Your thoughts on the direction of this game?

[Tupsi]

I culled the non-answer parts of this post. What activities were available in these areas, other than running (roughly) the same leveling party configurations and strategies?

Eco-Warrior, Conquest, BCNM, NMs, HNMs, Quests and Missions (people say this is content in XIV so it counts for XI as well.) Expeditionary force (early form of campaign/besieged/reive), treasure hunting (open world required gaining keys.) So comparatively, it's basically the same as XIV on Launch - ARR however had the benefit of borrowing 1.0-1.23 content for its launch content while throwing in a few new things...but a lot fo XIV's content is one time throwaway content, to put it into perspective:

If BCNMs were in XIV ARR, you'd do each one once then never touch them ever again for the rest of the game unless SE forces you into them. That's taking into consideration none of the updates just before zilart as well.

[Krr]

Eco-Warrior, Conquest, BCNM, NMs, HNMs, Quests and Missions (people say this is content in XIV so it counts for XI as well.) Expeditionary force (early form of campaign/besieged/reive), treasure hunting (open world required gaining keys.) So comparatively, it's basically the same as XIV on Launch - ARR however had the benefit of borrowing 1.0-1.23 content for its launch content while throwing in a few new things...but a lot fo XIV's content is one time throwaway content, to put it into perspective:

If BCNMs were in XIV ARR, you'd do each one once then never touch them ever again for the rest of the game unless SE forces you into them. That's taking into consideration none of the updates just before zilart as well.

Thank you. More constructively: Yes. S-E absolutely needs to stop making content throwaway. They have no idea how to design their gear curve in ARR and it's honestly killed my interest in a lot of the endgame.