Players and the game design's mindset has become increasingly individualistic

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Originally Posted by Rekh

Ironically those individualistic people are the first who quit after they finish X.0; they mostly have nothing to gain after that.

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Because there's nothing after that, other than grinding various things. Grinding various things while having inane conversations with other players (or more likely, no conversation at all if playing with others is just mandated by the game mechanics) is still grinding.
That said I'm laregly ok with the game being barely more than a good single player story with mediocre gameplay. If I want something else, I can play other games. I never understood why people act like a MMO should be the ultimate game to end all games, and be the only thing you ever need to play forever.

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Originally Posted by posona

I’m in the (what feels like) minority who loves all the changes that have been made to the game. I’ve been playing for 8 years, and the only reason I ever decided to pick up the game was because I’ve been a huge fan of all things FF for decades and I like creating my own characters. If not for that I never would’ve touched an MMO (and never have bothered with another MMO). I prefer keeping to myself, experiencing things at my own pace, and have severe clinical anxiety that makes socializing in any kind of co-op or competitive environment a nightmare. It took me years to feel comfortable enough to even do MSQ dungeons since I had no friends that wanted to play the game with me, and I still have extreme tank anxiety despite enjoying the role.

All of the changes to make the game simpler and more solo friendly have been a godsend for me. Even though I have mostly gotten over my anxiety and started doing normal raids a few years ago and joining farm parties in PF, I still prefer doing things at my own pace on my own. That said, it really makes me sad to see how many people hate the direction the game has taken. I don’t like seeing so many unhappy with it, because at the end of the day it’s a game meant to be enjoyed by people together. If the direction of the game changed to cater to the majority again, I wouldn’t mind, I’ll still be doing my own thing and enjoying all the social interactions that happen around me.

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I'm glad other people than our usual forum echo chamber chime in there. Thanks for sharing.

I do believe however that we're far from a majority, more like a vocal minority, so I don't think you should worry too much about the game's direction so far. It's not gonna happen, and the devs made it clear apparently.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I'm glad other people than our usual forum echo chamber chime in there. Thanks for sharing.

I do believe however that we're far from a majority, more like a vocal minority, so I don't think you should worry too much about the game's direction so far. It's not gonna happen, and the devs made it clear apparently.

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Thanks. :) I just wanted to add my perspective as someone who’s been playing a long time and has no complaints. I only started posting to the forums to give benchmark feedback and ended up sticking around because I still enjoy talking with others in this kind of environment. I’ve seen the disdain for changes in other places around the web for a long time though, and no one who ever has a perspective like mine, which makes it feel like a majority even more than just an echo chamber. At the end of the day I hope DT and its patches can add some more co-operative elements. The only thing they could do at this point to really upset me is completely rework my favorite job(s) again. I was a summoner main and well… I don’t think any of the jobs I enjoy now are in danger though.

I just hope everyone can find their enjoyment again!

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

i think many people dont realize how complex it is to just "quit" most people on 14 build a life here, an fc, friends, statics and social contacts. and if they leave. it leaves with them and then wherever they go.. its not going to be easy starting all over again. my boyfriend just came back after 6 months, and he is saying he might aswell move dc with me. because all the ppl on chaos he knew have forgotten him. this is what happens when u leave...and this is why people dont leave. because of investment and sunken cost fallacy. hate this idea of the only way to be happy is to leave something that makes so many other people unhappy instead of the devs just listening to us. its not so easy to just leave for most of us... weve invested so much time hours and money into it and then we are expected to just leave like that didnt happen. And its so many people who are unhappy now. its SO MANY. what would happen if we all left. would that make everything fine again?

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I get the sunken cost fallacy, but you're making excuses. And I get that, too. I've played MMOs since 1999. I have definitely made excuses for why I can't leave X or Y game. I would try to adjust to new things where I could but if it become a point where the game had progressed enough where I wasn't the audience anymore, I made the hard decision to move on. It's not an easy thing to pack up and leave something you invested a lot of time and effort in. But from your posts, this game is not bringing you any sort of joy. You're just constantly miring yourself in the misery. You need a break, and breaks can often refresh and invigorate your perspective. You might be away for a bit, then come to miss this or that currently in the game and find something positive again. A break doesn't have to mean leaving forever. But things aren't going to get better staying here dwelling on your unhappiness and I think deep down you know that. You've gotten to the point where you're attacking other people who aren't upset and making negative blanket statements about them. It's time to step away for a while.

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

what would happen if we all left. would that make everything fine again?

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Fine for the game? Probably not. But if the game makes you miserable, taking a break will help YOU. That’s way more important than the game.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

And this is the problem, isn't it?

