"The Discourse is Dumb and Endwalker is FINE" - Wesk Alber

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Originally Posted by PintyMcEars

I watched it

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I watched it

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

I'm sure she feels extra sorry for speaking her opinion out, maybe she should just stay quiet and not speak anything that's on her mind right ? It doesnt fit the whole "toxic positivity" yall love so much so it's bad right ?

poor little square enix, such a small indie company

Thank god you're here to comfort them at least that it'll be okay, "dont listen to those bad people crticizing your game, you're doing good SE, keep going !"

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it doesnt help that zepla changes her stance on the topic...also when did this community called her a beacon of positivity? i watched her back in stormblood and she was critical then...

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Posting without further comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUKSe0K8IfE
"The Discourse is Dumb and Endwalker is FINE" on YouTube

EDIT: By..."request", I guess?

A video from Wesk Alber about the state of Endwalker, contrasting with the beloved Heavensward, and the overall relatively recent deluge of content creators and people complaining about Endwalker as the worst expansion ever.

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wesk is correct, no matter what people are complaining about the state of the expansion yet it was far far worse than it was back then...while i dont blame zepla for giving the bad actor's a voice...she seen this game on the surface level just like any of the msq andies who think shadowbringers was the mecca of good storytelling

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Originally Posted by Reap00

Do you folks realize parroting the same sentiment incessantly will not change the opinion of a human that can rub 2 brain cells together? I enjoyed Endwalker. I still enjoy Endwalker. I have been playing this game since launch. I will continue to sub and continue to play Endwalker. Is Endwalker pefect? Nope. It doesn't need to be perfect. FFXIV is still the best MMO on the market by FAR. I hope I didn't shatter to many bubbles. The video that this thread is supposed to be about actually went into great detail why so many systems were terrible in Heavensward. The man had MANY great points and I agree with him.

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Takes like this make me wonder why some people join in the discourse of making the game better, If you're going to uncritically enjoy the game no matter what then this discussion is not for you.
If you want to join into the discourse that you obviously skipped 9 pages of then here's the TL : DR from people who criticize this video: Bad systems in Heavensward don't justify bland design choices in Endwalker.

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Originally Posted by kingskye

no matter what people are complaining about the state of the expansion yet it was far far worse than it was back then...

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This reads like bait, but eh, what the heck. I'll bite.

I for one absolutely consider Heavensward and Stormblood to be stronger expansions. I found encounter and job design to be far preferable in those days. Yes, I say this in full knowledge of how horrendously overtuned the first tier of Alexander was. If anything, that further enhanced my enjoyment of HW.

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Originally Posted by kingskye

wesk is correct, no matter what people are complaining about the state of the expansion yet it was far far worse than it was back then...while i dont blame zepla for giving the bad actor's a voice...she seen this game on the surface level just like any of the msq andies who think shadowbringers was the mecca of good storytelling

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I wouldn't go that far, to be honest...

HW did actually have a few decent systems, but they were locked behind, and/or required you to engage with several very, very poorly poorly designed subsystems, and/or very poorly created reward structures, e.g., in theory the Coven weapon wasn't that bad, but it was a layer of chance incorporated on 2 more layers of chance. There was some level of promise in these systems - Though these never were actually realized.

Same with the favor system, it was a good system, but it was introduced on other bad systems like a weekly-gated scrip system, and same with the gearing process for scrip gear itself, just to name another system.

I think it's accurate to say you could like it for selfish reasons, but whether or not those overall reasons would be healthy for the game itself is an entirely different matter. It's like some people who say every end-game recipe should be an expert recipe. You can like that, by all means, but it's not healthy for the game. That's the kind of expansion that HW was... You can actually apply this very same logic to a lot of the lesser flushed-out systems in EW though, to be honest. - Like, could you find them fun, or could they be aligned with your preferences? Absolutely... But that still doesn't necessarily make it healthy for the game itself, e.g., tome relics.

