Honestly, What's the verdict for you?

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

They also have other varieties of dungeons, like a tower defense dungeon, or a dungeon that let you decide which boss you want to face first.

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Trash mobs there also have unique elements to them that aren't just tank fodder,with the occasional aoe cone telegraphs to dodge, which adds a little bit of strategy when you approach those packs. I think in XIV at best there's something to interrupt every now and then, and it's not like they don't know how to design interesting trash mobs: see Deep Dungeons, they do offer some enemies that you need to approach differetly.

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

Innovation doesnt work with the current FFXIV Community. I mean take a look at the Phantom Jobs its something new and people already complaining like shit, you know how new things in the world are innovated? with trial & error, experiements and fails but the FFXIV Community doesnt even give Square the Room for Fails and Experiments because the moment something is only 1% off like 99% is perfect 1% is bad, i guarantee you the people here will focus on the single 1% not the 99% which is good

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I will give them a pass if this system you mentioned is completely brand new, but it isn't. Phantom jobs are yet another version of logograms and lost actions. Heck, OC isn't ff14 first field operation, it's their third one. FF14 isn't a 3 year old mmo game, it's been 10 years already.

Also, a lot of "new thing" they gave us are just old things repackaged. It beat the purpose of "experimenting".

7.2 was their chance to make a statement about future content design, so getting glorified levequests and an exploratory zone that failed to properly learn from the liked/hated aspects of Eureka/Bozja while simultaneously lacking much in the way of actual innovation was not very encouraging.

At this point it feels like the game is largely being carried by its encounter design but even that is only fun for so many repetitions.

I'm trying very hard to convince myself to just let go of my house and unsub until towards end of each major patch so there's actually stuff to do.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Trash mobs there also have unique elements to them that aren't just tank fodder,with the occasional aoe cone telegraphs to dodge, which adds a little bit of strategy when you approach those packs. I think in XIV at best there's something to interrupt every now and then, and it's not like they don't know how to design interesting trash mobs: see Deep Dungeons, they do offer some enemies that you need to approach differetly.

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Not sure why the devs are afraid to have another Aurum Vale (The old iteration. Nowadays Aurum vale is just another bland dungeon)

But you're absolutely right. A mix between deep dungeons and variant dungeons should be a thing to create the next iteration of story dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

I will give them a pass if this system you mentioned is completely brand new, but it isn't. Phantom jobs are yet another version of logograms and lost actions. Heck, OC isn't ff14 first field operation, it's their third one. FF14 isn't a 3 year old mmo game, it's been 10 years already.

Also, a lot of "new thing" they gave us are just old things repackaged. It beat the purpose of "experimenting".

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true but they still improved in many aspects

eureka - dumb ass mob grinding to pop fates - gone - instant fates
bozja - dumb ass waiting for a ce every 20 min - gone - instant ce
bozja/eureka - no dumb logos farming

ofc its not everything good a few things are a downgrade like the entrance for forked, or the phantom jobs needs a bit more tuning
and even forked if people dislike it now or not, i guess they did the entrance this way because it was meant to be organized from the start since im honest i dont even see happen that a random queue group clears it so i guess it was planned from the start this way, the only thing they messed up then is the 74 player limit thats straight up dumb

experiments and trials are not always done after 1 try, doesnt mean i wanna defend square but atleast in some kind of areas its a downgrade


and people talking about "oh logos were so much better you had so many options" yea 99% useless options which 95% of the community didnt even bother to use because doesnt matter if it was bozja with the potions to increase dmg or eureka with the logos, nearly everyone was always running the same shit, variation is not good if 95% of the variation are straight up ass

I came back to play OC after ubsubbing since 7.0 ending, I logged in and made it through the unlock quest, only to immediately not care about playing. It has nothing to do with difficulty or available time to play.

