So which is it Yoshi?

[Taruranto]

If you're logging in each day purely to raise a number on your character sheet, surely you'd be better off getting a second job?

Getting better equipment and stats is one of the most baseline incentives of ANY mmorpg. It was like this in XI too, where the "trip" actually mattered because there was a trip.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve one character equipment, stop telling people how they should play. Getting to maximize your stats, trying to get better equipment and min-maxing every slot, this is "fun" too for some people.

[Ri_ri]

Serious question here... have you been in coil? Hard to tell, but im gonna guess not.

I'm all for the journey, and for playing to have fun. I participate in a lot of activities in MMOs and really enjoy myself. However, i'm not going to adhere to a somewhat strict 3-4 night per week raid schedule with FC mates to go kill the same bosses over and over for absolutely no reason or reward. All that would be doing is wasting my time.

Killing a raid boss for the first time is a reward in itself, 100% agree. Clearing a raid boss 25+ times purely for the 'reward of having done it'? Nope sorry, there are other things I would rather do with my time. You can talk all you want with that smug sense of self-entitlement, but MMOs in general are about watching as your character and your guild grows and you take on bigger and badder challenges. The progression is the appeal to most gamers, take that away and really... whats left? A subpar single player game that has other people running around in it.

You call it a "subpar single player game", then say you don't want to play the game with your friends because it would be a "waste of time" if you're not gaining gear.

I don't think anything I say would make sense to you.

I'll probably never have a Coil group, I can rarely play when my friends are.

Getting better equipment and stats is one of the most baseline incentives of ANY mmorpg. It was like this in XI too, where the "trip" actually mattered because there was a trip.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve one character equipment, stop telling people how they should play. Getting to maximize your stats, trying to get better equipment and min-maxing every slot, this is "fun" too for some people.

"In my humble opinion", you're setting yourself up for disappointment if you play a modern themepark with that mindset. With such limited view of what's fun, the game can't last long.
I mean, how different it's from an addiction? "When I get my sword, it'll be awesome". "I have my sword, now what?".
"When I get to drink, it'll be awesome.". "I drunk the beer, now what?"
"When I get to eat a burguer, it'll be awesome.". "I ate the burguer, now what?"

And you've beaten the game, has the strongest character, don't have fun anymore playing it, and on to the next MMORPG (to have the same problems there).

We've been seeing this story for years now.

Funny of you to say that since "gear up freaks" is what keeps this game running, and will keep running it considering FFXIV follows "WoW model", where every new content means higher ilvl equipment to chase.

I was talking about min-maxers, not people who just raise their item level to enter the dungeon.

[Giantbane]

"When I get to drink, it'll be awesome.". "I drunk the beer, now what?"

you obviously don't drink enough.

The proper progression is "When I get drunk, it'll be awesome." "I'm drunk, everything is awesome." "Damnit, now I feel terrible, I need more beer so everything goes back to being awesome."