Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[Neophyte]

Consdering that without this, you wouldn't have access to anything, yes it is. Being the base never meant that it would take most of your playtime to do it. And, in fact, I reallydoubt the story took you 200h, considering each patch gives, at best 2h of MSQ, dungeons included. (And I doubt 2.0 and 3.0 gives 180h of story combined.)

Yes, because they set it so. But they think about setting it to "not needed", that's why we are discussing here.
Feel free to quote my former post (#460) and try to find any real argument please.

Why is it better to have to

• do MSQ with every character you'll ever create,
• but be able to skip cutscenes and dialogues if not interested in story or doing it with an alternate character and
• learn your class in a slow pace, unless you do Palace of the Dead.
  Which also enables you to get access to all skills once and to do all your leveling either in 1. endgame content environment (i.e. content where you need to know lvl 60 abilities) or 2. single player like content.
  Therefore roulettes and every optional dungeons are not needed in the slightest anymore for reaching the specific levels to continue MSQ, anyway. You still need about the same time, maybe.. But you don't need to do those story pieces anymore, if you don't want to.
  In this content unexperienced players can already play at lvl. 60 together with veterans, any problems so far?
  If you need the roulettes afterwards, you can still unlock them, but while playing through the level up part, you don't need them at all anymore.

instead of being able to

• create one or two characters for endgame (weekly cap, so people like me could create a 2nd alternate without going through MSQ a 3rd time)
• create another character for enjoying the story, if you want to.

And pleeeease... get a feeling for the actual time you need for that stuff. I'm at 25h+ and I have beaten Titan NM yesterday. With skipping every single cutscene, doing only the sidequests to reach the required level to continue and knowing every single shortcut there is. My only "timewaste" which is not related to MSQ is leveling my GLD with leveling roulette (because he gets 150% bonus because of lower level anyway).
So.. you can doubt as much as you want, you're just plain wrong. An average new player needs the 168h at least.

It's 184 MSQ for ARR 2.0.
It's 100 MSQ for 7'th astral era (2.0-2.55)
It's 94 MSQ for HW.
It's 20+ required dungeons.


Sooooo... if you do every MSQ quest within 5 minutes on average and do every dungeon in 15 minutes without queue-time it's already 36,5 hours. 2.0 MSQ cutscenes are ~4h, 3.0 MSQ is 6h. 2.1-2.55 MSQ is 7h cutscenes.
So much to your 40h sprouts in Idyllshire. rofl rofl rofl...

And just to make sure: 5 minutes per MSQ is like the most over-the-top minimization there ever was. Make it 10-15 min. (which is way more realistic) or even 20 mins (because you have to level and do sidequests (unlock mount, retainer + ventures, flying, XP), class/job quests and optional dungeons/PotD to reach certain level requirements; also you need at least a bit of 2nd class leveling for cross class skills and jobs) and you look at 60-125h to reach end-game plus 17h cutscenes alone.

My average time per MSQ right now is 14,x minutes with skipping everything.