HW may be another story, but ARR is 80 to 90% filler
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Imagine if a single-player Final Fantasy was like this. (XIV being an MMO should not be overlooked, especially how it chooses to blend MMO and traditional aspects - for example, predecessor FFXI had story content and level progression completely separate.)
I know well your opinion on XIV from the game's launch (and your comparisons of it to XI) and disagree entirely. ARR's story has many optional sidequests, but the main storyline strikes a balance between seemingly inane fetch quests and story content. Your figure of 80% to 90% is a flat lie. I will agree, however, that it drags out many of its story quests into multiple parts that are solely there for padding out playtime. That doesn't detract from the plot itself, which I believe is one of the better FF plotlines. You downplay how invested people were at the finale of the vanilla story despite the terrible design of the dungeon cutscenes.
That also describes a bunch of games. My point is if those quests made up the majority of the game's main quest (until post-release updates, expansion).
The majority of ARR's MSQ is talking to NPCs and killing monsters or boss encounters, not fetch quests. In just about every FF, progression of the game outside of combat is talking to NPCs or watching cutscenes, or moving your characters across the world.
Vanilla XIV story sucks. It's 90% go here and collect bullshit. Heavensward is great.
Blatantly false. Heavensward's gameplay outside combat is the same as ARR's sans method of traversing the world (and only after doing optional sidequests to complete the crystals that unlock flight). Go to place, talk to NPC, watch cutscene. Some quests even have you do odds and ends for other characters - the same as ARR.
