Why are you not playing this game?

[Vhailor]

Bad update cycles are what's driving me away right now. Things are just too stale.

And, honestly, the three pieces of 4.3 that I had the most hope for - the Doman Enclave, Heaven-on-High, and Eureka Pagos - are either coming in 4.35+, looking bad, or both. These three systems all had the potential for some real depth and freshness, in my mind, but the Doman Enclave looks like a glorified GC turn-in system, Pagos doesn't appear to offer Relic Armour upgrades (bad sign), and SE seems to be trying to handle Anemos' fuck-ups (the FATE train dynamic) by band-aid fixes like Challenge Log entries (another bad sign for Pagos). Heaven-on-High, too, appears like it's going to force people into the PF or statics if they want to run above Floor 30, which is an obscenely stupid restriction; it's not like you can't kick someone from a DF group for being bad.

So, yeah, now I'm back to feeling quite pessimistic. We'll see; a lot of this is very early commentary. But SE doesn't appear to be willing and/or able to deliver properly on fresh-feeling content, and that's what's driving me away at the moment.

Edit / Addition:

The story, lore, visuals, music, etc are all amazingly well done and I will die on a hill defending the writing and localization of FFXIV, but these are the only elements keeping me subscribed. The actual gameplay of the game is lackluster.

• Every patch is the same tired formula. Next patch includes linear dungeon number 61, boss who repeats the same attack patterns in a circle shaped arena number 49, daily beast tribe number 11. I would love to see even tiny changes, like the daily quest faction not being beastmen or a trial boss in an interesting arena; let alone substantial changes to the content and formula.
• Such steep vertical progression makes me feel like my time and effort means nothing. Why should I struggle for the best gear when that same gear will be handed out like candy next patch, to be replaced by a new best gear? Likewise, every new piece of content (like those linear dungeons that get added every patch) replace what came before it instead of adding to it. So at the end of the day only one or two of those sixty some dungeons actual means anything, at least for the few weeks until it is replaced again.
• There is no gameplay customization. None. The stats in FFXIV are so boring that they aren't even a consideration to the average player, so there is no way to use stats to customize your character. I have never encountered another MMORPG with so little way to change the gameplay. There are no talent trees, no weapon enchantments, or gear with unique effects. I am identical to all other players.

You really hit the nail on the head. I cannot imagine how excited I'd be to see SE introduce true 3D arenas that incorporated the z-axis into combat mechanics, along with gear rewards that meaningfully altered our character abilities. Done well, I'd be evangelizing about FF to all of my friends who long since stopped playing, and they'd probably come back for those.

Ah well...