Announcements from Letter from the Producer Live Part LXXXV (85) - 7 February 2025

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Originally Posted by BokoToloko

You may see it as "satire" and defend him with as many excuses as you want but the very first one who goes around alienating people and throwing ad-hominem is him. And it's a pity his thread, where has constantly insulting anyone who tried to argue against and posting AI made images of white knights, was nuked because that was a textbook example of how much you're missing the point.

And the only ones who are alienated because I called him out in this thread are him and, for some reason of your own, you.

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That's where you seem to misunderstand. I am not defending the messenger, but the message.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I've kept up my sub thus far but I've lost the pull to enjoy it as much as before because the graphics update has made me not want to touch most of my alts any more, so that desire to constantly visit the game and collect things for each of them is lost. I still enjoy the gameplay but I'm only coming to do that when I feel like doing it.

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I feel this. Previously, even when I ran out of things to do on my main, I'd just load up my story alt to play through older content. I just genuinely loved playing the game and experiencing the story all over again that much. But Dawntrail ruined her face. She looks like a total uncanny stranger to me now. She looks like a creepy mannequin with these dead eyes and a mouth that looks painted on, not organic. It's so jarring and hard to look at that I genuinely cannot play as her anymore. She is a character I'd grown to love over years as I used her to take my time with the content and really take things at my own pace as opposed to my main when I was trying to catch up to end game to play with my friends. It feels like she died six months ago and the game isn't the same without her. That sounds dramatic, I know, but it really is the feeling like having a beloved character killed off in a stupid way or badly replaced/recast. It just sucks.

I'm just waiting for new variant dungeon to solo with my tank...lol maybe in part 2 of the live letter? T___T

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Originally Posted by BokoToloko

You may see it as "satire" and defend him with as many excuses as you want but the very first one who goes around alienating people and throwing ad-hominem is him. And it's a pity his thread, where has constantly insulting anyone who tried to argue against and posting AI made images of white knights, was nuked because that was a textbook example of how much you're missing the point.

And the only ones who are alienated because I called him out in this thread are him and, for some reason of your own, you.

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Unfortunately it’s the mods fault they allow one person to have 10 accounts that they break rules with and make this an unpleasant place. Respectful conversation is fine but this place goes far beyond that on a regular basis. The most upvoted posts here are often irrelevant insults. It’s says a lot about the kinds of people who come here for the most part.

It’s sad, because a few commented they came here to celebrate the announcements only to be meet with constant doom and gloom. I’m going to step away from this place again as it’s just mostly nasty and negative, and there are more positive places to be.

The latest thing about fheir endless attempts to denegrate the forums is now crying censorship which is laughable. But they really should moderate a lot more so this place isn’t the cesspit it is. Criticism and suggestions are great but they just allow a culture here that goes beyond the boundaries of mature and respectful communication befitting adults.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

Honestly at the rate new content is introduced, I'm thinking my friend had the right idea all along. Dude basically comes back for a new expansion (.0), enjoys it, and then quits until .55. He returns and spends a whopping three weeks doing all the content the entire post-expansion had for him, and then he can enjoy .0 when it rolls around too. Then he quits again for two more years. Pretty sure he only continued like that because he was invested in the story though. He did not return for DT afaik.

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This is exactly how I played until Endwalker. It works well. No treadmill either as you can easily just work on the final tomestone gear and call it a day.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

This is exactly how I played until Endwalker. It works well. No treadmill either as you can easily just work on the final tomestone gear and call it a day.

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The problem with this is if everyone did this the game would die overnight.

The privilege people have of “only subbing when they want” only works because there is a core players that is constantly subbed (but is hollowing out)

It'll be genuinely tragic if the phantom class stuff makes healers much more fun to play and then go back to the regular game.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

It'll be genuinely tragic if the phantom class stuff makes healers much more fun to play and then go back to the regular game.

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I'd argue that Lost actions already do this

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I'd argue that Lost actions already do this

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They actually do. Take a couple actions in Bozja, along with Passive Pots to throw on a buff and you actually can do respectable damage and be more diverse. Surprising they don’t apply some of these ideas to Healer Damage Kits.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

They actually do. Take a couple actions in Bozja, along with Passive Pots to throw on a buff and you actually can do respectable damage and be more diverse. Surprising they don’t apply some of these ideas to Healer Damage Kits.

