Square you need to streamline the main story

[Xlantaa]

Ugh. And I think the story is too short and I want more length.

[Hamada]

Ugh. And I think the story is too short and I want more length.

it was short at moments, that is part of my point.
It is useless fetch quests > hasted pacing that make no sense. the 50 quests had a really big issue with that.

[Felis]

Instead of shorten the story, how about merging some quests?.
As an example, "start quest a -> talk to person A,B and C to end quest a -> start quest b -> bring item x to person G to end quest b" can be changed to "start quest a -> talk to person A,B and C -> bring item x to person G to end quest a"

a reduction of the amount of quests by 50%

[Eimian_Eda]

As someone who recently got 2 players to return (quit before 50) and 3 new players to join...
Yeah, the MSQ is a drag for them. Just keep telling them HW is "a bit better with that".

[Kleeya]

Seems like i can recommend Dragon Nest to some persons out here. It has everything you want since it was butchered to fit the "i want to go to the last raid asap" mentality. Tons of quests were removed, as well as the background of numerous npcs who became nobodys you dont care about. No gating at all, too much xp, which make you not caring for the few remaining quests since you overlevel the donjons way too much. Once you get to the max lvl you begin to mindlessly bash things only to get drops, you dont even have the slightest idea why you are here or who the mobs you are killing are, because quests are so bothersome, why would people want to waste time reading some background storys ?

Irony aside, i dont find quests like those related to refugees useless. Since the time i did hear of where they came from and what they have gone through, it makes me want to see their homeland so much more. It would be so underwhelming in the next extension to go in the new maps only to tell you "Mmmmm so, where i am again ? Doma, errrrr what's that ? I didn't read anything about it before. Oh wait, isn't it related to some refugees ? I dont remember, some npc took care of them for me, because it was not worth my time to do that... Why am i even here ?".

For those who have some sort of burn-out trying to go through the quests too quickly, i think you are taking the game the wrong way. Unlike some other mmos with too few content there is tons of alternate things to do in FF14 when you are bored with something. When i am fed up with the main quests story line i switch to something else a while, and go back to the quests when i feel like it. Which is why i am still on the game while the first guy i added to my friendlist, who was into the "mmo are beginning at the max lvl" mentality and quickly became way ahead of me, quit a long time ago. When i see now the amount of quests and cut scenes there is, i swear that this guy didn't read and didn't watch anything, othwerwise he couldn't have become 60 so quickly. He ended up being burn-out by wanting to go way too fast, in a game that isn't designed for that.

[MomomiMomi]

For those who have some sort of burn-out trying to go through the quests too quickly, i think you are taking the game the wrong way.

It's different, not wrong. Also, just because you've been here longer than others doesn't mean your experience is better than the one they had in a shorter amount of time.

[Hamada]

It's different, not wrong. Also, just because you've been here longer than others doesn't mean your experience is better than the one they had in a shorter amount of time.

Yep, here is some different personalities I know of:
Skip all CS, does not care, plays to play the game
Reads the CS somewhat, but tries to go fast to keep up with friends, some meanings are lost and gets confused, leads to siding not caring to the fluff till something big happens (I/E the dragon war bits)
Reading the CS, but then forgetting due to the gaps, and forgetting how they link and feels broken. This feeling gets worse with the MSQ quests not really tied to the story (fetch stuff, gets board and has hard time drawling links)
Same as above kinda, has a few alts trying to understand it more but fails to do so.

See? these gaps in filler do not help the story. It gets convoluted and gets hard to comprehend for some. For me it is more like gaps here and there, does not feel complete. The fluff is not helping people keep focused on understanding the story.

[SaitoHikari]

Seems like i can recommend Dragon Nest to some persons out here. It has everything you want since it was butchered to fit the "i want to go to the last raid asap" mentality. Tons of quests were removed, as well as the background of numerous npcs who became nobodys you dont care about. No gating at all, too much xp, which make you not caring for the few remaining quests since you overlevel the donjons way too much. Once you get to the max lvl you begin to mindlessly bash things only to get drops, you dont even have the slightest idea why you are here or who the mobs you are killing are, because quests are so bothersome, why would people want to waste time reading some background storys ?

Hmm, lots of former Dragon Nest players showing up on these forums lately. This kind of makes me glad, considering what that game has turned into. And I gotta say, this quote isn't an exaggeration, so much was removed from the game to funnel people towards level cap content, including the removal of all earlier level party content since the devs never bothered to implement a level sync mechanic and figured nobody ever ran them anymore because they weren't important for leveling.

The Lv. 50 MSQ still should be streamlined to an extent. Just redesign them to be far less fetchy somehow. People seem to have issues with the Moogle King/Ramuh/Leviathan phase most of all (there's a lot of random filler in between those quests, like the cleanup of Mor Dhona that includes running Sunken Temple of Qarn for some reason), and all the grievances usually level out by the Snowcloak/Shiva phase anyway.

I think this would be less of a problem if there weren't jobs gated behind the MSQ advancing into Heavensward too. I had a friend from the same previous game that began playing FFXIV about 3 months ago, and he blew through the entire Lv. 50 MSQ phase in one night so he could become a Dark Knight ASAP, he didn't want to play anything else longer than necessary. Upon hitting Lv. 60, he basically quit almost immediately due to sheer burnout, and I don't believe he's to return until Stormblood. All of the friends he brought over had roughly the same thing happen to them. The devs appear to have at least learned their lesson in this category though, gating Red Mage and Samurai behind the Praetorium instead of the Lv. 50 MSQ slog -and- having them both Lv. 50 instead of Lv. 30 so they can just pick up the jobs and proceed, but something similar should really happen with Astrologian/Dark Knight/Machinist too (who at this point are unlocked WAY later and start 20 levels behind for some reason).

[Naunet]

I still really wish they would just make the MSQ NOT required for everything... let people play through the quests if they want, when they want. Having to do it over... and over... and over.. and over again for alts is just... well, it kills the motivation.

Sounds like you over leveled, as many seem to complain about the opposite that they have to level up in order to continue with quests.

I can't imagine how this would be possible. My main was 60 well before finishing Dravania. This alt is 56 - 56 - and I literally JUST started the HW quests.

It's annoying as heck to be funneled through the exact same tedious MSQ every single time. If I want to level by dungeons, let me level by dungeons. If I want to level by doing a hodgepodge of quests, moving on when overleveled, then let me do that. If I want to level with PotD, then let me level with PotD. If I want to level by doing every MSQ quest, then that should be an option.

[MomomiMomi]

I can't imagine how this would be possible. My main was 60 well before finishing Dravania. This alt is 56 - 56 - and I literally JUST started the HW quests.

My alts make it to HW at 51.