Solutions for Content Drought during between Patches & other solutions for Gameplay

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

The drought is purely the result of one's own choices and one can make the choice to adjust their time rather than expecting other people to move mountains to accommodate them.

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This isn't even a disingenuous take. It's flat out wrong—to a comical degree even.

If you keep up to date on content, you will run out long before the next patch unless you barely play the game. Case in point, 6.3's entire content drop can be easily consumed over a weekend even playing at a slower pace. There is virtually nothing with any form of longevity save farming Rubicante 50 times. If it happens to take you nearly six weeks to finish the MSQ or Alliance storyline that isn't because there's oh so much content but because you've simply not been playing the game. Neither one of these things is more than a few hours. While I appreciate some people can only manage to play a few hours a week, content shouldn't be balanced around that sort of schedule for the precise same reason you shouldn't cater towards people with 10+ hours a day of free time. It's two different extremes when most people live in the middle where they do have time to play far more reasonable hours yet are still running out of things to do—particularly if they are long time players who have been caught up for years.

It shouldn't take what's looking to be two months for any form of content with longevity to release outside of Ultimate.

People want grinds but I'd be willing to bet that there would be issues if devs shifted focus to them. The fix isn't even just long grinds, it's long grinds that folks would actually like doing. That would need to include padded steps n road locks to keep you from the goal. Maybe even more rng to drop or obtain whatever it is that's needed. Outside of Eureka Style content I don't see it differing much from what's described above, and even Eurekas grind was criticized for being to much. So idk

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

You remind me of the conversations in the WoW forums going all the way back to Cataclysm (and I know others say the conversations predate Cataclysm but I wasn't paying much attention prior). "WoW is doomed, WoW is dying. If the developers don't make this change I want then it will be dead and it will be the fault of other players who didn't want the same change."

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And they were right.

https://files.catbox.moe/1j4k62.png

So much hate, anger and toxicity in the MMO community comes directly from people who's favorite game came crashing down and left them feeling neglected by the developers. People lost their favorite hobby and their entire social circle because everyone else started deserting the game. Around 91% of the player base left. Do you really want that to happen to us too? Do you not understand how decimating that is for a game's community?

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

it's still got a healthy population and profitable as a MMO

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https://files.catbox.moe/c9bg7a.gif

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

And they were right.

https://files.catbox.moe/1j4k62.png

So much hate, anger and toxicity in the MMO community comes directly from people who's favorite game came crashing down and left them feeling neglected by the developers. People lost their favorite hobby and their entire social circle because everyone else started deserting the game. Around 91% of the player base left. Do you really want that to happen to us too? Do you not understand how decimating that is for a game's community?



https://files.catbox.moe/c9bg7a.gif

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I mean can you show me a xiv graph? And (based on what I've seen) the masses don't have most of the issues people here present. I've yet to see anyone truly claim something like WoW is dead. That talk stopped months ago

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

And they were right.

https://files.catbox.moe/1j4k62.png

So much hate, anger and toxicity in the MMO community comes directly from people who's favorite game came crashing down and left them feeling neglected by the developers. People lost their favorite hobby and their entire social circle because everyone else started deserting the game. Around 91% of the player base left. Do you really want that to happen to us too? Do you not understand how decimating that is for a game's community?



https://files.catbox.moe/c9bg7a.gif

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While I would like to agree with you. We dont have any grounded data to make these assumptions since I dont think SE releases those numbers.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

And they were right.

https://files.catbox.moe/1j4k62.png

So much hate, anger and toxicity in the MMO community comes directly from people who's favorite game came crashing down and left them feeling neglected by the developers. People lost their favorite hobby and their entire social circle because everyone else started deserting the game. Around 91% of the player base left. Do you really want that to happen to us too? Do you not understand how decimating that is for a game's community?



https://files.catbox.moe/c9bg7a.gif

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citation needed

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

And they were right.

https://files.catbox.moe/1j4k62.png

So much hate, anger and toxicity in the MMO community comes directly from people who's favorite game came crashing down and left them feeling neglected by the developers. People lost their favorite hobby and their entire social circle because everyone else started deserting the game. Around 91% of the player base left. Do you really want that to happen to us too? Do you not understand how decimating that is for a game's community?



