Why I (we?) play Final Fantasy games
This post is meant to express what I feel is the major shortcoming in FFXIV. It is mostly my own opinion, but I think others will share in my sentiments. I want to show how story was always the most important part of final fantasies and how it is lacking this current game.
I first got hooked on final fantasies with the very first one, FFI on NES. This game completely changed the way I saw video games from that point on. The major aspect of it that I like was the story. While it was simple, it was quiet interesting for NES standards and it was a nice change from shootem games, or side scrollers. This was the first time I could follow a real story inside a game. You could see that each town had its own problems to solve.
Since I'm from North America, my next dose of FF only came with FFIV. This game seriously raised the bar. Active battle, many characters that changed over the course of the game. However, despite all the great new gameplay features, it's the story that kept us players hooked. In FFIV, character development became key. Cecil's journey from dark knight to paladin, Kain's betrayals, Golbez and his story (I don't want to give too many spoilers haha). In FFIV you got attached to characters and their stories, and when some left, died, or dispeared, we felt sad to see them go.
Onwards to FFVI (no FFV for NA until much later). FFVI was like FFIV, only for many people better. Again, totally new gameplay options, ie espers, new classe types, multiple parties. Even with all of these, the story once again is what kept us hooked. In addition to the main story line, there were multiple optional side quests that you could do that would really look deep into different characters. These had nothing to do with the game story; they were just optional stories that you could follow (locke's journey to revive his loved one, Gau's story, etc) The story peaked when all your efforts to save the world was in vain and it got transformed - forever - into a barren wasteland and all your party members got scattered. When this happened, not only did you get to go get them all again, you also got to see their new stories, and what they had been up to.
(FFVII spoiler in this next paragraph)
This is getting long, so I'll just talk about FFVII a bit. The first FF game for playstation, and was it ever great. But once again, my point stays that even with all the fun new things that you could do (slot weapons, materia, actual terrain with real mountains) the story was amazing. I'm sure that I can safely say that when Aeris dies, it was probably one of the most powerful moments in the game, and probably in any game that I've played. It even sparked years of rumours and attempts to try to revive her (all are fake).
In my opinion, VIII and IX were ok games, probably just because I enjoyed the stories less, but that's totally my opionion. FFX was amazing, great story.
I'll stop here for 1 player games as my point is not to rank the previous Final fantasies. It's to show that the story of these games is what makes them enjoyable.
FFXI achieved this in a certain sense. The side quests were plentiful and the main storyline missions were amazing. What I felt might have been missing though was real character development, NPCs that would be recurrent that you would see often and get to know them better. But anyways, all in all, FFXI was a pretty good game.
Now, in comes FFXIV. We have 1 main story line quest, which when you do it, is decent (not great but decent). These quests are not enough, not even close. What we're missing are quests to make the world alive, why are we here, who are we, who is everyone. Are there wars going on? Battles? Is there any reason to talk to anyone? There are many guilds all around, but they aren't doing anything to add any story. There are many NPCs around, but who knows anything about them. I simply don't feel attached to any aspect of the world, to any character, or any town. I don't feel like I need to save anything, or help anyone.
The new sidequests simply don't achieve this. They are pretty generic in their content, kills these things etc. I don't feel that these quests help me uncover anything about the world or its inhabitants. They don't get me attached to anything. They just have me do something uninteresting for a while.
So what would my recommendations be? That's pretty hard to say as I'm not a game developper. I do think that you should look back to what made your former games so great though. Make us care about the world again. Make us care is a certain NPC dies, make us care if a town gets attacked. The story of Final Fantasies is always what's been key. You remember when Cecil got turned into a paladin, you remember when Aeris died, you remember when you took that sniper shot in FFIX to kill the queen, you remember when you figure out that Tidus will die in FFX. You never remember when you looted stuff in chests. You don't remember each little small things that you did. Without the big storyline, these games would be forgotten.