A decent MMO plagued by some serious problems that make it unplayable in the long run

[Soluna]

Has nothing to do with "using guides", it's just a very deterministic system once you're out of the extremely low level "rely on hasty touch RNG" stage of crafting.

The "hardest crafts" in ShB are a complete joke right now, too. You can macro them - with reuse included - with no overmelds at all. Gathering is a massive waste of time as well, if you're not making enough off of crafting to not need to gather your own mats, you're doing something very wrong. (Yes, I know some people enjoy gathering. I'm talking about actual return as a crafter.)

This idea that you have to do all this deep planning and thinking and whatnot is nonsense. You get a minimum set of stats and press the buttons in exactly the same order for each craft. It's extremely deterministic, the only thing you might need to watch for is a Poor condition on your final Quality step. Same as before, if you're seeing some additional depth and whatnot beyond that it's a good indicator that you're doing something wrong.

You know that it's not every patch as easy to craft the newest stuff, right? And you still have to plan out the min melding requirements to get this going?
Also, you do know that restoration of ishgard is coming, where they went out of their way to say that it's harder to craft stuff than ever before? But sure, go ahead and whine about launch crafts after savage unlocks, which are purposely easy like always.
And finally, it may not be as deep or super complex as you want it to be, but it's still a lot more enjoyable and rewarding than most MMO crafting systems in my opinion.

[Soluna]

I mean, it's never been hard. And never will be. Because it's entirely deterministic, just get the stats and press your macro.

And "planning melds" is...you know...literally 1st grade arithmetic. (Woah, I have 900 control and need 1000, how many of these +10 materia will I need? #DeepPlanning)

The system just draws people in with all the shiny array of buttons and necessity to gear, but once you realize that its all just a meaningless layer of false complexity you see it no differently than any other MMO crafting.

The economy and market is fun and very broad. And I guess the nature of crafting offers a barrier to entry that keeps people from flooding it, which is great for hitting gil cap if you feel like it. (Although ShB making crafting much, MUCH easier has caused a lot more flooding of popular markets) But there's nothing super deep or complex about it.

You show just how silly you are by saying 'just get stats and press macro'. Didn't you read my initial comment? I like to create my own bis, and I create my own handmade rotations. I am like 100% sure you just look up melds online, and a crafting macro some random posted on reddit, and use 0 brainpower to do it. Of course it's easy af when you automate it like a bot. But you do you. And I will continue having fun in this game with its nice crafting system, and I will continue to do something else that WoW does successfully, when I will be launching WoW.

Also I'd really like to see your no overmelds, reuse, macro for grade 2 armor or potions. By all means, enlighten me with your god crafting.

[Muajin76]

Then go back to retail WoW. If you're happy with retail WoW, just stick with it. There's no reason to hate on FFXIV, especially when your facts are so wrong.

Amen. I actually enjoy playing FF 14 and i been a wow fan for 15yrs. It's been bout 2 months since i touched my wow acct.

[Puremallace]

Amen. I actually enjoy playing FF 14 and i been a wow fan for 15yrs. It's been bout 2 months since i touched my wow acct.

Personally I think this is that rare scenario when SHOCKINGLY both MMO's can exist and not have to kill each other as they appease different player bases. I can name a list of things I dislike in WoW without a doubt and I can name a list of things I do not like in FF14.

If you are going to dump on FF14 and use examples then it better be accurate as a lot of us have played games that guy is referencing and I can call BS in under 3 seconds.

[Soluna]

You can try as hard as you want to make it sound like the system is somehow better if you "make your own handmade rotations". (What does that even mean? Almost every single craft comes down to "Put buffs up, spam Delicate Synthesis, put some more buffs up, Byregot" with more buffs or Preparatory Touches before the Byregot's depending on your stats. The only trick is maybe squeezing a tiny bit more efficiency out of buff order or a Prudent Touch to take advantage of the whole odd-durability-number free step. You're not doing something super clever and amazing.)