We already gutted aggro management but jobs difficulty remains the same, if not even simpler and easier than before.

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Jobs are way more complex than every other expansion. You act like you had to be there to see what the rotations were like. There are flow charts of every job's rotation online for every expansion.

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Originally Posted by posona

Fine for the game? Probably not. But if the game makes you miserable, taking a break will help YOU. That’s way more important than the game.

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Please. If everyone who had an issue with the trajectory actually left, it would only comprise a fraction of a fraction of the playerbase. Not only have we been outnumbered from the very beginning, the ShB new player increase skewed the ratio even further, and it's not like this mentality is particularly thriving with new adherents at the moment. For every one person who finally gets fed up and leaves for good, they'll get replaced by ten non-jaded players. Soon, no one will even remember what came before, which is for the best, honestly.

Game will be fine. Accepting that all this time has been wasted is harder to swallow, but we'll get over it eventually, as there's no other meaningful alternative. Some of our paths to that understanding this are just a bit longer and confusing than others.

Combat wise, this game has become so streamlined it's abysmal. Bare with me here for a second, but why not just keep the jobs more "difficult" "difficult" and push out a few newer jobs to be easier to pick up and play instead? For example, take SMN rework, it's a good rework and such a great baseline to start with overall but, they managed to split the SMN playerbase heavily by turning it into a mindless blob of a job.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I see this is the week of "back in my day...<insert_how_things_were_better>" posts

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The thing that you have to understand about current social media culture is that it's not cool to like reality. It's cool to like an imaginary past or an imaginary future, and the coolest thing is to just not like whatever actually exists.

One even cooler thing about current social media culture is mindlessly parroting pouncing patterns without any thought behind. It's cool to rehash commonplace clichés again and again and relish in the ego boost it gives to the poster.

We can both play at this game with ad hominem. Not sure about the constructive part of it though.

Interesting how easily square enix and its defenders forget the lessons of ffxiv 1.0

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Originally Posted by Pip_Chick

All we have gained is a mediocre single player expirience.
The MMO part of this game is dead. The players are only in their ERP head space, there is no flavour or texture. You just go in a dungeon with 3 or more other players who are so robotic, they may as well be bots. The expirience is so much on rails that you start falling asleep not even half way through the first boss.
I used to like doing the daily roulettes and talking with other players. Now I can't even do more than 3 at a time cause I start falling asleep, and even then I need some sort of distraction like a YT video or music to even get through. No role is engaging enough after the 3rd run, no job is interesting after a few days of playing.
Everything is just boring. The most fun I had in game recently was when the tank got disconnected and the rest of us didn't notice, we got to the last boss by the time the tank returned. And it is sad.

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And this is why I've spent the better part of this year not playing 14. I only came back for the Yokai event. Hell, I'm not even excited for Dawntrail. I know it's going to be the same game repackaged with an Aztec theme. I know it. It's depressing.

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Originally Posted by Naizuo

Combat wise, this game has become so streamlined it's abysmal. Bare with me here for a second, but why not just keep the jobs more "difficult" "difficult" and push out a few newer jobs to be easier to pick up and play instead? For example, take SMN rework, it's a good rework and such a great baseline to start with overall but, they managed to split the SMN playerbase heavily by turning it into a mindless blob of a job.

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Simple question, what would make a job difficult to play?

i've been playing for almost 9yrs, this was my first and pretty much only mmorpg mainly because of curiosity, a love of FF and controller support(damn fine controller support!)

and imho the game is at its best when players have to be actively involved in something, i'm not even a social butterfly and feel that way, i see why trust and limited jobs and other systems exist but in this game the actual content can be very very boring and even more simple than it already is without real people doing random things & sometimes mucking stuff up, something as simple as running a dungeon doesnt get boring because of what those other 3 players may bring, will it be you and 3 players who know this place like the back of your hand and you breeze through say gg and scamper your separate ways OR will it be you and 3 others who have no clue whats going on, mistakes happen, someone dies, the group wipes, that player who reset first sprinted to the boss and is dancing while waiting for everyone, those moments are what makes this game.

i like seeing when the game is full of busy players in a place, like now in the gold saucer, sure theyre not all talking to each other but it livens the game up, its better than the flipside of the island sanctuary which i get it, is supposed to be a solo oasis, but its boring, if i wanted to play that game i'd fire up stardew valley, did i play the island sanc tho? yes, cause i wanted the outfits! oddly enough that grind sorta took the place of the awful relics in endwalker.

