As for the MSQ, this game is primarily a FF title before an MMO, and so the story is important

Is it, though? My stance my default when I play an MMO is to ignore all story. If I'm interested enough in the world building I might go back and figure out what's going on (which I did do for Warcraft), but when it comes to FFXIV I have skipped every single cutscene and story related text in the game. As soon as something story related happens I'm either mashing my left and right mouse buttons or escape to get ready to skip a cutscene. I have literally zero clue what's going on in this game, or who any of the characters in the story are (I know some names, but that's it. I know nothing about the characters themselves).

Despite all that, FFXIV is easily my favorite MMORPG of all time. And it has been since I returned after Ninja released and really got into it. It's an amazing game even without the story.

I also hear a lot of conflicting opinions about the story in general, but I very frequently hear that ARR's story is pretty plain at best, and doesn't even get good until Heavensward. I guess you still would need to slog through 2.x MSQ to understand the context of what's going on anyways, but all I'm trying to say here is that the story isn't really that important.