https://files.catbox.moe/c9bg7a.gif

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The issue is that WoW crashed down precisely because it did change, from being a casual-friendly, family-friendly MMO to the toxic cesspool that is M+ and end-game raiding as the primary focuses. FFXIV right now has been at a steady upward trajectory, with EW being its largest playerbase yet and receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews. The disastrous approach would be to completely change their focus to appease the minuscule minority that is the negative echo chamber on these forums.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

The issue is that WoW crashed down precisely because it did change, from being a casual-friendly, family-friendly MMO to the toxic cesspool that is M+ and end-game raiding as the primary focuses. FFXIV right now has been at a steady upward trajectory, with EW being its largest playerbase yet and receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews. The disastrous approach would be to completely change their focus to appease the minuscule minority that is the negative echo chamber on these forums.

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Wrong. If you look at the graphs for WoW's sub numbers before they stopped releasing them, you can see they climbed nonstop up until the end of WotLK. Then, it started to dip at the end of Cataclysm. The end of WotLK is when they added the Random Dungeon Finder, and the end of Cataclysm is when they released LFR and overall started trying to make things more casual friendly and whatnot.

Note that one of the best received expansions after WotLK was Legion, which is the expansion they added M+.

I think the only way to verify any of this for FFXIV is by having a census with active accounts and plot out all the numbers since EW. But not even XIVCensus gives out such information; they're not affiliated with SE, so they don't have access to how long people have been subbed and how their resub patterns are. That's information that's exclusive to SE.

Any other form of data would have an incredibly large margin of error, making it unfit to calculate.

Google trends is a neat idea, but that's just trends. Stuff dies down over time naturally unless massive events happen or it's sustained by the fanbase. It doesn't necessarily translate to in-game numbers for sure, nor how much SE is profiting monthly to really know if any drop is even affecting them. So "XIV is dying", we don't really know if it is past what is obvious.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Wrong. If you look at the graphs for WoW's sub numbers before they stopped releasing them, you can see they climbed nonstop up until the end of WotLK. Then, it started to dip at the end of Cataclysm. The end of WotLK is when they added the Random Dungeon Finder, and the end of Cataclysm is when they released LFR and overall started trying to make things more casual friendly and whatnot.

Note that one of the best received expansions after WotLK was Legion, which is the expansion they added M+.

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M+ must not have done much to keep people sated n staying then

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Note that one of the best received expansions after WotLK was Legion, which is the expansion they added M+.

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so was the 91% going poof before or after they started sticking with the M+ format?

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

This isn't even a disingenuous take. It's flat out wrong—to a comical degree even.

If you keep up to date on content, you will run out long before the next patch unless you barely play the game. Case in point, 6.3's entire content drop can be easily consumed over a weekend even playing at a slower pace. There is virtually nothing with any form of longevity save farming Rubicante 50 times. If it happens to take you nearly six weeks to finish the MSQ or Alliance storyline that isn't because there's oh so much content but because you've simply not been playing the game. Neither one of these things is more than a few hours. While I appreciate some people can only manage to play a few hours a week, content shouldn't be balanced around that sort of schedule for the precise same reason you shouldn't cater towards people with 10+ hours a day of free time. It's two different extremes when most people live in the middle where they do have time to play far more reasonable hours yet are still running out of things to do—particularly if they are long time players who have been caught up for years.

It shouldn't take what's looking to be two months for any form of content with longevity to release outside of Ultimate.

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You're the one that's comically wrong. You have no idea of what's going on behind the scenes or any clue as to how long it takes to make content, even though the proof has been out there for whole decades. How fast people get through it is purely up to the individual. They've been very open and honest about things and said they fully expect people to stop and do other things. MMOs are a long term investment, but they're never meant to occupy 100% of your free time. The grinds people look back on longingly were just lazy design meant to try and keep people around while they spent a year working on the next batch of content. You can't prove me wrong and you can't point to a game that successfully and legitimately puts out more than XIV does.

SE has been pretty consistent on content delivery and that is what keeps people coming back time and again. It's more than most other developers have considered doing. Just because they don't have everything you want in a patch doesn't mean you can magically deny its existence.

