Quote Originally Posted by Heartless Angel View Post
On most enemies to which that applies, they'd die before hitting stagger anyways. Not really a strategic choice. When I talk about fights, I;m generally not talking about the mooks that go down in 4 seconds of focused attack.
"Most"? That's possible. I don't feel like going through and tallying numbers. However, I'm not mostly talking about those mooks either. There are a lot of enemies where suboptimal strategies do involve staggering (because they don't die before you get there) and optimal strategies don't. A few examples (not a comprehensive list) include Orion, Behemoth King, Boxed Phalanx, Managarmr, Vampire, Humbaba, and Sacrifice.

Except all strategies in XIII WERE normal gameplay. That and in the overwhelming majority of cases, strategy made little to no difference in results. In most cases 5 starring was as simple as not wasting time on defense or support when you didn't need to. And a star rating for speed is hardly a motivator for the average player to actually care whether fight took 45 seconds or a minute and a half.
Strategy becomes more and more important to success/fail metrics the less grinding you do. I don't see the average player getting through, say, the late chapter 11 bosses without either moving well beyond basic strategies or spending a lot of unnecessary time on leveling up. For that matter, have you seen how many players gave up at the chapter 9 end boss because they were at the CP cap and still having trouble beating him?

I also think you underestimate how much of a difference there is for the average player between "long, repetitive fights" and "quick, varied fights".

Note the qualifier, "Damn near". As for why, I actually enjoy farming. That's something I do in any game. Also, I'm a completionist, so I needed to get those for the ultimate weapons anyways. Most of it I did while watching Netflix. Just like I do in most any game where I farm an area for long periods of time.
Yeah, even with the qualifier that statement is not accurate. Most of the things you can do to optimize your results in FFXIII are not blatantly obvious. Evidence is available all over the place, from LPs on YouTube and/or casuals streaming the game on Twitch to the terribad advice littering forums, FAQs, and guides across the internet.

But hey, I'm glad you had fun with your farming.