I guess I have to admit that non-gameplay things are actually important in an MMO. Part of the reason it's hard to leave XIV is that the world design is so much better than other games. It would be easier for them to add interesting activities here than for other games to completely remake their worlds into places people care about. XIV is the most pretty social/ERP hub.

This game's interface for gamepad/ console players is also a million miles better than any other MMO. Cross hotbar is the only way to have immediate direct access to dozens of abilities, emotes, menus, macros, etc but no other game does it. They've had 10 years to copy but still they have controller layouts that are gimped in some way, and HUDs that can't be customised as much as XIV.

So there's some praise I seldom give these days. FF XIV is the #1 online game for world building, art design, interface, QoL features, music. There are enough reasons for me to stay and care enough to bother complaining about the gameplay, repetitive content loop. It feels like at least 80% of the dev effort is consumed by iterating old content types that have been done a hundred times before. Designing expansions to fit inside an old template is such a waste of their talent.