Good Criticisms about FFXIV Leveling for Newcomers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-JerpoKAgU

From FreeMMOStation.com. I thought the criticisms he had were quite fair. This is from someone completely new(to FFXIV) and very experienced in MMORPGs.

I hope some development team can watch this and take the criticisms to make FFXIV the best MMORPG :).

Not sure I want to take advice from someone who never seeming read the tooltip for Heavy Thrust or maintain it. *Eye twitch*

Only thing ill agree with him on is the textures, instancing and overall graphics issues. Most of the other things I don't agree with though soz.

I agree with him on the dialogue. Being Final Fantasy doesn't means that you have to spend so much text lines to ask you to kill 4 rats.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Not sure I want to take advice from someone who never seeming read the tooltip for Heavy Thrust or maintain it. *Eye twitch*

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So you don't want to help newbies at all? Newbies are just suppose to know? How many people have you helped in this game?

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Only thing ill agree with him on is the textures, instancing and overall graphics issues. Most of the other things I don't agree with though soz.

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It doesn't matter on what you agree on, it is criticism for the Dev team to take back to think on. You are already a fan, the Dev team wants to net more players.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Not sure I want to take advice from someone who never seeming read the tooltip for Heavy Thrust or maintain it. *Eye twitch*

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The game doesn't teach you to maintain Heavy Thrust. You have to remember that a significant amount of FFXIV players have never played an MMO before in their lives, and don't know what a tooltip is. I'm sure the game's Active Help explains that much, but still - this game does an absolutely terrible job of actually teaching players how to play their jobs.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

So you don't want to help newbies at all? Newbies are just suppose to know? How many people have you helped in this game?

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Video is 23 minutes, the amount of time it'd take you to get to level 10. Claims they played over 8 hours to get to level 15 to do their first dungeon. Seriously. Just do MSQ. They also don't mention anything about leveling- just how long it took for them and implying it's slow. Implying getting to level 60 will take a month and be boring- easily done in a week on a fresh character (you just need to know how, which there are tons of guides and tip videos/websites on this that are just a Google search away).

As a mentor, it's my thing to actually teach newbies about the game. First thing I'd tell him is stop running away from mobs- you're not getting the damage from auto attacks as well as keep Heavy Thrust up for damage buff. >_> Then when they changed to doing only Heavy Thrust from behind, losing their positional bonus (since it's a flank move) while having mentioned moves have positionals. So, he knew about it. Popping Keen Flurry for no reason- guy seriously did not read tooltips or simply didn't care while recording their review.

This is more a rant video steeped in opinion and biased than good criticism. The only thing they said that is honestly correct is that the early game doesn't do the game justice, yet all they are "reviewing" is the free portion.

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Originally Posted by seekified

~snip~

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Always possible, I will admit. However, anyone that moves their skills around are immediately greeted with a tooltip on their skill, just before you grab the skill and immediately when you set it. This is the case even when cross classing skills and even on controller. They just aren't there while you drag the skill or drop the skill in the same place as it was before on a controller (which is a little odd).

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Originally Posted by seekified

The game doesn't teach you to maintain Heavy Thrust. You have to remember that a significant amount of FFXIV players have never played an MMO before in their lives, and don't know what a tooltip is. I'm sure the game's Active Help explains that much, but still - this game does an absolutely terrible job of actually teaching players how to play their jobs.

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To be fair, the tooltip flatout says it "increases damage dealt by 15%" and lists duration. It shouldn't be hard to figure out. I agree, XIV doesn't do a great job teaching players their rotation, but at some point, we have to fault the players for simply being lazy.

I think Lineage 2 at start didn't have any tutorials, active help or even marks above quest givers and them minimap. You just figured that stuff as you go and the game was very popular. I'm not even talking about harder MMO games, L2 was typical online rpg, live ffxiv.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

It doesn't matter on what you agree on, it is criticism for the Dev team to take back to think on. You are already a fan, the Dev team wants to net more players.

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Oh I forgot only youtubers and other media outlets who know barley anything about the game are the only ones the devs should listen too! Most of the time those people want changes that would change the game completely. I totally forgot there opinion is more important than the fans!

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Oh I forgot only youtubers and other media outlets who no barley anything about the game are the only ones the devs should listen too! Most of the time those people want changes that would change the game completely. I totally forgot there opinion is more important than the fans!

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The opinion of outsiders is extremely important to an MMO. They already have your sub. They need more, as long as they don't lose too many existing subs.