The "magic" for a lack of better terms just feels gone. I am probably paranoid here, but the current state of things and decisions just have that vibe that WoW did as we crept into WoD, where Blizzard felt they were on top of the world and could just go on content generation autopilot, not paying attention to what they were producing or making sure it had that "spark" that made it a Blizzard game.

I sat by and paid a WoW sub as that game spiraled to the ground, and I just can't let myself do that again. I hope 8.0 is stellar, I want a reason to come back, but current decisions just make me feel like we've crossed a threshold that is going to take a very long time to course correct.

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Originally Posted by Vikor

I came back to play OC after ubsubbing since 7.0 ending, I logged in and made it through the unlock quest, only to immediately not care about playing. It has nothing to do with difficulty or available time to play.

The "magic" for a lack of better terms just feels gone. I am probably paranoid here, but the current state of things and decisions just have that vibe that WoW did as we crept into WoD, where Blizzard felt they were on top of the world and could just go on content generation autopilot, not paying attention to what they were producing or making sure it had that "spark" that made it a Blizzard game.

I sat by and paid a WoW sub as that game spiraled to the ground, and I just can't let myself do that again. I hope 8.0 is stellar, I want a reason to come back, but current decisions just make me feel like we've crossed a threshold that is going to take a very long time to course correct.

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I suspect part of it is SE is stuck in the mindset that all they have to do is throw in FF cross-references and everyone will get teary-eyed and clap.

This overlooks the COVID/WOW influx that was dominated by people who have never played other FF games.

I think it's possible SE is fine with "shaking off the fleas," and allowing the playerbase to drop back to FF fans, who they assume will put up with anything provided references from other games are dropped in on a suitable cadence.

Overall I still like DT but I find myself logging in a lot less.
Part of the reason is that my buddies are mostly raidlogging and I have retired some years ago. Playing on my own with randoms isn't as much fun.
Another part is that (gut feeling) the time between patches has increased significantly. You get a short burst of content and then, unless you raid, you just do nothing for half a year.

I am in the apparent minority, as I liked the DT storyline. I am not an FF buff, only ever played VII, VIII and X, so I don't recognize many references from the others. The story proposed interesting concepts and thoughts.
Albeit fundamentally flawed on a logic level: even if they drain all shards of aether, an ever growing population of endless WILL run out of energy to sustain them. They'd need a different form of energy that is available in overabundance, e.g.: a Dyson Sphere, harnessing the energy of a sun, to really make it work long term. That AI-Sphene refuses to even consider this possibility and notice the stop-gap nature of her plan is a huge fail of the writing team.

I'm totally digging the sci-fi visuals of the Alexandrians Just wish the game had proper RTX. Imagine Solution 9 with real time reflections!

Content seems the same-ol same-ol, it's just that the longer I do not raid the less I care about the gear hamster wheel.
Especially as a healer where you barely feel these upgrades. I750 or I720 ... doesn't make a lick of difference unless you venture into Savage.

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

and people talking about "oh logos were so much better you had so many options" yea 99% useless options which 95% of the community didnt even bother to use because doesnt matter if it was bozja with the potions to increase dmg or eureka with the logos, nearly everyone was always running the same shit, variation is not good if 95% of the variation are straight up ass

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You mean like how majority of phantom jobs are useless as well? Or very niche and clearly designed for forked tower.

Like for now most people just use berserker on CE and switch to canoneer when farming. Maybe some like more advance strat with oracle starfall, but that's it.

Phantom jobs skills are literally lost actions, maybe slightly bit improved and unique effect with job such as oracle or geomancer.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

You mean like how majority of phantom jobs are useless as well? Or very niche and clearly designed for forked tower.

Like for now most people just use berserker on CE and switch to canoneer when farming. Maybe some like more advance strat with oracle starfall, but that's it.

Phantom jobs skills are literally lost actions, maybe slightly bit improved and unique effect with job such as oracle or geomancer.

