The main problem with FFXIV: ARR is that the game seems to be designed with 2 conflicting visions in mind, with no particular thought on how to reconcile the two:

1) We need the ultra casuals.
2) We need the super hardcore.

Things implemented because of 1):

- Combat system pretty shallow and most monsters easily defeated solo with minimal effort, to prevent combat from becoming tedious over time because of difficulty.
- Game filled with fluff like FATEs that have essentially zero challenge. Quality over quantity all the way. Boring.
- No DPS meters implemented to prevent "inciting conflict between players".
- Unable to send tells in dungeons to "prevent harassment".
- Super long, grindy quests implemented to give people who can't clear Coil something to do. Unfortunately, even the casuals hate stuff like atma/animus/novus.
- Echo buffs implemented to allow "differently skilled" players to reach the current tier of content, by nerfing the old content into the ground. Unfortunately, if these players are unable to clear the old content with vastly superior gear (certainly, there was no access to i100/i110 gear for casuals back in the days of Titan HM or even EX), certainly they have NO CHANCE on current contents - goal here is another attempt to make hardcores carry the casuals? Or simply poorly thought out progression pathing?
- Sound and scent agro removed in favor of only using sight agro because "it may be confusing for players". Dev team apprently thinks everyone is crazy stupid? Plus it's all pointless because all field monsters are easily solo'd if of appropriate level.
- Gatherers protected from any monsters by stealth moves, making gathering super easy. As a result, nothing a gatherer can gather is of any real value, until maybe you get into 2 star gathers. 1 star and 2 star nodes only able to be tapped once an hour to artificially limit supply, which seems to have no real effect - everything becomes worthless super quickly anyway.
- Many other uninteresting nerfs to all content across the board to make it so easy (boring) that anyone can do it with zero thought/effort. I'm looking at you, nearly everything (not just FATEs).

Things implemented because of 2):

- Since combat system is shallow, nearly ALL endgame contant is driven purely by mechanics, mostly a plethora of endgame mechanics. Ironically, this makes the game SUPER tedious.
- Savage Coil implemented for the 1%.
- Content with tight DPS checks implemented, requiring a good understand of your role, with no in-game method of checking your performance so you know how to improve or if other people are holding you back, likely inciting all kinds of conflicts in PFs where people have no idea who the awful dps is.
- Content requiring great communication implemented. Since you can't send tells in instances, players are forced to publicly call each other out in party chat, making every suggestion a confrontation.
- 1% drop rates implemented on many vanity items, such as mirrors of the whorl, primal mounts, various minions. Presumably a thinly veiled effort to force hardcores to handhold casuals through content in an effort to get themselves the vanity item, since you'll have to push literally hundreds or THOUSANDS of wins to get the item you want.
- Consciously designed fights to become more punishing if you go outside the script, such as when you push more dps than the fight was designed. To "keep folks from getting bored of content they've been clearing for weeks". Unfortunately, this not only makes fights even more tedious for hardcores, it also defeats the purpose of the Echo buff for casuals and makes content even more challenging as phases are pushed all over the place. Casuals couldn't beat it without Echo, so certainly they won't be able to deal with odd phase shifts on top of all the instant kill mechanics.

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Personally, I miss things from FFXI like gathering being difficult, due to combat challenge. Some of the most valuable ores were mined in super dangerous areas. You might get killed. Not everyone mined it, because it was dangerous. In this game, gathering points are purely loot pinata.

I also miss (from 1.0, though FFXI had it also) difficult open world monsters. Where you couldn't just stream roll everything. It was also fun that different things had different agro types. Did you know in 1.0 that some monsters detected by scent? And that their scent radius was reduced in the rain? Or you could throw them off your trail by running through a body of water? In 1.0, Castrums were crazy dangerous, which made sense since the empire was our huge enemy. Now you can roll into Castrums solo and wreck the whole thing. Makes you wonder how come the imperials haven't packed up and gone home.

If you really want both casuals and hardcores, you should do one of two things (or both):

- Make content specifically for casuals, and different content for hardcores. This can be as simple as tiering every raid. Have your normal Second Coil, then also your EASY Second Coil. EASY Second Coil drops either nothing, or worse gear, but lets you progress dat story, whereas the NORMAL or SAVAGE Second Coil gets you good gear.

- Do more like what FFXI did: Large raids, that a handful of competents can carry a team full of "differently skilled" players. Great example: Dynamis. You really only needed around 3-6 really good people for Dynamis. As long as everyone else followed their instructions, you were golden. And that content scaled up to 64 people. 6 hardcores carrying 58 casuals is more realistic than pushing casuals through punishing 8 man content where a single mistake costs you the run.

I'm not really sure why everything in the game has to be pathetically easy. I mean, I know it's to "create broad appeal", but I find this way of thinking to be pretty insulting. Even if the game is a little difficult here and there, doesn't mean no one will play it. Your average casual can certainly handle more than what FATEs throw at them, and it's certainly super unfair of you to raise them on trash content like FATEs and then expect them to be able to challenge Primals. What did you do to prepare them for the challenging endgame content? Nothing? I wonder how many will quit thinking it's a fluff game, when they suddenly hit the brick wall that is endgame (in comparison to other contents).

Yoshida has even stated that they are now pushing back the introduction of the "hybrid" (support?) role until sometime after 3.0 (IF EVER), because he wants to "keep it simple" for new players who might be joining at the time of the expansion, even though the entire game was designed with this additional role in mind. Apparently Yoshida thinks you all ust can't handle any kind of difficulty, so he'll just keep jacking up that Echo buff until even the worst players can faceroll everything forever. Enjoy?