The difficulty of normal content is great as is. Do not revert them.

[jdtuggey]

Not just gear (because gear is subject to change), but things like attribute points, skill points, mastery tracks and passive points (see GW2), unlockable talent trees, etc. Anything that adds power but not necessarily being gear-based.

We're still making choices like that. I'm doing better on my summoner since I adjusted my spell speed for optimal alignment of my cooldowns.
They're less significant than many other mmo, but also they're not nearly as insignificant as you think ?

Concerning talent trees, there was this really good MMO that really emphasized talent trees like... ~10-15 years ago ?
It was called Rift. Man I loved that game, you could match 3 talent trees out of a selection of trees that were available to your class.
I loved theorycrafting all kind of weird builds. The reality though is that most people just googled optimal builds and the game fell into obscurity despite having pretty great wow-style content and a fair amount of budget at its prime.
SWTOR also has talent trees, and it's fairly successful and long running, but the talent trees are an afterthought, and they've been simplifying them over the years because players don't want to engage with that.
Players just want an optimal tree, so might as well give the benefits of an optimal tree to everybody. :P

That is totally understandable and fair. But in the long run, the instant catch-up is IMHO doing more harm than good for the overall health of the game.

I think Square has data on this, and their choices to move away from that kind of system was informed by that.
I haven't seen a single MMO like this do as well as FFXIV does ? Not even wow at this point. Though if you want that, I think Wow or GW2 can fit that need pretty neatly.
(To be fair, wow probably has catch-up mechanics too at this point... Because you know... I think players prefer that)
Like, FFXIV has been working like this for a very long time, and it's only growing in popularity ? (Speaking as general trend, there's highs and lows ofc)

Oh, I think that FFXIV absolutely needs more midcore content, don't get me wrong. But whether a) the normal raids should be it and b) whether they should be accessible via DF rather than PF is another question entirely.

Or maybe Normal Raids via duty finder is that, and you just need to give a moment for the expansion to land, for people to learn and adapt to it, for gear to be released (doesn't matter if you don't do savage, people around you will start to do the content and lift you up with them) and other stuff like that to happen.

Like, there's some things that could be added to ffxiv to make the experience more interesting, and I'd love to have this discussion, but not in the context that ffxiv is not okay and needs to change.
And even less in the context that it needs to be like other X game. It's fine, lol, even after dawntrail. ;p

[TDawnstar]

We're still making choices like that. I'm doing better on my summoner since I adjusted my spell speed for optimal alignment of my cooldowns.
They're less significant than many other mmo, but also they're not nearly as insignificant as you think ?

It's a joke compared to what it could be. Stats were simplified into oblivion since ARR times, and secondary stats are unbalanced as well as crit overpowers everything 95% of the time.
And as a healer main... mana is pretty much irrelevant unless you die, and piety may as well not be there.

Concerning talent trees, there was this really good MMO that really emphasized talent trees like... ~10-15 years ago ?
It was called Rift. Man I loved that game, you could match 3 talent trees out of a selection of trees that were available to your class.

It doesn't have necessary to be trees per se. A very good recent implementation of character power was Lost Ark, where you have stuff like talent points, tripods etc. all making your character a lot more powerful before gear even kicks in.
Unfortunately, its developers decided to shoot themselves in the foot XD

I haven't seen a single MMO like this do as well as FFXIV does ? Not even wow at this point. Though if you want that, I think Wow or GW2 can fit that need pretty neatly.

Well, let's put it this way: even in the peak low that was Shadowlands, WoW was probably having more subscriptions than FF does. Now, that doesn't mean that we need FFXIV to copy WoW (far from it), but putting FFXIV on top is very optimistic to say the least.

Or maybe Normal Raids via duty finder is that, and you just need to give a moment for the expansion to land, for people to learn and adapt to it, for gear to be released (doesn't matter if you don't do savage, people around you will start to do the content and lift you up with them) and other stuff like that to happen.

I would be simply happy if they unscrewed the netcode and made it as reactive as WoW or GW2. There is some stuff you should be able to avoid with twitch reflexes, and currently the netcode is preventing that.
Also, having a "foll" button like in GW2 would help a lot, I feel.

[jdtuggey]

Why do you want to change this instead of playing these games ?

[TDawnstar]

Why do you want to change this instead of playing these games ?

Because it is important to look at what your competition makes and actually consider good systems. Being obstinate and ignoring that isn't a very good sign, as a rule.