Quote Originally Posted by Nizzi View Post
I honestly do not believe that the 5.0+ and onward homogenization and simplification of jobs has made people join the game. It seems a bit ludicrous to imagine someone thinking "hmm, they made all 3 healers have the exact same playstyle for 80% of their casts? Awesome, I love 1 button spam! Time to finally play FFXIV, I'm glad they got rid of all those things preventing me from playing the game!"
Rather, I think the story and all of the other positive aspects of the game are the reason it grew. ShB's story being incredible well received and considered by a lot to be "the best FF we've gotten in 15 years", Nier collabs (I know a friend who started playing because of this), the pandemic making people stuck at home with nothing to do, and then what happened with WoW last year. I think XIV is doing well despite its more abysmal job design decisions, not because of them.
The simplicity of the combat certainly wasn't what brought me to the game back in Stormblood- if anything it was the potential for how unique jobs could be with a system that allows you to freely swap between them. Nowadays it feels like PvE gameplay is treated as a nuisance that's just in the way of the MSQ. Can't get new players without inane streamer reaction content I suppose.