I'm on Mysidia. EU section lead on a large EU/NA shell (~126 members), and when the new Companies feature is introduced we're expecting to start moving towards more organised events. If you change your mind about Wutai, let me know and I can send you the website.
For me, I tend to try and avoid grinding when I play, preferring to do events like Leves and Behest (although 15 person is the current maximum size of a party so not too large scale). Mostly I prefer playing with people rather than against them, and single player games for me are for offline time (nothing like the looks you get on the train from the person next to you as you violently decapitate someone in Fallout).
In fact, straight grinding through levels is punished by this game as you gradually start to earn less skill points, eventually down to zero.
I don't think there are too many examples of poor design, it is more a case of poor implementation and incompleteness of the vision at launch. But those problems are being rapidly fixed and actually would only really bother you if you were a perfectionist fixated on them, rather than actually focusing on and enjoying the parts which are ready now The storylines are fun and rewarding, and the idea of new plot threads unfolding which each class you rank up is quite a good design in my opinion.
Whether or not any game is "good" is based on personal taste anyway, but stupid is not a term you can apply to the majority of the FFXIV community, given the length most players will go to in terms of maximising performance and understanding the mathematics that make up this game (and XI), and the innovative strategies and styles that develop which the designers could never have forseen when they originally put the pieces together.
For me, I tend to try and avoid grinding when I play, preferring to do events like Leves and Behest (although 15 person is the current maximum size of a party so not too large scale). Mostly I prefer playing with people rather than against them, and single player games for me are for offline time (nothing like the looks you get on the train from the person next to you as you violently decapitate someone in Fallout).
In fact, straight grinding through levels is punished by this game as you gradually start to earn less skill points, eventually down to zero.
I don't think there are too many examples of poor design, it is more a case of poor implementation and incompleteness of the vision at launch. But those problems are being rapidly fixed and actually would only really bother you if you were a perfectionist fixated on them, rather than actually focusing on and enjoying the parts which are ready now The storylines are fun and rewarding, and the idea of new plot threads unfolding which each class you rank up is quite a good design in my opinion.
Whether or not any game is "good" is based on personal taste anyway, but stupid is not a term you can apply to the majority of the FFXIV community, given the length most players will go to in terms of maximising performance and understanding the mathematics that make up this game (and XI), and the innovative strategies and styles that develop which the designers could never have forseen when they originally put the pieces together.