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

The opinion of outsiders is extremely important to an MMO. They already have your sub. They need more, as long as they don't lose too many existing subs.

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Yawn** talk to me when you people have some other answer other than "they need more!" thats all I hear now. Games been active since 2013(2010 technically) and we are still getting content every 3 months to 3.5 months. The cash shop was added and we will soon have those precious little lazy I mean jump potions that will earn SE some more! Its us the ones that stick through it thick and thin that are sustaining this game, without us there wouldn't be much.

Its getting old now with the clueless gamers and youtubers that talk about the game and the blind followers that follow them that ruin games. Either you like it or you don't, don't say things that most of the time aren't true just because you spent a whole 2 minutes playing the game. Give me a break.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Yawn** talk to me when you people have some other answer other than "they need more!" thats all I hear now. Games been active since 2013(2010 technically) and we are still getting content every 3 months to 3.5 months. The cash shop was added and we will soon have those precious little lazy I mean jump potions that will earn SE some more! Its us the ones that stick through it thick and thin that are sustaining this game, without us there wouldn't be much.

Its getting old now with the clueless gamers and youtubers that talk about the game and the blind followers that follow them that ruin games. Either you like it or you don't, don't say things that most of the time aren't true just because you spent a whole 2 minutes playing the game. Give me a break.

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I'm not saying he's right, or that SE is strapped for cash. I'm telling you that the MMO business model means that outsider opinions are of critical importance. That's it.

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

So you don't want to help newbies at all? Newbies are just suppose to know? How many people have you helped in this game?

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The guy in the video clsims to be a good and experienced player. If he is than he should be able so read a tooltip and find a use for the skill.

On another note. "WoW leveling. Cinematic and explosive"
Can I get paid by blizzard too to claim such garbage

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

To be fair, the tooltip flatout says it "increases damage dealt by 15%" and lists duration. It shouldn't be hard to figure out. I agree, XIV doesn't do a great job teaching players their rotation, but at some point, we have to fault the players for simply being lazy.

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I really think people have a hard time imagining having zero gaming sense. This sort of logic is pretty default to any person with a gaming sense, oh a buff I can keep up forever that will forever boost my stuff by a substantial amount?? Sign me up for eternity!!!!

That sort of stuff isn't going to naturally play out for those new to MMOs and gaming in general, candy crush background not counting. I've played with people who are intelligent (general capacity, comparative capability within studied fields) but easily fail "gaming intelligence". I mean to say, I think for some its less about being lazy (at least for a while) and just that the game is basically congratulating you endlessly for not learning your role and you won't need to if you don't do certain content. Unfortunately pop up tutorials are like EULA/ToS for some people and will be closed even when they should be read, which is why I believe job quests and Halls should be pushed, polished, and expanded to teach what the game doesn't teach and what people ignore through the easy dungeons and pop up text. Basically taking away the ability for people to learn it wrong, as the game definitely lets people do (which is why I don't think its because everyone is lazy, I believe many know no better).

The game gives you enough info, usually, if you're a natural. I disagree with people, in any sort of to be fair scenario, that the game teaches you well enough if you're truly an untouched new person.

Games that make you figure it out yourself, that works fine when you narrow down your audience to the incredibly perseverant and the naturally adapt; however, it will work less fine in FFXIV's case because you don't really need to be perseverant until much later and can easily be carried through much of the content. So 100 hours in you could/should have learned 100 hours worth of mastery but only really effectively learned 5 and making matters worse depending on what content you do you'll never have to improve either (or the real push either, since you're already used to people doing it for you).

This game isn't hard enough, and focuses on too large of a audience, to be "just learn it as you go". A tooltip is not enough if you want everyone to learn, some people starting FFXIV will be incapable of comprehending what the tooltip means for their gameplay (until a scenario forces them, through testing, interplayer actions, or too difficult content) and will likely focus on the most immediate return actions especially as the response the game will give you for doing short sided choices is "good job! next dungeon!" (since the game won't challenge you to the point you need to do it, at least until much much later and usually only optionally so).

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Originally Posted by Baci

On another note. "WoW leveling. Cinematic and explosive"
Can I get paid by blizzard too to claim such garbage

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Not sure I'd say explosive, but I did find significantly more interesting quests, both in quantity and intensity of said mold breaking style, and the combat is a bit smoother (very responsive and fluid, some abilities are also more movement based as well). Fluid/responsive != pretty, of course FFXIV's is far prettier lol.

