History YMMV / FinalFantasyXIV

* AndTheFandomRejoiced: Owners of the XBOX Series X and S celebrated when Phil Spencer was announced at the 2023 Fan Fest, announcing the much-delayed XBOX releases. The game released in Open Beta in February 2024, releasing outright ''a month later'', with Game Pass Ultimate subscribers being able to download the Starter Edition ''for free'' for a month after launch, meaning former subscribers and new players can get their first month of subscription '''''completely''''' ''free'', as well as waiving the cost of subscribing on a new platform entirely.

* LowTierLetdown: Dark Knight has the misfortune of being viewed as the worst tank class/job. Dark Knight is a GlassCannon comparatively speaking to the other tanks, with the highest burst damage among tank jobs, putting out numbers comparable to melee DPS. But with that power comes with MP management. This makes the Dark Knight have to rely on only two/three skills to get MP back, something the other tanks don't have to deal with or worry about -- the Paladin gets a good amount of skills that alleviate the MP burden while the Dark Knight doesn't, and the other two classes rely on their own resource (the Warrior's Fury and the Gunbreaker's Cartridges) without using MP at all. What's worse, the Dark Knight also has an invulnerability that straight up kills the user if they weren't healed back to full HP (though 6.1 would at least improve it). Also, Dark Knight has two AntiMagic mitigation buffs that are hard to figure out when to use, since the game is unclear as to which attacks count as magic damage. Patch 6.3 changed it so attacks show if they're physical or magical, but this only comes after the damage has already been done (literally). Finally, the Dark Knight has only two moves which restore their HP, one of which has a 60-second cooldown and shares a recast timer with something else, which means it's not available at all times, and the other is the third hit of their 1-2-3 basic combo, which makes it hard to use and doesn't really restore much HP when it lands. All of this means that Dark Knights are far squishier than they should be for a tank, and have to be focused on by healers in order to stay alive. ''Endwalker'' especially had this issue on display -- Warrior became the go-to tank because of its absurdly good self-healing, Gunbreaker's damage and support abilities made it a good off-tank, and Paladin got more offensive tools and more support for its magic. The Dark Knight got practically nothing by comparison, furthering its status as the worst tank job in the eyes of many players.

*** His appearance in ''Endwalker'' got much the same treatment. In this expansion, he's doggedly pursuing the Warrior of Light, and even committing various atrocities just to goad the Warrior into fighting him. Zenos makes it clear the whole time that this is all he wants, which makes him come off as an obsessed stalker. But it's the very end of the 6.0 expansion that really alters his character in the eyes of many. [[spoiler:Right before the PostFinalBoss fight with him, Zenos asks the Warrior of Light if they're just as much of a BloodKnight as he is. It's possible to agree with him, with the Warrior of Light even giving a GrinOfAudacity as they do, to which Zenos is positively delighted. But the other two responses of three are dismissive, the last one in particular being outright hostile in an IllKillYou kind of way. The idea that the Warrior of Light is his best friend is also undermined by a speech right before fighting the Endsinger, where the Warrior can either reject Zenos offering to help or just insist that they're not going to save him.]] In short, the narrative makes it clear that the idea of the Warrior of Light and Zenos being anywhere close to FriendlyEnemy terms is laughable, yet some people take it complete at face value.

** At least by what the ''XIV'' team intended. Zenos Yae Galvus of ''Stormblood'' is meant to be wholly unsympathetic, but he drops one line at the very end of 4.0 which ''completely'' alters the player's perception of his character and why he is the way he is, and many people actually end up feeling quite a lot of sympathy for him, [[spoiler:especially if they're also from neglectful households and have always struggled to have friends]]:
---> '''Zenos''': [[spoiler:Goodbye, my first friend.]]

