So you're in the hole now. Player counts dipped. The story sucked. Housing nuked. Jobs neutered. Content paltry. All the jobs are at level 100, and you'd need a "new" progression system going forwards to justify tacking anything new on them because button bloat has gotten tremendously out of hand. The roles have basically become so homogenized that 95% of combat is a dance routine and you hit the rotation buttons on reflex. And the director is so focused on action gameplay as an evolution of the formula that he's gotten a dodge button added into a mobile UE5 port, which for all we know could end up in the main game at some point.

Where do you even go from here? 8.0 was supposed to be the new steps into the unknown after 7.0 was to be a blank slate to paint on top of, and now it has a Sisyphean task of shouldering expectations to rework Jobs, debloat the bullshit, make roles relevant, throw the devs out of their complacency in how they develop and design content, and make a story that's not dogshit. And we haven't even heard a single utterance about writer changes or plans going forwards to boot.