I wont get mad at players for wanting to play solo, that was my exact plan years ago when i started playing it, i googled info, searched forums, just wanting to know how much of the game i actually have to play as a "solo" player, i didnt wanna deal with any of you online oddballs...then i queued up for satasha...and it was awesome, everything sorta clicked, i was a tank, brand spankin new, the dps gave me some tips, the healer was like youll be fine i wont let you die! and i didnt, it was great. has every run through 8yrs of playing been great? f**k no, but the good runs far outweigh the bad ones, and even the bad ones were fun in that tedious, wtf is happening right now sort of way.

from my point of view the game is letting players dodge that epic moment that should happen early on and its a bummer because now the game is split, the devs have to make 'everyone' content and then 'solo' content and both sides of content feel weaker as a whole, and that just spreads through the game, endwalker is a shining example of it, great story, very meh followup content, in comparison to older expacs.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Simple question, what would make a job difficult to play?

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thats easy,

a DoT job coming back would soothe alot of players anger, i actually like new smn, but I also remember how og smn was fun to get right, sorta like old old bard aka the bowmage.

at its core resource management isnt easy, if they made a chemist job that took true skill players would flock to it, just give those people a boatload of DoT's, timers and solid damage if done right and you wouldnt hear a peep from them.

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

And this is why I've spent the better part of this year not playing 14. I only came back for the Yokai event. Hell, I'm not even excited for Dawntrail. I know it's going to be the same game repackaged with an Aztec theme. I know it. It's depressing.

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Can you name me one game, MMO or otherwise, that managed to innovate itself after 10 years? Because I can't think of any. Ideally, that's why I don't think an MMO should last for more than 10 years otherwise it will buckle under its own weight and the expectation of veteran players. Not even WoW managed to do that. It peak during Wotlk, and Cata should have been the swansong. But when Blizz decided to cancel WoW2 and reinvest everything to upgrade WoW ... it's just downhill from there. And I feel FF14 is reaching the very same point IMO. At this point I'm not sure it's possible to satisfy the expectation of both the old players and still drawing in the new players at the same time.


I think Dawn Trail gonna be the last expansion for me unless it does something really refreshing and amazing. But ... I'm not complaining neither I'm feeling bitter about it like some other people. If you eat the same apple for nearly 10 years, then complain why doesn't it involve into an orange or something else ... but would that be the apple's fault? If you've been eating at the same restaurant for 10 years then finally get bored of the menu ... while it maybe somewhat valid to complain but looking at it from another angle: the menu must have been good enough for you to keep coming back that long? No? And there will be new customer coming in that will find the current delightful just like you did on the the first visit.

So that's my take, when I finally leave the game I want it to be on the good note. I would like to appreciate FF14 for a good ride that it gave me, and I want to wish everyone stilling playing FF14, especially new players will be able to continue enjoy it for the next 5-10 years. I don't want to leave the game in resentment and contempt for the developers, accusing them of being lazy or incompetent. I don't want to selfishly believe my taste if the ultimate ingredient for success, and anything doesn't please me is destined to fail. So yeah, fully expect Dawn Trail to be my swan song, if it anyone think they're getting to the same point it may be better to prepare yourself mentally with a positive mindset. Everything must come to an end eventually, but the ending don't have to be on a sour note over unrealistic expectation.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

Please. If everyone who had an issue with the trajectory actually left, it would only comprise a fraction of a fraction of the playerbase. Not only have we been outnumbered from the very beginning, the ShB new player increase skewed the ratio even further, and it's not like this mentality is particularly thriving with new adherents at the moment. For every one person who finally gets fed up and leaves for good, they'll get replaced by ten non-jaded players. Soon, no one will even remember what came before, which is for the best, honestly.

Game will be fine. Accepting that all this time has been wasted is harder to swallow, but we'll get over it eventually, as there's no other meaningful alternative. Some of our paths to that understanding this are just a bit longer and confusing than others.

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Sorry, I worded that weird, I meant that the game would be fine, as in “would leaving make the game better? No.”

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Can you name me one game, MMO or otherwise, that managed to innovate itself after 10 years? Because I can't think of any. Ideally, that's why I don't think an MMO should last for more than 10 years otherwise it will buckle under its own weight and the expectation of veteran players. Not even WoW managed to do that. It peak during Wotlk, and Cata should have been the swansong. But when Blizz decided to cancel WoW2 and reinvest everything to upgrade WoW ... it's just downhill from there. And I feel FF14 is reaching the very same point IMO. At this point I'm not sure it's possible to satisfy the expectation of both the old players and still drawing in the new players at the same time.


