I wouldn't mind FFXIV becoming a WoW clone in the casual/hardcore appeal if...

[fusional]

It was. You didn't have gear swaps to save you, you had to learn how to work with everyone in the group because class stacking couldn't save you (barring what happened at Sunwell Plateau and during Bastion of Twilight), and everyone had to be coordinated.

Mechanically, XI's fights were ridiculously simple. This I blame on the dated engine and limitations on what you could do with a boss fight. Best examples is the new Dynamis Lord fight, which is only "hard" because he splits into three, one of which is the real one, and if you kill the wrong version, he explodes and wipes the raid. That's not hard; that's turning a boss fight into a russian roulette game.

again, 100% agree.

i spent 6 years grinding FFXI endgame, and i laugh at the stuff people say in these threads because 99.9% of them would've been absolutely eaten alive by Firefighter, Alone in the Darkness, pre-nerf Vashj, nearly anything in Sunwell (twins anyone?)...

it took the most elite players in the world weeks/months to even make progress on a lot of those bosses/achievements, much less beat them. meanwhile people were clearing Bahamut V.2 in a few days... clearing garuda and van darnus (hard) in a day or two, clearing ifrit extreme in a week...

don't get me wrong, i enjoy the fact that yoshi and co. are trying to give us some bigger challenges (they've really done well with rivenroad hard, considering the limitations of this client/engine), but the fact that people on these very forums are complaining about these being extremely difficult or even nearly impossible while saying WoW is super easy...

just lollllll