Is there anything you are happy about?

I first found MMOs with guild wars, I loved the story, the cut scenes and the world. I never found another game like it, not wow, no guild wars 2, they all seemed less inclined to tell a story, well guildwars two, the base game had a good story.

A lot of games are more about the mechanics and the skills. Rift and wow don’t even revolve around you like this game and guild wars did. This game is like playing a movie, a final fantasy game all at once. ESO is similar, but there’s something about final fantasy and the universe that makes you want to dig deep, find all the lore, the stories, the political intrigue and personal stories.

It’s like I’ve been playing a tv series for the last 5 years.

Aesthetics. It's what got me hooked in the first place. From, gear to spell effects, to monster design.

GPose.....

I love the game, almost every aspect of it. I probably have one or two things I don't like but even that I take it stoically and accept it as is. Love the story, the way the characters evolve over time, love that every side quest has a mini-story in it, love the NPCs, the fighting/healing/tanking jobs, the deep crafting system that resembles solving a puzzle every time I need to craft something complicated, love the gathering system and fishing, love flying, love the glamours, love the gpose, love that is has an MSQ that evolves over the years and works with a full story arc, love the dungeons and the trials and that I have to take part in group content to be able to finish the MSQ, love the depth of the world and the lore, the freedom to use any class with one character, basically pretty much everything.

I've been playing for fun, doing things because I want them to rather than "having to". I can spending hours gathering and crafting stuff for the fun of it and doing my best in the dungeons I take part while trying to learn my jobs as best as I can.

Best of all, I love that the game is so deep it allows me to be lost in it entirely, forget the ugliness of the real world, forget the depression I fight on a daily basis and allow me to survive *this* by transporting *there*.

Ultimately, just for that alone, I'll be eternally grateful to the game and its creators, as well as the work they put in it.

The story, aesthetics, and music are the games strongest points in my opinion.

The game is really polished. There are very few things that are broken. And for what they are they work as intended.

Boss fights are honestly not bad. They rely way too much on DPS checks. They would be substantially better without the dps checks and some more randomness.

Gear Design is good, although they are starting to get very repetitive this expansion. (Same model for everything with minor variations)

The fact I am playing very close to the same character model from FFXI is a draw for me. Like my Mithra/Miqo'te.

I complain a lot about the game, still think it is a very mediocre for a mmo. There is just not enough meat on it, economy is trash, no guild focus, and it is too simplistic and solo/pug focused. But with that said so is current WoW and most other mmos out there. Honestly most the games in the genre are a pile of crap, with only a few games that are actually good. FFXIV is one of the best mmos currently out and why I am still here.

Paladin!

PLD seems to have an answer for everything. Nothing about it feels awkward, and I feel like I can just play the game.

I admit, too, that it's a rush when everyone dies to a dungeon boss, and I solo it with Clemency.

I have a lot of fun tools on PLD, and I feel like the class injects some much needed adventure into DF. I've used Cover on DPS and healers, I've used Divine Veil to good effect, Passage of Arms looks cool, and Hallowed Ground lets me a giant moron sometimes.

Very fun. I feel like I'm something between Cecil and Delita/Agrias.

I love the story and I love the current state that WHM is at right now (an unpopular opinion obviously. I don’t like complexity in the classes I play, else it becomes too difficult to understand how to play the class).

The story, the music and the atmosphere ...

But the most important thing I love is playing with one character and that I can do and play everything with this character. I never switched back to other MMOs i played (like WoW or Elder Scrolls), were I'm forched to twink different characters for different classes and co.

I cannot stand when people want the forums to be stagnate and only have “positive” discussions like it’s Pokémon which would I get from the topic. Forums can delete itself when the game is perfect and since that’s impossible I expect every game to have somthing to talk about for improvement. We all love the game and you must Critique the things you love so they can improve

I have LOTS of beef with the current systems of the game and direction and tbh they are one really bad move away from me distancing myself and trying more alternatives. But two things make me glad that FF14 exist ...well 3

The balance , clearly no job is useless nor OP and that’s wild to pull off in this context though I disagree with some philosophies and play styles like healers and MCH

The Lore, I’m hooked on the lore like crack they crafted such a enticing world that will likely never be outdone nor will it be tarnished even if story direction is garbage (IF)

Trails, it’s clear the devs do trials well sure it overshadows the game a lot being the only thing worth taking about in dungeons, and trials=raids since 4.X but they are fun and well crafted kudos

MMO can always improve ...or not so let us all embrace he forums “negativity” and wish for fewer not to shut up the community but due to actual improvement

I just wish I could go back to when I first started playing last year and experience everything for the first time again. The whole game feels like a daily/weekly checklist anymore, except for the first 2 days of patches with new content. Bozja was fun but it didn’t last long at all...it’s honestly sad how that whole thing was handled /:

Oh well, nothing lasts forever...guess I’ll just play how the devs want ppl to play: sub for when story drops and that’s it. Other than the story, the endgame is severely lacking. I can’t bear to level another job.

I feel that the character and creature art of FFXIV is under appreciated, probably due to the presentation. The game's lighting system means that the models don't look very good outside of cutscenes with preset lights. You also typically play the game with the camera zoomed out for a bird's eye view, so the models are small, and there are a lot of ability effects obfuscating the models. And since you hardly ever get to see enemy models except when you're fighting them, you rarely get a chance to just look at and appreciate the models in this game. There isn't even a bestiary or a model viewer or a museum with dead monsters on display to visit. It's really only the really large mobs, like bosses, that people tend to notice, which is sad. The creature designs in FFXIV are very imaginative.

I can't think of any other game development job that takes up so much time and resources, for so little payoff, than 3D creature artists who make the generic mobs. Players just hardly ever get to appreciate those models. Which is sad. At least with western games, you can go to Polycount or CGHub or Artstation to look at the models more closely, but for Japanse games I wouldn't know where to look... if they even put their work out on the internet, that is.

Happy that they weren't cowards and actually added a beast race (Hrothgar), even if they're gender locked.
Also have no complaints about the story. In fact I don't hate Fandaniel like a lot of people seem to. I quite like his character after 5.4.
Also like that Ishgardian Restoration is a thing, and how flying in ARR zones makes the 2.0~2.55 MSQ way better paced.

I like that we got stuff that incentivises interaction with the world outside of DF like Ocean Fishing. And I'm happy about Bozja and the direction FATEs are going. The story is great and the world looks super nice.

Oh and I like that you can find hidden lore everywhere. That's one of my favourites.

I like the game and have fun playing it. I'm not sure why it has to be more dramatic than that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The story, from ARR all the way to right now, I love it. And being Viera. ;3

I'm very happy with most parts of this game, wouldn't play it if I didn't enjoy it so much.

The OF are just a cesspool of whining and "hate" because people figure that whining here gets more attention than anywhere else. Most places I talk about the game, be it FB groups or reddit or Discords, are largely happy with it.