FFXVI has now officially proven to have taken over Yoshi's time

[Ivtrix]

This is a great point. You hear all the time how the 2min meta is bad but nobody goes into great detail about why it is bad and why the previous systems were better. When people don't give explanations, it just feels like the hip thing to do is to be against the 2min meta cause all the popular people dislike it. I have heard about the explanations on the stat variances like with crit but then I have to ask myself, is it the 2min meta that's the problem or Crit/DH? My experience from previous expansions is that while a 2min meta did not exist, most statics artificially created a meta by holding buffs and stacking them together when possible. Like I agree the 2min meta doesn't feel great, but it's always been one of those things where I feel like the community doesn't explain the why very well nor offer a solid solution to the problem. Another thing the community often fails to bring up with the 2min meta is why we should care. We can discuss why the 2min meta is bad, but we also need to discuss why someone should care about it.

Second bit is hard to sell a lot of people on. My personal opinion is that balance doesnt mean anything until in the presence of an enrage timer. Most players simply wont touch content above and including ex trials. In content where your enrage timer is the instance timer, your dps is nearly irrelevant. Most of the discussion is from play on a higher level which frankly, most casual players dont care too too much about. Optimization of your job for a casual player is optional content.

But for higher level players, which dps balance is based around, it matters a hell of a lot more. So while I sit there and bemoan how SMN is a disaster, the issues arnt relevant to a majority of the playerbase. But for those who it does effect, it matters a damn lot.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Second bit is hard to sell a lot of people on. My personal opinion is that balance doesnt mean anything until in the presence of an enrage timer. Most players simply wont touch content above and including ex trials. In content where your enrage timer is the instance timer, your dps is nearly irrelevant. Most of the discussion is from play on a higher level which frankly, most casual players dont care too too much about. Optimization of your job for a casual player is optional content.

But for higher level players, which dps balance is based around, it matters a hell of a lot more. So while I sit there and bemoan how SMN is a disaster, the issues arnt relevant to a majority of the playerbase. But for those who it does effect, it matters a damn lot.

That's where alot of the tension stems from. That last part. Things that are fine for the majority of the playerbase arent for certain sects and they but heads here. So both sides are just as valid to say there's an issue. It is clear SE focus is on the majority amd alot of their decisions reflect that, good and bad. I just don't like the mentality that casual players are "ruining" what has always generally been a casual game. SE has made decisions that have only made the game more successful so even if I myself would like to see changes (I do) I can't sit n say they're wrong for going this route ya know?

[TheDecay]

SE has made decisions that have only made the game more successful so even if I myself would like to see changes (I do) I can't sit n say they're wrong for going this route ya know?

Half of FF14's success is from WoW's failure. The other half: the FF fanbase's propensity to accept anything SE puts out.

These dumbed down jobs did not make the game more successful. No new player comes to the game because of the SMN rework. It wasn't advertised, it wasn't marketed, and only a fraction of new players actually will play SMN at all.

This game has an attrition rate of 20-30% per patch. New players join because of SE's aggressive advertisement and marketing strategy, and word of mouth based off of how the story is good. These are the primary factors. If job design stuck to Stormblood's design while everything else stayed the same (ShB/EW story, same level of marketing etc.), I highly doubt there will be any difference in this game's financial success.

In other words, this game's success is not attributable to every single decision CBU3 made. By percentage growth in player count, HW was also a major success. SB was also a major success. This tells you that the growth in players is likely independent of many of the decisions they make for the game.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Half of FF14's success is from WoW's failure. The other half: the FF fanbase's propensity to accept anything SE puts out.

These dumbed down jobs did not make the game more successful. No new player comes to the game because of the SMN rework. It wasn't advertised, it wasn't marketed, and only a fraction of new players actually will play SMN at all.

This game has an attrition rate of 20-30% per patch. New players join because of SE's aggressive advertisement and marketing strategy, and word of mouth based off of how the story is good. These are the primary factors. If job design stuck to Stormblood's design while everything else stayed the same (ShB/EW story, same level of marketing etc.), I highly doubt there will be any difference in this game's financial success.