Oh, but you don't want any but your own handmade macros. (And who is making 2* potions anyway? Meh. The 450 gear market I pretty much left once the initial rush wore off and you weren't getting 2-5 million per piece anymore. The fact that it's all so easy to craft with no investment means the market is just flooded.)

... Grade 2 potions are highly sought after as they are super good performance wise, not sure what you are talking about. Also terrible job at trying to cover up that you don't know how to craft, and are therefore afraid to show what you are actually doing. But sure, go play your complex and superbly interesting games then I guess.

[Muajin76]

Personally I think this is that rare scenario when SHOCKINGLY both MMO's can exist and not have to kill each other as they appease different player bases. I can name a list of things I dislike in WoW without a doubt and I can name a list of things I do not like in FF14.

If you are going to dump on FF14 and use examples then it better be accurate as a lot of us have played games that guy is referencing and I can call BS in under 3 seconds.

Both games have their good and bad sides i'm sure. I think..if you're going to dump on one, might as well dump on the other too. I'm not saying wow sucks, it has things that i like/dislike about it. So far the only thing i don't really like about FF, other than the endless quests, is the lack of world chat. In a way..it is a lot quieter...sometimes miss that mindless chatter from players. :P

[Wrecktangle]

4. You are literally the first person I've ever seen dog the professions in this game. They are so fleshed out and well done that you could play FF14 for months on end as crafting as your ''main'' and have plenty of content to keep you busy for the most part.

Nah, professions in this game are very hit or miss in the community. Mind you that I DO like FF14's crafting system in theory. I simply have no desire to participate in it due to itemization/inventory bloat, and its tedious and cumbersome nature. For additional context, I don't really find many games crafting all that interesting. I can't think of a single example I genuinely like all in. I think WoW's is stupidly shallow and boring, but I do enjoy how I can level it simultaneously with my battle class (and thus earn $$ to fund whatever I want to pursue).

Guy plays FF14 and skips every cutscene. Ok this guys opinion isn't valid. Stopped reading.

You should watch the show Silicon Valley specifically the part about the Pied Piper platform beta. Marking opinions invalid like this without taking the root cause into consideration is downright foolish, ignorant, and arrogant.

The combat is not awefull, its slow in the start but every MMO is as well, on max level the actions per second is actually one of the higest of any MMO (this is not an opinion its a fact, OGCDs skills are a thing), specially if you are a Machinist.

This is factually inaccurate. Did you even do any research to confirm this before spouting blatant misinformation?

To me, other games have way too basic of rotations and I love the so-called "ability bloat" as the slower pace of combat allows you to actually learn and perfect your class, and better yet, it actually feels rewarding to do so. Pruning the ability amount just to pander to people who don't want to learn something that might have complexity or nuance is exactly what happened to WoW and what I want to never happen to FFXIV.

So to clarify - you are effectively stating that faster games don't allow you to learn or perfect their gameplay loops? That's completely inaccurate.

I've stated this numerous times. FF14 needs to do a fair bit more pruning and add a lot of synergy to the job kits. WoW needs to add quite a few more buttons. They do a good job with synergy, but pruned way too hard especially at the cost of class identity. They also need to stop delineating ST and AOE talents. That's the furthest thing from interesting gameplay.

biggest problem for me is the content gets stale quicker and quicker the longer i play. there really is not much content in the game atm. most people that played on shb launch have unsubbed until something new comes out.

This mirrors my experience. Despite SHB being one of the best expansions, and UNDENIABLY the best iteration of my main job (PLD) the game has ever seen I still quit even earlier than I did last expansion. The more of the same is wearing thin on me.

@OP what wierd delays on the combat lol ? The combat is super fluid and class design actually makes sense (as in GCDs, OGCDs and your other skills are designed to line up properly and skills complement each other perfectly) and the jobs are all complex enought to keep anyone engaged but not too complex.

