It's become a chore to even log on to the game

[Zantetsuken]

I agree with the OPs and other's complaints.. but I also know that a couple of patches or an expansion can change things radically.

As a FF fan since FF1 NES, I'm committed to making this game the best it can be.

FFXIV does many things right:

• Graphics - top-notch for an MMO. Can't wait for DX11 version and hopefully 3d Stereoscopic support at some point.
• Environment - stunning work, I don't even get tired of walking through starting areas (like the Central Shroud)
• Storyline/Lore - Engaging, and it has some great moments (Ultima vs Primals). As it stands now, there is a lot of potential in it. Though often, the veneer of lore gets completely displaced by the game's mechanics and fan-service.
• Villains/NPCs - Great designs, I think Nael was perhaps the best. Hopefully we'll see him again
• Art Direction - With Akihiko Yoshida at the helm, the look of the game is absolutely top-notch. There is visual interest in nearly every aspect of the game.
• Music - Fantastic. I just wish I could hear more of it (repeat in zones).
• Mob design - Sure, the devs copy-pasted a crap-ton of FFXI/FFXII/FFXIII mobs into the game, but thankfully they only used the best ones. We have superb new models for FF staples like Cactuar, Zu, Primals, Bombs, Iron Giants, Dragons, Magic Pots, Gilgamesh, Moogles, etc. etc.
• Side Story - Basically Hidibrand - what's not to love?
• Housing - (shock!) With a reasonable price-tag, this will be a great system.
• Crafting & Gathering - Both are fun and engaging. They just need endgame relevance (which, according to the live letter, they'll get in 2.2)
• Character Customization - The options might not be enough for people who want to clone themselves in-game, but I really like how you can make great FF-esque chars with the system.
• Final Fantasy - yeah, this game is overflowing with FF flavor, though it doesn't feel as elegantly woven into the world's lore as it is in other FF games.

However, ARR falls short on many aspects (some critical) as well:

• Immersion - when contrasted to FFXI or any offline FF game, ARR's lore appears to take a back-seat to cheap fan-service or blatent and ham-fisted game mechanics. (Why do bosses battle players in rooms with fixtures that have no function but to negate/diminish their ultimate attacks?? eg. Garuda|Rocks, Teratotaur|anti-doom platforms, King Behemoth|Comets) Why aren't mobs weak to certain types of attacks and strong vs others? The battle system and gear is vanilla, but the fan-service, mechanics and vfx are over-the-top. I'd like to see more balance between the two.
• Exploration - Everything is tightly packed and has safety rails - there's no danger outside of dungeons and virtually no sense of discovery in the game. I hope future zones break out into the wilderness more and challenge players to discover off-map secrets and force them to evade powerful open-world mobs.
• Gear - effectively has a single stat: iLvl. No real choices other than cosmetic.
• Progression - Vertical gear system + patch content nerf = working towards endgame gear pointless. Just wait 3-months, it will get nerfed and you can spend far less time/stress trying to obtain it.
• Rewards - No substantial long-term or extremely difficult-to-obtain rewards (see pre-Abyssea FFXI relic quests). Hardcore players can rapidly achieve everything they want which fosters boredom/elitist attitudes.
• Summoners - The Egi are like some sort cruel joke considering the epic history of this iconic job.
• Limit Breaks - Each Job should have unique animations. (Note: this could help fix Summoner job a bit. When SMN uses LB: a random Primal shows up and uses a move based on LB lvl)
• Roles - Where are support roles? Limiting combat to Tank/DPS/Healer severely hamstrings the future of the Job system.
• Armory System - Without endgame support for Classes, what is the point of them? Why wasn't the Armory system scrapped in favor of a Job-only system? I hope Classes get some real love soon... because there is real potential there, it just needs to be realized.
• Materia - Far too limiting to be really useful. There's great potential there, but it's just not realized.
• Party Coordination - Everyone just spams rotations and has tunnel-vision on their own role. There are some battles that have introduced Tank-swapping and trading debuffs, but those are tied to specific battles. A FFXI style combo-magic burst system would be nice.
• Elemental Wheel - (or lack thereof) see immersion. A good solution might be to have subsets of spells (eg instead of Fire II, Thunder II, Blizzard II, etc. spells.. BLM would get "Black Magic II" [Fire, Thunder, Blizzard]. Instead of "Summon Titan-egi", SMN would get "Summon Egi" [Titan, Garuda, Ifrit]. This allows for Elemental DPS to have many more tools at their disposal while keeping the overall skill amounts on part with other jobs. Support Jobs with "En-magic I/II/III/etc" could help buff Melee DPS with elemental attacks as well.)
• Difficulty - Memorization and Grinding isn't difficulty, it's tedium. Boss Fights need more variety, randomness, and reactionary abilities to them (with internal cooldowns, of course). I understand that consistent patterns allow for more punishing mechanics (eg Titan HM/EX), but we need to have more difficulty based on split-second decision making (Siren & Moogle Battles have a bit of this) rather than just dancing to a set tune. ('Monster Hunter' - Which Yoshi-P plays, is a great example on how to do boss battles)

As I stated above, most everything in the second category could be fixed within a few patches. The foundation is solid, it just needs to be properly built on.