long story short, after the Dev team visit Blizzard, it no longer going in the direction of final fantasy, but with the titles Final Fantasy, game had been mix of ideas from blizzard company, and copy few idea from other games, like GW2.

Few things they did copy from FFXI are the race and few minor stuff, they didn't bring in what really hold the player down in FFXI, which in turn upset alot of FFXI player base, however FFXIV needed money, and so they turned the direction in where the most money MMO are.

If the team going to borrow idea, they better do a better job over previous creator. currently borrowed idea from other MMO are downgraded content,