Am I playing the game wrong?

[Gamedad]

I am a new player (highest char @ 36) and I feel like I'm not getting what I should from the game.

1. I gain so much experience that I level way ahead of the MSQ which results in being synced, which in many cases removes the functionality of the spells I've earned. It also deters exploring the world and doing other quests as I detest having spells available then having them turned off. That is such bad form. How can I prevent this?
2. The game is too easy, near zero risk of death. I believe I've completed 4 or 5 different dungeons at this point and they've been super easy. Open world game play is even easier thus far. Is there a hard mode so a decent challenge can be achieved?
3. I have transitioned from rogue to ninja and lancer to dragoon thus far. In both cases the game play didn't change. I thought the new jobs would be more transformative, did I miss a quest (or quest chain) that would have made it be more game changing?

Thanks

[IdowhatIwant]

I am a new player (highest char @ 36) and I feel like I'm not getting what I should from the game.

1. I gain so much experience that I level way ahead of the MSQ which results in being synced, which in many cases removes the functionality of the spells I've earned. It also deters exploring the world and doing other quests as I detest having spells available then having them turned off. That is such bad form. How can I prevent this?
2. The game is too easy, near zero risk of death. I believe I've completed 4 or 5 different dungeons at this point and they've been super easy. Open world game play is even easier thus far. Is there a hard mode so a decent challenge can be achieved?
3. I have transitioned from rogue to ninja and lancer to dragoon thus far. In both cases the game play didn't change. I thought the new jobs would be more transformative, did I miss a quest (or quest chain) that would have made it be more game changing?

Thanks

1. You are gaining so much XP because you are behind and these are the changes they have made so you are not hitting walls between MSQ quests. You will likely be max level before reaching the last xpac. From what I have seen of other players.
2. No that is sadly the state of the game currently specially after that stat squish. I heard the Stormblood content is a little better after this happened but over all the games content has gotten extremely casual where most of it is very easily done with little risk of death outside of end game content.
3.Classes don't start feeling unique until around level 60+. Until then most of them are 123 combos. Changing from base class to advance class really is only there to change the name of the class to something more related to FF. The core design of rogue is the same core design of ninja.

[LordJF]

My experience as another new player who beat ARR MSQ a while ago was much the same by that point. I was routinely 10 levels ahead of the MSQ for much of the game, but once I dropped doing side quests it evened out towards the end of the game and I was exactly level 50 for the final mission.

Sadly MSQ remains super easy at least until the end of ARR (can't comment beyond that yet), but once you complete ARR you get to unlock some more challenging content. The content between ARR and Heavensward unlocks hard and extreme versions of previous Primal fights, plus introduces few new ones, and those have been geuinely challenging to get through. You also unlock the Crystal Tower raids which have some interesting and cool boss fights. The number of players involved means your group is unlikely to fail, but at individual level it's easy to get killed in them if you're not paying attention.

I've found myself enjoying the game a lot more after beating ARR and I haven't even gotten to the Heavensward portion yet, which is where everyone always says things get to be good.

[VirusOnline]

It is a problem of too much dungeon content, too many levels, a still bloated MSQ, and SEs unwillingness to rework the system in place.
IMO, it will always be the current expansion which will present the best experience in both difficulty and job representation.
The more expansions there are, the more the earlier expansions will just be dumbed down exponentially.

The system as it is now is merely a way to get you to to level as fast as possible. You aren't meant to explore the overworld with this design in place.
Class to job is not transformative, it is an archaic idea that no longer translates well and imo should no longer exist.
It once took quite great effort to get to level 50 when that was cap and getting a job stone at 30 was quite a goal.

Early game needs a revamp and I do not envy new player experience today.

[Kolsykol]

Something to note is that potencies have in some cases doubled since ARR in particular was current.
It's unfortunate and I wish the devs took a look at this and scaled old content better.

[Azuri]

I'm afraid it's more of a you are playing the wrong game. Being synced is a something every player has to deal with and there is simply no way around it. You will not encounter challenge outside of very few places in XIV. And class > job is just a tiny cosmetic change to your icon.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I am a new player (highest char @ 36) and I feel like I'm not getting what I should from the game.