The combat fluidity is widely criticized in this game and is especially evident if you've played other more fluid games. Hitboxes, cast timers/bars, animation syncing, over-reliance on server side checks, animation locks, etc.

I generally agree on the complexity and job design statements, but firmly disagree on the fluidity of the combat engine, really of the entire game engine honestly.

Also you played up until lv 35 you had like 5 skills total, its like playing a class till lv 30 in WoW (or any other MMO) and complainning. The combat realy only shines on high levels, thats true for at least 90% of MMOs out there. You don't liek the game, great, ts not for you, but trying to convince ppl that one of the most praised MMOS on the amrket currently is bad and you are the only one who noticed it is insanity.

At level 10, WoW offers you a choice of spec where you acquire nearly all of your class kit before talent tiers augment/replace/add to your toolset. It's a completely different methodology and hooks you much earlier in a more exciting gameplay loop; it's quite literally the opposite of FF14s.

Blade and Soul also does the same thing. You acquire most of your core skills by like level 24, and then augments, replacements, new interactions, dynamic loops, etc. by acquiring further levels.

FF14's (IMO) unbearably slow gameplay accrual feels awful, and feels ESPECIALLY jarring/awful coming from a game who does the other method. Both methods have pros and cons, and are largely subjective.

I'll offer an example I've argued in the past regarding persona 3 and 4. The story in 3 plays out significantly slower, but is still a very good story. The story in 4 hooks you hard and early and is still a very good story.

You missed another way to level up: FATEs. All you have to do is open up Party Finder and hop in FATE train. It's really fun to just go around with the group, obliterating everything in sight, and have a comfy time in the world.

Subjective. FATEs were the direct reason I quit the game in 2 specific instances. Eureka and ARR Relics. They're by and far the most boring and unengaging type of content I've ever experienced in any game I've ever played. That's saying something lol. A lot of people are tired of FATEs. I know I am not alone in that.

Got to level 10.

That's all anyone needs to read to discard that opinion.

See my response to GreenJesus in this block of text.

FFXIV has movement and ability input lag? That's news to me since everything I do in both WoW and FFXIV always feels snappy and abilities happen as soon I hit my keybinds.

It does - see my response to DakonBlackblade further in this block of text.

Though if you've played the game long enough you know there are a bunch of idiots that speedrun and chain-pull everything. First time you do a dungeon, you actually get to see the vistas and such with Trusts.

I'm confused - are you saying that players are stupid for playing optimally?

Nether have i , but i want to. I have looked into it and honestly , wow has nothing even close to ultimate in terms of complexity of the fight. Dont forget you can never out gear it so it will always be hard.

This isn't as trivial a statement as you think it is. FF14 outshines WoW in difficulity is in a few specific areas, namely cost for mistakes (punishment) and lack of pretesting/dungeon journals, but is also easier because you only have 7 clowns to account for vs. 19. It's also easier because you can brute force by infinite ressing to see later phases before you're genuinely prepared for them.

It's also generally easier because many mechanics have specific if/then failure states so that once you understand them, they're very easy and very specifically handled. When WoW wants to make a very challenging fight the mechanics often layer and duplicate over existing mechanics so that phases very rarely feel conquered.

[XorMalice]

The actual details of these complaints fly as close to the "game versus game" threads that are prohibited, without actually crossing that line. You can tell from the way that the strengths of FFXIV are downplayed "...and thus I skipped every cutscene ever...", and the way that the strengths are reframed as weaknesses.

So to fill the downtime created by completing most of the activities in 8.2, as well as to clear the bad taste playing wow classic has left in my mouth, I decided to jump in and try out FF14.

FFXIV is one of the MMOs that is ok being your side game. It won't give you everything for such a lack of commitment, of course, but it will let you get to the point where you are familiar with basically everything everyone is up to, and be fully partipant in pvp and almost all pve.

I stopped playing the game 5 levels away from the cap (at 75) because it's just unpleasant to play it now.