If I am honest, people can still make the case of EW being the worst expansion, however, people could also pretty easily alternatively make the case of HW being the absolute worst expansion as well if you were to look at them both for what they had at the time. Another point of his video was that people that parrot certain critiques or sentiments often haven't experienced it first-hand, nor could sufficiently elaborate enough on their own independent thoughts. Tangentially though, there are people doing the same thing now when it comes to looking on HW based on his own thoughts.

With criticisms like these it's important to make the distinction between personal tastes and what otherwise may be healthy for the game overall. Which does apply to both HW and EW.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

This in a nutshell really.

Take the first pull of Akadaemia Anyder, or Bardams, or right back to AV and compare those to anything we have in EW. It's not even close.

It's not even agro alone, the EW dungeons are designed with the utmost caution now. Nothing can be too threatening.

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I personally never had any issues with w2w in any of those dungeons but I mainly played healer in roulettes so.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

Takes like this make me wonder why some people join in the discourse of making the game better, If you're going to uncritically enjoy the game no matter what then this discussion is not for you.
If you want to join into the discourse that you obviously skipped 9 pages of then here's the TL : DR from people who criticize this video: Bad systems in Heavensward don't justify bland design choices in Endwalker.

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I still agree with him regardless of your opinion. You will have to live with that. I won't change my opinion for you. I will type whatever I wish on this feedback forum.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

I still agree with him regardless of your opinion. You will have to live with that. I won't change my opinion for you. I will type whatever I wish on this feedback forum.

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https://media4.giphy.com/media/o7mdv...=200w.gif&ct=g

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Originally Posted by Stormpeaks

https://media4.giphy.com/media/o7mdv...=200w.gif&ct=g

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I just can't keep up with their ability to rub 2 braincells together at the speed of light.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

I just can't keep up with their ability to rub 2 braincells together at the speed of light.

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So, are you dismissing their thoughts as invalid because ... you despise them personally?

Or are you gatekeeping content in the forums because it doesn't add anything to your own personal narrative? Because " If you're going to uncritically enjoy the game no matter what then this discussion is not for you." definitely appears to be gatekeeping.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

So, are you dismissing their thoughts as invalid because ... you despise them personally?

Or are you gatekeeping content in the forums because it doesn't add anything to your own personal narrative? Because " If you're going to uncritically enjoy the game no matter what then this discussion is not for you." definitely appears to be gatekeeping.

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Sometimes looking at someone's post history can do wonders, I'd invite you to do so with the person Volgia is talking about.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

So, are you dismissing their thoughts as invalid because ... you despise them personally?

Or are you gatekeeping content in the forums because it doesn't add anything to your own personal narrative? Because " If you're going to uncritically enjoy the game no matter what then this discussion is not for you." definitely appears to be gatekeeping.

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I summarized the arguments we made against the videos in one post for them so they could engage with our ideas after they posted:

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Originally Posted by Reap00

Do you folks realize parroting the same sentiment incessantly will not change the opinion of a human that can rub 2 brain cells together?

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So how is that gatekeeping?

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Originally Posted by Volgia

I summarized the arguments we made against the videos in one post for them so they could engage with our ideas after they posted:

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No, you added this to your post after (a) dismissing their thoughts as invalid and (b) gatekeeping by telling them "If you're going to uncritically enjoy the game no matter what then this discussion is not for you."

Your so-called "summary" of arguments, after you basically said "get lost, your opinion doesn't matter here" was:

"If you want to join into the discourse that you obviously skipped 9 pages of then here's the TL : DR from people who criticize this video: Bad systems in Heavensward don't justify bland design choices in Endwalker."

That might have been your take on the discussion, but I read plenty from posters who disagree with that "summary".

Personally, I understood the basis of the initial video. I watched Xenosys expound on that video, what it got right, where what it said wasn't warranted ... and he certainly didn't come up with your TL;DR mumbo jumbo.