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they are atleast improved that i really dont need to bother and farm them over and over again, i never said phantom jobs are really great, its the opposite i even said they need more tuning (dont know if it was here or in another thread)

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Originally Posted by yesnt

To be honest, when they introduced phantom jobs in the live letter, I expected we'd actually get new jobs for this instance since it's called a job. The way it's worded made it sound like there was a bit of a bigger system behind this, but it's just additional actions. The actions are not terrible but seriously... you can not call this an innovation?

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Personally I understood it exactly like the glorified role actions we got. And they even showed what it looked like on screenshots. It felt underwhelming in the PLLs, and was similarly underwhelming once live.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I suspect part of it is SE is stuck in the mindset that all they have to do is throw in FF cross-references and everyone will get teary-eyed and clap.

This overlooks the COVID/WOW influx that was dominated by people who have never played other FF games.

I think it's possible SE is fine with "shaking off the fleas," and allowing the playerbase to drop back to FF fans, who they assume will put up with anything provided references from other games are dropped in on a suitable cadence.

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They should actually try with the references then. DT's numerous IX references feel like they were mechanically and soullessly thrown in by people that didn't care and just skimmed an overview on a wiki, and I dislike the expansion more because of it.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

They should actually try with the references then. DT's numerous IX references feel like they were mechanically and soullessly thrown in by people that didn't care and just skimmed an overview on a wiki, and I dislike the expansion more because of it.

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I am, personally, curious as to why there are cases where the reference is there visually, but isn't supported by the dialogue/story. Zelenia for example is - for all intents and purposes - Beatrix, but for reasons that are not clear they avoided naming her as such.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

I am, personally, curious as to why there are cases where the reference is there visually, but isn't supported by the dialogue/story. Zelenia for example is - for all intents and purposes - Beatrix, but for reasons that are not clear they avoided naming her as such.

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It is but although they ripped large amounts of the lore wholesale, it is technically a different game and they are just taking inspiration from it. They probably don't want to hurt the lore of the original characters, so instead you can interpret these to be the "next generation" that came after the ones in FF9 if you want, but somehow having similar attributes and personalities.

There is also a standout character that seems very different to Garnet - Spheen, so that might be why.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

I am, personally, curious as to why there are cases where the reference is there visually, but isn't supported by the dialogue/story. Zelenia for example is - for all intents and purposes - Beatrix, but for reasons that are not clear they avoided naming her as such.

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It was a bit odd with Steiner and Beatrix they used Otis and Zelenia when they had other obvious references like Zander and Ambrose for Zidane and Amarant that used the same first initial. Garnet makes a bit of sense since Sphene is fulfilling both the gemstone name and the first initial of her real name.

Honestly the lack of creativity is what's killing it for me. Every expansion is the exact same and that works for a bit but eventually you get to a point where a FATE is a FATE, an EX is an EX, and Exploration Zone is an Exploration Zone, and Savages are starting to get to the same point.

FATEs have next to no creativity, they are all literally "Go kill X number of mobs" and the only creativity involved with them is how they disguise the "Go kill X number of mobs" part, maybe you kill 15 mobs and talk to an NPC to "Turn in" items, or you follow an NPC and kill 15 mobs, either way you're killing 15 mobs or one big mob.

EXs are the same ole song and dance, hell some of the recent ones have been just straight up mark a dorito and follow.

Exploration Zones don't even deserve an explanation because they're just more FATEs.

Where is the creativity? Are they just incapable of coming up with any new ideas? Is every FATE going to be kill 15 mobs? Every EX chariots and dynamos?

I just noticed a small detail that somehow bothered me a lot: During the OC's intro here's zero dialogue reference or easter egg if you're a Scholar who completed the job's storyline. May seem really minor, but they do have history of referencing jobs you have when they make sense into quests. Imagine being a scholar with a fairy out and being confused about what Iris is.

I kept thinking if this is just a small manifestation of the lack of polish in Dawntrail questing experience as a whole.

