ffxiv is mercilessly padded. like, 'go through an empty dungeon and interact with shiny things to advance a quest' padded. 'talk to all twelve of these dwarves' padded. 'three pages of dialogue all the time' padded.

it feels like it's trying to see how much time you're willing to let it take.

classes not having any sort of possibility room for build spanergence means the materia system is one right choice and ten wrong ones. i acknowledge that sam and drg have (or had) some play with skill speed, but i don't know if that's still true, and not only are they the exception and not the rule, but it doesn't exactly smack of intent.

not a lot of depth to the class design. lots of homogeny. role action is a pretty shameless admission of defeat in both trying to balance classes and in trying to come up with unique abilities, especially the tank role actions. rampart is pathetic. every tank is going to use it, taking it is a non-question, so instead of having players 'engage' with a system just give tanks their own rampart, but also instead of it being this bland ass rpg maker-tier flat mitigation, come up with a class mechanic.

autoloot plus extra inventory space coming at a premium is slimy as fuck.

also, about the mounts that you can win from some fights, they have this 'safety valve' option too where you can just win the fight 99 times and trade in the tokens you get for doing that. i think it's mounts; whatever it is, the point is the guarantee after 99 wins. i don't think setting a finish line for something like that is the healthiest choice for your players. great for your game; keeps people playing it. but think of how many more people would give up after like, 20, 30, 40 tries at these if they didn't have it. achievements actually requiring these is another level of that. it's nasty.