Are we playing the same games here? I could have sworn that I’ve been having fun with FFXIV up to this point. I don’t see these faults that everyone else sees, and I’m a Legacy player (I’ve been subscribed to the game since 1.0 early access on September 20, 2010). Some of the content can be flawed by anyone’s standards, but I take no beef for this game. I love the Endwalker post-expansion story as I’m eager to see what happens to the 13th and the Flood of Darkness. If you are going to cherry-pick at FFXIV, you haven’t been invested in the game as long as I have.

Now I’m also a FFXI veteran, and I openly criticize that game and make fun of it, even though I sometimes go back to play it every now and then. To make fun of it, there’s no ambient shadows in the game; the trees don’t even have shadows! But I’ll be damned that the game still is fun and challenging despite how it looks.