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

I mean lets be real for a Second, the Content really didnt change much, maybe its on your side because you played that game quit long and see now how it really is.

Lets break it down a bit.

Heavensward :
3 Normal Raidtiers + Savage Raidtiers
Diadem
7 Ex Trials
3 Alli Raids
a few Dungeons
3 Beasttribes
-snip-

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Thanks for breaking it down like that.

People are complaining about a game that has been this way for 10+ years. It's like asking why a Ford F150 is "still" a pickup truck after being a pickup truck for 50 years. FFXIV has been formulaic for 10 years, at least. It goes beyond even just what you posted, too. We all know that X.2 and X.4 will have crafted gear that replaces pretty much everything earned in X.1. We know that there will crafted DoH/L gear released in X.0 and the right side will be used until X.3 sees the release of a whole new left/right side set. We know that X.1, X.3 and X.5 patches will see alternative ways to upgrade your DoW/M gear. Either turning in hunt tokens, doing the new 24-man raid weekly or spending uncapped tomestones to upgrade crafted gear. We know that beast tribes will be completed in N days every time if you do the turn-ins just right. We know that if you do all 3 beast tribes to Bloodsworn, there will be a late-expansion quest for an emote. We know that if you earn all the Ex Trial mounts for an expansion there is a quest to earn another mount to cap it all off. We know that savage raids will drop tokens for players to turn in so they can get upgrades that didn't drop after their weekly clears.

The list goes on and on.

Frankly, it is like being surprised when we played a Megaman game on the NES and had 8 robot masters, followed by some other version of robot masters, followed by Wily and/or a stand-in for Wily. Oh, and then clearing the robot masters again right before fighting Wily twice.

If I didn't like MM2, I probably didn't like MM3. And I would not have bothered with MM4. The same goes for FFXIV. If I didn't like HW, I probably didn't like SB or ShB or EW or DT. And if I'm still giving SE money after all of this time, I'm a fool.

It's like being surprised that Mario Kart is a racing game still. "Where's the creativity? It's just another race track with reskinned cars!"

Or Mario being another platformer "Where's the creativity? It's just some rearranged platforms and slightly higher quality goombas"

Like I just don't have a problem with any of this.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I just noticed a small detail that somehow bothered me a lot: During the OC's intro here's zero dialogue reference or easter egg if you're a Scholar who completed the job's storyline. May seem really minor, but they do have history of referencing jobs you have when they make sense into quests. Imagine being a scholar with a fairy out and being confused about what Iris is.

I kept thinking if this is just a small manifestation of the lack of polish in Dawntrail questing experience as a whole.

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yeah im disappointed about that as well. i really love these small references to your own characters adventures. but there was nothing. no schoolar quest line reference, no wanderers palace reference and no amdapor or mhach references

i only played ff13, so i dont care about ff cross references at all. but the things your character did before? i think that should be mentioned.

overall it feels like a very low budget content. sure it looks good and the feel of adventure in the questline is great. (i really whish we could have had that feel in the DT msq)
but they just put all the ancient civilizations from that one age we know of into it, put a bunch of old rewards into it (no nym themed items) and didnt even bother writing a few optional words. fates, fates, fates and a few mechanics used a bit too often. and now we have fate bosses positioning themselves lol

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Originally Posted by Granyala

Overall I still like DT but I find myself logging in a lot less.
Part of the reason is that my buddies are mostly raidlogging and I have retired some years ago. Playing on my own with randoms isn't as much fun.
Another part is that (gut feeling) the time between patches has increased significantly. You get a short burst of content and then, unless you raid, you just do nothing for half a year.

I am in the apparent minority, as I liked the DT storyline. I am not an FF buff, only ever played VII, VIII and X, so I don't recognize many references from the others. The story proposed interesting concepts and thoughts.
Albeit fundamentally flawed on a logic level: even if they drain all shards of aether, an ever growing population of endless WILL run out of energy to sustain them. They'd need a different form of energy that is available in overabundance, e.g.: a Dyson Sphere, harnessing the energy of a sun, to really make it work long term. That AI-Sphene refuses to even consider this possibility and notice the stop-gap nature of her plan is a huge fail of the writing team.

