Zepla: Endwalker is the Worst FFXIV Expansion I have played

[CNitsah]

Especially when there's such a backlog of content that new players can basically never catch up in side content, having the new side content no require you to spend hours a day grinding to cap this or grind out completions of this fate over and over is a net positive.

There is the problem. I get the feeling. But what about those that don't have any backlog left? That's where the problem lie. it's mmo. Not too much grinding is good thing, but adding zero longevity content so newer players can catch up and old players can go fuck themselves is not a solution. You also have to keep those occupied.

Once again, I'll call to the Bozja/Zadnor example. It was not perfect, and but at least it kept you occupied, with objectives that won't really matter for newer players. New player that wanted to get up to date don't need to collect the 600m mettle points needed to get all the 3 medals to lvl 10. But that was an objective made to keep the older players occupied, along with getting the haircuts and mounts of the place. Some people might never get the mount. Big oof. And those were incentives that took a long time and were simple enough to get player invested (contrary to thing like deep dungeons, that have big entry barriers, making it "not worth it"). But they kept the player invested. That's the kind of incentive the game currently lacks.

It kinda pains me a game that, at one point in time, had for principle to not let the longtime player down (because they were there during the 1.0) doesnt care about long time players anymore, and don't give them anything to do.