So, I would like to pipe in here.

As a brand-spanking new level 50, about a week before the expansion's early access launched, I had to go through all the level 50 story missions to be able to get into the heavensward early access (Loving it, 1.1m exp from 60 before the servers dropped).

I have to say, from a brand new players perspective going through the level 50 Story mission is a bit disconnected, you have months and years of patches and pauses and waits, that you just don't get (And according to my FC members, all the mentions towards revenants toll getting updated we never get to see) honestly, the level 50 story missions was literally a grind, a very long, tedious grind that I feel suffered in the end for it's story about halfway to the later half, I found myself just not CARING as much about what was going on, because all of it was all smashed together one-after another, I think about the 60-85% marks outside of the primal fights / trials I literally remember nothing of because at that point, I've been stuck on these long quest chains for quite literally 3 days, (Not counting having to literally sit and wait a few times while grinding gear to get the item levels for some of the later portions that many people had months to grind for).

It just damages the story and I love the story. Though, I have literally no idea what time has passed and when during the story due to it all chaining together, I know ARR lasted a LONG time and lots of patches seperated all the story, so the revisits felt genuine, but for someone just chaining them at 50, you lose all sense of time and direction, as the game literally tells you nothing, and just moves on, making references to changes you can't see in real time, and references to 'Time has passed" but not to how much.

I totally understand Square wanting people to see all of the story though, it's important to know how things went back there, and to jump from level 49 to ishgard is a great disservice to the story, I don't know exactly how they could abridge the content though, if they just remove requirements it feels cheapened because you didn't actually do all this, and leaving it all in makes things tedious. This is sort of a unique situation I've never seen in another MMO before, so I can't give an honest opinion on how to fix it, but simply give an example of my experience.

I hope it is somewhat helpful? :\