ffxiv is not an rpg.all classes feel the same, they all have a braindead 1234 -> 1234 rotation, gear stats don't matter, even gear ilevel doesn't matter because activities are ilvl synced. low levels are a complete slog because you'll have so few abilities that you are legitimately just pressing 123 over and over with no thought. healers don't matter at higher levels because tanks have enough self-sustain to not even need them. even if you skip cutscenes, you have to sit through 50+ hours of fetch quests and 'talk to this person -> talk to this person' quests. story isn't good other than shadowbringers which is *alright* -- the rest of it is standard jrpg slop that is worse than even fking marvel movies (maybe it's decent if you've never read a book and stopped attending school at 12 idk). the content is brain-dead easy other than extreme trials, netcode is trash so there's a multiple second delay from server -> client (esp if you're east coast US as the servers are in California), there's no socialization other than people edating in the main cities. it's honestly a terrible game.

>May as well ask this about any game that expects you to adjust to mechanics.
I am asking what is fun about simon-says DDR slop with bodychecks galore, that's so mechanically bloated that you need to read/watch these kinds of convoluted guides just to be able to clear them instead of being bale to simply intuit what you need to do by simply looking at your screen? Elden Ring is considered one of the hardest video games ever and literally all the game boils down to mechanically is just dodging the enemy's attacks. It's far FAR less simple yet still extremely hard.

So why does FFXIV need such extremely overcomplicated mechanical bloat in order to challenge it's playerbase?