Perspective of a returning player

[Eiyaya]

let me stat that:
1. I am a returning player with collect edition from retail, played beta and the following 5 months after release or at least until free monthy ran out.

2. I am an active MMORPG player, played latest "pay" subscription games and even some free 2 play. My mmorpg experience dated back to asheron's call to latest Tera online.

My perspective so far on FFXIV as a returning player.

Game play improvement? No, at least not apparent. As most player claims leveling is indeed faster, but it still does not kill the repetitiveness of this game. You have increased level to 36 max, but running leves definitely not a vital option for players.

The quests are fine, but to me it feel like a bunch of talk quest and nothing particular innovative. Grand company is not as expect either, it feel more like "leves" with more reading involve.

The new job classes seem unique but personally i feel it just there to cover what it is lacking and cover it up not fixing it. You removed many skills, split them across and using new job class to add back these skill and give them fancy names.

UI improvement? None, it did eliminate the lag back then which i am perfectly fine with it. However UI did not improve as much as expected. Scalable and movable UI is somewhat expected for MMO these age. However, target system still give me trouble consider the target somehow end on myself time from time , When enter passive to active target seldom lock in (i am sure you can adjust these). And movement still feel sluggish at least on caster with spells AOE sometime hit sometime not hit the range or sometime overlap the area too much. Not to mention the trait UI and gear UI is too small and i really detest the fact i have to click on item, click that square space click it again to confirm.

I also found loading really long compare to before, i never had this problem before.

I hope 2.0 will fix these issues.

However, will FFXIV be popular is another issue i see. Consider Tera online's combat is really fun and active. With FFXIV's combat, it feel like i am click a repeat combo in an office working. While lack of innovative ideas and most of all a PVP system that encourage player/motivate them to keep playing.

FFXI motivate player to play because it really have a hard story line and players are encourage to level several jobs in order to complete them. FFXIV in current stage lack what FFXI had...Multiple good story line.

I do hope FFXIV dev team bring back Wing of goddesss's way to level in frontier and Valor leveling instead of leves.

I also hope to see something similar to assaults and NM challenges and especially besieged/nizle isles tower challenge.

I want to continue put faith in FFXIV, but right now, i can't get myself to play (i got a legion member ship) unless i fill my character with full rested bar. This is how i felt with current FFXIV. It is absolute no different from releases.

Maybe i am not too high level but if FFXIV cannot motivate me to level, it means it fails in its motivation even if all the goods are in endgame, because you will lose 99% of the players and keeping 1% who endured it. Just like FFXI in the beginning. Losing the general North american audience (please read some youtube comment, you would see out of 5 players claim played FFXI, 1-3 would say "i played 1 month and i quit FFXI)