The removed parts of ARR MSQ didn't save any time at all

[MistakeNot]

To be honest, in my opinion real gameplay begins with level 80.

No, level 80 is the beginning of the end. The so-called endgame is just that - the end of the game. That part where you run grindy filler content to get better gear which will get obsolete in the next patch.
Some MMOs are all about running the same dungeons and raids over and over and over again. This is luckily not one of those MMOs. You can do that here too, but you never have to do it.

[Ammokkx]

Even if you don't play for story, running the raids is no different than running any other story-related dungeon or trial. Click-spam and cutscene-skip all the lead-in quests, queue up, follow the group, kill stuff. There's, like, maybe 1 or 2 fights in each raid that maybe have a bit of a "pay attention" mechanic. And honestly, even if the raid wipes, it's a lot more fun to meme with a larger group about it. Because it's frankly hilarious that there's still raid wipes that happen in these.

Plus, more glams.

I had a wipe to five-headed dragon right before the patch.

I think the tank that filled in for one that got DC'd could feel our shame second-hand.

[Seraphor]

What TC appears to be saying, is that mindless fetch quests are better content than dungeons, trials and raids.

Apparently nobody wants to fight Shiva or do the Crystal Tower, the first 24 man raid, for the first time.
What they really want to spend their time doing is running between NPCs delivering bottles of wine.

[Averax]

Yeah, they said that as they were combing over all of the old content to see what could be removed or condensed, they came up rather short, so they didn't actually remove very much at all, just a couple of unimportant fetch quests. Most of the MSQ was actually important to the overall narrative.

[Ilyrian]

Why would you choose to do old content then complain about it?

If you're new the content is new - make the most of it because it's not infinite.

[kaynide]

Seconding this. I took my main character through ARR and HW back when I first started in a month’s worth of very casual play—couple hours each night with a friend that was taking me through to it. Granted, it would take longer now, but definitely not “several years”.

Did it in about 3 weeks VERY leisurely while netflixing on a 2nd alt. the 2.x series was hella-grindy, but certainly not "years". I was surprised to find myself nearly done with HW in about 2 weeks.

[Penthea]

you aren't a developer to speak like that

There won't ever be an instant jump to endgame for the simple fact that SE make far more money if you need to sub for extended periods of time to get there.

Not to mention how terrible it would be to offer players a way to skip literally everything that teaches them how the game works. I have already experienced quite a few terrible DF instances because of players who used skip potions and it wasn't even in max lvl content. It would be tremendously worse if you could get a sprout in max lvl content.

And honestly I do wonder about people who want to skip literally everything so they can get to endgame. It makes me feel like that this game may not be for them if they want to do literally nothing but a tiny spectrum of what the game has to offer.

[SnowX]

To be honest, in my opinion real gameplay begins with level 80. In my opinion in MMO game story should be nice optional addition rather than a chore that locks you out of actual content. It's not a single player game, it's MMO. You come here, you want to do raids with friends, you want to farm your gear, glamour, mounts, that's what mmo is more about. FFXIV is really first MMO that I encounter that forces you to play it's story or pay 20 euro to get into actual content immediately.
When I first was invited to the game by a friend, I did around 20 levels of MSQ and I just refused to play further. Would it be not a skip that they gifted me, I'd not play the game at all. I'm pretty happy with the game as a right now: I'm farming raids, mounts, trials, doing fun stuff with friends and have zero regrets that I never did the story. Though to be honest: I would like to. But I can not tolerate choreful text reading with majority of cutscenes not voiced at all.
At least, like all other MMO do, it would be nice if a story skip book + class boost book would be included into full game purchase, as it is in literally every other game.

I think the game is really nothing for you then. You’re complaining about Savage, you’re complaining about Story. Final Fantasy stands for games with stories. Nothing changes, even if it’s an MMO. What is wrong with reading texts? Or are you such a person who has never taken a book and read it out of interest?

[MicahZerrshia]

Wrong is, that when I want to read something, I just go and read the book. When I want to watch a movie, I just go and watch movie. But when I want to play the game I want to come and play the game. Not want to have to read the story for few months that is not even really interesting for me to be honest. Is it a game after all or just an overpriced interactive book?
Game itself is really nice - I have played it for 1700 hours and I'm not planning to stop it any time soon, even though it has it's big downsides, such as paywalled cosmetics and difficult raids. Though resolving second problem is much less pain than dealing with the boring story.
I don't even want to imagine the amount of people that quit the game due to being bored of the story before even reaching shadowbringers.

I thought I recognized you. You say the game starts at 80 and you want to play the game and not have to struggle through story. But you also were complaining that the game was too difficult and got combative when ppl tried to give you advice or just told you to actually take the time to play the game and learn mechanics.

So I am confused. You do not want to sit through the story because you want to play the game, but you do not want to take the time into content that the game requires, aka play the game, to get the bis gear you feel you deserve. So what exactly do you want? What have you been doing for 1700 hours if you do not want to put time into the story or the content?

[Gula]

It should probably be explained to them that they can knock all of them out in an hour or 2, if that. Quicker still if they want to unsync it. People are really blowing the CT requirement way out of proportion.

Reminder that the director and producer of this game ran the entire raid on stream just to show what it was like to play in ARR because he knows its a faceroll now.

I think 1 tier takes about as long as a general 4 man dungeon.