I think Dawn Trail gonna be the last expansion for me unless it does something really refreshing and amazing. But ... I'm not complaining neither I'm feeling bitter about it like some other people. If you eat the same apple for nearly 10 years, then complain why doesn't it involve into an orange or something else ... but would that be the apple's fault? If you've been eating at the same restaurant for 10 years then finally get bored of the menu ... while it maybe somewhat valid to complain but looking at it from another angle: the menu must have been good enough for you to keep coming back that long? No? And there will be new customer coming in that will find the current delightful just like you did on the the first visit.

So that's my take, when I finally leave the game I want it to be on the good note. I would like to appreciate FF14 for a good ride that it gave me, and I want to wish everyone stilling playing FF14, especially new players will be able to continue enjoy it for the next 5-10 years. I don't want to leave the game in resentment and contempt for the developers, accusing them of being lazy or incompetent. I don't want to selfishly believe my taste if the ultimate ingredient for success, and anything doesn't please me is destined to fail. So yeah, fully expect Dawn Trail to be my swan song, if it anyone think they're getting to the same point it may be better to prepare yourself mentally with a positive mindset. Everything must come to an end eventually, but the ending don't have to be on a sour note over unrealistic expectation.

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Let's not lie to ourselves, ARR, HW, Stormblood quality is sorely lacking in the last 2 expansions; outside of msq. And even in MSQ past the 5.0 I'm not sure it was all that great. Just thinking about 3 dungeons per patch in ARR brings back fond memories; and how well the open world was used even if it meant just doing fates, at least they were actually used a lot.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

If you eat the same apple for nearly 10 years, then complain why doesn't it involve into an orange or something else ... but would that be the apple's fault? If you've been eating at the same restaurant for 10 years then finally get bored of the menu ... while it maybe somewhat valid to complain but looking at it from another angle: the menu must have been good enough for you to keep coming back that long? No? And there will be new customer coming in that will find the current delightful just like you did on the the first visit.

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Personally I'd find a little jarring the day my favorite pasta restaurant turns into fast food burger king... But that's beyond the point either way. I mostly made this thread to muse on the opposition I see between two different, radically opposed player expectations in gaming communities, and XIV as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Personally I'd find a little jarring the day my favorite pasta restaurant turns into fast food burger king... But that's beyond the point either way. I mostly made this thread to muse on the opposition I see between two different, radically opposed player expectations in gaming communities, and XIV as a whole.

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Forget a fast food joint, we gotta make do with a pack of lunchables now

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Originally Posted by Naizuo

Combat wise, this game has become so streamlined it's abysmal. Bare with me here for a second, but why not just keep the jobs more "difficult" "difficult" and push out a few newer jobs to be easier to pick up and play instead? For example, take SMN rework, it's a good rework and such a great baseline to start with overall but, they managed to split the SMN playerbase heavily by turning it into a mindless blob of a job.

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Summoner rework makes the job feel like a summoner.

The reason for all jobs becoming streamlined and well designed is because this is what really matters most: enabling people to play their fantasy job whatever that is. The people who don't want to play difficult stuff are far more attached to being able to play the job they want to play from a fantasy perspective than playing what is accessible. What if the only accessible jobs to this demographic are ones they feel are thematically a poor fit for them? People who care about skill expression and difficulty will often say things like "it doesn't matter what my job is or what it looks like, I just want to play difficult rotations". Even your own statement proves that you couldn't care less about what job you're playing. The problem is you're trying to force that on others and you're doing it in a really maladaptive way.

If you want something difficult and cerebral, that feeling should come from the level of encounter you are up against. Not the rotation of the job. You are trying to gatekeep people from their fantasies. The gameplay of a job on a training dummy shouldn't be too complicated in any case, the complexity and difficulty of the game should come from encounter design. You people are too attached to making jobs difficult, and this is why encounter design has become so simple.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Can you name me one game, MMO or otherwise, that managed to innovate itself after 10 years? Because I can't think of any. Ideally, that's why I don't think an MMO should last for more than 10 years otherwise it will buckle under its own weight and the expectation of veteran players. Not even WoW managed to do that. It peak during Wotlk, and Cata should have been the swansong. But when Blizz decided to cancel WoW2 and reinvest everything to upgrade WoW ... it's just downhill from there. And I feel FF14 is reaching the very same point IMO. At this point I'm not sure it's possible to satisfy the expectation of both the old players and still drawing in the new players at the same time.


