What are the largest issues plaguing XIV currently?

[ZattanaWen]

Gutting TP instead of just reducing TP cost of weaponskills by a lot. It made tanks and physical DPS gameplay feel even more shallow and this isn't even taking into account how tanks got butchered this expansion. TP acted like stamina in other games and was a resource that you had to mange and choose your moves wisely. It also acted as a level of depth to further add involvement and a little thing that this game has been slowly losing over time, consequence. The only real issue that people complained about was that sprint was tied to TP which they had since ARR to fix before 5.0. We tried no TP and its terrible so lets bring it back in 6.0? or lets remove MP because half the jobs don't use it and I hate having none when I die and get raise'd in battle be cuz it's soo difficult to mange MP that its ruining my fun of just spamming holy nonstop.

I will agree that it's a little stupid to have MP but not TP.

Either keep them both or toss them both.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I will agree that it's a little stupid to have MP but not TP.

Either keep them both or toss them both.

Mp is there to contain raises. Tp jobs can't raise. Blm also can't raise, and has unlimited Mp essentially.

[sarehptar]

I think the "hot button" issue that underlies many, if not all other issues, is the poor back-end infrastructure of the game and the team's lack of time, money, enough staff, etc. to fix those back-end issues.

Character customization and gear design are gimped by poor character data management, inventory and housing are terribly limited, glamour is poorly designed, the new races are limited, every battle arena ends up being a circle or square, lack of diverse new content that doesn't just turn out to be another fate grind... Lack of options for substats/horizontal progression on gear, lack of variety in patch content delivery... Lack of balance between classes, underwhelming combat changes in the expansions, and so on and so on.

It all comes back to not wanting to invest enough money and man-power to improve basic infrastructure and design.

Because why invest money to improve something that is already making money hand-over-fist as it is?

[Absurdity]

Lack of balance between classes

The classes are actually rather balanced...and that's exactly the issue. The balanced was achieved by homogenization and makes most jobs feel incredibly bland.

[DPZ2]

I think the "hot button" issue that underlies many, if not all other issues, is the poor back-end infrastructure of the game and the team's lack of time, money, enough staff, etc. to fix those back-end issues.

The best answer to those problems is "abandon development on the current game and start development on the next one".

Be sure that is what you really want before asking for it.

Didn't think so.

Another answer: Start looking for another game that meets your requirements (about class balance, combat changes, meaningful horizontal gear progression). Surely there is something out there that matches what you desire that isn't FFXI. [OK, OK. Cheap shot. I promise I'll be good. Hashtag Satire]

Final answer: find investors and create your own game with exactly those features you desire the most. I understand there are any number of Crowd-sourced MMOs "in development", although they may have been so for five years or more.

[Marxam]

Mp is there to contain raises. Tp jobs can't raise. Blm also can't raise, and has unlimited Mp essentially.

You can also raise using Phoenix Down* and that requires no MP. The devs design these systems and its up to them to use it. All I'm saying is why do magical jobs have to be limited by a resource while physical jobs don't. Im guess it's to hide the fact that healers MP will mostly be spent spamming your one single target attack, and dot. Healers barely have to touch their gcd heals because most of their ogcd or lilies use no MP and there isn't enough out going damage to necessitate it. If they put as much effort into reducing MP cost of moves as they did for TP we might still have it now.

Except, again, what's its actual gameplay? An auto-clicker does the job just as well as an "optimized" use of the skill. It could just... not exist, with an additional 350 "Refresh potency" generated per minute instead, and there would be no difference. It's just bloat.

It doesn't have to be bloat. Equilibrium worked perfectly fine in giving both TP or HP when needed. For example: if PLD's Clemency gave TP in Sword Oath stance and HP in Shield Oath stance you have one button that performs different functions and also gave you the player a 'choice' in what to do when in a situation. Choice, is also something that this game is slowly losing in favor of balance.

[Morningstar1337]

You can also raise using Phoenix Down* and that requires no MP. The devs design these systems and its up to them to use it. All I'm saying is why do magical jobs have to be limited by a resource while physical jobs don't. Im guess it's to hide the fact that healers MP will mostly be spent spamming your one single target attack, and dot. Healers barely have to touch their gcd heals because most of their ogcd or lilies use no MP and there isn't enough out going damage to necessitate it. If they put as much effort into reducing MP cost of moves as they did for TP we might still have it now.

Within the Grand picture there is also GP and CP as well. One of which acts as a limit on how many crafting actions you can do (alongside durability, but given that there are skills that help with that...) and likewise the other is there to contain how many King's Yields you can spam on nodes. Just becuase they aren;t related to combat doens't mean that they aren't relevant as the 4 are of the same stripe.

[Shurrikhan]

Gutting TP instead of just reducing TP cost of weaponskills by a lot. It made tanks and physical DPS gameplay feel even more shallow and this isn't even taking into account how tanks got butchered this expansion. TP acted like stamina in other games and was a resource that you had to mange and choose your moves wisely. It also acted as a level of depth to further add involvement and a little thing that this game has been slowly losing over time, consequence. The only real issue that people complained about was that sprint was tied to TP which they had since ARR to fix before 5.0. We tried no TP and its terrible so lets bring it back in 6.0? or lets remove MP because half the jobs don't use it and I hate having none when I die and get raise'd in battle be cuz it's soo difficult to mange MP that its ruining my fun of just spamming holy nonstop.

I will agree that it's a little stupid to have MP but not TP.

Either keep them both or toss them both.

Better yet, use them both, and more integrally than just "click this every 60 seconds, or assign an auto-clicker to do that for you", or lose them both. Neither Invigorate nor Lucid Dreaming add anything to the experience, especially now that Lucid Dreaming doesn't even Enmity-fade.

That said, all that was necessary to fix TP was to have resource ticks occur per GCD instead of per 3 seconds (at 20% less base strength to compensate), so they could thereby scale with Attack Speed (and therein Skill Speed). It'd still be a trash mechanic so long as there's never any real advantage in higher spending (e.g. no sufficient reason to weave Enpi, Rockbreaker, Sonic Thrust, etc, situationally into a single-target raid fight), but that's really all it'd have taken.

[DPZ2]

Neither Invigorate nor Lucid Dreaming add anything to the experience, especially now that Lucid Dreaming doesn't even Enmity-fade.

Lucid Dreaming is a nice way to restore MP during those times your healer has been going full-damage-mode during a personal duty.

[Shurrikhan]

Lucid Dreaming is a nice way to restore MP during those times your healer has been going full-damage-mode during a personal duty.

Except, again, what's its actual gameplay? An auto-clicker does the job just as well as an "optimized" use of the skill. It could just... not exist, with an additional 350 "Refresh potency" generated per minute instead, and there would be no difference. It's just bloat.

It doesn't have to be bloat. Equilibrium worked perfectly fine in giving both TP or HP when needed. For example: if PLD's Clemency gave TP in Sword Oath stance and HP in Shield Oath stance you have one button that performs different functions and also gave you the player a 'choice' in what to do when in a situation. Choice, is also something that this game is slowly losing in favor of balance.

Forgoing nitpicks into those particular examples... Agreed. MP, TP and their relevant abilities don't have to be just bloat. And I'd rather use both TP and MP than merely scrap those mechanics. But using them required that those mechanics amount to more than just a button you (auto)click every minute.