Skipping Quests

[kenn_gonz]

Sup guys. I have a question. when I started playing for the first time about two weeks ago I kept on accepting every side quest I could find and then I finish them all before I proceed with the story quest. I kind of wanted to kill myself at that point since it pretty much just makes you go back and forth across the map. So a few days in, after learning more about the game, I made another character which is now my only character. Now I skip every side quest there is and just continue to do story quests (I did all the side quests in the cities though, including job quests). The things is, I level up way faster than before plus I'm now enjoying playing the game as the story keeps on progressing. I'm thinking I could just leave the side quests to when I level up my other jobs and stuff. Anything bad about skipping side quests? I'm now level 38 in the snowy area doing story quests and not once did i touch side quests outside of the three main cities.

[JaderauntOnJenova]

You can save the side quests for another job but sometimes in the MSQ line you get to gaps where the next quest requires you to be 1-2 levels above your current level. You can level doing FATES or Dungeons (my pref) but sometimes it's just something else to do and it helps you gain some lore of the area you are in.

[Failia]

There's a dry spot for quests between 47 and 49. Most other times, you're at or above the quests so it's not much of a problem. You can save some of the quests for that time as well.

[Werhusky]

If you leave out sidequests be aware you won't be able to do Mog-Carrier Questline at level 50 because all the quests refer to personae you met in different sidequests. My alt skipped 90% sidequests so I cannot do mogquests on her.

[Niwashi]

Most side quests can be skipped, and a lot of people wait on them to use with leveling additional classes later. Besides the main scenario and your class/job quests, there are however some sidequests that unlock actual features. (For instance, there's a level 15 quest in Western Thanalan that unlocks the ability to dye your gear, a level 19 sidequest in Central Thanalan that unlocks the ability to convert used gear into materia, a level 30 sidequest in the South Shroud that unlocks the ability to have your chocobo fight alongside you, and so on.)

These more important sidequests that unlock features aren't identified very clearly in-game. They look a bit too much like just regular sidequests. If you're going to use the pattern of just doing Main Scenario quests, class/job quests, and these feature-unlocking sidequests, then you need to know which ones they are. The wiki at GamerEscape has a pretty thourough list here:
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Gu...Locked_Content
That shows how/when all sorts of things are unlocked in the game. A lot of it happens through the Main Scenario quests, so if you're following those you'll get most of this automatically, but check through that list for stuff that gets opened by other sidequests so you know which ones to include alongside the main scenario on your initial class.

[Sader]

If you leave out sidequests be aware you won't be able to do Mog-Carrier Questline at level 50 because all the quests refer to personae you met in different sidequests. My alt skipped 90% sidequests so I cannot do mogquests on her.

I pretty much skipped every side quest and I still was able to finish the mog carrier questline.

[kenn_gonz]

Thanks for all the answers guys. Definitely gonna look into the link with the feature unlocking quests. I figured I was missing features that come when finishing some of the side quests but as long as I can still get them in the long run then it's all good. Which brings me to the Mog Carrier Questline, I can't do that anymore if I turn 50 while having ignored pretty much all side quests? I do plan to finish all the quests in the long run so if that's the case, might as well do them now.

[Urthdigger]

You don't need to do those sidequests before hitting 50, they just mean you'll need to do a number of sidequests before you can finish the postmoogle quests.