Quote Originally Posted by Kaurhz View Post
The content types here should ideally feed into each other, e.g., ideally a casual player should be able to finish the story and then be adequately prepared to step into extreme content, for example, without needing to adjust to pacing, or for example learn their class. Now we can say ideally at level 100 people should be able to do this fundamentally, but the game doesn't actually encourage the latter, and in the case of the former where they have pacing it often times comes without consequence, to where you can ignore it all and be OK in casual content. At the very least people should be aware that a struggle has happened as opposed to being able to shrug it off and not think about it again. There's nothing in that experience that leads your typical player to finish the duty and then do even rudimentary reflection, which is where the improvement comes in.
You've actually inadvertently helped my argument (I think) by hopping immediately to instanced boss fights, while forgetting (like most players do) that FFXIV has an enormous game world that sits functionally empty the vast majority of the time. In Guild Wars 2, I can go run around the world, smack mobs, and do random dynamic events. This is the purest form of baseline content in GW2: accessible 24/7, can be done solo, provides a constant trickle of useful rewards. Many people, myself included, also find it fun, which is why it's hard to go anywhere in the game's giant world where you won't find at least one other person aimlessly wandering around, as well. People do it simply because they want to.

You CAN do this in FFXIV, but I think we can all agree that it is objectively neither fun nor rewarding, or else people would do it, but they don't. Sure, people grind FATEs, the design of which has not evolved in a full decade, for the sole purpose of being done with grinding FATEs. No one ever returns to FATEs after the fact because they've thought, "I just really wanna do a few FATEs right now, because they're fun."

And I think this is the core issue with the game: the end-goal of all content types, before players have even set foot in them, is to be "done" with them. "One more expert roulette until I'm capped on tomestones, then I'm done for the week." "Two more EX3 clears for totems, then I'm done for all the alts I care about." "Three more M4S clears, then I have enough books to be done." "Four more FATEs, then I never have to come to Heritage Found again." "Two more weeks of prog, then I'm done with this Ultimate." The view of almost everything is that it is a chore that needs completed.

Where is that underlying, always available, who-cares-how-easy-or-hard-it-is, do-it-just-because-it's-fun content? Some people may get that from PvP, and some people may get that from Eureka/Bozja (although the goal there is still to "be done"), but I think that's the case for a minority of players, and the majority just...doesn't have that.