LL part one comes out: "hey, we're two months away"
LL part 2: only 10 more days
Patch x.x0 - new story, new trial
Odd patches - alliance
Even patches - raids
x.x5 not-main-story add-ons

What's truly comical is the inability to come up with actual feedback that the devs can work with. You only ever say you're bored or this sucks. Things don't change for the supposed better way you may have had in mind, but never spoke. "Outrage! That's just them ignoring us and favoring JP." :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Wrong. If you look at the graphs for WoW's sub numbers before they stopped releasing them, you can see they climbed nonstop up until the end of WotLK. Then, it started to dip at the end of Cataclysm. The end of WotLK is when they added the Random Dungeon Finder, and the end of Cataclysm is when they released LFR and overall started trying to make things more casual friendly and whatnot.

Note that one of the best received expansions after WotLK was Legion, which is the expansion they added M+.

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Not wrong at all. WotLK was the apex because it was the game at the time and for the entire RTS generation, Arthas was the villain. Speaking practically, there wasn't going to be a way to top that.

WoW was always casual-friendly up to that point. You can't compare it to "normal" things in MMO's today. You have to compare it to what existed at the time. WoW was the game back then that had plenty of non-raid max-level content, didn't have experience penalties for dying, and so on. Compared to the other MMO's at the time, such as EQ, FFXI, etc., it was very casual-friendly. What forced people away was precisely the switch from that philosophy to M+. They took away token-based gear and put it behind increasing tiers of M+ and Heroic/Mythic raiding as another example.

As for Legion, look at your own graph. Being "well-received" still didn't equate to much compared to the WotLK era, and when you consider how "since WotLK" included things like WoD and Shadowlands, being "best received" isn't really saying much. By the way, the popularity Legion had was because of the story once again referencing the RTS series, not "because" of M+. When you see how everything went right back down as soon as you removed that connection, it's obvious M+ wasn't what made Legion popular.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

You remind me of the conversations in the WoW forums going all the way back to Cataclysm (and I know others say the conversations predate Cataclysm but I wasn't paying much attention prior). "WoW is doomed, WoW is dying. If the developers don't make this change I want then it will be dead and it will be the fault of other players who didn't want the same change."

WoW isn't dead yet even though a decade has passed. It may not have as many players as it had back in Cataclsym but it's still got a healthy population and profitable as a MMO. Many of us moved on because we didn't like the design choices made and no longer enjoyed the content but our departure has not killed the WoW community.

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WoW absolutely died.

Not literally dead and over in the sense that it's profitable and has a playerbase, more dead in the game itself. Sort of like an animated corpse that still moved but had no soul left. Their subscriber count absolutely plummeted (and ff14 has proved that even a decade old game can maintain sub counts). Their reputation died. Players lost all trust in them. Dragonflight turned out to be good, but most people won't look at it. They're trying to revive it and made some great changes, but it's an uphill battle and will never really be the same.

The WoW playerbase argued it was "fine" all the way until it was near unrepairable. "Game is fine, I'm having fun, stop whining or quit, it's normal MMO's are unpopular, old games lose subs". Next thing the game became a meme in Shadowlands and their players leave in droves for Endwalker.

FF14 hasn't reached that point yet, but some people don't want to see it reach that point. There is an 800 page topic on how bad the story is, the craft forums are near dead, bots are everywhere, Island Sanctuary was a massive waste of resources, healers are down to one button most of the time and some people are sitting in a bubble trying to convince themselves nothing is wrong and getting aggressive every time someone tries to pull them out.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

WoW absolutely died.

Not literally dead and over in the sense that it's profitable and has a playerbase, more dead in the game itself. Sort of like an animated corpse that still moved but had no soul left. Their subscriber count absolutely plummeted (and ff14 has proved that even a decade old game can maintain sub counts). Their reputation died. Players lost all trust in them. Dragonflight turned out to be good, but most people won't look at it. They're trying to revive it and made some great changes, but it's an uphill battle and will never really be the same.

The WoW playerbase argued it was "fine" all the way until it was near unrepairable. "Game is fine, I'm having fun, stop whining or quit, it's normal MMO's are unpopular, old games lose subs". Next thing the game became a meme in Shadowlands and their players leave in droves for Endwalker.

