FFXIV is too simplistic and bland

[Shougun]

Travel:
Personally would love to see airships become a major content with even their own world map that is a suitable concept to be used in place of teleporting (a seamless like transition to the world map from within zones, like land to water- and even some content not having a teleport so you had to fly there). I enjoy the idea of travel but also have a sort of compulsion to not choose super awful choices, so if I'm given the choice of 10 seconds or 1 minute I'm most likely going to pick the 10 seconds even if the 1 minute would have been probably more interesting and cause the world to feel larger. I would add however to not ever recreate the whole 1 hour to travel in any modern theme park mmo lol, there should be a maximum and it should be quite low. I think some of these concepts of scale would do better in a new mmo though, where you can scale it up. FFXIV sort of does this but I would love to see it more closely to a FF classic where airships are a sort of pinnacle experience and of course there would be teleports because again I believe there should be a maximum time (no one should be spending more of their time traveling than doing content), but it would be cool to have a bit of world scale vibes.

I've also wondered if perhaps gliding and other types of non-flying transportation 'upgrades' could help where rather than pure flying in zone players can substantially glide on their mounts, mountains are still mountains and it keeps the zone fairly large yet as you upgrade your mount and understand the area your movement improves. Like you might upgrade your chocobo early on to travel faster on roads, then be able to climb up steeper angles, unlock a strong jump ability, glide greater distances, etc, you can get through the zone quickly still but you begin to process your activities of doing it (over just UP, STRAIGHT TO LOCATION, LAND lol).

Again.. no missing the boat so you missed your mage teleport and you forgot your prism powder so you had to go back and by the time you get to location it's been an hour and a half. Moments of zen or transportation I think are meaningful but they need to be used very carefully lol, like scenes in a Ghibli movie (the quiet moments add a lot, but they're not every scene cause you'd fall asleep).

Questing:
I would be interested in hearing a quest you think is fun quest that SE should add (like you think of a quest), of course the more general quests aren't super exciting but making something too wild has it's own problems. The quests seem pretty normal to me, maybe they could have some other types but 'what' would you like to see? Each quest being of the best of Witcher 3 quality would be neat but I'll see you in two years for our next expansion patch then lol.

Dungeons:
In visuals and bosses and stuff I really like FFXIV dungeons. They are exceptionally corridor though. The multiple paths I feel just wont work well with our current culture and game, I regularly offered new players to finish the early dungeons that had some branches and like 99.9% of people said no and if I did it without asking first people would complain I slowed the dungeon down to give sprouts the whole experience. I however do think permutations could be used, have to be careful that the permutation isn't drastically more rewarding or harder than another (so people don't leave if they don't get what they want) but like a dungeon could open up a variety of different avenues based on some random and perhaps some forced situations. Might go down a new route or fight a new different mini-boss, stuff like that. Puzzles would be cool, but I'm not sure if they'd be that great in a group of random players- better if it was pre-made players... Or if perhaps you can run through the dungeon on your own later to solve puzzles with your chocobo/squadron (and or a friend, that way it can be multiplayer but the puzzle which will likely be ignored isn't entirely dead if you can't find someone.. cause it's a puzzle and has a higher chance to die lol). Puzzles in Eureka might work a bit better too since it sets a different expectation, but I don't see paths and puzzles working almost at all in almost any situation with the current climate of the game.

Equipment:
I think gear right now is straight forward enough that you could almost justify just removing the concept of gear altogether, here on your power comes from yourself and to get stronger you just do content. Gear is now 100% synonymous with glamour. When SE wants players to catch up they can just change the rules a little, while content is hot you can earn X power levels from Y content and Z power levels from H content and in catch up phase they make those numbers change so you can avoid certain content and or go faster in general (using caps in addition to ensure at a certain point the 'end game' content is where you go to further your growth, but during catch up sections obviously those gains and caps would be adjusted). If they want to have the most general sense of choice, beyond the glamour, they can always just keep the materia idea - socket materia into yourself like that scene in FF7 Advent Children lol. No longer do you have players that are playing games with the gear to avoid certain content or showing up in the totally wrong type.

Now we still do have some stat concepts, sometimes pointlessly so, like of course you use that one stat on warrior while another on Paladin which there wasn't really a choice there which stat was better for which job BuuuuT it did cause you to need two sets of gear if you wanted both to be 'optimal', and there are occasionally thoughts like QoL or whatever (skill / spell speed for more comfortable buff windows or that 1 more spell during said window), yet the thoughts are a bit limited given the context of how strong the ilvl is.

Personally want to lean more to using a lite format of horizontal progression and reintroduce some more unique stats / abilities to gear (I feel items speak much more personally when their history or general theme concept is portrayed in their stats, something that is nearly entirely lost in this game, of course done for balance reasons but it's unfortunate sometimes that no item's actions says almost anything about the item itself- unlike saying jumping boots making you jump better, or a fiery sword causing you to deal fiery damage, the great chest plate of midas causing you to gain more gold on a monster's death, etc, etc).

