Having to slog through lvl 50 quests is tedious

[Krotoan]

It's sad that they are willing to lose so many players over this. Sometimes I wonder if they are aware of the big player dropout in that part of the story.

It would be bad business NOT to keep track of that. Is that number published somewhere I don't know about?

[Galgarion]

The reason there are so many quests is because of story patching. Y'know, content that kept the original ARR players hooked months after they beat Ultima weapon? It's the same deal with Heavensward. Once you beat the main guy, you'll have a week and a half of additional quests to get through to reach Stormblood. And Stormblood just had two story patches with many more to come. This is called content.. You're getting your money's worth. It's a good thing! If you don't like it, buy a skip potion.

[Skivvy]

The reason there are so many quests is because of story patching. Y'know, content that kept the original ARR players hooked months after they beat Ultima weapon? It's the same deal with Heavensward. Once you beat the main guy, you'll have a week and a half of additional quests to get through to reach Stormblood. And Stormblood just had two story patches with many more to come. This is called content.. You're getting your money's worth. It's a good thing! If you don't like it, buy a skip potion.

Sure, I suppose it's content - but it's content of the lowest level. It's filler. There are so many pointless fetch quests - and that's not including the hundreds of random !'s quests all over the place. At least those give you some XP for your leveling.

[KokoChibata]

Quest skip potion [Do you need it?]

[Iscah]

The HW story actually starts as early as in 2.3 - when we start looking for "Lady Iceheart"

By that logic, the Heavensward story actually starts right back in the Coerthas story arc (Lv35-40ish), which introduces some important characters and the general 'idea' of Ishgard and its problems.

And then there's the dragoon quests. If you are not yet at Heavensward and intend to play dragoon at some point, this is a good time to do that questline. The Lv30-50 dragoon quests are an early introduction to a character who is involved in the Heavensward MSQ, so if you do it later it will be "out of sequence" as if the Heavensward story hasn't happened yet.

[savageink]

By that logic, the Heavensward story actually starts right back in the Coerthas story arc (Lv35-40ish), which introduces some important characters and the general 'idea' of Ishgard and its problems.

And then there's the dragoon quests. If you are not yet at Heavensward and intend to play dragoon at some point, this is a good time to do that questline. The Lv30-50 dragoon quests are an early introduction to a character who is involved in the Heavensward MSQ, so if you do it later it will be "out of sequence" as if that story hasn't happened yet.

Goons don't read...

[MistakeNot]

By that logic, the Heavensward story actually starts right back in the Coerthas story arc (Lv35-40ish), which introduces some important characters and the general 'idea' of Ishgard and its problems.

Depends on how one defines the story I suppose. The lv35-40 Coerthas quests do set the scene for the later HW story, but are not part of it as I see it.
I consider the HW story to be "The Ending of the Dragonsong War", and that story starts with us looking for Lady Iceheart and ends with The Final Steps of Faith.

And then there's the dragoon quests. If you are not yet at Heavensward and intend to play dragoon at some point, this is a good time to do that questline. The Lv30-50 dragoon quests are an early introduction to a character who is involved in the Heavensward MSQ, so if you do it later it will be "out of sequence" as if the Heavensward story hasn't happened yet.

Heh. I am currently taking an alt through the 2.x quests - an alt with Dragoon as her main class for precisely this reason, and because I hear several dialogues in HW are slightly different if you have done the DRG quests already.

[Hasrat]

Anyone that says the 2.x quests should be optional probably forgot about the HW MSQ quests that tie back to many of those events. Y'know, the parts about why you're there alone, and why it's a big deal when hear back about events happening outside Ishgard, the characters you meet back up with. Admittedly, 2.1 is probably the worst of it, but that's just how it goes, when you're coming down from the big Ultima climax. After that, the character/story relevance is decently dense.

[Sindele]

I'll defend Alphinaud and Lyse all day. Lyse in particular, who is certainly a victim of Stormblood's writing being rushed, but still far from being a bad character.

(Curiously, I've noticed people using non-EN voices tend to find her less of a problem than people who do. Pure anecdote, though.)