FF14 hasn't reached that point yet, but some people don't want to see it reach that point. There is an 800 page topic on how bad the story is, the craft forums are near dead, bots are everywhere, Island Sanctuary was a massive waste of resources, healers are down to one button most of the time and some people are sitting in a bubble trying to convince themselves nothing is wrong and getting aggressive every time someone tries to pull them out.

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Stop using that page about the bad story as a point. Much of that thread has nothing to do with story. Craft forums are dead yet market boards are popping off rn. I've not seen a bot since 6.0. Sanctuary was a waste of resources. Tell that to the people enjoying said content and rewards from it. Imo it only becomes a waste if the content is abandoned. Not everyone is "convincing themselves" that nothing is wrong. For some people and their experience nothing IS wrong. I'm not gonna shove issues down someone's throat who may not have them. Makes sense of folks get aggressive if you're doing that.

No matter how it's sliced the masses are happy wit how the game is currently. That doesn't mean they don't want any change, just means they're content as is right now.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

WoW absolutely died.

Not literally dead and over in the sense that it's profitable and has a playerbase, more dead in the game itself. Sort of like an animated corpse that still moved but had no soul left. Their subscriber count absolutely plummeted (and ff14 has proved that even a decade old game can maintain sub counts). Their reputation died. Players lost all trust in them. Dragonflight turned out to be good, but most people won't look at it. They're trying to revive it and made some great changes, but it's an uphill battle and will never really be the same.

The WoW playerbase argued it was "fine" all the way until it was near unrepairable. "Game is fine, I'm having fun, stop whining or quit, it's normal MMO's are unpopular, old games lose subs". Next thing the game became a meme in Shadowlands and their players leave in droves for Endwalker.

FF14 hasn't reached that point yet, but some people don't want to see it reach that point. There is an 800 page topic on how bad the story is, the craft forums are near dead, bots are everywhere, Island Sanctuary was a massive waste of resources, healers are down to one button most of the time and some people are sitting in a bubble trying to convince themselves nothing is wrong and getting aggressive every time someone tries to pull them out.

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You're the one trying to convince themself (and others) of something. Maybe it's time to pack it up and move on, but your ego won't let you. It's hilarious that you pick those particular parts of the forum to gauge how things are, when we all know the forum in general is a poor way to gauge things at all. It's just you and your cronies bitching and moaning about this and that.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

I've not seen a bot since 6.0.

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In what little I play anymore I still see bots, even still in the main cities...

For Island Sanctuaries being a waste of resources, I will say as someone who only went to the island once and confirmed the content was never designed for me that I don't consider it a waste of resources unless gameplay content was cut because of creating island sanctuaries. About the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that may have been lost is the sidequest with additional trials to do, ie the 4 lords in SB and the weapon fights in ShB. Part of this may have been a focus on doing 2 Ultimate fights, but at the same time DSR was initially planned for ShB so who knows on that front.

After all the WoW comparisons and whatnot I think the part that I worry about is the probably first real "content drought" in WoW which was WoD. The entire reasoning they had such a massive drought is thought to be that all of that focus went towards creating Legion. I think my comparison is that I worry that we are losing potential content to FF16, no matter how much it is denied. With how seemingly desperate SE has been to hire more developers, I wonder if they asked too much of CBU3 with maintaining FF14's cadence as well as creating an entirely new mainline game.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

WoW absolutely died.

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Then why hasn't Activision-Blizzard put it on the chopping block with all the other IPs in their portfolio that weren't performing up to expectation?

They don't need an expensive to develop game like WoW to protect their IP rights to the Warcraft franchise. All they have to do is push out another P2W mobile lootbox pinata using some of the Warcraft characters and locations. Even another Warcraft Remaster failure would do it.

WoW isn't dead. It's still got more active players now than most current MMOs that are operating successfully. It might feel dead to those of us who once played it then left because we didn't like the changes they made to the game but that does not make it dead.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

FF14 hasn't reached that point yet, but some people don't want to see it reach that point. There is an 800 page topic on how bad the story is, the craft forums are near dead, bots are everywhere, Island Sanctuary was a massive waste of resources, healers are down to one button most of the time and some people are sitting in a bubble trying to convince themselves nothing is wrong and getting aggressive every time someone tries to pull them out.

