So you like DMC, BDO, etc. Have you tried one of those rhythm games like Osu! or StepMania or something? Those are much faster but would likely ruin your enjoyment of those other games. I get the feeling that raw speed seems to be the only thing that matters, and only in a vacuum, completely devoid of any context. You keep compartmentalizing the individual aspects of combat, it's a mental thing that some people have trouble overcoming. You say the opponent doesn't matter in terms of making the fight interesting, which is a... unique sentiment. To you, fighting a training dummy needs to be as exciting as fighting a dragon god. A perfect example was earlier with you thinking that "I can take X skills and just multiply it by 13%", completely missing the extra Kenki you would have gotten. It's like you see a tree, and another tree, and all these other trees but can't see there's a forest there.
As for your TV analogy, bizarre as it is... FFXIV's combat is more like an episode. No good TV show is "100% GOGOGO" the whole time. Action movies, Kung Fu movies, even stuff like DBZ knows that in order to keep the audience engaged you need to slow down sometimes. Take any epic battle scene -- a lightsaber duel, a fighter jet battle, an epic cavalry charge, whatever it is and you'll see that there's always moments where things slow down. Do you flip out at the movie for taking a moment to breathe? Without those moments, the more exciting times aren't exciting. It gets exhausting. Same thing happens with MMOs -- if you have a spec that's ALL OUT ALL THE TIME then it gets very boring after a while.
Also I watched a BDO combat video and... yikes you wanna talk about animations not flowing? I couldn't find an example of any two skills used in sequence that didn't look jarring as hell. Know what might help make it flow? Slowing it down a notch so the animation could finish. But nah, let's do a spin, then when the sword is behind my back and I'm facing the wrong way snap to me facing forward and slamming the ground -- only to snap into me charging forward with my sword at a completely different angle. Such flow, such smooth, such not-clunky!
*looks at old textbook*
Well old friend, it seems you've been replaced...