In other words, this game's success is not attributable to every single decision CBU3 made. By percentage growth in player count, HW was also a major success. SB was also a major success. This tells you that the growth in players is likely independent of many of the decisions they make for the game.

Really...? So the game isn't successful for anything it has done. It's because ff fans are apparently idiots and WoW is bad...yet many FF games have flopped in the past and many xiv fans aren't FF fans. So that logic dies right there.

Can you prove to me that more accessible jobs didn't contribute? Is there some data you have to share for this? How do you know no new players joined due to a class rework? You don't. You don't THINK so. But you dont KNOW so. Let's be more accurate there. In fact much of what you're saying is backed by nothing but sheer opinion there. If you truly think more accessible classes don't/can't bring is new players you don't understand business in that regard.

To say the games growth has nothing or little to do with CBU3 is beyond off. The game has to be good enough for folks to stay/come back to play. Yes HW, SB, ShB and EW are indeed major successes. (ShB onwards being the bigger ones desipte the game "according to these forums" ruining the game). And that is attributed to (for the most part) CBU3 doing an overall good job expac after expac.

But I forget you operate on the logic that CBU3 has done nothing right...yet you still pay monthly for the game. By your own logic you're either here because of bad WoW or you're one of those so called sheeple SE fans.

Lastly that last part is funny. Number 1 sure I'll give you. Number 2 makes no sense. Since when was asking for evidence a bad faith move? If you make a claim n folks ask for it that's perfectly normal. If one person hasnt provided evidence n they werent asked to its not bad faith if they turn around and ask. Number 3 is just more "hate big corporate jargon. And number 4 is also weird. If the fact is that your view is the minority you can call that bad faith. Now if you went further n said folks who say that and then proclaim your view is less valid THEN I'd agree.

[TheDecay]

Lastly that last part is funny. Number 1 sure I'll give you. Number 2 makes no sense. Since when was asking for evidence a bad faith move? If you make a claim n folks ask for it that's perfectly normal. If one person hasnt provided evidence n they werent asked to its not bad faith if they turn around and ask. Number 3 is just more "hate big corporate jargon. And number 4 is also weird. If the fact is that your view is the minority you can call that bad faith. Now if you went further n said folks who say that and then proclaim your view is less valid THEN I'd agree.

Why did you feel the need to attack the signature? Is it because you feel uncomfortable?

As for the rest of your post: NO ONE has any data on how job changes affected the game's popularity. In fact, this is data not even SE can collect, because the job changes happen simultaneously along with multiple other confounders (such as better storyline) so that a robust statistical causal analysis is basically impossible to conduct. This is why this argument is bad-faith: because no one can actually use data to prove anything here. Not even Square Enix. They have no control group or any causal instrument to tease out the effect.

So as any reasonable and sane person would do next, I inferred the most likely scenario based on what we can actually observe and made educated deductions. First, new players are most likely to try out a game based on advertisements and word of mouth. Second, SE has not talked about the job changes at all in their ads. Third, most people's discussion of FF14 outside of FF14 communities center on factors other than job design when they talk about why they like the game, including: the story, the positive community, the impression that Yoshi P cares more about the players than other devs... From this it's rather straightforward to conclude that job changes are very unlikely to have changed a potential player's decision on whether or not to try this game out and purchase it. Those job changes are announced only within the community, through live letters and patch notes. New players largely do not decide to start playing a game because of a 3-hour live letter discussing things they know nothing about.

Then of course more bad faith arguments followed but I don't have the time to explain why for every point. It's a variant of gish galloping after all. Instead of clearly communicating one single idea or argument, gish gallopers make many, all of which takes time to correct.

Oh, and cute "gotcha" attempts like "why are you paying for the sub" are basically variants of point number 1 in my signature. Asking why someone is still subbing when they have criticisms is practically identical from telling someone to unsub. The only difference is that one is passive aggressive. It's highly confusing why you would agree that that is a bad faith argument then write a passive aggressive variant of it.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Why did you feel the need to attack the signature? Is it because you feel uncomfortable?

