Quote Originally Posted by Sotek View Post
By all means, be disappointed with it, my point is you're disappointed because of rose tinted glasses.

My first run of Sastasha? Pretty damn good. I explored it, was it linear? Mostly. There was "secrets" that you could skip, same with every dungeon in the game.
My first play through of Final Fantasy? Temple of Chaos was pretty damn good, blah blah blah, same with every dungeon in that game.

There is really no difference between them, other than the fact that you keep playing XIV over and over, where as after being done with Final Fantasy, you were. If I just went through Temple of Chaos over and over, like I do Amdapor Keep, there would be absolutely no difference. Please stop pretending there is.
There's a very clear difference and it's plain to see.

Every FF game: Walk around, find stuff, see what's inside.

FF14: Walk around, be directed to stuff by quest guy, get pointed into the direction of a menu that takes you out of the game world and into an instance with other players like a typical hub game.

I don't know why I'm bothering to explain it to you though, because I know that on some level you understand despite now pretending that you don't. Again, these are your words. "Only problem I have with Eorzea is the Duty Finder, which completely kills the world by taking you out of it at every possible chance... You go to the entrance of a dungeon once, then never again." Other FF games didn't feel like a cramped hub where you get taken out of the world to go anywhere interesting. Even the other online Final Fantasy titles (XI, the original FFXIV) did not do this. Spout nonsense like "rose tinted glasses" all you like, but even you from back one page would have understood what I'm talking about in reference to ARR, so I see no reason why you right now seems reluctant to understand.