A popular MMO reviewer gave FFXIV Shadowbringers the thumbs down o.o

[Barraind]

I think the weirdest part is he enjoys BDO.. but comments that FFXIV is too grindy. It's just.. inconsistent.

Theres different kinds of grind.

Everquest was grindy in how you leveled, but the way it fostered a community while doing it was a MAJOR selling point. You leveled while crawling dungeons or camping drops. It was grindier than any other game on the list, but that's how it worked, and people didnt look at it and go "that's not at all what we thought it was going to be" because that's exactly what it was and exactly what it was going to be for 15 years (and now you can do missions and get 100 aa's in 20 minutes).

The best way to level in wow was to basically do the same thing. Grind dungeons and do sidequests.

14s leveling is grindy in a way that at times encourages you to actively avoid other people, and at others encourages you to say as little as possible. And now with trusts, it's even less.

All mmorpgs have story, just because ffxiv is designed to throw it in your face doesn't mean it's any more story based than another.

14 throws its story in your face and goes "LOOK WE HAVE A STORY PLEASE DO IT" and locks gameplay behind doing it.

Other MMO's say "we have a story, have fun exploring it" and leave it up to the player to decide if they want to interact with it while playing.

Did you know every NPC language [the ones you cant learn to speak in game] in EQ is translatable to english? It's never said anywhere, theres no quest that says "you can learn what every word in greater akhevan says if you do xyz", it's something you can just do.