As for the rest of your post: NO ONE has any data on how job changes affected the game's popularity. In fact, this is data not even SE can collect, because the job changes happen simultaneously along with multiple other confounders (such as better storyline) so that a robust statistical causal analysis is basically impossible to conduct. This is why this argument is bad-faith: because no one can actually use data to prove anything here. Not even Square Enix. They have no control group or any causal instrument to tease out the effect.

So as any reasonable and sane person would do next, I inferred the most likely scenario based on what we can actually observe and made educated deductions. First, new players are most likely to try out a game based on advertisements and word of mouth. Second, SE has not talked about the job changes at all in their ads. Third, most people's discussion of FF14 outside of FF14 communities center on factors other than job design when they talk about why they like the game, including: the story, the positive community, the impression that Yoshi P cares more about the players than other devs... From this it's rather straightforward to conclude that job changes are very unlikely to have changed a potential player's decision on whether or not to try this game out and purchase it. Those job changes are announced only within the community, through live letters and patch notes. New players largely do not decide to start playing a game because of a 3-hour live letter discussing things they know nothing about.

Then of course more bad faith arguments followed but I don't have the time to explain why for every point. It's a variant of gish galloping after all. Instead of clearly communicating one single idea or argument, gish gallopers make many, all of which takes time to correct.

Oh, and cute "gotcha" attempts like "why are you paying for the sub" are basically variants of point number 1 in my signature. Asking why someone is still subbing when they have criticisms is practically identical from telling someone to unsub. The only difference is that one is passive aggressive. It's highly confusing why you would agree that that is a bad faith argument then write a passive aggressive variant of it.

Writing things you don't agree with off as bad faith...is literally bad faith. Like come on you have to realize this...

I addressed the signature because it has holes. Also attacking? Pretty charged language. Hell I even agreed with the first point and even stated I'd agree with the last if there was another part to it so to assume it makes me uncomfortable is...weird.

Lastly it's not a "gotcha". I genuinely do wonder why any one would pay for a game they don't think does anything right as you've claimed. It makes no sense and is irrational. I don't ask that for folks with simple criticism. I ask that to folks who seemingly dislike every or most aspects of the game. It's not passive aggressive by any means. Would you say the same if I swap the topic being a game to say...a restaurant? Is it crazy to ask someone why they still go eat there despite saying all the food is crap? It's literally no different with this...Using "bad faith" as a shield to stave off anyone who doesn't agree or speak how you want them to gets us nowhere. When will yall learn this?

[TheDecay]

Lastly it's not a "gotcha". I genuinely do wonder why any one would pay for a game they don't think does anything right as you've claimed. It makes no sense and is irrational. I don't ask that for folks with simple criticism. I ask that to folks who seemingly dislike every or most aspects of the game. It's not passive aggressive by any means. Would you say the same if I swap the topic being a game to say...a restaurant? Is it crazy to ask someone why they still go eat there despite saying all the food is crap? It's literally no different with this...Using "bad faith" as a shield to stave off anyone who doesn't agree or speak how you want them to gets us nowhere. When will yall learn this?

Yes, it absolutely is a "gotcha". It has zero relevance to the topic and zero relevance to the discussion. You are asking what someone's personal interests and reason for playing the game are. That has nothing to do with the topic, and nothing to do with the discussion. It is derailment-lite: an attempt to shift the discussion away from game discussion to a discussion about individual players and their purchasing decisions. It makes it easier to dismiss arguments when you try to portray them as lacking monetary sense or making bad purchase decisions. In essence, you are very much engaging in passive aggressive hostility by shifting the blame from the game to the players. Your "curiosity" is not legitimate and you are encouraged to stick to game discussion. FYI: players can dislike a lot of the game but enjoy one small part of it, such as raiding. However, unlike certain people on the forums, most players do not feel the need to make a post praising the game for every criticism they make.

It also has not got past me that you have intentionally ignored the main chunk of my post (which took up nearly 70% of it in word count) in an attempt to "gotcha" me by focusing on points that you see as easier to argue against.

[Eorzean_username]

From this it's rather straightforward to conclude that job changes are very unlikely to have changed a potential player's decision on whether or not to try this game out and purchase it.

