@Casuals , do you think the message has gotten through?

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Originally Posted by Bryson

Casuals are completely detached from reality. This "mmmorpg" is the most giga casual game on earth. You all are pandered to 95% of the time.. stop conflating "respect my time" with "make everything giga ez so I can log off."

Just admit you're either lazy or you unironically think your IRL time constraints justifies less content for those who actually want to play the game.

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You're unironically delusional if you think that they are actually catering to anyone.

i think i missed something.

when did they ever say we would get an ultimate specifically in 7.31?
doesnt it make more sense anyway to have one in x.11 and one in x.51? wasnt that also generally more liked by the players? especially because quite a few players do ultimates in the content hole before expansions.
where does the delay part come from?

then what message are you talking about? and from whom to whom? i dont understand anything here xD

and we didnt get normal ft because of chaotic? now this sounds just like rabble-rousing against raiders (and no i dont do ultimates and only barely savage).

when i look at the LL there is barely any content. msq (which is casual) a-raid (which is casual) and there is the deep dungeon (which is for several kinds of players)

im aware there isnt much casual content once you've finished the msq. but what exactly do you even imagine when you think about casual content?

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Originally Posted by Asari5

i think i missed something.

when did they ever say we would get an ultimate specifically in 7.31?

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It wasn't stated explicitly but they almost never deviate from the established release schedule.

Sb - UCoB in 4.11, UWU in 4.31
Shb - TEA in 5.11, DSR delayed
Ew - DSR in 6.11, TOP in 6.31
Dt - FRU in 7.11, ??? delayed

The pattern has always been savage tiers in x.0, x.2 and x.4. Ultimate raids in x.1 and x.3.

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

It wasn't stated explicitly but they almost never deviate from the established release schedule.

Sb - UCoB in 4.11, UWU in 4.31
Shb - TEA in 5.11, DSR delayed
Ew - DSR in 6.11, TOP in 6.31
Dt - FRU in 7.11, ??? delayed

The pattern has always been savage tiers in x.0, x.2 and x.4. Ultimate raids in x.1 and x.3.

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I wouldn't be surprised if behind the scenes, the reason that the second Ultimate won't happen in 7.3 is the resources funelled to the Chaotic Raid.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I wouldn't be surprised if behind the scenes, the reason that the second Ultimate won't happen in 7.3 is the resources funelled to the Chaotic Raid.

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IDK. I see the Chaotic Alliance Raid as a 1:1 replacement for Variant/Criterion. They had no problem getting both out in Ew, and Variant + Criterion was much larger in scope than what was effectively a 24 player ex trial.

Given that the 2nd ultimate was delayed in both Shb and Dt, the pattern seems to be that it's the exploration zone that takes priority and causes Ultimate to be delayed.

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Originally Posted by Nero-Voidstails

sadly I have no hope because as long as ultimate/savage are the focus the game jobs and combat will never improve

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How is savage/ultimate any more "the focus" than it was 8 years ago in Strormblood or Shadowbringers when casual were happy?

let my give my 2 cents as someone who started off as a casual to doing multiple ultimates and savage tiers:-

- casuals themselves dont know what they want from the game, they only can give a rough idea and square enix misunderstands that

- the devs are slow to change things due to the way they manage quality of the product, which greatly affects ppl looking to have fun, entry to forked tower being problematic is an example which they wont fix till 7.3 and even that fix is a band-aid only

- the devs know that if they wanna make the content fun and interesting, they have to increase the difficulty there is no other way, u can only do so much with stack/spread mechanics, there are hardly any debuff based mechanics these days as they are implementing more reactive based mechanics