** The "two-minute meta" unifies every class so that its strongest abilities are ready every 120 seconds, which has been a split on the gameplay side of things since ''Endwalker'' came out. In the "for" camp, these players argue that this focus on a two-minute burst makes the flow of combat easy to control by making sure everyone is using their most powerful moves when it will be the most effective. It also helps to add a bit more control and flow to the game's hardcore content, while also making the game's ever-precarious job balance much easier on the dev team by giving them something to focus on. On the "against" side, this same predictability is argued by these players as making the game too easy -- the rotation you use in this two-minute window has little to no variance, usually dependant on whether the job has randomization built in (such as a Dancer's moves getting the next one ready with a coin flip). As a result, the "against" side has complained that this focus on a two-minute burst makes high-end content boring.
** As of ''Shadowbringers'', class quest stories have been abandoned in favour of a combined "role" series of quests. The players take various stances on it. Some lament their loss but acknowledge that it makes things easier for Square-Enix with over ''20'' martial jobs. Some don't miss that class quests are missing - different writers meant that the quality and investment in each quest could vary wildly from extremely high highs (Dark Knight) to low lows that make them feel like mandatory slogs to get your Job Skills (Warrior, Paladin), so condensing them down to five questlines means more time to run quality checks. On the against side, however, losing the Class Quest stories also makes some of the Jobs' power gains incredibly confusing in ways that if class quests continued they could have explained better (White Mage changing over from druidic earth and wind magic to purely light-aspected magic, Summoner's Demi-Phoenix and the level 90 Demi-Primals as examples). A lot of people also note that for the most part ''Stormblood's'' Job Quests were overall better than they were worse, making it feel like the team gave up on them just before they found their groove with them.

** As of ''Shadowbringers'', class quest stories have been abandoned in favour of a combined "role" series of quests. The players take various stances on it. Some lament their loss but acknowledge that it makes things easier for Square-Enix with over ''20'' martial jobs. Some don't miss that class quests are missing - viewing most as poorly written and not actually feeling rewarded ''for'' doing them.

* PlayAlongMeme: The battle against [[spoiler:the Endsinger]] has a moment where one of the tanks need to LimitBreak in order to protect the party against a OneHitKill. The boss then repeats the attack immediately after, and the party seemingly wipes before it's revealed to be a fake-out. It's not uncommon for veterans of the fight to play along with the game's intent, and pretend to newcomers that they've forgotten a mechanic and will need to reset the fight as the second attack goes off.

* MemeticLoser: In spite of the game's attempts to portray them as intimidating, machiavellian schemers and powerful sorcerers manipulating the affairs of the world from the shadows, many of the Ascians have... less than flattering depictions by the fanbase for one reason or another.
** Despite being one of the main antagonists for A Realm Reborn and being the acknowledged leader of the Ascians, Lahabrea gets treated as the biggest loser in the game by the fandom due to the fact that his boss fight at the end of the main ARR content is [[ZeroEffortBoss an absolute joke]], his rather stock and one-note SmugSnake characterization, as well the fact that even his fellow Ascians show him no respect whatsoever. Has become something of an AscendedMeme, as even after his death, whenever he gets brought up by one of his colleagues it's usually [[TakeThat just to point out how incompetent he was]]. To add some meta salt in the wound, he doesn't even have a unique boss theme, unlike his other unsundered brethren! It's to the point that not even Yoshi-P and translator/lore developer Michael Christopher Koji Fox can remember his name [[spoiler:during the announcement of his return in the 6.x 8-Man Raid Series Pandæmonium!]]
** His fellow Ascian Elidibus has begun to attain this status around the end of ''Stormblood'', due to having multiple plans blow up in his face and getting beaten down by two separate characters in rapid succession, one of them offscreen. At the end of ''Shadowbringers'', he even acknowledges that his status as a manipulative schemer has fallen to pieces and that he's basically winging it now. Fortunately, he rebounded ''hard'' with patches 5.2 and 5.3, turning around into being a very popular villain through his very sympathetic background and [[spoiler:rather awesome final battle.]]
** [[spoiler:Fandaniel]] became one of these in his debut cutscene. [[spoiler:His]] claim to "fame" is [[spoiler:giving a hammy evil monologue... to an utterly bored-looking Zenos who doesn't even remember his name. Even his green-lighting of Fandaniel's plan sounds more like he just wants the guy to shut up and leave already. It also doesn't help that he possesses Asahi, one of the most punchable characters in the story]].
** While not an Ascian; Gaius, specifically in his appearance in the Praetorium, is very memed on in the community. On top of his very hammy dialogue, some very impatient players managed to find exploits that allowed them to kill Gaius while he's monologuing during an unskippable cutscene, causing players to joke that by his lengthy monologue ends, the dungeon is already over.