I think that these arguments on both sides of the general polarities regarding SE's design changes focus too much on the "acquisition" stage and fail to take into account the additional goal of "retention".

——————————————————————————

Though, regarding the hypothetical "new player" — this may also be oversimplified, and assuming too many similarities between diverse individuals.

For example, I think it's very reasonable to argue that very few players try out FFXIV specifically because "SE made BRD dots last for 45 seconds" — since that sort of thing would be gibberish to many prospective players.

However, it's not unreasonable to conceive of someone being more willing to try out FFXIV because their friends can assure them, "It's easy to play", or "Don't worry, it's not like other MMOs, it doesn't take forever to figure out how to play your class / learn your rotation / be able to participate / (etc)".

Those are all genuine turn-offs / pain-points for a lot of "genre-external" players that typically avoid or bail from MMORPGs, especially coming from other, more "jump in and figure it out", genres.

At the same time, it's also not unreasonable to imagine someone being drawn-in to XIV specifically because they are "genre-internal" already, and have read posts on Reddit/Discord/etc, seen streamers, heard word-of-mouth, been informed by friends, etc, etc, that FFXIV has challenging encounters, or complex rotational optimisations, or is difficult to learn, or etc.

...In other words, I think that the effect can cut both ways.

However, I'm also guessing that SE is banking on the general prospective population trending more heavily in one direction than the other, possibly because they feel that they've already "mined-out" most of the plumbable depths of the latter group, and are now targeting the former group more aggressively in order to continue achieving fabled Growth™.

——————————————————————————

But getting back to the "retention" point.

First, it's true that a brand-new player who's just bumbling through the MSQ, while constantly being given an overinflated sense of their own power and capability, is unlikely to be seriously-critical of their Job's rotation or performance in either direction.

However, that works to SE's advantage here: there is no need to present long-term depth or complexity for the first X-hundred-hours where someone isn't paying much attention anyway, because they are too distracted by too much other content where there is no real opportunity to actually mine down to said depth, and especially not to ever have time to actually execute it.

As such, primarily, the only risk to retention that simplifying Job gameplay actually presents is in the segment of well-established veterans who are also aware of, capable of, and interested in, capitalising fully on those depthier and more punishing systems.

I mean no dismissal nor derogation when I state that I think those players very likely make up a relative minority of the overall playerbase, and have been since time immemorial.

Therefore, I'd guess that this design shift is a gamble that SE likely believes works in their favor statistically, since they've shifted from producing a boutique MMO passion-product (Heavensward) to "the MMO for everybody" (iterative trend since Stormblood).

——————————————————————————

Then to the second "retention" point.

Sooner or later, a new player stops being "new" — in the sense of just wandering around like a tourist at a theme park, gazing in awe at every random gimmicky shack and spectacle, no matter how thin or shallow... and eventually their mind begins seeking justification to remain present in-world.

There's a lot of ways to try to "capture" that, and because people are, in general, fairly diverse in their preferences, I think capturing "correctly" probably involves an aggregate approach akin to grains-of-sand in an hourglass, rather than any one major, specific, tactical nuclear masterstroke piece of content.

ie: For some players, just having housing to maintain is good enough to capture them. For others, the game's natural social environment (such as it is...) will perform the capture. For others, it might be the infinite pursuit of glamour options... others, using Third Party Tools™ to endlessly modify and "improve" their character... and on, and on.

——————————————————————————

In that sense, end-game content, raiding, rotational optimisation, etc, also provide a potential capture path.

However, this is where I think a portion of high-functioning players derail their understanding — treating this end-game, performance-oriented content as a binary.

ie: "Only very skilled players, my brethren, like me, who take pride in challenge and iterative improvement, will ever enter here. So therefore, its design only makes sense to target and support said players like us".

In actuality, I'm venturing (with the usual impossibility of certainty, due to unavailable data) that a good slice of players who enter into end-game content actually do so simply because it adds more to their overall palette of "things to do", and/or provides another social outlet with which they can participate in the game with friends (or in some cases, just, "friend-like strangers").