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Respectable damage? no no, with a Pure Profane and a Lost Seraph Strike, WHM has some of the highest damage in Bozja, you aren't dealing "respectable damage", you are leaving everyone else in the dust, especially since it becomes so easy to capitalize on Afflatus Misery and make it a huge gain when you have such stupid buffs to go around, it's to the point it can be a legitimate issue for a properly kitted out WHM to outright rip aggro from a Tank during a good opener, it was an issue I was running into with my FC recently, and our Tank needed to actually Provoke just to keep the heat from me.

It does come with the cost of making most of your healing useless, but even if it didn't, the best Healers in Bozja are Caster DPS anyway, since Lost Cure IV is such an absurd healing spell, freaking AoE Bene...

The camera emote will be a free thing for everyone to get with 7.18 (25th Feb), by the way.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

From the images were shown so far, if the blank plain and the pink vegetation are progression shots of the same area, it seems like this might be almost an inversion of Island Sanctuary – instead of harvesting resources, we're cultivating them.

That said, the third picture is a crater field exposing new types of rock, which seems likely to be a site for mining, so it's possible that the plain, vegetation and craters are all there from the beginning as zones for crafting, botany and mining, respectively. If so, then that just leaves the question of where we're going fishing – perhaps in that big chasm up the back of the first picture?

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A further lore-nerdish thought on this -- I think it was mentioned during Endwalker that the moon is the way it is because it is very umbral-aspected due to Hydaelyn's influence, resulting in a similar state to the Empty. Meanwhile, the craters shown here are (to my memory) the first time we've seen brown earth on the moon's surface. I wonder if Zodiark's destruction has released astral energy onto/into the moon and is causing a shift in its aetherial state.

Looking more at the MSQ side of things, interesting discussion on Reddit about who this might be:
https://i.imgur.com/Ihx1JtS.png

with a popular theory being that it's the second Sphene, with a physical body, with someone pointing out that you can just about see her hair highlight on the tip.

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Originally Posted by Arrius

The camera emote will be a free thing for everyone to get with 7.18 (25th Feb), by the way.

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Oh nice! Not really in the market for a new camera, but I’ve wanted a camera emote forever!

Too bad the actual real life camera wasn’t one of the sweepstakes prizes! lol

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I've seen other people complaining about the trials being merged into MSQ again, but personally I'm happy for it to be handled this way if it means it gives them more room for one big-scope story rather than two smaller ones. I think it will depend on what stories they want to tell, rather than rigid storyline-to-content type links - perhaps sometime we'll get wild things again like the dungeon for the patch going to a side story again like the Four Lords handled it.

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They should bring back bonus dungeons being tide to side quest as well as msq and trials not just msq like they did for hilde brand.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The problem with this is if everyone did this the game would die overnight.

The privilege people have of “only subbing when they want” only works because there is a core players that is constantly subbed (but is hollowing out)

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I agree, but that would be the devs' problem, and not the problem of someone who only plays 2 months every expansion. I'm sure there are so many new stories (like Kingdom Come that just came out) to take up time and expansions written on the level of DT would not be missed at all. These players seem to mostly play this as a story-based RPG, and if the story is bad it would be an easy skip. (In fact, I just saw in Avoidy's story - the friend didn't even come back for DT and that exists now.)

The decreasing quality is definitely a concern for players who want XIV to be a more consistent part of their gaming time for sure.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The problem with this is if everyone did this the game would die overnight.

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No, it would force them to do some efforts. FFXIV is not a "stay subbed indefinitely" game as it stands (but then again I believe that no game is or possibly can be, the people who do keep subbed all year long probably have a bad case of sunk cost fallacy). If they want more than 2 month worth of subscription every expansion then they need to work for it.

By the way being able not to stay subbed long term is not a privilege, it is a right. Having customers that are willing to remain subbed for long period of times, on the other hand, IS a privilege.