I did do it because its fun. You have me bang to rights. The point is that i did it despite the time i was clearly wasting. Im not sure if i should explain it, so i will
In wow, you can literally go from level 1 to end game (ilvl 200) without ever once engaging with another player. I mean, its better to at least spend some time in LFD (basically a solo game). But you can still do it. In final fantasy you MUST do group content. Think of it like having to do deadmines, sfk, bfd, armory, cath, rfd, zf, mara princess, BRD, emp run, scholo/strat live, strat undead/lbrs, ubrs, mc, ony, zf/bwl. You HAVE to do them. If you dont, you can still get experience, but you cant actually learn skills higher than the level of the dungeon you completed. So if you dont do deadmines but keep grinding side quests, you could be level 35-level 50 but you'd still be stuck with level 18 eviscerate. You have to do them.
This is super important because it tells you the value (in terms of time and pointlessness) of doing side quests in ff14 (its a real cost - just because you gain experience doesnt mean all that much). And why the sheer fact i had fun with a dumb side quest chain (thats SUPER LONG, just to be clear), and chose to do it despite understanding this fact, made that quest chain enjoyable. Its not just "FUN", its an opportunity cost. Im choosing to delay my progression and investing my time into something utterly pointless because its fun. No other reason. Because im having fun doing it and i WANT to see what happens next. Thats why it supports my position. I understand that system. Despite that, i just wanted to play it because through missing it, id enjoy the game (and the world), less.
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Im totally with you. In vanilla, and certainly tbc heroics, i learned one truth: wiping is fun. Because when you wipe, people start communicating. Different time, obviously. But true to the period.