Your job is 75, but how far is your MSQ? If your job has outgrown your MSQ, you need to focus on the MSQ to unlock all the new things. FFXIV's MSQ experience is largely single player, and it gates access to zones, activities, access to current content, and flying. How is that coming?

1. The combat

...is awful. Much like Rift, Swtor and all the other usual suspects in the past, it just feels clunky.

The FFXIV combat is far from awful. It's slightly above average for an MMO. This is what I mean by this being almost a game-v-game post: WoW's netcode has historically only been well matched by Wildstar (also by WoW devs, now defunct), and if that's your standard, you are going to be a bit disappointed. The other thing that is an MMO standard is the idea that your character has to have time to execute moves, so you have animation locks and such. WoW's instant response for activities that properly should take some actual time (such as using a strike that is off global) is the exception, and is well liked by some players and disliked by others. FFXIV's oGCD moves take time to perform (usually around seven tenths of a second), and the rotations found on the Balance discord make this quite clear.

It's just not as smooth and fluid as you'd like.

It is absolutely as smooth and fluid as I like. Do you mean to say it's not as smooth and fluid as you, personally, do not like?

It feels like there are unnecessary delays between you using a skill on your keyboard and the character actually executing the command.

This complaint is at least partly objective, but partly subjective. I mean, if you don't like it- especially if you have the same problem with other cinematic-style animation styles, such as SWTOR- then it's always going to feel like that to you.

The other thing is that the rotations are extremely bloated as you advance your level.

I completely and totally disagree with this.

FF14 is a good example of what happens when you don't do the so called "ability pruning" that all the elitist players criticise so much in wow.

FFXIV and SWTOR have in fact "pruned" moves. Exactly like when this happens in WoW, they get massive pushback from fans. I push back against the dumbing down of rotations as well, in every game I've ever played. FFXIV's moves almost all end up being useful- finding a move that has no real use, such as Fire 2 on black mage at max level, is very much the exception and not the rule. Everything else is either useful in aoe, useful if you are about to be off the boss, or useful on a target swap.

At max level, or even slightly below the max level, your rotations include about 20-25 skills.

I don't think you are off by too much, but for my clarification, which class has a 25 skill rotation? Is it something known for having a lot of skils, such as summoner?

My ninja has:
Five melee buttons. This is a starter skill, a dot, a combo continuation skill, and two finishers, one of which does good damage from behind, and one of which does less good damage from the side and refreshes my buff.
Four buttons associated with casting the different ninjitsu.
One button that resets those four buttons on cooldown.
A second button that resets those four buttons, buffs them, and makes me hold still to cast them.
A raid debuff button that also does good damage on a 60 second cooldown.
An oGCD direct damage button on a 60 second cooldown.
An oGCD direct damage button contigent on the previous button, and it being safe to hold still.
A cooldown button to use a secondary resource, ninki.
A dump button to use a secondary resource, ninki.

That's 16 buttons. To get close to the 20 you specify, I need to add in my three aoe buttons, but you specify it being without those.

I'm sure someone will argue that using 25 skills in a rotation is fun, but to me it's really not.

I think it's really fun, but no, it doesn't have to be for you.

There are classes with fewer buttons.


You know who else has fewer rotational buttons? Tanks! Healers as well, though they have a lot of situational buttons.

It also makes it ridiculously hard to optimize your gameplay, let alone min-max, which is downright impossible.

There's plenty of players who would disagree with that, and you know this.

Using your actual rotation on anything outside of a dungeon boss? You wish. You'll just have to settle for using a couple random skills, using a fraction of your potential on those non-boss things.

That's also not random. You'll have to figure out which are the best moves to use there. That's actually one of the most fun parts of dps- figuring out what a good way to use your resources in unusual situations.

Quite the contrary, leveling alt jobs is pure pain in FF14.

I really disagree here.

