When do you prefer to have story over efficiency in your games?

I realize I may be in the minority here, but sometimes I would rather spend several hours on stuff that has a story — like, a branching, unfolding series of quests that at the end have revealed something about the world or given you an insight into a character — than play content designed to reward me with specific items on a schedule. To use one example, I didn’t once use the “okay, you’ve played Shadowlands once already, you can skip the zone stories and just go straight to getting gear and XP via world quests” option, Threads of Fate.

It would have been faster, it would have probably given me better gear and gotten my Kyrian rep up faster, but I just don’t like doing it that way. I would rather play the exact same story content repeatedly than just gloss it and get to running hubs or what have you. I only ever used Diablo 3‘s Adventure Mode once I was max level, and I’m currently very much avoiding the option to start the Tree of Whispers grind instead of taking my alts through the story in Diablo 4. In fact, if I could, I’d repeat the campaign on my main — an option I had and used often in Diablo 3.

Yes, I’m one of those people who loves New Game+ whenever a game presents the opportunity. Loved it in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Horizon Zero Dawn, even the 2018 God of War. I like story in games more than I like having a spreadsheet tell me farming this same dungeon sixteen times is the optimal way to get to max level.

So now here I am, just a man in his office typing an article asking the readers which they prefer. Would you rather break down your leveling to the most efficient manner possible? Or are you like me, eager to get sucked into a story again, even if it’s slower?