Me as a newbie after skimming through the forum be like

[DayHealer]

"Jobs are totally fine!" is an opinion espoused exclusively by people who don't play them skillfully.

So 95% of the playerbase, me included?

[Soge01]

Me: Did I just make a grave mistake?

Welcome to Hell, my friend! We have tacos here.

[Shinkuno]

So 95% of the playerbase, me included?

Most of the playerbase presses 2 of their 36 buttons and gets carried through their daily duty finder roulette

[CNitsah]

Me: decided to make the jump to the complete edition as 3 of my classes are reaching the free trial level cap due to me playing in a new world and not wanting to waste any EXP.

Sweet, I heard that I can only access the official forum (or maybe post a thread?) if I have a sub. Let's see what people are discussing.

People in the forum: balance is out of whack, job identity is non-existent, content has gotten worse, the game is at the lowest point since 1.0, etc.

Me: Did I just make a grave mistake?

Don't worry, a lot of those complain are only visible when you're very far into meta game, or are up to date with ALL the contents. By the time you get a the point you might see those problems, you'll probably have spent several years in the game, and the if they fix the problems of the 6.X patch series with 7.X, you might not even notice them.

But yeah, most people come on the forum to complain when something feels wrong. I feel like it's a normal behaviour, you rarely come make a thread because all is good, you just enjoy the game. But yeah, if you come in the forum, you might feel everythings goes wrong with the game, when it's mostly ok, with some problems.

Also, the forums are home to well known trolls that have been there for years. Everyone knows who they are, but they still have a relative freedom until they really go too far. Overall, if you're able to see what is trolling and what is not, the "not trolling" part is mostly constructive criticism or guenine concern about the future.

But if you went up until HW and liked it, it was no mistake to take the full game. Mistake to go on the the forums, I'm not sure either. Most of the things discussed won't matter to you until a long while (at least for general discussions, but if you have any questions, go for it, there will be people to answer them.

[ZephyrMenodora]

I wouldn’t come here as a new player. Being here is a quick way to suck the joy out of the game unless you quickly realize the type of people that comprise most of this forum and pay little attention to them.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

I wouldn’t come here as a new player. Being here is a quick way to suck rhe joy out of the game unless you quickly realize the type of people comprise most of this forum and pay little attention to them.

Best advice in the thread so far.

[Jeeqbit]

People in the forum: balance is out of whack

Exaggerated. They are all extremely balanced. They are talking about the min-max differences in a very specific raid scenario at level 90, in most cases, and again it doesn't matter and you will find people clearing raids as any class/job really.

This is just where salty veterans come to complain about how the game was "back in their day". You'll find it better hanging with the young-un's aka other new players in the game itself.

job identity is non-existent

This is really just going to be something you'll have to decide for yourself or look at videos such as the job actions trailer https://youtu.be/WCVcgZ8dtD0 (spoiler warning, shows new areas from Endwalker)

content has gotten worse

The content is pretty good. The raids are great right now for example. One of the most recent Alliance Raids in 6.1 was regarded as one of the best of all time. The dungeons are great visually and mechanically, but use really the same formula and are extremely easy and these two parts are what people complain about on the forums.

the game is at the lowest point since 1.0

Definitely exaggerated. The population through this expansion has been higher than through the previous ones, and has remained relatively stable throughout unlike previous ones, according to where most of us get statistics for that (Lucky Bancho).

[Sindele]

It is crucial for you to understand that this forum - not just Gen Discussion, but the English forums in totality - is a holding cell. The only people who come here are the innocently naive, trolling, here to watch the circus, or - by far the loudest, if not necessarily the majority - the perpetually aggrieved who have nowhere else to air out their mindnumbingly awful opinions because their Discords have told them to shut up, Reddit buries their threads and comments, nobody responds to them on Twitter, so on and so forth.

This is the complaint board of last resort. It is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is the Darkness at the End of Time. Any correct and well-informed opinions you find here are rare gems cast off from dead timelines, and even then scarce worth the effort to find them.

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate - abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

[fulminating]

It’s the place the game itself recommends taking suggestions and feedback. Naturally it’s going to be full of people who care about the game enough to bother, who have become progressively more jaded as time has passed by.

βάλλ' εις κόρακας

[Vandso]

Me: decided to make the jump to the complete edition as 3 of my classes are reaching the free trial level cap due to me playing in a new world and not wanting to waste any EXP.

Sweet, I heard that I can only access the official forum (or maybe post a thread?) if I have a sub. Let's see what people are discussing.

People in the forum: balance is out of whack, job identity is non-existent, content has gotten worse, the game is at the lowest point since 1.0, etc.

Me: Did I just make a grave mistake?

Don't worry, we're only here because we got nothing better to do. Otherwise we would be playing the game.