Quote Originally Posted by MagiusNecros View Post
They oversimplify the gameplay to draw in new players. The old guard is just the elephant in the room at this point. Shame they continually forget or disregard how they got this far.
Things like this (from the end of Page 1) tend to amuse me. They think the graphic that goes with it shows how SE has "lost their way", without realizing it actually just proves SE right.

Step 1 to Failure - An unhealthy obsession with graphic quality
We're up to 7.0 and the dev team is finally doing its first significant graphics upgrade. Definitely no such obsession there.

Lesson 1 - Never forget the fans / Lesson 2 - Fun comes first
Again, exactly what SE is doing. The game continues to have fan-service galore, and they recognize that their primary audience is casual players who don't want overly complicated systems, but rather something engaging that they can still just have fun with and not feel the need to be perfect or making the game their "job". (See Destiny 2 for a good example of what happens when a dev team listens to the loudest voices rather than the bulk of their playerbase.)

Lesson 4 - Don't forget your roots
FFXIV remains first and foremost an FF game. Meaning a primary focus on storytelling. What good is the story if only a select portion of the playerbase gets to actually experience all of it? The emphasis remains on storytelling rather than complex systems, borrowed power, endless grinds. Note: Not forgetting your roots != never changing anything about your game. If you don't evolve with the times, you get stuck in the past, and that will render you irrelevant quite quickly. Groups of any sort survive by staying true to their core, while simultaneously keeping up with changing times and constantly seeking new members.