They really want this game to be simple...

[Estevo]

Ultimately what you are talking about is fundamentally changing not only how the game is played, but also it's marketed demographic. Will FF14 change over the years, certainly. However is will most likely always have causal leanings. If you are looking for that to change then FFXIV is most likely to disappoint you. Thus, perhaps it is not the MMO for you.

As much as I'm concerned about the casual focus, I'm not concerned about the long run, and what I'm talking about is ultimately what Yoshida wants, to add as many kinds of content to the game and innovate down the road.

[dday3six]

As much as I'm concerned about the casual focus, I'm not concerned about the long run, and what I'm talking about is ultimately what Yoshida wants, to add as many kinds of content to the game and innovate down the road.

I just looked over your classes. You have one 50. Have you done much Second Coil of Bahamut? Because it is not as if there is not content for hardcores.

[Estevo]

I just looked over your classes. You have one 50. Have you done much Second Coil of Bahamut? Because it is not as if there is not content for hardcores.

lol, that's not what I'm talking about, trying to think outside the box here, and yeah I've done a little bit of raiding.

[dday3six]

lol, that's not what I'm talking about, trying to think outside the box here, and yeah I've done a little bit of raiding.

Well you express knowing what your talking about, yet you have not played many classes. So it seems as if you're basing that solely on having played a handful of the endless tide of MMO's out there. You want there to be more meaning to individual skill level. I saw your level 4 Archer and thought "Hmm...No Quelling Strikes." Which if you've done much end-game, and know your your rotation correctly, you'll want or else you'll being pulling aggro once you're well geared, particularly in PUGS. So I asked about Coil, because individually one weak (unskilled) link in the chain can cause wipes over and over. In the end. I question how much of the game's content you have actually experienced, and to what extent. Personally it seems as if you only peaked at it

[dday3six]

Well, don't judge what I know based on what I've done, because I waited two weeks for my friends assembled to start playing again, and in that time I basically researched everything there is to know about the classes...

How you think reading about the game is equal to playing the game is beyond me. There is literally no point in carrying on with a person who doesn't think within the bounds of reason...

[SwordCoheir]

As much as I'm concerned about the casual focus, I'm not concerned about the long run, and what I'm talking about is ultimately what Yoshida wants, to add as many kinds of content to the game and innovate down the road.

That's not a bad thing mind you, pertty much the number one death of most MMO's outside of being plain broken is lack of content.

As for the game being simple, that's not really a bad thing either if you make things overly complex it becomes extremely difficult to balance jobs and build new abilities and content that wouldn't be broken because class stacking one job makes the fight a cakewalk or excluding one job because it's useless for one fight, or needing a particular piece of gear or you don't get in (IE: That abysmal piece of crap that FFXI had turned into.)

As for skill, any good player is going to destroy an average player, and every great player is going to destroy a good player in damage, healing, and tanking. The linear gear makes up for some of the weaker players lack of skill, granting them an ability to build up and become eventually strong enough to clear most content in time, without needing to go out of their way to find some super rare, overly competed for piece of gear. As such any skillful player will be able to meet the demands of new content much easier without as much gear assistance, thus will complete content much quicker than an average player, and will rewarded for their skill by getting their gear faster making them competitively more powerful overall.