Quote Originally Posted by Riposte View Post
Items are boring
There is no creativity to be found in constructing your gear set. Item level > main stat > all. Artifact Armor is the same as level 5 quest armor, with higher and more numbers. You think this isn't a problem? Ask Blizzard how people felt about Diablo III's loot.
Ask blizzard about a single-player game with an online element? How's that relevant to an MMORPG like FFXIV? If you were asking for tier set bonuses like WoW does I may get behind your cause, but single effect situational gear is the bane of the modern MMO.
the quests which directly follow that (at least for Jobs) are certainly not much better. Despite the potential of the level sync system, backed by hints and even an easy mode for players who've lost, they've stripped these quests of interesting content and made them purely a "MMORPG" experience (and not a fresh take on it, but the regular lowered expectations of combat system not mattering and quests teaching nothing), not a "Final Fantasy" one.
MMORPG > Final Fantasy in this case. Which isn't saying much as Final Fantasy games aren't exactly difficult outside of low level challenges.

1) There is no sense of danger in the world
Which encourages exploration. Not a bad thing.

the onslaught of FATE alliance parties will make these events nothing more than EXP grab-bags.
That was kind of the point of FATE, so there's no issue here.

3) This game is being molded in a way that ACTIVELY discourages servers from having a sense of community outside individual Free Companies (and perhaps, linkshells, but those are also falling to the wayside)
There's a reason the social networking has been incorporated into the Lodestone. I don't facebook and my twitter account is gathering dust somewhere, so I am somewhat new to this stuff as a whole, but it is possible to meet people and make friends through FATE and even questing. Hell, I did a two-man group doing random things after trying to get mobs for a quest in East Thanalan that led to us joining forces for FATE, and ended up adding them to friends at the end. If you're worried about e-fame or whatever, you'll get no sympathy or support from me.

Too many traits which take a boring ability and make it slightly less boring 10-20 levels later.
While I agree that the traits are lackluster when it could have been baked into general class scaling, most of the abilities have a solid foundation.

Aegis Boon - Fully blocks a hit and heals you.
Divine Veil - Raises block chance to 100% for the duration and spreads a regen effect to allies when Cure is cast on you.
Outmaneuver - Raises block chance and restores TP/MP on block.
Rampart - Raises defense. Is AOE. Generates enmity for every party member you hit with it.
Sentinel - Mitigates incoming damage and increases enmity generation during the effect.
Aegis Boon - We got something similar but without the heal. This is fine.
Divine Veil - Not needed given the current pace of combat. Our job is to stay alive and hold aggro, let the healer worry about AoE healing.
Outmaneuver - Not needed given the current design for combat. TP generation was there because we started with 0 TP and needed an additional way to generate it. MP regen is built into Riot Blade's combo.
Rampart - Again, not needed. GLA and PLD have a very solid enmity generation system that gets only better once you bring Shield Oath into the mix.
Sentinel - This has always crept dangerously close to unreliable because of the effect length and the cooldown at the time it existed. Tanking, much like healing, needs consistent and reliable abilities and mechanics in order to properly work. The damage reduction is part of the GLA set of abilities, and the bonus enmity is simply not needed given our array of abilities that generate aggro.
What is going on with their MP use (and how is Riot Blade useful)?
Now you smell like a troll that hasn't played GLA or PLD. Flash will eat up your MP quickly if spammed, and any tank worth his salt will learn to blend in Riot Blade combos into their rotation to maintain their MP pool as best as they can.
Where is a viable Cure?
PLD/GLA is a tank, and thus doesn't need "viable cures" mid-combat. We have access to Cure from Conjurer, which falls more under utility like Raise and Protect; utility that's nice but won't make the class non-functional if you don't end up using them. This is fine, seeing that the FF Paladin is basically a knight with access to weak magic.
there is very difficult to differentiate players from each other (like I said, no room for creativity)
Mechanics and aesthetics separate one player from the other. Messing with stats only makes balance wonky, which then makes gear design and encounter balance even more difficult than they have to be.