This game is on a terrible state right now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

I want fun game activities too, but blaming the rp community is not the solution. Its so silly how the fact that just because they added Island Sanctuary all of a sudden people are crying that they're giving attention to RP scene. When;
1. IS isnt even being used for RP as much as you think (as far as I'm aware) and
2. the rest of the main patch content so far has been battle activities.

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Call this gatekeeping but glamouring as some bunny maid serving tequila and doing pole dances and asking for a 10000 gil isn't RP.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

If you're going to limit yourself to riding only the newest ride at the theme park, of course you're going to get bored.

The reason others aren't getting bored is because they don't limit themselves to just that one ride. They enjoy the old rides just as much as the new.

There was a lot of new content added in Endwalker. It's fair to say that you haven't enjoyed it. Not everyone is going to like everything.

It's idiotic to pretend it doesn't exist and imply that others must be lying when they say they have things they're doing in game.

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Did you just say "if you dont want to repeat the same content over and over and over you are not allowed to complain"?

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Originally Posted by hunkygladiator

Call this gatekeeping but glamouring as some bunny maid serving tequila and doing pole dances and asking for a 10000 gil isn't RP.

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Oh I dont know...i think you would look ravishing in a miniskirt and tank top :D:D:D:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

I actually wouldn't be surprised if they start making ability combos and everything more like PvP.

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No, they rather rip out another 10 buttons so they can put them at level x5 and x0 in the next 5 expansion so the jobs have fewer and fewer buttons to press during leveling. We have roughly as many buttons now at 90 that we did have in ARR at 50, except spaced out over 90 levels instead of 50 so you spend 90% of your time pressing 2 GCDs and 2 oGCDS. They rather make leveling/synced content even more boring than consolidate the 1-2-3 combos because those give bad players the illusion of complexity. People that can be barely clear extremes unironically have the take of "spamming 1-2-3 takes more skill than 1-1-1"

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“The game is amazing and perfect but I’m spending my entire time not playing the game and spamming the forums about how amazing the game is”

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Oh , my dear Stormpeaks..making a post here barely takes more than 2 minutes, tops.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Thanks for leaving out the Full Context.
But I understand, this is just easier. Less Effort, easy upvotes.

Ah well...moving on.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(slang)

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionari...0a%20reaction.

For thine consultation purposes, good madame.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Having said that, I feel your response to that poster comes off as disingenuous. If you are indeed extremely active in FFXIV and its social media circles, then there is no way possible for you to have missed the incredible amount of degeneracy going on. Care to take a guess how often weird crap gets posted on the main subreddit that has to be taken down? Not to mention the weird crap that gets posted and doesn't get taken down. For that matter, when's the last time you looked at party finder? Or spent five minutes in Ul'dah? I'm no role-player, but the lion's share of people I know from the game that still play are. They too are extremely disappointed with the current state of affairs, particularly the venue infestation and massive upsurge in overtly predatory behavior that came with it. It's at the point now where a not insignificant portion of people that prefer normal, which is to say non-degenerate, role-playing activities are opting to invest their time in other games, and plenty more besides are starting to contemplate doing the same.

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I can see this tbh.

I was originally from Tonberry, Prior to the massive surge of clubs and ERP venues, there were lots of smaller RP cafe's and Courtrooms ect ect.
Nowdays the PF is just spammed with 18+ RP ERP venues.

With that influx of ERP venues, came a complete disregard for the games ToS towards modding, people openly and actively ask you if you use mods. The number of people that have (MARE) in their adventurer plates, actively advertising that they use mods, is growing by the day, there is no regard for the games ToS and the number of times the developers have said mods can and will get you banned if you advertise yourself using them, is falling on deaf ears.

They need to do a single widespread purge of the Modding community to force home the point that it is NOT allowed, and if you use it openly, you will be banned. No more slaps on the wrist.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

Predictions for 7.0:
- The 1-2-3 combos become one button

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I mean, there are indeed feedbacks requesting the removal of 1-2-3 combo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Saraide

Why do you act like the thing standing between you and convincing yoship of doing exactly what you want are random forumites. Why do you think they have the power to prevent feedback from reaching SE.

