Anyone gets tired of the level 50 main story quest? Is this a recurring thread?

[Berethos]

Way too much time filler pushed in for what could easily be reduced to 5 missions max.
If I were the head of the studio, I would of allowed the player the choice of heading up to the gates of Ishgard after finishing Praetorium, with a pop up pointing them to the inn so they could watch the relevant plot changes to that point, and do the same with HW, allowing players to progress to SB after finishing Aetherochemical Research.

While I agree with the option of allowing the player the choice after finishing Praetorium...

I would love to hear just how you'd reduce 2.x to 5 missions.

Wall of text incoming (going to hide since it will contain spoilers) as to why I think the idea it can be "easily" reduced that much isn't feasible and misses the point of that section of the story:

In short - there's a lot of stuff that happens in 2.x that's actually important to the ongoing plot or relevant to ongoing character development, without even taking episodic story pacing into account. You have the crew wanting to get out of Thanalan and into neutral territory - the Scions acting as a neutral third party organization with its own "army" of sorts ends up being important to the story, so you can't very well remove that. Minfilia not wanting to leave because of rumors about her adoptive mother and needing to seek her out isn't as strictly important, but it does make for some nice character development (again in the episodic sort of way - introduce a character in a smaller arc so you can use them more effectively in a bigger arc <--this happens quite a bit).

While each primal does sort of feel like a "monster of the week" annoyance, they also use them to introduce additional information and aspects about how primals work in Eorzea and more about how the metaphysical side of Hydaelyn works. With Good King Moogle Mog XII, we learn that myth can be made manifest into a primal and it doesn't take an established essence of a deity. With Leviathan, we learn about how the Echo can transcend mortality and transfer souls between bodies (information that is used later to defeat Ascians). With Ramuh, we learn that some primals can maybe be reasoned with to a certain degree, but that also once a primal is created its essence can carry memories between summonings. With Shiva, we learn that a mortal can summon a primal into themselves and if they have the Echo not be tempered by it (also reinforces the idea that it doesn't have to be an established deity). Those elements tie into dealing with Ascians at the time, Ravana later, as well as the Warring Triad, and continue to be relevant to our conflict with the Ascians.

The refugee stuff, both Ala Mhigan and Doman - you see the plight of the Ala Mhigans even more than before, and with it the political turmoil in Ul'dah that is tied up in it, and obviously that is important to setting up the betrayal by Ilberd and ultimately our moving into Ala Mhigo in the first place, as well as events after the liberation revolving around the Sultana and Rauhban. You meet the Domans and are introduced to their trouble while they are also being established as a stalwart ally, such that when we decide pushing to liberate Doma in a bid to distract the Empire and give the Ala Mhigan resistance time to recoup it doesn't come out of left field and is instead us looking to help the people that have stood by us since before we even thought about setting foot in Ishgard. A lot of that is setup for a believable way for Eorzea to get dragged into fighting to free Ala Mhigo - they hadn't done anything for 20 years and had clearly expressed a hesitance to engage in anything that the Garleans might perceive as an invasion (so as to avoid retribution), so really only a story arc that puts them in a political and military situation that drags them into unwillingly (through the machinations of one who has been established as one who will do anything to see Ala Mhigo free) is one that will feasibly work...and that's what we got. Good luck trimming that one down.

Then there's the lead-in to the Dragonsong War - we weren't going to just waltz into Ishgard and say "hey what's up Dragon Pope?" They'd kept their doors closed for sometime at that point, so the story needed a viable reason for us to be trusted enough to be allowed to enter. Dealing with bleed over from the actions of heretics and the dragons into areas outside of Coerthas, as well as the friendly diplomatic elements (with a non-city state aligned third party - not the only part that element ends up mattering in how the story plays out, plus giving the story creators more freedom with what the Scions can do) with Aymeric, serve to do just that, setting the stage for our dramatic assistance at the Steps of Faith...an act worthy of earning the sponsorship (with a bit of help from Haurchefant) of House Fortemps so that we can enter the city at all.

Mixed in there's various character moments to help establish or continue development of various motivations or personalities and such, and the occasional actual filler like assisting the newer members of the Adventurer's Guild in Mor Dhona by showing them how it's done, fetching tea (though this is clearly meant to be used for both pacing coming off a more action oriented bit and for some comedy - of course the hero of the hour shouldn't be running errands, but gosh darn it everyone is busy and Tataru asked so nicely, right?), and there's a lot of connective story tissue in 2.x...

So I'd really love to see how that would "easily" be trimmed to just five missions, without removing any of the important stuff and without the story playing out like the abridged children's book version of a Disney movie (if you've seen them, you know exactly what I'm talking about). Honestly, I'd love to see it done and being allowed to remove 50% of the important story stuff.

[JCharms]

While I agree with the option of allowing the player the choice after finishing Praetorium...
So I'd really love to see how that would "easily" be trimmed to just five missions, without removing any of the important stuff and without the story playing out like the abridged children's book version of a Disney movie (if you've seen them, you know exactly what I'm talking about). Honestly, I'd love to see it done and being allowed to remove 50% of the important story stuff.

I suppose I wasn't clear in my meaning.
I realise there's no way to trim the existing to 5 missions/quests, my suggestion revolves around making 5 new quests that would be somewhat long with the cut scene, and that would be enough to address the key narrative points of the story, just without all the travelling, choco butt sniffing and bag carrying stuff that was bloated on purpose because they were content patches of the time for people that wanted stuff to do.

[Berethos]

I suppose I wasn't clear in my meaning.
I realise there's no way to trim the existing to 5 missions/quests, my suggestion revolves around making 5 new quests that would be somewhat long with the cut scene, and that would be enough to address the key narrative points of the story, just without all the travelling, choco butt sniffing and bag carrying stuff that was bloated on purpose because they were content patches of the time for people that wanted stuff to do.

