Quote Originally Posted by linay View Post
I don't mind if they want to restructure MSQ so that the basic story is still being told, but people can go through it faster.

What I don't want is to make it optional/nonexistent so that dungeons and trials and raids can be entered just by reaching the right level and item level without them being tied to the story

I also don't want it broken up so you can skip parts of it and then come back and redo them later. Unless your story is about time travel, it should flow linearly and be experienced in that same order. If you use a boost, then your character should have done all of the quests leading up to the point where your boost takes you. Something like the inn or new game+ is a fine way of experiencing what you missed without affecting the actual progression of your character in the story.

Essentially, I want story and gameplay to support each other as much as possible instead of ignoring each other for the sake of convenience.
Why? What benefit does this offer? Does this make the player somehow better at the game?

The story isn't great. There, I said it. Most of it is derivative (wait til you see shadowbringers! We've totally never seen this concept before!) and some of it is downright offensive. I remember one of our buddy npcs saying something like "I want to stay here and learn more about these people" and I was literally screaming at my monitor "I don't!" But I had to, because SE deemed it important for me to play through the storyline of a sexist faction in this xpac. I gained absolutely nothing of value from that story and it only served to deepen my disdain for the dev team's stance on a lot of things in general.

Really, historical story should be optional. There is nothing so crucial to playing the game in there that there is any reason to gate future content behind it.