Question regarding not purchasing SB first

[OcieKo]

I consider the battle/class changes as a separate, free, and mandatory patch that coincides with the release of Stormblood - but is a separate entity.

Inventory space, however, I'm not so sure of. I consider an inventory expansion in the same vein as a level cap increase.

The inventory is all on character, likely everyone will get this. I really don't see them gating the coding for that, not really worth it for them.

In the cade of Red Mage and Samurai, you will need to have a registered copy of Stormblood/Early Access but you will not need anything past 2.0 story wise, simply the level 50 Char. This point was overstated to differentiate it from DRK/MCH/AST which required the completion of 2.55 and 3.0 MSQs barely started to even have access to them.