Another Reason why XIV is in this state is also because no one ever looks at XIV objectively and talks about it's flaws openly. In 10 years of playing XIV people have only shat on it because 1.0 and have blindly praised it after. WE as the community ofc talk about it's flaws, WE play the game ffs, so it only makes sense we see them. But getting the same treatment any other MMO has gotten? People actually playing the games and talking about the state of the game from when they last played it? Rarely happens for XIV.

People look at XIV and they praise not having to have an alt, not realizing how surface lvl that is when you're not looking at it from the PoV of a long time MMO player who may have alts to raid with friends due to how the loot system works for savage. Or they see a new feature being talked about and instead of watching the twitch vod if they didn't catch the Live Letter, they just regurgitate what the community says in hyperbole. And some of you say lmao games journalists, but seriously, people do NOT criticize this game enough. XIV is always put on this Pedestal, and this is exactly that. Yes HW was worse, it was their first Expansion, thats like saying the first cake a baker made was bad.

EW is an objectively lack luster expansion for multiple reasons, and it's due to a history of people not being more critical of XIV, if you have a worker and they do just an alright job, you never push them to be better, they stagnate. No one in the media, no one talking about this game outside the community actually gives this game a fair shake Positively or Negatively. It's all the same BS stuff we all knew about because it was a marketed feature and something that's easy to find in a google search. Sitting here comparing EW to an expansion that was nothing but over turned content with lows of nothing better to do other THEN stand in Limsa Isn't a fair comparison.

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Originally Posted by Mayhemmer

I want new ideas, and for them to take the best ideas they've had and build upon them in ways that grab me like I'm playing something for the first time again.

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I share that sentiment. Hope we are wrong but i can see why they would opt for Endwalker-Part2. An expansion is expensive. So you want to go with a "save" option. We see it all the time with games and movies.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

I felt the video was a waste of time also all it did was misdirect endwalkers criticism and dissatisfaction towards another expansion while also being like "see endwalkers is actually an ok expansion'.

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Originally Posted by Volgia

The thing that kind of annoys me of this video is that he makes an argument that nobody is arguing against. Like "See how HW was janky and EW is not janky?", like no one is arguing that past expansions had QoL fixes

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Wesk is trying to move the goalpost, so he can argue against a view he can (easily) win.

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Originally Posted by Darkobra

47 minutes? Is the guy hiring a video editor? I promise whatever message he's trying to say can be compressed to AT LEAST half that.

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I couldn't finish the video. I don't find enjoyment in a mockery of every little detail of a video game. Apparently Wesk just *had* to complain about every bit of HW.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

V&C Dungeons (both) are not popular
Eureka Orthos is the worst DD and its queue died remarkably fast
The less we talk about Island Sanctuary the better

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V&C Dungeons don't even have group finders up most of the time... but then again idk if most just prefer FC runs. It's almost sad how fast EO died. Hey IS got a mount now! It's fixed! /s

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Originally Posted by Reap00

The video that this thread is supposed to be about actually went into great detail why so many systems were terrible in Heavensward. The man had MANY great points and I agree with him.

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Good for you. Now tell me... where is "Heavensward" in the title? I can't seem to find it. It seems to have a baitpost title to sh*t on the community. Weird.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

*snip*

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Do you always defend those that come in and throw insults or is it just the catgirls?

Man bitches about Heavensward to try and make Endwalker look better than it actually is.

There, saved the people who're just getting here 47 minutes.

See you in 7.0 when DRG gets gutted Alber.

On the margins it's probably a good thing for the overall health and longevity of the game the people feel more comfortable being vocal about their criticisms for this game. Over the past couple of years or so things have been a bit too much of a hug-fest with many good faith criticisms, even if you disagree with them, getting absolutely lambasted for no discernable reason.

I disagree with most of Alber's thoughts in this video for the same reason I've had him blocked on Twitter for ages: he's kind of just a bad take content farm, but the more voices that add to the discourse the better, I suppose.

