Why punish players who just want to play DoL DoH?

[Akuryu]

Sandbox RPGs allow you carve out a niche for yourself, and role play your character the way you want them to be. You can be a mighty warrior, or a humble farmer, or anywhere inbetween. You need to find one of those games, because this is not a Sandbox RPG, nor does it advertise itself as one. This is a theme-park MMO, and you're along for the ride. It's not going to cater to every style of play.

Honestly if you don't care about story, you can skip all the cutscenes, and probably be completely caught up in a couple of days.

[DreadRabbit]

FFXIV has been one of the most crafting-friendly MMOs I've come across. They've yet to implement anything that makes the disciplines useless. Same with DoL. I wish more games would follow this one's example because while combat is fun, as you can see from the constant requests to improve housing and other quality of life details, people don't want to just focus on combat. We're in a living breathing game with thousands of other people. It's nice to break from combat so you can make those people items to help them in their endeavors or just have goals that don't require beating something up. It's a lot easier to actually socialize if you're not constantly bashing your combat rotation.

The game being centered around story is a bad excuse. I love this game's story and respect SE's decision to gate the expac behind the after-story quests. But they could have just as easily made multiple points of views for the storyline for the different disciplines. They just chose not to. As it is OP, hopefully they learn from Heavensward and give players more options for earning the rights to future expacs.

Sandbox RPGs allow you carve out a niche for yourself, and role play your character the way you want them to be. You can be a mighty warrior, or a humble farmer, or anywhere inbetween. You need to find one of those games, because this is not a Sandbox RPG, nor does it advertise itself as one. This is a theme-park MMO, and you're along for the ride. It's not going to cater to every style of play.

Not entirely true. Most sandbox games as they are now focus heavily on PVP, or not being able to farm or craft unless you yourself go as a battle class to find said items.

[Kikosho]

You cannot experience what the game has to offer in relation to earning Ehcatl rep up to and including Oaknots, without at least one lvl 50 battlecraft class.

But seriously, nice try.

Ah yes, the wonderful and exhilarating content that is crafting dailies. How foolish of me. Doesn't change the fact that it can all be entirely skipped because the end reward can sold.

Now if you mentioned getting a Lucis tool, then you'd have a point.

[Felis]

Don't need one. Players like myself enjoy just being part of the community. The maintenance level is literally zero. They just keep doing what they are already doing and thats perfect. No need to force combat or make some special snowflake storyline.

Unlock new recipes with level ups, buy the mats in the MB.

As a crafter you only need Ishgard access if you want to gather the new mats yourself, if you want to do the new leves or if you want to earn the new lv60 master recipes.

[Duuude007]

Doesn't change the fact that it can all be entirely skipped

Since when does skipping content = experiencing content?

[Duelle]

Considering the focus of the game is to you know, go out there and adventure and slay things... Yeah. Crafting and gathering are side attractions to the ride.

Once upon a time, DoL and DoH could progress the story. It involved them playing Parley with the target a DoW/DoM class would have to kill. I guess seeing a lv50 carpenter play Parley against Gaius van Baelsar would be its own brand of amusement...

[Solaria_Luna]

Hoo boy was this true. Did you know this is one of the reasons you can technically clobber things with a fishing pole or weaver's needle?

Oh goodness, imagine someone clobbering stuff with a frying pan. (though the knife for culnarian [if that class uses a knife at all] makes sense)

[DarkStar]

Oh goodness, imagine someone clobbering stuff with a frying pan. (though the knife for culnarian [if that class uses a knife at all] makes sense)

Culinarian pulls out their frying pan when "Fighting". I have actually killed some monsters (albeit they were level 10, tops, and I was level 50) by beating their face in with my frying pan.

Edit: Actually, thinking this over a bit more, I'm now completely convinced that Hildibrand's parents are entirely meant to poke fun at how Crafters and Gatherers used to be able to fight in actual combat.

[Boss_Koivula]

If crafting can make mounts, for sure more people will be interested with it.
.

For some reason or another this made me lol. SE pls allow crafted ponies!

[kyuven]

I've never seen an expansion in any mmo that has a nearly 350 quest requirement before allowing access. Its almost always just a level cap requirement with a few small storyline quests to get people acclimated. Nevermind the barrier for people who would rather be crafting/gathering. Thats a prohibitive barrier for potential new players who might see all the cool stuff in the expansion adverts and want to join in. Nope. Do these 300 or so quests first.

While not "350 distinct quests"EQ1, EQ2, FFXI, and early WoW fame/faction/reputation requirements were pretty up there. Sometimes even wrose. There are other games too but these are the ones I have the most experience with. There were many pieces of content, especially EQ1's Scars of Veeshan expansion, that simply could not be progressed without faction grinding, which usually meant killing a whole bunch of things and turning their heads in for faction. And those were the EASY ones. Some required absolutely ludicrous methods of grinding, such as daily fetch or kill quests. Imagine if the Beast Tribe dailies were required to challenge Gaius.
WoW was very similar, and FFXI made it so you couldn't expand your INVENTORY without fame grinding. They recently lightened the load but it was pretty bad for a while.
By comparison, just simply doing a series of story quests from beginning to end is child's play.
You MUST understand also, that SE is trying to tell a cohesive story here.
What you're asking for is the equivalent of wanting to get to the snowboard mini game in FFVII without beating Temple of the Ancients.
This isn't a freeform game. It's progression based, just like the FFs of old. If you want access to certain content, you have to reach that point in the story.
If you don't like it, if you want a freeform game, there are plenty out there. Such as ArcheAge, or Landmark.

Oh goodness, imagine someone clobbering stuff with a frying pan. (though the knife for culnarian [if that class uses a knife at all] makes sense)

Warning, spoilers for the end of the hildibrand questline, but oh so appropriate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHg-79c1Nsc