Where is the "never before seen content"?

[JunseiKei]

Perform is a perfect example of poor appeasement. It's only intended for an incredibly niche audience, released in a patch where the entirety of its content was also niche. Casual players had one dungeon, Rabanastre and a beast tribe as content intended to last through the duration of 4.1. That is abysmal, hence why you saw frequent complaints of boredom. 4.3 offers similarly less, though at least Heaven on High attracts a far less niche audience. Unfortunately, it's more than a little lackluster before you reach the higher floors. A general content focus is fine, in theory, but Stormblood as a whole simply has very little to offer unless you like virtually everything. And if we go by the unofficial censuses, the numbers demonstrate a clear lack of interest. Stormblood is seeing 3.1 levels of disinterest, which is staggering if one considers the state of the game back then. While these numbers are by no means definitive, it remains disconcerting all the same, especially as WoW enters is latest expansion. Meanwhile, FFXIV is likely to undergo a significant drought unless something surprising occurs in 4.5.



Contrary popular belief, Gordias Savage did not destroy the game, though it did severely impact the raid scene. Let's review what released between 3.0 to 3.2

Gordias
Thordan EX
Four dungeons
Void Ark
Lords of Verminion
Diadem

This spanned over eight months, the longest delay between updates since FFXIV's relaunch. Both major content updates were essentially DoA, thus casual players had literally nothing new to keep themselves occupied. Meanwhile, the devs openly acknowledged they undertoned Void Ark and severely overtuned Goridas Savage. Bear in mind, unlike any other tier ever released, Gordias was gear locked, making it impossible to clear unless tome weapons were available. Even Ultimate didn't impose such a restriction. Had Gordias been properly tuned, it never would have been the monster it became. Furthermore, the game lacked key components which heavily impacted raid progression: cooldown resets and cross world PF. The former forced players to either pull with necessary abilities still on CD while the latter made recruitment pools swallow at best. Hence why Gilgamesh ballooned.

It's entirely disingenuous to fault Gordias for the destroy of 3.1.

Again, the game is designed around being able to take breaks. It's fine if that doesn't appeal to everyone, too, but as it's been said, "Go and play other games or have a social life. FFXIV will be here when you're ready to come back."

The only other game I can think of with as regular of content additions in place is WoW. Any games I've stuck with for any amount of time take far longer - the second one I can name is Warframe, and that still takes months (longer than FFXIV for less content). This is a large part of where my confusion of the demands being made are coming from. The amount of "content" and "time" needed are not large nor short (to their respective parts), hence why I often wonder if people understand the genre of game and if they're sure they're playing the correct type of game for what is being asked. Also, again, for a generalist MMO; things like Overwatch and the like can't be compared; they're completely different types of games with different focuses.

We can ask for more stuff, but we'd need to also be specific about it. People asked for something like XI's deep dungeons; we got it. People asked for more XI-like content and we got.... Eureka. More skilled players asked for harder fights. We got ultimates. Everything is pretty niche because it's fulfilling requests from people while still doling out things that theoretically please everyone (dungeons?).

Never said Gordias Savage destroyed the game - considering we're currently playing it. I said it left a bad taste in MY mouth and that's why I don't particularly hold Heavensward in good regard. (Also, the bold text in specific is SE doing exactly what players asked. Again, I did not at all imply that this 'destroyed' the game, but when even those top raiders say yeah, this isn't fun, it doesn't exactly come off as the best request they fulfilled.) The proof is right there. You also lumped things together while leaving out other things. Normal raids, savage raids, story, story, story, side quests (like Hildibrand), FC stuff (airships), Bismarck, Ravana, Sephirot? and stuff I don't really want to go and look up for specifics. More things were added than what is being presented. Again, just because it doesn't appeal to you, or even a large amount of people, doesn't discredit its existence or the possibility of it being enjoy by others. Niche or not.