this game is NOT friendly for those who return after long absence

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Heavensward also barely ties into the old quests as well which makes me wonder why they even bothered making clearing "Before the Fall" a requirement when it has almost nothing to do with resolving those issues with the exception of like 3 small parts.

Before the fall is the entire reason we got into Ishgard. They lessened the seriousness of the consequences of the events by doing some stuff i'd rather not spoil (stuff that would have been politically interesting for the realm), but nonetheless it is the reason we got into Ishgard as guests of House Fortemps. Had said events not occurred, we could have been accepted anyway because of The Steps of Faith battle (which happened in Before the Fall and gave reason for the next events to transpire), but at the very least it provided a more dire setting for the start of 3.0.