Why casual players don't 'just leave'

[Valence]

Look, I love WoW. I'd probably even say I like WoW more than FFXIV, if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose.

But I think killing what makes FFXIV fights unique in favor of just fully copying what WoW does would be a real bad move. I think the rigid, dance-like nature of the fights in this game is what makes them interesting. I love the organized chaos of WoW fights, too, but in WoW. I don't come to FFXIV for WoW fights. I also feel like the way FFXIV fights are designed caters a lot better to controller players than the way WoW fights are designed, which is probably another factor in why this game is the way it is.

I, personally, like a lot of the changes they've made in Dawntrail to endgame fight mechanics and tells for those mechanics. It's not wildly different than it was before, but it's still an improvement over the way Endwalker fights were often designed. I just really think they need to give people more to do at the start of an expansion outside of just MSQ and raiding.

The problem is that XIV used to have a more balanced approach to this and we had a lot of the WoW model in fights as well. XIV also added its own touch with very specific mechanics that weren't constantly about playing DDR.
So yeah actually, as a XIV vet I'd like fights in XIV to be more like WoW too, because that's what they used to be like. And yet it wasn't fully copying WoW, it was XIV, not WoW, and it played like XIV, not WoW. If it played like WoW I'd be playing WoW.
So far I only feel alienated by everything that's happened to XIV pve, and as a veteran player it feels like a constant middle finger telling me I'm not wanted in their game anymore. I do not know what made them feel they had to change the audience they were aiming their game toward, perhaps they wanted to feel more "unique" as you say, but it just feels like a shit sandwich for those left behind.