What happened to fun for fun's sake?

[NocturniaUzuki]

There is one key thing you are missing here.

Fun is subjective.

The way you have fun might not be the way another has fun. So I mean...it shouldn't blow your mind that some people might not think or have fun the same way as you. Maybe others have fun by getting their rewards faster or they have more fun in full groups than undersize. Everyone is different.

Someone asking you a question doesn't always mean they are looking down on your idea...(unless they be openly hostile/rude about it). They may actually just be trying to understand your thinking or your way of having fun. Why 4 man? Well just answer them honestly...you want to try it for fun. Pretty simple to answer really...why does it get you so upset that they ask?

I understand the subjectivity of it, though I admit in my rant I don't make it obvious that I do. But even though I understand that some people consider it fun to speedgrind to max gear, the issue still remains that, ultimately, the end goal for many of these people is to quit. They just don't seem to realize that that is their true end goal. Presumably they see their end goal as maxing out. But then when they max out, they quit and go max out on some other game. If that floats their boat, then fine, but at that point my own subjectivity comes in and my argument on that point is that such a view of fun is distorted. Maybe people genuinely enjoy being like that. But as someone who has hardcored games in that manner in the past, I'm looking back at years of speedgrinding to max then quitting and laughing at myself for not actually realizing that I should be enjoying the game as it is, rather than only playing to quit.

[NocturniaUzuki]

Join a FC or make friends. My friends and I do tons of stuff just for fun. I two manned all of the ARR EX's and most coil turns with one friend. Undermanning content is sort of our thing now.

My FC has a yearly event that includes a modelling contest -- we even made a run way in our FC house.

tl;dr you just need to find the right people.

I have an entire linkshell and Discord group dedicated to running eccentric content. But despite that, I still can't find people to join my parties. It might pick up a bit post-Stormblood release, once the people in my group finish all the Stormblood content. But it would seem I'm alone in tiring so quickly of Stormblood's new content. I'll play Omega for maybe 4-5 days tops after it comes out, but will likely tire of it quickly again.

[NocturniaUzuki]

I love silly challenges. The problem is that the game designers actively discourage having fun like this - locking undersized to unsynced makes it hard to balance lowman challenges properly (min ilevel is still a joke for most content and overkill when it's not). And then there's the lockout for all current content; not everyone has friends who want to spend their evening joining lowman groups just to make up eight people, then not actually playing. The lack of ability to even join 24-man content at all undersized is another problem. I don't expect to clear Void Ark with 3 people, but can't I at least just go in and take some pictures and have fun dying to raid bosses with my equally-stupid friends?

It's no wonder the players themselves become so skittish about these activities when the very game engine seems to discourage it to protect people from the risk of being unable to complete a duty due to their own foolishness. Let me embrace my own foolishness! My FC's 'ultra hard mode' evenings are the most fun I have in this game and I'd love them to be easier to run.

Finding volunteers is the easy part. It takes them a couple of seconds. Just asking in an FC or some other group of friends is the easiest way. But random strangers will even join to help because they're bored. Or in the case of my 4-man runs of Royal Menagerie, I just open the last 4 slots to the public and advertise it as "Free carry clear if you suicide and AFK" and they come flooding in faster than you can blink.

[Conquistadork]

I think it's not that ppl don't want to do oddball stuff, I think it's more on the side that most of us don't have enough time to play the game on our daily lives, so we want to at least feel that we accomplished something with the time we spent playing the game and while some content might feel like a chore for some, others might enjoy it.

I personally like doing the old EX fights unsynced now, they are really fun to do now since you don't feel that massive stress that if you fail you will be dragging others down, since a lot of ppl can practically solo em and they won't care if you make a few mistakes. (Sure, there are still some toxic ppl that still rage hard on them but you can just leave that party and find another one)

Farming for the birds/ponies has been really fun for me so far, since I've learned a lot of the mechanics of the old EX fights and some of those are way more enjoyable if done unsynced, like Ravana EX, I enjoy seeing all the people that die on the first run (myself included) when he starts dashing all over the place, and after a few runs, it so awesome to see everyone running along not getting hit by him.

[Fortune_Cookie]

But even though I understand that some people consider it fun to speedgrind to max gear, the issue still remains that, ultimately, the end goal for many of these people is to quit. They just don't seem to realize that that is their true end goal.

Different people are different. Optimising a process, such as a dungeon run or the acquisition of BiS, in and of itself is fun for some. They are playing the game in a way that offers entertainment to them, just as you are. That doesn't mean their end goal is to quit. That may be a consequence, but not necessarily their goal. Their goal is to play efficiently, which equates to fun (for some). The consequence of reading a book is that at some point you run out of pages; doesn't mean you can't enjoy the process of getting there.