Eorzea feels like a world with no teeth.

[Umo]

Why do they think we don't want a challenge int he world?

They don't think we don't want a challenge in the world. Yoshida have stated several times they don't want new MMORPGs players be somehow scared of threats hurting their exploration, forcing them to ask for help in order to explore a zone and/or complete a non-instanced quest/sidequest.
I do not like this vision, but it seems it's working for those players. I'm pretty sure we'll have those challenging zones later on, though.

Who is going to kill their sub because they got killed in the highest level mob zones in the world?

Who knows? There are as many points of view as players currently playing AND future players thinking about get into Eorzea. Human being is unpredictable. Gamer being is unpredictable and weird.

[LineageRazor]

Yoshida have stated several times they don't want new MMORPGs players be somehow scared of threats hurting their exploration, forcing them to ask for help in order to explore a zone and/or complete a non-instanced quest/sidequest.

To be fair, there IS some truth to this. If there are places you CANNOT get to alone, that's a bad thing. Even in a guild/linkshell/freecompany/whatever, folks have their own things to do, and you might wind up having to wait a long time before folks can find the time and inclination to help you slog through a dangerous area so you can complete a quest or something. In particular, gateways that require warm bodies to bypass (like the four-switch doors in Garlaige Citadel, or the six-man door levers in Halvung) are a pain in the butt.

I like to go where I want, when I want - but I also like the feeling that there are places where I can go, but doing so is taking my life into my own hands...

[Eekiki]

I like to go where I want, when I want - but I also like the feeling that there are places where I can go, but doing so is taking my life into my own hands...

This. In 1.0 it was absolutely possible to get through all the high level monsters to get to all the Aetheryte camps by yourself, but it was still dangerous to do so and took some sneaky skills. There is a disappointing lack of open world danger in post-Calamity Eorzea.

FEAR THE HEAVY <<<<<<< God, I hate being heavied by those damn Sylph/Amaljaa

Exactly. Eorzea is a world where your biggest risk is being slightly inconvenienced for a few seconds.

[ToraFomalhaut]

To be fair, there IS some truth to this. If there are places you CANNOT get to alone, that's a bad thing. Even in a guild/linkshell/freecompany/whatever, folks have their own things to do, and you might wind up having to wait a long time before folks can find the time and inclination to help you slog through a dangerous area so you can complete a quest or something. In particular, gateways that require warm bodies to bypass (like the four-switch doors in Garlaige Citadel, or the six-man door levers in Halvung) are a pain in the butt.

I like to go where I want, when I want - but I also like the feeling that there are places where I can go, but doing so is taking my life into my own hands...

That's where XI had the answer in the ability to make use of the sneak / invis spells or potions. You could get anywhere you wanted to go, to explore and poke around, and it came with the excitement of never knowing when a spell would wear off. Also there were aggro conditions of mobs you could avoid. And is it not an MMO, part of getting the community engaged with one another on a server was always finding someone in the same zone as you looking to achieve the same goal and teaming up to get it done.

I don't think swaddling people in a cotton bud world makes for good game design, but then again that is merely my opinion. When did we get so soft as gamers, that we were too afraid to risk death for the prize of exploring a viscous den of snarling turtle men and emerging victorious?

I mean currently the dailies have me assaulting enemy strong holds, but at most I'm getting hit for 60-70 damage a hit by the defenders of their home lands. My 8.7k hp barely notices it when I have 3 or 4 mobs on me at a time. Were we so willing to give up our bravery and sense of adventure for silver spoon fed victories?

[Eldryan]

When did we get so soft as gamers, that we were too afraid to risk death for the prize of exploring...

Yoshida have stated several times they don't want new MMORPGs players be somehow scared of threats hurting their exploration, forcing them to ask for help..

These two statements exemplifies the mentality of game designers today to appeal to the lowest common denominator, a statement I keep using because it's true. It is no wonder some of the great game developers of the past no longer work for the company they helped build, SE developers included. I remember one of Yoshi's old producer letter where he talked about the game he wants to play as a gamer, and the game he need to make as a producer, and the contrast between the two. Given his taste and preference in video games, I'd wager that Yoshi himself probably wouldn't play this game for long if he was just a gamer looking for a new mmo to try.

