High-end is locked behind too much quality content.

[SamRF]

I've been playing this game since 2.2, though not consistently. I've reached endgame (and stayed there a while) three times I think: during ARR, StB, and ShB. Currently I'm halfway through Endwalker and man, I am overwhelmed with quality content. The worldbuilding and questing experience is incredible, and if I were to continue at my current pace, I won't reach current endgame for at least another year.

I like taking it slow and enjoying the art, worldbuilding, and writing. Here's the issue though: I also like doing high-end content sometimes. If I continue at my current slow pace to enjoy everything and take breaks, I may literally never reach endgame again, because the relevant high-end content is locked behind the MSQ questline which carries the entire narrative forward.

Now for my question: Is there any way to reconcile my desire to do high-end content without skipping the worldbuilding?

I've thought of a couple ways:

1) Do MSQ only until I reach endgame, then return to do all the side quests and exploration. This breaks the immersion and writing quite a bit though, since the side quests are often written within the context of the MSQ at that point.

2) Create a separate character on which I buy a story and level skip, solely for raiding/ex-trials. I'm a bit afraid of spoilers here, because as I understand it, you'll still need to do some story quests to unlock content?

3) Do older high-end content synced? This doesn't seem feasible to consistently find groups to do this seriously, especially since I don't play on a consistent basis myself.

Which do you recommend? Are there other options?

The story and worldbuilding in this game are seriously extensive and have the potential to take up a lot of hours if you take your time to enjoy it. My honest feedback would be that perhaps some form of high-end content shouldn't be locked behind this. I'm not necessarily asking for full-on horizontal progression, but I wonder if any other solution would be possible.

[Jeeqbit]

I can relate to taking it slow because I did that when I was new, but eventually I got through it.

1. Personally, I do all side quests. But it extends each expansion MSQ from a few days to 2 weeks, for me. I agree that they add to the atmosphere of the story, such as telling you about the life and struggles of all these villagers, and that may not be as relevant after beating the MSQ.

2. You can do it on your main character, then do New Game+ to replay the story in chapters. You're right however that seeing later areas or bosses may spoil things, or you may see people drop spoilers in /shout sometimes due to assuming everyone did the story up to that zone.

3. There are very small, niche communities that do old content using Minimum Item Level + Silence Echo settings, but it's a very tiny community and often parties struggle to fill for it, because so many players like easy content.

[Halivel]

Out of all of the options listed, if I had to pick one, I'd go with 1st.

The narrative does sometimes feel a little weird when you're doing those quests post-MSQ, but it's probably the safest option, because that way you won't have to maneuver around spoilers and won't need to worry about filling in parties for sync runs.

[Starrya]

I see your world is Zodiark. Isn't Light the good raiding data center for Europe? I would suggest that if you want the endgame difficulty experience, you find a group that runs old EX and Savage content. There are usually groups looking for players to do that; I know my data center has a whole channel dedicated to pickup groups for EX and Savage content. I suspect you can find one for your data center as well, if you try. If you prefer going through the game slowly, I think that blasting through the story to get to current endgame content may be a bit disillusioning.

You can basically go into old content with the Sync system in the game without much issue. Your gear will work fine synced down, you can use fairly inexpensive food and potions, and the people doing the old content are there for the love of the game. Current content is harder to gear for with capped tomestones, tokens, and drops holding back your gear progression for weeks, the food and pots you should be using will be the most expensive, and the players are less likely to share your desire to play hard content for the fun of it. This is all relative, because the endgame gearing in FF14 is pretty tame compared to most MMORPGs I've played, but for someone who has been playing since ARR and isn't caught up with the story, I figure this will probably be a serious consideration.

[TaleraRistain]

2 is probably your best bet. If you wanted to do for instance current Savage and Extreme, you would skip through the cutscenes in the MSQ for the trial and the cutscenes in the normal raid series. That would give you access to the unlock for EX and Savage. You could skip the cutscenes involved with that, those those are usually more brief. Some you can't go back to but you could properly run through those on the first character at a more leisurely pace.

You might still have to avoid slight spoilers and you would still have to run the normal trial and the normal raid instances but then you could tackle EX and Savage as you wanted on that character once those were out of the way.

[Brynne]

I recommend 1, if you can get yourself back in the headspace of each expansion when you return to do the sidequests. You'll want to make sure you are still doing the aether current quests alongside the MSQ but all other sidequests can wait. Maybe when you return for them, go in New Game+ mode so you're redoing the story at the same time?

The problem with 2 is exactly what you have identified: spoilers. Sometimes just knowing who or what the boss is will be a spoiler in itself. And yes, to do the high-end content at endgame, you need to get through all of the MSQ. The raids also have their own storyline which is worth paying attention to.

You could try to do 3, as there are people who like the challenge of doing old content synched. I'm not sure how long it would take for a PF like that to fill, though...

[CCheshire]

I actually never do the side quests unless it's the blue icon or forced to do them to unlock aether currents, and I started in ARR.

Honestly, I've always made it to the endgame, but I don't think it's enough to pay extra money to story skip and job boost to join it which is 9/10 waiting in party finder alone or with just 3 others who will leave in 10-15min when no one else joined soon.

Yes, I know ppl have this grand idea that endgame raiding is fun and interesting, but they ignore the fact w/o a static, you will always be waiting for sometimes weeks to make little or no progress unless you pay mercs. Then you will need to do it every week until they unlock the raids and it's more of grind or you are hit with static drama causing you to disband.

Finally, it's way too late to start progging the 2nd raid tier right now as raiding is fairly time sensitive over other activities unless a new static will pick you up.

[PyurBlue]

You could skip everything, raid, and then do New Game+ to play through the story without locking you out of a content.

[UkcsAlias]

3) Do older high-end content synced? This doesn't seem feasible to consistently find groups to do this seriously, especially since I don't play on a consistent basis myself.

The HW extremes are realy good for doing synced (i find these better than the stb extremes), and since its also possible for f2p's to join, it shouldnt be too hard to find a group for these. And as they are unlocked relatively early, you can also go for these while you are still only in stb. This is definitely worth doing when you arend finished with the msq.

Dont worry too much about doing content in sync, there are even people that go for MINE settings because otherwise you would still be too strong. These are the groups you definitely want to join if you want to experience older high-end content. And they are usualy aware of players not knowing the mechanics, and willing to explain whatever is needed. Otherwise the pf description would already mention the guide they will be following.

Outdated content might be outdated, but for plenty its not forgotten. HW and ShB are well known for having good trials in them, there are enough players willing to experience these again.