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People need to give form to a villain so they can act rightoues. As if their fellow forum dwellers earned their seats at CBU3 meeting room by defending the game.

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Originally Posted by MonteCristo

Absolute truth and for those of us who love the game truly we just want to see innovation i dont see why thats so hard to understand for the cult...we are literally on the same team in the end

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There's been innovation this expansion. Variant/Criterion is something different.

How was it received by players? "Yo, SE, the game play was like fun going around figuring things out. But where are the rewards? I don't like what rewards you gave it. I need better rewards."

With that sort of response, what is SE supposed to think? Are players actually looking for innovation or are they just looking for more of certain rewards?

As for all of us being on the same team in the end, that's not really true. A team is usually focused on a common goal. If you want a different goal, you join a different team.

So we've got cutting edge raider teams, casual raider teams, PvP teams, glamour teams, housing teams, crafting/gathering teams, hunt teams, Deep Dungeon teams, exploration zone teams, etc.

And SE is trying to keep them all satisfied in some way. That's tough to balance.

It's easy to say they're doing a terrible job but ask yourself how well you would do in their place.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DixieBellOCE

The weirdest counter argument i see is 'the game does not need more, go play something else'.

Like, the people using this phrase don't even play half the content released, so what issue do they have with more content being added for those people that do play the game.

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Just because someone does not do the content you do does not mean they're not playing the game.

People who don't have any experience running a business can dismiss it as a lame excuse but budgets are a very real and limiting factor. There is only so much revenue and that revenue has to be allocated to multiple places. Your team gets assigned a budget and needs to stick within that budget. To increase production in one department, funds need to be taken away from another department and that reduces how much that department can produce.

You're going to have a hard time convincing others that taking funding away from the content they enjoy so you can have more of the content you enjoy is a good thing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

There are other MMOs, even some F2Ps, that manage to have patch cycles shorter than FFXIV's while also providing considerably more content.



And what about the people who do all forms of content saying the same thing? Because, news flash, quite a bit of the commentary on the lack of stuff to do is coming from people that have run out of stuff to do.

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SE can't help that some players are only interested in a small percentage of the overall content that gets released and then rush through that small amount of content as fast as possible.

If you've run out of things to do, be an adult and find something else to do instead of acting like a child that has to have their hand held.

If you feel like you're not getting enough content that you enjoy for the money you're paying, then find a game that does. If you can. I feel like there are a few posters around here that will never be satisfied by any game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

That's.. not even the context of the discussion, though? What?

You said them adding more content would require further increasing the time between patches. I observed that other MMOs manage to put out a lot more in a lot less time. Oft times with a lower budget, to boot. And yes, many of these MMOs do share staff with other games, so part of FFXIV's team being dedicated to FFXVI at the moment doesn't really offer much of an excuse. Hell, FFXIV itself defeats the argument. Patch cycles used to be shorter, and they did fairly consistently contain way more content than what we've seen from Endwalker patches thus far.

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Can you give us example of the lower budget MMORPGs that are producing more content in less time?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJGJVz0aMAIZf7R.png

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But which side? The side that is happy with the game or the side that is unhappy but thinks their angry rants in the forums are going to change anything?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

Did you just say "if you dont want to repeat the same content over and over and over you are not allowed to complain"?

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No, I didn't.

Like it or not, any MMO comes down to repeating content over and over. It's the nature of the genre. It takes much longer for developers to produce the content than it takes for players to consume it.

That's why it's important to play other games instead of relying on a single game to fulfill your gaming needs. When you get bored of repeating the content in one game, you have another to switch to. Get bored of the second and you move on to a third, etc. Perhaps you rotate back to the original game when it releases new content to start the cycle over. Or perhaps you realize the original game no longer interests you as much as it used to and you remove it from the cycle.