-levequests (incredibly boring repetable quests, which are also capped hourly to make it even worse and stop you from doing them all the time)
-doing dungeons over and over (only really viable for tank and healer jobs)
-a dungeon crawler mini game that you can do over and over for levels

What you are really complaining about is that you can't grind quests on alt jobs forever. The game designers know this- that's why you get a +100% bonus XP to jobs below your level and also below level 70, and a +50% bonus XP to jobs below your level and above level 70.

"Doing dungeons over and over" is a very grindy way to look at a game that offers several huge XP boosts every day to daily roulette. If you use this, you won't be spending nearly as much total grinding, and if you want fast dungeon queues on dps you can choose to play with either your lower level NPC squad from your grand company, or your trusts during shadowbringer content. Broadly, if you want to level a job for minimum total time invested, do the daily roulettes.

You are supposed to just do a daily roulette once per day and level your alt job that way, over the course of like 100 days.

I think 100 is too high a guess, but yes, that's about the size of it.

It's no surprise that playing DPS results in long queue times, but even trying to queue up for a trial from the current expansion, that is required for a MSQ quest can take up to an HOUR.

I mean, sure. The game has a lot of dps players. At max level, my expert roulette takes about 5 minutes as dps.

If queue times are a big deal, main tank or heals. That's true in pretty much any game. But again, there's instanced content with NPCs made explicitly to get around this .

The game is only playable if you have a friend who can tank/heal for you

Ask in your free company, or on your friends list, or in any of the million discords, or probably even on reddit. Or use party finder. I mean, come on man, it's an MMO, the fact that you need a tank or heal to do something efficiently is totally friggin fine.

If you have to wait up to 1 hour in queue as a dps for current obligatory MSQ content, that means barely anyone is playing it.

LOL

No, it doesn't mean that at all. What it means is that you are in a queue with a huge amount of dps who are also in queue. You could multiply the playerbase time one hundred, and it wouldn't change your queue times at all, because those 100x extra healers and tanks would be healing and tanking for the 100x extra dps, who you would still be in line behind. The dps queue times are a function of too many electrons and not enough protons.

4. Professions are done horribly

hahahahahahahahahaha

This take is dead-fish cold. FFXIV professions are deep and interesting.

So with this one I don't have much hands-on experience, because after researching how those things work in FF14 I decided not to even try.

This whole piece has been opinion, but here you don't even have an opinion.

but also means you have to switch jobs whenever you want to partake in those activities (because you will get one shot by any mob otherwise).

The three gathering professions have to go out in the world without any protection except your chocobo also give you access to an extremely powerful stealth, which lets you go undetected. The placement of materials is in most cases not even near hostile mobs, and by the time it is, you have access to flight as well, so you can pretty much land, stealth, and gather whilst stealthed. You also don't get one shot by mobs- your gathering gear eventually gets enough vitality on it that running away is totally feasible if you do screw up. Or have your chocobo tank or solo it it.

To pile up onto that, you have mining rotations, which you have to use correctly, or you risk failing the mining activity (I mean really?).

Yes, really. To level mining you don't need a rotation, but to get high collectability on items that are valuable to NPCs or players, you absolutely risk getting vastly lower rewards if you don't make good use of your resources and moves. These classes get dozens of abilities to help them gather efficiently. If it's not for you, fine, but it's definitely not objectively bad, as you try to sell people on.

In the end...it's just one of those games. It's fun for a while to take a break and play it. It will just make you appreciate and enjoy the proper MMORPG more once you go back to it full time.

"the proper MMORPG"? LOL

What a joke.

[Akasha64]

I'm confused - are you saying that players are stupid for playing optimally?

Yes. I get it that everybody wants to speed clear these dungeons, but it really hinders the experience for first-time dungeon runners or people trying to experience the story. Trusts is a way to counteract having to deal with these people, and actually enjoy the vistas of the dungeon, etc. Speed clears weren't even a thing for the first year of the game, but once people started doing it for some dungeons, the mentality spread and spread. Nowadays, if you want to learn to tank in dungeons tough luck, you'll have to do massive chain pulls right away as the playerbase expects it, so you can't even learn to tank with small pulls first as it should be.

