Quote Originally Posted by TeraRamis View Post
That disdain is well-earned. In fact, setting aside recent events, it's largely disdain that's bred from disdain.
Can you imagine if SE decided that Aetheryte Crystals were destroying the open world and making it feel less alive, so they unilaterally deleted most of them without any warning or feedback so that they could arbitrarily have only one per zone? I don't think anyone who exclusively plays this game can even imagine that happening. Blizzard pretty much did this a couple of years ago when they removed a ton of portals from WoW. When players complained on the forums, they doubled down on their stance that they did it to bring the open world and the major cities back to life. I see far more people in the open world in FFXIV than I ever saw in WoW. It's funny how a game that allows flying without time gates and provides cheap instant teleportation still manages to feel alive. It's almost like if you actually provide stuff to do in the world, people will engage with it. Forcing engagement by removing convenience is about the laziest design philosophy I've ever encountered.