MrHappy interview with Yoshi-p (Raid boss tiers, set bonuses)

[Bourne_Endeavor]

They already had the ultimate carrot in Coil (brand new content with no easy option, exclusive gear and story) and people still didn't want to do it. It's time they accept that raiding simply isn't popular on this game.

Except it is, when you look at the larger picture. If you just split crafting and looked at the number of people who actually participate, it's numbers wouldn't be higher than Savage clears. In fact, the number of people generally caught up on story isn't even half the playerbase if we go by the Lucky Bancho census. FFXIV is a game made up of many pieces that appeal to different types of players. You can't just look at one piece of content and say "more people collect glamour! So that's clearly all they should focus on." WoW has similarly low percentages yet they still hype up their raids each expansion.