There is understandably a lot of criticize going around how XIV shouldn't take elements from XI because of the way a lot of the quests in XI require a lot of work. Frankly many of the quests in XI are nearly impossible to complete without an online guide written by the few guys who cracked the code and discovered something new.
http://welovelocalgovernment.files.w...-art-print.jpg
I'm not one of those FAQ writers and with my limited time to play I doubt I'll ever be.
However I've grown to love the inclusion of the complex elements and I love the gardening system in all it's complexity even though I've never grown a single plant successfully and here's why:
XI has PLENTY of easy missions. I started playing late so I've had to solo most of the storyline missions with a BLM even though many told me it's not possible and honestly I'm not that good of a player anyway.
However it's the inclusion of these utterly absurd crazy-hard-to-figure-out secrets that makes the game world feel alive and you begin to think like absolutely everything has 10 layers of depth and modifiers working under the hood. It makes the world of XI feel like it's full of secrets and it's not in a hurry to spoon-feed you all of the content it has. Those who seek will find but for the rest there's also a casual way to play the game in the form of FoV (=read leves without timers and more freedom) levelling, farming and missions.
It's like storytelling in all forms of entertainment and art; the most interesting thing is always the unknown, unseen -a hidden element.
The problem with XIV is that I don't believe there is anything to discover. Along this belief I don't pay attention to NPC dialogue as it can't lead me to find anything else than the quest mobs marked on my map. Leve text feels like skippable "flavor" text and the missions don't feel like they're telling a story of a real living breathing world.
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/...ake-a-bog0.jpg
In conclusion I personally feel that these concepts aren't mutually exclusive. The player should have the choice of staying on the easy-street but also the knowledge that there's an ocean of possibilities to discover.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_TXkhCHqJMr...ceberg%2B2.jpg