There was far less content in Heavensward than in Endwalker

[Noumenon]

Wondrous Tails was not the joke it is now. It actually caused you to open party finder, join a party and tackle extremes together. It was a social experience you went through up to 9 times each week and you got rewards such as minions for doing it. Yes, we unsynced them even then, but you couldn't solo even ARR extremes then. We could argue that Unreals do that now, but it's just the one and it's more serious because it's almost synced to Minimum IL.

Almost nobody had all jobs leveled so leveling them gradually by partying with your FC, doing roulettes or FATE farming was a thing (in fact, it wasn't until the Amaro came out that I started to see a majority of people put more effort into getting all the jobs up fast). But now anyone who has played since ARR, Heavensward or even Stormblood has had a humongous amount of time to level them all so it's no longer much of a content.

I agree about PoTD being good then because it was fresh. It didn't seem that the ones after were necessarily a problem. It's just that when people got what they asked for, it felt too much like copy and paste. The good news is they said the one in Dawntrail will be different, so it seems they have acknowledged this issue.

The relics created social interaction with FATE farming and light farming. You'd need a full party to farm A1S or A9S for it, so you could find some moments to chat about things. But now we just dump tomestones.

You could hang out at Idyllshire with your mount and interact.

I think beside having more excitement due to being new, it was also just doing a better job of creating social interaction in these ways. You all felt like you were progressing together doing these things and could interact together. Now it's more like you're soloing it and keeping to yourself (Island Sanctuary, Variant, tomestone dumping for relics).

I think they want to re-use old mechanics but in different ways, whilst also adding new ones gradually over the game's life.

But I have a question: can you think of a lot of different mechanic ideas yourself that could not be described as "stack, spread, dodge, in, out, pyretic, move around, look away"?

Actually yes:

Ridorana's Construct 7 prime number mechanic. (You can even extend it to make a Sudoku-like mechanic)
Staggering CCs so that different orbs resolve their raidwide damage at different times (A6S, A8S, and arguably E8S)
Mini maze mechanic but done in a more engaging way than just get to the endpoint (O3N)
Dragging adds under AoEs to resolve mechanics (like Xelphatol but at a Savage level), think of a volcano eruption that you exploit to kill ice sprites.
etc.

[Zairava]

Actually yes:

Ridorana's Construct 7 prime number mechanic. (You can even extend it to make a Sudoku-like mechanic)
Staggering CCs so that different orbs resolve their raidwide damage at different times (A6S, A8S, and arguably E8S)
Mini maze mechanic but done in a more engaging way than just get to the endpoint (O3N)
Dragging adds under AoEs to resolve mechanics (like Xelphatol but at a Savage level), think of a volcano eruption that you exploit to kill ice sprites.
etc.

We could also use more fights that utilize the actual arena (P2 and P10 come to my mind off the bat as more recent examples)

Side note: Math bot unironically is my favorite fight in Ridorana and one of my favorite Critical Engagements in Bozja, it's a lot of fun lol

[Jeeqbit]

Ridorana's Construct 7 prime number mechanic. (You can even extend it to make a Sudoku-like mechanic)
Staggering CCs so that different orbs resolve their raidwide damage at different times (A6S, A8S, and arguably E8S)
Mini maze mechanic but done in a more engaging way than just get to the endpoint (O3N)
Dragging adds under AoEs to resolve mechanics (like Xelphatol but at a Savage level), think of a volcano eruption that you exploit to kill ice sprites.
etc.

I see, good ideas.

I feel this explains it better than just saying to make something other than "in, out, stack, spread". I think this would be good feedback (if they actually would read the English forums ).