- the level sync system is highly contributing to the majority of content being boring, u have skill speed materia in your higher ilvl gear? forget about it, if u are a reaper with 2.49 gcd your kit breaks when you try to use your 7.2 bis in a 7.0 dungeon, so majority of the players don't even bother queueing outside expert roulette unless they need the tomes, which means doing (out of 2 dungeons) expert roulette with 1 of them being level synced, this heavily restricts player's choices to endgame content
- again the level sync system is bad when you want to have fun with your lvl 100 skills but you end up being thrown in a lvl 50 dungeon doing basic mindless rotation when you queue for a levelling roulette, this heavily demoralizes players from doing other roulettes and older content unless you are progressing msq from older expansions to move forward

there should be a mode that lets you queue into and play a random roulette that upscales content from older content to lvl 100 kind of like unreal trials, with no restriction to your job abilities, and it upscales similar to how level sync downscales for all content, not just 1 they manually fix and release

-they need to steer away from just adding hunts and fates to the zones, they need to innovate and add more battle content like the 1v1 duels that triggers somehow (figure it out devs), portals that take u to special area kind of like treasure map but without needing treasure map (they appear randomly or watever), special quests which you can do by piloting as members of scion etc. or even adding chocobo racing npcs in the wild which you can race against in that zone kind of like witcher 3, the list goes on and on but you get my idea (hear, feel, think and innovate), the devs need to design interesting and fun ways to engage the casual players and high-end raiders alike, its not like high-end raiders dont do these content they are also human and sometimes just want to chill with their friends

-msq story can be a hit or a miss sadly, but even then i feel like the story is in baby-mode for a long time, the story was amazing before because there were consequences and deaths even to the npcs when they fought powerful enemies or due to some political move in uldah etc. it gave immersion and realism, but now all we get in msq stories are constant baby-ing and tame adventures with friends, it needs to feel like an adventure, it needs more exciting bosses and rivals, it needs more realistic emotion from the characters in the msq not just filler for sake of content

I agree casual content needs to be spicier, but savage content and ultimate content isnt the issue. The issue is that the formula is stale as shit and yall are tired of it. As someone who does both pieces of content, i agree.

As a filthy casual, there's no repeatable content that I care to keep doing. I'm not into crafting, so Cosmic Exploration does nothing for me. Occult Crescent gets old very quickly, and I find the relics underwhelming and kinda ugly. Forked Tower is just a mess, and pretty much out of reach for casuals anyway. The second wing of Arcadion has so much visual vomit that it gives me a migraine. I've never played XI, so the alliance raid doesn't mean anything to me. Not a big fan of PVP either. And the main upcoming content is.....a deep dungeon. Which I'll probably do once to see the story and then forget about entirely, just like the last one.

So, I'm probably gonna unsub again until the next patch, do the story, and then decide if I want to stick around or go back on break.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

How is savage/ultimate any more "the focus" than it was 8 years ago in Strormblood or Shadowbringers when casual were happy?

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I don't think the focus has changed, but many of the games subsystems are very hollow and soulless since Stormblood, tbh...

Like, even many of the side activities like crafting and gathering felt satisfying to engage with, they were rewarding... These days, it's just a shallow experience between all the streamlining, and gutting of abilities.... There is a point when you can QoL the life out of some parts of the game, and this is one of the biggest changes between Stormblood and now.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

As a filthy casual, there's no repeatable content that I care to keep doing. I'm not into crafting, so Cosmic Exploration does nothing for me. Occult Crescent gets old very quickly, and I find the relics underwhelming and kinda ugly. Forked Tower is just a mess, and pretty much out of reach for casuals anyway. The second wing of Arcadion has so much visual vomit that it gives me a migraine. I've never played XI, so the alliance raid doesn't mean anything to me. Not a big fan of PVP either. And the main upcoming content is.....a deep dungeon. Which I'll probably do once to see the story and then forget about entirely, just like the last one.

So, I'm probably gonna unsub again until the next patch, do the story, and then decide if I want to stick around or go back on break.

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Honestly it sounds like you don't like XIV. Was there ever content for you outside of dungeons and story you liked?

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

I don't think the focus has changed, but many of the games subsystems are very hollow and soulless since Stormblood, tbh...

