First I wanna say I have been a fan of Final Fantasy for a LONG time. I am 30 years old and have gotten my hand on every copy you can. I LOVED FFXI (played since NA release) for a lot of reasons but the community was a HUGE factor in the overall game. With that said and playing this off and on since BETA I realize that 11 had a lot more going for it then 14. I am not saying lets make this FFxi -2 but why not take the good from that game and build on it. Here are some of my ideas coming from a casual playing time fan because wife and kids and all the good stuff. This after patch 1.8 and i understand they are working on it but some things need a major overhaul.

The class system SUCKS i might be in the minority with this. I tried to love it hell i wanted to love it but alas i don't. I deleted my rnk 33 Rogadyn and started over just so i can try it fresh with the updates and I still get the same thing. Needing to select what spells I can use and reset them on my action bar is not fun or strategic it just lame. Strat comes from preparation of weakness and the such not what I learned I should be able to cast whatever I want that I have learned and if I cast ice on an ice mob and it heals it then that's on me I suck but it was my choice and should always be. Plus it don't make sense a mage cant remember all his or her spells? A Glad cant use all his training? I hope the jobs patch is much better and takes a page from 11 with those jobs and functions.

Archer needs to punch with bare hands for auto attack???? REALLY??? Daggers to hard for them to hold huh?

I am all for difficulty and not being spoon fed but damn why do i need to LOOK up everything on a website to get something done or go into a journal. Make quest givers noticeable on the mini map and not when your right on top of them and make that feature on/off so people who don't want to use it don't have to.

Auction house no reasons needed we all know. the majority of players want it.

Maybe this is just me but take some stuff off the screen its cluttered with that UI. playing with a control and going to my next spell i cant tell you who many times in the heat of battle i hit the battle regime icon and cant cast anything.

Anima in any form is junk. I know they are giving us mounts FINALLY but anima is just bad.

physical levels needs to go its junk I think they are planning this so faster the better.

delay system for auto attack needs tuning but that expected since it just released.

Sorry about the wall of text and there are more things I want to say but i wont. I am just, I am just, I don't know maybe disheartened.

Yoshi-P If this ever gets to you and read I know your doing big things and trying to correct a HUGE blunder by the other team but Lets not over complicate the process FFXI was a learning exp for SE in an MMO and it was and is still running with a good community and the new updates are very good. In the Beginning it was rough and we stuck around because it is Final Fantasy and SE first venture into MMO so there is a learning curve. So with FF14 we ( I know I atleast) was very hyped for it. It was to me a No brainer on if its good. You had all the time to practice with 11 and learn and grow and not you but the former team tossed that out the window. Now we are here stuck with waiting for some fix all patch when maybe the games foundation, its core, is the problem. I am not a programmer and I wont pretend to be or know the difficulties of it but I am a GAMER and I have been since 1985. Maybe the way to truly fix this and get your vision is to redo the core of the game and not just patch on a bad foundation. Again I am not a programmer so maybe the core can be changed with patches. I hope so.
Again sorry for the long rant and all that text. To everyone that's enjoying the game "really" enjoying it not enjoying the hope for patch updates that's awesome. I wish I could too. Have fun everyone.