1. Where do you come from to XIV? Play WoW, FFXI, GuildWars, ESO?
The whole gamut. Started in EQ back in 2001, then WoW in 2004, then after that I played EQ and WoW again a few times, then in no particular order: EQ2, SWTOR, Age of Conan, Star Trek Online, Wildstar, Rift, Planetside 2, Archeage, Black Desert, DC Universe Online, ESO, Defiance, Firefall, Guildwars 2, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Neverwinter, Warframe, and a smattering of Aion and Lineage 2 for like a day or two during their Steam release.

For FFXIV I played from 2.0 to 2.1, then played a little bit in 2.4. Then came back two months ago for 3.5.

2. Do you like how the game currently progresses?
For what there is, I do. The progression system is pretty open. You're not forced to do one way or the highway after a certain point and that leaves you options. I like that. I like being able to do 4 man stuff, 8 man stuff, and 24 man stuff to achieve my goals. And I can do all three or stick to one that I like.

3. Do you want it to stay that way? If no, what changes would you make?
It might be due to the fact that I started in 3.5 but it feels like there's not enough progression. I mean I can do all stages of Alexander, and I can do all three 24 mans to earn gear. But it feels.. shallow still. There's just not enough content once you're done with the MSQs. And I know the problem. I've played ALOT of MMORPGs and all of the MMOFPSs. Out of all of them only TWO have tackled the issue.

Everquest and Everquest 2.

Those games do NOT raise the level cap in each expansion. And when they do, they do it in 2, 3, or 5 level increments. Its how EQ has 24 expansions with a 110 level cap. If they did 5 levels each time, they'd be up to 170 by now.

The benefit of NOT raising the level cap is you do not need to focus on the overland leveling. You can even get away with making the overland stuff smaller. Taking much less time to complete and design. That leaves more design time for progression style content. Their expansion cycle kinda goes like this:

1. Level Expansion, Raise level by 5.
2. Content Expansion, increase endgame content
3. Content Expansion, increase endgame content
4. Level Expansion Raise level by 5.
repeat

When I say endgame, its not just for raids, but group content as well (solo content doesn't technically exist in EQ, but I assume it could apply there too).

But to put it shortly. I think SE should reconsider in future expansions the idea of raising the level cap past Stormblood. Allow 70 to be max level for an expansion or two. This allows them to stop the bloating of abilities. And allows for new players to easily catch up to the rest of the population. And even when they do raise the level. Maybe only do it by 5 levels at a time.

They could cater to a large number of the playerbase this way as well. They could devote their time and effort to having a Coil-type raid available right off the bat. In fact they could have TWO of them available on expansion launch day. Maybe make the first one accessible to the general population, and the second one much harder to sate the hardcore raiding population. Then when the new raid comes out in a content patch, they reduce the difficulty and apply it to the new one. Rinse and repeat as needed (this would apply to Alliance 24 mans and 4 mans as well, to keep the choices of 4, 8, and 24 available as they are now).

So on 5.0 there would be two raids. And by patch 5.5 there would be seven. And the seventh one for example would be used to get geared for patch 6.0's (the content expansion that comes after) hard raid. Then 7.0 would raise the level cap and allow everyone who's working through 5.0-6.5 to catch up.

That's how I would change the progression system.

The only Con to this is some players may not be able to do all the content available. This isn't because of difficulty, but because there'd be so much to do. So not really a con as the game would stay fresh for the average player for a while. While the more harder players will not see the game go stale as quickly.