That's probably the worst part of the game as it was in the past. It's sad, really. It really put a lot of people off, preventing them from experiencing the wonderful world of vana'diel. And my goddess, what a wonderful world it is. It is by far the biggest Fin-Del Fantasy world, and probably the world with the most lore as well. I haven't exactly gotten into all of the FF13 trilogy lore and trout, but that is probably the only thing that even gets somewhat close to vanadiel in terms of lore, and also the amount of subtle details in said lore, and all the stuff that's between the lines. In addition to all that backstory, there is also a current story that progresses as you play, and there are no less than seven storylines in the game. Three of them intersect quite often, two of them intersect occasionally, and the rest are more or less stand alone, only sharing the world's lore. That's still not counting the three short stories released in between the last and second last expansion pack, and also not the admittedly shallow story of a battle content trilogy pack, and not counting *any* of the side quests that have give you minor bits of story stuff (there are hundreds of these, no exaggeration).


But as I said, waiting around for parties to level up is a thing of the past. If you don't find people nowadays, you just solo, because that's made real easy. The game practically vomits items and bonuses on you now as you level up to the max level.