What other MMO has done this, and why does SE think it's a good idea?

Yea it seems heavensward will be a continuation of stuff thats happening in the game now. FFXI expansions were always totally different, not continuations. He did say you would need to complete story to get ishgard access, he didnt say anything about jobs or other areas. This is why its not good to speculate on content that isnt out yet. No1 has any idea whats going to be inside ishgard. Theres a good chance you will have to do the story to unlock some of the heavensward dungeons, otherwise they probably wouldnt make sense as a lot of dungeons tie into the story.

Here is my suggestion:

Re-scale all story quests! For example, make Praetorium available at level 44, all 2.1 quests available at level 45, all 2.2 quests available at level 46, all 2.3 quests available at level 47, all 2.4 quests available at level 48, all 2.5 quests available at level 49 and all 2.55 quests available at level 50.

This way players would still need to do the story quest but they'd not suddenly find a massive wall of quests that they must to do progress game. This suggestion would also fix a "problem" (for many it may not be a problem) that is the massive gap of story quests between level 44 (or whatever is the last quest before level 50) and level 50.

Add Cape Westind (no idea why it's not there) and all story quest dungeons to low level or main scenario roulette.

The problem with this suggestion is that they'd have to tune all dungeons/trials that currently are unlocked at level 50.

Who cares? Will take all of what maybe 2 hours at most to do the new quests in 2.55 and you have 3 months to do It.
For those who are new but have a lvl 50 already would take all of a day to go from start to finish.. Again 3 months. For those who start fresh when expansion comes out... New areas will doubtfully be low level at all if not totally 50 plus only so you will start from the beginning as you should. There are no specifics that I have seen that the new race is locked for new players till they get there or that new jobs are locked behind anything but a level just like more than 1 job locked now behind a level barrier.

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Originally Posted by Elmeron

What isn't normal is the weird forcing of people to level classes outside of the one that they chose to roll as their main. No other MMO does that.

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Yea well "most" MMOs locks you in 1 class/1 character.

The MMOs that allow you to have multiple class per character such as FFXI/FFXIV/PSO2 have cross class/subjob system that adds further improvements to your main class, which requires you to level other classes.

Well, that, and switching classes is AN ADVERTISED FEATURE OF THE GAME. LITERALLY ON THE BACK OF THE BOX. You have to level more than one class anyway (however partially) to get Jobs, which people will yell at you if you don't have them.

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Originally Posted by Chihaya

Yea well "most" MMOs locks you in 1 class/1 character.

The MMOs that allow you to have multiple class per character such as FFXI/FFXIV/PSO2 have cross class/subjob system that adds further improvements to your main class, which requires you to level other classes.

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It should be an option though. Not everyone is an alt/classholic. And to the person who said you "don't have to...," are you joking? Yes, you do have to. Try resurrecting dead people with that long ass cast time in one of the really hard endgame duties... Yah, good luck with that!

To piggy-back on Chihaya, most MMOs don't allow the changing of roles, once you pick it you're stuck with it.

Second XI did lock you out of content until you completed certain things, and a lv30 quest (the crags/promyvion) was a BRUTAL quest that roughly 70% of the player base could not complete until they nerfed the hell out of it (granted this was not until ToA came out 2 years later) so I beg to differ saying that there was a no big lock out. Also to gain access to the new areas in XI required a time consuming task to be completed (roughly 5 hours of grinding item/requirements) to be able to gain access. They didn't just hand out a boat pass to Aht Urhgan, Pso'Xja chips or sub-job quest items ring a bell?

The story mode for XIV is broken into two major categories you have your level progression story which is mainly about the Empire and is named the Umbral Era and then you have the post-lv50 story which they title the Astral Era, there are 184 and 87 missions respectively. While that number seems big it also includes cut-scenes and dialogue in which the game constituted as a separate "mission". The 184 Umbral Era Missions are honestly created as a leveling supplement, wherein you have something else to do between leveling up to 50. The 87 Astral Missions, however I can see would get on someone's nerves if they are trying to access the Ishgard content; HOWEVER, if you are a new player I don't think you would care as much as a let's say a veteran player who has neglected to do the story content (which I don't understand why you would I mean lots of endgame is locked out until missions are completed in the story), so I really don't see a problem with making people do the missions.

If its about alternate characters on an account, now that is a totally different bag o'worms. I personally feel that alternate characters be exempt from having to do the missions again, primarily because my alternates are crafters and gatherers, and I don't want to be locked out of content because my non-combat character can't do the missions. I feel there should be an "account-progression" that will allow the by-passing of that lock so long as at least one character on the account has met the requirements.

Not sure if its common or not but it is the one thing keeping me from buying the expansion because I have not finished main scenario and I don't know when I will. :P

Lol like completing the main story is a daunting task ? Why are people complaining ? Now for future players why wouldn't they want to start from the beginning and for players that already hold a lvl 50 finishing the story should not even take a whole day normally storyline main quest from patches don't even last a couple of hours from release before being completed

Srsly, it doesn't take that long to finish MSQ. And once you've finished the 2.0 story, finishing everything after that is FAST. Admittedly, with how they made i90 gear so much more difficult to get, it can be a little slower than before, but still. 2.1 MSQ can be all done in a few hours. 2.2 MSQ, a few hours. 2.3 MSQ, a few hours. Etc. And this is *conservative* estimates, watching every cutscene, reading all dialogue, etc.

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Originally Posted by MStowastiqVahlshdeh

Not sure if its common or not but it is the one thing keeping me from buying the expansion because I have not finished main scenario and I don't know when I will. :P

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As for this.. um.. you've been registered since November 2011. Did you just never play ARR? How have you not finished the MSQ?