[Akasha64]

Uh, what?

People were assholes about WP/AK runs back then. It was actually worse than anything today, to be honest. You couldn't (or didn't) pull nearly as much, but people were crazy about wanting to go fast fast fast, Relic +1 groups only, etc etc.

Wanderer's Palace was speedrunned a lot, and after that the mentality spread. At least that's how it was explained to me. You just proved my point why Trusts are a great thing for first-time dungeon runners. People are/were assholes about these things.

[Dastreus]

Guy plays FF14 and skips every cutscene. Ok this guys opinion isn't valid. Stopped reading.

Yeah pretty much. If he says he doesn't care about plot then I must ask if he hates movies, books, as well.

[Wrecktangle]

Yes. I get it that everybody wants to speed clear these dungeons, but it really hinders the experience for first-time dungeon runners or people trying to experience the story. Trusts is a way to counteract having to deal with these people, and actually enjoy the vistas of the dungeon, etc. Speed clears weren't even a thing for the first year of the game, but once people started doing it for some dungeons, the mentality spread and spread. Nowadays, if you want to learn to tank in dungeons tough luck, you'll have to do massive chain pulls right away as the playerbase expects it, so you can't even learn to tank with small pulls first as it should be.

It's not even that, it's that you're openly calling players who are actually good at the game stupid. That's hilariously hypocritical considering you're over here crusading that it hinders first time dungeon runners or people trying to experience the story without taking into the fact that you having this ideology hinders people who play the game optimally. Why is it ok to hinder one over the other?

Then you go on to state that speed clears weren't even a thing in the beginning of the game (I assume ARR as a reference point), which is flat out inaccurate. Did you even play the game during this time period? I know I did and I know we speedran everything we could. AK/WP being the most notable examples, later on brayflox(hm).

It's not that a mentality spread, it's that people got better at the game and pushed their boundaries.

If you want to learn tank it's hilariously easily, now more than EVER. Enmity is a complete afterthought. Tanks have no actual mitigation to maintain and gearing is binary. The only thing that separates good tanks from bad is how well they can stagger cooldowns (with respect to awareness of their party's output) and how often they push buttons. That's literally it. The floor for tanking is so trivial now that anyone with eyes and hands can do it with ease. That even includes speedrunning.

Wanderer's Palace was speedrunned a lot, and after that the mentality spread. At least that's how it was explained to me. You just proved my point why Trusts are a great thing for first-time dungeon runners. People are/were assholes about these things.

Ah, so you don't even have experience with this? Can you clarify how it was explained to you, and by whom/how many people?

[Aoyi]

Story is the heart of Final Fantasy. To skip every cutscene and think you'd have a chance of enjoying the game doesn't make sense. It's not WoW. It's not trying to be WoW. It's a story driven game with over 20 hours of cutscenes. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the game, but it doesn't sound like you really understood what you were trying to play.

As for leveling alts, it is fast if you don't do every quest in the game on one class. If you're 20 levels above a quest on your main job, save that quest for another play through. I've taken 4 jobs to 80 so far and still have tons of quests out there that I am saving for other jobs. The are also adding new game plus next patch.

It's okay if this isn't the game for you. There are problems with this game just like every other game. It just sounds like you jumped in expecting WoW and when the game didn't play the same, you didn't enjoy it. That's okay. Just understand that what you expected and what FF offers are two very different experiences.

[Rogalicus]

It's not trying to be WoW.

It's trying to be WoW since 2.0.

[Polybius]

GCDs feel like cast timers. I pretend there's a cast bar but it's still painful.

[Florena]

The GCD took me a while to get used to, and at lower levels it's really annoying. It's not so bad at 80 when you have more ogcds and things to keep track of and more mechanics going on in boss fights etc. At low levels it really stinks though.