** Speaking of Criterion Dungeons, pretty much everyone agreed that the rewards were not good -- especially for the HarderThanHard Savage version whose rewards barely counted as BraggingRightsReward -- which led to the content becoming abandoned quickly after release. This was due in large part to an odd combination of being too hard to be casual content done for fun, and too unrewarding to be hardcore content to be grinded out like Savage Raids. With all these factors working against it, the general playerbase has been expressing a need for fixes. What the playerbase ''is'' split on, however, is how exactly it should be fixed. A part of the playerbase say that it would only make sense for Criterion Dungeons to drop endgame level gear or at least upgrade materials for Tomestone gear - as unlike other optional content like Bozja, Eureka and Deep Dungeons, Item Level and gear DOES matter in Criterion - while another part of the playerbase fears that this would make Criterions feel "mandatory" to players to get better gear, and so they propose more casual rewards like glamour gear. With the release of the third Criterion Dungeon, Aloalo Island, a new reward was added that augments Tome weapons to 'Exquisite' versions the same level as the Savage-exclusive weapons and adds a fancy unique glow on each of them - BUT said reward is only available in the Savage mode of Criterion, which is considered by many to be ''harder'' than Savage raids and the equivalent of a mini-ultimate, and you still need the Augmented tome weapon anyway to get the Exquisite version - which means that, unless you're waiting for the new expansion where Augmented weapons can get bought with Poetics, ''you'll still need to do Savage raids anyway to get them''. Said addition, predictably, did not go over well with a chunk of the playerbase. As an addendum, players who like Blue Mage were not particularly happy that the Exquisite version of the Blue Mage umbrella weapon is locked behind the Criterion Dungeon of Aloalo Island - AKA, content that Blue Mages currently ''can't do''.

** Many players consider ''Stormblood'' to be the low point of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark Arc. Many find the Ala Mhigans and Domans UnintentionallyUnsympathetic,[[note]]due to the fact that both people make the player's advancement incredibly rough along with the revelations of their pasts[[/note]] the copious amount of PlotArmor used,[[note]]many of the heroic [=NPCs=] suffer serious injuries, but do not die, unlike ''Heavensward'' where characters generally died when they suffered grievous wounds[[/note]] and what many feel is a weak CharacterDevelopment storyline.[[note]]Lyse's evolution from hiding behind her dead sister's identity into the leader of the Ala Mhigan Resistance is, naturally, tied almost entirely to the events of Ala Mhigo, so since those don't start to get resolved until the very end of the expansion, her development gets stuck in the "[[{{Wangst}} Lyse whines about feeling useless]]" phase for 90% of the story before immediately skipping to the "Lyse is leading the Resistance" one without having ever given her a chance to prove herself worthy of the role until another several quests ''after'' she's thrust into it.[[/note]] Likewise, the relic weapons were met with bad reception due to, aside from the massive grind, them not being tied to any story and are just there for the sake of it, while the actual story behind Eureka is composed of mostly {{Fetch Quest}}s.

** Following the Patch 6.1 [=PvP=] rework, Frontline [=PvP=] maps became dominated by gluts of summoners who realized that they could vaporize entire teams if they coordinated their {{Limit Break}}s to go off all at once in the middle of hotly contested objectives. Scholars and black mages became similarly commonplace due to sharing the ability to deal massive amounts of AreaOfEffect damage and debuff the enemy teams from a relatively safe distance. It got so bad that a subsequent patch sharply reduced the damage dealt by ranged jobs in the mode... which caused team compositions to swing the other way as jobs like ninja and paladin became nearly unkillable without concentrated fire.

** Pharos Sirius's Tyrant has few hit points for a boss even at the appropriate gear level, and does nothing more dangerous than spawn minions and use an easily dodged Area of Effect spell. While all bosses get easier as better gear is released, Tyrant stands out for the fact that even with the slightly restricted gear levels, it can be killed in as few as 10 ''seconds'' -- or worse, {{One Hit Kill}}ed if you have a LimitBreak charged. Considering his fellow bosses are still somewhat challenging even with the aforementioned power creep, though. it's not entirely unappreciated.

