Need more incentives to do side quests

[Squintina]

Side quests, especially 51+, are in a terrible spot of being generally useless.

The only ones that are worth doing are:
Plus quests - they unlock something
Beast tribes - they give massive experience

A lot of the 50 quests don't give experience but they are either Plus quests, or they at least have some kind of achievement somewhere along the line. So they still have some worth because there is no other way to get those achievements (and any of the reward they gives out).

The regular 51+ side quests however are almost useless. They don't really go towards any achievements, as even the ones that are part of a massive quest chain don't seem to have a unique achievement for finishing said quest chain. The only achievement they could possibly go for is the one to do unique quests, but since it only requires 100 of them, anyone who does MSQ will complete it long before they reach the HW/SB areas (ARR alone has well over 100 MSQ to finish that achievement with).

This would be ok if they gave really good exp, but they do not. I just did a level 55 side quest on a level appropriate secondary job (55 BLM), and it gave me 33,600 experience (out of 2,217,600). That's 1.5%. There are only 34 level 55 side quests (one of which is a DOH quest), so that's only half a level if I did ALL of them, which would still take a few hours because a lot of them just make you fly back and forth across the map.

Considering that regular side quests are once-and-done content (you can never repeat them, not via allowance, not via daily, not via queuing) there should be SOME incentive that makes them worth doing other than just completing for the sake of completing. Bad exp is not enough because it means I could spend that time doing something else and not have any trade offs at all.

I could do leves, fates, potd, dungeons, pvp, pretty much anything except for pure monster grinding and in that time get more item/currency rewards, more exp, and probably getting some credit towards other achievements.

Even expanding the Storyteller achievements to go to 500, 750 and 1000 with some titles/rewards (and then gradually increase them as new patches/expansions come out), essentially keeping the storyteller achievement to be all MSQ + at least 80% of all existing side quests, would still give some reason to do them other than just "because they're there so why not".

[RylaBee]

IMHO concept of "standard" side quests is outdated mechanic. They are kept in MMOs since players somehow expect them and to help get little extra XP to cross into new level(so you can join equal level dungeon) but ye.. outdated.

The only game where I REALLY enjoyed most of side quests was Secret World, where they often have very high storytelling values.
The only side-questchain that come close to that in FFXIV is Hildibrand series.

PS: Achievements suck, worst thing that ever infested MMOs.
Used to be "achievement" was to beat hard boss. Now: DING - achievement, killed 10 chickens - achievement, scratched your but 20 times - achievement.

[MistakeNot]

Side quests, especially 51+, are in a terrible spot of being generally useless.

The only ones that are worth doing are:
Plus quests - they unlock something
Beast tribes - they give massive experience

If the rewards (gear/exp) from the quests are the only reason you do them, then they are indeed near-useless.

But that is not the only thing you get from them. Each and every one of them gives you more information about the world and most of them tell some small story.
If that kind of thing does not interest you, then I'd say you are playing the wrong game.

Personally I do not do them mainly for the rewards, but because I find them fun and/or interesting. If you do not enjoy them, then don't do them - they aren't meant for you in that case.

[CryBloodwing]

I do side quests to somewhat level my DPS classes when I am very bored of POTD.

I also try to do all of them because I am a completionist....

[Big_Panda]

I do them because I just can not bother to queue for the alliance roulette on some days.

[Squintina]

If the rewards (gear/exp) from the quests are the only reason you do them, then they are indeed near-useless.If that kind of thing does not interest you, then I'd say you are playing the wrong game.

I wish people would quit saying "you're playing the wrong game" anytime someone has a suggestion they disagree with. Is it really that hard to accept that there are multiple reasons to enjoy a game? Is it also that hard to think a person might enjoy a game MORE (they already enjoy it, but they could enjoy it more) if X was done? Or is the only thing people like you are able to do is to just invalidate someone else's opinion by going "just leave"? That's not constructive.

At least your follow-up of 'If you do not enjoy them, then don't do them - they aren't meant for you in that case." is more reasonable.

Also at no point did I say I didn't enjoy the story or other parts of it. I do enjoy the side story quests (the moogle postmaster sidequests gave me quite a chuckle and I enjoyed them despite that they gave no exp whatsoever), and learning about the world, but we also get to learn about the world from other content so once again compared to other content it doesn't offer much. If we get rewarded for doing other things in this game, why can't we be rewarded for doing the side story quests? What would be SO wrong with expanding the achievements to make completionists be able to have a visual for how many side quests they've gone through? If we can have an achievement for killing thousands of S ranks, for doing thousands of front line runs, RW runs, Feast runs (each separate), for various steps of the MSQ, for every dungeon, for all the maps, for doing thousands and thousands of leves, but yet none for doing a thousand sidequest? What's so wrong with wanting that?

[Avatre]

I think I've done more SB side quests than HW and ARR combined. One of these decades I will get around to doing all the side quests, just to get them done. Not because I need the EXP, but because I want to clear all those quest markers off my map.

I just don't see the need of doing them when the EXP gained from the MSQ and dungeons is more than enough to push you forward into the next steps 99.9999~% of the time.

[ChameleonMS]

A bunch of this is relative to when you started playing this game. If you were playing on DPS role and doing the quests when they first come out. You definitely wanted the XP and gear they provided at the time.
A newer player / alt character has almost 0 reason to do side quests because of catchup XP implemented on the MSQ. Working through just the ARR MSQ story, a character will lv54+ before reaching HW and then almost lv70 before reaching SB. The XP from side quests provided is pitiful when compared to other XP levelling methods. As OP previously showed.

What could be done to improve this? Make all side quests operate like Beast tribe quests and provide level scaled XP rewards.

[DrWho2010]

a lot of the sidequests explore lore and insight into eorzea and its citizens. plus many of the sidequests give gear. MSQ's will provide HQ left side gear but your side quests are the one that will reward HQ accessories.

[MStowastiqVahlshdeh]

Storyline is motivation enough for me but also the exps and often items.