The enemies just don't seem meaningful.

For lack of deeper meaning, the monsters we are fighting don't really appear to have anything going on in a one vs one basis.

Start leve, sixteen dinkly little rats appear, each one dies in three swings.
Run out into field, every fight above 'decent challenge' results in a sixteen second race to kill it before it kills you.
Difficulty artificially introduced in the form of swarm tactics (which are fine in moderation) and enormous unprovoked AoE damage.
Healers are relegated to mindlessly bashing their area heals simply because monsters vaporize health bars while any attempt at all to chain skills together falls on its face simply because the current targeted monster dies in eight seconds flat.

I would be absolutely elated if individual enemies had substantially more health, a slight reduction in overall attack power, and a greater variation in available special moves.

You have to punish the players just a little to keep them returning. FFXI was astoundingly unforgiving before the era of flamingos and pretty colored treasure chests, and yet hundreds of thousand of people were more than willing to invest in the struggle.

Make
Monsters
Matter

It's true. In FF11 you cared to know every single detail about a monster. It's partially due to the fact we don't use strategy for practically anything in FF14. Let's hope it changes soon.

I personnaly love a punishing game. Im aware that most are not keen for large death penalty and quests with mobs far above the required rank n other such challenges. But surely ppl agree with the OP the mobs are far too easy, more health and more abilites or at least give them buffs/enfeebles that actually matter. THe way things are right now if im silenced as a mage i dont care its 10secs. If they buff i dont care it makes almost no difference to there abilities.

yes, each battle even grinds in ffxi felt like it was a strategy and not a zerg group of players just trying to take down a mob that dies in seconds. each mob had moves u felt u needed to avoid or remove or be ready for and the such. was thinking maybe they gonna add these types of battles but erm se we don't need a 50rank tutorial ..where is the real battles worth doing. the hole game is like ronford bunnies right now.

like the post above it doesn't even feel like it matters that a mage is silenced, all battles should feel like dodore battle, silenced mage probably can mean death to the tank and a whip. players in grinds always still had a chance to whip if big screw ups happened in ffxi. even getting to possition or camp was challenging. right now people stay in city crafting cause they dont' even have the anima to waist to go looking around for people to rock out with.

the very first system we had for sp was even closer to fun then this one is, 15man parties taking down huge crabs,efts and the what not. bigger, longer battles that give the equivalent sp would be great. also they are gonna add more mobs that add into the story from what i understand this would be a suggestion if i miss understood.