** Unskippable cutscenes in Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium have remained a touchy subject ever since their inception. Both dungeons have extended cutscenes (some of which are voiced in the Praetorium), which set up the climax of the 2.0 questline of ''A Realm Reborn''. With the cutscenes, the dungeons take anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. Originally, the cutscenes were skippable, which led to a MortonsFork problem for new players since veterans would invariably skip these cutscenes. The newbies could either watch the cutscenes and miss all the fights, or fight the enemies but miss all of the context and story beats. And since these dungeons are the climax of 2.0, this was not an easy decision to make. Eventually, Square Enix made it so that the cutscenes in Castrum Meridianum and the Praetorium were unskippable for everyone. That way, new players didn't have to choose between the story and the gameplay. Square Enix also increased the rewards from these two dungeons to compensate for the greater time investment. Even so, to this day, it's a sure bet that a thread on the official forums will have players arguing about whether or not the cutscenes should be skippable again. Those in favor of skippable cutscenes say that the cutscenes aren't that gripping and that the dungeons are really tedious when you have to stop and watch another cutscene every few minutes. Those in favor of unskippable cutscenes say that either way, it's the climax of the story, and it's unfair for veterans to complain about something they aren't required to do (since doing the Main Scenario roulette is optional).
** ''The Forbidden Lands of Eureka'' has drawn particular ire from a rather large subset of the playerbase. One side views it as a boring, uninspired slog devoid of interesting quest objectives or a purpose beyond killing trash mobs with bloated HP pools. They are especially frustrated due to the highly coveted Relic weapons being relocated into it. Meanwhile, the other side enjoys an entire instance (four in total) dedicated to spawning what are essential open world-esque boss monsters that isn't bogged down by story interruption. Furthermore, they appreciate the relic being apart of new progression content in lieu of it being used as a way to entice players back into old content as with the previous two iterations. About the only consensus reached between the two sides is that Pagos, Eureka's second instance, was poorly implemented, as it attempted to restrict the "NM train" people had gotten used to in Anemos, yet also didn't provide any of the interesting alternatives later stages would add.

** Speaking of Criterion Dungeons, pretty much everyone agreed that the rewards were not good -- especially for the HarderThanHard Savage version whose rewards barely counted as BraggingRightsReward -- which led to the content becoming abandoned quickly after release, due in large part to a very odd combination of being way too hard to be casual content done for funand way too unrewarding to be hardcore content to be grinded out like Savage Raids. With all these factors working against it, the general playerbase has been expressing a need for fixes. What the playerbase ''is'' split on, however, is how exactly it should be fixed. A part of the playerbase say that it would only make sense for Criterion Dungeons to drop endgame level gear or at least upgrade materials for Tomestone gear - as unlike other optional content like Bozja, Eureka and Deep Dungeons, Item Level and gear DOES matter in Criterion - while another part of the playerbase fears that this would make Criterions feel "mandatory" to players to get better gear, and so they propose more casual rewards like glamour gear. With the release of the third Criterion Dungeon, Aloalo Island, a new reward was added that augments Tome weapons to 'Exquisite' versions the same level as the Savage-exclusive weapons and adds a fancy unique glow on each of them - BUT said reward is only available in the Savage mode of Criterion, which is considered by many to be ''harder'' than Savage raids and the equivalent of a mini-ultimate, and you still need the Augmented tome weapon anyway to get the Exquisite version - which means that, unless you're waiting for the new expansion where Augmented weapons can get bought with Poetics, ''you'll still need to do Savage raids anyway to get them''. Said addition, predictably, did not go over well with a chunk of the playerbase. As an addendum, players who like Blue Mage were not particularly happy that the Exquisite version of the Blue Mage umbrella weapon is locked behind the Criterion Dungeon of Aloalo Island - AKA, content that Blue Mages currently ''can't do''.

** Pharos Sirius's Tyrant has few hit points for a boss even at the appropriate gear level, and does nothing more dangerous than spawn minions and use an easily dodged Area of Effect spell. While all bosses get easier as better gear is released, Tyrant stands out for the fact that it can be killed in as few as 10 ''seconds'', even with the slightly restricted gear item levels. Considering his fellow bosses are still somewhat challenging even with the aforementioned power creep, though. it's not entirely unappreciated.

** "No River Wide Enough" is the Holy Grail of achievements for aspiring fishers. To earn it and the coveted title of "Big Fish", the fisher has to catch all 204 varieties of big fish in ''A Realm Reborn'', ''Heavensward'', and ''Stormblood'' along with all 45 varieties of big fish in ''Shadowbringers''. The incredibly specific requirements of certain fish can mean days, weeks, or even an entire month can pass between windows to catch them, often at ungodly hours in the morning or night. Some of these fish, like Lancetfish, require you to catch one or more other big fish just to have the opportunity to catch them within a designated time frame. This is on top of their general rarity among the fishing pool and how every big fish has a set chance to simply get away even if you hit the reel button in time. Good luck. You're going to need it.

** Garuda was originally ThatOneBoss on par with Titan and touted as the strongest of the Primals. Since then, nerfs have made her more of a BreatherBoss who even an inexperienced party can beat with ease.

