I'm falling into this vicious cycle where I play a main story quest or two, get bored completely out of my skull, and then switch to faffing about with job quests and/or crafting. I get guilty about neglecting the main story, I go back to it, I'm WILDLY overlevelled and have to toss my cool abilities to get squished down to the level of the quest, I find the quest extra boring, I switch to faffing about with job quests and/or crafting.
I'm 37 on my recently-promoted-to-Black-Mage gal, in the 40s on Weaver/Goldsmith, and all the interminably dull "go do the dance emote at pixies" quests are like level 21. It's a Problem.
You can ignore it up to a point, but at 50 progression in everything but raw level is gated by completion of the ARR main story and the extensive post-release patch main story that was all done at 50 at the time. You can level up past 50 but won't be able to continue job quests and such until the plot catches up. Likewise at 60, 70, etc. for each expantion. I swear it gets more interesting after ARR, but yeah you do have to get through ARR first.
You can ignore it up to a point, but at 50 progression in everything but raw level is gated by completion of the ARR main story and the extensive post-release patch main story that was all done at 50 at the time. You can level up past 50 but won't be able to continue job quests and such until the plot catches up. Likewise at 60, 70, etc. for each expantion. I swear it gets more interesting after ARR, but yeah you do have to get through ARR first.
That's good to know, thanks.
I've just completed the Tour o' Eulogies and gotten my chocobo; any idea of the top of your head how much ARR I have left?
I enjoyed ARR myself, especially the patch main story, because I had subterranean expectations for story in an MMO when I went into it, having just come from World of Warcraft. The story having any thought put into it at all, and the way it actually treated the PC like the protagonist of the story and not just a weirdly powerful but ultimately unimportant background character was a breath of fresh air for me. That said, if you don't come in with the bar that low I totally understand finding the early fairly bland ARR main story plodding and tedious.
I'm falling into this vicious cycle where I play a main story quest or two, get bored completely out of my skull, and then switch to faffing about with job quests and/or crafting. I get guilty about neglecting the main story, I go back to it, I'm WILDLY overlevelled and have to toss my cool abilities to get squished down to the level of the quest, I find the quest extra boring, I switch to faffing about with job quests and/or crafting.
I'm 37 on my recently-promoted-to-Black-Mage gal, in the 40s on Weaver/Goldsmith, and all the interminably dull "go do the dance emote at pixies" quests are like level 21. It's a Problem.
Sadly there is some powering through involved here the quests will be too easy and the writing too boring. I employed a lot of diagonal reading as I clicked through endless dialogue. One neat feature is the quest log's tab of finished quests: it also summarizes the story for you. So if you just click through a bunch then there's nothing lost.
I'm falling into this vicious cycle where I play a main story quest or two, get bored completely out of my skull, and then switch to faffing about with job quests and/or crafting. I get guilty about neglecting the main story, I go back to it, I'm WILDLY overlevelled and have to toss my cool abilities to get squished down to the level of the quest, I find the quest extra boring, I switch to faffing about with job quests and/or crafting.
I'm 37 on my recently-promoted-to-Black-Mage gal, in the 40s on Weaver/Goldsmith, and all the interminably dull "go do the dance emote at pixies" quests are like level 21. It's a Problem.
There's a reason the meme exists "you either quit in ARR or become a walking ad for Heavensward". Ultimately whether you make it through is up to you, but if you do then you'll be rewarded with some of the best writing in the franchise the rest of the way. To that end though, don't feel too bad about taking small breaks in the ARR MSQ for side activities as you work through, it's not worth burning yourself out on the game attempting to power through it.
The ARR story can be pretty damn tedious for large chucks. That's not to say it's bad per se, but ARR's story is more concerned with doing a ton of world building that is used for payoff in later expansions.
Stuff gets more exciting as you get closer to the level 50 quests at the end of the 2.0 story and then the later patch quests in the 2.x series leading up to the 2.55 conclusion. And then the expansions are by and large a major step up from ARR.
