Job Quests NEED to be Mandatory.

[Gurgeh]

Agreed this is 'broken' SQX. Fix it. There are 1,000 ways to fix it. Pick one.
Same for soulstones.

[Jeeqbit]

The game does tell you that the quests need to be done each time a new one becomes available. It's a big warning in the chat window.

I had a Gladiator in The Stone Vigil, aka the first dungeon to knock your teeth in in MSQ. I initially had tried to explain that they needed to do their job quest so that they can enjoy the game much more since they seemed to be having a hard time.

When I was new to the game, I did Brayflox as a Gladiator. That was the first dungeon to knock my teeth. A single pull (of 3 enemies) ripped me to pieces over and over and caused us all to have to abandon the dungeon. They advised me to unlock PLD and get tank stance for its 20% mitigation. I had avoided doing the job quests until the MSQ brought me back to Ul'dah.

When I unlocked PLD, I discovered there was no tank stance at Brayflox's level. PLD did not have it in that dungeon at all. And the stat gain from the Soul Crystal was barely significant (although individual stats are worth far more in ARR because they are not diluted as much as in expansions).

Fortunately, I had decided to also do what I'd done in other games this time - go to the Market Board and get the absolute best stuff I can. High Quality crafted gear and Food. Then I was fine.

My gear wasn't that bad in terms of item level. Now that I understand the game better, it was probably the difference between DoW and Tank gear.

But these dungeons hit hard regardless. They are leveling dungeons. We can endure them better due to battle system changes (such as the 20% damage reduction being a trait) and other battle system, stat and potency changes, but they are still leveling dungeons.

the enemies were of course ripping through my shields like wet toilet paper

That was always common in ARR itself, but moreso with WHM's Stoneskin. That seemed to be why WHM lost its version of shields. They felt pointless most of the time, causing it to gain a reputation as a healer while Scholar was able to produce stronger shields (crit shields). Which eventually brought us to where we are now with an official pure healer vs barrier healer distinction. But realistically, leveling dungeons are more likely to rip through anyone's shield, regardless of the job using it, so got to have other things up your sleeve like Whispering Dawn.

It was probably the combination of you still being in leveling gear (thus weaker shields) and them being in leveling gear (thus weaker Vitality and defenses). It's possible their gear was just broken as well.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The game does tell you that the quests need to be done each time a new one becomes available. It's a big warning in the chat window.

The game tells you the quests are available. It never actually forces you to do them. The closest is in Shadowbringers, where completing at least one of the role quest chains is mandatory, but I don't believe those actually force you to equip a soul stone.

I maintain that anything past Brayflox should require an equipped job stone to queue. Add a quest to the Company of Heroes chain where they say they could only entrust their secrets to a truly exceptional adventurer, with a message explaining the job stones and how to get one, and then refuse to let you continue the main story until you get it. Fits lore-wise, and it's around the time you should be getting one anyway.

[Nero-Voidstails]

to be fair with you I did a test with a alt and I was able to ready dazmel without any job stone and without unlocking sastasha even I want arcanist with all job quest done that I could so I still did decent damage but my test was to see how far I can go without doing msq and if I could unlock gunbreaker too. I did and I was actually surprised because I have the LVL roulette without any msq dungeon unlocked

[Connor]

Didn’t they say they were looking into decoupling classes and jobs at some point anyway? So it might not even be possible to ignore job stones/quests if they succeed lol.
Then again, they say they’re going to do a lot of things that never actually happen lol

[Sunhwapark]

Well, having a job stone equipped is mandatory to be allowed to queue up for PvP so it's not like the concept is impossible, the next cause of concern would be acquiring the skills after mandatory class change, it's currently not enforced and not all skills are automatically learned once reaching the appropriate level.

I've been able to level up GNB, RPR and several other jobs to level cap without doing any quests beyond the initial unlock anyway.

My DRG will be next.

I'm sure we wouldn't want to enter a high-level dungeon roulette and witness their party members has the skill range of a lvl 30.

[FuturePastNow]

I'd cut it off around level 37-39 since a new player's level will be a bit ahead of the MSQ. But beyond that, it should absolutely not allow you to queue for a DF duty without a job stone. And of course a premade group of 4 or 8 can unrestrict something and do whatever they want.

[Jeeqbit]

Soul Crystals aren't actually as important as people make out. Your gear is the most important thing.

The main issue is the education factor and the fact that, as you get beyond 50, 100% of your new abilities and traits come from your Soul Crystal, causing you to miss out on upgrades that allow your job to cope with how battles and their respective damage scaling evolves. For that reason it would help if, at some point, SE more forcefully displayed a window to say "go and do your next Job quest to progress". I think it already displays this in the Scenario Guide, so it would just be saying you need the job unlocked to progress.

It would also help if they could fix the issue of:
- Switch weapon to a BLM staff manually.
- It makes you a THM and doesn't automatically equip the Soul Crystal.

There's no reason for that to happen. If someone wants to later unequip the Soul Crystal they can, but by default it should automatically equip the Soul Crystal when switching weapon.

[cutestfox]

It definitely should not be mandatory. It's good having the option to not do them.

Not everyone intends to use a job class and not everyone intends to level them beyond what is needed.
For one firsthand example; In my community of housing builders, we do not unlock jobs because it is a waste of time for an alt who is never going to do any content past hitting the mandatory 50 requirement

Make a forced tutorial window pop up at level 30 or whatever, but there is no need to force peoples hand because some minority group just didn't know

[BigCheez]

It definitely should not be mandatory. It's good having the option to not do them.

Not everyone intends to use a job class and not everyone intends to level them beyond what is needed.
For one firsthand example; In my community of housing builders, we do not unlock jobs because it is a waste of time for an alt who is never going to do any content past hitting the mandatory 50 requirement

Make a forced tutorial window pop up at level 30 or whatever, but there is no need to force peoples hand because some minority group just didn't know

You are the minority group. If you're leveling to 50 with other players, you should have your job stone equipped.

We shouldn't allow people to queue content without their job stone because some minority group wants to level alts for some reason that has nothing to do with game content.