I just don't get it.

[Deuce]

The formula/ treadmill/ disposable gear problem with this game is probably the thing I dislike the most. To me it's a very complicated problem though.

I played FFXI and I know how all of that worked. Put simply it wouldn't work well here and now. The environment is just too different for that. Further, one of the ways that FFXI allowed gear to stay relevant for so long was through mid battle gear swapping -- a practice that I don't think anyone actually wants to bring back. Without that, all of your niche pieces of gear become useless. Gear that reduces damage taken and little else? Useless. 2 mp/ tick refresh but terrible damage stats? Garbage. Tons of fast cast but no damage/ accuracy? Not going to use it.

The environment is certainly different, but I do not believe that those who are critical of XI complain that there were too many stats. In general, the discomfort for a lot of players with FFXI was the grind, which is easy to adjust. Even 2.0 and 3.0 has grinds, grinds that many players are unhappy with such as the new relics. Also, I am aware that some players wish that FFXIV would have a form of gearswapping, but I'm not so sure that is what a majority of former FFXI players want. I believe that veterans of FFXI want to feel like they can explore the game and its world. That it is worth exploring and that they're rewarded for doing so.

One of the biggest mainstream criticisms of 1.0 was the copy pasted terrain, which became a meme of sorts. Unfortunately, that public criticism has provided us with empty boxes that are wrapped in nothing but pretty paper. What do I mean by this? Well, the zones in 2.0 and largely 3.0 are varied quite a bit giving this feeling that there is a detailed world to explore. However, once a player begins to open up that box and they remove the paper they begin to realize there isn't much of anything there. In fact, most zones are full of forgettable sidequests; yet, once those are exhausted there remains little reason to spend time in them unless you gather or do hunts. FATEs, something that the developers were proclaiming as this great addition to 2.0 before launch, have become an afterthought in 3.0. Most likely a result of players farming FATEs instead of dungeons for exp.

Design decisions such as these cause me to arrive at the conclusion that the developers have merely blind folded themselves and attempt to throw darts at a board in the hopes that something might stick. They constantly will promise one thing only to make a complete 180 on their stance 6-12 months later. Something that players continue to be upset about since it was released (housing) is a perfect example of this. Prior to its release and even before 2.0 launch Yoshida continuously told players that the gil earned from leveling to 50 would be enough for a small house. It's amazing to think that this was even promised when by the time it came out small houses were on some servers 100-200x more expensive than the gil earned from reaching the initial level cap of 50. To this day, small houses on most servers are 10-20x more expensive than the gil earned from reaching level 50.

I'm going on a tangent here, but the point is, many of the design decisions for the game feel more like knee jerk reactions to criticisms or even players exploiting game mechanics such as Amdapor Keep and Wanderer's Palace (hard) speed runs.