Clarifying whether or not the Warring Triad plotline is part of the main story

[Takfloyd]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about this and SE hasn't been entirely clear on it.

Here's what I'm pretty sure is happening:

The Warring Triad plotline is a side story, like Ravana EX and Bismarck EX, since it's the continuation of the story for those two battles.

However, there will be a certain point in the main story that is gated behind completing this plotline, so that the main story can reference its events.

This is the same as the Hard modes of Ifrit, Titan and Garuda being mandatory to pass a certain point of the ARR storyline.

They mentioned being able to choose whether to focus on the main story or the Warring Triad in the live letter, which is why I think this is the case. The confusion mainly stems from the fact that there's also EX versions of the Warring Triad, which is NOT story-related, and the term "main story" has been used to refer to the Normal version as opposed to the EX version.

[Reynhart]

It's the same as every primal. You had to kill Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Moogle Mog, Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva, Ravana and Bismarck during the storyline.
Yet, none of the EX version are part of the MSQ.

The difference is that, to acces the EX version, you don't need to do the story version...That's a first.

[Takfloyd]

It's the same as every primal. You had to kill Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Moogle Mog, Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva, Ravana and Bismarck during the storyline.
Yet, none of the EX version are part of the MSQ.

The difference is that, to acces the EX version, you don't need to do the story version...That's a first.

See, this is the confusion I am talking about. I'm pretty sure you're actually mistaken. Look at the requirements to access the Normal version of the Sephirot fight. It requires only the completion of the previous story patch as well as - and this is what makes this case special - Bismarck EX and Ravana EX. Do you really think they would gate the next faceroll main story content behind EX Primals that are still reasonably hard? And the EX Primal requirement has to be there, because it's where the Warring triad storyline starts.

[Pomelo]

You need the optional EX primals done (except Thordan) and Main Story 3.1 complete too, this isn't because The Triad is part of the story, It's due to the quest giver probably being Krile, it was said before that she would be play a role in optional content, so while the Warring Triad isn't part of the story, you need to progress in the Main Quest for Krile to appear.

[Belhi]

To be honest I don't think it matters that much in the end. Story is story. They said they plan to split up the plot lines in 3.X rather than trying to cram everything into a single quest chain. You will probably see this in 3.2 as well with the Antitower story and the Dragonsong war running parallel but not on top of each other.

[kuma_aus]

You need the optional EX primals done (except Thordan)

This is wrong. You need to do the quest that unlocks the quest to start the EX Primals. So you don't even need a Ravana EX or Bismark EX to start the Normal version of the fight. To start the EX version of the fight, you just need to clear the normal version. So once again you can never clear Bismark EX or Ravana EX and still clear the new EX.

But everything else said above sounds like the case.

[Pomelo]

Oh >.< I forgot when that quest was, did it too long ago, thanks

[kuma_aus]

Also I don't think it's because of Krile why we need 3.1 main story complete. So far the new Side Story of the Primals has been with Urianger and Unukalhai. At the very end of 3.1 we saw those 2 talking with each other and there was a very small glimpse at another character who seemed to overhear what they were talking about. I think because this character will be involved with the quest chain, we will need to finish 3.1 to continue it.

[Felis]

Every primal have a mainstory part and a ex part (and the first 4 have a true hard part between msq and ex part).
So the Waring Triads will also have a MSQ part and ex part.

[CyrilLucifer]

Unukalhai is almost guaranteed to be the questgiver and, let's face it, pretty name or no, everything Unukalhai is absolutely related to the MSQ.

Beyond that -

I believe that, for now the Triad will not required of you to progress in the MSQ, but will eventually become such. So, for now it's optional (since again, they're almost flat out saying Unukalhai is your questgiver) but it will eventually be an arc that is required to finish 3.X. Kind of like Ifrit/Garuda/Titan HM in 2.X, with Extreme mode still its own thing.

SE has stated in the past that they want to do multiple stories in parallel for 3.X and I believe this is one of their efforts to do so.