** Equally, the Garuda arc that follows it is equally rough and not as liked due to the various frustrating moments that happen in it. The first half has you in Corithas trying to get the Ishgardians to help you find where the ''Enterprise'' crashed at and having to deal with their HolyWar with the Dravanians superseding everything else and getting mixed up with the fake Inquisitor ruining your chances, which climaxes with an absurdly difficult boss fight. The second half has you on the FetchQuest from the seven hells just to find a crystal needed to get to Garuda without the winds the Primal made destroying the ''Enterprise'', which ends up with you acquiring ''three'' different crystals for no other reason than [[HeroicMime your character refuses to specify what kind they need]], only to find out the crystal you actually need was a stone's throw away from where you started at.

** If we put the number of quests under a scope, 2.0 has 188 quests from the beginning to the FinalBoss, with 100 more between ''ARR'' and ''Heavensward''. This brings it up to a staggering ''288'' quests - twice as many quests as any other content cycle, which clock at around a hundred quests for an expansion's initial release and another forty on average for quests added in patches, making the 2.x quests a slog in hindsight. At the very least, Yoshida did discuss trimming back the number of quests for this when NewGamePlus got implemented, as it is one of the biggest offenders of padding; they eventually did so with patch 5.3, trimming about fifty quests from the 2.x content and reducing the number of steps for quite a few more. However, only the 2.0 content noticeably benefited from the trimming, since it did nothing about several supposedly-optional sidequests to refight the Primals in the postgame that you have to complete before the game will let you start 2.5's story quests. In fact, it even added ''another'' similar requirement to complete most of the quests associated with the Crystal Tower questline before you can finish the 2.55 story and actually get into ''Heavensward'', because of the Tower's [[ChekhovsGun significance]] to ''Shadowbringers'', which ultimately undid more than half of the 2.1 to 2.55 trimming.

** For those who found Yotsuyu UnintentionallyUnsympathetic, this extends to the Legend Returns arc, too. Ala Mhigo gets the short end of the stick again and finishes all its loose ends within one patch, also ending all of Fordola's character motivation. The Doma arc then comes with the next two patches, which focus almost entirely on Doma and Yotsuyu with little actually happening until the very end of the arc where Yotsuyu [[spoiler:very suddenly regains her memories, goes off the deep end, and summons a Primal]]. This is alleviated a ''bit'' by the fact that [[TheBusCameBack Fordola does actually return to play a minor role at the very end of Shadowbringers and the healer questline]], but seeing as this took years, it felt as if the story was ruminating on Yotsuyu too much just like the main ''Stormblood'' story.

** The Eden raids are commonly seen as the best Raids since the Coils of Bahamut, with the game taking the concept ([[spoiler:reliving Primal battles but with heavily remixed mechanics, designs and overall fight structure]]) and going positively insane with it. The fact they tie into the main story very well also helps.

** ''Stormblood'' also gives us Susano, Lord of the Revel, in his glorious entirety. [[spoiler:''No one'' expects that reuniting the three legendary treasures will summon the Primal, ''including the beastmen who supposedly worship him.'' When he proceeds to "reward" you for his summoning by challenging you to a duel to the death, Alisaie's reaction is thorough exasperation.]]

** The ''Heavensward'' expansion ups the difficulty across the board, although you are most likely to notice it when you face off against the first new Primal, Ravana. He summons butterflies that, when left alone, summons a sword that powers up his phase-changing ultimate attack, forcing players to split their efforts to killing the butterflies quickly. On the second half of his fight, the walls start breaking down, and he has an attack that will blow players into the walls, potentially for an instant-kill if you're thrown out of the arena.

** The "Warrior of Light is a Primal" theory suggests that the player character is actually a Primal summoned by people desperate for a hero to save them. Evidence that supports this is that you suddenly appeared in Eorzea with no background history, your aetherial manipulation is quite advanced for a mere adventurer and you become stronger as more people learn of your exploits, suggesting their faith in the player is powering them. This has been all {{Jossed}} in 5.0 but an interesting twist happens in 5.3: '''(Major Spoilers)''' [[spoiler:Elidibus gathers the faith of Norvradnt in their desire for a hero and turns into a Primal version of the first Warrior of Light based off of their legends. In a way, this theory has been validated but not in the way it was expected to be.]]

** ''Endwalker'' gives a considerable amount to [[spoiler:Sadu of the Dotharl. She talks of finding Cirina better company than any of the 'oafish men' of the Steppe, boasts to Magnai that any female warrior they find will bask in her flame instead of his, and, if talked to at a certain point in the story, comments that many female adventurers have given her their linkpearls (the setting's equivalent of phone numbers) during the Garlean expedition, though she doesn't know how they work.]]