Like, even many of the side activities like crafting and gathering felt satisfying to engage with, they were rewarding... These days, it's just a shallow experience between all the streamlining, and gutting of abilities.... There is a point when you can QoL the life out of some parts of the game, and this is one of the biggest changes between Stormblood and now.

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I'm totally on board, but this doesn't have to come at the expense of savage/ulti level content. Realistically, SE needs to simply invest more into the game and take more risks. This game, even with its playerbase HALVED since ShB, still is VERY VERY profitable for the company.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

I'm totally on board, but this doesn't have to come at the expense of savage/ulti level content. Realistically, SE needs to simply invest more into the game and take more risks. This game, even with its playerbase HALVED since ShB, still is VERY VERY profitable for the company.

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I don't think it should, and I don't think it has to... Like.. I don't think it's practical to go that path where they need to take away x to give y. The game just needs to have a little self-respect and realize that beyond a certain point they aren't really catering to anyone, or anything, aside from this misbegotten idea of all-or-nothing.. Like, they try so hard to address that 1 vague issue, and in doing so... Nothing gets addressed. aka... Endwalker and this expansion.

With how lifeless they've made most of the game, they've just created this dilemma where it's basically... raid or nothing, if you want to actually find yourself even remotely immersed or engaged.

I remember long ago where I could spend hours upon hours, learning, and playing with abilities like Whistle While You Work, seeing how far I could stretch a recipe, whilst still keeping the control of the success of the recipe in my hands... These days it's just... Completely shallow, with a system placed on top of it, designed to try and mimic that experience, when really the content will only ever be as fun as the abilities provided.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Honestly it sounds like you don't like XIV. Was there ever content for you outside of dungeons and story you liked?

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While the story was always the main thing for me, there were plenty of other things. The problem is that I've done as much of them as I wanted to do, and there's nothing new coming up for me. So it's just a good time to take a break. I've been around since Heavensward, I've had plenty of time to get my value out of the game.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

You're unironically delusional if you think that they are actually catering to anyone.

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You're playing aren't you? doesn't look like you raid much.

I've cleared FT like 6 times and a whole lot of people in our clear runs don't do savage or ultimates.

Aside from ultimates, there's really nothing a casual can't do.

whether you choose to engage in x content is up to you...

don't conflate being a casual with being lazy or disinterested.

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Originally Posted by Bryson

You're playing aren't you? doesn't look like you raid much.

I've cleared FT like 6 times and a whole lot of people in our clear runs don't do savage or ultimates.

Aside from ultimates, there's really nothing a casual can't do.

whether you choose to engage in x content is up to you...

don't conflate being a casual with being lazy or disinterested.

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This is not my main character.

Good for them? I personally don't take an issue with the difficulty of FT itself. I take issue with the lack of continuity between the expectation of the duty, and how the devs 'intended' for the duty to be queued up, e.g., in a public instance. Literally don't even care outside of this point.

Not an argument I've even made, but OK? The argument I've personally made is that normal mode is a miserable experience. Not whether casual players can or cannot raid. With the way this game is designed, it is not casual unfriendly (Never made that point either). My point is that also if you want to have an engaging experience then your only option is to basically raid, because they've been routinely abandoning systems. I've raided in the past, enjoyed it, but didn't enjoy the accessibility behind it (Eden's Verse), stopped bothering since. That's all there is to it

Well done, sherlock? Again, not a point I even made.

Again, also not a point I even made? Are you coming in here just to call everyone lazy that doesn't raid or something?

I called you delusional, because you have this strange idea that the devs have been pandering to casuals, when in reality they haven't been pandering to anything or anyone beyond that misbegotten idea of all or nothing with feedback, and you've only really confirmed this seeing as you're trying to attribute arguments made by OP onto other people, e.g., myself.

