How much of the game's content have you actually completed?

[Seraphor]

The problem is, video games were made to be fun. Doing the latest dungeon or raid is fun for many, as well as treasure maps or crafting. But the content we get is as wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle. Dungeons are hallways. Raids are choreographed with no variation. Crafting is just spamming macros and selling on the marketboard. There’s a reason why people play other games during the off-season: because those other games are fun. Our combat has been casualized and the midcore content has evaporated, leaving little for a majority of FFXIV players.

And yet, we’re still pressured into playing. “You haven’t done everything, have you?” Or, better yet, “why do you still play WoW? FFXIV is way better!” and “millions of people LOVE FFXIV as-is!”

Those other droughts in FFXIV history happened when our game wasn’t desperate to be the #1 MMO in people’s lives. We didn’t pay for ads out of our own pockets to convince people to switch to our game. We didn’t harass streamers who switched back to WoW. Anyone with any sensible criticism about the game is treated like Aveyond and tossed aside, or worse, reported and harassed.

The FFXIV community is far too self-important for the drab content the game offers. FFXIV is fun for perhaps a week or two after a patch, and that’s it. Afterwards, the game is only useful to play around with mods—which, to be fair, is a pretty big selling point these days. Second Life is too complicated to learn, so FFXIV hits the spot. And I’m sure you’ve all read on these forums that, if Yoshida banned all mods, some percentage (most I’ve seen thrown around is “40%”) will stop playing. It’s either that or play other games. FFXIV just isn’t that hot otherwise.

This game is Final Fantasy.
80% of the drive is the story. So while "all fights are basically the same" might have some degree of truth to it, they're also all different fights as far as the story goes.
Just because I've played through Eden, doesn't mean I have no reason to play through Coils, Alexander, Omega and Pandaemonium too.

Also, Yoshida did ban all mods, they've always been banned. Some players are just confident they won't be caught, regardless of how well placed that confidence is.