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Except every game is going to reach that point one day. It's unavoidable. Technology changes but the underlying game engine can only be changed so far so fast. Gaming community tastes change and what was once popular no longer is, though could be again in the future.

People can complain about how bad the story is but can they point out a popular MMO that as a better story?

The crafting forums are near dead probably more because of the number of crafting specific websites and Discords out there that are able to share detailed information in a far better format than what could done here (Lodestone and the forums really need some modernization).

Bots have always been everywhere and FFXIV is hardly the only MMO to suffer that problem.

Considering the number of players who seem to still be having fun with Island Sanctuary and lacking knowledge of what percentage of the game's development resources were spent on it we can't state it was a massive waste.

If you think healers are down to a single button most of the time, it seems like the game has done a reasonably good job teaching those you play with the importance of doing mechanics correctly instead of standing still like glass cannons. I wish I always got to play with whomever you play with because I promise you I'm using a lot more than a single button in hunts and random Duty Finder groups.

I don't know of anyone who doesn't see room for improvement. I do know that a lot of players who view issues as minor overall and not having a major negative impact on their enjoyment of the game just as there are players like you who see everything as a major problem that has doomed the game.

SE may listen to feedback but in the end the developers are going to do what they feel is in the best interests of the game. Unless most of the player base starts moaning doom and gloom and then unsubscribing, we're not going to have much impact on their long term plans.

Remaining loyal to a game that has no specific loyalty to you and is making you unhappy doesn't gain you anything. Sometimes you just have to move on.

You should have learned at least that much from WoW.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

In what little I play anymore I still see bots, even still in the main cities...

For Island Sanctuaries being a waste of resources, I will say as someone who only went to the island once and confirmed the content was never designed for me that I don't consider it a waste of resources unless gameplay content was cut because of creating island sanctuaries. About the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that may have been lost is the sidequest with additional trials to do, ie the 4 lords in SB and the weapon fights in ShB. Part of this may have been a focus on doing 2 Ultimate fights, but at the same time DSR was initially planned for ShB so who knows on that front.

After all the WoW comparisons and whatnot I think the part that I worry about is the probably first real "content drought" in WoW which was WoD. The entire reasoning they had such a massive drought is thought to be that all of that focus went towards creating Legion. I think my comparison is that I worry that we are losing potential content to FF16, no matter how much it is denied. With how seemingly desperate SE has been to hire more developers, I wonder if they asked too much of CBU3 with maintaining FF14's cadence as well as creating an entirely new mainline game.

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Thing is though how much have we really lost to 16 development? I can't really think of much we haven't gotten compared to ShB. If anything were getting more (6.3 isn't over yet). I'm with you Sanctuary isn't for me BUT my friends love that damn content lol. And it'll be something SE updates probably until EoS I'd imagine.

I'm more excited to see what 7.0 does personally. Folks forget the team is working on things that are incorporated into the graphic update as well. I'd imagine they're applying all the old stuff into that as well (unless they're going the PSO2 route and leaving old cutscenes and content most untouched)

content drought was solved for the last 2 xpacs with eureka and bozja. all they had to do was keep alot of the bozja design and make the zones pretty again like eureka but instead we got island sanctuary.

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Originally Posted by seolhyun

content drought was solved for the last 2 xpacs with eureka and bozja. all they had to do was keep alot of the bozja design and make the zones pretty again like eureka but instead we got island sanctuary.

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Sorry but I don't want relic content to be exactly the same every expac. Bozja design is to watered down imo anyways compared to Eureka

People like to crap on Island Sanctuary, but I bet it's going to have more hours logged per person than Bozja / Eureka. It's a more chill way to get glam and other items and a decent way for people to bank DoH/L materia. Every week, people are running those sheets and making that currency. It's a much needed break from the nonsense that went on in those expos. Don't get me wrong. I look forward to seeing that stuff again, but it needs to be better.

Just looking at how Bozja and Eureka pulled from previous expansions, I had a hard time seeing a coherent zone coming out, especially for what's the end of a whole saga. I'd like to see someone actually come up with a good theme and enemies for what could have been Endwalker's exploration zone. If you can't do it without leaning even more heavily on Garlean tech, which has been done to death, I'm not interested.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

Just looking at how Bozja and Eureka pulled from previous expansions, I had a hard time seeing a coherent zone coming out, especially for what's the end of a whole saga. I'd like to see someone actually come up with a good theme and enemies for what could have been Endwalker's exploration zone. If you can't do it without leaning even more heavily on Garlean tech, which has been done to death, I'm not interested.

