Forced to Raid?

[Ameela]

You're saying that Xenoblade allows me to
- explore a world similar in size to FFXIV?
- have as many jobs/classes as FFXIV?
- do dungeons with a group of npcs and see them grow?
- experience a living growing world?
- be around real players while not having to be WITH them?
- craft my own gear, and gather the materials to craft them?
- experience the comfort of the Final Fantasy universe?
- buy and sell in a constantly changing economy?

Yes actually to most of those except the ones that would obviously require a multiplayer component.

[RukoBoshi]

While I won't judge anyone for their choices in regards to how they play the game I am curious about something.
If your objective is to play a totally solo experience why would you pick FFXIV for it and not something of a similar scale that's also created from the ground up to be single player, since as an MMO XIV still has to make a lot of compromises that others wouldn't have to.
What advantages does it have over something like, say, Xenoblade?

Purely for the story in my case. This is the only thing i took into consideration before starting the game.
Not the gameplay, not the mechanics or endgame content and not the multiplayer aspect.

I just wanted to play through one of the only two mainline FF i didn't play yet.
Lots of people in the Final Fantasy community were recommending FFXIV and saying it has one of the best FF story. That was enough of an incentive to start.

[Boblawblah]

Yes actually to most of those except the ones that would obviously require a multiplayer component.

so no then

[Ameela]

Purely for the story in my case. This is the only thing i took into consideration before starting the game.
Not the gameplay, not the mechanics or endgame content and not the multiplayer aspect.

I just wanted to play through one of the only two mainline FF i didn't play yet.
Lots of people in the Final Fantasy community were recommending FFXIV and saying it has one of the best FF story. That was enough of an incentive to start.

Yeah the story is definitely a big draw, though if I wasn't into the game itself I don't know how I'd feel about its seemingly endless nature. Not even Endwalker had the grace of letting me leave without telling me there's actually more stuff to do!

so no then

I'd argue that if the main thing you're getting out of the multiplayer is simply the knowledge that the characters around you who you never address and who never address you are actually real people behind the screen then that's not really worth all the concessions that XIV has to make in the gameplay, level design and even the story in order to implement said multiplayer component.