Levelling seems messed up

[Balveda]

Thanks for all the positive replies. I feel I was not alone in my frustration I'm finally there now, and tbh, the way the story unfolded blew me away, so it quite nearly made up for it.

[Balveda]

When i came back to the game after some years and created a new character, I just went through ARR on its on and didn't install HW until I was actually about to reach it in order to avoid such a leveling issue

Wish I had thought of this.

[Nuna]

Its a matter of player you are I guess, most want to accomplish something without really trying now a days. Damn this cupcake / snow flake generation.

Every time, without fail, in any thread that has complaints, there's this one person that says something like this. Wanting more interesting quests doesn't mean you're lazy, jesus. How is doing a large number of quests in a row that make you simply walk back and forth "really trying"?

[ManuelBravo]

Every time, without fail, in any thread that has complaints, there's this one person that says something like this. Wanting more interesting quests doesn't mean you're lazy, jesus. How is doing a large number of quests in a row that make you simply walk back and forth "really trying"?

Your right, it's not being lazy just people complain about it and act like it has not happened in the past. Could they be more interesting? well they tried adding CS and and actual story lines...guess what ? people still complain. So what does that want to tell you? People have nothing better to do than complain from my perspective.

[kikix12]

Your right, it's not being lazy just people complain about it and act like it has not happened in the past. Could they be more interesting? well they tried adding CS and and actual story lines...guess what ? people still complain. So what does that want to tell you? People have nothing better to do than complain from my perspective.

These quests give too many simple walk and talk quests (with horrible plot points for doing that walking, since in most cases the LINKPEARL which is actually used DURING them would suffice) without anything unique in-between. Even something like "kill X of Y" or a small instance would make them way easier to go through.

Final Fantasy XIV, like all Final Fantasy games, is story heavy. But it is also an interactive game with RPG-style action in it. I am a fan of RPG games. I even play visual novels, some of which are literally just reading the story. But if I start a game where I want to actually interact with stuff, "act"...and the game gives me story cut into tiny bits for hours on end...that's horrid.

Most of these quests could be, without losing a single important detail, consolidated into just few larger quests that wouldn't feel as much of a chore. Just remove the unnecessary walking (just use that damned linkpearl to make the report about delivering X instead of going back to the sand, made to be way out there on purpose, only to go back to where you delivered that item right after) and continue the quest further, instead of separating one task into multiple.

[Kacho_Nacho]

Was pretty bad, ended up biting the bullet and bought the story jump potion, those filler quests were too much for me.

Me too.

I got Kacho into HW and the thought of having to go through that gauntlet of busy work quests again on my two other level 50 characters was too much. It wouldn't have been bad if the quests in question meant something to the story; but instead, they were meant to draw things out while HW was being worked on.

This resulted in a significant amount of the MSQ being grind for the sake of a grind, which is a tedious way to play a game. You could cut 50 (likely even more) quests out of the MSQ and never miss them because they aren't story quests at all. They are uninteresting quests meant to occupy your time and you can't skip* them because all the later expansions require you finish them first. I wonder how many players have quit the game because of this issue?

*Without using a potion

[Squintina]

So many people are saying this sort of thing. Am I the only one who enjoyed these quests? I have done them a few times now, never found them to be a chore.

Well mostly it's because of putting it all together.

Like I'll say that ARR is boring compared to HW and SB.

But that's because I'm speaking generally.

If I were to specify more it's:

ARR starts interesting, gets boring because it's primal after primal with the ascians doing so little, picks up with Garuda because she actually does something different and the Ascians become more involved. So bascially ARR 1 is boring until it gets to the preparation of storming CM and praet.

Then ARR Astral (aka ARR 2) starts and it's back to super boring again until about halfway through, when IceHeart and Yugiri make strong appearances, and then it goes HOLY MOLY at the end and you're on the edge of your seat wanting to know what happens next just in time for HW to start. While I would say that ARR 2 is definitely pretty even on that half and half development, the first half is so boring that it FEELS like it's more than just half of ARR 2.

And that's just my version. I'm sure there are other variations where the story was 40-60% boring, not necessarily 100%, but 40-60% boredom is still higher than people want to play through. Just like there are variations where people might have liked the story, but the medium of having so many back and forth fetch quests simply ruined the feel and added boredom.

So it's not that people necessarily think ALL of ARR is boring, but that enough of it (whether story or pure gameplay) is that it feels like most of it was boring, regardless of whether it actually was.

Its a matter of player you are I guess, most want to accomplish something without really trying now a days. Damn this cupcake / snow flake generation.

Assuming all players who don't like ARR's fillter quests aren't trying and simply falling back to the oh-so-easy insult on "cupcake/snow flake generation" (without considering that people who do not like ARR story are of many age groups, so it can't really be tied to any one single generation), instead of trying to fully understand that maybe there are different variations of why people don't like ARR story, is honestly one of the laziest things I've seen anyone do.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

I have to agree with people calling it a chore, as much as I love the story the 100 fetch quests are ridiculous. Also it's one of the most common complaints I hear from new players in both my FC and in the Novice network. So many times I've said this statement "It gets better after those quests" and "The HW/SB quests are not as grindy as ARR". We shouldn't have to try and convince people to stay with the game due to some stupid design choice by SE.

On a plus side Balveda be thankful for the extra exp, as you aren't gonna hit any "you must be this level before continuing with the story".

[bass9020]

If they can somehow rework it to make it still cohesive and follow the main story without messing it up then thats a nice idea. They could develope a new quest line that is a mix between sidequest/main quest but not needed to continue, this way the 100 quests is reduced. Sometimes its not that easy to redo a questline without making it not make sense or feel unfinished and all over.
An example is Black Desert Online, the original main quest line was over 100 quests and then they reduced it to 100 but they did a very poor job of stiching it back together. Now it could have been dev laziness but I think because the quests were so intertwined they really werent sure what to keep or what to take out. Eventually they added back the quests they took out but as a side story but still it didnt seem the same. Now BDO is a drastically different game not favoring story over combat content but it still shows that sometimes its not super easy to reduce quests for the sake of making it faster for people.

Personally I dont see any issue with the 2.1-2.55 questline but I enjoy every little tidbit of story and lore I can get. I think the jump potions are silly but are sadly considered a stanard with games these days. The devs arent dumb either they know people will do whatever to skip something even if they dont want to skip, offering a real money option will always be first.

[Alrin]

Several people told me that I am completionist masochist because I like completing every damn quest in the game i am playing so I dont mind those (I am currently on the way from ARR to HW and have completed around 75% of those quests) BUT even I am afraid that it will drove my friends away from the game because they will see them as chore and boring.

Making them optional would be much better.