I'm not a casual but it does feel like when Yoshi-P said he tipped the scales too far in one direction (easier) and wanted to introduce more friction, he's now tipping the scales too far in the other direction. The first mistake was Criterion. Criterion should have been a step above Variant to make that more accessible content. It might still be alive today if they had. Then Savage could have been the current Criterion version to provide challenge requiring more coordinated groups.

Chaotic was an interesting experiment. They didn't paste the "Savage" flag on it so I saw people who had never touched even Extremes try it out because I think they thought it was just a hard alliance raid. And to be honest, that's probably the route they should have gone with it. I never ended up completing it. I ran it for a few weeks at launch and groups just kept breaking up after one or two pulls so it wasn't worth it to me to keep trying to prog it. If it had been a hard version of an alliance raid, then I think it would have had more longevity. Hopefully they are keeping that example in mind and giving serious thought to dedicating resources to that content in the future, especially now that they admit a lack of resources as their reason for not having a normal Forked Tower.

Forked Tower needed a basic normal mode that used the cipher system in zone and a Savage challenge version that had a direct outside instance queue. You can do Dalriada do this day (or at least up to right before OC, I haven't been in there since OC drop) because people still in Bozja still love running it. You can easily do it even with newbies with a couple of groups worth of people. I took some friends through right before OC. This would have been content everyone from casual to hardcore could enjoy together.

I don't quite understand their thought processes. I think maybe they have this fixated idea of more challenge because that's the message they were sent at some point, but they're not considering how they need to balance that to make the majority of content something most players can enjoy.

I don't think anything has been addressed because the essential problem has stayed the same. The hard content in this game is too hard and the easy content is too easy.

I was somewhat feeling the weight of how much they expect from Hardcore players in the second half of Endwalker, Anabaseios was intensely difficult to clear in party finder. Now I want to make it clear this isn't a matter that I think learning these fights is all that hard for an average gamer, or even that takes a high degree of skill to defeat them. However also within is a massive overestimation of the average FFXIV players abilities, communication skills, and commitment. In Party Finder it shows. P10s was agonizing dedication of hours a night for over two weeks straight in party finder for me, it felt like I should had been doing an ultimate. P12S was the same. And this was after i memorized, and more or less mastered the mechanics. It was all too simply complex and punishing for 8 individuals who are unlikely to get everything perfect every time.
And then there was Critereon, which was just Savage again, but there was no players, barely any guides,it seems these were designed for raiders to chew into but none of them were interested. the content was DOA and now it's beyond dead due to having a forced level sync.

Dawntrail started off well with an easier first tier, but after Choatic the Cruiserweight Savage, they seem to be right back to where they were. M6S and M7S being massive walls with high execution, the ads phase being one of the most punishing mechanics ever and the boss of 7 having one of the strictest DPS chests since P8S p1.

The trouble is going to be always, Square wants to serve hardcore raiders. Many of the big raid streamers (not naming any of them) praised the hell out of something like p10s, some of them even called it the greatest savage ever. This sentiment is the exact opposite of most experiencing in in party finder or with a non-hardcore group. It was the most misrable fight ever. The trouble is harder=better is what gets the megaphone, and their viewers may feel inclined to promote these views, even if they don't raid themselves.
But I also sense, by making so much hard content these days, they want players to engage with this content. They *want* us to be raiders, they want those people who might had not tried to give it a try. Because afterall being into raiding makes for a dedicated player who will remain subbed for long periods of time to await new tiers and challenges.

So was it really so bad when lightweight was a little bit easier? I know some complained but the community was hardly on fire over it. There was a lot of positivity about the lower difficulty, especially after Anabaseios, and Abyssos.

As for the too easy part, there's a lot less to say. The dungeons are mostly hilariously easy and unrewarding, the MSQ is so afraid of challenge and there was few opportunities for it. I realize some players struggle, but would it really be so hard to give them something like - trust npcs are just godmoded to carry you, and msq challenges have a "very easy mode" toggle?