(Although WoW has had a lot longer to polish, Vanilla WoW was much slower and less explosive than 2.0 Vanilla FFXIV).

The first impression I got from this new player is he doesn't read tutorials, doesn't take the time to actually learn his class and just presses all the pretty buttons. Why?

Well... at 0:19 the "Clearing Instanced Raids" help window shows up, and he closes it immediately... and again at 5:38, he ignores the help window prompt entirely and just clicks random stuff.


Now I'm going to go through his points:

1. Initial cutscene and text: He says it should not be there... he also states that there is too much text, well FF is really heavy on lore.
2. Initial leveling: He says WoW drops you right into a climactic situation, except it really doesn't. (I realize he mentions Cataclysm but who compares a base game to an expansion?) WoW and XIV do the same thing, where essentially you need to hit a certain level to move on and also tells you to attack a few mobs, etc. He ends this by saying WoW is freer and much easier to get into, so he himself is biased. Perhaps GW2 would be a better option to base it off of.
3. First dungeon: Dude said it took him 8 hours to get into his first dungeon. It would have taken less than that if he READ HIS TUTORIALS.
4. Graphics: He blatantly stated "Maybe it's the PC Master Race in me", but yes, the graphics got a massive overhaul to make it useable on PS3. But it's not like PS1-era graphics... he's acting as though it's so ugly to look at. Yes, his only valid criticism in this case is textures, I'll give him that. Then he just burps...
5. Instancing: He compared XIV instancing to WoW instancing, where WoW instances an entire continent while XIV instances half a city. Dude... have you seen the graphical fidelity of XIV to WoW? Imagine an entire continent of those graphics with at least 100 or so people in the region... it'd be 1.0 all over again.
6. Controls: He says the Gamepad controls could be done much better. But he never gave any examples to back up that criticism. It feels a lot more of a "I just wanted to play Gamepad because I wanted to criticize the game for it being on a PS3/PS4 as well." Because he also goes on to say that the game doesn't feel like a "Big open MMO.", it just feels like he's ripping into the game just because it's also taking into account console technical specifications.
7. Wholeness: He says that XIV's battle effects are just "ethereal" and not physically there. This is just being ignorant because he's focusing on the "visual effect" being the actual hit and not the physical motion that the player takes... I mean I know a LOT of people who feel REALLY good when they cast a Fire II, which is a level 18 skill... he also states that the art style isn't all there... I guess that's subjective to everyone, I'm not gonna outright state he can't feel that way.

In conclusion, this video feels, mostly, like a rip into how it is so visually and mechanically unappealing due to its constraints to PS3/4. He also stated that leveling took a long time, but I can assure you it wouldn't if he'd had paid attention to the live help windows, which he totally ignored. He also did not pay attention to what his skills did besides the flying text, which doesn't help outside of debuffs placed. Overall, his first impression was more of a "I'm playing a single player game that will 100% hold my hand", and also felt a bit on the "high standards" side...

While overall he had criticisms, I would not say they were good, they were fair but not good. The only good ones are the graphics and the instancing in regards to cities, but not entire continents. Textures definitely need to be upped and there needs to be a lot less instancing in regards to cities, but going into dungeons... every MMO I've played so far has an option to enter a dungeon without needing to be physically there.

As far as him being absolutely new to XIV, I disagree. He stated he had already played the intro to XIV a few times, as well as wanting to play the expansion as well as 60, so he clearly knows a bit of the game already.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

I really think people have a hard time imagining having zero gaming sense. This sort of logic is pretty default to any person with a gaming sense, oh a buff I can keep up forever that will forever boost my stuff by a substantial amount?? Sign me up for eternity!!!!

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On the contrary, I remember being a youngin and picking up my first games. Pokemon and some PS-era FF titles are what I think back to. In both, I had the sense to read what the abilities did and figure out how to use them. Frustratingly, Pokemon never did a good job telling you how much buffs and debuffs did. I remember being upset about that, wishing that was clearer. FF was always bad about that, too, actually...

Anyway, yeah, I do remember being young and brand new to games. And it's not like I went around hitting random buttons.

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

On the contrary, I remember being a youngin and picking up my first games. Pokemon and some PS-era FF titles are what I think back to. In both, I had the sense to read what the abilities did and figure out how to use them. Frustratingly, Pokemon never did a good job telling you how much buffs and debuffs did. I remember being upset about that, wishing that was clearer. FF was always bad about that, too, actually...