So there is the very real possibility that:

• More simple and approachable Job rotations
• The ability to more confidently reach what feels like the "expected outcome" for a given Job's performance and rotation
• A feeling of being able to focus more clearly on just the encounter mechanics
• ...etc...

...Keeps more players approaching and interacting with that content, and thus serves to make it "stickier" in terms of retention rates.

eg: If someone tries Savage and feels completely-overwhelmed and also inadequate because their rotation is constantly being hopelessly-derailed, or they're pulling numbers too low to remain in the party, or they're being blamed for Enrage timers, or etc... then they are likely to become discouraged quickly and bail from that content, which in turn amputates a slice of potential capture-area from the game.

On the other hand, if someone tries Savage and experiences relatively-accessible success (in the sense that the primary failure-point is just the mechanics themselves, rather than also fighting their own rotation the entire time), then you may have just lured another player into the "weekly grind" content psychology, and might even potentially lure them further into bashing their head against Ultimates (which could extend their subscription by months)... and, etc.

In this sense, making "content more about the content itself", so to speak, potentially adds more "sand grains" to the retention pile.

——————————————————————————

Yes, there is always the cynical possibility that SE simply has no idea what they're doing, and makes all of their decisions by just flailing-around blindly — and I know it's very tempting for players frustrated by said decisions to characterise the studio that way. (I've been guilty of this many times myself)

However, I am more and more reluctantly-inclined to assume that SE's designers keep stubbornly following similar patterns for what they see as concrete reasons, rather than just being literally Alice-in-Wonderland insane / Katy t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m "rAnDoM".

As such, I'm speculating that things which make my head want to melt like the finale of Raiders of the Lost Ark — like the current design of Healer Jobs — are probably, from SE's more informed perspective, actually increasing... or at least "prolonging"... per-player retention more than decreasing it.

Any veterans, or players looking for more serious or depthy challenge, that fall by the wayside... are probably, mercenarily-speaking, deemed acceptable attrition against the greater gains.

——————————————————————————

But I think that (hypothetical) strategy also has a risk: while very dedicated players tend to form an overall minority in a game, they also tend to serve as potent proselytisers, ambassadors, and inspiration, even to players who don't aspire to that level of play.

Therefore, I think that there's a potential long-term risk of damaging the "prestige" of the game, which might in turn lead to both less acquisition and less retention.

SE, however, may be twigging that gaming is in a different era than it was in, say, 10 years ago, and decided that their primary tool for amplifying game interest is no longer to target the internal MMO gamer community (where "skilled ambassadors" would have the most influence), but instead intentionally trying to both draw-in and retain a much broader selection of players than would typically be expected in an (ostensible) "MMORPG".

This sort of tactic was, after all, one of the contributing factors of what made WOW so potent in its early days, as well — first around Vanilla (when it was fresh and new), and then especially around WOTLK, where they began to abandon one "player-hostile" system after another, en-masse.

[TheDecay]

I think that these arguments on both sides of the general polarities regarding SE's design changes focus too much on the "acquisition" stage and fail to take into account the additional goal of "retention".

——————————————————————————

Though, regarding the hypothetical "new player" — this may also be oversimplified, and assuming too many similarities between diverse individuals.

For example, I think it's very reasonable to argue that very few players try out FFXIV specifically because "SE made BRD dots last for 45 seconds" — since that sort of thing would be gibberish to many prospective players.

However, it's not unreasonable to conceive of someone being more willing to try out FFXIV because their friends can assure them, "It's easy to play", or "Don't worry, it's not like other MMOs, it doesn't take forever to figure out how to play your class / learn your rotation / be able to participate / (etc)".

Those are all genuine turn-offs / pain-points for a lot of "genre-external" players that typically avoid or bail from MMORPGs, especially coming from other, more "jump in and figure it out", genres.

At the same time, it's also not unreasonable to imagine someone being drawn-in to XIV specifically because they are "genre-internal" already, and have read posts on Reddit/Discord/etc, seen streamers, heard word-of-mouth, been informed by friends, etc, etc, that FFXIV has challenging encounters, or complex rotational optimisations, or is difficult to learn, or etc.

...In other words, I think that the effect can cut both ways.

