Can we start getting serious about having ARR restructured?

[MistakeNot]

Granted. But they can test you in a way that feels more relevant than "I'm putting together a bit of a feast, go get me some wine and cheese" which then leads you to running back and forth through the jungle trying to help that one lalafell make the perfect wine. The reasoning is solid enough, but the execution is flawed and makes the whole thing feel like just a bunch of pointless filler content.

Actually all the lead up to Titan is quite fun - especially the second time you do it, when you know what is coming and you can laugh at the obvious frustration of the characters.
During those missions we also get to learn a whole bunch of lore about various things.
Far less of pointless filler content than the endgame gear threadmill is.

[Jirah]

Sadley yoship philosophy is never looking back, which I’d agree if we weren’t constantly playing their dungeons and raids

[DJMau]

The only reason why people think of ARR as a slog now is simply because it's too easy to level from 1-50. You used to actually have to do the side quests of the areas that Minfilia sends you to in order to keep your level up, but now the XP you gain from dungeons is enough for you to completely ignore them most of the time. ARR still stands as a good basic introduction to the game's mechanics to where even a person new to both MMOs and RPGs can get a handle on how combat works in the game, and I would personally prefer the development team to focus their efforts on new content and polishing things such as Viera/Hrothgar hairstyles and headgear.

I was playing 2.0 when it was fresh. It was a slog then too. Easy or not there were so many pointless fetch quests and just general faffing about it's a wonder Frey didnt come sooner to tell every one of those lazy time wasting sods off.

[MistakeNot]

I was playing 2.0 when it was fresh. It was a slog then too. Easy or not there were so many pointless fetch quests and just general faffing about it's a wonder Frey didnt come sooner to tell every one of those lazy time wasting sods off.

So which are all these "pointless fetch quests"? I am asking because in the game i have played there aren't many pointless quests.

[Hatstand]

An alternate solution would be to decouple the MSQ from access to game content. Let people who are level 50 start the Heavensward job quests, rather than letting them become a level 60 character with no new moves since 50. Let people unlock dungeons and trials by walking up to the entrance. That way people could complete the MSQ at their own pace, and enjoy it, rather than feeling like it's a barrier to playing with their friends, and they're letting people down by not skipping all the cutscenes.

[MistakeNot]

An alternate solution would be to decouple the MSQ from access to game content. Let people who are level 50 start the Heavensward job quests, rather than letting them become a level 60 character with no new moves since 50. Let people unlock dungeons and trials by walking up to the entrance. That way people could complete the MSQ at their own pace, and enjoy it, rather than feeling like it's a barrier to playing with their friends, and they're letting people down by not skipping all the cutscenes.

Problem with this is that it would really mess up the story timeline. We can, for example, not enter Ishgard until certain events in the MSQ has made it possible for our characters to do so. For many dungeons, the reason our characters go into them, is beacuse of events in the MSQ. Etc, etc.
Now, some people will of course not care at all if they skip backwards and forwards in the story, because they did not care about the story in the first place.
For many of us it is quite important to have things happen in the right order though, and for us your "solution" would make the games story a tangled and near incoherent mess.

[Hatstand]

Problem with this is that it would really mess up the story timeline. We can, for example, not enter Ishgard until certain events in the MSQ has made it possible for our characters to do so. For many dungeons, the reason our characters go into them, is beacuse of events in the MSQ. Etc, etc.
Now, some people will of course not care at all if they skip backwards and forwards in the story, because they did not care about the story in the first place.
For many of us it is quite important to have things happen in the right order though, and for us your "solution" would make the games story a tangled and near incoherent mess.

So provide a toggle. Let yourself play in "Main Story Mode" or "Freeplay Mode", and switch whenever you're in one of the three starting cities. People who want the story experience can do so and those who don't mind can leave it be. And if you like the story stuff but you want to run a dungeon with your friends you can toggle out, go run it, then toggle back and go back to your story.

[MistakeNot]

So provide a toggle. Let yourself play in "Main Story Mode" or "Freeplay Mode", and switch whenever you're in one of the three starting cities. People who want the story experience can do so and those who don't mind can leave it be. And if you like the story stuff but you want to run a dungeon with your friends you can toggle out, go run it, then toggle back and go back to your story.

Sounds horrendously complicated to get right. A big "No" merely for that reason.

[Verlyn]

Problem with this is that it would really mess up the story timeline. We can, for example, not enter Ishgard until certain events in the MSQ has made it possible for our characters to do so. For many dungeons, the reason our characters go into them, is beacuse of events in the MSQ. Etc, etc.
Now, some people will of course not care at all if they skip backwards and forwards in the story, because they did not care about the story in the first place.
For many of us it is quite important to have things happen in the right order though, and for us your "solution" would make the games story a tangled and near incoherent mess.

We can already go talk to Urianger about Extreme Primals or Coil during Shadowbringers. We can already start Coil right after talking to Alisae in Doma. We can do Omega without touching Alexander. We can run, start to finish, the Crystal Tower questline right after running some dungeons with Exarch in Shadowbringers. We can have Krile in Eureka, while also having her in Azys Lla looking into the Warring Triad. We can have job quests introduce to us and constantly talk about abilities we don't get and may never be getting again, such as Royal Road! We can start the DRG quest and antagonize Estinien long after making a close friend of him.

These things do not matter nearly as much as you seem to think they do, and if they ever did the ball has long been dropped.

Making the MSQ an optional undertaking would increase the enjoyment of many at the cost of a piddly few, and those piddly few can still do the MSQ in the proper order before doing anything else just like they have to now. Why would you care how total strangers experience the MSQ anyway?

[MistakeNot]

Making the MSQ an optional undertaking would increase the enjoyment of many at the cost of a piddly few,

I do not think that is true.
I do not think that nearly as many would find increased enjoyment from making the MSQ optional as you think.
I also do not think that there is just a few people who would find less enjoyment in the game from such a game.

Overall I think making the MSQ optional would make the game worse rather than better. Some people would probably enjoy the change, but then that is true for just about any possible change.