This is where I am at with this game. My subscription runs out next month and if I don't see any meaningful changes to OC or FT in 7.3 I am not bothering to come back. An alliance raid and a deep dungeon is not worth the subscription cost. There is other content sure, but nothing worth it for me.

There are so many games available to play now. Really good games with great gameplay and social features. FFXIV isn't some special unicorn. If the devs want to keep players engaged they need to respect peoples' time. Expecting players to flock to Discord in order to play your game is nonsense. There is no excuse not to have an easily accessible mode in the game for everything outside of Ultimates. Having a harder version of stuff for the players that want it, and want to take the time needed to engage with it, is fine. It also gives players who want to move on to harder content something to grow into. But the devs can't expect to keep subscriptions when making content like FT and Chaotic. Sure plenty on Japanese servers did Chaotic, but NA servers were pretty sad. I tried to join a few PF groups for it and they ended up being toxic and falling apart. Waste of my time. The worst thing a video game can do is make a player feel like they just wasted their time.

MMO players are an aging player base. Many of us have careers and families but still want to support the game. To me it feels like the devs are catering too much to the streamer style of gamer. Nothing against them, but I don't see how some of their design decisions make sense otherwise. Although I can't wrap my head around many of the design decisions in OC.