Quote Originally Posted by Sotek View Post
The original Final Fantasy, and every single one which followed it, pretty much only had a sense of danger in boss fights, which is no less true in XIV. Once you knew what you were doing, grinding overworld mobs was a chore more than anything. Exploration? Comparing a single player game to a MMO is somewhat unfair. XIV does have a sense of exploration; I remember in beta (when stuck in Gridania) wondering if we'd get to explore The Ruins of Amdapor south of Camp Tranquil, and the giant ruin from Dalamud in North Shroud. Now, come 2.2, I will be able to. Colour me happy. Same thing happened for 2.1, in early access I remember fishing at Aleport and wondering if we'd get to go inside that Lighthouse, then after doing the main quest I was disappointed we didn't get to go in that Lighthouse, then 2.1 hit and I was happy to explore that Lighthouse. There is a sense of exploration in this game. Only the once of course, then it's just a grind and any sense of exploration is gone, but how is that any less true in any of the other Final Fantasy games? Once I've played them once the sense of exploration is mostly gone and I'm just going through the motions when I replay them. The only difference is I don't replay Final Fantasy very often, meanwhile I play Final Fantasy XIV fairly often because it's a MMO.

You can complain that there is no exploration once you can teleport everywhere if you like. I remember the old games for what they were; there was no sense of exploration once I had an airship and could travel anywhere I wanted very easily, either.
You're talking about instanced dungeons. Something you have to queue up for that have a single set path and no secrets, no deviation, and most importantly, aren't part of the overworld. You cannot even travel to them through the entrance if you tried to. When traveling to the entrance, you're met with the duty finder screen and given an option to queue up from there. If that's something you enjoy, more power to you, but you can't expect people disappointed with the game's world to be impressed by something which, to use your own words which I could not agree more with, "kills the world by taking you out of it at every possible chance."