MSQ Needs Further Condensing

[Sauteed]

uh?

Why was this thrown in again? White Auracite becomes the Scions' go-to idea for killing Ascians after this point, and they even tried to use it at first for another purpose in the patch story of shadowbringers. Of all your arguments against filler content, this one isn't even remotely on the same level as the others.

It's also important to note that you can't just be advancing the plot with drama 24/7. The duel you put on as a show for the Doman Refugees is to show you taking it easy and to bond with Alphinaud a bit, him reminiscing on his desire to protect the world n'd all that, because we all know what happens very shortly after this event. It's a small break before the big climax.

Tataru finding her life's calling you could argue to be filler, yeah, but there are definitely some story beats you seem to be glossing over the purpose of. Not everything you think is filler is actual filler.

The white auricite plot point is not filler.. The everything else going on at the time is. When ascians have died after the white auracite method used in the 2.stuff times, where was it used to do so? That is what I get at. Literal "filler" content would be Gold Saucer, but that is something you actually can choose to do, and it is rather enjoyable in my opinion. I can choose to be MGP hoarding wild man watching the world burn around me, with rare glimpses of popular Final Fantasy characters, and theme park style mini games. Making sure I clicked on enough exclamation marked NPC's to get to say an area where I can help restore a city that was destroyed is an example of road blocking filler that needs to be cleaned up. I don't need to make a new character and go straight to Ishgard and start leveling my crafting classes or whatever else but I would like for someone I recommend the game to to be able to do something with me without me needing to make yet another alt, (I have a few and 2 accounts at this point) and burning through the msq yet again. In the event I DO need to do that tho, after playing in the multiple times that I have (as well as purchasing skips), I just can't ignore the stuff that just seems completely out of place and only there to pad game time any more.

I've played a game called Ultima Online years ago, and that game you could literally take a fresh character, and give it the top craftable gear you could make, there were no levels, no road blocks (out side of a few that were bypassable with simple quests), and get to and "sort of" do content to a reasonable level if you knew what you were doing. I played that game longer than this game has been around with 1.0 included. I'd say I played that game over ten years, of actually playing the game, longer if you account for periods of time I either didn't play it while the subscription still went on because I didn't want to lose my pixel house and toys, or couldn't log in because I didn't pay the subscription because it was pay a gas or water bill or play a vidya game scenario. That game was not in danger of being boring because there was no story. There were cludgey attempts at story inserted in at times, and a lot of little side quests with interesting lore and tidbits but I liked the aspect of being able to just jump in. I understand XIV is a MUCH different game style, designed for a much different audience.. it wants to appeal to multiple audiences, sure. But, it could take a little queue from Ultima Online tho, and give fledgling players a little more free roaming experience, just a little. We don't need to open the flood gates and see a level 1 fresh off the transport in the starting cut scene being sucked into Norvandt and doing Shared Fates with us, but a little actual "trimming" of the scenario to get them going in that direction or unlocking restrictions on where they can go a little earlier would help in a lot of ways.