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They could just have used island sanctuary for that. Let us travel to different islands, let us explore some central america inspired ruins, find pirate treasures, fight the wildlife and get new animals and materials for our own island.

Like the most generic pirate and caribbean themed stuff and tie in our own island somehow.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

You're the one that's comically wrong. You have no idea of what's going on behind the scenes or any clue as to how long it takes to make content, even though the proof has been out there for whole decades. How fast people get through it is purely up to the individual. They've been very open and honest about things and said they fully expect people to stop and do other things. MMOs are a long term investment, but they're never meant to occupy 100% of your free time. The grinds people look back on longingly were just lazy design meant to try and keep people around while they spent a year working on the next batch of content. You can't prove me wrong and you can't point to a game that successfully and legitimately puts out more than XIV does.

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You say all this despite it never being what prompted my response nor was it my argument. I specifically quoted you claiming that content drought is "purely the result of one's own choices" which is objectively false. Likewise, I never even insinuated how quickly people progressed through content wasn't up to the individual. Once again you have continued to put words my mouth. What I actually said is the length someone takes does not artificially make the content longer. A three hour MSQ quest chain remains three hours regardless of whether or not it takes you a day, two or several weeks to complete it. This seems to be a very common and disingenuous attempt to argue content longevity. "Well, I still haven't done the new Alliance raid. Therefore, 6.3 still has lots of content!" For you, specifically? Yes. In general, however. Someone opting to take five weeks to finish Euphrosyne does not mean it has five weeks of content.

As for occupying our time. Once again, I never said it needed to be 100%. Please stop erecting strawmans and actually respond to what I'm saying if you're going to quote me. It's getting quite tiresome you have to make up arguments because yours is lacking.

With that said, I am under no benefit this game should occupy my time fully nor are any players frustrated with the drip feed of content. We're all aware that is an impossible endeavour. Our criticism is newly released content more often than not doesn't even last a week despite being meant to last months. For the sake of argument, let's review 6.3 proper and the supposed "wealth" of content.

- MSQ (3-ish hours)
- Chronicles of a New Era (2-ish hours)
- Tataru's Grand Endeavor (An hour, tops)
- Custom Deliveries (A handful of quests and some weekly crafting requirements that takes less than an hour if not time-gated)
- Ophiotauroskin Treasure Maps (A decent enough investment)
- Island Sanctuary (Even at a slow pace, it remains a 10 minute a day glorified "retainer venture" to rank up.)
- Lapis Manalis (Standard paint-by-numbers dungeon. Over in less than twenty minutes and accounted for in the MSQ estimation)
- Mount Ordeals (Quite possibly one of the easiest EXs ever released but nevertheless there's some longevity here if you opt to farm it 50 times for the eventual mount exchange)
- Containment Bay P1T6 (Unreal) (A quick two kills a week. Decent enough investment)

Then you have some extra side activities like the updated GATEs and etc. At a glance that may seem like a lot except almost all of it is over within minutes—an hour at most—on a per day basis or is a one and done affair. In all previous patches we usually have a Beast Tribe and the expected wait for the subsequent .5 patch was roughly five weeks. 6.3 has seen the Beast Tribe pushed aside and nearly into week six we still don't even have the Live Letter update giving us any indication of the next patch release. In other words, less content than in previous patch cycles is meant to last what may end up being double the length of time.

Now I do want to stress none of this speaks to the quality of the content. While there is some debate in its regard such as the boss scaling of Euphrosyne and Rubicante or Island Sanctuary on the whole, I genuinely believe the content has been relatively solid. There simply isn't enough. Or more specifically, what is made has very little (or downright zero) longevity.

Take the aforementioned Island Sanctuary. Unless you deliberately ignore progressing it for several weeks, simply doing the absolute minimum requirements without any sort of grinding whatsoever will see its completion in less than two weeks. At which time it becomes little more than glorified retainer ventures. There is zero longevity to the content unless you consider setting up a spreadsheet that takes all of five minutes because Reddit figured out a system that is routinely updated not unlike Kiyoko's Fashion Report.

