What does FFXIV lack?

[PercibelTheren]

Besides what has already been mentioned, I feel like the game desperately needs activities that newbies and veterans can do together. Yeah, yeah, I know you can run old content but I think it would be much better if there was something that's at least somewhat relevant to both crowds. Deep dungeons are nice but newbies only have access to Palace at first and not everyone is into that type of content. Maybe something that would configure to a selected level when it comes to enemy HP and attack? Over and over I see new players joining and logging in less and less because while our FC does our best to support them, they just can't do a whole lot of content with us endgame players.

As a quality of life thing, I really, really wish we could queue up for roulettes with multiple roles. I just want to get them done, I don't care which role I need to play. Most of the time, anyway. RIFT had that functionality years ago, it's not impossible.

[CidHeiral]

1. Jobs that are fun and complex.

2. Reasons to communicate and cooperate with other players.

3. Playable race variety.

[Valence]

Feeling like a RPG

[Daralii]

- Repeatable content with rewards worth the time investment (Criterion tried and failed big time)
- Modernized basic features like Friends list
- Proper Tab targeting
- Modern Macro system

You could probably hit the character limit just listing UI/UX issues. So many things take so many windows, and there are plenty of cases where you can't open or interact with them at the same time because the act of opening some windows counts as an action, and having some open counts as being occupied.

[BreyVoreas93]

Open world content that’s meaningful and replay-able and the need to actually feel like an MMO again…trust has caused this game to go towards a solo experience…it’s an MMO, start acting like it again. If you want to play a solo game, go pickup a FF main installment…

-Open world Content
-FC Enhancements & Content
-Real Community Events
-Stop supporting Trust in dungeons.
-More content like Quantum/Criterion
-Stop gatekeeping content like Forked/COD Chaotic.
-Make Jobs fun and semi challenging again and not a complete joke to play.
-Most importantly - road maps need to come back and shorter patch cycles…seeing as how we are in fact paying customers.

[Alice_Rivers]

It'd be nice if the dev team actually put some effort into the maps. They're all very pretty, yes, but they're all devoid of life, there's no reason to explore, very little storytelling outside of text boxes and nothing ever develops. Imagine if we arrived in Tural immediately after a storm and people were assessing damage, just walking up and down, taking notes. Then later in 7.0 we see workers and materials arriving, in the patches work happening and come 7.5 the main routes are reopened and shops get new items from across the continent. Sure it's a lot of work and people in different sections of MSQ would be on different maps but patch MSQ is short enough to trivialise that issue and it would make the places we visit feel more like actual places with actual people and actual government. They could even use the fate system to have players escort convoys and/or help build things.

Equally fanciful, healers that aren't tanks.

[Esmoire]

This game has a sense of less being full of players and creatures and whatnot, but rather a bunch of actors running in-front of a green screen and then being imposed over positions. It's easy to tune out after you start the game, but this game has a lot of details that make you feel disconnected from the world. You stand on a slope, your partially float (where other games would plant your feet at appropriate altitudes). You can run one way or another without showing any sense of how it would be to shift momentum. You are constantly skating around during animations. Would love to see them improve the animation blending in this game and some of the technical aspects to have a better sense you are really fighting these monsters or running up hills and the likes. Less graphically-sophisticated games from decades ago have achieved it, so I hope FFXIV can do that to create a better first impression for people seeing the game, and keep those already playing more immersed.

[Catwho]

It'd be nice if the dev team actually put some effort into the maps. They're all very pretty, yes, but they're all devoid of life, there's no reason to explore, very little storytelling outside of text boxes and nothing ever develops. Imagine if we arrived in Tural immediately after a storm and people were assessing damage, just walking up and down, taking notes. Then later in 7.0 we see workers and materials arriving, in the patches work happening and come 7.5 the main routes are reopened and shops get new items from across the continent. Sure it's a lot of work and people in different sections of MSQ would be on different maps but patch MSQ is short enough to trivialise that issue and it would make the places we visit feel more like actual places with actual people and actual government. They could even use the fate system to have players escort convoys and/or help build things.

Equally fanciful, healers that aren't tanks.

This is what I think is missing:

1. Time continuity outside of a major patch zone
2. Continued reasons to visit certain NPCs even after their expansion is gone.

I haven't seen Hien in like 3-4 years, because he hasn't been involved in anything. Nor Yugiri, for that matter. They are our friends! And I can't even drop by for a cup of tea and ask how they survived the end of the world.

[Daralii]

This is what I think is missing:

1. Time continuity outside of a major patch zone
2. Continued reasons to visit certain NPCs even after their expansion is gone.

I haven't seen Hien in like 3-4 years, because he hasn't been involved in anything. Nor Yugiri, for that matter. They are our friends! And I can't even drop by for a cup of tea and ask how they survived the end of the world.

Hien, Yugiri, and Gosetsu have their current state tied to side content (EW phys ranged role quests), so they're never going to show up again. It's just what CS3 does.

[Namida-Hikari]

A new producer/director maybe ?