Quote Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard View Post
It didn't use to be required for quite some time, after digging around the Lodestone for past updates I managed to find this again. https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...7a304e8584f88a


Also, while there is nothing stopping them from making more things requiring to be done for the MSQ, they won't do it without good reason. The Crystal Tower raids story is pretty essential setup for the story of Shadowbringers, and the story pretty much directly assumes that you have done those raids and the quests around them.

I'm aware of when that happened and as you found there is a very specific announcement saying they are going to be MSQ required. So since we've gotten no such specific announcement I'm relatively sure the comment about her encouraging us to do the raids wasn't a warning that we will have to do them. So far as we've been told it'll just flesh out the story.