However this game loves calling back to shit from earlier in the story that, at the time, seemed like a minor thing. It's why even as tedious as ARR is, I still think it's important to the overall story.
Don't skip cutscenes, I cannot condone that. Especially if you're here for the writing more than for the MMO endgame fights.
Re: my experience with ARR: I hate reaching the end of some piece of media I'm really into so I tend to take my time with any game I react to like that, and stop to smell all the roses. The fact that I knew there were a hojillion hours of story to go through ahead of me and it only got better made me enjoy savoring the journey a lot, like discovering the first book of a long novel series I'm really into.
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ARR is good but, because of how it was made and in such a short time, means it's got plenty of rough edges all around.
Still good. I'd say it's a solid 85/100 video game.
I skipped pretty healthy chunks of ARR. You miss out on worldbuilding buuuuut really not a whole bunch else. It's not like ARR's world is so unique that you can't pick most of it up through context.
And then when you hit Heavensward and the writing and voice acting improves it's pretty much an all new setting anyway.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I enjoyed ARR myself, especially the patch main story, because I had subterranean expectations for story in an MMO when I went into it, having just come from World of Warcraft. The story having any thought put into it at all, and the way it actually treated the PC like the protagonist of the story and not just a weirdly powerful but ultimately unimportant background character was a breath of fresh air for me. That said, if you don't come in with the bar that low I totally understand finding the early fairly bland ARR main story plodding and tedious.
Yeah when I binged all of ARR before HW released, when it had all the cruft that's since been somewhat streamlined, the thought never entered my mind that things were slow because my only comparison was my time playing WoW. The fact there was an overarching story at all which involved me as a central figure rather than nameless adventurer standing around while plot happened in the vicinity was blowing my mind already.
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How very gym.
I'm 37 on my recently-promoted-to-Black-Mage gal, in the 40s on Weaver/Goldsmith, and all the interminably dull "go do the dance emote at pixies" quests are like level 21. It's a Problem.
That's good to know, thanks.
I've just completed the Tour o' Eulogies and gotten my chocobo; any idea of the top of your head how much ARR I have left?
edit- maybe 50 to get to Heavensward, there's a lot of talking in the stuff between 2.1 and 3.0.
Sadly there is some powering through involved here
There's a reason the meme exists "you either quit in ARR or become a walking ad for Heavensward". Ultimately whether you make it through is up to you, but if you do then you'll be rewarded with some of the best writing in the franchise the rest of the way. To that end though, don't feel too bad about taking small breaks in the ARR MSQ for side activities as you work through, it's not worth burning yourself out on the game attempting to power through it.
Stuff gets more exciting as you get closer to the level 50 quests at the end of the 2.0 story and then the later patch quests in the 2.x series leading up to the 2.55 conclusion. And then the expansions are by and large a major step up from ARR.
However this game loves calling back to shit from earlier in the story that, at the time, seemed like a minor thing. It's why even as tedious as ARR is, I still think it's important to the overall story.
I do think picking up an extra class or two for fucking around purposes wouldn't be the worst idea though
Re: my experience with ARR: I hate reaching the end of some piece of media I'm really into so I tend to take my time with any game I react to like that, and stop to smell all the roses. The fact that I knew there were a hojillion hours of story to go through ahead of me and it only got better made me enjoy savoring the journey a lot, like discovering the first book of a long novel series I'm really into.
Still good. I'd say it's a solid 85/100 video game.
And then when you hit Heavensward and the writing and voice acting improves it's pretty much an all new setting anyway.
Yeah when I binged all of ARR before HW released, when it had all the cruft that's since been somewhat streamlined, the thought never entered my mind that things were slow because my only comparison was my time playing WoW. The fact there was an overarching story at all which involved me as a central figure rather than nameless adventurer standing around while plot happened in the vicinity was blowing my mind already.