ArieysValentine: To add a little context to the Banquet Quest. When the game was still in 2.0-2.5, Titan was actually considered one of the hardest boss, especially in Expert, since falling off the platform actually permanently knocks out a player from the duty (your body disappears completely so you can't revive unless the party wiped). The quests that lead up to Titan was actually made to give players hints on Titan's mechanics. The Company of Heroes were actually "secretly training" the hero to beat Titan by sending them on these quests.

- Though not one of them, the fake Company of Hero NPC who is mostly a comical relief, (Trachtoum/"Tidus-slayer guy") uses line AOE and small bombs AOE akin to Titan's Rockslide to push and attack the player.
- The lancer COH NPC (Landenel) introduce you to the southern area of the forest and sends you to kill an Adamantoise who does big circular AOE around itself similar to quite some of Titan's circular AOE around himself.
- The miqote COH NPC (U'odh Nunh) introduce you to the southern area of the desert, and gives you a top and bottom armor pieces, as well as gloves for your effort, which helps build your stats to fight Titan.
- The goblin COH NPC (Brayflox Alltalks) is not only world building to show you there are lots more "friendly" demihumans NPCs, but also gives you the boots required for more item level, as well as unlocked the dungeon which not only is good for grinding level, but also allows you to grind for your weapon and other better green armor pieces if required, to fight Titan.
- The blind lalafell COH NPC (Shamani Lohmani) is literally mostly for world building and introduce you to the west part of Costa Del Sol and also lore about defected Garleans that SE prepped for future content. He is the only one that is kind of "useless" out of the 5 COH NPCs, other than for world building, but also has one of the longer quest where you have to do so many random delivery and definitely should have his quest line cut down more.

The thing that a lot of players missed if they don't really understand the lore of Titan or watched 1.0 cutscenes on Youtube however, is that Titan unlike the other primals (Ifrit and Garuda in ARR 2.0 story), is actually "peaceful". He is literally the Crag Farther and his only goal is to protect his children (who were oppressed by the Lomisians) and thus him and his children doesn't have any urgency to invade the "overdwellers" and are mostly content staying below the earth. The COH knows that and thus doesn't have that urgency to send you to fight Titan, and instead opted to "train" you and prepare you for the fight instead. Of course, they also can't allow Titan to live uninterrupted as not only does Titan drains the land of aether which will ruin the land, the Kobold might turn aggressive in the future if left uncontrolled, and have their land drained of aether. Thus they still sent you to fight Titan in the end.

Its stupid details that can basically be skipped now that they shorten the questline and made all the bosses much easier and stuff, but SE for some strange reason chose to retain all of them for world-building purposes and I definitely agree that it will bore the hell out of any new players who were trying to rush to the late game to play with friends or see the "good part" of the story. From my understanding, the Banquet and the Corrupted Aether Crystal quests are 2 places where most people quits FFXIV, and when they got past The Garuda fight, is where most people stay on for good.
AlleluiaElizabeth: I don't understand this mentality of "where all your friends are". All your friends are in Limsa. Everyone is in Limsa. lol No but srsly, ppl who've finished the MSQ are still in the base zones due to the content being evergreen and there still being things to do everywhere. (Or cus they afk in Limsa.) You might find the questing itself hit or miss, and that's fine, but you're not missing anything by taking the time to complete the msq while others are ahead of you.
NakuruKouChannel: but that's the issue. you cannot experience the later expansions without experiencing through the worldbuilding that was ARR. the later expansions would not have the same impact if you didn't play through ARR. you mentioned reading books - skipping ARR is like picking up a book but only start reading like halfway through.
maracaegrizzley8734: Thing is, the ARR MSQ was
jesseheitman9883: WoW giving players the option to do any expansion at any time is one of its problems
mismismism: It's tricky because I don't think the answer is letting new players start in any expansion because the main reason the expansions are so praised is because they build off of the set up, if you started in Shadowbringers, even the scenery is spoilers that would badly diminish the story beats that made the expansion so loved.

I think they need to overhaul the quests in ARR and lower the levels skills are learned so new pkayers can get to the interesting, important stuff without things like the fetch quests and other fluff that makes it tedious.

It's tricky because GW2(I don't play WoW so no comment) has a lot of issues with it's story and it doesn't hit in the same way, FF14 heavily relies on you playing in a specific order so they would almost have to rewrite ARR to make the pace better to fix it, there's not really a way around it since skipping will kill what makes the rest work so well.
krissb.2553: like many might have said... the ARR the world building. For an example, in the hideout, those characters do come back and do live... they tell something different each time you go back. There is part that you might have missed when you did the 3 cities dungeons. There was an adventurer groups in the background and even one of them said that you are an inspiration for her. She will come back :) But, yup, the game is pretty good to close a lot of the loops they started.
ravenshadow298: i started playing the game 3 years ago and to get to endwalker from ARR it was almost 1 year of playing the ga me everyday dont rush the game game the content will always be there enjoy all aspects of the game i still am working on leveling up my jobs which after 3 years worth of game play is 80% done the thing is to play at a pace which you find fun to do looking forward to seeing your take on the game
bluefdg10: Honestly, best way to enjoy FFXIV is to just take your time. Yes, Dawntrail is coming out soon, but there really won't be any enjoyment out of it if you rush yourself into it. If anything, you'll burn yourself out. Take your time with the story and explore. You'll enjoy the game so much more that way and won't become overwhelm with missing context towards the end.

I've had a few friends that paid to skip the content just to play through the Shadowbringers expansion when it was first released and they've all quit after 2 weeks mostly due to being unable to understand anything that was going on.

I also quit the game around that time as well, but after coming back on a new character and taking my time to play the story from the very beginning, I wanted to go back and slap myself for even skipping a huge portion of it on my first run.

So yeah, don't rush and take your time with it. The game won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
luckylynx613: If you want another distraction from the msq, you can always try PvP.
matyeus3142: * Try an ocean fishing trip in Limsa.
* Interesting tidbit: A lot of the HC raiders are also HC fishers, because it kinda requires the same skills. Learning how to catch a specific rare fish, is similar to learning a new raid mechanic.
* The cheese quest with the dungeon is my personal favorite in ARR, not everyday you have to kill a dragon to get a wheel of cheese.
* ARR sets up the rest of the expansions. You probably could have skipped a lot of reading some quests i think the more important parts happen past level 35. However the real slugfest is the post ARR msq until Heavensward.
* There is always an option to buy a skip to the current expansion.

May 17 2024

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