I'm not great at writing out solutions, other than there needs to be levels to raiding, and Square overestimates the average player. Forked Tower shows the extent of that overestimation, and to a lesser degree Chaotic.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Honestly it sounds like you don't like XIV. Was there ever content for you outside of dungeons and story you liked?

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I'm starting to think the anger a lot of people feel towards this game is because they are realizing it's an MMO.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

I'm starting to think the anger a lot of people feel towards this game is because they are realizing it's an MMO.

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The game has spent years trying it's best to not look or act like one, so I don't put blame solely on the players who don't actually want to play an MMO.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

The game has spent years trying it's best to not look or act like one, so I don't put blame solely on the players who don't actually want to play an MMO.

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I mean, it's the biggest appeal, right? It's not designed like the typical MMO pushing for FOMO (remembering how fast you could fall behind your friends in WoW if you didn't log in almost daily), so you can do everything at your own pace.

But it's STILL an MMO.

It is, in fact, very much an MMO. Easy content lacks longevity because it's, well, easy. Ultimates last a while because progging them is effort. And outside of some outliers, Savage is easy enough to be beaten by literally everyone, too, and after it's outgeared even moreso.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

The game has spent years trying it's best to not look or act like one, so I don't put blame solely on the players who don't actually want to play an MMO.

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I wish they would just let the game be what it is and stop trying so hard to make everything appeal to everyone. This approach results in every facet of the game making so many compromises that it doesn't appeal to anyone.

It's an MMO that doesn't require players to co-operate or interact with each other.

There are no long term goals to work towards because anything worth getting is quick and easy, and anything that takes time or is difficult to get isn't worthwhile.

The combat system has been heavily streamlined to appeal to people who aren't interested in battle content, which in turn makes it less appealing to those who are interested in the combat system.

Crafting/gathering has been so heavily streamlined that it's mostly botted and has been made so accessible that it isn't a viable way to make gil because you can't sell gathered/crafted items to people who can easily gather or craft them for themselves while AFK.

I think they've designed themselves into a corner by trying way too hard to make XIV the friendly and approachable MMO. Sure, they removed a lot of the "pain points" that come with MMOs, but they also made the game so boring in the process that it isn't worth playing anymore.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

I'm starting to think the anger a lot of people feel towards this game is because they are realizing it's an MMO.

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Is there an implied "That isn't all that good", at the end of your sentence or something?

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Is there an implied "That isn't all that good", at the end of your sentence or something?

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Idk, it's weird when people come and say CASUALS ARE BEING STARVED OUT OF CONTENT, and then you point out to the massive amount of content made accessible for "casual players" and then they say but it's boring to grind, craft, gather, raid, market flip, play DDR Minigames, etc.

Like what did they expect when they signed into an MMO?

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Originally Posted by Volgia

Idk, it's weird when people come and say CASUALS ARE BEING STARVED OUT OF CONTENT, and then you point out to the massive amount of content made accessible for "casual players" and then they say but it's boring to grind, craft, gather, raid, market flip, play DDR Minigames, etc.

Like what did they expect when they signed into an MMO?

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Well given they've made a fairly big effort to make all of these as unengaging as humanly possible, under the guise of all-or-nothing, it's really not difficult to see why they may view themselves as being starved for content, when they've reduced everything to a pathetic husk. -- Granted, this isn't really exclusive to just casual players.

Like, compared many of the casual activities, e.g., crafting now, versus how it was when they actually cared about creating an engaging experience, the difference is night and day, how interactive it was, and what it expected from a player, it's night and day difference if you ask me. Crafting now? Bot infested, and when they try and insert something engaging, it still gets undermined by a half-baked job system for crafters -- and sorry, but yes some of these systems are incredibly boring.

What I find weirder is that people seem to have this idea that all casual players want a complete and utter unengaging experience, and that somehow activities like raiding existing can act as a sufficient enough justification.

What did they expect? Perhaps something that actually actively encouraged them to play the game, and interact with the game even on a fundamental and casual level... Rather than a game that essentially actively scorned them and pushed them away for it.

