My problem with leveling up in FFXIV.

[hiedra]

Is it, though?

Dailies. Special events. Dangerous mob areas. Worthwhile or even necessary (beyond MSQ tie-ins) dungeoning. PvP decently rewarding to one's leveling and understanding of the later game. Open world grinding with some actual depth or interaction. Professions rewarding to one's actual vertical progression even when not spending twice as long on them as the leveling itself. So on and so forth.

All these are parts of your average MMO as well. Yet, they've largely been made superfluous by increases to lower level experience. Heck, unless multi-leveling, which the game will later punish via weekly lockouts and currencies if dipping into more than a single armor type, the MSQ's long been nearly sufficient for leveling even by itself.

The question seems to be less a matter of "Why do I have to just do quest after quest (I hate questing/RPGs/Final Fantasy)" so much as "Why is there so little need or reward for anything outside of the MSQ?" And... that seems a very reasonable question.

Exactly. I finished Shadowbringers later than everyone else because of some things in my personal life taking my time away from FFXIV. It was weird going through all of those absolutely gorgeous, new areas and not seeing a single player around. It's not just a problem with older areas, but with the new places as well. Open world plays a huge role in most MMOs and it sucks that we're not getting this here.

[Dirwen]

Exactly. I finished Shadowbringers later than everyone else because of some things in my personal life taking my time away from FFXIV. It was weird going through all of those absolutely gorgeous, new areas and not seeing a single player around. It's not just a problem with older areas, but with the new places as well. Open world plays a huge role in most MMOs and it sucks that we're not getting this here.

I haven't been back to the shadowbringer zones after finishing the MSQ. Once they add beast tribe quests there might be some use but other than that yea none. I also have no real interest in grinding fates or joining the hunt trains either.