This is FINAL FANTASY lol, may want to do research about this franchise and its gameplay. The majority of leveling from 1-60 is mostly solo playing, exploration, with some online component where you have to complete certain dungeons to advance the main story missions. You can do dungeons over and over, or you can do it once for main story and use other means to level without interacting much with other players, if that fits your play style, you can do it.
Past level 60, everything is endgame oriented, which means you MUST group with other player if you want the best in slot gears. Obviously you can just do crafting and gathering and never set a foot in any endgame dungeons if you want to do it, and use levequest, daily hunt marks, and FATE to level up other class as well.
Group play in FF14 however is somewhat strict, you MUST know your role, and it is not "how I see fit". The gears are also the same way, it is far more simplified. At most you can mix and match accessories for certain class, but please don't come as healer with all INT caster accessories just because you want to do DPS only. Almost every end game dungeons, your role is pretty much determined, and you better play it to a T - or risking irritating your fellow players (I am looking at you dark knight who want to DPS only and never once use their defensive cooldowns, or those Scholar who thinks the Fairy can heal pretty much all end game activities while they play gimped Summoner version).
If you look at end game, most of the strategy out there is used because it is considered optimal solution. However you do not have to follow this, and can freely experiment and alter to suit your static, since this could change depend on your static job composition. Duty Finder however mandate that you follow the most commonly known strategy, it is not exactly creative, but I rather deal with tried and true methods rather than wiping over and over and over, simply because a certain snow flake decide he/she will do it their way and screw the group and the mechanic.
I do not have any wish to play ESO by the way, I don't like sandbox game. If I buy a game, I want to experience exactly what the creators have intended. FF14 is not perfect by any means, but so far, it is pretty good and well curated. The game design is FOCUSED, put you in a tight straight and narrow rail from start to finish (as well as giving players TONS of hand holding - assuming you can read). And this game has bazillion content, more so than ESO. The voice chat factor ruins that game for me, I rather not hearing other players (background) noises. It's simple really, if you don't like how things are, don't play the game. I am not trying to change ESO or FFXI or WoW, I just play the game that interest me. FF14 is that game for now.



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