1. I gain so much experience that I level way ahead of the MSQ which results in being synced, which in many cases removes the functionality of the spells I've earned. It also deters exploring the world and doing other quests as I detest having spells available then having them turned off. That is such bad form. How can I prevent this?
2. The game is too easy, near zero risk of death. I believe I've completed 4 or 5 different dungeons at this point and they've been super easy. Open world game play is even easier thus far. Is there a hard mode so a decent challenge can be achieved?
3. I have transitioned from rogue to ninja and lancer to dragoon thus far. In both cases the game play didn't change. I thought the new jobs would be more transformative, did I miss a quest (or quest chain) that would have made it be more game changing?

Thanks

1. Yes, it's actually very normal to overlevel. The only way to mitigate this is to -not- pick up any yellow side quests (blue quests are fine cause they unlock something), and level up 2 or more jobs alongside your main job to spread those gained experiences. This of course also depends on how dedicated you are to finish your dailies before continuing MSQ. I had a friend who basically had a lv80 back in ShB expansion with their MSQ still loitering at lv50-60 range because they do daily roulettes very often but only progress MSQ verrryyy slowly.

2. ARR Dungeons are one of those that suffers from gear (?) and potencies creep. Being faceroll-ish is unfortunately a common theme of "Dungeons" in general, and applies to some Trials, Normal Raid, and Alliance Raid modes as well. It also doesn't help that deaths in this game are not as punishing as other MMO may have taught us before (I.e., dying means loss of EXP and risk of de-leveling. We don't have those in this game aside from 1 particular side content).If you want a tougher challenge the starting point for most players are usually from Extreme Trials (You will see "(Extreme)" in the duty's name), then working their way up to Savage Raids (You will see "Savage" on the duty's name) and eventually Ultimate Raids. The earliest you can access one of these contents is after you finish your patch 2.0 MSQ, so it'll be a while before you can reach to that point.

3. Jobs are at their most barebone in term of gameplay below lv50. Most don't even 'open up' to you until at least lv64 or higher. The only job-related quest that you have to watch out are the one that appears just below your MSQ notification on your upper left window. You'll see a quest name if you have anything unfinished, and these usually unlocks new action for your job.

[hagare]

I am a new player (highest char @ 36) and I feel like I'm not getting what I should from the game.

1. I gain so much experience that I level way ahead of the MSQ which results in being synced, which in many cases removes the functionality of the spells I've earned. It also deters exploring the world and doing other quests as I detest having spells available then having them turned off. That is such bad form. How can I prevent this?
2. The game is too easy, near zero risk of death. I believe I've completed 4 or 5 different dungeons at this point and they've been super easy. Open world game play is even easier thus far. Is there a hard mode so a decent challenge can be achieved?
3. I have transitioned from rogue to ninja and lancer to dragoon thus far. In both cases the game play didn't change. I thought the new jobs would be more transformative, did I miss a quest (or quest chain) that would have made it be more game changing?

Thanks

1. people in NN suggest leveling multiple jobs through MSQ.

2. dungeons are easy. normal trials are easy. most risks of death in those two comes from when you're learning the mechanics. Alliance raids are generally pretty easy. Except a certain few

3. change to jobs in different archetype if you wanna get a different type of style.
Try tanking or healing, or casters. Going from melee to melee won't give much differences at your level.

[IdowhatIwant]

It is a problem of too much dungeon content, too many levels, a still bloated MSQ, and SEs unwillingness to rework the system in place.
IMO, it will always be the current expansion which will present the best experience in both difficulty and job representation.
The more expansions there are, the more the earlier expansions will just be dumbed down exponentially.

The system as it is now is merely a way to get you to to level as fast as possible. You aren't meant to explore the overworld with this design in place.
Class to job is not transformative, it is an archaic idea that no longer translates well and imo should no longer exist.
It once took quite great effort to get to level 50 when that was cap and getting a job stone at 30 was quite a goal.

Early game needs a revamp and I do not envy new player experience today.

That's just an issue with MMO's altogether, and most MMOs they solve with with a paid skip.
Many of the other things you listed will never change as they are problems carried over from 1.0 they the devs either do no know how to correct or are unwilling to figure how to cleanly correct.

[kaynide]

As people've said, older content levels you much faster than originally, so you're going to be way ahead of the MSQ.

I suggest you actually level 2 jobs at once- basically do one that you enjoy on MSQ stuff only, but also level a second using roulettes etc, to soak any xp when your main caps. Ideally keep them withing 5 levels of each other.

Ultimately, this is to give you some options when you start doing later content like raids (you can have a DPS and a Tank, for example).

Even when the newest expansion drops, you can typically get 2 levels to cap if you run dailies while also doing the MSQ.