** During the main quest "A Guilty Conscience", Hien is portrayed as being in the wrong for making a judgment call about a hanging plot thread from the ''Stormblood'' 4.0 chapter. [[spoiler:He wants to kill Yotsuyu after she is discovered alive but with amnesia, with characters treating it like this would be killing an innocent person. The issue is that she has the blood of untold numbers of his people on her hands, and Hien has no reason to believe her memory loss is actually real and not a ploy. (Her amnesia ''is'' real, but nobody could have been sure of that at the time.) Furthermore, his approach to resolving it shows he isn't being a heartless monster, but worried that Yotsuyu being left alive would be worse for his people, and he ends up being proven right when Asahi manipulates events to have her regain her memories and become a Primal of her own free will. While characters in-universe do admit that the situation is rather morally hazy no matter what they do, Hien being portrayed as incorrect for wanting Yotsuyu dead regardless of if she has amnesia or not can come across as sticking to morality a little too closely.]]

** Surprisingly, there's very little drama over loot thanks to how loot is handled. All loot found in dungeons and trials are determined by a Need VS Greed system via dice rolling. Players rolling Need get higher priority over those that roll Greed (unless no one rolls for Need, then it's about who rolled better for Greed), but you can only roll Need for miscellaneous items or gear that your current class can actually use. (It can however cause drama) However, patch 2.1 added an extremely rare mount from Primal Extreme fights; it's a black unicorn called Nightmare, which is pretty much a PaletteSwap of the normal Unicorn players can unlock. The Nightmare mount has caused quite a bit of drama due to its rarity and the fact that it can only be found by fighting really difficult bosses.

* MemeticBadass: '''Godbert Manderville''', owner of the [[SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer infamous Manderville Gold Saucer]]. Even in his introduction, when he's shown as having felled a full grown chimera ''naked'' with nothing but a goldsmith's hammer, people began talking up his other incredible feats of strength, theorizing he's anything from an incarnation of Byregot (the god of craft) to an Elder Primal. The fanbase's reaction may have been why he was granted a role in the main story as one of the leaders of the syndicate, and later Hildibrand story quests have him topping himself with ''even more'' ridiculous feats like [[spoiler:using a limit break by himself that makes his hammer grow as big as a small house, and using it to call down the equivalent of an ''orbital laser''.]]

** So you've finally made it to ''Stormblood''. You finally get to see just how bad things are in Ala Mhigo for yourself, so much so that they drove [[spoiler:Ilberd to sacrifice his own life and that of countless other Ala Mhigans [[GodzillaThreshold to summon a Primal]] to try to liberate it]], and it ''is'' pretty bad: there's a strong sense of powerlessness while you watch the Imperials (almost literally) grinding the citizenry into the dirt, the people barely manage to scrape by, and the Resistance, though far from ready to give in completely, is still jaded and tired, barely able to get their countrymen to even support their actions, much less join them. That being said, you're the [[TheChosenOne Warrior of Light!]] The one who beat Ultima Weapon, ended the Dragonsong War, and slew countless Ascians and Primals alike! So you just run around, doing a few errands and helping out, rebuilding the peoples' broken wills and even bolstering the ranks of the Resistance a bit, and you're about to make your first ''major'' play by taking an Imperial Fortress, and you...oops, [[spoiler:turns out the Imperials didn't like you doing all that, and they just personally massacred a goodly number of the Resistance and citizenry alike...and nearly killed Y'shtola in the process. Now the people are even ''more'' broken and hopeless. You didn't think it was going to be ''that'' easy to free an entire country from decades of occupation and oppression, did you?]]

* RonTheDeathEater: Hydaelyn started getting hit with this during Shadowbringers with the reveal that [[spoiler:that She is in fact not a true divinity but one of the first Primals, and that She was created solely to seal Zodiark away. This reveal that She wasn't exactly truthful about who She really was caused many players to begin to assume the worst about her (and even speculate that she might become the BigBad of the story). However, it needed to be remembered that the people that we received these revelations from were all mortal enemies of Hydaelyn who naturally were rather biased against Her.]] With the release of Endwalker, this eased up some as [[spoiler:we finally got to see Her side of the story which gives a lot more context to what She did. Specifically that she shattered the planet into fragments not just to seal Zodiark but to also avert a potential future apocalypse created from passive weakness but also to arm future generations with a power needed to stop the true cause of the Final Days that their aether rich predecessors were naturally unable to harness. And it's made clear that despite the fact that She subjected the planet and all its people to unimaginable suffering, She physically suffered along with them throughout the millennia she spent as Hydaelyn. Of course, as with any major reveal, much of what was presented still created debate in the fanbase with some feeling she had been hit even harder with the Ron the Death Eater bat. ]]

