Quote Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu View Post
Well, after looking over at the wikis and the official FFXIV Lodestone website, I found the following:

1. The Sunken Temple of Qarn is no longer a mandatory dungeon in 2.1 as the story quest got taken out.
2. Completion of Ifrit (Hard), Garuda (Hard), and Titan (Hard) are still mandatory to proceed with the first 2.5 story quest (Good Intentions).

I'm a bit bummed that Qarn (normal) is no longer a required dungeon, but still satisfied with Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan Hard modes still being mandatory to help get people a taste of 8-man trials to come in later story arcs.

Back onto the topic directly, the amount of 2.1-2.55 story quests for newer players seems reasonable this time.
When was Qarn normal ever required? I remember looking up gear progression online back in 2013/14, when I was around the 30s and seeing that Qarn, this dungeon I'd never heard of and had to access via a non-msq side quest, had my weapon for that level. I went to get it to be able to do Brayflox' Longstop successfully.