MSQ Needs Further Condensing

[Ammokkx]

If the MSQ length were not an issue, it would not have been altered.

Ahem.

Still haven't seen you actually properly respond to this post which goes through literally any and every argument you've posted in this thread, shows why they're wrong and does it without snark.

Here, I'll even snip out the section that undermines the foundation of your point:

The edits made to ARR and post-ARR are their oldest and most notoriously grindy part of the whole game. Older players routinely warned newbies that "the grind through post-ARR is terrible but it gets better in the expansions". The patch quests were designed to be time-fillers that often didn't drive the story forward.

Literally everyone and their mother- even the absolute diehards- could agree on one thing: Post-ARR sucked and still kinda sucks. Nobody ever argued otherwise, and yes, that was a good bit to cut down on.

It's also universally seen as pretty much the only content in the game that was deliberately designed to waste our time.

But not only this, there was another reason for cutting down on it.

Crystal Tower is mandatory and added playtime.

Crystal tower is not just a side story anymore- you need to clear it to be able to progress the main quest. Do you know what that means? Another couple hours of cutscenes, dialogue and gameplay added on top. In other to streamline that experience, post-ARR being cut down to not include as much blatant filler would keep the amount of time you needed to go through that section at roughly the same point.

But sure, the game is too long in general! Nevermind the fact we were and still are stuck at level 50 forever, one of the longest walls in the game, which has a much shorter and smoother transition period come the next few expansions.

But yeah no let's extrapolate this one extreme, isolated case of bad design of the same era that got us the infamous praetorium to the entire game, including content made in 2020, as if the dev team are still repeating the exact same mistakes. Y'know, the same mistakes like making Coils of Bahamut super hard to the point you can't add it to a roulette, meaning players can easily miss it, yet it's super important lore for closure on the shutdown of 1.0 and Bahamut.

The team has already recognized post-ARR was a mistake and deliberately worked to avoid those in future expansions. You cannot compare them. To do so is to be blatantly disingenuous. But I'm sure you knew that already, right? It's easier to spin a narrative when you

keep it to a short few lines

full of witty comebacks

and then sign off!

Best wishes,

-Ammokkx