Levelign alt jobs we'll have to agree to disagree. With deep dungeon, dungeons, side quests, fates, pvp etc, I feel like there are enough good options for leveling alt classes.

I have never, not ONCE, had an hour long queue for msq content. The only things I've ever seen that for are pvp stuff with the feast or stuff like old raids before the roulettes for those were added. Never msq content. This seems like an exageration. These queues also don't mean nobody is playing. It's just a lopsided number of people playing dps, tanks and healers tend to have pretty quick queues.

Agree to disagree on crafting/gathering being bad. I find it much more engaging than say WoW style where you click on a node and get loot or gather all the items for a craft and hit one button. Sure it can be a little dense to get into if you don't have a guide or someone to explain some things, but it's not 'that' bad.

The title saying 'unplayable' is just hyperbole. If you don't like the game that's fair but don't throw out nonsense like that.

[KrayZ33]

It's trying to be WoW since 2.0.

If you say so.

[Aoyi]

It's trying to be WoW since 2.0.

Interesting. As a 1.0 player and returned FFXIV player who played WoW for 12 years, it feels nothing like WoW. Just because there is a LFG feature, that doesn't make it WoW. That just makes it a modern MMO.

[Rogalicus]

Interesting. As a 1.0 player and returned FFXIV player who played WoW for 12 years, it feels nothing like WoW. Just because there is a LFG feature, that doesn't make it WoW. That just makes it a modern MMO.

To be precise, WotLK was an obvious design target.

1. Focus on instanced dungeons and raids instead of open world activities (actually almost nothing to do in the open world)
2. Endgame is currency grind for badges that allow you to buy welfare epics
3. Ability bloat with little to no depth, most of FFXIV classes are around 6-9 paladin level. WoW even then was actually ahead, since rotations were shorter, start of homogenization still didn't affect gamepay variety and most of the bloat was due to flavour buttons or some niche abilities that were mostly useful in PvP. In comparison, FFXIV classes have little to no flavour, resource management (I think samurai is the only one with kenki spenders) or utility, just plain rotation or raid cooldowns.
4. The only progression system is gear grind, WoW again was ahead with tier sets and trinkets affecting your gameplay. Everything before current tier of content is just an easy way to farm badges.

[Swnem]

To be precise, WotLK was an obvious design target.

1. Focus on instanced dungeons and raids instead of open world activities (actually almost nothing to do in the open world)
2. Endgame is currency grind for badges that allow you to buy welfare epics
3. Ability bloat with little to no depth, most of FFXIV classes are around 6-9 paladin level. WoW even then was actually ahead, since rotations were shorter, start of homogenization still didn't affect gamepay variety and most of the bloat was due to flavour buttons or some niche abilities that were mostly useful in PvP. In comparison, FFXIV classes have little to no flavour, resource management (I think samurai is the only one with kenki spenders) or utility, just plain rotation or raid cooldowns.
4. The only progression system is gear grind, WoW again was ahead with tier sets and trinkets affecting your gameplay. Everything before current tier of content is just an easy way to farm badges.

1.The idea that there is nothing to do in the open world is laughable. The open world in FFXIV is alive with all the FATE events going on. There are all sorts of rewards you can get from running them in Shadowbringers.
2. That is actually a good thing. But WotlK did not work like that. You could only get entrance level gear with badges.
3. Just nonsense. There is way more depth in FFXIV classes than any of the current WoW classes.
4. This is completely false. Did you try Eureka? Gold saucer mini games? Hunts? PvP? Almost everything in the game has a progression system and rewards more variable than just gear. Wich btw is very different than WoW, wich is fact is only gear grind, pets and mounts. FF has all sorts of cosmetics, QoL, cutomisation options for your character, emotes, and housing items.

Like, i recognise problems with FFXIV. But your post was just a big misrepresentation.