I fully agree with the points discussed in the article. I've been playing this game since ver 1.0 (but didn't really played much because the game was obviously incomplete) and I do agree that the developers had some direction they were aiming for at that time, but in ARR its direction is a bit ambiguous. Actually right now, it feels like the game is just turning into a ridiculous fanservice where elements of other ff games are being mindlessly put in, causing an identity issue for the game itself, and also chipping away some the unique world/realm of FFXIV that ver. 1.0 established. The shallow combat and ability system of the game is also quickly becoming a turn off and feels like it was just rushed to give the game a viable combat system. For now, I'll stick for a while and see whether the developers are planning to improve/fix the game's current flaws or if they're just going to keep these things as is.