I'm totally digging the sci-fi visuals of the Alexandrians Just wish the game had proper RTX. Imagine Solution 9 with real time reflections!

Content seems the same-ol same-ol, it's just that the longer I do not raid the less I care about the gear hamster wheel.
Especially as a healer where you barely feel these upgrades. I750 or I720 ... doesn't make a lick of difference unless you venture into Savage.

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I hate the wasted color aesthetics of s9 overused purples and blues to offload the golds and yellow of living memory which we turned from lovely into Detroit... I'd rather s9 and living memory has reversed aesthetics and that would actually match the story better.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's like being surprised that Mario Kart is a racing game still. "Where's the creativity? It's just another race track with reskinned cars!"

Or Mario being another platformer "Where's the creativity? It's just some rearranged platforms and slightly higher quality goombas"

Like I just don't have a problem with any of this.

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I wasn't aware that Mario Kart was a story-driven MMO.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's like being surprised that Mario Kart is a racing game still. "Where's the creativity? It's just another race track with reskinned cars!"

Or Mario being another platformer "Where's the creativity? It's just some rearranged platforms and slightly higher quality goombas"

Like I just don't have a problem with any of this.

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Did you really just compare Mario kart to a MMO? Of all the things? You can't be serious with this one

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's like being surprised that Mario Kart is a racing game still. "Where's the creativity? It's just another race track with reskinned cars!"

Or Mario being another platformer "Where's the creativity? It's just some rearranged platforms and slightly higher quality goombas"

Like I just don't have a problem with any of this.

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Termninally online forum poster is fine with a lack of creativity, more at 11.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Or Mario being another platformer "Where's the creativity? It's just some rearranged platforms and slightly higher quality goombas"

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That is certainly a take, trying to use Mario of all games as a gotcha.

When Mario has been doing a lot of different types, even in the platform genre, from 2d, to M64, Galaxy, Sunshine, and so on.

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Originally Posted by Vikor

Termninally online forum poster is fine with a lack of creativity, more at 11.

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If that 11 was FF11, we might actually have gotten something decent and new. ToAU is still around peak FF11 with Besieged, Assault, Nyzul Isle, Salvage, Einherjar, Pankration, besides all the old systems it borrowed like ZNM and ISNMs. And all that in around one and a half year before WoTG released.

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Originally Posted by Kisshu

If that 11 was FF11, we might actually have gotten something decent and new. ToAU is still around peak FF11 with Besieged, Assault, Nyzul Isle, Salvage, Einherjar, Pankration, besides all the old systems it borrowed like ZNM and ISNMs. And all that in around one and a half year before WoTG released.

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I've said it before but the happy go lucky nature of Dawntrails story telling and how 'at peace' Tuliyollal is ruined any chance of them giving us unique ToAU styled content which I think would have really helped it. The fact that the Dawn Servant made the realm so happy, stopped all wars and no one is angry except one small subset of Giants... Yeah. Besieged in XIV could have had some actual legs if they wrote Tuliyollal to be less, I dunno, over the top happy?

But I write this as someone heavily biased towards ToAU which was the pinnacle of MMORPGs for me and still is.

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Originally Posted by Zeekdober

Honestly the lack of creativity is what's killing it for me. Every expansion is the exact same and that works for a bit but eventually you get to a point where a FATE is a FATE, an EX is an EX, and Exploration Zone is an Exploration Zone, and Savages are starting to get to the same point.

FATEs have next to no creativity, they are all literally "Go kill X number of mobs" and the only creativity involved with them is how they disguise the "Go kill X number of mobs" part, maybe you kill 15 mobs and talk to an NPC to "Turn in" items, or you follow an NPC and kill 15 mobs, either way you're killing 15 mobs or one big mob.

