Would you have paid monthly for FFXIV if it was released the way it is today?

[AlphaDragoon]

No.

I'll probably get flamed for not realizing this long before now, but I feel this is important feedback. So, I'll say it anyway.

I got my husband to log on with me tonight to unlock achievement categories. This is the first time he has participated in combat since the implementation of auto-attack (since we had to run through Coerthas to the Owl's Nest and kill a few enemies).

I only play casters, and he only plays melee (his main is a PUG).

He was so frustrated with the battle system changes, I thought he was going to throw his keyboard out the window. He apparently no longer has a single go-to ability that can be activated without TP. So, he stands there and waits for auto-attack to get in a few hits before he has any control over his character?

He said before the battle system was actually fun. He went on to say that if the game had been released this way, he would have put it down after five minutes and never played it again.

Which means, I wouldn't play, either.

Since I don't play melee, I had no idea combat had drastically changed this much. My abilities aren't dependent upon TP. I don't stand there and wait for my character to auto-attack to participate in combat.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against auto-attack. Far from it. I hated that melee just spammed the 1 key all day. And I hated before that, as a CNJ, I was expected to spirit dart like a melee. I've actually been happy with the caster changes. I think casters were fixed. But the melee... well, lots of other games have auto-attack and still give you plenty of other active abilities to jump into combat with right off the bat. Making everything dependent upon TP use makes for a waiting game. :/

I'm very disheartened at this point.

Oh, and my main reason for not wanting to pay (other than above)?

There is no quest-based leveling in this game. Nothing but mindless grinding. I want a story to follow. And there is just not enough leveling content.

I really like the new battle system, but being honest...this is one of the few problems I have with it, I dislike that until you get TP you only sit there and auto-attack. I think that they would have been fine going to say, 18 Abilities total instead of 15 and giving melee classes some non-TP, cooldown only basic moves like the old system, and given magic classes some more spells instead.