The "Road to 70" leveling pace (of the MSQ) should be the default

Yes, I know, it would cut into a vital tool for filling servers that need people, but as someone who took the offer, and then binge watched the MSQ, and pretty much ONLY the MSQ and job quests to get to 70, it blows my mind that outside of this buff, people are doing "busywork" to level through this game when the story is more than capable of carrying the leveling game on its own. Indeed, the story SHOULD BE *the* leveling path! I never would have made it to 70 if I had to "grind" to the next story quest.

Just my opinion, but people talking about recruitment elements should really look at this. The experience I just had got me hooked. "Go do whatever for a level or two" was only acceptable in ShB because it was only ten levels. I couldn't imagine doing that for all 80!

But the point is that you are doing side content as you go. Unless youre skipping cut scenes and not sleeping, its going to take you multiple days to get through the MSQ if you start from 0. Along the way its kinda expected that you would do daily roulettes and the dungeons associated with the MSQ that would all get you a ton of EXP.

I agree that the MSQ should give you the equivalent EXP to get 1 job (and 1 job only) enough EXP to get from 1-50 (ARR) 50-60 (HW) 60-70 (SB) 70-80 (ShB).

I only ever found it necessary to "grind" once or twice at level caps, but I also did side quests on my way. If you're actually doing everything as it's presented, and maybe do your daily dungeon roulette, you should keep up just fine.

The only time I really had to break off the MSQ to grind anything was when I first hit 60 and didn't have enough item level for the Final Steps of Faith, since I got there during the Heavensward patches and they hadn't started handing out catch-up gear from quests yet (and Normal/Alliance roulettes didn't exist yet, so catching up on Alexander and Mhach was a pain).

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I also did side quests on my way. If you're actually doing everything as it's presented, and maybe do your daily dungeon roulette,

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So, busywork.

Next to the MSQ, literally everything else is busywork. That's what I'm saying. The story stands head and shoulders above literally anything else you could spend your time doing in this game, when we're talking about value of the experience.

Even with its mandatory dungeons, the story is the core of the game, and focusing people on this path only shows the game's best side. It should be all that's needed. On road to 70 it *is* pretty much all that's needed. That experience was amazing! It should be the default. That's my point.

So, part of the utility to require you to level to continue the MSQ is to give you reason to grind leveling dungeons so you can get gears. Otherwise, you'd only do those dungeons once and might not get as many gears as you could have.

The other is to have you do relevant side quests which may unlock optional features. Sure, you can do them later, but you would be wasting the exp they provide. That said, you should definitely focus on the MSQ if you are able to continue it instead of side quests.

I agree. I have some alts yo catch up to shadowbringers. Having "road to xx" would be pretty nice to catch them up.

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Originally Posted by linay

So, part of the utility to require you to level to continue the MSQ is to give you reason to grind leveling dungeons so you can get gears. Otherwise, you'd only do those dungeons once and might not get as many gears as you could have.

The other is to have you do relevant side quests which may unlock optional features. Sure, you can do them later, but you would be wasting the exp they provide. That said, you should definitely focus on the MSQ if you are able to continue it instead of side quests.

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The MSQ should also gear you (at least on one job) for every next step. For me this was the case until the end of HW which is a SERIOUS oversight because it happened again at the tail end of Stormblood. That also needs to be fixed. For the new player, whose goal is potentially/likely to play with friends at the level cap, stopgaps of "go get gear" before that cap are shoddy design. I spent gil, then clued in about tomestones, but still, that was a weakness in the flow of the game.

That is the problem with EXP boosts once you give players a taste, they want it more and more and more. Joking aside it would be nice, but with jump potions as a thing I doubt SE would ever make the baseline experience that quick.

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Originally Posted by Omedon

The MSQ should also gear you (at least on one job) for every next step. For me this was the case until the end of HW which is a SERIOUS oversight because it happened again at the tail end of Stormblood. That also needs to be fixed. For the new player, whose goal is potentially/likely to play with friends at the level cap, stopgaps of "go get gear" before that cap are shoddy design. I spent gil, then clued in about tomestones, but still, that was a weakness in the flow of the game.

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The MSQ does gear you, and the gears are good enough to do the next dungeon, but getting dungeon gear once it's available is even better. Many of the complaints of solo duties being too hard could be solved by wearing better gears.

I have friends who are in the late 60's or early 70's on more than one job and aren't even out of Heavensward. (I have friends in the early 60's who aren't even in to Heavensward.) And Leviathan is not a Road to 70 server. It's not that they've been avoiding the MSQ, but that there's a lot of other stuff they enjoy along the way so far, and as a consequence of doing that content they've been leveling far faster than they've progressed in the story.

I think different people just level at very different rates, because different people have different interests in content.