It’s been a very long time since I posted anything on these forums, but I wanted to share my perspective on the first 72 hours back in this game after they announced that Beastmaster was going to be a limited job.

I’ve heard it all before—people saying that my excuse for not wanting to play this game anymore is really goofy or dumb. And that's fine. But from my perspective, FFXIV adding in another limited job on top of an already existing system was, to me, one of the biggest blunders in this MMO and it just took the cake for me two years ago. But that’s neither here nor there; I just wanted to give my outlook on what I’ve experienced coming back into the game.

I was a huge and massive fan of Shadowbringers, and one of the motivating factors for me to come back for Dawntrail stemmed from me being gone for those two years and potentially wondering if I was wrong—if my reaction leaving, simply because another limited job was introduced, was overblown and over-exaggerated. And to be 100% honest with you guys who may read this, it wasn't.

Now, let me get the positive stuff out of the way first. I really enjoy the aspects they announced about freeing up clothing options, which again gives players more flexibility to express themselves, something everyone should have a right to do, especially in a video game such as FFXIV. And I’m not going to lie, there are many aspects to the game that go back to the beta in 2013 which I miss and that other MMOs unfortunately don’t have. The story, the ambience, the music, the job system—all these things culminate to what makes FFXIV be FFXIV.

Yet, since I’ve already mentioned I was a big fan of Shadowbringers, one of the first things that really got me potentially trying the game again was the hint of new open zones, similar to what we had in Shadowbringers with the Bozja and Southern Front content. But I came to discover through other websites and videos that yet again, Square Enix has decided to copy an old and, in my opinion, archaic notion they once did in Stormblood: a completely distinct and separate leveling system.

Sincere question, Square Enix: Why? Why give us nearly two expansions and three and a half years away from some of the best content you have ever created at the peak of your subscriber base? That content in Shadowbringers was one of the driving factors that kept me subscribed. Yet, for another expansion and another two and a half years, we have to rely on doing nothing more than dungeon grinding or FATEs—the same repetitive formula over and over again. Do you guys not comprehend that this is one of the driving factors of why people went away, and for small other tidbits, tend to be the final nails?

But let me continue, as honestly, in some ways, it gets worse. I didn't expect the Free Company I belonged to would keep me on the roster on the server I was on, and I just thought maybe I could rejoin them even if I'd been gone for so long. Do you know what surprised me when I logged in for the first time? It wasn't that I was no longer part of a Free Company—which again, that's a gimme—it was that the Free Company I belonged to, nearly 300-plus active players, all with individual characters, were all gone.

Not one of the members of the Free Company I once belonged to is in existence. Now, to be fair, a lot of them could have transferred to another server or changed their name... but the very Free Company that I belonged to no longer existed. I might not be a hardcore raider, but they were. They were all gone... their house, all gone. 300 players that were hardcore fans of Final Fantasy XIV just gone. What am I supposed to take from that? What could have caused the dissolution of so many players in such a short amount of time? Maybe someone who comments can give me an answer because I don't know.

But allow me to get to the crux of why I made this post. Many of the people that read this who are hardcore defenders of Square Enix will attack me, will say bad things about me, or ask me for my gil as a form of a joke, or say, "Go play some other game," or offer some other type of rebuttal they tend to do if anyone disagrees with their perspective of how FFXIV is supposed to be the ultimate game.

Do you know why so many people are still playing Final Fantasy XI? Do many of the people reading this know why that game is still alive after 20-plus years? It's because the system makes sense. FFXI is a well-structured game... and in FFXIV's current state, it isn't. Again, you can disagree, but I needed to share my perspective on a game that I spent 10-plus years of my gaming life on.

To conclude, games change, and FFXIV is not the game I once spent who knows how many hours on one character. Instead of going the direction that Final Fantasy XI once did to satisfy their player base, people like Yoshi-P and his staff—who, to their credit, have done amazing work with this game—instead of implementing new systems into the game or making comments in an interview saying that this game is too easy (which in many ways it is)... all they want to do is copy things like Dark Souls or Elden Ring, which is not Final Fantasy. To this day, I will firmly believe that Final Fantasy XI, no matter what version you play, either on a public or private server, is where the true Final Fantasy experience for an MMO still exists. And before you go and say, "Why don't you go play Final Fantasy XI," I still do, and I just ended a session just now before I even started writing this.

I had such hopes for this game; I saw such potential for this being the MMO that Final Fantasy deserves as a franchise, but I don't feel that way anymore. I feel that FFXIV has become nothing more than a theme park MMO built on Dark Souls-style gameplay, a cash shop, and a group of creators that never want to take risks. They just want to play it safe... the same spirit that drove them to recreate Final Fantasy XIV from the ground up from 1.0 no longer exists. And that, for me, is the saddest fact from a person who spent thousands of dollars on this game.