Anyway, yeah, I do remember being young and brand new to games. And it's not like I went around hitting random buttons.

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Not everyone gets games is my major point. For every "I picked it up just fine" I can come up with people who didn't, not because they're incapable but because they don't understand it yet.

Like the sterotypical older person getting tossed a smart phone for the first time, their difficulty isn't because of a lack of intelligence its just too foreign and if they don't have to learn specific things they wont (and because you can easily be carried until much later optional content, its like the old person never learning to set up their voice mail).

People's expectations are too high is what I'm saying, but I generally agree in conversations about DF that moving the baseline up would be great (part of that would be not letting people be carried so easily, partly through halls/job quest/tests and the like - although they have to be fun too since this is part of the first impression cycle).

Normally I'd say "I don't care people are failing" if this was like Dark Souls or EQ or something, since that game is pick it up or don't - but FFXIV is not designed just for those who just get things. They've clearly said and attempt to design in a very "open to everyone" sort of way, bit like WoW.

i dont read such reviews , they are usually very biased and pure hate ^^

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Not everyone gets games is my major point.

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That's not something exclusive to games - A great many people prefer to not think and understand and instead be told and learn. Studies are a great example of that - Most students simply learn whatever content the lecture has. Only few truly understand it and are able to apply it. Math lectures are notorious precisely because simply learning the stuff by heart instead of understanding it is prone to fail whenever the tasks are slightly altered.

I will grant you that these people will have a disadvantage at games like this, because you're usually not told. The game never tells you to learn the following skill sequence by heart: [Insert sequence here], nor how to react to certain situations (Like AoE). The game only gives you (most of the) the information to get to that conclusion yourself, via tooltips and/or visual indicators (like reducing your health after standing in an orange circle). And if you are unable to draw such conclusions, you're SOL until someone gives you something to learn by heart (like: step out of orange circles). The issue then becomes that the person will be unable to draw the conclusion that orange squares or triangles are bad as well and need to be told that separately.

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Originally Posted by Baci

The guy in the video clsims to be a good and experienced player. If he is than he should be able so read a tooltip and find a use for the skill.

On another note. "WoW leveling. Cinematic and explosive"
Can I get paid by blizzard too to claim such garbage

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lol haven't seen the vid but he actually said that!? LOL hell ive been everything from really pissed off with wow to being in love with it..the closest it got to cinematic leveling was....well never XD WotLK was pretty explosive I guess :P

Well guess he could mean how legion opens up those voiced portraits while you are doing things? But legion really drops the ball in overall storytelling as you level, admittedly out of necessity cuz its all "accessed" from the get go. IDK maybe ive just grown used to ff 14s "delivery" for story (and I actually like the dialogue) but wow since WotLK story wise has gone the way of tween fiction for the most part.

Should note that i do feel FF 14s current weakest state is in its "introductory" phase. I do not even think it is the gcd itself either just needs to skip alot of the passive "traits" off to the later levels so most classes get their "tool set" fleshed out by lvl 20-30. And for the love of the twelve! give GLA their shield oath really early XD In this comparison, wow is about as brain dead as a game can get when you start, but it gets you to lvl 10 really fast and you have a "functional" tool set by then, if not by your first instance. So while I personally do not like wows endgame combat as much as I like ff 14s end game combat, I have to admit that while leveling wow is considerably more engaging. (control wise not content wise, honestly first play through for 2.0 I didn't even notice my short tool set cuz story! story everywhere!)

This guy brings up some good points. And too many of you are fixated on his 'bad rotation'. Its not a bad rotation unless it gets you killed or wipes the group. He's doing Sastasha. The group could spam one button throughout and finish it only 5-10 minutes slower than a group of vets. And besides, its a newbie to the game, wait for judgments when they hit 60. Here's some of the points I agree on, with my own issues with them.

MSQ - He didn't call it that, but he referenced it quite a bit. There is far far too much dialogue thrown at you in this. Much of it could be condensed down. In addition due to the zoning of the game, they could handle MUCH of the travel needed within the cinematics. Too often are we sent from one city to another, to talk to someone for a few sentences and then we have to travel across the world again. Why not just make that part of the cinematic and not break the immersion, or waste the gil/time for that matter?

