Quote Originally Posted by LunaFaye View Post
If you start a new character and skip everything and only focus on MSQ and dungeon unlocks, you can get from 1-60 and even gear in ilvl 230-260 gear within 2 weeks, and that's when playing only 4 or 5 hours every day. Done it with alts lately and it isn't big a deal. With potd even faster if you chose to do that, but then you will have to back track and do MSQ/Job Quests and unlock quests, which will most likely take much longer than just rushing through with skipping.
I don't think it's as trivial as you make it out to be, for a variety of reasons.

(1) Most people won't skip everything and purely focus on MSQ and dungeon unlocks. Not to say they can't, but most won't. Forcing players into a choice between taking reasonable amounts of time and stopping to smell the roses even a little bit isn't appropriate.

(2) Most people returning from lengthy breaks aren't as familiar with the process as you are. That's going to add time.

(3) Even by your (exceedingly conservative) estimate, you're still talking (4.5 hours/day on average) * (14 days) = 63 hours. Many people can't devote 4.5 hours per day to the game, though; if they're playing, say, 10 hours a week, it's over a month and a half JUST to get through the Heavensward story and gear up to i230 / i260. That's ridiculous.

In short, your tossed-off 2 week figure is relevant for people who know exactly what they're doing, aren't spending idle time on other tasks, and have significant amounts of time to devote to FFXIV. If all gamers fell into this category, I'd agree that the storyline setup is rather appropriate. Given this isn't the reality, though, I think jumping potions are needed at this point for SE to combat the grind.