Zero, Cyella and Unukalhai

[Iscah]

I think it will go the opposite way. MSQ is only dealing with the Thirteenth during 6.X and then after that we get a sidequest where we help Zero connect with Cyella and Unukalhai (and probably also Ryne and Gaia) and they go off on a void-repairing sidequest tangent together.

If, as people are guessing, the "big change" for 7.0 is the establishing of travel between shards, or at least the First, it might not even be a major effort to get those characters together.

[Packetdancer]

The second, and what I would hope happens, is that they add a new series of side quests that involves Cyella and Unukalhai, once the MSQ is finished with the Void.

Unlike many side-quest chains, the ones you refer to have their own category, "Void quests". To me, that's a reasonable indicator that they might add more quests into that category down the road.

Otherwise, yeah, I think the chances they'll be made required for MSQ are so low as to be statistically indistinguishable from zero. They made the Crystal Tower alliance raids mandatory, yes, but there's literally no way to make the MSQ narrative work without you doing them at some point prior to 5.3. Also, people faceroll their way through that content so quickly it's not like it's exactly a huge road-block if they hadn't done them. And you didn't have to go level a different job to do so.

(I'll point out also that people had a lot of complaints about the Ivalice alliance raids being a prerequisite for Bozja... and Bozja was optional side content, not MSQ.)

Conversely, I'll point out that you get a whole lot more from both certain bits of ShB (the Twinning, for instance) and even moreso the last parts of Endwalker if you've done the Omega raids -- and though the devs said "we'd really love you to do the Omega raids, please do them, you'll appreciate bits of the story so much more" they did not make them mandatory.

I cannot imagine them making leveling more than one job mandatory for MSQ, much less leveling four to level 80 in order to do the ShB tank, healer, caster, and physical DPS role questlines. (Well, three, since you could double-dip on SCH/SMN, but.)

[Ayche]

Now that everyone is carrying an encyclopedia in their inventory, you can introduce the characters if necessary without requiring you to play those sidequests.
They are minor enough characters for such exception.

[Iscah]

Now that everyone is carrying an encyclopedia in their inventory, you can introduce the characters if necessary without requiring you to play those sidequests.
They are minor enough characters for such exception.

Not with the way this story has handled sidequests, with some rare exceptions if the character is basically the same personality and circumstances whether you did the optional quest or not.

In the case of the role quests, far too much happens to the characters (and you are far too involved in them happening) for this to work. The game won't let a storyline progress in the background – you have to make it happen yourself. That's why the Crystal Tower raids became mandatory: not because of their general story relevance but because there was no way you could be getting G'raha out of the tower if you hadn't previously seen him go in.

[SentioftheHoukai]

If I had to take a wild hunch? They're gonna forget they exist, just like everything else of interest that should rightfully be tied to MSQ. The Redbills recently returned, for a crafting sidequest or two when the MSQ is currently addressing the Void. But then, such egregious narrative errors are to be expected from Final Fantasy XIV.

[Blindheart]

The “simple” answer, other than ignore them, would be to just not make them role quests any longer. Let you do the story from any class and add duty actions for class specific skills if you are not the proper class, like needing to heal or esuna in the healer quests.

My hope is for 7.0 if the whole expansion will be in the void, we get side quests to go get all these characters, +Ryne and Gaia and have a 2nd MSQ of them crossing the void to join the source... or even better calamity/combine what is left of the 13th into the 1st

[Kuroka]

Anyone else feel like the sidequests dealing with Unukalhai and Cyella following the defeat of the Cardinal Virtues, will be made mandatory for 7.0, given what we know about Zero and the events of 6.2?

I kinda feel like we're gonna be made to have that done....

I REALLY wished for that but ppl are lazy, sadly...

As said before they did get updated text after doing 6.2 so they do have them in mind...

[Espon]

I doubt they'll make that side quest mandatory. Unlike the First, the Thirteenth is far too gone to simply be healed. There may be a side quest involving all 3 characters, but the Void will remain as the Void and Cyella and Unukalhai will have no reason to return any time soon.

[Hayden]

I suppose expecting people to level one of each type of Job, while actually incredibly simple, is a bit much to ask.

Sad, because I could see a fantastic tie in with these characters, and finally completing Unukalhai's quests and linking him to Cyella was highly rewarding for very little REAL work.

[DiaDeem]

While you're kinda right, Cyella and Unukalhai are sadly kinda like Gaia at the end of Shadowbringers.

There's no reason on Etheirys why Gaia wouldn't be with Ryne when the Scions leave the First. Whatever you wanna call their relationship, there's no way Gaia would leave her alone at such a hard time... but she's side optional content. Someone who hasn't touched Eden would be like... "Who?" and it's pretty much the same for Unukalhai and Cyella.

Solution: Make their quests MSQ mandatory and implement them in the Saving the Thirteenth arc now. There's so much fluff in ARR that making such characters as Unukalhai and Cyella optional and even Gaia (if you ask me) is kinda criminal.
Remember when we went on a wild goose chase with Illberd to Eastern Thanalan to find some stolen crap or whatever? Me neither. But that's a forced part of the story.

They made Crystal Tower mandatory, so here's hoping.
Feel free to disagree.