Hmmm I guess "diversity" of content would be a better description? Right now there is only one decent way to get sp, certain leves w/ aspect. The other is the horrible grind of a few select mobs that look the same. FF11 grind was horrible but you got to go to different locals every few levels, getting there finding camps learning the areas, dodging gobbie trains made the awful grind much more interesting. Options on how to level or making leveling interesting would help.

The class quests is another area to improve upon. I personally felt they were a bit shallow *I leveled carpenter, lancer and archer and liked the lancer quests better due to there being a "plot"*. I was hoping FF14 had a quest style like the dreaded WoW. Yes they may just be collect this, run here, kill this, but they're strung together in a way where it takes you from a beginner area all the way to higher level areas and beyond *again diversity*.

A completely not thought out idea would be to make the leves one off, at least per class/job. Make it like a bounty hunter / mercenary bulletin board/counter and give levequests appropriate to rank spanning different areas *much like it is now* but instead of repeating the same 6 *give or take* over and over, have a branching type thing going on. You start one leve from the low levels and branch out based on that pre-req. Have people join up for the bonus to help you out from time to time for the "dungeon" ones and have those repeatable... *yes it sounds like WoW, it is the one aspect I loved about that game*

Opps, I kinda went off there, heh. To reply the OP: I don't think it's a shame copying other game's mechanics, as long as you give it a Final Fantasy flare. Remember the side quests from FF12? You went about your main storyline and you can pick up quests along the way... That's what I want.