While people absolutely overhyped Island Sanctuary, the general belief is you'd have some sort of farm stimulator to play around in. Nothing to the depth or expansiveness of an Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley but something meaningful and engaging. What we got is an absolute barebones equivalent where even basic features like feeding animals different foods having an impact or proper gardening that amounted to more than "click to plant seed" were absent.

There's a reason they kept almost pleading with players to "not rush" through Island Sanctuary. It has no longevity and they knew it simply wouldn't be able to last even if someone took weeks to progress.

And no, you (general) still having not started Island Sanctuary doesn't mean it has longevity. You simply aren't doing the content. FFVII: Remake doesn't last a month because I only opt to play it on weekends.

By the way, all of this and the criticism people have posted is feedback. You may not like. You may even fundamentally disagree with essentially everything stated. And that would be entirely your prerogative. After all, you are entitled to your opinion. As am I, and everyone else. You don't get to decide what isn't feedback because it doesn't meet your approval.

For my specific post, I've made it quite clear the issues I have which center around the lacking longevity of content. That's a far cry from "I'm bored and it sucks" Not that I expect you to acknowledge that.

yeah, I see a lot of words, but you're not really saying anything. Are you happy? I'm not acknowledging, as you predicted. Far be it from me to make a liar out of anyone.

We both get different things from this game. I have a bigger list of boxes to check off than you. I don't know why you're so insistent that all this verbal diarrhea is going to change anything.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

By the way, all of this and the criticism people have posted is feedback. You may not like. You may even fundamentally disagree with essentially everything stated. And that would be entirely your prerogative. After all, you are entitled to your opinion. As am I, and everyone else. You don't get to decide what isn't feedback because it doesn't mean your approval.

For my specific post, I've made it quite clear the issues I have which center around the lacking longevity of content. That's a far cry from "I'm bored and it sucks" Not that I expect you to acknowledge that.

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For your sanity, don't engage with zealots. They will see any form of criticism as whining and are quick to tell you that. Sure, patches are becoming leaner with the devs backloading many features to .x5 patch and the mogstation is becoming a mainstay but the game is... there? I don't know, I really can't put myself into the mindset of those types, lmao.

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Sorry but I don't want relic content to be exactly the same every expac. Bozja design is to watered down imo anyways compared to Eureka

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it wasnt the same though in eureka you just waited for NMs and bozja had fates and mini bosses and multiple raids. u also had the option of doing it outside of bozja. this time there won't be an option it will be farming old content again like in HW where u had to farm research facility and light farm in some trial u have already seen. if they make us do the nier raids 50 times i probably wont even bother this xpac.

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Originally Posted by seolhyun

it wasnt the same though in eureka you just waited for NMs and bozja had fates and mini bosses and multiple raids. u also had the option of doing it outside of bozja. this time there won't be an option it will be farming old content again like in HW where u had to farm research facility and light farm in some trial u have already seen. if they make us do the nier raids 50 times i probably wont even bother this xpac.

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I'd still put BA over anything Bozja released personally. And I wasn't one of those lazy folks who just sat n waiting for NMs while others did the work.

As of now unless I've missed something we still don't know what the relics will require

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

As of now unless I've missed something we still don't know what the relics will require

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Hoping for something a little more inventive than farming old fates for crazy amounts of items to upgrade your weapon but it wouldn't shock me if that is the route they take. Hopefully if they do the fate spam it will be in current or ShB zones so I can at least farm bicolor gemstones while doing it.

They can add newer jobs to older relic grinds, then put a cool many-seat mount for getting multiple ones, and then grind for heirloom gear sets that follow your level to some good-ish ilvl :D

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Sorry but I don't want relic content to be exactly the same every expac. Bozja design is to watered down imo anyways compared to Eureka

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I have the opposite opinion. I think Eureka has its own style because it's trying to copy FF11 and older MMOs. Bozja wasn't trying to do that, and instead features far more to it than Eureka does. Eureka only has mob grinding and NMs, with bunny fates and BA added after. Bozja requires mob grinding to spawn Skirmishes, which in turn give way to Critical Engagements. There are the Duels, you have those mobs SE kinda dropped the ball on since they can just be oneshot with Death anyway, and CLL, Dalriada and Delubrum Reginae, which one could argue are the precursors to Variant Dungeons.