But you're always free to complain if that's what you feel you need to do. All I was saying in what you quoted is that a lack of things that you want to do is not the same as a complete lack of things to do.

Be specific in your complaints. Instead of saying "there's nothing to do" (clearly false, there's plenty to do in the game), say "there is nothing I want to do".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

There's been innovation this expansion. Variant/Criterion is something different.

How was it received by players? "Yo, SE, the game play was like fun going around figuring things out. But where are the rewards? I don't like what rewards you gave it. I need better rewards."

With that sort of response, what is SE supposed to think? Are players actually looking for innovation or are they just looking for more of certain rewards?

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They should think that people are sad that this new content is finished after just 4 hours (12 runs for the notes, one takes 20 minutens) and that there is no reason to ever set foot into this new awesome dungeon again (well I thought it was boring but whatever).

Even if you go slow the variant dungeon can barely entertain you for more than 3 evenings.

And criterion is overtuned for the majority of playerbase and yes it takes too much effort for too little rewards. When you have to decide between progressing savage raids or criterion dungeon... which one rewards your time spent better?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tint

They should think that people are sad that this new content is finished after just 4 hours (12 runs for the notes, one takes 20 minutens) and that there is no reason to ever set foot into this new awesome dungeon again (well I thought it was boring but whatever).

Even if you go slow the variant dungeon can barely entertain you for more than 3 evenings.

And criterion is overtuned for the majority of playerbase and yes it takes too much effort for too little rewards. When you have to decide between progressing savage raids or criterion dungeon... which one rewards your time spent better?

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I suppose that depends on not just what rewards you enjoy but what rewards you currently need/desire.

Generally, we're always going to prioritize content that gives us what we currently feel we need first. Once that needs is taken care of, then we move to the things we want or maybe just find fun.

Perhaps the problem with Criterion was really the timing. It was released a few weeks after Abyssos. It makes sense that Criterion wouldn't feel compelling when it doesn't reward BiS gear at a time in the expansion cycle that players are farming for the new BiS gear.

How would players have felt if Criterion had been released in 6.35 instead of 6.25? By then, most statics would have had Abyssos cleared and BiS gear for at least their main jobs if not also one or two of their alt jobs. They've got less to do and are starting to think about 6.4. Perhaps they aren't interested in the glamour or housing items for personal use but they're a good way to make gil for buying the things that will be needed to start Anabaseios progression.

Do you think timing the release differently might have made players (not necessarily yourself) feel better about Criterion?

Edit to add in that one glaring problem with Criterion is it failed to address the lack of midcore content the player base is looking for. But it was still something that was innovative for the game and should be given credit for at least that much.

I noticed how those that seem to be so upset at venues the most in this thread are from EU servers. And the normal look of the game? Wth does that even mean? The game is a hodgepodge of aesthetics. You have medieval, steampunk, art deco, ancient greek, brutalism (yes that's a style of architecture), nomadic looks, a mix of ancient China/Japan/Korea, and yes modern looks (thanks to Eulmore and Garlemald). The dance pole was a wanted item ever since people saw them in the beehive in Eulmore. Also I guess it's only ok to ask for modern stuff when you guys ask for it. Or does the ask for 1940s/1950s era military outfits not count as modern? What do you have against 1950s normal wear that one might see at a university? Or are you talking about the street ware that barely exists?

Oh and before anyone tries to make it look as though I like the university outfit or the street wear they're not to my taste. Or at least most of it isn't. Some parts by themselves I like the look of. Just the overall look isn't my cup of tea. I also am not going to shame someone else for liking it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Do you think timing the release differently might have made players (not necessarily yourself) feel better about Criterion?

Edit to add in that one glaring problem with Criterion is it failed to address the lack of midcore content the player base is looking for. But it was still something that was innovative for the game and should be given credit for at least that much.

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I think the main problem are the rewards, not the timing. Savage raiders will clear Criterion sooner or later. In the long weeks between patch 6.5 and the next expansion this will become a good way to spend your time while hyped up for 7.0.

A more desireable mount would help as well, instead of an ugly chair.

