that...

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

If you only did the MSQ and the mandatory dungeons you'd be around level 53-54 in your main class (and not past level 50 in any other class) by the time you enter Ishgard - and would probably already have entered Ishgard by now.

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My summoner (the class I'm using 'for the story') was Lv54 at the start of Heavensward. I did all the side content along the way, but I think I went into most of the dungeons as white mage so the summoner EXP was mostly from quests.