EXs are the same ole song and dance, hell some of the recent ones have been just straight up mark a dorito and follow.

Exploration Zones don't even deserve an explanation because they're just more FATEs.

Where is the creativity? Are they just incapable of coming up with any new ideas? Is every FATE going to be kill 15 mobs? Every EX chariots and dynamos?

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I think the reason it's not going to change was pretty much hinted at by Yoshida when he was asked about dungeon structure and how it was unlikely to change as they were happy with the template because it allowed them to produce them fast enough to release them appropriately. I do feel this is the same with everything in the game: fates, systems, etc. When they do work on something new, it's always some brand new content, like field exploration or deep dungeons in HW. Once it's out as a prototype, they will tweak and mix things around with the basic building blocks used for it, but they won't make something truly new out of it. Which may be fair, I don't know, if people enjoyed it, then they expect to get something reasonably similar for its next iteration I guess.

Now I think you're right in pointing out that the main issue doesn't lie in the content in general but the building blocks used and assembled to make such content: fates, chariot/dynamo ddr, etc. I mean, look at Variant that was introduced last expansion: I'd be hesitating to call it new, precisely because it was just a dungeon with 3 different main paths, but all the mobs, the bosses, everything else was the same old pve.

However, when it comes to truly new, fresh and creative things, there has been such content, but it's by far and few: Deep Dungeons in HW were a totally new experience, nobody can question that, too bad that it's getting stale with the reskins. Crystalline Conflict has also been something truly new even though it was pvp. It's the problem with a lot of the new content they make in my opinion, they're not going for those new systems much if at all, except for those rare cases. And guess what, those cases are precisely where there is the best community reception and shelf life I think. Not Chaotic, which was exactly like any pve we've gotten, they just rearranged the same old legos to make it look new.

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Originally Posted by Kisshu

That is certainly a take, trying to use Mario of all games as a gotcha.

When Mario has been doing a lot of different types, even in the platform genre, from 2d, to M64, Galaxy, Sunshine, and so on.

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To be fair, maybe they do have a point. FF14 pve has kinda felt like mario kaizo lately.

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Originally Posted by SeriousPan

I've said it before but the happy go lucky nature of Dawntrails story telling and how 'at peace' Tuliyollal is ruined any chance of them giving us unique ToAU styled content which I think would have really helped it. The fact that the Dawn Servant made the realm so happy, stopped all wars and no one is angry except one small subset of Giants... Yeah. Besieged in XIV could have had some actual legs if they wrote Tuliyollal to be less, I dunno, over the top happy?

But I write this as someone heavily biased towards ToAU which was the pinnacle of MMORPGs for me and still is.

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Almost everyone is happy with everyone else, and all outliers can be fixed with encouraging words and food from Llama Tea. No other character could solve 500 years of ritualistic infanticide with the promise of imported crops.

Dawntrail up until Shaloaani: 5/10
Shaloaani: 1/10
Alexandria: 7/10
7.1: 4/10
7.2: 8/10

Basically, it's decent when it's good and it's absolutely atrocious when it's bad.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

It's like being surprised that Mario Kart is a racing game still. "Where's the creativity? It's just another race track with reskinned cars!"

Or Mario being another platformer "Where's the creativity? It's just some rearranged platforms and slightly higher quality goombas"

Like I just don't have a problem with any of this.

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Why are you even making this comparison. These two types of games and genres could not be more different LOL.

Like, you go into these games expecting two entirely different things...

