Forced grouping kills what was potentially a great game.
This ancient and boring method of mob farming should have been killed off along time ago, but some companies still prefer this method of gameplay, quest wise there really isn't that many quests to complete either unless you want to count all the special job unlocks...some of which are extremely difficult and very, very time consuming indeed, even worse are the rank missions unless you have a high level friend helping.
Finally, if your a social gamer only and you maybe find a copy of FFXI cheaply then its maybe worth a try, but honestly if you want to be able to solo and group at your discretion then FFXI isn't the game for you, because of the utter lack of solo viability. Otherwise, at the later levels expect a lot of LFG downtime.