What to do when out of leves? Grind?

[Leknaat]

And secondly, no I haven't done any side quests because my personal preference in any MMO has just been level now, do the quests later. Because I absolutely hate spending a bunch of time on a quest only to get to a part where I need to kill something and I'm not even remotely high enough level to do it.

And this is where your assumption is slightly flawed. The mainline quests for this game are currently designed that even a crafter without any combat skills should be able to clear it.

[Blarp]

And this is where your assumption is slightly flawed. The mainline quests for this game are currently designed that even a crafter without any combat skills should be able to clear it.

And that's why they're all incredibly bland and boring from a gameplay perspective. Some of the cutscenes are nice, and if you care about the plot for this game, they're good to do. If you care about interesting gameplay, you may want to find something else to do.

I did two sidequests. One at level 5 which had me run around the city and talk to various NPC's to get a signature or something i.e. Fed Ex quest. The other one had me go kill marmots to get a quest item. That's about as bland as it gets in terms of MMO quests. They don't become more involved or interesting as you level. They remain the same.

Yes, they're content by definition, but that doesn't make them fun or compelling.

[Leknaat]

And that's why they're all incredibly bland and boring from a gameplay perspective. Some of the cutscenes are nice, and if you care about the plot for this game, they're good to do. If you care about interesting gameplay, you may want to find something else to do.

I did two sidequests. One at level 5 which had me run around the city and talk to various NPC's to get a signature or something i.e. Fed Ex quest. The other one had me go kill marmots to get a quest item. That's about as bland as it gets in terms of MMO quests. They don't become more involved or interesting as you level. They remain the same.

Yes, they're content by definition, but that doesn't make them fun or compelling.

Like you I find the content bland and mostly uninspired with the exception of the Ifrit fight and even that's a bit more gimmicky than inspired. But FFXIV is... what it is...

I think the most entertaining quest I did was the one in Limsa where I had to /psych emote rather than talk to the people. Byond that... bleaugh.

Put the game down, go play other stuff. They've promised a better brighter FFXIV (a year and half down the line). (And I'm hoping there's more inspired questing down the line).