@Aylis

The quests with the hunter you mention were to provide you with many, many opportunities to defeat monsters in the Forelands. It also gives you something to do while you are exploring the whole area looking for those aetheryte crystals to enable flight. The terrain required for those quests required all sorts of puzzle solving abilities [How do I get up there?, followed by a lot of salty language under the breath].

When it comes down to it, every quest line could be resolved by simply giving us cut-scenes and XP. How long would you play that particular game?