Naoki Yoshida interview @Gamescom

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

I can guarantee you, that no one expected Diadem, Palace of the Dead, or the Feast to ever exist months/years ago.

You're exaggerating.

No I'm not exaggerating. I can guarantee that the expansion will consist of exactly 5 major patches, with some smaller patches fluff/QoL patches thrown in between. 4.0 will implement some new zones, new jobs, new skills, and raise the level cap (the usual stuff for an expansion). The level cap will be level 70, at which point you will have 2 expert dungeons which you will farm to cap your tomes each week, the weekly cap will be 450 and there will be an uncapped tome that you can hold 2000 of that will let you get some gear that is 10 ilevels lower than weekly tome gear. You'll have some new masterbooks at level 70 crafter which will allow you to craft the highest ilvl gear outside of raid and tome gear. In 4.1 you'll have a new 24 man raid with gear that is the same item level as tome gear that you can get on a weekly lockout. Probably about the timing of 4.05 there will be a new relic questline which will gradually allow you to upgrade your weapon ilevel to be equal to that of the current raid just in time for that weapon's ilvl to become obsolete. This cycle will repeat for 4.2-4.3, and again in 4.4-4.5.

This timeframe will cover about the next 2 years of the game at which time a new expansion will be released and you'll do it all over again. Yes there will be some unique side content added in as well, but those kinds of things usually serve as some sort of "catch-up" content which essentially means it's just fluff/glamour content. No matter how compelling or unique the content may be it does nothing to change the overall structure of the game's fundamental design.

When Yoshida says he doesn't want to make something that "isn't FFXIV" what he's actually saying is he's not going to deviate from this fundamental design structure.

The overall point I'm making is, if you enjoy the game now, you will likely continue to enjoy it years from now. If you don't enjoy the game now, you probably should not get your hopes up for things to get better down the road.