Why do I have to complete *all* vanilla story quests to get to HW content?

[Talligan]

Considering the OP's forum join date is listed as July 2011, that means he's been here since the original version of FFXIV (version 1.0), meaning his complaint is somewhat hard to swallow. Although it's fair enough if he might not have come back to the game since 1.0 and is now starting afresh, but even then, if you've been here since 1.0, it should have been pretty clear even back in 2011 that FFXIV, both 1.0 then and ARR/HW now, that this game is story-based first and requires you to play through the main story to progress to 'end-game' content.

Trimmed

Fair enough. I played FFXI back in the day and jumped on FFXIV day 1, was sorely disappointed (There was 1 quest every 5 levels) and came back after HW was released. And, as I've said, many story-focused games (WoW is just as story focused as FFXIV) don't have this requirement. I'll get through it because I like the game and want to play it, but its disappointing and frustrating.

[Belhi]

Fair enough. I played FFXI back in the day and jumped on FFXIV day 1, was sorely disappointed (There was 1 quest every 5 levels) and came back after HW was released. And, as I've said, many story-focused games (WoW is just as story focused as FFXIV) don't have this requirement. I'll get through it because I like the game and want to play it, but its disappointing and frustrating.

One thing to take note about with Heavensward is it is literally a direct continuation of the story in ARR and the ARR patches. The patch content sets a lot of context for Heavensward's story to make sense. Naratively its a very different beast to WoW or frankly most other MMOs. WoW isnt really as story focused as FF14. Think of it like a movie trilogy. If you skip the middle movie in the trilogy there will be a lot of stuff including characters that don't make nearly as much sense in when you get to the third movie. With WoW each expansion is separate movies set in the same universe. They don't require the context set in the early expansions for the current one to make sense. FF14, its the same plotline carrying all the way through.

The patch content isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. You can get through it pretty quickly and apart from the story, there are quite a few good trials and dungeons as part of it. In addition it will give you the gear(ilvl 110) you need once you get to Heavensward. If you stepped into HW with the gear you had straight from the end of 2.0 you would find it very hard surviving.

You also really shouldn't have too hard a time with queues, particularly as a Marauder. All the old instances are in the daily roulettes so they get run often. As a tank I haven't had a queue over 5 minutes for any of the content in the game for months and that includes when I have queued for older dungeons to do relic stuff. You are using the Duty finder right?

[Vaer]

Fair enough. I played FFXI back in the day and jumped on FFXIV day 1, was sorely disappointed (There was 1 quest every 5 levels) and came back after HW was released. And, as I've said, many story-focused games (WoW is just as story focused as FFXIV) don't have this requirement. I'll get through it because I like the game and want to play it, but its disappointing and frustrating.

Let's not pretend that FFXI back in the day didn't have Dynamis locked behind story missions, Sky/Tu'Lia locked behind story missions (to start RoZ missions you had to do core missions up to 5-2), and Sea/Al'Taieu locked behind story missions. Those were the big ones and entire areas... so this isn't exactly a new thing with SE really.

[Lexia]

Let's not pretend that FFXI back in the day didn't have Dynamis locked behind story missions, Sky/Tu'Lia locked behind story missions (to start RoZ missions you had to do core missions up to 5-2), and Sea/Al'Taieu locked behind story missions. Those were the big ones and entire areas... so this isn't exactly a new thing with SE really.

Yes but as another person in the thread pointed out they most likely a wow or another run of the mill MMO player and expecting XIV to act the same and finding out it not. See it quite a lot.

[TankHunter678]

Fair enough. I played FFXI back in the day and jumped on FFXIV day 1, was sorely disappointed (There was 1 quest every 5 levels) and came back after HW was released. And, as I've said, many story-focused games (WoW is just as story focused as FFXIV) don't have this requirement. I'll get through it because I like the game and want to play it, but its disappointing and frustrating.

Umm question:

What part of WoW is story focused?

I mean right now in WoW you get to level 15 and then dungeon to max level. Purchase a new expansion and you get a boost right to the latest expansion so you can hop into the dungeons and speed level to max for hopping into LFR and raiding.

I mean seriously, at this point WoW does not even need or use its open world except for latest expansion content. Even then that is not a requirement. They could remove the open world and just make everything a portal to an instance dungeon and things would not be very different.

Where is the story? Even my friend who has been playing WoW for 6 years is wondering that.

[Roegadyn_Bear]

And, as I've said, many story-focused games (WoW is just as story focused as FFXIV) don't have this requirement.

(WoW is just as story focused as FFXIV)

World of Warcraft has always been focused around their endgame raiding rather than story.

The game does have a story, but you're only fooling yourself if you believe that needlessly convoluted story (which has been forgotten and rewritten enough times by the game's very own lore writer) is actually the central focus of it.