However, I'm also guessing that SE is banking on the general prospective population trending more heavily in one direction than the other, possibly because they feel that they've already "mined-out" most of the plumbable depths of the latter group, and are now targeting the former group more aggressively in order to continue achieving fabled Growth™.

——————————————————————————

But getting back to the "retention" point.

First, it's true that a brand-new player who's just bumbling through the MSQ, while constantly being given an overinflated sense of their own power and capability, is unlikely to be seriously-critical of their Job's rotation or performance in either direction.

However, that works to SE's advantage here: there is no need to present long-term depth or complexity for the first X-hundred-hours where someone isn't paying much attention anyway, because they are too distracted by too much other content where there is no real opportunity to actually mine down to said depth, and especially not to ever have time to actually execute it.

As such, primarily, the only risk to retention that simplifying Job gameplay actually presents is in the segment of well-established veterans who are also aware of, capable of, and interested in, capitalising fully on those depthier and more punishing systems.

I mean no dismissal nor derogation when I state that I think those players very likely make up a relative minority of the overall playerbase, and have been since time immemorial.

Therefore, I'd guess that this design shift is a gamble that SE likely believes works in their favor statistically, since they've shifted from producing a boutique MMO passion-product (Heavensward) to "the MMO for everybody" (iterative trend since Stormblood).

——————————————————————————

Then to the second "retention" point.

Sooner or later, a new player stops being "new" — in the sense of just wandering around like a tourist at a theme park, gazing in awe at every random gimmicky shack and spectacle, no matter how thin or shallow... and eventually their mind begins seeking justification to remain present in-world.

There's a lot of ways to try to "capture" that, and because people are, in general, fairly diverse in their preferences, I think capturing "correctly" probably involves an aggregate approach akin to grains-of-sand in an hourglass, rather than any one major, specific, tactical nuclear masterstroke piece of content.

ie: For some players, just having housing to maintain is good enough to capture them. For others, the game's natural social environment (such as it is...) will perform the capture. For others, it might be the infinite pursuit of glamour options... others, using Third Party Tools™ to endlessly modify and "improve" their character... and on, and on.

——————————————————————————

In that sense, end-game content, raiding, rotational optimisation, etc, also provide a potential capture path.

However, this is where I think a portion of high-functioning players derail their understanding — treating this end-game, performance-oriented content as a binary.

ie: "Only very skilled players, my brethren, like me, who take pride in challenge and iterative improvement, will ever enter here. So therefore, its design only makes sense to target and support said players like us".

In actuality, I'm venturing (with the usual impossibility of certainty, due to unavailable data) that a good slice of players who enter into end-game content actually do so simply because it adds more to their overall palette of "things to do", and/or provides another social outlet with which they can participate in the game with friends (or in some cases, just, "friend-like strangers").

So there is the very real possibility that:

• More simple and approachable Job rotations
• The ability to more confidently reach what feels like the "expected outcome" for a given Job's performance and rotation
• A feeling of being able to focus more clearly on just the encounter mechanics
• ...etc...

...Keeps more players approaching and interacting with that content, and thus serves to make it "stickier" in terms of retention rates.

eg: If someone tries Savage and feels completely-overwhelmed and also inadequate because their rotation is constantly being hopelessly-derailed, or they're pulling numbers too low to remain in the party, or they're being blamed for Enrage timers, or etc... then they are likely to become discouraged quickly and bail from that content, which in turn amputates a slice of potential capture-area from the game.

On the other hand, if someone tries Savage and experiences relatively-accessible success (in the sense that the primary failure-point is just the mechanics themselves, rather than also fighting their own rotation the entire time), then you may have just lured another player into the "weekly grind" content psychology, and might even potentially lure them further into bashing their head against Ultimates (which could extend their subscription by months)... and, etc.

In this sense, making "content more about the content itself", so to speak, potentially adds more "sand grains" to the retention pile.

——————————————————————————

Yes, there is always the cynical possibility that SE simply has no idea what they're doing, and makes all of their decisions by just flailing-around blindly — and I know it's very tempting for players frustrated by said decisions to characterise the studio that way. (I've been guilty of this many times myself)

However, I am more and more reluctantly-inclined to assume that SE's designers keep stubbornly following similar patterns for what they see as concrete reasons, rather than just being literally Alice-in-Wonderland insane / Katy t3h PeNgU1N oF d00m "rAnDoM".

