Skill based fights..

[Haprimac]

Sincere question: Are all MMORPG's more action oriented than strategy? Are there any with a slightly slower pace to combat that might appeal to me? (please don't tell me to go back to XI, it's doing the vertical progression, item level crap now too and I don't like that)

The only other mmo I've played before FFXIV was Lord of the Rings Online. It was much much more slow phased and more about planning and teamwork than "avoid this and that aoe". I had massive lag back when I played it because of a very old PC, but I managed to go through raids as a healer (while facing the wall so I'd have as little happening on my screen as possible ).

I have many fond memories of the game for the 2-3 years that I played it. I would recommend it, if it weren't for the fact it went F2P and how that pretty much destroyed it. :S The classes aren't as fun and free as they used to be. They're now forced into stupid skill trees where you have to choose what you specialize as. The beauty of the game was how you could do multiple roles on one class depending on situation. Another thing that annoys me is that it's like the creators of the game don't care about it anymore and don't fix annoying bugs. And everything has to be bought from the LotRO frigging Store. </rant>