It's fine if you don't see an issue with it, but frankly some people do expect more from a game that has had well over a decade to figure out what it wants to do with itself

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Originally Posted by AvoSturmfaust

they are atleast improved that i really dont need to bother and farm them over and over again, i never said phantom jobs are really great, its the opposite i even said they need more tuning (dont know if it was here or in another thread)

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I mean... They are really limited. Unless you have one of those necessary jobs, they are just an extra button to add a bit of extra damage, tank or heal. Basically what you did with Logos but with limitations. What's even worse, you can't play the ones you like if you want to level others or you won't get mastery points. No one thought the system through. Or they did but they didn't care because it's a time sink. Don't get me started on the price of the stuff and how you only get like 80 silver coins per FATE but you need like 20k for a set. Oh, only one FATE or CE spawns at a time in the whole map. Which is also really convenient for Demiatma farming. Not intentional at all because the game LACKS content and we need people to waste their time. I don't know how anyone could believe OC is properly designed.

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Originally Posted by Ranhansha

I mean... They are really limited. Unless you have one of those necessary jobs, they are just an extra button to add a bit of extra damage, tank or heal. Basically what you did with Logos but with limitations. What's even worse, you can't play the ones you like if you want to level others or you won't get mastery points. No one thought the system through. Or they did but they didn't care because it's a time sink. Don't get me started on the price of the stuff and how you only get like 80 silver coins per FATE but you need like 20k for a set. Oh, only one FATE or CE spawns at a time in the whole map. Which is also really convenient for Demiatma farming. Not intentional at all because the game LACKS content and we need people to waste their time. I don't know how anyone could believe OC is properly designed.

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But thats one of the issues, people always think about "i need to level dem with CEs so i cant play my favorite job" but let me tell you, open your own gold farm group which doesnt require a certain phantom job ( i mean a few will use meta jobs anyway) and you see how fast you can level them, i did 3h 2 days ago and finished 3 jobs, its way faster and quicker then CEs and for CE´s i can still use the ones i like

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They might not innovate enough but they do try new things each expansion, technically:

• ARR: everything that was in ARR
• HW: Normal/Savage, Diadem, Deep Dungeons, Squadrons
• SB: Ultimates, Blue Mage, Eureka (Diadem-like area) being tied to relic, Logos Actions, Command Missions (squadrons), Doman Mahjong
• ShB: Ishgard Restoration, Trusts, CEs, Ocean Fishing
• EW: Variant, Criterion, Island Sanctuary, introducing single player-esk mechanics into an MMO (story NPCs following you like FF8, proximity following NPCs, a Metal Gear Solid duty, or In From the Cold).
• DT: Chaotic, Beastmaster, apparently the Deep Dungeon will work differently

Whether those were well implemented is another story, but they at least reserve capacity in their schedule for experiments.

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The problem is every single one of those new things recently has been done with the safest of kid gloves on or implemented incredibly poorly. Often times both.

Criterion had literally zero reward structure making it the least completed content in the game's entire history. It's actually shocking how bad the Savage version performed. Island Sanctuary had less depth than Farmville, a facebook mobile game from 2009 and Eureka Orthos is literally copy/pasted Heaven on High.

Now we get to DT and it's essentially the same problem: a complete lack of innovation and everything played extremely safe. Chaotic is the sole exception where they actually did something that took some actual risks.

This "safety first" approach has simply become stale for a lot of people because even new content doesn't feel new. Or it lacks polish which has become an alarmingly regular occurrence of late. I'd like to believe say, Deep Dungeon, will work differently, but I'll be shocked if their big "innovation" amounts to more than "we changed the size of the rooms." We have two expansions worth of evidence showcasing they don't take risks at all nowadays.

Edit: Just to bolster my point further with a recent example. Let's look at Cosmic Exploration, a piece of content people were genuinely excited for. All it amounted to was one massive levequest system with an insane grind for a reskinned mount. While the higher level crafts being less macro-able can have its interest. I suspect people wanted more than a levelquest equivalent that the devs themselves abandoned years ago. Which speaks volumes in its own right. They brought back a system even they thought wasn't good enough in prior expansions. Now if they did something to elevate it, perhaps that could be interesting. They didn't. And as a result, Cosmic's population cratered within a week of its launch--to the point servers are routinely missing advancement objectives now because nobody cares to bother.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Some people try to rationalize it with "Clearly all the 1.X and ARR boomers moved on after EW, so they pivoted to the Shounen Jump audience", but I don't see how people in their teens would put up with the long stretches of absolutely nothing happening in DT's MSQ.

