Eh, I actually agree with a lot of what that post said. There's a lot of things about the game that were good ideas in concept for XIV but terrible in exeution, that were lost in their desire to make it like many other MMOs.
Quick example: Monster behavior. In the original FFXIV you had things like
-Marmots running away at low health
-Does running away and Stags attacking you for hurting their females
-Wolves fighting you in groups of 2 or 3 and one always trying to get behind you
-Megalocrabs used to put their pincers up when you got close but would not aggro unless you stood around for a while
-Dodos and Opoopo would follow you around and get in your way
Some of those things were seen as annoyances to gameplay and thus the idea of monsters each acting like an actual "animal in the world of Eorzea" got removed entirely so they're all basically angry pinatas like in any other MMO.
Also since hitting level cap I feel there's very little to do, and you soon realize how the "customization" in the game is very illusionary (Cross class skills are very limited in which ones are useful, there is no reason to take your job crystal off after you get it, +30 stat barely affects your character and its not like you'd spec anything but your primary stat anyway) and that the game's mechanics are very, very simple. For example, elements don't even matter. However, the boss fights themselves I feel were well designed. Titan Hard mode was frustrating but I thought the fight itself is a lot of fun. Ifrit and Garuda hard were a lot easier, but I also thought they were lots of fun. The storyline boss battles were all a lot of fun as well. Demon Wall was a pretty fun fight the first few times I tried it, just unfortunate that AK being the only worthwhile dungeon means I just get to fight him over and over.
I'm hoping they'll try to make the game's mechanics more complex and the endgame more interesting with the next few patches, but I'm probably going to cancel my subscription if they don't, and maybe check back every once in a while to enjoy new story content they throw in. I think it was definitely worth the 1 month subscription I've paid for it so far though. (Didn't have to buy the game myself since I owned a 1.0 code, which I got for free, but I think if I bought the game I still would've gotten my money's worth)
I think a lot of people around here are a lot more laid back in their approach to MMOs so they're playing through the best parts of the game right now, which is the story and the experience of exploring Eorzea for the first time. I really think they did that part great (Even though the story itself had some...sidetracking, to say the least), but much like The Old Republic, I don't think they put a lot of effort into how to retain their playerbase once they had them clear the main campaign(s).