It is funny to me that so many people talk about the mythical "dead game doomers" when they don't *really* exist. Sure there are a couple of them that say shit like that but it's an extreme minority, and it's disingenuous for people to treat it like it's a serious issue or really give it any sort of thought in the discourse.

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Originally Posted by localareanetwork

I personally never had any issues with w2w in any of those dungeons but I mainly played healer in roulettes so.

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Anyder's first pull was a beat down on the tank assuming the group didn't wuss out and short pull:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHAo9PpKGJI

Just looking at that tank damage gets me all misty eyed.

Compare it to a random warrior in dead ends pov's first pull: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJzlvQ7XD_I

It's pretty shocking IMO.

I like how this guy goes after other people for using hyperbole and drama in their examples, while also going full in on the hyperbole himself. Real good stuff.

I feel like i am inadvertently benefiting from being ignorant to all of this. :)

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

I feel like i am inadvertently benefiting from being ignorant to all of this. :)

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Nothing on this forum is worth investment. It is all gibberish. It is purely for entertainment. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

Nothing on this forum is worth investment. It is all gibberish. It is purely for entertainment. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

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https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...711558c234.gif

Thanks for continuously proving that you aren't worth making an effort to interact with on here in any capacity.

So anyway back to acknowledging faults with the game and what could use improving instead of keeping our head in the sand

Honestly, EW just needed its own Eureka/Bozja content. Something that actually encouraged people to work together/form parties/etc that wasn't Extreme-Ultimate. Y'know, make the MMO feel like an MMO.

also myths of the realm not just being a "Hall of the Novice - 24man Edition" but that's a dead horse I'll never stop beating because for real wth was that :mad:

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Originally Posted by Reap00

Nothing on this forum is worth investment. It is all gibberish. It is purely for entertainment. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

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Then why post comments that aren't worth posting. Oh I forgot it's to defend the game with your life because how dare the incels criticize your game.

I think the problem with this video is that it's comparing the most recent expansion (EW) to one that was from eight years ago.
It also doesn't take into consideration that HW was the first expansion after ARR, the game they had to completely rebuild after 1.0 bombed and made the general gaming public loose faith and respect in SE and the Final Fantasy franchise. A lot of HW was either continuing what ARR already had/had started or experimenting, trying to add something new or different. They didn't really have their bearing on a lot of things or didn't really design things with the foresight that they might be an issue later. ¯\_( ◉ 3 ◉ )_/¯

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Originally Posted by Zairava

https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...711558c234.gif

Thanks for continuously proving that you aren't worth making an effort to interact with on here in any capacity.

So anyway back to acknowledging faults with the game and what could use improving instead of keeping our head in the sand

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Such passive aggressiveness. Typical of the average FFXIV community.

I mean I also do it so...

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Such passive aggressiveness. Typical of the average FFXIV community.

I mean I also do it so...

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The person they responded to never provides anything insightful or constructive and only comes in when they see something they think is "negative" with there usual "go touch grass or don't play if you don't like it" as a response to someone criticizing ff14.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

Then why post comments that aren't worth posting. Oh I forgot it's to defend the game with your life because how dare the incels criticize your game.

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It's funny because I remember interacting with them a while back and they basically admitted that they're scared shitless of xiv changing in anyway.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Such passive aggressiveness. Typical of the average FFXIV community.

I mean I also do it so...

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Wake me up when they actually try to discuss anything instead of going on their quintillionth speal of "just unsub and play other games" "WoW bad ffxiv good", completely missing the entire point of using a forum site used for feedback

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Originally Posted by BRVV

Do you always defend those that come in and throw insults or is it just the catgirls?

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For my part, the forums are not a Life or Death battle. I object to cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

There isn't a single cat girl on these forums, or Lalafell boy. They're avatars of real people.

Talk to me again when you come to that realization.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

For my part, the forums are not a Life or Death battle. I object to cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

There isn't a single cat girl on these forums, or Lalafell boy. They're avatars of real people.

