Why casual players don't 'just leave'

[Valence]

I mean, being fair, we can still see and play all those fights. It's pretty clear that raid fights used to be a lot more like they are in WoW. But, and forgive me for this, I think this is just a difference in taste. That raid content feels like a pale imitation of what WoW does and not at all as unique to FFXIV as you suggest. I think Stormblood's changes to how this game does raiding was an extremely welcome change and, while they can definitely stand to shake things up again, I also don't think going backwards is the answer to that.

You can't judge older content by playing it with the newer battle system added to crazy powercreep. Old stuff is just broken and insipid now. Old stuff wasn't designed to challenge and engage with what the current game does.

There is a question of tastes, and there is a question of the actual void left in the trail of everything that's been blown to pieces by the devs over expansions. If you're fine with the sorry state of the current battle system, the current job homogenization and lack of identity, the constant samey bosses in a circle square arena regurgitating the same stack markers or donut telegraphs, then yes, you'll not see what the game used to be, because all of those issues didn't really exist yet and started being a thing at various points in the game's history.

This has never been about going back to the purity of an idealized model of the past, but to point out at everything that's been lost on the way because the last time the game ever added something actually new to its battle system was Stormblood with the gauges.

[NamiRocket]

You can't judge older content by playing it with the newer battle system added to crazy powercreep. Old stuff is just broken and insipid now. Old stuff wasn't designed to challenge and engage with what the current game does.

There is a question of tastes, and there is a question of the actual void left in the trail of everything that's been blown to pieces by the devs over expansions. If you're fine with the sorry state of the current battle system, the current job homogenization and lack of identity, the constant samey bosses in a circle square arena regurgitating the same stack markers or donut telegraphs, then yes, you'll not see what the game used to be, because all of those issues didn't really exist yet and started being a thing at various points in the game's history.

You're making an awful lot of assumptions about when and where I started playing.

But it's all still ultimately a question of taste. And there's no accounting for it.