Would you improve if the content required it?

[Miitan]

Look up Chains of Promathia and you'll find your answer. Static-only content played out about a decade ago.

I loved Chains of Promathia and did most of it in pickup parties. The thing was, if you weren't at least semi-competent, you didn't get to level 30 in FFXI so by the time you started doing the CoP storyline quests at 30, you at least knew the basics. In FFXIV there's no baseline skill, you can just talk to people and press a few buttons and boom, you're level 30.