Quote Originally Posted by Enjuden View Post
That is what instances are for, and already made to do in every expansion. It is not an excuse, it's an oversight, or shameless padding. Take your pick. If they had, say, autowalks in there that granted haste or more of those teleporter things it'd be something. But they have neither.
It is an instance that take place inside the city, though. They don't put you in the city zone itself, just a copy of it – but if the layout was different, it wouldn't make sense.

As I said, that shouldn't excuse them from still having a functional endgame hub – the aetheryte just needed to be away from the instance route – but if they're going to have an instance in the city then they need to build for it.

Even Limsa has that weird mess of ramps around the Drowning Wench that get used for several events across job quests and such. If you want stuff to happen in the city, the architecture has to be there.