@dev team ->> Thanks for bringing back party grinding, -really-

[Rhianu]

I don't see how WoW quest grinding is "much more entertaining" .. lets do a compare

WoW - Get quest from NPC with minor story to kill 8 wolves, bring back 8 wolf hides. Get Gold, Armor, and Experience Points. (i.e. welfare)

FFXIV - Get quest from floating stone to kill 8 wolves (with the option for increased rewards for doing it with other people), or more recently, get quest from NPC to kill 8 wolves. Complete, get gil and experience points (i.e. welfare)

Since the guide-leve system has existed in FFXIV since day one, and creates the WOW quest / daily system which you embrace AND at least at some point encouraged grouping to complete them then all those players should have been satisfied. Since the game has lost players at an astounding rate (For a multitude of reasons) its safe to assume a portion of them left due to dissatisifaction with this play style.

Guild Leves are not like WoW style questing at all, and your claim that they are only proves that you never truly understood how either Guild Leves or WoW style quests actually work.

WoW quests are different from Guild Leves in that each WoW quest sends you off to new and unique areas, has you fight different mobs, you get quests from a variety of NPCs, and most importantly, you're not forced to repeat the exact same eight quests over and over again once every 36 hours. All these things are present in FFXIV's Guild Leves, however, and they serve to make FFXIV's Guild Leve system highly inferior to WoW style questing.

However, you are correct in saying that the more recent Side-Quest system where we get quests from NPCs is like WoW style questing, but it's a half-assed, bastardized version of it. I'm sure the Side-Quests SE adds in the future will be better, but the ones we got so far have felt very shallow compared to similar offerings in WoW.

Yes, a lot of people have left FFXIV, but I guarantee you it's not because FFXIV had WoW style questing, because it didn't until just a few short months ago. The REAL reason so many people left the game is because FFXIV lacked engaging and interesting content, had copy-pasted terrain, had a clunky battle system and a horrible interface. THAT'S what caused people to leave.