But the main problem is the lack of gear. It takes basically as much effort to keep a static group of 8 people together as it takes to clear the fights. Many people could clear savage but don't want to bother with so many people or even random parties.

But a savage mode for 4 people? And with gear? That would lower the barrier of entry for many people. But of course then savage raids compete directly with criterion and likely savage will lose out.

I would love to have an alternative to savage raids, but I guess the better way would be to place Criterion below savage, more in line with ex trials, more approachable for the average player. Then they probably can put gear with a lower item level into it (10 ilvl below savage? Shared lockout with savage? Upgradeable in the next patch?) and they have to add a nice mount.

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Well I personally plan to do Criterion. But our 4 man party wants to do the Deep Dungeons first, just finished Heavon on High and everyone got the horse mount. I will likely never run out of things to do. Over 20k hours logged and the list of stuff I want to do goes on and on.
But I see that the content we got in EW is lackluster anyway. I am only really satisfied with Eureka Orthos.

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Edit:

The problem Criterion is so hard to incorporate into the game is a gripe I have for a long time: Tomestone gear is just too good. There is no room between savage raids and tomestone gear for anything.

In 2.0 the tomestone gear was kind of a failsafe for the raid gear. But the raids have their own failsafe mechanic added. Tomestone gear simply has no business being that strong. It should be dialed back to the level of normal raid and crafted gear. Then not only can Criterion get it's own gear, the 24 man raid gear will become more than just glamour as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJGJVz0aMAIZf7R.png

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Lmao, perfect representation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

snip

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The release of Criterion wouldn't have changed the reaction.

People need an incentive to keep farming content intended to last a whole patch cycle, much less several. Take Euphrosyne, for example. If you remove the rewards, which are primarily glamour and not gear upgrades for a lot of people, the raid is dead within the same month. Trying to unlock it in a later patch would take hours of sitting in queue. All this despite people openly praising the content save for it a being a bit too easy.

You can apply this to almost any piece of content. In fact, one of the reasons Trials can take forever (Endsinger, Shinryu, Barba and etc) is the roulette gives paltry rewards. Thus, people don't often queue. The same problem arises with Legacy Roulette.

Circling back to Criterion, it suffered from a bigger problem: tuning. For whatever reason they decided against their original plan of a Normal, EX and Savage variant. The EX version is on par with the current Abyssos tier's earlier fights. One could make a strong argument Zeless Gah is even harder than Carby or Hegemone. So now we're taking on near Savage caliber bosses for an ugly chair mount you could just buy outright. Savage is even more comical, demanding you play perfect for... a single grade X materia. The latter is downright insulting and completely destroys any reason to farm the content.

At the end of the day, Criterion just doesn't have an audience for how they've tuned it. Due to the increased difficulty of the supposed "EX" version, it pushes out the majority of midcore players and the Savage version just isn't with the investment for one than a single clear. Innovation alone is not enough without replayability, which Criterion simply doesn't have.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Innovation alone is not enough without replayability,

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A lesson CBU3 has seemed to have forgotten.

A response to a few posters, but try not to single anyone out. If you read part of the problem is old content. It isn't felt fun or very rewarding or just a general pain to do. The bicolor gems aren't a bad idea for fates, but they added a few reasonable items to start and then one unreasonable item and ignore it whole expansion. Why do I want to run fates again? I did Eureka and it was pretty casual, would be better if they tweaked it to 90. But I get to the end and find out I have to join discord and have certain abilities and do a bunch of other stuff. This is old content that is casual all the way to the end and then has a huge change in entry. From casual fun groups running around the zone to apply for spots on discord. Why would I want that when the rest is casual?



