So I decided to come back to the game to experience the new explorer rework and discovered to my delight that the main quest had been overhauled as well. I was excited at first, thinking the process of making an explorer had been modernized while retaining the classic charm of starting from nothing and working your way into your class of choice.

I was quite disappointed to find that now instead the main story quest seems to just remove all agency from the player, forcing you to follow a poorly crafted and cliche narrative that shoehorns you into a stereotypical protagonist origin story. I get how this experience must have been conceived, as essentially a mimic of class story design techniques implemented in newer classes, which are popular.

The problem is that Explorers were a needed contrast to the overly-scripted named class protagonist stories that are the new norm. The problem with the explorer story was not in it's design but rather in it's pacing and implementation compared to the new status quo. Where most new classes felt strong and snappy out of the gate and quickly gave you the reins to start playing your fancy new Main Character the explorer had you mucking through the tedium all while having to endure basic attacks for far too many levels.

There was something nice about starting as a nobody and then choosing your class, doing quests for your new trainers and feeling that sense of natural progression, as opposed to the slightly more artificial progression of the named Main Characters and their story arc. Now you have to painstakingly watch as your character is forced into a box (or party in this case) and made into the cookie-cutter hero that you may or may not have wanted to be.

Thus my suggestion is to change this experience, bring back the charm but keep the pace up or lose the magic that keeps this game nostalgic for dumb geezers like me year after year.

TLDR; The forced cutscenes are finally over and you regain control of your character. You imagine him as a friendly pirate with mommy issues and a pet monkey but the game tells you otherwise: you are Main Character McHero and you found a glowing leaf, thus beginning your page-turning backstory, filled with twists and turns. like how you were the hero all along! You are told to walk two maps over and click on the environment triggering another cutscene. The nightmare repeats itself over and over again, did I mention you can't skip any of it?