The grind

[LordLucavi]

Baby roll as in sarcasm, meaning someone is whining about how they have to do the same stuff everyone else did instead of immediate gratification. At least it's all available for them to do all at once instead of being spread out over a year or so.

[Synrin]

snip

I know, that is exactly my point. If you made it accessible right away, without entering Heavensward, how would you make it fair, compared to the other jobs' requirements? SE is obviously not going the class + class = job way anymore, rather from now on there will only be jobs.

another SNIP

I am not concerned about the grind really, I have done my MSQ and do it as soon as it is out as I love the story. But it might be off-putting for the everyday MMO gamer who just started, cause you know, who needs a story really, give me endgame already, endgame sucks, I'm outta here.

[Synrin]

Also the sooner you realise this, the better:

Baby roll as in sarcasm, meaning someone is whining about how they have to do the same stuff everyone else did instead of immediate gratification. At least it's all available for them to do all at once instead of being spread out over a year or so.

[Cinno]

As someone who didn't get my first 50 until around Heavensward's release, I can agree that it was a bit of a grind, but that was more so due to the fact that majority of the quests were just plain uninteresting.

Yes the story was interesting, when there WAS story, and it led up to one of the most epic storyline moments in the game so far, but.. i would say probably 80ish of the quests were just extremely uninteresting.. It got to the point where the npc's in the quests were even pointing out that they felt bad for sending you on so many errands..

At that point it begins to feel like padding... when you do 8 quests that involve:
1) go to location A, interact with item/npc
2) go to location B, interact with item/npc
3) report to Minfilia

and then you get maybe 2 or 3 quests that have actual interesting plot development, or some form of action/combat, thats padding. That's content for the sake of content.

It built up to a great ending, but that ending also felt rushed. The last 10 or so quests were intense, but if they would have taken out some of the useless fetch quests, they could have expanded some of those 10 quests out into the last 20 or so quests.

tl;dr, I understand that it's a grind, and I understand why they did it, But its the EXECUTION that makes it feel so grindy and dull.

[LineageRazor]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: locking the new classes behind Heavensward access was a mistake. Even starting at level 30, they should be accessible at level 30. Some argue that the storylines behind the classes necessitate them taking place in Ishgard, but I disagree - particularly since 90% of the 30-50 class quests for those jobs take place in ARR areas! Literally, you go to Ishgard to talk to the job provider, and then spend almost all your time in ARR, until level 50. There's no reason Fray couldn't have been fighting injustice in Camp Dragonhead, or that you couldn't have met with Lavina in the South Shroud (oh, wait - you DID meet her in the South Shroud!).

I think SE realizes that it was a mistake, as well, hence their reassurances that the next expansion will be different. Pretty much every time on the forums someone asks if they should purchase Heavensward right away, or wait until level 50, they are told to wait. That's got to sting, a bit; I can't imagine how many potential sales SE has lost, because their customers try the game, decide it's not for them, and never buy the expansion - whereas, if the expansion had something to offer new players, they might have shelled out. And maybe, just maybe, those extras would have been the push they needed to stay, as well...

[Moqi]

I'm with OP. Terrible game design. And most of the quests were pointless padding anyway, they were no fun when they came out, I can't imagine them doing them all at once.

There's no lazy, there's fun and not fun. If things are not fun, people will look for a way to get it over with. It's up to the devs to figure out a way to make it fun again and they failed.