What would make you return to ffxi? (if you left and came back for the free access)

[Alhanelem]

Putting aside our viewpoints on the drop rates, what point are you even making? None of that gear is necessary to play and do the content at all. You could complete like 75% of the content in this game simply using a standard 119 set gotten in a few hours. Compare that to FFXIV where you can't even step foot into some content w/o a certain ilevel.

Well, I knid of wonder what point you're trying to make as well... The point I made was that there are pros and cons to both vertical and horizontal progression. Everyone here touts XI's horizontal progression, but it's not without its flaws. Said people also tend to bash XIV saying it's a treadmill and you cant get attached to your gear. But it also has benefits, like easier inventory management and less set-up required before you can actually play. typically in XI when I join a group for whatever content, they'll tell me they want X job. I go to my mog house, and like 10 to 15 minutes later my gear is moved over and I'm ready. And I'm one of the faster people. A lot of people need multiple mules to manage their gear and it can take them like 20 mins or more to get ready for content. In XIV I press one button and I'm ready. And I can press that button anywhere. The cost is that gear tends to be less interesting as there's less diversity of stats. Which is a fair complaint, but it doesn't bother me that much.

The ilvl restrictions on XIV content are easy to meet. You don't need weekly gated content to meet them. You can complete them using a standard tomestone set of gear gotten in a few hours. Hell, you can buy gear off NPCs to enter the "Expert" dungeons.

In preformed groups, many of those requirements can be removed, as well. The limits are there to help ensure a less-than-horrendous experience using the Duty Finder, so that people don't ruin your day by queueing up naked and dancing around like an idiot. In XI, those limits aren't really needed because there is no matching system. Again, there's pros and cons. I'm not wearing blinders. XI does some things better and XIV does other things better. What people like and don't like is subjective.