there should be a time line / dungeon chart

I've been finishing up a lot of old content of late and it just feels weird fighting dead allies and the like. Honestly I wish there was a timeline so people like me can do content in chronological order >.>'

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Originally Posted by Transient_Shadow

I've been finishing up a lot of old content of late and it just feels weird fighting dead allies and the like. Honestly I wish there was a timeline so people like me can do content in chronological order >.>'

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Well, you kinda unlock dungeons in a chronological order. Those related to the main scenario anyway.

The timeline is based on its patch release; so 2.0 content comes before 2.1, which comes before 2.2 and so on

Wait, what non-MSQ dungeons involve dead allies? Stone Vigil Hard?

It is weird that you can encounter edda in POTD before ever doing tam tara hm... kinda like what happens when you level drg after completing HW...

It's commonly acknowledged that content follows the chronology in which it was released - that is to say everything released in 2.0 happened before anything in 2.1, everything released in 2.1 happened before 2.2, etc. While this can get a bit screwy, it's important to remember because it prevents certain paradoxes from occurring.

The easiest way to understand it is "Zombie Nanamo," as I call it. While we now know she's not dead, the events of 2.55 painted her as such. Yet it was still possible to do the CUL 50 quest, during which you prepare a feast for Nanamo, leading to a temporal paradox. The only way to make sense of it is to assume Nanamo is (was) a zombie, or to place all events from 2.0 as happening before the pivotal events of 2.55. If that's true, then patch events almost certainly all happen in chronological order, as described above.

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

It is weird that you can encounter edda in POTD before ever doing tam tara hm... kinda like what happens when you level drg after completing HW...

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That's because Tam Tara HM and lvl 50 DRG quest are from ARR, and HW MSQ and POTD are in Heavensward, there is a major time-skip between the two. The way we currently have it is the only way we can reintroduce previously seen characters from other pieces of content while also keeping story progression flowing (and preventing gating).

To the OP: If you want to do things in order, then just follow all of the patch notes, doing the content from each patch in order, because that is how the timeline works. Having said that, there aren't many instances where events from ARR create time skips against the rest of ARR content, the major change comes between expansions.

I do wish there was a clear way in-game to know what order dungeons and quests are "supposed" to be done in. It's not really reasonable to ask newer players to pore over years' worth of patch notes to try to figure out the best order to do this sort of stuff in.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I do wish there was a clear way in-game to know what order dungeons and quests are "supposed" to be done in. It's not really reasonable to ask newer players to pore over years' worth of patch notes to try to figure out the best order to do this sort of stuff in.

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The game does a pretty good job of that though, there aren't many instances where this is relevant, and when it is the general rule of thumb is that the entirety of ARR comes before the entirety of HW (and then SB and so on). Some times that should be noted are the ARR CUL questline taking place before 2.5, the ARR DRG questline taking place before 2.4 2.55, Tam-Tara HM taking place before PotD, binding coil taking place before 3.4, and crystal tower taking place before 3.5 (while these last two take place before 3.0 anyway, they are directly referred to as past events in those patches).

Given the route the story is taking however, I expect to see a lot of shifting about (both geographically and character development) for side characters who may appear in side quests, so expect to see more of this (and remember that everything in SB comes after HW).

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

The game does a pretty good job of that though, there aren't many instances where this is relevant, and when it is the general rule of thumb is that the entirety of ARR comes before the entirety of HW (and then SB and so on). Some notable times that should be noted are the ARR CUL questline taking place before 2.5, the ARR DRG questline taking place before 2.4, Tam-Tara HM taking place before PotD, binding coil taking place before 3.4, and crystal tower taking place before 3.5 (while these last two take place before 3.0 anyway, they are directly referred to as past events in those patches).

Given the route the story is taking however, I expect to see a lot of shifting about (both geographically and character development) for side characters who may appear in side quests, so expect to see more of this (and remember that everything in SB comes after HW).

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Curious about that DRG one - is there anything after 2.4 but before 3.0 that references events from the DRG questline? I didn't think there was anything until you encountered Estinien in the early 3.0 cutscenes...

Anyway, yeah, events like Zombie Nanamo and PotD are the big offenders, in my book. There's a pretty big and obvious divide between ARR and Heavensward, so it's not too unreasonable in those cases - but for the rest, for a player new to the game to distinguish between patch contents is nigh impossible without hunting down and reading patch notes. Especially in the case of PotD where just about everyone will be shooing new players into the Deep Dungeon for fast leveling.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I do wish there was a clear way in-game to know what order dungeons and quests are "supposed" to be done in. It's not really reasonable to ask newer players to pore over years' worth of patch notes to try to figure out the best order to do this sort of stuff in.

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Just pick up and do quests/run dungeons as soon as they become available. This will, with very few exceptions, get things done in the "supposed" order. (Only exception I can think of is PotD which becomes available quite early.)

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Curious about that DRG one - is there anything after 2.4 but before 3.0 that references events from the DRG questline? I didn't think there was anything until you encountered Estinien in the early 3.0 cutscenes...

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There's some minor differences in scenes from 2.55 (Before the Fall - Part II). Depending on whether you've started the DRG questline or completed it, you'll get alternate dialogue when Estinien walks into the intercessory during "The Wyrm's Roar." If you haven't started it he treats you as a stranger; if you've started but not completed it he acknowledges you; and if you've completed it, he will acknowledge you as a fellow Azure Dragoon.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Curious about that DRG one - is there anything after 2.4 but before 3.0 that references events from the DRG questline? I didn't think there was anything until you encountered Estinien in the early 3.0 cutscenes...

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It might be 2.5 instead of 2.4, but the first time you meet Estinian in the MSQ is definately before steps of faith. He is introduced by Aymeric at a meeting, and if you have beaten the DRG questline, he will acknowledge you as a fellow azure dragoon.

Edit: Nvm, Cilia explained it far better than me

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

It might be 2.5 instead of 2.4, but the first time you meet Estinian in the MSQ is definately before steps of faith. He is introduced by Aymeric at a meeting, and if you have beaten the DRG questline, he will acknowledge you as a fellow azure dragoon.

Edit: Nvm, Cilia explained it far better than me

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Guess I was misremembering that scene as a 3.0 cutscene. I do remember being acknowledged by Estinien, but I thought it came later on.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Guess I was misremembering that scene as a 3.0 cutscene. I do remember being acknowledged by Estinien, but I thought it came later on.

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It's actually both. In 2.55, Estinien will acknowledge you based on your DRG quest completion, implying that the DRG job quests can be considered canon anywhere in the 2.0-2.55 bubble. In Heavensward proper, Estinien will acknowledge you as another Azure Dragoon regardless of even job crystal possession. A WHM-main friend of mine who started with Heavensward was very confused by this.

I think the simplest metric we have is whether or not the reference to X content appears in voiced dialogue or not. Since voiced scenes don't use text-replacement macros like regular dialogue, they have to make the choice to either solidify continuity or evade direct references entirely.