Level 50 quest from AAR to Heavensward is just too much.

[HyoMinPark]

Another friend of mine started playing probably about a year ago and she's only just now getting into the meat of Heavensward. A casual player may well take -years- to catch up to the point of joining the rest of us in end game. At the bare minimum, I would like options for moving more quickly through ARR's story somehow because that's the part of the story where a newbie is most likely to loose interest. And I want options that don't require us to pay Square more money.

While I agree 2.x could use some pruning, I wouldn’t say it would take a casual player years to get to current endgame—I think that’s a bit hyperbolic. They’d have to just not play for weeks/months at a time, or spend a lot of online time not doing MSQ for that to be the case.

The first time I did 2.x was back in early HW, and it took me about a month or so of just a couple hours each night (not every night, because I was working a lot at the time). But I was also doing the ARR EXs and farming them for ponies, so I wasn’t focused solely on the story. I did it again on an alt during SB, and I could do a patch a day—so it took maybe a week of 5~6 hours a day to get through 2.x. And that was without skipping anything, and queuing up for the dungeons/trials as a DPS.

[WellFooled]

While I agree 2.x could use some pruning, I wouldn’t say it would take a casual player years to get to current endgame—I think that’s a bit hyperbolic. They’d have to just not play for weeks/months at a time, or spend a lot of online time not doing MSQ for that to be the case.

The first time I did 2.x was back in early HW, and it took me about a month or so of just a couple hours each night (not every night, because I was working a lot at the time). But I was also doing the ARR EXs and farming them for ponies, so I wasn’t focused solely on the story. I did it again on an alt during SB, and I could do a patch a day—so it took maybe a week of 5~6 hours a day to get through 2.x. And that was without skipping anything, and queuing up for the dungeons/trials as a DPS.

A hyperbole in some cases maybe, but not all. I like this post on reddit where someone broke down exactly how long each section of MSQ took them on an alt. All told it took them about 200 hours with minimal sidequesting to finish everything from ARR to the end of Stormblood. If my friend plays 3 hours for one night a week, it would take her about one year to go from the beginning of ARR to the end of Shadowbringers.

Its a very difficult sell to recruit someone to the game even if they can play it every single night, because you have to tell them they'll need to play the game 200 hours straight without many diversions from the MSQ (plus probably another 30 now for Shadowbringers content?) before they can join the rest of us in content that actually matters. On top of that, the first 60 or so hours aren't all that interesting. Its hard to convince someone that the investment is worth it and I don't blame them.

[HyoMinPark]

A hyperbole in some cases maybe, but not all. I like this post on reddit where someone broke down exactly how long each section of MSQ took them on an alt. All told it took them about 200 hours with minimal sidequesting to finish everything from ARR to the end of Stormblood. If my friend plays 3 hours for one night a week, it would take her about one year to go from the beginning of ARR to the end of Shadowbringers.

Its a very difficult sell to recruit someone to the game even if they can play it every single night, because you have to tell them they'll need to play the game 200 hours straight without many diversions from the MSQ (plus probably another 30 now for Shadowbringers content?) before they can join the rest of us in content that actually matters. On top of that, the first 60 or so hours aren't all that interesting. Its hard to convince someone that the investment is worth it and I don't blame them.

I feel like the example you’ve provided of your friend only playing 1 day a week for 3 hours is a bit of an outlier, probably even an extreme one. I don’t think such a schedule would apply to most new players, as they’d probably manage a couple nights a week for a couple hours each; but this is just speculation.

It’s also about what the player wants out of the content—if they enjoy the journey to endgame, then I don’t think the time spent is that big of a deal (I enjoyed the journey the first time, and when I do MSQ again on alts, it’s about the journey). If they only want to get to endgame and only care about endgame, it’s likely they’ll start skipping cutscenes and saving time anyways.

I’m in agreement that the ARR quests need to be trimmed down, but I don’t think we should use outliers as basis for the claim.

[WellFooled]

I’m in agreement that the ARR quests need to be trimmed down, but I don’t think we should use outliers as basis for the claim.

Then we're in agreement. While I included anecdotal evidence from my own free company in my comment, the basis of my position is the daunting 200 hours requirement. It doesn't really matter if someone has the time to go through those 200 hours fairly quickly or not. Motivation is required and its hard to be motivated when it playing the MSQ like a full time job would still take a month and a half. On top of that, the first week and a half will be comparatively boring.

That does not sound like a problem with ARR or the MSQ as such, but rather a problem with the fact that the HW jobs (DRK, MCH, AST) are all locked behind access to Ishgard - which is indeed a problem, but luckily one they have not repeated with the jobs added later on.

I am happy they learned from their mistake in HW and having a job locked behind the MSQ was a problem for my friend, but I don't think it was his main problem. He was still enjoying the job he was using. In his case it wouldn't have been so bad if the ARR story was as engaging as what follows. Instead of going, "Ok, I'll unlock Dark Knight in another 30 hours, that's ok. I can't wait to see what happens next in the story anyway" it was "Wait, I'll only unlock Dark Knight after another 30 hours of THIS?! I can't take another 30 hours of running to the Waking Sands or fetching Cheese..."