Had to answer "no, other reasons". I'm hoping for fundamental changes, but it's gotten to the point where, barring those changes, I'd rather dabble in or swap to other MMOs. Some of the issues I'm feeling most may be universal, faced by any veteran in their respective MMO, but others have bugged me since XIV's release and merely continue to. Worse, they don't seem to be areas of upcoming change or even significant polish, namely:
  • For its alleged graphical interest, XIV has comparatively awful textures, whether from tessellation or sheer resolution. Skin often looks more like plastic.
  • Although I quickly found a character appearance I like, all but one of my frequent attempts to find another character appearance (preferably male) is met with the same issue: customization is painfully limited, both in terms of faces and builds and expression sets. This sticks out more for some races (e.g. Hyur males, and either Au'ra) than others.
  • Combat isn't especially intuitive nor especially dynamic for the amount of buttons it requires. That button count is no issue on keyboard (and probably even less of one on controller), but it still strikes me as a very clear lack of design vision; the button bloat (such as from combos) just points out issues what often appear to be abilities set as specific abilities only to suit some sort of chart or system rather than aiming for equity through individual designs for each class or job (then varying however they might vary).
  • For all their flair, animations have no weight. Whereas even other trinity MMOs will have ragdoll effects (and in their addition, additional means for teamplay by making damage more than just a long-term output), XIV character perform long and sometimes even gaudy attacks that do... nothing.
  • There's little use of under-mechanics. The only one of any real significance not tied to a categorical standard DR is enmity, and it's about as dull an incarnation of a threat system as one can get, especially given how little crossover there is from other roles (e.g. dps) into its manipulatives.