As such, I'm speculating that things which make my head want to melt like the finale of Raiders of the Lost Ark — like the current design of Healer Jobs — are probably, from SE's more informed perspective, actually increasing... or at least "prolonging"... per-player retention more than decreasing it.

Any veterans, or players looking for more serious or depthy challenge, that fall by the wayside... are probably, mercenarily-speaking, deemed acceptable attrition against the greater gains.

——————————————————————————

But I think that (hypothetical) strategy also has a risk: while very dedicated players tend to form an overall minority in a game, they also tend to serve as potent proselytisers, ambassadors, and inspiration, even to players who don't aspire to that level of play.

Therefore, I think that there's a potential long-term risk of damaging the "prestige" of the game, which might in turn lead to both less acquisition and less retention.

SE, however, may be twigging that gaming is in a different era than it was in, say, 10 years ago, and decided that their primary tool for amplifying game interest is no longer to target the internal MMO gamer community (where "skilled ambassadors" would have the most influence), but instead intentionally trying to both draw-in and retain a much broader selection of players than would typically be expected in an (ostensible) "MMORPG".

This sort of tactic was, after all, one of the contributing factors of what made WOW so potent in its early days, as well — first around Vanilla (when it was fresh and new), and then especially around WOTLK, where they began to abandon one "player-hostile" system after another, en-masse.

Thank you for your well thought-out comment. With minor caveats, I agree with your overall assessment of the situation. However I would contend that

(1): The "genre-external" does not only consist of players willing to try out FF14 because it's "easy". Players from shooters, action games, tactical games have, in my anecdotal experience, found FF14's early game gameplay too unchallenging and slow to want to continue playing the game. What usually pushes the "genre-external" away from the game is not the job design, but rather gameplay systems like gearing, the ludicrous amount of sidequests, knowing whether FATEs or guildleves are worth it, crafting systems, PvP, etc. As Josh Strife Hayes repeatedly emphasized, (a) the early game should hook the player in and the fun part of combat shouldn't be left all the way until endgame, and (b) the game needs to slowly ease players into its systems and not infodump everything on the player all at once. Complexity in systems AND simplicity in combat is what drive genre-external players away. FF14's early game combat is too simple, and many of the friends I know (who are casual video game players) who tried this game quit because of that precise reason. At the same time, we know that one of the most daunting things as a new MMO player to experience is the number of systems that you are introduced to, often in rapid succession.

To alleviate this problem, early game job complexity actually needs to go higher, while system complexity needs to go down. FF14 does well in limiting system complexity because the MSQ largely railroads you to the endgame, but it does not do well in early game combat complexity, at all. For 20 levels you are pressing 1-2, which is around 5 to 6 hours of gameplay. In most single player games, which genre-external players likely hail from, you get access to the meaty part of combat by the time you are 6 hours in. Although endgame job complexity need no go higher than what we currently have, it is my belief that early game job complexity must if SE intends to capture more new players, especially the genre-external who are likely seeking fun gameplay over reading quest dialogue.

(2): I think you underestimate the number of players who quit FF14 because of (a) low job/gameplay complexity and (b) a perceived lack of content. I'll not get into (b) as that's a separate topic, but (a) is a major complaint among MMO players in general. I've met many players in other MMOs who talk about FF14 unprompted with me, and I have quite literally never heard praise of its job design. Instead, what largely seems to drive former FF14 players into other MMOs is its perceived lack of challenge. Most players will not actually tackle Savage and Ultimate, and the MSQ and normal endgame content is the source of their primary perception of the game. These players find the jobs boring and the content unchallenging, which is a large reason why they quit. When people do praise FF14 in other MMOs/MMO communities, and yes, that happens quite frequently, it's often not about its complexity or content, but about its story, its community, lore, and glamour aspects. As such, I believe that the lack of gameplay challenge and perceived lack of content (once again, another topic) are the two main factors for attrition in this game, and according to LuckyBancho's statistics, the total amount of attrition is quite severe, being at 20% each patch cycle. What keeps players in this game, on the other hand, despite the lack of challenge, is its other positive aspects such as a good community, good graphic and style, its robust third-party ecosystem and social aspects, et cetera, rather than its simplified jobs.

