The new survey that came from SE actually answers all of Zepla's points and my own, this game is not going to get any better over time, I did look at the survey, and honestly its an absolute joke, but apparently those are the questions that matter.
"What is your favorite minion/mount ?"
"What is your most "formidable" foe ?"
"Chose a character for a side story"
That's basically it
And you will tell me "they are very out of touch", and truth is, they are not, they know where the money is, and after all that's what matters to them as a company, they go after the majority of people, which no matter if people like it or not, is basically just afkers/venue people or people just existing in game for the sake of existing and just afk on youtube or whatever other game they play at the same time as they afk in FFXIV.
And this is how this game is supposed to get better over time apparently, what an absolute joke, call me doomsayer, negative nancy, whatever name you want, I actually dont care at this point, this survey shows where this game is going, what it's leaning towards, a singleplayer experience visual novel with a side of AFK in Limsa and some venues, and people spending their time modding, instead of doing actual content in the game, because it's just so bland that a lot of people dont even want to touch it, they'd rather be sitting in Limsa all day long.
I love this game, I really do, when I started it I had the most amazing experience after coming from WoW, but the job issues with how non-unique they are, the 2 min meta at high level, the general boringness of them already hit me the second I hit max level, I found a saving grace for this game in housing because the housing side of the game is amazing, but at this point even that is starting to just fade, because having houses is all good and amazing, but if there's nobody to show it off to or even some random to see it as they walk through wards, what's the point ?
You can watch it happen, watch the population shift slowly to singleplayer users, venue people and afkers, that's most of what you see anywhere you go, PF's are pretty much dead after less than a week except on Aether because the game just offers NOTHING aside from content that is done extremely fast.
I only have been playing for 2 years, and I find it absolutely depressing how big the shift is in such a short amount of time, I cant imagine for the people that have been playing since the beginning of the game.