I'd still say both contents deserved more. Each was a step in the right direction in their own right. I prefer Bozja over Eureka on account of despite it being "watered down", it actually cleansed what I found absolutely dreadful of Eureka. But I also know people who prefer Eureka's more challenging map over Bozja being more straightforward.

Which is why even though I hold the opposite opinion, I still agree: we need like more things like it. Not necessarily for a relic grind. We need something fresh for that. But those are contents that do work and have their own portion of the fanbase that cared.

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Originally Posted by Tint

I also have an idea:

Bring the relic quest earlier.

Back in ARR and HW we did not have to wait for over a year to finally get grind-content. Oh we already did get the relic quest? Sorry did not notice, but yeah, I think I have a weapon lying in my armoury, no idea how it got there, maybe I was standing too close to an NPC or whatever.

Imagine if they would release the savage raid only after one year in the expansion. That's how it feels for people who like grinding.

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also this
it was understandable for the wait with Eureka and Bozja but because current relic is like HW so no real reason we couldn't have it from the start

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Originally Posted by Amenara

Hoping for something a little more inventive than farming old fates for crazy amounts of items to upgrade your weapon but it wouldn't shock me if that is the route they take. Hopefully if they do the fate spam it will be in current or ShB zones so I can at least farm bicolor gemstones while doing it.

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A lot of players were asking for a return to the relic farms of ARR and HW so that might well be what we're getting (with the possibility that Variant/Criterion dungeons will play a role). They would have announced by now if there was going to be a new exploration zone (even if they didn't share details).

Players should probably think back to how they ended up doing most of their early grinding in Shadowbringers when they had options. Were they doing it in Bozja/Zadnor, or were they doing it in the older content? That would have influenced the design for this expansion.

If they were doing it in the older content just for the sake of efficiency even though they claim to dislike doing it that way, then they only have themselves to blame if that's what they get this time.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

A lot of players were asking for a return to the relic farms of ARR and HW so that might well be what we're getting (with the possibility that Variant/Criterion dungeons will play a role). They would have announced by now if there was going to be a new exploration zone (even if they didn't share details).

Players should probably think back to how they ended up doing most of their early grinding in Shadowbringers when they had options. Were they doing it in Bozja/Zadnor, or were they doing it in the older content? That would have influenced the design for this expansion.

If they were doing it in the older content just for the sake of efficiency even though they claim to dislike doing it that way, then they only have themselves to blame if that's what they get this time.

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Judging from the huge uproar when it was revealed you DID need to do the instance to progress I'm willing to bet many many people did the old content route. I'd say you're 100% on the money there

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Originally Posted by IkaraGreydancer

Judging from the huge uproar when it was revealed you DID need to do the instance to progress I'm willing to bet many many people did the old content route. I'd say you're 100% on the money there

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The devs might actually be proactive with the relic grind if they are going the ARR route since tying relic progress to DR was going to become harder and harder to find people to run consistently for relic purposes. Then again, Eureka is still poppin' so who knows, lol. That said, how angry would the playerbase be if they added something as grindy as the zodiac books for the new relic? lol
It would make it more solo friendly but... geeze, I would take light farming over books any day.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

The devs might actually be proactive with the relic grind if they are going the ARR route since tying relic progress to DR was going to become harder and harder to find people to run consistently for relic purposes. Then again, Eureka is still poppin' so who knows, lol. That said, how angry would the playerbase be if they added something as grindy as the zodiac books for the new relic? lol
It would make it more solo friendly but... geeze, I would take light farming over books any day.

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If they did give us a pre nerf ARR grind for EW that'll be something yeah. If we do get that those complaining about there being nothing to do better be happy xD

Pre-nerf ARR style relic grind? Sign me right the heck up. Extra points if the light farm forces people into EX trials like in the old days. Give'em the choice of doing content they normally wouldn't or spending the next twelve years working on the relic weapon. :)

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

It would make it more solo friendly but... geeze, I would take light farming over books any day.

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I was the opposite. I didn't mind the books because they kept me rotating through different content. The light farm, on the other hand, was mindnumbing.