Increase in noobs. Increased length to get into servers (I was wait listed 400+ players last night), increase in trolls / hostile players?
FFXIV has a super "noob friendly" comunity. The game marks new players with a little green sprout over their heads so veteran players recognise them at sigh. The game also sends an automatic message like "There are players that never completed this dungeon before. Extra XP and Gil will be rewarded to everybody" when you enter a dungeon/raid/trial so veterans already know they have to help the newbs and tell possible tips or strategy and the rewards for completing are higher.
ALSO, for high end content max lvl players have to do random old dungeons and bosses to earn high end tokens or currency, that means new players will ALWAYS have people to do the old content (basically, all the Main Story questing and old final bosses) and veterans can get extra rewards for helping a new player so they are more than wellcome.
So basically, veteran FFXIV players are supper happy of this influx of new players. More players = more money for the dev team = more jobs and improvements.
But does the actual gameplay change? Are the battles wastly different? Are dungeons more than just a linear monster rush
Regarding gameplay. With every expansion and every new raid or final boss the game included new mechanics, so ARR may look simple but the more you advance the more complicated mechanics you will have to deal with. Every mechanic also means a new marker to remember...so in SHadowbringers is super common to be in a boss that uses many old mechanics plus the new ones making the fights super fun. They started to add a lot of cool stuff since they figured how to implement "active time maneuver phases" lol
Gameplay of every class changes drastically: at lvl 30 (when you unlock the job), at lvl50 (full ARR set of skills), lvl60, lvl70 and lvl80.
As an example of drastic changes we have the Summoner. From lvl1 to lvl29 you have only 1 direct damage spell (ruin), 3 carbuncles and some dots. From 30 to 50 you learn to summon Ifrit (melee dps pet), Garuda (Ranged AOE dps pet) and Titan (Tank for Solo questing pet), with their 2 skills, their ultimate skills and your direct damage spells plus 2 dots. SMN literally only does Dot+Ruin+Pet damage.
At lvl60 SMN learns to enter in a Bahamut Trance giving for 20 seconds instant casting of every spell, damage buff, Ruin 2 evolves into Ruin 4 and is instant, instant aoes and AHK MORN (bahamut very heavy hitting aoe signature attack). SMN has 2 phases, Dot+Ruin+Pet phase and Bahamut trance phase.
At lvl70 SMN learns how to Summon fucking Bahamut that will autoattack every time you use a spell for 20 seconds and can use AHK MORN himself twice. So SMN has now 3 battle phases, Dot+Ruin+Pet phase, Bahamut Trance Phase and Summon Bahamut phase.
At lvl80 SMN learns how to Summon Phoenix. Phoenix will change all the Ruin attacks for Fire Attacks and have his own fire AHK MORN equivalent, also gives HP regen to all the party members. So now the SMN has the Ruin+Dot+Pet phase, Bahamut Trance Phase, Bahamut Summon phase and Phoenix Summon phase.
And this clusterfuck happens with ALL the jobs.
Bonus track:
SMN from lvl1-50:
SMN after lvl60:
And yea, normal dungens will never stop being "monster rushes" cause that's why they are for lol.