Though also to note the current system does 'work', not like it has to be redone or whatever, but I would say the choices are relatively limited to the point you 'could' make gear glamour and it would be nearly the same thing (especially if you kept materia as a concept, just socket those right into the body parts lol), or maybe they might think of item flavor which would be neat.

Another note would be, I wonder what content you're doing if you can just auto attack from start to finish lol- is this open world monsters? Pretty sure you can't do that to the vast majority of dungeon in this game so long as you're synced and no one else is using abilities too.

Zone design:
I would love to see chocobo hot and cold content (with archelogy content influences for added value- obviously this would mean a lot of things to do in the open world and naturally in their own little hubs too like chocobo lagoon), some updates to squadrons and companion concepts (thoughts on having squadrons help with airship content, but could also be used to begin a new sort of hamlet design where you work to solidify your troop and gain access to resources cross the world, building outposts in zones and even in dungeons and obtaining unique supply lines for your content), perhaps a gears (xenogears) content, some more monster hunter vibes added to hunts with a new hunting log (crafting update included), mega leve concept where you get a multi-spanning content mad lib sort of quest that rewards you significantly with something that can be used as a good catch up or general reward (like a big pile of current end game tomestones- if you can only play an hour a week this would be excellent to staying current on at leas tone job, or you might use it for some other token).

I generally like the zone designs, though I do hope they try the 'packed' designs more like 2.0 and not always so open like post 2.0 zones are. I like the new ShB gem system too, and have hoped they expand it so that you can see a zone actually change based on your level- like opening up new shops, npcs, even areas, this could link up with beast tribe progress.

Monsters:
The monsters tend to be a bit scarier when you first start leveling but they do get weaker once you're capped sure.. A lot of monsters have their own attacks too. I don't think there is really too much off with them. I think the most I miss is just them doing their own thing outside of me fighting them, like a snurble healing you out of no where, or a gobbue eating a mandy cause lol it can. Maybe an animal that runs really fast / leap, just some extra things. Like when you fight a malboro, that's a sort of vibe of "keeping that in mind".

Job Design:
That or they make a job you like kind of sucky lol. There is probably an ideal balance in there somewhere that shifts for each person, but just saying they made them more similar so each job would be a pretty good choice, if they're too different it then becomes "why are you coming as DRK, this boss doesn't cast magic and so you're dead weight". I think the tanks for example right now are not in a bad place, each one felt different but balanced to each other so whoever you went with was not a bad choice (although I hope they avoid replicating too much of that warrior one button spam, can leave that on warrior lol). Of course healers with their smaller damage kits but often being so strong they can one to three button heal casual content is a problem.

I do think what might be a bit fun for jobs is adding a new sort of cosmetic and role play sphere grid merit system. Here you could add a lot of ideas that don't mess with balance but could have some impact to play. Like mages having some special teleport locations, summoning food sure, dragoons being able to jump higher and not take fall damage, dark knights and black mages being able to interact with certain dead and demon creatures for quests perhaps (not saying summon the dead, but like if they found a skeleton that somehow had faint energy remaining a dark knight might be able to interact with that essence to gain information), ninjas (via rogue) have the ability to unlock chests and doors newly scattered around the world, etc. This idea would also add a lot of value back into the zones since I think a great opportunity for the FATEs and beast tribes could be bonus merit experience (roulettes would add to this too, and especially your first time of the day action, but as you level your jobs and experience the story and you weren't at cap you could still get tastes of the merit system without being at cap, the exp translating into sphere points would be done in such a way that the system would have value a little bit before cap and then massively at cap).

As for the troll thing I would just say sometimes it feels like you don't really enjoy the game at any capacity lol, maybe not your intention but I do get that vibe sometimes. Like personally I enjoy the vast majority of the game, or generally see logic in the stuff I don't really enjoy (like I've zero interest in doing ultimate, but it makes sense why it exists and what I've seen also looks like it's pretty cool for those interested in that type of content, looks well done), so when I complain if someone asked why I play or am here I'd be like "clearly you missed something here" and to go farther and say I'm a troll would be lazy arguments (I'd be the worst troll in the history of trolls with the word count, and post count..., I've got on this forum lol), but I also have a number of threads and moments where I've gone out of my way to compliment and our express enjoyment. Of course it's easier to be negative (and what causes someone to want to post would likely be negative), but in general I think quite a good mmo.

For me, the effort you put into your posts is too high to me to bother saying troll, cause good lord if you were lol (seems to me you care, and not just to rile people up), but just my thoughts on why some people might call you that is that it appears you don't like almost any part of the game sometimes.