"It’s very difficult for me to understand as a gamer what the meaning behind using numerous third-party tools to compete to clear first would be." - Yoshi-P

It's like you're setting a console game to extreme difficulty and plugging in your Game Genie so you can post on insta and be like "Hey look how good I am!"

Why do people even care about this stuff in an MMO?

I've been playing MMORPGs since the EverQuest days (yeah, I'm old), and all of the gameplay, raiding, etc. was always about having fun together with a group of friends online. When did it become about bragging rights and flexing?

Seriously asking, why do people care about this stuff to this degree? Clearing savage content has been fun for me, but it's about having fun w/ my group, and the majority of my time spent in XIV is doing other fun things with folks outside of high-end content. The game itself isn't really designed to make high-end content necessary to enjoy it (which I consider I big plus).