This is a mmo, an offline solo game will always outclass a mmo in terms of a single player rpg experience.

Aka XIV has no chance to compete with FFXIII-2 in terms of a solo player game

Single player mode and all the changes and content to even make that work is a complete waste of development. They need to fix the mmo part since it is a mmo. No one should ever play a mmo to play solo all the time, there is a whole genre of non-multiplayer rpg games for that.