(3): With Savage's high participation rate now, I believe you are absolutely correct that simplified jobs and "formulaic" raid design is a major vehicle for retention. What I disagree with is the level of simplicity targeted to achieve this. Stormblood had a healthy high-end content participation rate too, as PF matured and became a legitimate way to participate in such content. While Heavensward design, which is my personal ideal, would be bad for the game's longevity, I don't believe that the developers needed to move beyond Stormblood levels of complexity and design. I think Stormblood struck a very good balance as most jobs had a low skill floor for players to adequately participate in high-end content, while having a rather high skill ceiling on many jobs to satisfy high-end raiders. Savage participation rates have plateaued since Stormblood so I believe that any additional simplification beyond Stormblood only boosted Savage participation rates minimally.

(4): I actually don't believe long-term prestige is a concern for FF14. It already has a good reputation due to its overall decent community (despite its propensity to be passive-aggressive more than other MMOs, IMO), better-than-average developers (since the MMO landscape is overall in a horrible state, standards for FF14 are rather low), decent story (for an MMO), and decent graphic style. Ultimate raids are still prestigious, and many players do aspire to that level of play (however it has been watered down too much lately). The reason I think low complexity is damaging to FF14 in the long run is because it will leave the gameplay-focused players extremely unsatisfied while keeping the "casual" or glam/RP/modding-focused players mildly more satisfied (I say "mildly" because I don't believe going from Stormblood gameplay to ShB gameplay really made many casual players much more satisfied with the game than going from HW to SB did because of the removal of a lot of HW jank). While many of the gameplay-focused players continue sticking with FF14 because, let's be real, the MMO landscape is pathetic, it creates real opportunity for a new entrant to capture its unsatisfied players very easily, and I think this is the real long-term danger for FF14.

According to your join date, you haven't been using these forums for even a full month. (With this specific character if we are to believe you don't visit with others). And all you have done in that entire month is call half the forums bad faith forum users for expressing their feelings and opinion. Yet you're the "new" person around here. How are we supposed to believe that you aren't the bad faith forum poster when a fraction of your post throws that trigger buzz word around and you even have it mentioned in your signature. Like for someone who supposedly just started using the forums this month, you seemed to have quickly taken a vendetta against anyone who disagrees with you as a bad faith forum poster. Like your signature says "Ask for hard evidence when they provide none of their own" which you fail to do quite often and only express your opinions that everything CBU3 does is bad and awful. My point is, you are welcomed on these forums as much as anyone else is. But you keep calling people out as bad faith forum posters when that's the only you have done since you have joined is down talk the game and anyone within it. There was a positive thread made asking for crossover items from FF16 and you are in there telling people they shouldn't want a crossover until SE fixes both games. So, is it bad faith to want crossover items because you aren't having fun?

Another bad-faith post. I have talked down the game a lot, yes, but I only accuse other individual posters for bad-faith posting when they utilize bad-faith argumentative tactics like strawmanning or derailment. As to why your post is probably written in bad-faith? Because it has little relevance to the discussion at hand and is a derailment strategy to turn a discussion about CBU3's resource/budget priority (and currently a discussion of job complexity) into an argument about individual posters.

As you would note in this very post, I do not accuse good faith posters and will engage with them with sincerity. I encourage you to unlearn the bad-faith tactics you have absorbed from the Internet and engage with different forum posters with good faith. My signature can be thought of as a self-defense mechanism: hopefully people who wish to engage with me on bad faith will see my signature and decide not to instead, and save us both the trouble.

[Fawkes]

Half of FF14's success is from WoW's failure.

Game was plenty popular before The Great WoW Exodus™, chief.

The other half: the FF fanbase's propensity to accept anything SE puts out.

Which is why version 1.0 was a huge success and the game was never completely remade from the ground up!
...Oh wait