** This trend continued in ''Stormblood'', with Bethan Walker now '''really''' stealing the show as Alisaie. Creator/EleanorMatsuura as Yugiri is also considered to be excellent and, tragedy around Sian Blake aside, probably the best performance the Yugiri role has gotten in English to date. The general quality of the voicework is also considered to have taken a further major step forward, with the only quibble being over the pronunciation of "Far Eastern" terms (which appears to be more a directing issue than an acting one). The otherwise uncredited actor for Susano has also been noted for his excellence in capturing the essence of the character, helping Susano become a fan-favorite Primal.

** Bismarck was an unremarkable Water elemental esper in ''Final Fantasy VI'' that had minimal usage due to the weak spells it taught. Here, he's a Primal. Lakshmi also debuted there and is a Primal as well despite not having many other appearances in the series.

* SpaceWhaleAesop: For the ''Endwalker'' expansion specifically but the entire game up through 6.0 in general; academic peer review is ''extremely'' important when conducting experiments, because not allowing your work to be reviewed or your hypotheses to be questioned and refined [[spoiler:can lead you to accidentally creating the incarnation of existential despair that causes the apocalypse for your civilization and sets the stage for twelve-thousand years of strife and struggle to try and fix your mistake.]]

** Speaking of Criterion Dungeons, pretty much everyone agreed that the rewards were not good -- especially for the HarderThanHard Savage version whose rewards barely counted as BraggingRightsReward -- which led to the content becoming abandoned quickly after release due to a very odd combination of being way too hard to be casual content done for fun and way too unrewarding to be hardcore content to be grinded out like Savage Raids. What the playerbase ''is'' split on, however, is how exactly it should be fixed. A part of the playerbase say that it would only make sense for Criterion Dungeons to drop endgame level gear or at least upgrade materials for Tomestone gear - as unlike other optional content like Bozja, Eureka and Deep Dungeons, Item Level and gear DOES matter in Criterion - while another part of the playerbase fears that this would make Criterions feel "mandatory" to players to get better gear, and so they propose more casual rewards like glamour gear. With the release of the third Criterion Dungeon, Aloalo Island, a new reward was added that augments Tome weapons to 'Exquisite' versions the same level as the Savage-exclusive weapons and adds a fancy unique glow on each of them - BUT said reward is only available in the Savage mode of Criterion, which is considered by many to be ''harder'' than Savage raids and the equivalent of a mini-ultimate, and you still need the Augmented tome weapon anyway to get the Exquisite version - which means that, unless you're waiting for the new expansion where Augmented weapons can get bought with Poetics, ''you'll still need to do Savage raids anyway to get them''. Said addition, predictably, did not go over well with a chunk of the playerbase. As an addendum, players who like Blue Mage were not particularly happy that the Exquisite version of the Blue Mage umbrella weapon is locked behind the Criterion Dungeon of Aloalo Island - AKA, content that Blue Mages currently ''can't do''.

* BrokenBase:

** Starting with ''Stormblood'', the amount of dungeons added to the Expert roulette was reduced. Normally, it had three dungeons, but it was cut down to two due to the devs wanting to add more unique content in each patch. Fans were not happy that there would be less variety of dungeons to run in.

