New player with simple question regarding level caps

[yajnaji]

I love Final Fantasy.
I quit MMO's some time ago. I played the obvious WoW and even some ESO, but I eventually told myself I would never play MMO's again, but...
I love Final Fantasy.
So I bought the started edition a couple days ago to give it a try since it was cheap.
I love it. I'm level 50, finished the story, did some raids and already ilvl 100+. I like doing the group content, but essentially I've playing it like a traditional FF game, so my question is...
I plan on getting SB soon (which includes everything post ARR, right?), but... just by doing MSQ's I reached ARR level cap pretty fast. I think I was still doing level 30's something when I got to 50 and I want to know if there is a way to cap my EXP gaining after getting HW and SB's level caps like I want to play the story the right way and not starting, for example, SB at level 65. Is there a way or is the leveling slower on the post ARR expansions?
Thanks for reading and I hope I've been clear with my bad english.

[Urthdigger]

There is not, however all but the most basic content takes place within instances that cap your level. Open world stuff in quests is less "Oh tough fight!" and more "Storywise these enemies need to be defeated but they're no threat." Also, if you only use the gear you get from quests, and thus keep your item level at the same range as quests, you won't power through stuff TOO easily. The vast majority of your stats come from gear, especially later on.

[Naria]

As Urthdigger said, pretty much anytime you aren't in the overworld you will be level and probably gear synced for both group and solo content. One thing to note for future questions "SB" is normally used to refer to FFXIV's second expansion Stormblood. SHB is used to refer to Shadowbringers. HW is Heavensward. Buying Shadowbrings will include all three expansions.

[yajnaji]

My awfully bad, I totally didn't realize Stormblood and Shadowbringers have the same "initials".
Let me rephrase then...

I love Final Fantasy.
I quit MMO's some time ago. I played the obvious WoW and even some ESO, but I eventually told myself I would never play MMO's again, but...
I love Final Fantasy.
So I bought the started edition a couple days ago to give it a try since it was cheap.
I love it. I'm level 50, finished the story, did some raids and already ilvl 100+. I like doing the group content, but essentially I've playing it like a traditional FF game, so my question is...
I plan on getting SHADOWBRINGERS soon (which includes everything post ARR, right?), but... just by doing MSQ's I reached ARR level cap pretty fast. I think I was still doing level 30's something quests when I got to 50 and I want to know if there is a way to cap my EXP gaining after getting HEAVENSWARD and STORMBLOOD's level caps like I want to play the story the right way and not starting, for example, STORMBLOOD at level 65 (instead of 60 as it was supposed to when it was released). Is there a way or is the leveling slower on the post ARR expansions?
Thanks for reading and I hope I've been clear with my bad english.

[DrWho2010]

unfortunately since you can't buy the old expansions separately (unless somehow you can get your hands on a code for each expansion by itself) by buying Shadowbringers your level cap is automatically raised to 80. you will not be able to halt your exp gains from doing the MSQ quests.

[yajnaji]

unfortunately since you can't buy the old expansions separately (unless somehow you can get your hands on a code for each expansion by itself) by buying Shadowbringers your level cap is automatically raised to 80. you will not be able to halt your exp gains from doing the MSQ quests.

That's the bummer of it all. I wanted to experience the expansions the same way I experienced (well, still experiencing it) ARR: do MSQ's, finish story, do endgame.

Oh well, I didn't have much hope it would work, but I wanted to ask just to be sure.

Thank you for the clarification.

[Frizze]

The standard advice for someone trying not to overlevel the story by too much is to spread the exp around. Your one character can take on every job and class, so when you start to get too much dragoon exp you can always swap to samurai for awhile. This runs into the problem of having to gear multiple classes, and having to level up classes that start at lower levels to catch up with your spot in the story. All of the ARR classes start at level one. Samurai and red mage start at 50, gunbreaker and dancer start at 60(you have to get to 60 to unlock these), and dark knight machinist and astrologian start at 30(the trainers for these 3 are in ishgard, so they remain locked until you complete the story quest that gets you access to that town).

[Pepsi_Plunge]

Like Frizze said, level 2-3 Jobs at the same time while doing the Main Story Quests until you reach Shadowbringers. Otherwise you just waste your XP as you will gain way too much xp for only one job.

[Stepjam]

Also, as has been said, don't worry too much about overleveling. Most important fights level sync you, and if you just use what gear msq gives you, your power level will be where msq wants you since stats largely come from gear

[DrWho2010]

it's not that OP was worried about overlevelling it was that he wanted to experience the game like as if it was coming out one expansion at a time. he wanted to be capped and then do everything that was endgame for that expansion at that level cap and then move on when he felt like he was ready to activate the next part to do so.