The game has years of content to do, that doesn't make it good. You can't honestly think old content is well designed and enjoyable in it's current state. The time between new content is to far apart. So when you go and do old content your like this isn't that fun. That doesn't diminish your enjoyment. Your enjoyment is not directly tied to if content is good for the masses. I liked 3.0 PvP (pre-exp) , that doesn't make it good. That also doesn't make it enjoyable for most people

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moonlite

A response to a few posters, but try not to single anyone out. If you read part of the problem is old content. It isn't felt fun or very rewarding or just a general pain to do. The bicolor gems aren't a bad idea for fates, but they added a few reasonable items to start and then one unreasonable item and ignore it whole expansion. Why do I want to run fates again? I did Eureka and it was pretty casual, would be better if they tweaked it to 90. But I get to the end and find out I have to join discord and have certain abilities and do a bunch of other stuff. This is old content that is casual all the way to the end and then has a huge change in entry. From casual fun groups running around the zone to apply for spots on discord. Why would I want that when the rest is casual?



The game has years of content to do, that doesn't make it good. You can't honestly think old content is well designed and enjoyable in it's current state. The time between new content is to far apart. So when you go and do old content your like this isn't that fun. That doesn't diminish your enjoyment. Your enjoyment is not directly tied to if content is good for the masses. I liked 3.0 PvP (pre-exp) , that doesn't make it good. That also doesn't make it enjoyable for most people

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If they allowed max level players to use their full rotations while somehow syncing old dungeons and raids accordingly like some other big MMO that does a thing called "Timewalking" MHMHMMMM!!! Then that would easily solve the old content not being as fun issue.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

If they allowed max level players to use their full rotations while somehow syncing old dungeons and raids accordingly like some other big MMO that does a thing called "Timewalking" MHMHMMMM!!! Then that would easily solve the old content not being as fun issue.

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Only to a certain degree, while redoing old dungeons as challenging content at max level will be fun for a run or two, it’s still a 10 year old dungeon in the end that we have run umpteen times already.

I agree with previous posts that Criterion failed but my reason, besides the rewards, is that it was way overturned for the target audience. They should have been tuned at the same difficulty as casual raids or at most, EX trials.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

But which side? The side that is happy with the game or the side that is unhappy but thinks their angry rants in the forums are going to change anything?

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Yes

/10char

Although two threads have already been made on it, I feel it's worth mentioning that we're in for yet another joke of a relic step in 6.45. "Just do whatever you want to get the tomes for the relic!" = extreme laziness in the fact that this relic has no associated content with it.

The people who don't want an actual game to play just keep scoring victory after victory.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moonlite

A response to a few posters, but try not to single anyone out. If you read part of the problem is old content. It isn't felt fun or very rewarding or just a general pain to do. The bicolor gems aren't a bad idea for fates, but they added a few reasonable items to start and then one unreasonable item and ignore it whole expansion. Why do I want to run fates again? I did Eureka and it was pretty casual, would be better if they tweaked it to 90. But I get to the end and find out I have to join discord and have certain abilities and do a bunch of other stuff. This is old content that is casual all the way to the end and then has a huge change in entry. From casual fun groups running around the zone to apply for spots on discord. Why would I want that when the rest is casual?



The game has years of content to do, that doesn't make it good. You can't honestly think old content is well designed and enjoyable in it's current state. The time between new content is to far apart. So when you go and do old content your like this isn't that fun. That doesn't diminish your enjoyment. Your enjoyment is not directly tied to if content is good for the masses. I liked 3.0 PvP (pre-exp) , that doesn't make it good. That also doesn't make it enjoyable for most people

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I feel like the emboldened part is probably part of the bigger issue with older content, and content in general. I think to a degree cosmetic rewards, e.g., mounts, minions, or vanity titles are perfectly fine, but there's a sort of... Milestone issue in that... On one hand, the goal is maybe farming all of the orchestrions, minions, etc., from Gemstone rewards, which you will largely get naturally just engaging on said content, but then you go from that to grinds such as Wings, or the mount which collectively requires upwards of farming 8300~ FATEs, with nothing really sitting on the middle-ground e.g., a reward for 30-70 Bicolour vouchers.

