Story progression has always required character progression in XI.
"character progression" is not "a partially completed RMEA weapon".
I mean are you talking about something specifically? Please enlighten me.
I'm not being sarcastic, maybe I'm forgetting something right now.
As far as I can remember the only thing requested was character level, there was a minimum level requirement for a lot (but not all) of fights.
Some things sporadically required a few other things like side-quests, side-content but it's not like the story has ever requested you to have beated Dynamis Lord or Pandemonium Warden or Absolute Virtue or any of the hard NMs or stuff that was part of the end game content.
Did they ever requested us to have beaten Kirin or any of the shijin?
Or to have killed Fafnir, Nidhogg, King Behemoth, Hydra or to have killed all 4 Chariot bosses or Ultima and Omega and so on?
I don't remember this ever being a requirement.
At best it was super simple things like "try this content once" without requiring anything specific.
I know because I've been doing ALL FFXI story missions with a group of people where two of them NEVER played the game "correctly" (they insisted on never swapping any item slot, they didn't farm merits, they had a single job to 75 each, no end game gear, blah blah)
But the fights were so incredibly easy that we didn't exactly struggle, like ever.
Actually we had to struggle a bit to finish CoP during the early FFXI days, but other than that we never had any trouble completing content.
Which was easy on purpose, without requiring grind or anything particularly specific to enjoy the story.
Here they're demanding for you to have a job good enough to be able to do Sortie multiple, multiple, multiple times so that you can farm enough Gallimaufry and whatever else needed to get at least stage 2 Prime Weapons.
Whoaaa!
It won't be a problem for me of course but it's completely out of reach for people like them, and I can't honestly think about anything else in this game ever requiring something so demanding to be able to enjoy the main story cut-scenes.
Quote:
Technically you have to complete all the footwork for Ergons to complete SoA, so it's not really a stretch.
Wut?
You mean for the additional SoA side-quests where you see Arciela's father being mentioned, the +1 rings and Ygnas trusts?
Because I consider that "additional content" and not really part of the main story
(my friends did nothing of those of course and only have the NQ ring you get at the end of the proper story)