What does FFXIV lack?

[Drimn]

XIV has an identity. Well, it had more of a unique identity before Shadowbringers... But it's current identity is simply being a "PlayStation Home" with a story. But replace PlayStation with Square Enix.
The game does have original lore in it, but by and large it exists to advertise Square Enix's other products. It's literally Square Enix virtual Disneyland.

Unfortunately, I think this is the case, but that's more because SE had no idea what to do with the success they had during COVID. They still don't. There's no vision, no innovation, no real thing you can point to and say "This is what makes FFXIV unique and worth playing." Yoshi-P's captaining a ship with no rudder and no sails. I really don't have any faith in things changing too much with 8.0, either. I worry that after 7.0 being such an unmitigated disaster, they're going to play it safe and pander rather than try to recapture what made people get into FFXIV to begin with.

[Mouthbone]

Its easier to list the things XIV has rather than what it lacks
XIV has:
1. Battle content
2. Toxic fanbase
3. Umm...
4. Good music

[Valence]

They're not. The passive MP generation is the same, even in its impact from Piety. Our personal sum of MP-gen & MP-savings were also nigh-identical.

I had to recheck old footage but it seems I had a memory bleedover from the experience. You're right, the regen was similar. But in essence, on top of having a lot less free ogcd heals and more hardcast healing to do, there was definitely a combination of factors that made resource scarcity be a real deal. I've seen countless parties, either dungeons or trials/raids, just keel over because they ran on fumes. I haven't seen this happen in ages since SHB/EW (especially EW+, and I suspect it has to do that they really alleviated how MP neutral or negative some rotations used to be even in ShB).

Healer rotations in Alexander Savage were chartable down to the GCD unless there were major f-ups, largely the same as now. The change was just that, given greater dynamism via GCDs over one's total effective outputs, MP was still a bit more of a shared resource instead of just a number of remaining rez charges.

Now, I'll agree fully that the ability of healers to be able to contribute more meaningfully beyond just healing (real AoE damage, often above tanks and nearing that of DPS, for instance), even if in shorter spurts only, was preferable to the dull tread we have now. I even would agree that it was better when Cure/Physick could situationally play a real part (as much from needing to top off a tank already at 80% because stuff could actually hurt as from MP costs, but still). But I think you overestimate certain sources of those differences -- something that tends make people nostalgize over what would result in mostly the same gameplay instead of focusing in one what would actually lead to the results they desire.

Again, I was speaking about trash dungeon gameplay. Adjusting was a BIG healer deal back then. That's what I enjoyed about starting as a healer, and why I've stopped playing one since then. There is no more management of anything left to do. No balancing act, no seeing how far you can go, nothing.

[Pricia]

More casual content that doesn't have a boring gameplay loop (OC, roulettes) but keeps giving meaningful rewards. It's horrible design that hunts is the only way for casuals to upgrade their tome gear more than once a week, for example.

More rewards to spend nuts/MGP/tomes/gemstones on - that alone would make a huge difference.

More interesting fates or mini zone events or something. Rift did that and it was so much fun.

Better glamour system (having to go to an inn is ridiculous). Better housing (increased item maximum + more wards).

Better character creation tool.

More options in challenge log - no reason not to have variant dungeons, Bozja, OC in there, or the other deep dungeons. Or, heck, ocean fishing. And things like Island Sanctuary and Eureka logs need better rewards.

[Shurrikhan]

I had to recheck old footage but it seems I had a memory bleedover from the experience. You're right, the regen was similar. But in essence, on top of having a lot less free ogcd heals and more hardcast healing to do, there was definitely a combination of factors that made resource scarcity be a real deal. I've seen countless parties, either dungeons or trials/raids, just keel over because they ran on fumes. I haven't seen this happen in ages since SHB/EW (especially EW+, and I suspect it has to do that they really alleviated how MP neutral or negative some rotations used to be even in ShB).

That's a part, certainly, but 100 MP saved on one's DoT twice per minute, for instance, really is nothing compared to a single healing spell (other than Cure and its equivalents) used over a filler attack even once per two minutes. The largest reason for MP feeling like a rez-charges tracker really is just that no other spender plays a significant part anymore, which is a problem in itself and before "resource scarcity".

Which is why my wishes remain mostly as they were in HW-EW: increase the number/frequency of damage events (more total damage without making anything randomly lethal) paced apart from existing bursts, make AoE heals split among allies affected if healing more than 4 people as to reduce their otherwise stupidly high throughput, and give us some real burst potential (even if we could potentially hang ourselves with it) and/or give abilities lower CDs but an MP cost while halving the MP cost of healing spells, etc.

[Aidorouge]

More options in challenge log - no reason not to have variant dungeons, Bozja, OC in there, or the other deep dungeons. Or, heck, ocean fishing. And things like Island Sanctuary and Eureka logs need better rewards.

I'd be nice if the "3 dungeons with squadrons" log could be updated to include duty support and trusts. There's so very few dungeons you can run with squadrons and they get boring after a while, whereas duty support and trusts can do pretty much every dungeon now, and with trusts needing to be leveled specifically, any weekly incentive to level them up (or to keep using them post-100) isn't a bad thing even if its still company seals.

[Antharaes]

Alt friendly, coming from WoW, I have a hard time having everything on one character. So if I want to try something new, I start with a fresh char. But you can't just send things to your alt. I know the roundabout, but it shouldn't be necessary.
Blacklist and friends list needs a complete overhaul. If I remove someone, I should be removed, from their list as well. That this is still a thing in this day and age is insane.
Account wide items, mounts, minions.

Probably more things, but these were the first ones I could think of.

[Raim]

Open world improvements. Long term combat related goals for casual players. You can easily fix both at the same time.
-Revamp Fates; Update old expansion fates with new mechanics. Let people exchange bicolor gemstones for all the same items as hunt currencies. Make Fates gives more EXP and a chaining bonus.
-If possible create a system like Rift has where you can queue into a group to do Fates
-Every single patch needs to add a bicolor gemstone mount AND a bicolor gemstone glamour set
-Introduce the same system with uncapped tomestones. Every single patch add in a mount and a glamour set that costs like 10-20k tomestones in vouchers. This gives players a reason to keep farming tomestones at all times.
-When capped on weekly tomestones, any excess should be automatically converted into the uncapped tomestone
-Variant dungeon roulette where the NPC picks the path for you
-Once you reach level 100 on a job, you can choose to delevel the job back down to 1. If you level the job a second time (without purchasing a boost for it) it will unlock a special themed glamour or mount for that job.
-No more extreme/savage only content like Chaotic. If you ever do Chaotic again, create a normal version of it too. The only exclusive reward for the harder version should be a title, and more currency to buy its rewards.

[TantalusTroupe]

okay, im going to be that guy. like throwing chum out into shark infested waters

what happened to the cultural advising 7.0 had for a good singular patch from the looks of things

[Zelda206]

Professionalism is a chief thing it's missing now that it had before.
I don't see it when a cheap shot of 'main character syndrome' shows up in a Variant Dungeon dialogue. If anything, it gives the impression the entire staff in charge of writing and signing off on the finished dialogue are all terribly jaded to the point of willfully attacking their subscribers who poke their nose into their newest content due to not liking Dawntrail (as most of this seems to be occurring during the most controversial and irksome expansion of FFXIV to date, with the most irksome faculty being safeguarded and kowtowed to). That's my basic impression; if they wanted to carry an air of professionalism or poise, I would presume attacking the many for the deeds of a few is not something that should come up at all.