One of the distinctive parts of an MMO is the ability to play with others, but one of our biggest desires sometimes isn't to play with strangers, but known quantities. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn changes the formula up a bit, with each and every major milestone of the story having various dungeons and "trials" (single 4 to 8 man boss fights). So no matter how much you solo, you're still going to have to deal with the various elements of social interaction. 

The game isn't stupid about it either, guildhests are designed around the idea that you need to learn how to play well with others, and has two captivating elements to get you to play. First, massive EXP is awarded for the first time you complete a guildhest. Second, this EXP is renewable for each class, so you're pretty much encouraged to repeat these training lessons over again. 

If it isn't enough that you're given group play training, in the form of small scale instances that literally explain how to play the game and give training on various concepts, you're also forced to complete dungeons of various difficulty usually aligned with the lessons you learn in the guildhests. Around every 4 levels after level 15 you'll face a dungeon or a trial, meaning that you will be doing a lot of group content. 

That's not enough though, at level 50 to begin playing the expansion, you also need to complete a series of dungeons. A lot of dungeons, from replaying primals to duking it out with the moggle king, there is various content expansions, large content expansions, that you have to play through and do group content with. Following that, on the journey to sixty, the same repeats again, as you play through the new dungeons as well. 

I honestly think it's a perfect system and very smart. On one hand, in most MMOs, there is a lot of fun in just doing questings and leveling, but that shouldn't ever be the focus. Endgame group content is the most important part of an MMO because without the group content, there isn't any PvE. Games like WildStar seen the importance of not even so much as gating the access to this content, because if players can't run their groups up against large giant bosses who don't want you to stand in flames, then they're not going to have any fun. 

Another interesting component of raiding in FFXIV is the group composition is dynamic. Some raids require just two groups, while some others require six full groups. There aren't derivative of five, they're derivative of 4, meaning that the smallest raids require simply 8 players while the largest require 24.  In World of Warcraft, there is many times where people just don't have enough players, and setting the bar low at 8 is a good enough number to drag enough warm bodies along to do something interesting in a raid environment. 

Anyway, not to derail or dilute my point, but I think it's neat that forced grouping is a mechanic in FFXIV and that it's something that's stuck in the game since launch without any backpedaling or way to get around it, instead, additional features like the roulettes have been added to help people. If you give them the tools, then it makes the experience all the better, in my opinion.