
Originally Posted by
Anonymoose
I used to tell myself I'd "go back for them for EXP on secondary jobs" but in the end it was 100% downsides. The pace of EXP for secondaries was much slower than non-quest options, the story felt like I was seeing it at the wrong time and I was less invested, my rewards were a mess because I only got bits and pieces of things at any given time. It was tedious as all hell. Since Stormblood I clear the map of all sidequests before moving on with the MSQ. No regrets, so far.
This is common advice, and I initially took it as well, but now I think it's counterproductive whether you like sidequests or don't. If you don't like them, you'll be trudging through them, and if you like them, playing them out of order loses context.
I don't remember if there are more quests like this, but one quest (Simple Gifts) appears specifically meant to be played during Shadowbringers' main story:
as the Warrior of Darkness departs for the Tempest, the people of Crystarium give what they can for your journey.
From Stormblood on, in addition to the two quest chains per area, I try to complete every yellow quest given by a named NPC, so I can try get their dialogue as the MSQ progresses (was not 100% successful; some dialogue were missed). I have the impression that sidequest writing noticeably improves in Stormblood, too.
Though that is still a large amount of quests! As I experimented with broadcasting the Endwalker main scenario playthrough every weekend, I found I wasn't quite able to catch up with side quest progression... and this is without doing any of the quests from generically-named NPCs! Occasionally I had to put the main story on hold to run side quests.
So maybe the advice should be "skip sidequests until Stormblood, then try them to see if you like them or not"? (prefaced with an explanation of aether current quest chain, etc.) It's the one I give, anyway. But this isn't as memorable as "save sidequests for secondary jobs".
As for ARR and HW side quests... most are still not done, other than the Silver Bazaar story, and my map and recommendations list remain cluttered.