After 750 hours, I can't recommend this "MMO" (which feels more like an online dating sim for mentally underdeveloped adult children)

TL;DR:
- The community is the worst aspect of this game.
- The majority of the community uses mods and pressures new players to do the same (explained in detail below).
- Modding scene removes a significant part of the game's content and focus: grinding/earning for cosmetics.
- Gear doesn't hold importance in this game; it's all about glamour, which players simply mod or cheat anyway.
- PvE endgame lacks relevance, as only a small percentage of players truly care about the more challenging raid elements.
- PvP is entirely insignificant, with only the same 15 players consistently participating in ranked matches.
+ The story is good. If you approach FFXIV as an offline story game, you will enjoy it (shoutout to ma boi Emet-Selch).



Community:
As I mentioned, this is the most troubling aspect of FFXIV. If you, like me, have always heard about how nice, awesome, and non-toxic the FFXIV community is, what I'm about to say may come as a surprise.
However, it's the harsh reality that these content creators never mention:

- The people in FFXIV are not genuinely "nice," but rather "fake nice." They pretend to be kind with the intention of luring you into their degenerate ERP/RP-Relationship scene. It's embarrassing to see grown-ass adults behaving like 13-year-olds attempting to engage others in online relationships.

- Any form of negative feedback or disagreement "traumatizes" the people of FFXIV. Seriously!
Let me provide an example:
I was running dungeons with a guild member and some random players. One of the random players informed my guildmate that they were using their tanking abilities incorrectly, explaining how to fix it for the boss encounter. This player pretended to be grateful and thanked them at the time, but after the dungeon, they complained in the guild chat about feeling "traumatized" and how some "toxic" random players had been hating on them.
This is just 1 example out of 1000 !!! It's not an isolated case; it's the standard. It's as if they are all made of sugar, bro...

- Overall, FFXIV's player base is filled with creeps, mentally degenerated individuals, underdeveloped adults who show no interest in meaningful content or progress. They are only here for the ERP clubbing scene and to engage in online relationships.

MODDING SCENE:
The worst part of the community. Modding actively destroys the only "meaningful" content in FFXIV: cosmetics (glamour).

- FFXIV is the first online Game I've encountered where the majority of the player base uses mods and treats it as the most normal thing (despite being against FFXIV's terms of service) to modify their appearance and gear however they want, without putting in any effort to earn it.

- The real issue lies in the fact that the entire modding scene revolves around software that allows you to see what others have modded on their characters. Since most players use mods, new players are encouraged to install them too. It goes something like this: "Oh, you want to see how my character truly looks? Well, then you should install the mod. Everyone has it, and it's okay."

!!! New players are dragged into the modding scene because they don't want to feel excluded, considering that most "events" and other social activities revolve around mods as dictated by the community. !!!

- In this Game, there's no point in earning anything since you can simply mod everything to your liking.