I suppose to top this off, they've also traditionally put all grind-related content towards the end of the expansion or right at the start when people are largely least likely to actually interact with them. E.g., At the start of the expansion, you're mostly leveling, doing the story, melding crafters, and gatherers, etc., - Similarly, at the end of the expansion, you're also preparing for the subsequent expansion or just playing other games to come back with a fresh mindset. When really they should be introducing these sooner to fill some of the earlier gaps.

Similarly, the content does need better rewards on milestones rather than, here's a cookie 3 hours in, and then here's the main prize 300-500 hours in (With nothing between). Ishgard Restoration suffered heavily with this, in that, you would get a cut-paste title for each job, but you wouldn't really get much in the way of a tangible reward until getting every class to that point. e.g., would have been nice to have had more minion/mount-based rewards for getting all classes to, say, 100,000, and 250,000. Like the Legatus critters, or Buer from the old Diadem EM.

I don't think there is a lack of it or content to replay to some degree, nor do I think older content is inherently bad, but they make the issue so much worse when these are incorporated, most especially with the milestones for some of these more significant grinds.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

Only to a certain degree, while redoing old dungeons as challenging content at max level will be fun for a run or two, it’s still a 10 year old dungeon in the end that we have run umpteen times already.

I agree with previous posts that Criterion failed but my reason, besides the rewards, is that it was way overturned for the target audience. They should have been tuned at the same difficulty as casual raids or at most, EX trials.

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Yeah, my group noticed it quickly that it was basically Savage level and not EX level. If it was EX level, it would have been a lot better. Also for rewards, they could probably have the Criterion dungeons give either gear on par with unupgraded tomestone gear, or even better, use the criterion dungeons for a relic armor set. Something that takes a while, but is slowly upgraded as the patches go on. It could have been i620 gear on par with the tomestone gear at start, and they could have upgraded it to i630 this patch. Meaning it's good armor, but it's not going to help you raid too much in the current patch (outside of ultimates once it upgrades).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Yeah, my group noticed it quickly that it was basically Savage level and not EX level. If it was EX level, it would have been a lot better. Also for rewards, they could probably have the Criterion dungeons give either gear on par with unupgraded tomestone gear, or even better, use the criterion dungeons for a relic armor set. Something that takes a while, but is slowly upgraded as the patches go on. It could have been i620 gear on par with the tomestone gear at start, and they could have upgraded it to i630 this patch. Meaning it's good armor, but it's not going to help you raid too much in the current patch (outside of ultimates once it upgrades).

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I think SE abandoning variant and criterion dungeons at release is probably the worst thing they have done in EW. It is the 4 person content that people have been asking for and SE managed to half ass it seemingly just to check off a box more than anything else. The dungeons were perfect to integrate into the relic process but here we are.

I have been trying out WoW again after getting very bored of FF14 and it makes me sad to see the creativity they have over there as opposed to what we are seeing with SE. They just added a new zone with catch up gear drops that you can farm and send to alt characters to help get them geared up. They are adding another new zone with their next patch with more open world content to do and actual reasons to do it. They are adding their second raid of 9 bosses into the game with their next patch coming out tomorrow. All this in the ~6-7 months the expansion has been out. Blizzard is seeing their highest levels of player retention, granted they aren't seeing as many new players which can be expected after ~4 years of bad expansions and content. I really just want the FF14 devs to see what WoW is doing with the encouragement of playing the game, doing things in their world they spend years creating, having a reason to actually play the game's current content.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Although two threads have already been made on it, I feel it's worth mentioning that we're in for yet another joke of a relic step in 6.45. "Just do whatever you want to get the tomes for the relic!" = extreme laziness in the fact that this relic has no associated content with it.

The people who don't want an actual game to play just keep scoring victory after victory.

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Seems they know their audience.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJGJVz0aMAIZf7R.png

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Hey, don't hog all the copium!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xaruko_Nexume

Seems they know their audience.

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Their audience is sad schlubby people past their prime in their 30s and 40s who are desperately trying to relive their youth by idling inside ugly houses doing /beesknees? Yikes!

Frankly the game is already dead, and it just hasn't noticed yet.

