Am I playing the game wrong?

[Tahbitha]

For whatever it's worth, I'm a new player too. Level 54 Dragoon, just finishing up ARR.

I started out doing every sidequest I could find but I noticed by around Level 15 or so I was starting to outlevel the MSQ so I dialed back to just doing the MSQ and job quests. It took a bit but eventually the level of the MSQ "caught up" to me. I'm currently running Level 50 quests at Level 54, so still just a tad ahead but not so much it hurts the experience.

I'm starting to mess around with other jobs, and I plan to do sidequests then.

[Faafetai]

I don't think you were robbed on tomestones going through castrum and prae. The 100 tomestones that you got were for running it for the first time. The additional tomestones aren't granted when you queue directly for one or the other. You have to queue for a random MSQ via the duty roulette to get those. You also get a massive XP bonus for the first random roulette of each type that you run each day. At low level, you can also run levequests to catch up if you fall behind. Also, be sure to log out in a rest area (like a city or an inn). Look for the moon icon next to your XP bar to determine whether you're currently in a rest area. Logging out in a rest area grants you a massive XP buff whose duration depends on how long you were in the rest area.

It was I think 100 for castrum just queueing up and 200 for prae at the time so it should have been 300 like the other people who I ran it with. They ended their first time with 300 tombstones total and when I looked at my currency I only had 100 tomestones. I usually don't pay attention to that sort of thing so I would have just gone through not even noticing if someone didn't say oh wow if we run msq roulette I could afford a weapon. I looked at mine, and realized something was weird. It wasn't that big of deal, so I just ran msq roulette and again the next day to have enough for the weapon. Also aye, I ended up just running leveling roulette twice, but I didn't realize I would be behind half a level just going through msq. I think now they give you 200 tomestones for each one looking at my duty finder. So thats cool they boosted that I know some of the other roulettes got a tomestone boost too not a huge one but a nice little boost compared to how it was pre endwalker.

Oh and the challenge log fates that bumped me where I needed to be, but I think at the time square probably assumed you would stop to try out Fates and stuffs so the xp wouldn't be a problem. For my main account I was doing a bunch of side quests when first starting playing, so I was overleveled to 55 on bard by that point and ended up realizing I missed playing tank.

[AnotherPerson]

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

Yeah, you generally level up beyond the MSQ if you're on a previous expansion. This is intended by design to make sure players will not be hard-blocked by not meeting level requirements due to being generous with EXP. Rested EXP, Bonus Level to 70 if you're on preferred world (or 80 now that Endwalker is out), roulettes, and other sources all help contribute to giving lots of EXP. In return, all this extra exp allows you to level up a second job very quickly.

At ARR, you shouldn't feel any real difficulty in the dungeon and questing experience until you reach level 50 and onwards. From level 50 onwards, you can start unlocking the extreme trials and more content that starts posing a challenge. You can even say it's so easy because you're a Warrior of Light & blessed by Hyadelyn from a lore standpoint...
Simply put, MSQ is designed to story content that's doable for many players. The challenging content is unlocked as you progress the MSQ through certain side quests (blue quests) - suffixed "Extreme" or "Savage" usually.

Dragoon and Ninja are very slow starting classes. Before level 30, all classes more or less play the same. As far as DPS jobs go, the difference starts appearing around levels 30 to 50, and starts varying greatly from 60+.

[seraf]

You aren't going to start noticing the Jobs transform until around Lv.70 once you get to the Stormblood stuff and they iterate until level cap where they expand on the toolkits established in that expansion. This game constantly changes how Jobs feel every expansion because to prevent button bloat they tend to shift all the best skills/abilities/spells to the endgame which makes sense but as a result it makes early game feel slow and unfulfilling.

[Fonkiemonkie]

yes you are, u should set up a program and play the game with voice commands only that would make the game more challenging right of the bat or at least more exhausting xD

[Ronduwil]

Honestly, these threads always remind me of that scene in the original Karate Kid movie where Daniel goes off on Mr. Miyagi for not teaching him anything and just forcing him to do a bunch of chores.

[Mapleine]

Honestly, these threads always remind me of that scene in the original Karate Kid movie where Daniel goes off on Mr. Miyagi for not teaching him anything and just forcing him to do a bunch of chores.

The MSQ isn't Mr. Miyagi though, it mostly serves as a real good visual novel and the battle system is almost incidental to most of it. We've shifted quite a bit more towards level cap focus and the job reworks and tuning changes have turned legacy content into a defensless sludge that you simply pick on.

One thing people also should remember is 50 now is nothing like 50 was in ARR. We were all complete by then even if design or QoL wasn't as good, also due to the way jobs were made back then downsyncing, while annoying, wasn't the brutality it is nowadays.

I used to be OK with downsyncing back in ARR and HW but it's awful to go back now and to me the complaints are entirely understood. There's no reason to bog down the entire game with the legacy content if it's going to be this poorly maintained, so I hope this big push to put it all on Trusts hints at moving on a bit.

[Fyrebrand]

I have some friends who recently started playing and they've made similar comments with regards to being over-leveled. Consider playing multiple jobs during MSQ and split the quest turn-ins between them.

[Ath192]

The game is obscenely easy. So easy and "accessible" in fact that it has killed needing to socialize in the game. If you're a veteran player that likes to stick around and help others good luck with that, noone needs you lol. FCs are basically chat rooms because quite frankly its more of a hassle to ask people to join you on things than it takes to just use the duty finder for content you barely need to do anything to clear. It'd be different if you needed quality, trustable and reliable people from your guild to help you do anything or learn the ropes but it turns out all you need is random bodies that can sometimes move and press a couple of buttons here and there to clear everything.

And then there is savage and maybe extreme... which you don't want to do with your guild because chances are more than one person wont be up to snuff and they will all end up drifting apart or disliking each other. This game needs to be more 30% casual. 50% midcore and 20% hardcore. so thats its actually engaging to play.

Believe it or not most players want some challenge. It's no wonder the game becomes a dead wasteland after content releases dry up. There's literally no reason to stick around.