That’s the key thing. They realize PvE is an element to their game but it isn’t for everyone. They didn’t throw their eggs into one basket. They expanded the world around it so the game wasn’t literally “raid or die.”
Part of the development of XIV when Yoshi-P took over was making the team actually play World of Warcraft Cataclysm and MoP. Seeing what other games were doing and thinking on what systems would work, what they could improve, and what the downfalls were and not making the same mistake.
XIV was literally made on the idea of “Do what WoW did right better, or very good if we can’t do better. Don’t do what they did wrong, acknowledge what they did wrong and do much better.” It’s why XIV feels like a world with every bit relevant. World of Warcraft is literally World of Latest Content Patch.