Sprout feedback/Question.

[Flashock]

First time ever playing this game and I have to admit, I’m hooked and enjoying it a lot. (Coming from 10+ WoW years)

Currently a 36 Gladiator\Paladin
Got my mount and unlocked the ability to fight with me. (Which is super cool)
Everything has been pretty great so far. The teleport system is very nice, map markers, questing, story, combat all feel pretty great. The longer GCD didn’t even feel bad because the first 20 levels went pretty fast.

My only issue and question is this.
I’ve focused almost entirely on the MSQ and class quests for GLD/PLD and find myself pretty overleveled. Example: I’m 36 and the highest dungeon I can que for is 24. So I can’t even test out my new abilities in a dungeon because I get scaled down. Currently my MSQ is around level 28 while I’m 35+. So I stopped doing anything other than MSQ in an attempt to catch up so I can unlock higher level dungeons but it seems like I will constantly be overleveled at this point because MSQ rewards such high XP.

I didn’t “unlock” grand companies and chocobo until 28 for example when I read elsewhere that it should’ve been at 20.

Is this normal? Any advice here? I’m literally avoiding all side quests other than MSQ.

TLDR: I’m happy with the leveling speed, but feel like I’m doing something wrong when I’m 6+ levels above my MSQ even though I’m actively avoiding side quests.

Maybe the XP will slow down and I’ll be able to catch-up on MSQ?

[Bright-Flower]

You're not doing anything wrong. A couple patches ago they touched up the A Realm Reborn MSQ and buffed the experience I believe. Before there were sometimes issues where the msq didn't give enough exp and you had to do other stuff to level up and then progress, and they may have over compensated on that front.

[Jeeqbit]

The only thing that matters is main quest level. Being overleveled is unhelpful, unless you get to a really high level like 50 or 60 and buy really high item level crafted gear so you can destroy open world mobs. But since your chocobo helps you to survive those open world mobs there's no reason to worry about it.

The main reason you would overlevel is from doing daily roulettes or having an experience bonus, such as the one you get for being on a Preferred world which doubles quest experience. The experience gain from main quests for 1-50 used to not be enough and only got you to 47-49, but it was adjusted recently so that could be why.

Additional levels don't matter very much, just item level, so you don't need to worry about it.

[Flashock]

I kindve guessed that is what happened. Figured MSQ was designed to get you to 50 and did, then later they buffed XP by 20% or something. Ty for confirming.

I know it’s really not that big of a deal, and I’d definitely rather the leveling be faster than slower.

I was mostly just worried at this rate that I’ll be hindering myself by being 10+ levels above MSQ if I continue as is. But I guess it’s really a non-issue.

Ty for responses.

[Rilifane]

It's normal.
Even without doing any extra content (like roulettes) you will continue to be overleveled. Most people are 80 way before reaching the end of ShB. They buffed the experience more than once iirc. Before the first buff, there was gap at around 36-38 and 48-50 but now you'll likely be 54/55 by the time you reach HW.
I know it feels wrong and as if you you are "behind" in MSQ but it does slow down a little bit. If you don't want to feel like you're constantly too far ahead of the MSQ, a solution many players use is leveling more than one class at once. Since you're already 28+ with quests and can't unlock a class starting at 30 unless you reached HW, you'd have to level one from 1. It's fairly easy to catch up though.
Or you wait until 50 and go for RDM/ SAM if that tickles your fancy.

[LianaThorne]

It's normal.
Even without doing any extra content (like roulettes) you will continue to be overleveled. Most people are 80 way before reaching the end of ShB. They buffed the experience more than once iirc. Before the first buff, there was gap at around 36-38 and 48-50 but now you'll likely be 54/55 by the time you reach HW.
I know it feels wrong and as if you you are "behind" in MSQ but it does slow down a little bit. If you don't want to feel like you're constantly too far ahead of the MSQ, a solution many players use is leveling more than one class at once. Since you're already 28+ with quests and can't unlock a class starting at 30 unless you reached HW, you'd have to level one from 1. It's fairly easy to catch up though.
Or you wait until 50 and go for RDM/ SAM if that tickles your fancy.

+1 to this. I started with DRG, maxed to 80 and then switched to SMN for Shadowbringers after leveling it to 70-71.

[Jojoya]

It used to be there were several places in the MSQ where your character would fall behind in level and you were forced to do a fair amount of side content to catch up in level before you could continue. They made adjustments to the MSQ so only XP from the MSQ should be needed to keep up in level. Unfortunately, XP bonuses available have tended to swing the problem in the other direction now.

You mentioned a couple of things I've brought up before on how it negatively impacts the leveling experience. I'd honestly like to see the XP bonuses disabled if the active job is at or above the level of MSQ progression because there is zero benefit to being overleveled if you can't access higher level side content. It won't completely stop the overleveling but it will slow it down quite a bit. One to two levels higher doesn't unbalance the leveling experience like being 15 levels higher does.

One thing I've learned to do when leveling a new character is to unlock additional jobs and switch between them as I play through the MSQ. Right now I've got one character that's NIN/WHM. I use NIN for playing through the solo content then switch to WHM when it's time for a dungeon/trial for the faster queue. That helps to soak up the additional XP. The one physical damage and one magical damage job combination works well because the MSQ alternates between the two types when giving gear rewards until you reach Shadowbringers content. By then XP gained compared to XP needed to level will have slowed down considerably and you'll probably find yourself ready to focus on a single job until you've reached level cap.

[Flashock]

Thanks for all the information again. The community has seemed pretty helpful.

One more thing, is the only way to unlock dungeons through the MSQ? Or could I physically go to the dungeon to unlock it so I can que for it?

Obviously doing dungeons will only put me further ahead but I did want to try out some new abilities without being level synced down.

[Jeeqbit]

Half the dungeons in the game are unlocked through the main story, but there are sidequests that unlock the other half (which become available as you reach certain points or areas in the main story).

If a quest unlocks a dungeon it will be a blue+ quest. These quests unlock things generally, such as classes, raids, trials, dyes, hair styling, glamour, flying and things like that.

[Bsrking5]

Thanks for all the information again. The community has seemed pretty helpful.

One more thing, is the only way to unlock dungeons through the MSQ? Or could I physically go to the dungeon to unlock it so I can que for it?

Obviously doing dungeons will only put me further ahead but I did want to try out some new abilities without being level synced down.

All dungeons are unlocked via quest and some of those have prerequisite of some msq quest completed and the rest is from msq.