FFXIV is one of the most beautiful games out there, with a wonderful story, and numerous entertaining quests. 3.0 was one of the best expansions of any MMO in history, with tons to do.

Yet I barely ever log in anymore, or care about the game.

FFXI was a great game because it was a massive open world with adventures around every corner. The game felt big, and the game always had a sense of progression.

But all FFXIV seems to do is repeat itself, killing it's past success in the process.

Every patch is a new grind.
Everyone rushes to that same grind
And in that grind's dust is old content, with no incentive to complete

People seek the shortest path to succeed at the new grind, because most people don't enjoy the grind.

Fun parts of FFXIV just die off.
No one really does wolfs den
older forms of frontlines are pretty well dead
very few people do guildhests
almost no one does the old raid dungeons
etc.

FFXIV keeps releasing all this great content.
And then killing it a month later.
At the moment I can't even get into a Lord of Verminion match because there are essentially 0 people doing them.

And then instead of creating a "fun" grind that lets people "choose" what they do, they create a fake sense of a choice.
You can either grind dungeons slowly
Grind beastment even more slowly
or you can just spam alexander

All the old things that were fun are just ignored.

Why not make anima quests dynamic?
Let you get 1 item from doing 5 guildhests each day
1 item from a random drop in zone X off mob X
1 item from random-dungeon X
etc.

Basically create a game that is more than just spam these 3 or 4 new dungeons 100+ times.

I love FFXIV as a concept
But as a game, it's a repetitive rewardless grind
That only refreshes itself every few months with a new mindless grind
Cloned from a past one

What happened to the creativity in FFXI:
where each endgame zone was a drastically different experience
where cities got attacked in massive PVE events
where you could go defend a small outpost from waves and waves of mobs (even solo)
where leveling up was always an experience. Having to find a safe spot. And having the possibility of death.

FFXIV just feels like you are always overlevelled, killing trash, and getting nothing in return.