The problem can be summed up pretty simply, FFXIV is designed like a single player game.

In FFXIV, you are expected to do everything and be everything. If you want the reward for content, you MUST do that content. This also means that once you have done that content, or once most of the community has done that content, that content is DEAD (see: V&C dungeons). This isn't the case in older MMOs, where the game is designed around the community and community interaction. You can do the content multiple times and sell the reward to people who don't want to do the content. Or you can do the content and sell the materials needed to progress in that content to other people so they can progress faster. In this way the entire community works together to progress.

Firmament Restoration was actually a fantastic example of this. Gatherers gathered things in the diadem, and sold them to crafters, and everybody not only progressed PERSONALLY through exp and scrips, but worked together to progress as a server. Also all the rewards are tradeable. Island Sanctuary is the opposite of this. Everything involved is untradeable. You can visit a friend's island but you can't gather for them or assist them in any way so it's kind of pointless. Deep Dungeon is also like this, you can't sell regen potions to other players, so players who are trying to do solo runs MUST do many throwaway runs to stock up, where players who only do it for the exp have a surplus of potsherds. Eureka and Bozja allow you to buy and sell lost actions and SOME gear, which is great, but not any relic materials, despite them simply being drops from FATES. Because the dev team wants every player to progress more or less in a vacuum. Single-player game design.

There is only one endgame goal, and that is savage raiding. This is the design of a single player RPG, where your only goal is to defeat the final boss. Why did Critereon dungeons not reward savage-level gear if they were savage-level difficulty? Why was Elemental Gear +2 not savage level? Why was augmented law's order gear not savage level? This is all equal difficulty content, but the development team sees it as "Side content". In an MMORPG there should be no "side content". Physeos gear makes you the best at Eureka, and lets you carry your friends through the content. Augmented Law's Order gear and merit suns make you the best at Bozja, and lets you carry your friends through content. Raiding gear makes you the best at raiding and...for some reason you aren't allowed to carry your friends through this! As soon as you clear once, you screw any other group you join over! So if your group raids on Saturday, your hands are tied. And back in ARR, you couldn't even re-enter the instance at all! This isn't just single player game design, it's overtly hostile towards the idea of "massively multiplayer".

Immut, your post really resonates with me… the collaborative activities as you described them have always invigorated my FC, the solo-focused ones like Island Sanctuary do nothing to bring us together.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Their audience is sad schlubby people past their prime in their 30s and 40s who are desperately trying to relive their youth by idling inside ugly houses doing /beesknees? Yikes!

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Actually not wrong on the age range. Most people I have met on here and in-game.. some are old enough to be my parents. Anyone in their late 20s/early 30s (like me and others I know) are on the younger side... Especially so on the forums. :eek:

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Actually not wrong on the age range. Most people I have met on here and in-game.. some are old enough to be my parents. Anyone in their late 20s/early 30s (like me and others I know) are on the younger side... Especially so on the forums. :eek:

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Which just makes their recent design decisions all the stranger. They're taking the game in a direction that by all indications is meant to appeal to a younger audience, yet it seems the bulk of the game's players are indeed at least in their late 20s.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Which just makes their recent design decisions all the stranger. They're taking the game in a direction that by all indications is meant to appeal to a younger audience, yet it seems the bulk of the game's players are indeed at least in their late 20s.

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Maybe missing something but ... I feel that's not quite the right take. Assuming older means more responsibilities, which I have heard Yoshida refer to aging players before in a similar concept, and personally feel.. wouldn't it actually make sense?

Not sure how you approached that determination. This is not a post to discount anyone's feedback or desires or even addresss them, just questioning how middle age player base is not targeted by casual choices but younger players are.

When I was younger it was easy to be hard-core, now I feel it's a waste of time and would not play a game that was like original EQ or FFXI, which I did before, and enjoyed, yet now I absolutely love safety nets and other modern amenities (I am aware FFXI has changed significantly).

