A serious discussion about abridging the story quest 1-50 (discouraging new players)

[Luvbunny]

As it stands, FFVIX's story is one gigantic "attunement process" in an era where MMOs have largely done away with attunement processes. I like that they try to have lore tie into the world, but too much of ANY good thing turns into a bad thing, and the amount of "attunement process" to go through before you can even access the new content is staggering. And as I said before, it's mostly fetch quests. If it was just "run these dungeons and kill these primals", sure, no problem. I can HELP my friends with that (and I will). I cannot, however, help them with hours upon hours of running around, right clicking NPCs in a "story" that they stopped paying attention to a while ago because so much of it was filler and fluff.

You and all your friends will hate Heavenward with passion. Not only it is a big huge mess of attunement process, it is also full of FETCH quests in the most boring way possible (oh you cannot find your bow? you want me to click it and bam done, give it to you? - my goodness you want me to go to point A all the way there, then B all the way up, then C and back again.....). Lots of hide and seek quest with NO MARKER, or indication where things are unless you really try exploring (at least 5-15 minutes can be spent "exploring").

Not only that the map is HUGE, elevation up and down, and they intentionally make you run around in circle round and round and round to extend gameplay time. Trust me, you cannot help them with hours upon hours running around on each zone. And these quests are hiding potential aether access, that is buried under 2-4 quests chains. If you hate quests and MSQ, there is nothing to like in HW, the amount of dungeons are PALE in comparison with 2.0.

On the other hand, any new players starting FF14 right now will get their 30 days subscription time worth every single penny. It is astounding when it comes to sheer amount of content in 2.0-2.55, and a good 50-70 hours in Heavensward alone to complete. All I can say is, enjoy, explore, and really take the time to read MSQ, do fetch quest, and FATE, pay attention where the mobs are all located etc... This is NOT a race to the finish to access everything, especially if you have been gone since patch 2.1