Things are getting worse.

[Rolder50]

All of these things have actually improved.

With housing, there's a lot of salt from botters who would have loved to snag up all the new spots right away. While it's an improvement, there's still that unfortunate problem of the system still being as it is. A revamp would be nice, but it doesn't seem likely unless they can get away with not disrupting current homeowners.

PvP is much improved. It was a clunky mess before. This MOBA style update fits well, even with Frontline. I'm looking forward to trying out Rival Wings when it comes back.

Class design: I'll be as vague as you and say it's all improved. I leveled everything to 90 and see nothing falling apart.

Cosmetics... what even? /skip

Not really.

Housing: Demand still FAR outstrips supply. Thinking back to that other post where the guy collected data from their singular server where there were 2000+ people interested in a house who were unable to get one. On a single server.

PvP: I actually agree that PvP is better, it has some actual life now for starters. I really want them to turn Rival Wings back on, though....

Class Design: Has trended towards oversimplification over the past couple expansions; the latest on the chopping block having been Samurai and to a lesser degree Ninja. Healers being ignored for actual years.

Cosmetics: They tend to re-use item models a lot. From what I understand, this expansion has had the most recycled models of any expansion thus far. Not to mention Vieras and Hrothgar consistently being ignored.

And I have my own thing to add on;

Story: The story this expansion has been a little lackluster outside of the fanservice-y moments. They went the time travel route which almost always makes a story way more convoluted and nonsensical. The 500 page thread elsewhere on the forum complaining about it is a testament to this. I'm also not a fan how they said that they were going to give us some new stories in 6.1+ only to give us story about the Thirteenth with an almost exclusively Scion cast. I love em but they are getting old.

All in all I'm getting Wrath into Cata vibes from this. For reference, World of Warcraft hit their peak sub count in Wrath, but into Cataclysm and onwards, they started to go too far into simplification and metrics pandering, which degraded the game over time into the limping husk it is now. I'm beginning to see the same degradation start here and it does worry me.

[Deveryn]

Class Design: Has trended towards oversimplification over the past couple expansions; the latest on the chopping block having been Samurai and to a lesser degree Ninja. Healers being ignored for actual years

I know how the classes used to be and it's frankly awful. I think you and others are overreacting with all this talk of oversimplification. There's such a thing as having too many buttons to press, especially for those on console.

Samurai flows so much better now without that extra button press. That this bothers people the way it does just boggles my mind.

Healers are being ignored because they don't get a DPS rotation? I do hate repeating my response to that. ... but there are other jobs that might be more to your liking.

[Amenara]

Housing has always been terrible and the band-aid of the lottery just made it so I don't have to waste time on the terrible system. PvP has always been meh to me and the changes are still meh with a new coat of paint. Class design is my biggest concern as I don't like the direction the are taking with every job being a 2 minute CD job, except the jobs that don't benefit from the buffs (which still confuses me why they made Sam benefit less from buffs). It feels like they don't have a design goal for jobs and are just throwing ideas at it and seeing what happens with the current changes. Cosmetics are a meh from me, I agree it feels like more armor designs are being repurposed but it isn't a high priority for me.

All in all I'm getting Wrath into Cata vibes from this. For reference, World of Warcraft hit their peak sub count in Wrath, but into Cataclysm and onwards, they started to go too far into simplification and metrics pandering, which degraded the game over time into the limping husk it is now. I'm beginning to see the same degradation start here and it does worry me.

I think this is my sentiment with the game. It is fine right now but it feels like there is a trend downwards that concerns me.