Length MSQ from all the expansions - it is getting insane

[Atelier-Bagur]

You can hold any opinion you want, but remember it's just yours and its only an opinion. I very clearly remember my time as a new player it was not the story that got me through the game, it was raiding. Without the end game, I would have never finished ARR. I also know I'm not alone, and I've even seen new players quit because the path to the end is so long both in terms of MSQ and the slow leveling of jobs that lack complexity for the first 50-60 levels.

Having the MSQ as a requirement doesn't do FF14 any favors.

There are better games that have better raiding experiences to be honest.

Also this doesnt apply to everyone obviously but most people who play it, its because of that investment. The sad thing, people who get into the actual endgame find it disappointing and bitter and I had this happen to some friends of mine who wanted to just story skip and get to the raiding and they found out how little and shallow it was. Thats why I cant ever recommend the game based on the raiding alone because theres not much to it to keep your around and the game is so story centric on literally everything. Obviously you being an outlier here but not the norm.

If that wasnt the case, they wouldnt have bothered with putting so many cutscenes on everything.

[PyurBlue]

There are better games that have better raiding experiences to be honest.

That's always going to be a subjective topic, and even if people agree with it, that doesn't mean they can't treat FF14 as a raiding game.

Also this doesnt apply to everyone obviously but most people who play it, its because of that investment. The sad thing, people who get into the actual endgame find it disappointing and bitter and I had this happen to some friends of mine who wanted to just story skip and get to the raiding and they found out how little and shallow it was. Thats why I cant ever recommend the game based on the raiding alone because theres not much to it to keep your around and the game is so story centric on literally everything. Obviously you being an outlier here but not the norm.

If that wasnt the case, they wouldnt have bothered with putting so many cutscenes on everything.

I'm not willing to guess on how many are drawn to what without numbers, but even if it's true that most people aren't playing for the endgame I don't think those that do can just be dismissed as outliers. If someone were to ask for advice on how to approach the game then ideally you would try to figure out what interests them and not immediately shepherd them to what you consider the most popular part of the game. That's just setting up some percentage of people for disappointment, just as only suggesting to play for raids and rushing to level cap would be setting up those interested in the story for disappointment. We can, and should, try to cater to both groups at once as well as the many other types of players that participate in the game.