Quote Originally Posted by GypsumFantastic View Post
we received a self contained MSQ which incorporated the trial fights, rather than a separate trial series.
I suppose you could argue that ending the primal slaying story arc was a risk in general, because it means they have to know what will replace it. It also means people might quit "because it's the end" and many said they were quitting at 6.0 because it was a fitting time to in the MSQ, which was part of why Yoshi-P had to delay and modify the MSQ to include messages of hope about where we could explore next.

We also saw QoL updates to the game and it's UI
These have been good, but frankly, there could be more. A lot more. It should be someone's full-time job to work on Quality of Life, not the "if we have time for it" thing it seems to be.

new player improvements in the form of the duty support system.
This was released in Shadowbringers though. All they have been doing is extending it to previous duties. I don't actually think that this is a risk at all. Giving people the option to solo dungeons when there are already solo duties doesn't change much, and even makes them more likely to stay because of the faster queue.

They will probably end up being social anyway for the Hard Mode dungeons, trials or from ending up in a Free Company, or when they do a roulette.

It is only a risk in that it seems to have consumed development resources that could have gone to new content, which has been a source of frustration for people.

The savage raid unlock was pushed out by a week as a trial and community feedback dictated that this change should become permanent.
True, but considering they have always done it for the first raid tier of each expansion, it was a safe risk to take.

Crystalline Conflict was introduced as a brand new game mode
Feast wasn't much different. It's really just some different rules, a different objective and different PvP abilities that take the focus off healers. It effectively is the Feast, so I don't want to call it new. It's just improved.

improve the PVP offering, alongside a new rewards system.
Fixed the reward system, more like. The top 100 thing wasn't good.

Housing lottery system was introduced.
I don't think there was much risk in this with how bad the old system was. Aside from bugs like that one that happened, but bugs can happen with anything.

Data Center travel was introduced, which has improved grouping opportunities and opened up more means for social interaction.
This was risky. On a technical level, there is a risk of permanent loss of character data if something goes wrong. On social level, there is a risk of things like "everyone goes to Aether to raid" which came true.

Island sanctuary came in 6.2 as a brand new game mode for casual play.
It's a risk in that it has detracted from the battle and hardcore content in favor of trying to cater to casual and social players. That was the intention, but it doesn't feel like it is fun to replay once you rank up and get the rewards. I think the only thing that will be giving it a long-term future is that it is a free garden for everybody. Hopefully houses and indoor furnishings can be used in 6.5 or a future patch and that would save it for sure.

The Relic Weapons launched with the controversial method
This was a risk, but it's a case of everyone wants to do it a different way. Some people want to do field content, some people want to grind old content like CT and fates endlessly and some people want dump tomestones. So no matter who they listen to, someone is likely to complain here.

However, having a long-term goal to work towards is something even many casual players like. Relic weapons have always been a popular endgame content for casual players. I've always seen them going back to do ARR relics or Anima weapons and then boast all their glowing weapons they worked so hard on over a year. These are often people who don't do raids or are just into RP.

And even for them I couldn't see dumping tomestones being nearly as varied or satisfying.

Variant and Criterion Dungeons were introduced as a new form of small group content for casual and hardcore players. It's recently been discussed in an interview that the rewards system is something the developers are looking at for future content.
Yes, a risky idea that could have been a waste of development time if it wasn't received well. I think their original argument against it was that not many people would do high-end content with 4 players.

another 10 years of predictable content isn't healthy for the game.
I don't mind consistency. But they have always had a slot or two for "experimental content", which is how deep dungeons and diadem, then ultimates, became a thing.