** Speaking of Criterion Dungeons, pretty much everyone agreed that the rewards were not good -- especially for the HarderThanHard Savage version whose rewards barely counted as BraggingRightsReward -- which led to the content becoming abandoned quickly after release due to a very odd combination of being way too hard to be casual content done for fun and way too unrewarding to be hardcore content to be grinded out like Savage Raids. What the playerbase ''is'' split on is how exactly it should be fixed: a part of the playerbase say that it would only make sense for Criterion Dungeons to drop endgame level gear or at least upgrade materials for Tomestone gear - as unlike other optional content like Bozja, Eureka and Deep Dungeons, Item Level and gear DOES matter in Criterion - while another part of the playerbase fears that this would make Criterions feel "mandatory" to players to get better gear, and so they propose more casual rewards like glamour gear. With the release of the third Criterion Dungeon, Aloalo island, a new reward was added that augments Tome weapons to 'Exquisite' versions the same level as the Savage-exclusive weapons and adds a fancy unique glow on each of them - BUT said reward is only available in the Savage mode of Criterion, which is considered by many to be ''harder'' than Savage raids and the equivalent of a mini-ultimate, and you still need the Augmented tome weapon anyway to get the Exquisite version - which means that, unless you're waiting for the new expansion where Augmented weapons can get bought with Poetics, ''you'll still need to do Savage raids anyway to get them''. Said addition, predictably, did not go over well with a chunk of the playerbase. As an addendum, players who like Blue Mage were not particularly happy that the Exquisite version of the Blue Mage umbrella weapon is locked behind the Criterion Dungeon of Aloalo Island - AKA, content that Blue Mages currently ''can't do''.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
** The first dungeon in ''Stormblood'', the Sirensong Sea, comes out of nowhere in the middle of your first trip from Eorzea to Othard. Despite the name, there's not even any sirens in it, instead being a heavily haunted ship graveyard controlled by some bizarre wraith whose existence until now was never mentioned, nor even any ghost stories you hear about. There is no Garlean plot or Ascian involvement in the dungeon's existence, and it's basically shrugged off by everyone involved, with the achievement for getting it, "Incidentally Speaking", even cementing it as something that appears from nowhere and leads nowhere. It only seems to exist to provide a dungeon to break up the pace, but it stands out as one of the just weirdest and unncessary story dungeons in the games history.
** ''Stormblood'' also gives us Susano, Lord of the Revel, in his glorious entirety. [[spoiler:''No one'' expects that reuniting the three legendary treasures will summon the Primal, ''including the beastmen who supposedly worship him.'' When he proceeds to "reward" you for his summoning by challenging you to a duel to the death, Alisaie's reaction is thorough exasperation.]]

** Equally, the Garuda arc that follows it is equally rough and not as liked due to the various frustrating moments that happen in it. The first half has you in Corithas trying to get the Ishgardians to help you find where the ''Enterprise'' crashed at and having to deal with their HolyWar with the Dravanians superseding everything else and getting mixed up with the fake Inquisitor ruining your chances. The second half has you on the FetchQuest from the seven hells just to find a crystal needed to get to Garuda without the winds the Primal made destroying the ''Enterprise'', which ends up with you acquiring ''three'' different crystals for no other reason than [[HeroicMime your character refuses to specify what kind they need]], only to find out the crystal you actually need was a stone's throw away from where you started at.

** The Warrior is a force of nature in the battle field thanks to packing tons of damage and HP. They also have it a little too easy when getting into the fray, with Primal Rend essentially giving them a nigh-guaranteed safe entry by inflicting Stun to their target and anyone unfortunate to get caught. Since they're also not taking damage for the two seconds given, they're getting free shots on the competition with their abilities scaling from their HP. If you think you can just outrun them, then joke's on you if they dare to use "Blota" to drag you back in, giving you Heavy for good measure. It takes a lot to make them fall, and by the time you're done ganging up on one, you're running dry on abilities to keep fighting. Bloodwhetting, the class's key ability, ended up getting a nerf to reel in some of the Warrior's extreme bulk. Though a threat in the early days, the Warrior eventually saw less usage due to players learning counters against them, however.
** The White Mage, while on the fragile side, brings much-wanted survival to a group if you leave them alone. Their powerful burst heal and damage playstyle carries over, and effectively have a third healing charge, thanks to Seraph Strike granting them Cure III. They also have the extremely powerful Miracle of Nature, which is the only status that can't be cured by ''anything''; it can only be blocked with Guard. They can effectively shut down any person they please because of that. The most damning ability of the kit, however, is their Limit Break, Afflatus Purgation, a 30-yalm laser that inflicts a ton of damage and a 3-second Stun. With good timing, it can easily stop the team's momentum cold and lead to a TotalPartyKill that can't be prevented. The class got hit with some nerfs in 6.11, reducing the stun down to 2 seconds and a potency drop for Afflatus Misery, and later a nerf to Miracle of Nature by lowering its range, forcing the White Mage to get in the thick of combat to use it. Much like Warrior, it was an early threat that lost some presence due to players learning how to fight them, but is still rough to deal with.
** Paladin is a menace to deal with not because of damage, but for the utilities that make them indestructible. Confiteor marks affected enemies with a debuff that heals the user when attacked, and Guardian allows them to jump in and Cover an ally, allowing them to save a critical party member from death. Capping off the kit is their Limit Break "Phalanx" which grants them Hallowed Ground's invulnerability and a powerful defensive buff to their party members, making them harder to kill. What little damage they do is made up for being next to impossible to kill without dogpiling them, and they can share that with their allies, meaning they can finish the job.