As a new player that really likes this game ...

[Snow_Princess]

The story IS the primary content. The stuff gated by the story is just additional content.

Lol... how many think this? Ok i am going to respect your opinion, but at the same time I expect you respect mine.

crafting and gathering IS THE PRIMARY CONTENT! the other stuff is just additional content. If the story was really intended to be the main content, it should been a 1000 times better. In either event, it shouldn't be gating content. SE did not even do it in FFXI for crying out loud ( least not to this degree, I explained the parallel thing)

OP sure seems to dislike the game an awful lot for supposedly really liking the game.

Either way, I suppose it comes down to this. Do you want easily accessible raiding with not very demanding gameplay and don't really care much about the story? Play WoW.

Do you want an interesting story and demanding gameplay, but can live with the fact that the raiding is locked behind the story? Play FFXIV.

The raiding is not demanding here... it is just memorizing scripted events.

[Rymm]

The raiding is not demanding here... it is just memorizing scripted events.

The same could be said for pretty much all content across all MMOs I've played, outside of PvP. Heck, even a lot of single player games with scripted boss fights would fall under the umbrella of 'just memorize the scripted events.'

[Felis]

crafting and gathering IS THE PRIMARY CONTENT! the other stuff is just additional content.

Story > crafting /gathering
You have to do the story for lv 50+ crafting/gathering quests
You also have to level up a battle class to unlock crafting/gathering leves

It is a choice of design. The way how 1.0 did it, talking as a crafter to the MSQ enemies in the form of a minigame instead of fighting against them, felt cheap.