my hope is that party play is lucrative enough that it makes people want to take the time to form a party. if you can level a character up playing alone just as fast as you could in a party than why would anyone spend their time to make a party? if party play isnt MORE lucrative than solo play than party play wont happen. it takes a lot of time and effort to make parties, and many times its wasted when there arent enough of the appropriate jobs to form a party.

without a lot of people invested into making parties happen, they wont. having 10 people looking for a party makes partying unpractical - what are the chances that within those 10 players there is a healer, blocker, support and enough damage? and then whats the chance that theyre all within the same level range? its not very high.

without a lucrative party system that pushes people towards wanting to party with others the party system falls apart. the only place that you see parties forming in any game is where being in a party is much better than being alone. and though thats not to say playing alone has to be a horrible waste of time, it just cant be nearly as fast as partying.

without a party i find myself alone for hours killing the same mob, barely talking to anyone and i dont want to sit by myself and kill the same mob for hours on end, i would much rather be with friends or some random people that i can joke around with while i level up my characters. if ffxiv doesnt have party play at its core it probably wont be the game for me, and while a few may disagree with me ill still keep my hopes up and keep checking in from time to time to see how the game changes. to see if the game can incorporate party play in a meaningful way.