What does FFXIV lack?

[GraceHorizon]

I agree. They really need to hire world-class screenwriters and make impactful stories which are told like an epic movie. Also, they need to make characters move more realistic and beyond the emotes waving and stuff. It was fine 10 years ago but now it just feels lazy as hell.

IMO they don’t even need world class screenwriters, they just need ones with a bit of courage to write something different and more interesting. There are plenty of decent fantasy writers out there who could do the job for reasonable pay. Or have Natsuko Ishikawa take the lead like she did with Shadowbringers, that was my favorite FFXIV expansion story.

[Daralii]

IMO they don’t even need world class screenwriters, they just need ones with a bit of courage to write something different and more interesting. There are plenty of decent fantasy writers out there who could do the job for reasonable pay. Or have Natsuko Ishikawa take the lead like she did with Shadowbringers, that was my favorite FFXIV expansion story.

Ishikawa was only the lead for EW, which was messy. She wrote Emet, and she's good at character writing and small, self-contained stories, which is why she excelled at things like the DRK job quests.

[Derio]

A updated character creator with more face and beard options for each race.
A updated friends list and blacklist.
Cross data center duty finder/party finder.
Housing system where everyone can get a house.
Better job diversity.
Voiced cutscenes for at least all MSQ and important side story quests.

[Thurmnmurmn]

FFXIV lacks..

A spine.

Jokes aside though. I haven't played a whole lot this expansion so I don't have too many complaints with recent validity.
One thing I would love is more clarity for in game information. So many times I have to google or look up in discord for some trivial things that should be in game. Things like where an item drops from per example.
If they don't want to add more explanations they could use the following.
I've been playing a ton of OSRS instead in the last couple years and one thing that's added (to the runelite client) that makes this so much easier is a wiki button. You just press wiki and then whatever you're curious about and it opens up the wiki for that thing in particular.

Something else that would be nice is a death recap to have more clarity on wtf killed you.

[Daralii]

A spine.

Jokes aside though. I haven't played a whole lot this expansion so I don't have too many complaints with recent validity.
One thing I would love is more clarity for in game information. So many times I have to google or look up in discord for some trivial things that should be in game. Things like where an item drops from per example.
If they don't want to add more explanations they could use the following.
I've been playing a ton of OSRS instead in the last couple years and one thing that's added (to the runelite client) that makes this so much easier is a wiki button. You just press wiki and then whatever you're curious about and it opens up the wiki for that thing in particular.

Something else that would be nice is a death recap to have more clarity on wtf killed you.

Both Guild Wars games also have a /wiki command that will open a page on whatever you type afterwards, but I think all of those wikis are owned or hosted in some capacity by the studio. I'm sure that there's a button somewhere in the menu labyrinth that opens the Lodestone, but it's much more disorganized and awkward to use than something like the ffxiv.consolegameswiki site.

[ovIm]

Classes that, by themselves, have interesting gameplay loops, and vary noticeably in how they play.

Boss encounters that are less scripted, or at the very least, HP % Based instead of timer based (like it was in ARR/HW)
(possibly as an alternative endgame to Savage Raiding)

Dungeon Trash that does more than just take hits

Meaningful overworld content

[Connor]

It lacks the ‘RPG’ part that’s meant to come after ‘MMO’

[Alice_Rivers]

I may not be meant to add a second post but since people keep mentioning RPG, I would support having more role specific options in MSQ, even Star Trek Online acknowledges it's classes and gives class specific routes through MSQ quests like fixing a shield generator or healing people or preparing explosives. None of them change the actual story but it's still nice in the moment.

[Connor]

I may not be meant to add a second post but since people keep mentioning RPG, I would support having more role specific options in MSQ, even Star Trek Online acknowledges it's classes and gives class specific routes through MSQ quests like fixing a shield generator or healing people or preparing explosives. None of them change the actual story but it's still nice in the moment.

There’s that one scene in Stormblood where they react differently if you’re a healer class, so it’s definitely possible. It would be nice if they did more to have NPCs acknowledge the breadth of jobs we have now, even if it’s just on a per-role basis (I.e asking healers to assist the injured, tanks to assist with reinforcing defenses, dps to scout the area, etc).

Honestly I think the lack of job quests is related to that too. It’s all well and good telling a player ‘ok you’re this job now’, but to me it was things like doing the quests and exploring the history of the jobs that actually made you feel like, ‘ok you’re this job now’ lol. Let me cleanse more taints, SE!

[Kaurhz]

It lacks the ‘RPG’ part that’s meant to come after ‘MMO’

Lacking both to be quite honest with you.