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Originally Posted by Immut

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Yes dude. I hate that so many things are untradeable unmarketable, even dungeon gear that's weaker than crafted stuff. I would pay a lot of gil for certain drops from old dead content, and groups would be looking for things like that to revive farm, any untapped market. The majority of high demand items in this game are not part of the player economy at all, locked to some non-gil special currency or personal loot.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Maybe missing something but ... I feel that's not quite the right take. Assuming older means more responsibilities, which I have heard Yoshida refer to aging players before in a similar concept, and personally feel.. wouldn't it actually make sense?

Not sure how you approached that determination. This is not a post to discount anyone's feedback or desires or even addresss them, just questioning how middle age player base is not targeted by casual choices but younger players are.

When I was younger it was easy to be hard-core, now I feel it's a waste of time and would not play a game that was like original EQ or FFXI, which I did before and now I absolutely love safety nets and other modern amenities (I am aware FFXI has changed significantly).

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Younger players tend to want things handed to them without having to actually earn them. While this is certainly true of some middle-aged players as well, it is not reflective of the majority. There is a significant difference between taking a game from requiring an amount of investment that is not feasible for late 20s and up adult players to something more reasonable and just straight up handing out rewards. FFXIV is listing dangerously close to the latter.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Younger players tend to want things handed to them without having to actually earn them. While this is certainly true of some middle-aged players as well, it is not reflective of the majority. There is a significant difference between taking a game from requiring an amount of investment that is not feasible for middle-aged players to something more reasonable and just straight up handing out rewards. FFXIV is listing dangerously close to the latter.

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Younger player here, please give me an actual game to play and not free handouts.

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Originally Posted by Absimiliard

Younger players tend to want things handed to them without having to actually earn them. While this is certainly true of some middle-aged players as well, it is not reflective of the majority. There is a significant difference between taking a game from requiring an amount of investment that is not feasible for late 20s and up adult players to something more reasonable and just straight up handing out rewards. FFXIV is listing dangerously close to the latter.

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Hmm, maybe you're referring to some study but imo this just sounds like the classic older generation dismissing their younger generation lol. Young lazy, old made the world. Or something like that, tale old as time XD.

Perhaps there was some data behind it but not something I've seen at least, or would believe when getting an onion or Babylon link :P.

Certainly personal bias could be at play as I could play a part time damn near full time job worth of gaming when young / single, but now it's like... I have so many things to do and to smash my head against the wall while jimbob keeps failing the same mechanic for 3 hours to get nothing done.. sounds awful. Though I like the rolling mountain for this because people who want to scream at jimbob can do that while I come in later with echo or unsync jobs and do it that way.

SE flopped hard on EW. all my friends that played since HW have pretty much quit. there's no content except the same roulettes over and over. and even those suck now b/c all the jobs are so braindead and homogenized now. SE needs massive shift in direction the ship is sinking atm

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Younger player here, please give me an actual game to play and not free handouts.

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Oh? How young? :p

I'd just like to be able to... play. And have fun doing so. Like, I am sorry, but achievement grind (with no rewards but points or bad titles), and low level "content" over and over is just not that fun. You hardly ever get to use your max level kit unless you are doing high end content, outside of your weekly clears. It sucks. I want things to collect (that are worthwhile). For example, I have been playing tanks in dungeons for years, just to collect each and every tank mount (almost done just PLD - I'd love if they add more/healer mount rewards).

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Originally Posted by seolhyun

SE flopped hard on EW. all my friends that played since HW have pretty much quit. there's no content except the same roulettes over and over. and even those suck now b/c all the jobs are so braindead and homogenized now. SE needs massive shift in direction the ship is sinking atm

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Yes. Unfortunately, just like the titanic, these forums have a pesky band of people trying to cheer others up and telling them everything's fine. But in the end, they also drowned didn't they?

I've been leveling other jobs out of desperation. I'm not raiding, and only run dungeons for the weekly challenge logs. And, I never socialize in game.
I'd be trying out the WoW Dragonflight expension if they hadn't killed my target closest enemy macro. (The new talent system is overly complex as well.)