I think Dawn Trail gonna be the last expansion for me unless it does something really refreshing and amazing. But ... I'm not complaining neither I'm feeling bitter about it like some other people. If you eat the same apple for nearly 10 years, then complain why doesn't it involve into an orange or something else ... but would that be the apple's fault? If you've been eating at the same restaurant for 10 years then finally get bored of the menu ... while it maybe somewhat valid to complain but looking at it from another angle: the menu must have been good enough for you to keep coming back that long? No? And there will be new customer coming in that will find the current delightful just like you did on the the first visit.

So that's my take, when I finally leave the game I want it to be on the good note. I would like to appreciate FF14 for a good ride that it gave me, and I want to wish everyone stilling playing FF14, especially new players will be able to continue enjoy it for the next 5-10 years. I don't want to leave the game in resentment and contempt for the developers, accusing them of being lazy or incompetent. I don't want to selfishly believe my taste if the ultimate ingredient for success, and anything doesn't please me is destined to fail. So yeah, fully expect Dawn Trail to be my swan song, if it anyone think they're getting to the same point it may be better to prepare yourself mentally with a positive mindset. Everything must come to an end eventually, but the ending don't have to be on a sour note over unrealistic expectation.

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Isn't this more of an argument that they should have stopped with Endwalker and allocated those resources into FFXVII? Same with WoW-- maybe they should've sacrificed some money in the short term for the long term gain of a next gen WoW. We won't ever know what the results of these things because they didn't/won't happen. It shouldn't really be a thing where players become jaded of a game imo. Devs should intuitively understand when it's time to sunset their game based on the market, player expectations, and their own creative ambitions. Maybe the publishers are at fault for the stagnation of these big titles, who knows.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

Isn't this more of an argument that they should have stopped with Endwalker and allocated those resources into FFXVII?

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If FF17 is an MMO, then yes, that's exactly my argument.

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It shouldn't really be a thing where players become jaded of a game imo.

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The point is you can't really attribute the blame in a practical manner though. A quick scan of the forum and you'll see the majority of the argument are split. 10 years is a long time for a lot of thing to change. You have new player vs old player who does not share the same taste or mind set, and even someone taste can change over time. And that is before you account for logistic and practical issue, here are a few examples of issues that often came up:

- Class balance: since the launch the game had added 10 jobs, that's a lot more job to balance comparing to launch. Assuming in the next 10 years we will have at least another 8 job ... well, unless they somehow hire some miracle workers, there will be absolutely no way to avoid classes become streamline or feel the same. I'm never an pessimists but for a game to have 30 classes, anyone to expect all of them gonna be balance and unique at the same time ... well, I think the chance of humanity discovering new cure for cancel in the next 10 years is probably HIGHER than that.

- Difficulty: this is another split. If I look at it objectively, I can tell the upper tier contents (savage) had gotten harder. But as a veteran, I'm also harder to please. Outside of Ultimate nothing really excites me anymore, but again, is that the game fault? I think a lot of people severely underestimate how much institutional knowledge can affect one perception. I have seen mythic raider come to FF14 and fail miserably at the beginning, just like I've seen FF14 savage raiders got kicked out of heroic dungeons in WoW for being bad. The point is ... it's not really just about the innate difficulty, but experience as well. To its credit, FF14 does try to please everyone with all these different tiers. But then as we repeatably see, EVERYONE, from the casual to the hardcore always gonna be arguing for their interest to be deserving a bigger pie of the content, and everyone consider it's the developer's failure to do so.

That's why IMO, it's not just gaming but sometime you see overachieve people decide to move on, to seek new challenge. Instead of demanding the current working formula to change for your sake, you can simply seek it out. If I move on to a new MMO, it would be more challenging but it won't be necessary because it's harder than FF14. It would be more challenge for me simply because I no longer possess 10 years worth of institutional knowledge.

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Devs should intuitively understand when it's time to sunset their game based on the market, player expectations, and their own creative ambitions. Maybe the publishers are at fault for the stagnation of these big titles, who knows.

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Must we always find something or someone to be guilty and at fault? That's kinda my whole point. Sometime a relationship broke down because of some catastrophic failure, but some other time you can accept that things have run its course and part amicably, not everything have to be drama.

And it's always easier to talk idealistic, I prefer to be a bit more grounded. Yes, ideally I think an MMO should only last for 10 years at most. But MMO is expensive to make, and always a big risk, don't forget 1.0 almost killed SE itself. You also see other ambitious tittles from deep pocket publishers that fail to capture the market. The development cost of a MMO and the size of the market makes me think FF14 maybe one of the last of its kind. I think other people realize it too and maybe that's why they're still trying to hang onto it so bitterly, once you jump off this ship ... there isn't really a better one to land on.