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

It is, in fact, very much an MMO. Easy content lacks longevity because it's, well, easy. Ultimates last a while because progging them is effort. And outside of some outliers, Savage is easy enough to be beaten by literally everyone, too, and after it's outgeared even moreso.

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It's silliness like this that is partly responsible for the lack of engaging content.

There is no reason that content that is accessible (easy) cannot also be engaging.

A bit out in the field here on my take, but if Yoshida's response was basically to explain to 90% of the playerbase that most of the newer released content is for the sweaty FCs and dedicated raid groups, then that tells me that manpower has been siphoned for the next big bait-on-the-hook but SE isn't being forthcoming about it. In hindsight, FFXIV is already being put in maintenance mode due to SE's decision-making and interference and the gamble is to see if the next "big thing" hooks the playerbase. That's just my gut. It would explain a lot, despite them not explaining anything to their public. FFXIV now is becoming simple service to streamer communities and those that are in static groups, making solo play obselete IN SPITE of them adding MORE to the Trust System, a system that caters to solo.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

It's silliness like this that is partly responsible for the lack of engaging content.

There is no reason that content that is accessible (easy) cannot also be engaging.

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The way I view much of the content and systems in this game currently is...

They are currently maintained not with any specific demographic in mind, but simply for the sake of hitting some arbitrary system feature quota, and this isn't really entirely off-brand either... It's just there existing so they can say they have this feature without actually routinely updating and refreshing it, e.g., Grand Companies.

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Originally Posted by SalamanderIX

As for the too easy part, there's a lot less to say. The dungeons are mostly hilariously easy and unrewarding, the MSQ is so afraid of challenge and there was few opportunities for it. I realize some players struggle, but would it really be so hard to give them something like - trust npcs are just godmoded to carry you, and msq challenges have a "very easy mode" toggle?

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I think maybe the problem on the "too easy" side is more like "too streamlined." They did make a lot of strides toward giving the bosses of the light-party dungeons more attack patterns and movement, and they are harder than they were before 7.0. But despite being a bit more challenging, nothing has changed about the structure, and outside of a couple specific attacks all of the patterns have been seen before. It's still just three bosses broken up by exactly eight groups of regular mobs that can be grouped up in pairs due to walls, and players still use their AoE rotation on the packs and their boss rotations on the bosses while dodging the patterns they've seen so often they're likely to just guess that a donut will be followed by a circle, 180 will be followed by -180 on the first try.

I definitely agree there needs to be a better balance and more content in the middle grounds (which is honestly exactly what CEs and CLL/Dalriada were before), but they also need to mix things up and stop sticking to the same formulas for everything all the time. Every expansion it's 10 levels across six new areas, six dungeons, and two trials. Every time we have to get the same number of aether currents from quests and finding them to fly. Every patch cycle has three allied societies, which have been further codified into the same combat/gathering/crafting every time. Every major patch has either an alliance raid or a full-party set with the exact same tiers of equipment obtained in the exact same way. And then after adhering to the strict formulas, there's barely any room left for anything new and we get "not enough time or resources to make two versions of Forked Tower." This is the problem from which all other content problems stem.

Put more simply, the issue isn't that they didn't make Vanguard or the Shadow Lord more difficult enough than Ktisis Hyperboreia or Nald'thal, it's that other than the difficulty changes and different boss attack patterns they might as well be the same place despite the dev team having to work just as hard to make all the new visuals and story parts.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

It's silliness like this that is partly responsible for the lack of engaging content.

There is no reason that content that is accessible (easy) cannot also be engaging.

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The person you're quoting also thinks Savage is midcore so I'd take what they're saying with a grain of salt. There are still plenty of people in PF still progging all current floors. If what they were saying was anywhere near true, then there would have just been relcears only since week 1.

