As a new player, I really don't want jump potions.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I'm only going to reply to this portion to keep my post short.

If it's relevant, it stays. If it's not, it goes. Simple. I don't believe whether you liked it or not is much of an issue. New players won't miss it because it will be as if it was never there. You will still have experienced it. They can't take that away from you.

That is still subjective. Look no further than the person a few posts above. I disagree, everything in 2.x is relevant. You could chop quite a bit; arguably the entirety of 2.1. Evidently, others see it differently. The devs have to factor that in and may feel a large portion of what the community feels "blot" is relevant to their story. Furthermore, it's a wasted endeavour since people disinterested in the story are going to skip it regardless. They just don't care, and nothing you do will change that.

I lied, I'll reply to this as well. We don't even know if 5.0 is going to pick up from the end of 4.x the same way HW and SB are. They might not have to trim anything. Plus, there's very little filler trash in HW. I doubt there will be in SB.

The point of a jump potion is appealing to people who want to play with their friends immediately. Say I invited someone tomorrow. The only actual content I can do with them are old dungeons whenever they reach that point in the MSQ or PotD. They basically have to play by themselves because there just isn't much for me to do with them until they're closer to me level. Admittedly, when Stormblood launches, the last thing I want to be doing is running Stone Vigil or Snowcloak. All of this only becomes worse if the person doesn't care about the story to begin with. Now you're asking them to spend hours upon hours slogging through what they don't find interesting just to reach the relevant fights. Yes, FFXIV has a good player influx, but the older it gets, the greater the decline. Newer games come along with better graphics and mechanics. Therefore, XIV has to adapt and change just like WoW eventually did. Maintaining a linear story is perfectly fine, but the option to skip ahead needs to be there no matter how they implement it.

[Driavna]

I disagree, everything in 2.x is relevant.

The problem with ARR MSQ is bad the pacing is and how much pointless backtracking/task are requested. For example, in order to unlock Snowcloack you have to do this-> Go to point A -> Back to base -> Point B (little farther away than A) -> Back to base -> Point C (agian, a little farther away than B), why not just use a linkpearl to avoid going back to base?

Also, I remember a quest about doman refugees that request your help to carry a crate and when you deliver it happens to be broken so now you have to retrace your step and grab a few more items. Was that necessary?

SE could fix this without removing any quest but it won't happen at this point. However, at least they fixed it for good with HW and forward.

[Berethos]

I disagree, everything in 2.x is relevant. You could chop quite a bit; arguably the entirety of 2.1.

Of course then you'd have to explain the important of Minfilia's adoptive mother who has just all of a sudden appeared in the story, or cut her out of the multiple places after 2.1 where she later appears.

It's definitely surprisingly difficult to remove more than bits and pieces without it chaining into having to rework or remove numerous other bits, and the bits and pieces that can arguably be removed (that set the pacing in an intentional manner anyway, it's hardly haphazard) wouldn't add up to enough to make a significant impact on most that find the MSQ serving as a gate to be cumbersome.