Heavensward content

I have been playing about a month now, have leveled to lvl 50, completed storyline series, done some crafting and I am enjoying the game, now I am ready to move on to newer content, Heavensward, and I find out I have to complete a 100 quest astral line to gain access.
Isn't HW lvl 60 content? isn't HW zone's for going from 50-60 with its own storyline?
I am confused as to why I am required to complete weeks of playing to gain access to the content I should be playing, it just doesn't make sense,
the content is there to be run if you desire I just have a problem with FF14, 3.0 being gated by completing FF14, 2.0 when 2.0 isn't necessarily required
the only positive I see in this is that you weed out the wanabee's this way, what young adolescent (or dare I say WoW player) is going to have the patience to be forced into lower tier content for weeks before being able to play the content they purchased.
I am not very happy, I would rather be doing HW stuff than astral line
unless I am missing something, is there an abiding reason you need to complete the astral series before HW?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'astral series'. The HW content is locked off by the completion of the Main Scenario Quest "Before the Dawn" from the patch 2.55 main story quests. HW is not it's own separate story, it continues from the ARR story.

main storyline, lvl 1-50 (184 quests) ending with "the ultimate weapon"
then once you are lvl 50, the new quest line is from release 2.0 and is called the "7th astral era" quest line, 100 quests all lvl 50 from when lvl 50 was cap before HW release.
3rd set is HW main scenario, ( 94 quests) from lvl 50-60 and finally you have the dragonsong series, which is current lvl 60 endgame series.
my problem is forcing someone to play the entire release for lvl 50 when current game is lvl 60, it would be akin to playing WoW and being forced to do the entire quest series for burning crusade before you could do lich king, then do lich king series before you can do panda land, etc etc, it doesn't make much sense to force players to do previous expansion content to gate current content, at least if its not relevant. why would I spend weeks doing a lvl 50 quest line so that I could access the lvl50-60 content I bought and am expecting to play. I am not saying don't make it to lvl 50, I am saying once I am at lvl 50 why can I not go to HW and continue from there? is there any relevant content to HW and 50-60 that I need to gain before I can do HW? I am doing the series (like I have a choice?) but am I going to get anything out of this? and by the time I am done with it, wont I be well into my 50's and now when I do go into HW I am over lvl of the content I am supposed to be doing from 50-60. seems like someone dropped the ball.
Also when Stormblood comes out in 2 months how are they going to deal with this type of issue then?
typically anytime you sell content expansion that's includes a lvl increase, most games will allow you to create a char at the current content lvl, IE of stormblood increases from 60-70,. then if you buy stormblood you can created 1 time, 1 char at lvl 60 and jump right in. the purpose being bringing in new blood
anyway, my point was that I find it time consuming and frustrating that the lil bit o time I get to play I don't get to play as I wish. I work full time and play casually

You forget that before HW was released we all had to play through those patches. Once we finished we just waited for the Heavensward release (just like we just finished all the patches before Stormblood is released). Not sure what you are complaining about? You can't just skip main story quests and jump right into the HW content. It is a lot of catching up but I like that players can't just jump ahead into the current content.

Heres the thing, ffxiv 2.x series doesnt end with ultima, this is the end of 2.0, heavensward is the continuation of the 2.x series, ending in Before the dawn, patch 2.55, then you go to ishgard, as the series 3.x ended now, in 3.56 not with thordan.
But then, i think the problem is a) youre not enjoying the history or b) youre not a ff fan, wich its a big problem with this community, people dont understand this is not wow ; (in every ff) history is a big part of the game, even this being a mmo.
I would sugest to enjoy, dont need to rush, its a great game, you are not missing too much, the endgame isnt the best thing.
And pls, this is not, wont be, and never was wow, if it were more like it people would complain its a copy, so if u like wow more, you should play wow, honestly, this wont be a good game for you.

well, few things,
I do like the game, the feel etc. etc., kind of quirky as an MMO, its almost like a single player MMO, no global chat, not much of a sense of MMO in the game at all, not that its a bad thing, some of the things I don't like about other games are that they are overwhelming in that sense.
considering that, I have to agree that as I play the game, 90 pct. of the game is questing and the storylines, and again, you could make movies out of the cut scenes (I think they even have ) but that's part of the feel of the game, so in a sense what you are saying is that to get all out of the game, you need to do it all. That's your opinion, personally I don't care for them not giving me a choice, I would prefer to be able to move on to heavensward and forgo the 100 lvl 50 quests, heck maybe I will go back on an alt and experience them, but I should have the choice.
and "when it came out we all had to play thru it" doesn't really defend or address why we still have to now, when it is no longer relevant to the current release of the game.
how many new players do you think you are going to KEEP if you require them to invest 2 months of gaming BEFORE they can get to the current content? and realistically it is probably closer to 3 months for a casual player to get to lvl 50, then complete the 3 other storyline arc's and be ready for stormblood.

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how many new players do you think you are going to KEEP if you require them to invest 2 months of gaming BEFORE they can get to the current content? and realistically it is probably closer to 3 months for a casual player to get to lvl 50, then complete the 3 other storyline arc's and be ready for stormblood.

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It's not as bad as you think I left the game at 2.25 and came back with the 100 quests to do. It took me a total of 37 hours on BRD(5-6 weeks at 1hour a day) to do, as I did it in one straight run as I was on holiday from work. This would be achieved a lot faster if you are a tank or healer. Now bare in mind I skipped half of the cutscenes and just watched them in the Inn. So you do have the option of skipping the story and watching it when you want to. I think 3 months to get to 50 for a casual is exaggerated. I suppose if they are just standing around waiting for a dungeon to pop then I could see that.

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Originally Posted by hawkemoon

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Well, what i can say to you is, you liking or not this is not wow or others mmos where the focus is the endgame, i started in 3.0, did everything at least once , while having 1-2 hours for gaming in weekdays (including 2.x stuff and savage) and i can guarantee to you that if you want to play ffxiv for endgame , you're going to be disapointed, but its you choice, the game is more casual friendly.
Now, i havent said that you should do BECAUSE i did, but you should do (THAT'S a opinion).
Anyway, they probably will launch a jump potion in Stormblood (theres a topic quite interesting, argument wise) to jump to the begining of the exp, even if you dont know what your lvl 52 skill does (as a brd, yours changes quite a bit the gameplay ), so you and others wow fans will feel more at home, so look forward to it.

What exactly is endgame content to you? I mean, I'm not there myself, but far as I've seen, either you're doing more quests (what you're complaining about), or you're just running the same dungeons over and over trying to get bigger numbers.

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Originally Posted by hawkemoon

and "when it came out we all had to play thru it" doesn't really defend or address why we still have to now, when it is no longer relevant to the current release of the game.

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How is the content not relevant? It's story content (and this game is all about the main scenario story and following that) that introduces you to many dungeons and primals people are still actively running. It's also content you haven't done, just like Heavensward content, so I don't see why ARR would be less relevant to you than HW?

What is the "current content" you're hoping to focus on and why are you in such a hurry to get there?

I think you're actually in a pretty good situation progression wise, being able to go through both ARR and HW story lines now and then be ready for Stormblood when it's released, just like everyone else.