Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Felessan]

Can I have some of what you're smoking please?

We have 2 million already. Chinese release will adds 2 more. A successful MMO that is not suddenly dropped (i doubt SE will drop it) peak at around 5-6 years than steady decline to about 50% and than stagnation/slow drop until game becomes really outdated and closed.

I redirect to you again to Argumentum ad populum, something popular doesn't mean something good (and most usually it's right the opposite), also, it doesn't mean that something not popular must be good, so it's always fallacious in both directions to argue the quality of something based on it's popularity.

The only reasonable criteria for good - is that people like it. And only measurable criteria for this is number of people that likes it and a period of stay. We have already 2 million people at 1 year timeframe, that is already a long period to attribute it to marketing push.
Otherwise we will be stuck with *definition of good*. Basically I think that FF14 is good as it is and you have no objective meaning to prove it otherwise. And my "good" is that people like it (play it) as it's now.

Any human activity can lead to elitism, I don't see how you intend to have a point there.

You can provoke it, like lockout zones do, or you can try to hamper it like it's done in FF14, where many elitist concepts are explicitly made invalid (like "buy to win" from FF11 where a lot of gear were purchased thus segregating crowd for those who have money and whose who haven't).

And on the design perspective, dangerous don't mean inaccessible, just not a walk in the park like it is now, even if areas pose a challenge, everyone, including casuals, could access eventually to all content.

You think it in a wrong mentality. Dangerous lockout some people, as some people just don't have enough will/dedication to go through several death to pass through. More dangerous zone becomes, more people will be locked out.
The general trend for modern MMO, starts with WoW is that - content for everyone. And unlike Coil where you can add Echo when next turn comes out, it's work rather bad with zones. You either keep them locked out (that is bad) or get excessive stress to adding new zones that costs much more than raid dungeon.

because I've never said that ARR should be exactly like 1.0 or XI were, jsut that it could take ideas and concepts from them and include them in the game to add depth to it

But they do add some elements, like NM hunting was returned to FF14. They just adapt it to the whole concept framework, that all content should be eventually scaled down to be accessible to everyone.

ARR's combat may be technical, but it is anything but tactical. ARR battles are nothing more than: Perform pre-scripted skill rotation + avoid pre-scripted boss gimmicks.

Although I would like as well less fixed rotation, some tactics still in place. You need to adjust known tactics to your own party formation as they not always work as prescribed and sometimes some tweaks required for more comfortable play for your party.

People en masse like Dark Souls as well, which has virtually none of those features.

DarkSouls sold 2 million copies and GTA sold 20 million copies. Got the point?

He carefully limited the amount of flashiness at the launch of the game, and would drip-feed it to players over the expected life of the game in order to always have something new to show.

Flashiness sells much better. And having *actual* content helps keep people in game. You know, a lot of people treat it as a *game*, especially those from casual crowd, and not "a gateway to fantasy world". Currently it's a nice looking fantasy game with some flashy thing going around and some hardcore stuff in which nobody really cares about "world and stuff". And I am fine with that, I don't want to be in the land of elves, I want a high quality theme park MMO with cute Mi'qotes.

This approached can't be sustained without venturing into complete absurdity and obliterating all sense of legitimacy in the world.

I do not care. I like story, I like people, I generally like endgame. I don't like overrealistic "place to escape" and I don't want to be in the crowd that likes to play Tolkien games in the forest.

Yes, FFXIV, with his one stat gears, zero personalization, no elemental weakness, almost zero party member cooperation, scripted fight is very tactical and technical. Alright.

Yes, it is. Pulling out 400+ dps for a bard is not an easy achievement even though bards generally described as "one button" dps class.
General approach is very easy and gives a good result. Yes, it is how it should be. But when you want a little more from a class - you suddenly discovers that secondary stats are not equally useless, that alignment of timing becomes important and that you need to actually watch for a different things to do not a "mediocre" but good dps.