lvl 49 on my first character, up to the 8man duty finder quest to kill Rhitahtyn in Cape Westwind, as i understand it, to get through to the lvl 51+ zones i need to finish the storyline in the first area, including this quest?
Why lock this behind such a ridiculously long duty finder queue, you're pretty much shoving new players out... 104mins and counting...
That's cause this duty is only needed for this progression in the MSQ and part of an Roulette, with like 20 others.
Just as a sidenote and tip, if you try to do this story duties, make a party finder group and say you are doing it for the first time for story progression. so you will find people faster than normal queueing.
But to say it now, after this you have like 110 more main story quests to do before you will reach the Heavensward areas and its content.
Ask people in the novice network they will help you out.
As Legion88 said, use Party finder with message that you have bonus and do it unsynced. You will have party in no time. And as he also said, this will not put you to 51+ areas. More then 100 quests will follow after this before you can touch HW. No joke. I almost quit because of it myself (when I was in your position, there was no option to do it unsynced and I had to wait for days to finish some of them, at least this is easier now). But anyway it was really a dick move from SE to gate access to HW behind this and I am sure it costs them quite a few players. There should be an option to get to HW without this.
EDIT: It is nice from SE that they are creating new MSQ quests for players that are already in the game, but it does not really work with player who start to play now and is trying to catch up with their friends.
Some things I think they should do to help improve progression for main story quests.
1) any and all dungeons and trials required for msq's should be added to the main scenario roulette. As it stands for that roulette there is only the first 2 lv 50 dungeons for msq that you get. Also the main scenario roulette should be available to every one and not locked behind a wall of dungeons and trials to be cleared to unlock it. Doing this will help a lot of people get through the msq dungeons/trials
2) Switch the mentor roulette so that isn't locked behind a wall of needing to have everything cleared to do it, make it so all mentors can do the roulette for what it is they have cleared. As it is right now there is a ton of mentors that are not able to do it because they don't have clears for everything, mean while any and all new players are suffering because of it.
Have you joined a FC? most I've been in are happy to help out for a quick 5 min run to help out.
Weird. I had no trouble at all queuing for Westwind/Praetoriium, even on dead Mateus. (data center, I know)
Word of warning, be prepared to feel completely useless in the dungeons following Westwind. Everyone runs it like a speed run on crack.
Cape Westwind is the first 8 man trial, and as such appears in the trial roulette. During "peak" play hours, the DPS que for the trial roulette is usually under 5 mins on my data center - and basically instant for tanks. Im guessing based on your name that youre from New Zealand and thats why you made a character on one of the japanese servers. You might speed up your que for this duty(as well as future content) by checking japanese as a language in addition to english. Otherwise, my advice would be the same as i saw up above. Ask your FC for help, advertise using the party finder that you need to clear for story progression, or ask in novice chat if you can. This particular duty goes fast(less then 3 mins) whether you do it synched or not so just dont blink or you might miss it.
It's possible you also queued for the Trial at a poor time of day instead of during the hours that most players are on. That does effect the wait on the duty finder.
Well when you eventually get to Heavenward you will have PLENTY of those compulsory dungeon type quests. And not only this. I am now stuck on a story quest which seems to have been bugged for basically since the Heaven.... came out. I guess some people somehow got through with complaints, but when I was doing the quest there were about five other players running around also not able to finish the quest ("Crate go boom")
So if you get frustrated now, maybe not bother to buy Heavenward, I am sorry I did. I have easter long weekend and cannot carry on story compulsory quest. GREAT