Combat system is beyond saving.

[Gokki]

Reducing the fun aspect for you maybe. I don't care about encounter mechanics that ask me to play DDR on repeat and pass body checks that I can't even help others through with my skills. I care however for intricate and fulfilling job designs, and the game currently fails spectacularly at this. Everything is extremely basic.

Note that I'm using intricate on purpose, not complex, because complexity for the sake of it is just intellectual wankery.

I'm afraid the game engine is too limited to design anything dramatically more intricate and complex. For example: there doesn't seem to be any channeled abilities other than... Flamethrower? There's no parry, dodge or reposition mechanics, there's no aiming, there's no rythm other than the dualweaving GCDs we got, there's no multiplayer abilities or spells (imagine two BLMs casting in tandem). There's a lot that can be done to make combat more interesting but is limited by an old engine, networking and outdated interface.

The problem is that Encounter Design does has way less 'shelf life' than job design because of how XIV structure is:

- Focus on the encounters: They are complex and engaging until you get your clear and suddenly they are braindead as long as everyone is on the same page. What remains is a bunch of boring jobs to go through those reclears until you don't need to reclear them anymore. Add to the aggravation the small quantity of High End content you're offered every major patch.

- Focus on the jobs: They are complex and engaging, and at some point you master their mechanics, but you still need to be on your toes and be doing decision making constantly. Shelf life is bigger because you need to apply that to different encounters, which lead to different variables. This is exactly why today BLM is the job with the most shelf life imo.

In a ideal world you'd have a neat balance between the two of them, but if I could choose just one to be the 'complex one' would be Jobs, not encounters.

I agree, but without the aforementioned examples while keeping the game balanced and working it's going to be difficult to break the status quo on game design.