There's a lot of poo-flinging that goes on around here. However, there's also a ton of great suggestions that often go unanswered.
I'll grant that, over the years, most people change tastes. There's no going back, and no amount of rose-colored nostalgia is going to recreate an experience. I'm not asking to go back to the days of 2k/hr dunes parties.
I'm saying that the game needs to be broken.
FFXI has gone threadbare. Yeah, people play for friends -- but it's getting to be a lonely journey as the populace inevitably shrinks.
SE, your recent additions and updates keep proving to your players that you don't know where the game's true potential lies.
Yeah, people, in general, will always whine. Aby broke the game, and it was fun. A blm could go oneshot a mob. A monk could go /war and solo VTs without stopping. Just about any job, no matter how well or poorly geared, could go in and get something done. It was fun.
To put it simply: exciting announcement right now is not a spiky red body piece with a tiny bit of str/dex and crit hit+. Multiply those stats by ten, and it'd be exciting.
Exciting won't be a raise spell that reduces my weakness time by 2 minutes, that will be 'extremely difficult to obtain'. Exciting would be making raise instacast, giving whms full-life.
Flying chocobos would be exciting. Adding the ability to call your personal chocobo in every outdoor area in the game, past/northlands included, would be exciting.
Minor upgrades/sidegrades/downgrades aren't exciting. They aren't upsetting. They're completely apathy-inducing. Break the game, SE. I realize that players of games don't make the best developers, but the players overall seem to be saying that they do not want any more piddly half-steps in a meandering way.
You've got a decent bit of nostalgia left. Unfortunately, that currency is wearing thin. One by one, your players will leave, unless you shake the game up, unless you make it alive again.
that is all.