I will go with the thought a cataclysm is not needed. Do think the story has meandered on long enough. The general design philosophy with these ffxiii style corridor dungeons is getting dull and boring and no amount of flashy skills and peripheral stuff happening will spice it up.

Boss fights also need to be re-thought at this point as well. In a way tho they did do a mini cataclysm with combat systems at ShB launch getting rid of tp and massive overhauls of tank healer classes. The response to that is pretty mixed. For as many well received changes it looks as if there were equal nays and boos. The game is "easier" and more people came to play it but I think more people are taking breaks and probably more frequently. Yes Yoshi-P did advise playing other games to avoid burn out but at some point this game needs to have some kind of retention mechanisms outside of if you don't log in every 45 days to maintain your house you lose it.

The Isgardian restoration content misses the mark of crafting for me personally. Yes it is a path to level crafting classes but grinding for the same of grinding to get a title is not why most people who craft in mmos enjoy crafting. Me personally I enjoyed crafting as a means to help my friends or loved ones get their feet on the ground and doing things with something I made. And that exists here in xiv. In a strange way I am kind of upset they give hq versions of things players can craft as quest rewards. Are nq versions of weapons not sufficient to complete content in that level range? It kind of veers players away from relying on players in an mmo at least on their first character.

I do realize a lot of what is there is changes made to help a 7 year old mmorpg maintain itself and stay relevant but at some point changes made are actually disruptive to the mmo experience. Enough of my ramblin