It does belie the point, though: Is the issue that grinding is more efficient that questing, or that everything is forced to be quest-oriented?
I'm trying to eliminate the "Forced to level via quests" argument. As you most certainly are not forced to level via quests, and if you are only leveling on quests you're going to be behind in the power curve in all other aspects of the game. (In comparison to what I'm doing of course.)
Explaination:
A quest "Forced" person, killing only the mobs required to get the quest done (*out-of-ass number* 10-15 mobs per half hour) will fill his/her bags (70 slots *two upgrades*) on average every 2 hours.
The average quest takes about 10-30 minutes to complete due to the multi-tiered nature. Netting on average 100g - 1 Extractable Item - and an average of 15%(being generous) xp per completion.
From this playstyle, you stand to gain on average per hour (Assuming no harvest or side-tracking):
Level Progress:45% from Quest turn ins - 30% from quest related mob kills ** 75% Total **
Loot Progress:Half your bags or 35 items (Relative Value of 400g *Vendor Price*)
Crafting Material:Lets just assume half your bag of loot is extractable +/- 2-3 Glyphs (rarer drop from mobs)
Total Gold Gained:750g (If vendor all loot)
My Playstyle:
Travel to nearby relevant level "Ruins"- 1 Minute
Kill 165 Mobs to gain a level on average: Groups of 3 - 30 seconds a pull- minimal downtime based on spec: 27 minutes required
Bags full:Every Half Hour
1 Minute for bag management*Tossing dumb shit like bugs guts and potions*
Total vendor gold value in bags- 700g (asuming half the bag vendors for 20g/ea)
Vendor or Extract time:3 minutes (if you're kind of screwing around)
27 minutes left to do the following:
2 random Quests
or 1 Story progression quest
or 1 Side Dungeon + Explore for Skyshard
or 30 minutes of harvesting
or Repeat grind session (Bring a friend, friends only cost about 3% xp loss/person with no negative impact on loot)
or 2 World bosses (for potential purple items)
I felt like questing was the least rewarding way to play this game in terms of *Value* so I decided to optimize it over the weekend.