The story is great, but it blatantly gets in the way of the rest of the game

[Payadopa]

This is actually pretty darn good advice if there is honesty. Recommend grabbing some deeps jobs you may be interested in then progress while in the queue to help pass time. That has worked for the friends and extended family to make pacing feel better.

I had a similar experience during Heavensward where I played DRG for so long I got bored. These days i swap jobs when i feel the same tiredness and it works quite well for me. Same with the MSQ and side-content. 6.1 took me like 4 days and that was only following the critical path.

On another note, I disagree with the waiting around for a bar to fill as was mentioned before. I like it. I appreciate that SE doesn't just teleport me around from cutscene to cutscene since I value immersion and the little strolls are fun for me. I don't see it as go from a to b and talk. I also use chocobo porters and ferries instead of teleportation quite often. Makes the world feel more connected. But I'm weird like that.

[DuskTS]

Buy the skip potion then. You can skip all the way to level 80/start of Endwalker iirc.

[Faafetai]

Buy the skip potion then. You can skip all the way to level 80/start of Endwalker iirc.

I don't think they should, but it's their choice. The reason for the millions of fetch quests and needless talk to three people who all say 'i don't know nothing' are still there to milk the value of jump pots/books until they lose that when pruning the content.(conspiracy business practice hat is taken off). It isn't so bad to skip everything. And you can't just skip certain parts you skip the whole thing. But If I could skip everything to do with little ala migho I would so do it. There is no skip needless filler/info dump potions unfortunately. Maybe that needs to be in the mogstation. Instead of solving the problem they should just sell the solution like they pretty much do already.

Instead of wasting money just viva la dirt league skip skip skip than new game plus. Thats what I did on my alt. No way am I giving more money to square. I'll work for my unlocks. The hustle.

[Illmaeran]

So, I've been playing this game for the last two weeks about. I've owned it for longer than that, but never really got into it until some friends told me they were really enjoying it so I resubscribed and gave it another shot.

For the most part I've been having a lot of fun, but I have run into a problem that really annoys me: The way the main quest gates access to the expansions makes your progress grind to a complete halt in an obnoxious way at several points of the game.

I understand how this can be frustrating for people new to the game who have years of experience playing others that put emphasis on things done at max level. Going through ARR when it was current got frustrating for me at times as I was used to how WoW and LoTRO did leveling and content design. Unfortunately for many people in your situation, the story-based design of the game can be extremely off-putting; I get it. That being said, this is a story-based game with the design philosophy that the journey's the destination and not just something to take up time until you get to "the real game".

You've got three options if you're looking to get caught up with your friends quickly.

1. Buy story and level skips to get to the point you want to be at. I don't recommend this as it will have significant repercussions for understanding what's going on in the game, but if playing with your friends quickly is a higher priority for you than experiencing the story of the game, this can help. This is our hobby and we need to enjoy doing what hobbies offer, so the choice is up to you based on your priorities. I made an alt to replay through ARR and HW after many years and ended up being lvl 72 after finishing Heavensward. I bought a Stormblood skip just so I wouldn't be maxed by the time I hit Shadowbringers and lose all that XP. That unlocked all the normal dungeons and raids as well so I could hop right into them without having to do any unlocking.

2. Suck it up, put your head down, and charge through the MSQ only (skipping all non-aether current side quests), do the daily roulettes, and skip the cutscenes as much as you can. This won't help with expansions being locked away, but you'll max our your level quickly and be prepared to do higher-end content (for that expansion) much earlier.

3. For alts; the daily roulettes are a HUGE amount of XP and will get you up there quickly; especially if you use +XP items and food. Leveling, Alliance Raid, Normal Raid, and Trials take an hour total on average and give massive XP returns. Doing those with your friends may help take the edge off until you're caught up with them.


Lastly, in the context of hobbies being something to be done for the enjoyment of the process, if you get to the point where you don't enjoy playing the game, there's no shame in finding something else. We all have our unique thresholds for what we find enjoyable and with a hobby, getting joy out of doing it is the whole reason to do it. I've invested a lot of time and money into a couple different hobbies and switch between them as interest and enjoyment wax and wane. This is true of XIV as well. There have been times where I've had to put it aside, do other things, and return to it with fresh enthusiasm. I even decided that I was going to put it away permanently at one point, but I missed playing an MMO and this was the only one I enjoyed, so I came back.

It's all about priorities and finding the best way to get the experience you find most enjoyable out of what the game offers.

[Darthgummibear]

I'll say the same thing I say every time this topic comes up. The story is the driving force behind virtually every aspect of the game. If you aren't happy with the story you are probably in the wrong place.

If you are dead-set on bypassing the story there's always the skips on the store.

[Vahlnir]

I'll say the same thing I say every time this topic comes up. The story is the driving force behind virtually every aspect of the game. If you aren't happy with the story you are probably in the wrong place.

If you are dead-set on bypassing the story there's always the skips on the store.

I mean, I don't always play for the story, but I keep myself caught up on it anyway. There are periods where it just sort of...stagnates.

[Minarisweet]

There's so much ingenuine advice here

[DPZ2]

I would add one item to Illmaeran's list:

4. Buy a story skip for the ARR expansion, as it's fairly inexpensive compared to a job skip. It'll take you immediately from 2.0 to the start of 3.0.

What it also does is eliminate the story leading into 7 of the more iconic dungeon and raid instances from ARR, including the final raid that leads directly into the storyline for Heavensward. And the necessity to do the entire Crystal Tower raid set.

[DezereDawn]

I think this is a valid enough complaint, though i have no idea how they'd fix it without completely restructuring the game around it

definitely do think pacing suffers when going through these things as non-current content imo, and it gets worse when you factor in xp boosts from being on a preferred server

even if you got a higher level it doesn't matter anyways because job quests will take place in the next expac's zones and is inaccessible until you finish doing all of the extra quests for post patches


Edit: reading through other responses has my scratching my head, it's like a load of people ignored the "I'm enjoying the story" part to then dunk on the opinion with a dismissive "if you don't like the story don't play a story mmo" response

not a great way to respond to criticism guys.