ARR is boring in every sense of the word. Past HW is miles ahead in terms of quality writing and focused narrative.

They should delete all of the fetch quest IMO and streamline the story so newcomers aren't off put by the lengthy downtime between quests. Even with the trim, it's still pretty long. The gameplay is lacking and the overall feel is rather dated.

Saying that it's fine is okay if you already gotten past it, but can you honestly do it all again vs the other expansions? SE wants more players and the game needs more to help the game not fall into irrelevance.

While Yoshi-P has said that they don't plan on changing it further, the more expansions we get, the harder it is for new players to stick around. I've had sprout FC members quit because of how long it was taking and the daunting amount quests he ha to do.

I do love the of story of FFXIV, plenty of WoW players coming over are not used to endgame being locked behind MSQ.