Not sure where to go...

[Rokal]

I know from experience Stormblood and on won't allow you access to zones you haven't unlocked via the main story so you won't see any lv 70 mobs until you reach the final zone of Stormblood. You also won't see any lv70+ mobs until you've entered the Shadowbringers story zones. Outside of hunt marks that is.

Yes, I realized that when I had boosted to 60, I had also gotten that story skip, but when I boosted to 80, I hadn't bought the most recent story skip... I did so ast night, and can now access level 80 zones/mobs.

[Iscah]

So, I bought the latest story skip last night, and I'm now able to access level 80 mobs.

There's no real value to having access to "level 80 mobs" for their own sake, though.

Either you play level 80 group content, in which case you don't need to level further, or you level yourself to 90 in the level 80 zone and still only have access to level 80 content.

If you want to do level 90 content, you need to complete the level 80-to-90 MSQ by following Endwalker's story, and you will level up to 90 just by doing those quests.

Also, what is your actual final goal in the game if you don't like forced grouping? Do you have friends to play with? Again, if you want to join them doing level 90 content then MSQ is the only way to get there.

[Brightamethyst]

There's no real value to having access to "level 80 mobs" for their own sake, though.

Yeah. Again, EVERYTHING is locked behind the MSQ so grinding for levels is not only pointless, but actually detrimental.

The game is designed around using the MSQ to level. You can grind to level cap if you want but it you're just wasting your time if you do. You'll still be stuck in level 80 content until you complete the MSQ.

[Jeeqbit]

Yes, I have some MSQ, but they take me out to the Fringes where mobs are level 60'ish... where do I go for upper 70's into 80+ mobs?

Not sure why you care about the level of the mobs. That isn't how you level in this game. You do the MSQ (main scenario quest) for your main class, and you do things like roulettes, deep dungeons, fate farming, beast tribe quests or hunt bills to level other classes.

If you still want to do the Main Scenario Quest despite having skipped it, you can unlock New Game+ just outside the Waking Sands near Vesper Bay in Western Thanalan. Except your higher level should allow you to do the older content solo with the Unrestricted setting in Duty Finder.

Content is mostly unlocked at the main city states of each expansion. There are typically 2 of these in each expansion.

Most content is group content or in an instance but there are some solo things, specifically...

1. Deep dungeons (Palace of the Dead, Heaven-on-High, Eureka Orthos).
2. Variant Dungeons.
3. Hunts.
4. Beast tribes.
5. Side quests.
6. Fates.
7. A lot of things in Eureka and Bozja can be done solo, although not everything.
8. Relic grinds for each expansion.
9. The blue mage job, which learns spells from enemies. You can get the Basic Instinct spell to help you solo dungeons up through level 70 (and soon, level 80). There is an endgame content of its own called the Masked Carnivale.

Whether these things are fun to you I couldn't say but they aren't as fun as the group content. I mostly found blue mage, hunts, eureka, bozja, beast tribe stories good, and the rest just kinda doing them for whatever reason.

[Rokal]

I care about mob level because I simply enjoy exploring areas & mob grinding, (without one/two shotting things) ... I'm not into the story, I won't PUG, (especially on my tanks and healers, which are the classes I enjoy most... too much vitriol tossed at tanks/healers for wipes even when it's not their fault).

I have 2x sub 30 classes for exploring sub 30 content, 2x 30 jobs for exploring 30 - 40 content, 2x 50 jobs for exploring 50 - 60 content, 3x 60 jobs for 60 - 70 content, 1x 70 job for 70 - 80 content, and 2x 80 jobs for 80 - 90 content.

I only get to play 2 - 4 hours per week, and I have RL friends who play on a different server. When our schedules align we have a static group we play together; I'm the healer, lv 23 Conjy. This is where I do the story/MSQ, and why I skip it on my "main" character/server.

This is just how I enjoy my game time

[AgroLeo]

If you don’t mind me asking, what bad experience did you have that made you swear against pugs? From my experience, most players are decent enough and if a wipe happens, people will tell you why and move on from it.

[Rokal]

I know from experience Stormblood and on won't allow you access to zones you haven't unlocked via the main story so you won't see any lv 70 mobs until you reach the final zone of Stormblood. You also won't see any lv70+ mobs until you've entered the Shadowbringers story zones. Outside of hunt marks that is.

Thank you, but I bought the most recent story skip the other day, and am now able to access areas with level 70/80 mobs.

[Brightamethyst]

Thank you, but I bought the most recent story skip the other day, and am now able to access areas with level 70/80 mobs.

You still won't be able to actually do anything with those levels though. Without the story you'll be stuck in old zones forever. You can't even access any of the level 80-90 zones without doing at least some of the MSQ.

I suppose there's technically nothing stopping you from spending a million hours solo grinding your way to 90 on Tempest FATEs or whatever, but for the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

[Rokal]

You still won't be able to actually do anything with those levels though. Without the story you'll be stuck in old zones forever. You can't even access any of the level 80-90 zones without doing at least some of the MSQ.

I suppose there's technically nothing stopping you from spending a million hours solo grinding your way to 90 on Tempest FATEs or whatever, but for the life of me I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

I started doing the MSQ that took me to some beachside town, where I'm fighting some level 80 giant turtles along the beach.

It's not that I don't want to do any of the MSQ, but not really for the story, just as a means to an end as you've all mentioned... and at least nowadays, if I understand correctly, I can do the "forced grouping" parts with NPCs who won't be a$$ hats towards me even if a wipe is my fault, lol.

[Brightamethyst]

and at least nowadays, if I understand correctly, I can do the "forced grouping" parts with NPCs

Yeah. You can do the dungeons with NPCs filling in the other party slots. You'll still need to party up for the 8-man trials though. Can't do those (with one exception) with NPCs.

who won't be a$$ hats towards me even if a wipe is my fault, lol.

To be fair, 99.8% of other players won't do that either, especially if you tell the party you're new when you join. The sprout/flower icon and the first timer bonus help a lot to immediately temper expectations. No one will expect you know everything, or even anything, the first time you run a given dungeon. In leveling dungeons no one really cares what you do or how good a player you are as long as you have the basics down (don't stand in AoE, stack for stack markers, etc.)