We're doubling down on the 2min meta

[Rithy255]

Honestly its not even the "2minute meta" just the job design outside of that is getting 10x worse

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Buffs being on 2min I don't mind at all, 3 min litany wasn't nice

[MisterNublet]

Playerbase dwindling has nothing to do with the combat in the game and more to do with how terrible EW's post patches were.

This isn't some mutually exclusive issue. It can be both. EW's terrible post patches just helped shine a big light on the state of FFXIV's gameplay. Now, it won't even matter if the fight design improve in DawnTrail, if the gameplay to engage with said content continues to be trash, nobody will want to run it.

I doubt most players even care about the simplification of combat

Yeah, those players tend to be the ones that only subscribe for the MSQ story content and then quit till the next patch.

Gotta understand that there will be a trickle down effect. When the top end players grow bored and quit, no longer producing content or guides for the high/mid end playerbase to follow, those high/mid players will begin to quit too. Casual players will then end up struggling without those high/mid end player base helping them through new content, then will proceed to quit themselves.