Future direction of FFXIV

[anhaato]

Lately a lot of these changes keep making me think "who asked for this? Who is this for?" Like, who asked for them to remove kaiten? I challenge the devs to find me a single smn main who was asking for a buff to searing light. Or a Hrothgar player who said "man, I REALLY wish I could wear the Karen hair with my ears hidden!"

And I've been thinking about this a lot since 6.0 was just being announced. Who asked for the removal of hq gathering items? Who asked for smn to be turned into a one button job? Who asked for the removal of brd procs? Who asked for housing to turn into a gacha system that lasts over a week?

I know the devs DO listen to feedback, but the problem is becoming how often and which feedback they're listening to. It just seems like they're listening to random minority opinions more than anything. People will surely say "at least we're not Other Game" but at some point we have to come to terms with the fact that there's a growing detachment between the devs and the players. Hell, Endwalker itself was a hot mess of a story that resulted from exactly that. Like, it's all but openly confirmed that they trashed the original plan of 6.0 being primarily about Garlemald. There was this false assumption that we would somehow be unhappy with a conclusion to a singular villain entity's end if it came about with stakes that felt lower than that of Shadowbringers. (And before anyone says "Well I would've!" no you wouldn't have, otherwise Heavensward wouldn't be as lauded as it still is to this day.) So I say again, who asked for them to do such a thing to such a prevalent evil force in the story? Who asked for Garlemald to get reduced to a single zone storyline?

I realize my argument about Endwalker's story won't prevail much because of how unanimously praised it was on release, though I wonder if people still feel the same now that the new expansion hype has died down. If this was the vision the devs absolutely had to communicate with the world, then it was an abject success for them. But I stand by my previous points.