I honestly have to take breaks from xiv to go play wow or gw2 because of this game's "raid" "designs" and "open" "world". XIV is just far too devoid of exploration and gameplay-based storytelling. Everything in this game just feels so surface-level and that we're just supposed to take the npcs' words that there is a living breathing world that logically functions when we're not there to observe it, and I just don't buy it.

Story-wise and traversal-wise we go from leading to a deeply personal expedition into some completely alien archetecture, to a series of gob-gauntlets maybe guarded by a handful of dudes or one robot, to "i'mma just come up with some dudes to fight and plop you in front of it and none of it will actually be real 'cause i want you to prove yourself." to "F it, you come up with a boss this time"

Dungeons are just as bad since they're all hallways with no approaches to encounters other than "run forward until you can't, then AoE, then boss with 3 mechanics, then repeat." I was excited to hear that this newest dungeon was suppsoed to take after haukke (cause at least it had a sensible layout for a mansion, and the key mechanic which is better than literally nothing), but nope, it was more hallways and nowhere to explore.

As for the reusing models, yeah it's annoying, though I don't mind it when they add and edit elements to have them similar, and I love it when they put dyable versions in dungeons and mix the roles up in dungeons as well, but the healer = white dress, caster = black dress, ranged = cowboy coat, ninja = short cowboy coat, does get annoying.