Quote Originally Posted by stanleyyoung View Post
We all can agree on the main reason behind grinding for exp is to get to end game correct?
No, we can't all agree on this. I, like many "casual" players go through the grind because it brings a sense of achievement to get to that next level and getting access to new quests and more lore for instance. I admit that part of it is getting access to end game dungeons and fights but, at least in 1.0, to me that was a very fleeting rewards for the grind, mostly because of the RNG element.

I admit the first time I got through darkhold or defeated Ifrit for example was a lot of fun. I got my achievement and .... oh, that was it. I then had the option of doing the same content over and over and over and over hoping that at some point it would give me some gear but knowing full well it could take a very long time to get the gear I wanted... or I could do something that was certain progress like crafting/gathering and getting money to buy some double melded gear that was about the same.

But in the end I didn't because I realized that what I would have needed the gear for was to do these same, or similar, fights over and over and over again in the hope of getting some different gear that might have been slightly better. Instead I decided to level the next class to get that sense of achievement again. I thought I would be really pleased the day I got all my classes to 50 but instead it was a very bittersweet feeling because I knew there was no more leveling to do.

Now I understand that a lot of people here get their kicks from doing things like beating Van Darnus hard mode faster than the last time and I admire that, I really do. Those kind of things are what I define as "hardcore". But for myself and a lot of other "casual" players, we want content where we feel like we are making progress towards our goals and not content that we feel like we may never beat, or drops that we may never get. We want to do that while also helping others and spending time with our friends.

You may call that a grind, I call it the reason I play the game so please don't think that the leveling process is only a necessary evil to teach players to do end game content. That is not true for everyone and I sincerely hope SE does not treat it that way.

Oh, and before the inevitable comment that I should just go play farmville instead, think about how much money SE would have to invest in building truly superb end game content if the 80 million farmville users played AAR.