In regards to the MMO thing, XIV has always played fast and loose with the MMO concepts. This was always an RPGMMO and that was the audience they tried to draw in. When it came out, people were drawn from other MMOs like WoW that had more FOMO or didn't focus as much on story. The story has stumbled with this expansion which is probably why the more RPG-focused side may be a little less than satisfied. And they're chasing FOMO more whether they intend to or not. So now they're alienating players who didn't like that in other MMOs. But the MMO elements of this game were never the big draw. They were the optional things that players could do but could also decide not to do and still have a rewarding experience.

There have been a couple of articles about the shareholders meeting recently and they did admit that quality has declined and sub numbers are down. So it will be interesting to see what path they decide to take to fix that. Do they continue to try to emulate other MMOs or do they go back to the unique experiences that drew many in the first place?

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Well given they've made a fairly big effort to make all of these as unengaging as humanly possible, under the guise of all-or-nothing, it's really not difficult to see why they may view themselves as being starved for content, when they've reduced everything to a pathetic husk. -- Granted, this isn't really exclusive to just casual players.

Like, compared many of the casual activities, e.g., crafting now, versus how it was when they actually cared about creating an engaging experience, the difference is night and day, how interactive it was, and what it expected from a player, it's night and day difference if you ask me. Crafting now? Bot infested, and when they try and insert something engaging, it still gets undermined by a half-baked job system for crafters -- and sorry, but yes some of these systems are incredibly boring.

What I find weirder is that people seem to have this idea that all casual players want a complete and utter unengaging experience, and that somehow activities like raiding existing can act as a sufficient enough justification.

What did they expect? Perhaps something that actually actively encouraged them to play the game, and interact with the game even on a fundamental and casual level... Rather than a game that essentially actively scorned them and pushed them away for it.

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And you think that old crafting was less boring than it is now? You think something like the ARR and HW's grind were just more engaging? Cuz they weren't. The only thing they had going for them is that they weren't as accessible as they are now.

Square Enix pivoted hard to make the game incredibly more casual than it used to be, by rewarding you hard through no effort, they dissipated the sense of achievement you would get by doing anything in this game.
This makes it so you can't really play the game endlessly without feeling like it's pointless, unless you play a couple of hours a week, which is literally the definition of a casual player, which is exactly the kind of player CBU3 is doing content for.

They aren't doing massive amounts of content for hardcore players, if they were really pivoting towards them, the dungeons, alliance raids and OC would all be 1000% more punishing.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

The way I view much of the content and systems in this game currently is...

They are currently maintained not with any specific demographic in mind, but simply for the sake of hitting some arbitrary system feature quota, and this isn't really entirely off-brand either... It's just there existing so they can say they have this feature without actually routinely updating and refreshing it, e.g., Grand Companies.

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Agreed. It feels like the design process is as imaginative as filling out the Island Sanctuary workshop schedule.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

And you think that old crafting was less boring than it is now? You think something like the ARR and HW's grind were just more engaging? Cuz they weren't. The only thing they had going for them is that they weren't as accessible as they are now.

Square Enix pivoted hard to make the game incredibly more casual than it used to be, by rewarding you hard through no effort, they dissipated the sense of achievement you would get by doing anything in this game.
This makes it so you can't really play the game endlessly without feeling like it's pointless, unless you play a couple of hours a week, which is literally the definition of a casual player, which is exactly the kind of player CBU3 is doing content for.

They aren't doing massive amounts of content for hardcore players, if they were really pivoting towards them, the dungeons, alliance raids and OC would all be 1000% more punishing.

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The only meaningful reward that any game can provide is being interesting to play.

Those who equate "interesting" with "hard" are a tiny minority.

It's puzzling to me that the same crowd who complain that "this is supposed to be an MMO" are also the ones that lobby hardest to make FF14 a raid simulator.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

And you think that old crafting was less boring than it is now? You think something like the ARR and HW's grind were just more engaging? Cuz they weren't. The only thing they had going for them is that they weren't as accessible as they are now.

