IF XP partys is not as efficient as questing then it is NOT an option at all. The if you like that style you can still do it does not fly. Would be like having quest only reward 50-100xp per completion all the way to cap. IF there is enough quest you can still do them to cap.... but who would it is not effective.

Forced solo leveling / dungeon grinding is what is killing this mmo genre. FATE (GW2) style content is ok for a break but it is also not something that can be focused on. It simply gets mind numbingly boring.

SE needs to 1 of 2 things.

1) Make group grinding worthwhile. This is the easiest fix and causes no harm to any solo quest or other content. They have absolutely no reason to screw over the XI fans when it literally has no side effects of keeping this style of leveling. This honestly does not even involve more coding. Honestly this is a big middle finger to anyone who is not a casual or anyone who wants to level from 1 to cap in a party.

2) Make all quest sharable. Meaning same rewards but with a group you obviously can do them quicker so more xp/hr. Example if one player picks up an item from mob needed for the quest all players in the party get it. (just have to prevent pwrlvling with this). Leve sharing alone is not acceptable because there is a limit to them. If all quest can be done in a party then this will also work. (No mmo to date does this effectivly, solo is always more efficient)

Grouping in dungeons/instances as the only group based content is simply not acceptable in a mmo. Fate (Gw2 style content) is not grouping it is 2+ people soloing together.

WoW is a great game, but this forced Solo style mmo needs to die and never be resurrected in the genre again. It is the 1 aspect of WoW that is killing all mmos.

Yoshida thinks he is making the right move removing this. As players and, for most, future testers we need to voice our opinions to convince him to give us a choice to solo or play in partys in the open world. This IS A GAME BREAKING ELEMENT TO MANY PLAYERS, especially to XI ones... the dedicated ones who played another SE game for 5+ yrs who will just write this off as another fail wow clone solo mmo. This is not new content that needs to be added, this is a simple forumula so the time to address this in terms of development is really small, but the effect is really major. There is a reason the community cheered in version 1 when party xp was added to the game outside quest a huge part of the SE fan base wants the option to do it.