I have seen a lot about FFXIV, and I was surprised it made it high on your tier list
Are you talking about FF XIV or FF XI? Rusty gave XIV a D and only because of the crafting system. FF XI was the one graded A, and as far as I'm aware, XIV is a WoW clone with vertical progression, while XI takes more after Everquest and had horizontal progression
I wouldn't recommend XIV to be honest unless you enjoy WoW gameplay style and want some flashy endgame raiding. The game can barely be called an action-RPG, let alone a RPG. Combat is extremely simplified. No CC, no real pets, no interesting skills, strict rotations with very little deviation beyond delaying skills to optimize fights. All the "complexity" is focused on fight mechanics that you have to memorize and trying to sync your buffs with the rest of the party, which usually happens automatically during your cooldown rotation and because the cooldowns of buffs are homogenized to become active at the same time.
No customization of any significant kind, cannot assign stats, classes have defined skills, and gear selection boils down to picking BiS, which is usually the gear with most Critical Hit. The stats are shit and redundant. For example, DPS have Skill Speed (useless for the most part), Determination (damage), Direct Hit (a kind of critical hit), Critical Hit (self explanatory) and a main damage stat (it can be INT, STR or DEX depending on class, but they function all the same and you cannot equip the wrong gear because of classes restrictions). So yeah, 2 stats for damage, 2 kind of critical hit and 1 unique stat that almost no class wants because you run the risk of drifting your rotation and lose DPS because your rotation is out of sync with the party's buffs. Ah, but if you get a Direct Hit and Critical Hit at the same time, they combine even for more damage! So its all good, I guess.
Classes have become more and more homogenized and simple with time. All tanks have the same tools and work very similarly, same with healers. DPS are becoming more and more simple. For example, Summoner, which was a DoT class with a pet, has become an almost literal one button class with nothing to manage and full of instant spells, with the most complex part of its rotation being a single casted spell.
Each campaign is a long stretch of cutscenes with almost no gameplay at all. In a 50 hour expansion there are usually between 6-7 15 minutes dungeons and 3-4 10 minutes Trials (boss fights), with some solo duties sparked between. So you will probably end with like 3 hours top of significant gameplay and the rest is spend watching cutscenes or going from point A to B in a lifeless, boring but beautiful open world, with no risk because enemies are a fucking joke outside of dungeons (kind of, I'll clarify). Also is kind of depressing in a story with the main massage being to unite with others for the good of the future and the idealization of the adventurer's life style of wandering and discovering the world, the game is designed to by played mostly solo, doesn't encourage reaching out to others or trying to establish social relations of any kind (and in fact kind of the opposite considering the darwinian moderation. Don't believe the bullshit of best MMO community, none wants to speak up their mind in game for fear of being reported and banned) and the game is designed as theme park as possible. No reason to explore, 90% of content that matters is instanced.
Finally, the most interesting and unique system is the crafting, which they fucked up due to two reasons. First, it is practically irrelevant at high levels. After some changes, leveling a crafting class is fast and easy, and the best gear for each class is obtained by raiding. In fact, crafting gear is usually 1-2 tiers behind. At most it has its uses in certain patches for those that want to raid as soon as possible, but this is because of the weekly restrictions for obtaining tomestones, a currency you need to get better gear, which you get mainly through doing dailies. I'll say Culinarian and Alchemist are the only one that are consistently needed, and only if you want to optimize your damage. And second, crafting is so easy that people create macros so you can automatize the process, meaning that the intricate crafting system goes to waste.
There is quite a lot more to talk about, but overall, the game is shit IMO. Wouldn't recommend unless you really are into WoW clones. It did have a speck of potential back when ARR was released, even if it wasn't good, but the constant removal of mechanics and streamlining of classes and content squandered any opportunity it had to be at least decent.