Square Enix pivoted hard to make the game incredibly more casual than it used to be, by rewarding you hard through no effort, they dissipated the sense of achievement you would get by doing anything in this game.
This makes it so you can't really play the game endlessly without feeling like it's pointless, unless you play a couple of hours a week, which is literally the definition of a casual player, which is exactly the kind of player CBU3 is doing content for.

They aren't doing massive amounts of content for hardcore players, if they were really pivoting towards them, the dungeons, alliance raids and OC would all be 1000% more punishing.

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Then you clearly didn't interact with it very much, it had you doing a wide array of content, you had abilities that placed a great deal of RNG control in your hands, e.g., the Whistle While You Work system, which was a suite of abilities in itself, which allowed you to do recipes a lot more creatively, the general recipes also had you engaging far more too, and were more diversely spread than just the simple... 4 folklore, 2 tome items. Needn't get started on the rework to innovation and inner quiet, which has largely turned the control stat into a mess (Depending on HQ contribution, you could find yourself having a lot of redundant stat, something that Ceremonial gear encountered, . Gear progression in ARR and HW was a lot better than it is now, since it actually had a sense of deep character progression, versus the simple... "Go out and scrip it bro". Quit the game for 16 months? No problem, go do one of the old Custom delivery clients, and there you go, all caught up in the space of 20 minutes.

You can honestly call it what you want, I frankly don't care, people simple want a reason to play the game, that gave a reason, as it stands, this game tries to give more reasons to not play it, than what it does to actually play it.

I don't really think they are doing content for anyone, the pace with which the game does content, and the depth that it releases it at, is abysmal at best, even for those that can only play for a couple hours weekly. As my schedule currently stands, I am that player -- and I am bored out of my mind.

Like I have suggested several times, they aren't really doing massive amounts of content for anyone. The only thing they are doing is creating feature and system quotas with nobody -- or nothing -- in mind. The only issue I take is that somehow, some people seem to believe that the state of this game is defensible because we have raids as a means of 'challenging and engaging yourself'.

Like I also said in my initial post... People were actually wanting -- and expecting to have a reason to play the game.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

The only meaningful reward that any game can provide is being interesting to play.

Those who equate "interesting" with "hard" are a tiny minority.

It's puzzling to me that the same crowd who complain that "this is supposed to be an MMO" are also the ones that lobby hardest to make FF14 a raid simulator.

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The only meaningful reward an MMO can give you is that you are playing with a lot of people and making a community based on the content you play. The only people who successfully do that in this game are roleplayers and raiders, because it's the only type of content where you need to be social to succeed.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

The only meaningful reward an MMO can give you is that you are playing with a lot of people and making a community based on the content you play. The only people who successfully do that in this game are roleplayers and raiders, because it's the only type of content where you need to be social to succeed.

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I completely disagree, as apparently does SE.

"Social" means different things to different people, and the only meaningful measure of "success" in any game is that you are enjoying the game.

If all FFXIV means to you is a source of raiding content that has to be cleared, then yes, you need to coordinate with other people. But there needn't be anything remotely "social" about it; it's purely transactional.

In a story-based MMO, you can watch the movie on your own or in a theatre with others. Anyone who uses the Market Board is participating in the multiplayer aspect.

Bro not even the healer strike got to them, and it was covered in content creator videos and major blog articles. Also small dev company so you have to cut them some slack.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I completely disagree, as apparently does SE.

"Social" means different things to different people, and the only meaningful measure of "success" in any game is that you are enjoying the game.

If all FFXIV means to you is a source of raiding content that has to be cleared, then yes, you need to coordinate with other people. But there needn't be anything remotely "social" about it; it's purely transactional.

In a story-based MMO, you can watch the movie on your own or in a theatre with others. Anyone who uses the Market Board is participating in the multiplayer aspect.

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Social as in I need to interact with you in order to play the game. In non-raiding content I don't need to talk to you to play the game, some content even disables your ability to communicate when you play (Crystalline Conflict).