Again, how flawed the actual system is really depends on who you ask. The same was true for FFVIII, FFX, FFXII, FFXIII...


Like, I was convinced the FFXIII character progression system was objectively terrible, but there were people who actually sincerely enjoyed it, so the problem was really that it just didn't fit into my sensibilities. And apparently your friend who has played many RPGs apparently has a specific taste (as we all do) that prevented him from enjoying both XIII and XV from a design perspective.


That's kind of the whole point that I've recently discovered, mainly as pertains to video games, but also writing literature. People will tell you there are good and bad ways to write, but in the end there's no one recipe on how to make a story work. Some of the best, most influential work has been stuff that has defined the established rules, and yet every online writing community just keeps trying to establish rules of "writing the right way". Same with games, really - so many people are saying stuff needs to be done one way or another, but in the end, everybody's personal experience with that game will differ and due to various variables, someone may consider a system you think is obnectively terrible - fun and complex.