Quote Originally Posted by Vaer View Post
Except you need to do it to do the other enjoyable things up the ladder, which is the entire reason why people do it even if they don't want to. Game design stonewalls you at some point with gear checks.
You're right, formally, logically, but if it wasn't an enjoyment to some degree, then why do it? Nothing better awaits you in an MMO, it's just grind after grind. The only reason to go through a painful process would be to "clear all the content", in a typical "achiever's" mindset, but admittedly it only concerns a few % of the general population. If one doesn't enjoy playing the game itself, whatever it is they do in it, I see no reason to keep on doing it.

In my personal case, from level 1 onwards when I tried ARR in beta, I just liked combat. It felt good, amusing. I'm not saying all the quests were great, nor that every dungeon is as fun as the next, and obviously your mileage may vary, but all things considered, I'm having more fun fighting in FF XIV than I do in WoW, or GW2, or TOR, or TERA, and countless others for that matter. So, running a day's full of Castrums wasn't a problem for me, it was just... amusing. When I was with friends, or with a very nice and/or coordinated group (I don't mind newbies at all, on the contrary I like to explain and see others get better as they learn, however I strongly dislike self-righteous selfish people, and some of those ruined my pleasure in some DF runs).

If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't have done it (actually stopped using the DF at some point, for this exact reason). No matter what was after.