A thought on solving the content gating issue. Long read, pls bare with me.

[ThanMazus]

Grinding FATEs? What's that? I vaguely remember doing that once or twice while levelling to 50. Mostly all I remember doing is teleporting back and forth between places and press numpad 0 to advance the dialog. I get to do a dungeon every few hours. Is that preparing me for HW?

Skipping cutscenes and dialogue is exactly what my leveling experience in Heavensward was, so maybe? I feel that the experience I got skipping every cutscene from 2.1 through 2.55 really prepared my escape key skills for a whole new land of fetch quests :V

[Luvbunny]

Skipping cutscenes and dialogue is exactly what my leveling experience in Heavensward was, so maybe? I feel that the experience I got skipping every cutscene from 2.1 through 2.55 really prepared my escape key skills for a whole new land of fetch quests :V

It is a very great skills to have especially when you have alts. Those juicy MSQ is awesome for the amount of XP they give you for mere minutes of works teleporting between areas. And you don't have to deal with toxic players in duty finders who argue about everything and anything and turn your 25 minutes run into 60 minutes of wipe fest, finger pointing and cuss words. What would I do without these MSQ giving me free levels....

[ThanMazus]

I don't like parties in the duty finder.

Per your own logic, if you don't like it - quit.