Quote Originally Posted by GeminiReed View Post
Combat: I'll agree that 14's combat doesn't start to get interesting until much later in the levelling grind.
FFXIV's combat doesn't get interesting at all.

Even once you've slugged out to max level, all you have left is predetermined rotations that are set in stone.

To the point where, if the Macro system wasn't utter garbage, most jobs would be able to make a 1 button macro that does an entire boss fight's worth of optimized skill usage.

Compare this to more action orientated MMO's like BDO or ESO, even Astellia as another tab target MMO has more interesting combat and it's like night and day.

PVE instances
There being "Not enough" (Either dungeons or players) doesn't discount the fact that if people only cared about good instances, then there are better iterations than FFXIV's hallway simulator/oh look another Trial/Raid that is just a single mob in an arena...

Crafting: Seriously? Most have been an afterthought and very often the output isn't worth making.
Like those statements don't apply to FFXIV either... Where the only worthwhile things to make are each raid tiers new set and even that's only notable if you're going for early Savage attempts.

EQ2's crafting is more interesting to actually participate in too, since you can't just press a macro and then go AFK while stuff makes itself (Which creates a system not very far away from the terrible WoW crafting one)

No MMO can live on story alone. Just look at SW:TOR to see how well that worked out for them.
FFXIV lives on story alone. That and hitting the nostalgia buttons of Final Fantasy fans.

SW:TOR, had some good story for the class quests, but after that the story was kind of meh. Meaning that while it was hinging on its story to stay alive, its story kind of became as crummy as the rest of their game...

As is, FFXIV, is the most notable example of a story based MMO. Many people are here mainly for the story and in fact, there are quite significant numbers of players who drop their subs and wait for the next story to release then resub and play through it and get geared to then unsub and wait for the next story drop.

There simply are better alternatives for people who want good combat/instances/crafting (Though, some will come with caveats of other areas being not good... Like, while BDO's combat is great, it has no instances and "Crafting" is horrible... Though Trade Routes are pretty fun)