Make it so the Current Expac MSQ doesn't level you

[Malthir]

I'll be honest, if I couldn't have played through Dawntrail's mainquest without worrying about levelling, and had gotten levelgated sometime in between this slog of a narrative, I would have just put down the game and not picked it up anymore. This is 100% on the writing, and I just wanted it to be over. And I've read that sentiment with others, too.

I also played some of the old ARR back in the day, and while I didn't stick around back then, I wasn't bothered by the sidequesting then because I enjoyed the early worldbuilding, the charm and personality in the side quests and activities, the care put into everything. It was also the start of the MMO, and I didn't feel any rush; I played it like a sandbox game.
But it's not that game anymore, and I don't think those times can be brought back short of just torching everything again and going "A Realm Re-Reborn" - and all that provided the writing gets at least back up to the level of ARR.

And I'm a story enjoyer. I've always watched the cutscenes, I went around to talk to characters between quest stages to hear what they had to say, etc. I don't even have a problem with "Go here, talk to X, watch a cutscene" for the main quest while it's good writing, and it's been that for a long time. I'll also sit through visual novels with no problem. As with others, Dawntrail singlehandedly turned me into a cutscene skipper and made me fast-push the button in dialogue if it was the same thing over and over again. "Wuk Lamat talks about peace again? The sentimental music? There won't be anything of value in this; skip."

Yes DT clearly has an issue with writing, I agree, but part of the issue is they are loading all the world building into the MSQ instead of letting it occur through gameplay. How many cutscenes did we have where random cultural things were discussed ad nauseam. These could have been side quest, optional story beats. Let me give you an example in the Vanu area, If you didn't have 500 go talk to wuk, now go talk to wuk somemore. Instead you have the entrance cutscene narrated by Erenville, Wuk introduces you to new tribe, then you don't speak to wuk again until you've gain 2 new levels from doing dungeons/fates/side content, it's just the her on the float cutscene, then do some more side quest dungeons fates, then the her being kidnapped sequence, then next area. Not going back to town to do 50 more cutscenes with Wuk.

The MSQ should be part of the game, not the WHOLE game. We have these beautiful zones, but the player never really spends any meaningful time in them. Run to objective wait for 4-5 cutscenes next objective 4-5 cutscenes, do dungeon, next zone.

Before anyone jumps down my throat, that was just a quick example, I'm sure people could come up with much better and more imaginative ways to do it, the point being is that GAMEPLAY should be the focus of the game. The MSQ should be a part of the game the same as side quests, fates, dungeons, leves.

The writing in DT is bad without doubt, EW was written better but still faced alot of complaints and criticism, because the underlying issue is there's been a massive reduction in focus of gameplay in favour of longer MSQ's. This means you have to hit a homerun every single time with 90% of the audience or your entire expac is bad. This is an almost impossible to meet feat, if they had more balance between gameplay and MSQ, the gameplay can carry the MSQ when it's not hitting home and vice versa.