Experience lacking

[Varretha]

Thank you for your reply. I know about the stat squish, but I hadn't even finished 2.55 at that point and was already over 50 on everything but BLU. When I had PLD at 55, I needed to do non-MSQ stuff to get to 56, but then, despite using xp buffs, I still fell a bit over half a level short of being able to do the level 57 MSQ despite doing everything for the MSQ on the one job - basically, even with xp buffs, the MSQ isn't currently providing enough xp on its own to level one job. My question is - was this normal before the squish, or is this something that got broken when the squish happened? Oh, yeah, and I have been keeping up with my job quests, so that's not the issue either.

[Nezerius]

My question is - was this normal before the squish, or is this something that got broken when the squish happened?

It's likely that dungeon exp was taken into account when it comes to gaining enough exp to reach the next step in the MSQ.
You mentioned doing the dungeons synced, but also not receiving exp from them. I'm assuming you mean unsynced? If you've been doing them unsynced, that would be 2-3 dungeons worth of exp that you'd be missing out on (depending on if you've bothered with the lvl 51 dungeon, since it's not part of the MSQ).

As an added note, since you've mentioned exp buffs. Buffs like food, or Menphina's Earrings, only apply to exp gained from kills (or crafting an item/gathering materials from a node). It doesn't affect exp gained from quests. Unfortunately, the game is very vague about this, by simply listing it as "Increases EXP earned by x%", or "EXP Bonus: +x%".

[Varretha]

Thank you for the reply. You're right - I meant unsynced. We queued for Thok ast Thok, but did Sohm AL, The Aery and The Dusk Vigil with just the two of us, so when we hit Unrest In Ishgard and weren't high enough to turn it in, we both assumed it was because we hadn't queued for the dungeons. After hitting 56 and doing all the MSQ to 57 and coming up more than half a level short despite not missing out on any dungeons or trials, we began to wonder if something might have been broken in the squish.
Thank you for the heads-up about the buffs, too.

[HyoMinPark]

Thank you for the reply. You're right - I meant unsynced. We queued for Thok ast Thok, but did Sohm AL, The Aery and The Dusk Vigil with just the two of us, so when we hit Unrest In Ishgard and weren't high enough to turn it in, we both assumed it was because we hadn't queued for the dungeons. After hitting 56 and doing all the MSQ to 57 and coming up more than half a level short despite not missing out on any dungeons or trials, we began to wonder if something might have been broken in the squish.
Thank you for the heads-up about the buffs, too.

This is likely why you and your sister fell behind. Dungeons at or around your current level give you the greatest EXP gains, so you should always strive to do them synced (with food buffs and/or Heat of Battle II if you are in an FC) to gain experience. Otherwise, as you have seen, you will fall behind the MSQ in terms of required level. There are periods of the main scenario where the quests of a same level (ex. Level 57 quests) are very few—so this will continue to snowball and roadblock you both. (To give you a heads up, when you read Shadowbringers, there is only one level 71 quest—and then it immediately jumps to level 72. To just sort of illustrate what I’m saying here.)

I would recommend queuing for the highest level dungeon you have available and running it a time or two to catch up. Strive for a third run to give yourself more of an experience buffer, as well.