Ability Count - A lot of MMOs do this. But why do we start with one ability at level 1? Am I the only one who thinks pressing 1 1 1 1 1 1 over and over is boring? I'm going to say this. The abilities need to be shifted. Take everything 1-15 at least and make it available at level 1. Then shift everything 16-50 down. There's absolutely no reason the 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 rotation should exist. It makes the game way too slow for the new player.

Questing - The best MMORPG I've seen in the questing department was ESO. Dialogue was short but informative. And the actions themselves didn't feel like fetching and kill 10 boars. You actually felt like you were solving a problem. Even if you needed to kill a number of things or collect something. They kept it short. Rarely going above 5 of either. FFXIV is good about this too. Its issue is the lengthy dialogue that is unvoiced and there's just too many lines of it. We don't need the life story of every quest NPC in the game. If you want to tell a story make it an optional dialogue thing the player can ask if they so wish. Much of this could be applied to MSQ too. Oh and voice all that stuff. There's a reason ESO and SWTOR are some of the more popular games. They're entirely voiced.

And the biggest issue I have with FFXIV... the video author didn't touch on this because he played solo. This game is severely multiplayer unfriendly. MSQ outside Praetorium and such can NOT be completed in a group. The game actually throws up an error when you try to do a duty. I'm playing a MMO and the damn thing is telling me to go solo for a quest. That is literally the most asinine thing I've ever seen.

If I bring a friend to this game. They're going to want to play alongside me. How are they supposed to do that with 2 hours of cutscenes and dozens of solo duties right off the bat?

Now there are things I disagreed with the video author about. Things like character textures and lighting. I thought this game handled that well. I dunno if his settings were maxed out or not. Mine are and the game looks beautiful. Sounds are great as well (minus MCH weapons).

He mentioned the game being a dungeon diver. If only. There's a number of dungeons for sure. But having played through 2.4-3.5 MSQ in the last month, 90% of this game is outside dungeons and solo. This is not a group friendly game. Especially at endgame (only 2 expert dungeons). But in his defense he only got to level 18 so his experience is limited.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

Ability Count - A lot of MMOs do this. But why do we start with one ability at level 1? Am I the only one who thinks pressing 1 1 1 1 1 1 over and over is boring? I'm going to say this. The abilities need to be shifted. Take everything 1-15 at least and make it available at level 1. Then shift everything 16-50 down. There's absolutely no reason the 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 rotation should exist. It makes the game way too slow for the new player.

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I'm level 60 and that's still my rotation. :D But this really doesn't bother me at the start of the game. You're level 1 for all of 30 seconds.

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And the biggest issue I have with FFXIV... the video author didn't touch on this because he played solo. This game is severely multiplayer unfriendly. MSQ outside Praetorium and such can NOT be completed in a group. The game actually throws up an error when you try to do a duty. I'm playing a MMO and the damn thing is telling me to go solo for a quest. That is literally the most asinine thing I've ever seen.

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This was my biggest issue with the game as well when I started. I wanted to play with my friend and that amounted to them joining me on dungeons. And then dropping party every time I had to do a solo instance. It's an MMO and not only is it asking me to do things solo, it's forcing me to drop party to do it. This was extremely disappointing.

8 hours to get to Satasha and claims the game is really slow paced due to that.

But no one should take 8 hours to get to Satasha on a fresh character....unless they were very relaxed and purposefully taking their time, but if they are choosing to take their time and pace themselves slower then it isn't the game that is slow paced...it's the player?

It took me 3 hours and 12 minutes to get a fresh character from 1 to 15 and unlock Satasha (you can probably minus 20 mins in there somewhere due to breaks like bathroom or getting a snack also). I didn't skip any cutscenes...the only variable not taken into account is reading speed which varies person to person and can't really be used to measure.

http://i.imgur.com/yLXHJrS.png?1

So why did it take him 5 hours longer? That's a massive difference.

He claims to be a very experienced gamer...but it took him that long? AND he didn't read tool tips so he never used proper abilities...idk how experienced he is then.

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Originally Posted by Kaethra

Its not a bad rotation unless it gets you killed or wipes the group.

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You make a lot of really good points. But, we all know this one is bogus. :P

Most of that review was not trying to be objective. I could clearly tell his gaming style didn't match the game. Especially when he talks about how long it took him to get to a dgn. An objective reviewer would've said "The game is initially very linear. This may or may not suit your tastes."

Instead he keeps making references about how WoW trumps the game in several aspects because WoW matches his gaming style.


