Why should I be excited for Grind Parties?

[Wolfie]

Wow. You must have had the MOST FAIL grind pts. Actually.. grinding in XI did the exact opposite of everything you said. But i guess you never needed CC in any of your pts.. no skillchains or MBs ever... no food.. no meds.. (echo drops much?).. sorry, that's just complete fail. And to top it off.. you think questing would be more "challenging".. Try joining a real grind pt first.

(Might not completely be you fault depending on when you started though.. Last couple years of XI BLM rarely does anything outside of manaburn for exp, and once other jobs got Raise, WHM usually took a backseat to getting invites for exp grinding)

Yeah man. Totally my fault parties stuck to crabs/crawlers/beetles/bats/colibri. I'm sorry I wasn't there in FFXI's early years, when people hadn't already figured out the easiest way to level.

For the record, as a BLM in end game, I almost never used magic burst. I was relegated to sleep and stun duty about half the time, and the other half was just random nuking of whatever my strongest element was. I learned more as a BLM in FFXI by soloing wamouras and sea organs than I did by partying.

By the time I got my WHM leveled, people no longer took BLMs in regular parties. It was all TP-burn-wannabe parties with no skill chains, on VT or weak IT mobs and colibri. About half the time I spent in battle was just staring at the screen, or refreshing Regen, or reapplying enfeebles.

No, I don't think quest grinding or solo grinding is necessarily harder or gives you more knowledge about your class. It was a phenomenon that was unique to FFXI, because group grinding was easier and safer than soloing.

EDIT:

What I mean to say by all of this is that even if the devs promote group grinding, I can guarantee that it will not teach people anything important about their class' or job's end-game duties. They will always fight the easiest mobs with the most fool-proof party setups in the most lazy play style. It's something that happens in every MMO, regardless of what the method to getting to max level is. People don't want to put in effort while leveling, bottom line.