Its not exactly "solo" its more like "anything anytime", they wanted it so you could just login, and straight away get on with things. The biggest complaint in XI was the fact that everything from the get-go needed people, straight away at 10 you needed 5 people to level. Take too long otherwise and people clung onto this and then wasted hours waiting around. so they said "okay instead of making it so you need x amount of people, we will make it work with 1 person, but add more makes it better".

Only this didnt go to plan and has ruined a massive amount of joy. They went to the extreme with trying to make it work from 6people pt down to 1, when people wanted something in the middle.

They are now just realising this (seriously pathetic imo) and will be basing the game upon 4-8 people content, so you only need 3 others to do most things. Which isnt all to bad.

but it is very annoying that a lot of the good content is solo. all class quests are solo, story is solo till about 40, its very frustrating.

The problem they have is a extremely strong hardcore base but also know that many of the XI players left due to being to casual in a non casual game and XIV was supposed to fix this but had to cator for hardcore and these are 2 different worlds.

hardcore want long leveling grinds and lots of endgame content because they have the time and want to work for it, casual on the other hand would rather get enjoyment right away and be able to progress far within a very small amount, hence why WoW is probably very popular because of the easy-levelling curve.

Its now getting to the point where its almost balanced, though there is absolutely nothing to do so all enjoyment is pre 40, then its dead after.