[Magis]

These two statements exemplifies the mentality of game designers today to appeal to the lowest common denominator, a statement I keep using because it's true. It is no wonder some of the great game developers of the past no longer work for the company they helped build, SE developers included. I remember one of Yoshi's old producer letter where he talked about the game he wants to play as a gamer, and the game he need to make as a producer, and the contrast between the two. Given his taste and preference in video games, I'd wager that Yoshi himself probably wouldn't play this game for long if he was just a gamer looking for a new mmo to try.

Saw this in another post:

Im not going to compare "other" games I want to compare what we left off with in 1.23. All of the same complaints that were brought up in version 1 beginning to end still exist in version 2. You would think that all these things we wanted in version 1 after 2 years plus wait for the remake of ARR they would of fixed. Not the case in fact if you look at the forums people are still ranting about the same things. RMTs, rushing to 50, spamming the same dungeons, primal drop rates, and my favorite speed runs. Only difference now is the markets are flooded with junk with no real price medians. Crafting? what for unless its to level. 50 lvl dungeons are spammed for tomes versus AV and CC for .01% Darklight drops, and as the main topic stated if you don't have such and such gear for such and such instance then your not good enough.

Yoshi Interview taken from Gamebeat-
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/17/th...ogo-interview/

Yoshida: Because I wasn’t on the team when that decision was made, I’m going to guess why, from what I’ve heard. What I believe is that, back then, they probably thought that a lot of the Final Fantasy XI users would move to Final Fantasy XIV when it was released. But because what they were making was a new game in Final Fantasy XIV, they didn’t want to make them exactly the same. Then it would just be Final Fantasy XI-2, and they didn’t want to make a Final Fantasy XI-2. But they wanted to make it easier for those people who had been playing Final Fantasy XI for such a long time to take a step into this new world by creating things that were similar, but different and unique to the Final Fantasy XIV world. Again, that’s just my guess.
But then again, that lets us see one of the biggest things that was wrong with the original release of Final Fantasy XIV. If they wanted to make it—they should have taken it and made it into Final Fantasy XI-2. Take Final Fantasy XI and make a sequel with new types of systems and new graphics, but build it off of that foundation. Instead of doing that, they decided they wanted to do something new, but still use some of the things from XI. Again, instead of taking one thing and taking it to the next level, they just kept everything kind of in the middle. Nothing was exceptional. That’s why you get this quagmire that was the original release of Final Fantasy XIV. There were a lot of great things that came out of XI, a lot of revolutionary things, like the level sync system. But the fact is, when they made the original Final Fantasy XIV, they made it with a server system that wouldn’t allow level sync. You have this great system you developed. Why not have your new game also use that?

If I wanted to destroy everything that was in the original XIV, I wouldn’t have taken on the position of rebuilding XIV. I would have gone on to Final Fantasy XVI and made that instead. The fact that I took up XIV is because I realized that, again, even though it had the rocky launch, there were still a lot of people out there who loved the game. You had this new generation of players who didn’t play XI and started their MMO experience with Final Fantasy XIV. For them, they don’t know about Tarutaru. They don’t know about Mithra. For them, they know about the Lalafell and the Mi’qote. To take that and destroy that would be destroying those people’s image of what they got into the game for. There’s tens of thousands of people that, for them, that was the first thing. As a hardcore MMO player myself, I know how important characters are to player. They’re your alter egos. Going in and destroying that and starting over with something absolutely new would crush those people. So keeping that was one of the things I decided we were going to do when we set out to rebuild XIV. Keeping those basic things that people had become used to with Final Fantasy XIV.

So in summary he contradicted everything just said in this interview and totally destroyed this game by pretty much copy and pasting "other" games (we know who those are) He talks about being a hardcore player himself but it sure doesn't show it in V2 everything is dumbed down. No one said we wanted a FFIX-2. Was FFXI it a good game sure, I truly believe most of the player base that played Version 1.0 also played FFXI at some point in time. So yes they tried something different and yes it sucked in the beginning but gradually through a painful process formed into something called 1.23 which was a foundation to build on. Instead they destroyed everything about it and created this crap called V2- A Reck Reborn.

[lolirocco]

In particular, gateways that require warm bodies to bypass (like the four-switch doors in Garlaige Citadel, or the six-man door levers in Halvung) are a pain in the butt.

There's a big difference between not getting somewhere due to mechanics like the doors in GC or not being able to get somewhere without having to fight your way through. Exploring and questing/missions was perfectly possible solo in FFXI with oils/invisible etc, a lot players seem to want a return of this aspect of adventuring... I kinda miss it too - somehow the horror of being detected seems fun now that there's no real danger left...