Is FFXIV viable as an MMORPG without doing end-game & raiding?

[Alahra]

Looks like I got another post. I wish they'd at least give us a countdown somewhere so we'd know when the damn thing refreshed.

At the end of the day. The OP asked if they think it's viable, and I feel it's not due to the above. You're welcome to disagree, that's what the discussion is for

I guess, I took from the tone of the OP that they were looking at it in a broader sense—is the game something that people can play without raiding? The answer to that is yes. Whether or not an individual will like the game without raiding is a different question entirely, as individuals are complex creatures.

The OP's longer answer even touches on this:

For example, I don't expect that a current end-game raider will agree that the game is viable without the end-game content because that is what they play.

None of the wealth of the game's non-raiding content matters if someone doesn't find that content fun—but once you start getting into the subjective stuff, you're not really talking about a general sense of whether the game provides enough outside of raiding anymore.

But in general, the game's certainly viable for non-raiders that find its gameplay fun, like the aesthetics, love Final Fantasy, or whatever.

I've got a friend from FFXI and WoW who's not a raider anymore due to having more to do outside of gaming than he used to (married, kids, work, etc). He loves Guild Wars 2 because he feels like it doesn't ask as much of him in terms of investment (his main hangup for FFXIV is the MSQ requirements, for what it's worth, and he's looking at going back to WoW for Legion).

I don't recommend the game to him because of his individual circumstances, but I'd recommend trying it to most MMO players if I didn't know much of their general preferences who don't raid if they'd enjoyed similar games in the past (namely, WoW, which is the game's closest analogue), especially if they were fans of Final Fantasy generally (which you aren't, of course).