Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Zantetsuken]

FF11 combat have nothing to do with quality. It's just boring oldschool, very outdated, design. FF14 combat on other hand are quite tactical and technical,

ARR's combat may be technical, but it is anything but tactical. ARR battles are nothing more than: Perform pre-scripted skill rotation + avoid pre-scripted boss gimmicks.

People en masse likes concepts that wow popularized, like easy travelling, full access to zones, straightforward and easily understandable stat mechanics.

People en masse like Dark Souls as well, which has virtually none of those features. Your point?

I will let my feelings about ARR out after playing in its current state of 2.3 patch. The game is lifeless, endgame is memorizing patterns, the battle system is shallow. There is nothing MMO about this game. FFXI people were running all over Jeuno and using AH. In Mhordona, people are like retainers, they sit and queue DF or PF or some instance. I feel Yoshi ruined FFXIV and it is not fair Tanaka didnt get a second chance because SE rushed FFXIV out to the public. Yoshi got 2 years to work on XIV so imagined what Tanaka can do given 2 years more time.

Being a huge MMO and FF fan, I am HUGELY disappointed in XIV's ARR direction. Copying WOW is the last thing I want to play in an MMO. MMO should be a realm to another world. It shouldnt be consisted of bunch of instances. The combat in ARR is too light and boring. Hard to explain. I prefer less button mash and flashy moves. QUALITY is better than QUANTITY. I rather do cool moves once in awhile than a flashy attack every 3 seconds.

Well put. Agree %100.

Also, don't forget that in addition to 2 years of development time, Yoshi was given a team 9x bigger than what Tanaka had. I don't think SE treated 1.0's development as seriously as they should have - mostly since MMO can be constantly updated and are never really 'complete'. It was only after the sour reception, that they found religion on the matter.

I preferred Tanaka's [direction] rather than Yoshi's most of the time, but I guess the middle ground would be perfect.

I agree. Yoshi has done a spectacular job with the new engine and graphics, the UI, and much of the quality of life aspects of ARR. But Tanaka did a FAR better job with creating an authentic-feeling fantasy world and having the systems of the game serve that purpose. Tanaka was also much more reserved in his management of 'spectacle'. He carefully limited the amount of flashiness at the launch of the game, and would drip-feed it to players over the expected life of the game in order to always have something new to show.

Yoshi was dumping buckets of glowing weapons, gaudy armor, mounts and minions on the players from day 1. This approached can't be sustained without venturing into complete absurdity and obliterating all sense of legitimacy in the world.

The sweet spot would be to have each working on what they do best.