I’m a bit disappointed as well. Other games would have incentives for average joes to go through the game, new bosses, areas, I think a older FF or other JRPG had different endings in NG+, and last but not least, new items. I’ll use a example from the Dark Souls series as I feel it relates to what I’m trying to say well.

When I first experienced a Souls games NG+, I was excited to find out I would be able to get more of the same items, and get more souls from enemies, enabling me to upgrade weapons and level up more effectively at the minor cost of having enemies being a little (little, keyword here) more difficult for the first NG+. Further NG+’s would repeat the cycle of getting more items and souls, but each cycle would be more difficult in turn, and in Dark Souls 3, you could even get upgraded rings by going further into NG+. This system incentivized players to venture into NG*, if nothing changed at all, there would be little reason to experience Dark Souls again, in this game we at least have a decent story, while the Souls series story is poor due to it being vague and a lacking of narrative told by NPC’s, not bloody item descriptions. But that’s Souls and this is FF14, and I am here to say what we can learn from this system and not a bunch of what ifs.

And there are quite a few things we can learn. As you could likely deduce, Souls incentivized players by increasing rewards in some way, whether that be the materials being duplicated (think XP and possibly even Gil in 14) by the game being repeated, or by a increase in difficulty yielding more souls from enemies. I personally think the first optioned mentioned, just having XP being repeated.

This would incentivize players who aren’t very lore heavy to go through NG+ due to a repeat of XP and maybe even Gil, and would also provide another leveling method that would benefit everyone who’s plays this game, especially DPS’s due to their stupid long queue times.