You're assigning the wrong motivation behind those quests - it's not "bloated on purpose" to fill time, it literally is paced intentionally like that for the sake of how they want the story to play out. What you see as pointless bloat is meant to be character moments to provide additional context for the culture and personalities of these people, as well as prepare for future plot elements. In TV terms, it's the Season 2 start, where the big issue from Season 1 was dealt with (and was written as a single arc since the show may have ended after that first season) and so they need to start moving toward new things but that means taking the time to set-up new things (I think many players view the story here as one would a movie or a single-player game's story, and it just isn't created with that style in mind - Yoshi-P has even made references to how it's set-up more like TV seasons).

This may come as a shock, but the story team isn't trying to waste your time with pointless crap.

Also, I was looking more for a break down of what key narrative points you think would be able to brought into that "5 missions" limit, even with it being longer. What you would cut, what you would change, etc., that doesn't then mean that future characters or events don't need to also be rewritten or redone because the foundation element present in 2.x is no longer there, while also not having it end up being a rushed mess. I've done this myself as a thought exercise (which is why I don't find the "it could be done" to really be a worthwhile answer) before and was only able to trim out about 30% of what's there now plus eliminating the need for travel by using the technique they do now with moving you to the next location whenever it makes sense to do so - which could absolutely be added into what we have now - and it was at that point that future stories start to become noticeably impacted or elements in 2.x begin to feel really rushed.

[Zeonsilt]

This may come as a shock, but the story team isn't trying to waste your time with pointless crap.

Running/teleporting back and forth for 1 line(5 words) of dialogue can hardly be considered "an MSQ", and those quests aside, it's true that there's a lot of quests without any MSQ context, but you need to do them, because they are part of "MSQ".

Well, they already said that they wanted to change "an early game experience", it's just another question if that involves quests or just low-level [available] abilities.

[Rokke]

Except the majority of those 100 quests AREN'T fetchquests....

Warrior of light pick me flowers
Warrior of light pray return to waking sands
Warrior of light fix my earrings
Warrior of light pray return to waking sands
Warrior of light smell my horsebird
Warrior of light pick up my scales off the floor
Warrior of light pray return to waking sands
Warrior of light pray return to rising stones
Warrior of light hand out my food
Warrior of light pray return to rising stones
Warrior of light pray return to waking sands

It feels like you're running 2 billion errands, which made picking up the DRK questline (once you finally made it to Ishgard) so great :P

Running/teleporting back and forth for 1 line(5 words) of dialogue can hardly be considered "an MSQ"

basically this^

[BillyKaplan]

It feels like you're running 2 billion errands, which made picking up the DRK questline (once you finally made it to Ishgard) so great :P

And then you basically consent to that rubbish regardless. But at least some dark oppressed part of your chara resents it.

I feel like they learned their lesson in SB. It's not that there aren't fetch quests, but personally, there was enough flavor in them to keep me interested and actually increase my immersion. That patch of ARR was horrible, all the more so given how often you still had to run to Vesper Bay instead of teleport to Mor Dhona.

[Rokke]

And then you basically consent to that rubbish regardless. But at least some dark oppressed part of your chara resents it.

I take comfort in knowing that at least there was a voice in the back of my characters head whispering "this is a load of barnacles" while I was sniffing some strangers' chocobo :')

[Berethos]

It feels like you're running 2 billion errands, which made picking up the DRK questline (once you finally made it to Ishgard) so great :P

90% of what you do in any RPG can be boiled down to some version of "fetch this, kill that, talk to me/other person at this spot."

The context within the bigger events, and the character developments that take place, are the things that are important, and while you're whining that you had to pick flowers, I'm excited to help Minfilia's adoptive mother that she thought was dead for 5 years return to her.

[Rokke]

The context within the bigger events, and the character developments that take place, are the things that are important, and while you're whining that you had to pick flowers, I'm excited to help Minfilia's adoptive mother that she thought was dead for 5 years return to her.

HW and SB still have fluff, its just not back to back (to back to back to back to back). I'm still picking up/delivering crap (literally on the steppe!) but the pacing has gotten so much better that it doesn't feel like its dragging on.

Im glad you enjoyed the content I thought was boring as hell. I'm also glad that I can skip past it now

[DDkiki]

90% of what you do in any RPG can be boiled down to some version of "fetch this, kill that, talk to me/other person at this spot."

The context within the bigger events, and the character developments that take place, are the things that are important, and while you're whining that you had to pick flowers, I'm excited to help Minfilia's adoptive mother that she thought was dead for 5 years return to her.

But it all can be much better. And optional.

Look at story pacing of Legion for example, you can level up and visit almost all zones except the endgame one(and you just need to get 110 lvl and do unlocking quest, no prerequisite) without even doing any main quests, that are short, movie-like and engaging. With main story battles and scenarion be solo and feel more epic, then "go take 7 your friends that went fishing in nearby area and kill Susan" - It is a BAD writing, that breaks immersion.

SE should focus on shorter and more egaging MSQ, make it so it wasnt a slog - but went with BOOM and people would like to do it, not skip all stuff to unlock other stuff and get rewards, get rid of all little running around in it, just make all this plot sub-quests for people who want to know deeper story. Get rid of story-based gating, let new players visit kugane and isghard if they have expansion. Auto-unlock all new trials and dungeons, EX too. Maybe make attunements for raids.

Overall FFXIV story and world are awesome, no one arguing it, what most peopel don't like is how this story is showed into our face, its MMORPG, and it should be it, and story was always less important for MMORPG players then content. If i want to PVP - just let me PVP at 1lvl so i can get all 70 without even leaving city, only pvping.