Forced older content

[Enkidoh]

It's nothing new, the very first content patch update (2.1 A Realm Awoken) for A Realm Reborn back in late 2013 introduced this requirement where to continue in the Main Scenario the player had to not only complete the three hard mode Primal fights of Titan, Garuda and Ifrit, they also had to run specifically Sunken Temple of Qarn (NM) which is a fairly low level (high 30s) dungeon, and had to do the first five Guildhests.

Why was that? Because it was 'older' content SE had determined players were ignoring in favour of 'end game' (at that time, endgame was EX mode Primals and the Binding Coil of Bahamut) and SE were worried newer players just arriving would not be able to experience that content (as in, fill parties in Duty Finder). Bare in mind this was in the days before Party Finder was added, so it was a legitimate concern.

Either way, SE later reduced this requirement to do this older content to continue in the MSQ, although you still have to run Qarn and the HM Primals, the Guildhest requirement has been abandoned in favour of a instanced solo-battle with a malboro in Mor Dhona.

Given the Crystal Tower's story importance to the current expansion pack (both the Tower itself and a certain person connected to that raid), this is not surprising SE is now going to make it compulsory to complete those old raids in order to proceed in the story down the track (the alternate dialogue in parts of ShB if you hadn't done the CT raids was little more than a handwave and a not very convincing one so it makes sense this is being changed.). CT is hardly hard content anyway so I don't see the problem really.