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Also, what teenagers? MMO in general is not a teenager genre and a sub based one? Most people I know who play XIV are in their twenties and thirties, if not older.

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Originally Posted by OlafQuintessa

This is exactly it. Fine, there's all this stuff to do just like before but instead of inhabiting a world with rich characters and an engrossing story it's now hard to care about anyone or anything that's happening.

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This is a big pain point for me also. The entirety of the DT MSQ, all I could think was "man,I just don't care about any of this". I tried. I really wanted to get invested but the characters were shallower than a puddle. The Scions were cardboard cutouts of themselves.

Why people force their brains to play a game really.

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Originally Posted by IdleBlood

Why people force their brains to play a game really.

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Many of the people who play still have an attachment to a certain aspect of the game, thus giving them hope that what's not right will change around.

I quit back last October, but a friend gifted me with a month worth of game time for me to see how the game changed/improved (since there were some). It's been a bit over 2 weeks, but I'm not quite sure if I'll use all the time, really.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

I will give them a pass if this system you mentioned is completely brand new, but it isn't. Phantom jobs are yet another version of logograms and lost actions. Heck, OC isn't ff14 first field operation, it's their third one. FF14 isn't a 3 year old mmo game, it's been 10 years already.

Also, a lot of "new thing" they gave us are just old things repackaged. It beat the purpose of "experimenting".

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Fourth. People forget about the original Diadem.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I just noticed a small detail that somehow bothered me a lot: During the OC's intro here's zero dialogue reference or easter egg if you're a Scholar who completed the job's storyline. May seem really minor, but they do have history of referencing jobs you have when they make sense into quests. Imagine being a scholar with a fairy out and being confused about what Iris is.

I kept thinking if this is just a small manifestation of the lack of polish in Dawntrail questing experience as a whole.

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Yeah that part bugged me, too. I have a level 100 scholar. I would have accidentally called her Lily not wondered wtf she was.

It's especially egregious when I'm doing post-EW with my hubby on an alt and we're almost to Lapis and everyone is falling over themselves to comment how I'm familiar with reaper.

Honestly, my issues with FFXIV aren't fixable by "just more FFXIV". Doubling the content won't help with anything. it's things like lack of basic functions like glamour log, chat bubbles, UI fixes and general annoyances that persist despite having YEARS to fix them. The story peaked in Shadowbringers, and it has been downhill from there. EW had some very high but also very low points, and DT's ratio on those skewed more towards the low despite having similar design language. There's so much potential and it hurts how obvious some of it is to implement but... i think the devs are just not that skilled or competent and are just trying to keep the wheels going to a schedule than actually work on the things i care about.


There have been great new things, like the graphical and character improvements, improvements to jobs, the general quality is higher, the relics are better this time around and even OC has a bunch of improvements compared to eureka/bozja despite some other drawbacks. But the technical debt and lack of core improvements are hurting the game in the long run.

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Originally Posted by Gokki

i think the devs are just not that skilled or competent and are just trying to keep the wheels going to a schedule than actually work on the things i care about.

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And even the things I'm not interested in are a clown show nowadays. I don't raid in this game, but seeing how they utterly effed up entrance to the new super hard raid in OC just leaves me speechless.
It feels like a free ride on the Titanic, where the captain has already left the ship, and now some untrained sailors at the wheel are desperately trying not to hit that huge white thing starboard ahead...
While in the galley the crew sings and dances as if everything is fine, and the cook brews the same old coffee for the fourth time "because the passengers always liked it so much".
Hm... I recently watched Pirates of the Caribean another time, somehow I feel a bit nautical today.