I knew HW would be a re-skinned 2.0. But like any fare driven individual I thought I would give FFXIV HW a chance to see if the devs and content creator team would learn some lessons of what to do and not to do from 2.0. Sadly they haven't and all FFXIV is nothing but grind grind grind with too many weekly caps. I have played many rpgs, sub mmos and full blown mmos and by far FFXIV is one of the saddest mmo's I have encountered. Sure FFXIV has its moments but at its core its a snooze fest. This game out grows content way to fast. Even worse gear gets thrown away faster than we can actually fully gear 2 jobs with esos. I know that mmos and rpg's are a grind fest but at least they throw in more horizontal progression and allow you to enjoy the gear you grind for a little a while. Many other mmos also add in special traits that you can bind to gear for that extra push or something different in the job you are in.

Speaking of jobs they basically threw brd under the bus then put it back together by a No.Ob dev that honestly couldn't have cared less about BRD.

BLM was made more complicated for no reason at all. Granted the nukes are awesome to look at but its not fun to play anymore. If you lose enochium your screwed and having to worry about something as retarded as timers is just plain dumb which forces you to watch a stupid icon on a screen instead of enjoying the content you are running... bad form in any mmo. I know mnk has a timer but every 3rd move resets it and with all the new skills it has makes it quite easy to keep greace up and maintain it. But with BLM you have to worry about astral fire timer and enochium timer + how much time you have left to reset enochium with Bliz 3 + 4... its stupid and not needed. BLM already had to worry about mechanics and everything else like cast times to keep it's rotations smooth why couldn't they just left it at that?

DRG has it pretty good except for that stupid RNG procs... why do dis? Why not just make a 4th positional hit in each rotation? Sometimes I wonder if the devs were drunk that day and thought it would be a good idea to throw in more crappy rng in the game.

Speaking of rng mch is heavily depended on rng.... nothing like popping the same skill over and over till ogcd's and force proc skills come off cd. But other than that MCH is pretty good but wish it was more of a gunslinger job that another stupid hybrid wannabe support dps job.

DRK is damn good for a tank but honestly it would have been a better as a dps class.

War is just way to OP for its own good nothing like hitting a 5k to 9k crit.

PLD is ummm kinda sitting in the back waiting for some love by the devs....

AST had a bad start but its now standing toe to toe with all the other healer jobs out there.

SMN is well I don't know what the heck it is... The pets now just kind pew pew and nothing much else. No new skills for pets or new pets for smn. IT would have been nice to at least get a few glamour primal skins but no the devs just shrugged it off and just made SMN OP in the AOE department. Basically the devs said meh "here's a few new skills and a few QoL changes to bane now go play and leave us alone"...o.O?

The only jobs that really kept its core game play from 2.0 was mnk (QoL changes for Greece), drg, pld, war (with a huge buff), smn (huge aoe buff), nin and all healers... all the other jobs got a shiny new turd to play with....

So basically after weighing all the stuff FFXIV has to offer is basically nothing but big shiny alligan turds that get thrown at us by big alligan monkeys.

There are 3 things that keep me hooked on a game... Horzontal Progression meaning making gear last longer with really enhance traits to farm for to bind to gear, battle classes... I go by how fun they are to play and how deep the battle ground is... meaning you have to know elemental weaknesses for every mob and boss, allowing you to manipulated mechanics and turning the tides against the bosses you face by using there own mechanics to destroy them... ect. The last thing I look at is how rich the content is. Horizontal Progression falls in line with this as well and of course if can you make decisions that could alter the story somewhat.

FFXIV has some of this but overall its nothing more than a theme park mmo that honestly has no direction at all. The battle classes are a snooze and the battles we are in are boring... its the same ol bs mechanics with no real depth or strategy.

DPS checks are not real mechanics and 1 shot mechanics are not real mechanics.... What makes fights more interesting is learning what the bosses weaknesses are then planning an attack to destroy them. Elemental weakness shine on things like this and adds to the depth of what a mmo should be. BLM could have a lot more than what is now... seriously throwing fire bombs at ifrit is kinda dumb and made zero sense at all. I understand this is fantasy but a blend of reality and fantasy can make things a little more interesting.

Well sorry for the rant but over all FFXIV HW ranks about 3 out of 10 as far as creativity, battle classes, depth of battle play and strategy is concerned. Graphics are 8 out of 10 but that is all it really has going for it. Story is at best a 5 out of 10. It was too predictable and it had no real originality it was basically a rip off of other games and stories out there.

Anyways best of luck to you all out there.... I'll be dropping sub this month because I refuse to pay SE another dime till they get there business straight. They do not offer us a real Pay to Play mmo .