Good for him, I guess? What he should learn to do is how to review something and try to be as objective as possible. Obviously, no review is 100% objective but a reviewer as to try to be as close. This was far too biased and he unfortunately outed himself by directly pointing out his personal preferences from pretty much start till finish.


There are some points I agreed with him on a graphical and technical standpoint though.

8 hours to the first dungeon? Talk about over exaggeration...

What's more funny is that he calms to be experienced in games period and doesn't even read the tooltips of his new skills, guess he was expecting hand holding in that as well :P....did anybody see him do heavy thrust from the behind like 5 time or just not use it...I normally wouldn't fault a new player for that but he did say he was "experienced" in games so I would assume~

He has a right to voice his opinion even though I don't agree with him, even more so with the graphic's. I feel he's more use to fast pace spammy mmo's where you mash a single attack in rapid succession.
I actually like the "slower" pace of FF combat though. FF14 is my first major mmo so what I think is a bit biased.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

That's not something exclusive to games - A great many people prefer to not think and understand and instead be told and learn. Studies are a great example of that - Most students simply learn whatever content the lecture has. Only few truly understand it and are able to apply it. Math lectures are notorious precisely because simply learning the stuff by heart instead of understanding it is prone to fail whenever the tasks are slightly altered.

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Excelent way of putting it. I've met a lot of intelligent people that are incapable of learning through some of the school's more experimental self taught styles - but could easily be told, retain, and use something if they were guided. Simultaneously some people loathe being hand held when it doesn't help them.

Having very cleverly designed tutorials is a big plus for both parties, as if you make things optional or text box then it'll probably be skipped even if the group of people who should have read it as it would have been helpful didn't but at the same time it being designed in an interesting way makes it not soul crushingly boring for the other group.

As for the video in OP, since I didn't really respond before (although still a cursory listen):
The noob zones that WoW has is sort of convenient in really guiding people down a particular path (although due to lack of job system, can be annoying once you want to make an alt lol), and I haven't tried all of the startings in WoW but my personal imo is that SE does have some things they could learn in comparison to their own. There are a number of unique mold breaking quests, faster into combat/action, and some of the starting stories are actually pretty neat - as well there is something special about going from bigger and better things especially earlier on (going from a small area to "first time I'm in the big city"). From trying it long ago, and now, they just modified the flow and added a few things to break and spice it up. I see people laughing like it isn't unique or different, but imo FFXIV's start could definitely be improved quite a bit. Game's job system is a massive (freaking massive) draw for me, but thats not really something you get to really feel and understand how great right away and you don't want to overwhelm new players either so that's a good thing.. I wouldn't say its bad but I would agree with this point that its not as memorable as it could be, the great things FFXIV has to offer don't really shine until much later.

I am confused on some of the things he didn't understand or failed to complete since he is used to WoW and its not like SE is pulling a fast one on him, a number of his issues just seemed like bagging on FFXIV because he could (meanwhile WoW would be utilizing and behaving very similarly). It did feel like he either didn't want to have patience, had it out for FFXIV, or was just expecting something ground breaking - as the first 20 isn't bad but he complained endlessly and much of it is stuff that he should probably have not had issue with (like 8 hours thing lol). But I still think its valid to listen to his feedback since I do think the intro is one of SE's weak points, specifically in comparison to other games.

I would say the combat in certain jobs don't feel slower, and imo feels much more explosive in some, than WoW (like BLM is /amazing/ in terms of boom, fireworks, pow compared to WoW's mage lol) but I would also say that if you were playing SMN or were getting to later skills like the tank ultimates/LB, or lack of movement abilities that feel smooth.. then I would start to agree that's something Blizzard has perfected. The movement abilities feel very smooth in WoW, and things really snap in response - especially the pets. Demon Hunters sweeping attacks and Monks rolls feel very responsive and either don't exist in FFXIV or are much slower/locked down.

Some of his points seem to be played out as factual negatives rather than subjective preference, but I still believe SE has quite a bit to learn from their Western competition. The beautiful graphic style (like in everything, all things lol) and job system is enough for me to still personally recommend FFXIV over WoW, but I would strongly suggest that FFXIV's western competition still has some things FFXIV could learn from (and why shouldn't they, WoW is much older and has had a lot more money to toss around to try and fail/succeed at things).

The big issue remaining, I think, is I imagine he is using an entire history of experience with one game (WoW) to compare with the repetitively short and 1% of the iceberg experience of another (FFXIV). But I would still suggest SE improve it's beginnings :P.