Talk to me again when you come to that realization.

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It was all he had man. When they have nothing they resort to absurdity.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

It's funny because I remember interacting with them a while back and they basically admitted that they're scared shitless of xiv changing in anyway.

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I eish ff14 would evolve each expansion rather then remain the same. Even ff11 changed systems and endgame each expansion end evolved enough to maintain a subbase during it's peak.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

I eish ff14 would evolve each expansion rather then remain the same. Even ff11 changed systems and endgame each expansion end evolved enough to maintain a subbase during it's peak.

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Ehhh...the general consensus was the peak of FFXI was Chains of Promathia which was the 3rd expansion. People sorta jumped off afterwards I believe.

Also having huge system changes in every expansion is a terrible thing for an MMO. Its what initially killed WoW

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Ehhh...the general consensus was the peak of FFXI was Chains of Promathia which was the 3rd expansion. People sorta jumped off afterwards I believe.

Also having huge system changes in every expansion is a terrible thing for an MMO. Its what initially killed WoW

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Aht Urghan was the 3rd expansion which is when ff11 peaked and wings of the goddess the 4th expansion the player base didn't drop off much. Abyssea is what ff11 players claim killed off ff11 which is when ff14 1.0 also came out and sqaure was trying to push ff11 players to ff14 1.0 and kill off 11. But thats why most private servers do promathia or aht urghan era ff11 because those 2 expansions are what most ff11 players consider the best era while some cater to wings of the goddess fans. I'm part of the retail playerbase who enjoys current retail but also enjoyed all other era's as well and each expansion saw an evolution when it came to gameplay/combat and meta changes.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Ehhh...the general consensus was the peak of FFXI was Chains of Promathia which was the 3rd expansion. People sorta jumped off afterwards I believe.

Also having huge system changes in every expansion is a terrible thing for an MMO. Its what initially killed WoW

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Actually, what Killed WoW is a much deeper issue, saying change every expansion is a very surface lvl take. What killed WoW was a lack of evergreen content, overly high retention mechanics and lack of content that appealed to a general player, most content only appealed to hard core or casual, it's midcore died for a time. After all that damage, borrowed power systems being ramped up then helped piss people off more. So you're not wrong, but let's not make a boggy man out of needed change.

The goal is to change but make sure it's meaningful change.

you people put too much prestige and authority into streamers and not of your own opinions

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

Actually, what Killed WoW is a much deeper issue, saying change every expansion is a very surface lvl take. What killed WoW was a lack of evergreen content, overly high retention mechanics and lack of content that appealed to a general player, most content only appealed to hard core or casual, it's midcore died for a time. After all that damage, borrowed power systems being ramped up then helped piss people off more. So you're not wrong, but let's not make a boggy man out of needed change.

The goal is to change but make sure it's meaningful change.

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I will also add in feature creep and bloat. Game is too big with heavy emphasis of abandonning previous zones and content. Its why so many people enjoy the simplicity of Vanilla WoW. You cant rely having additions of evergreen content as youll kill off the playerbase with lots of chores and activities. Which was something that they double down in BFA. So yes I feel my statement stills stands....kinda..

However in its current stage, I believe many of its QoL and content updates have been pretty good regardless.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

For my part, the forums are not a Life or Death battle. I object to cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

There isn't a single cat girl on these forums, or Lalafell boy. They're avatars of real people.

Talk to me again when you come to that realization.

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I know that. Idk why you deem some are allowed to insult and others are not. If it's not the avatar than what is it? Are you just being a prick trying to start a fight?

You know FFXIV is just a game, right? None of it is real. This isn't a life or death battle. Come back when you realize that. No point in talking i guess but congratz on the dumbest thing i read here. Defending someone who just throws insults and being an aggressive b*tch. Does that work for you? Thanks for speedrunning me to the understanding that you are just a hater.

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Originally Posted by Reap00

It was all he had man. When they have nothing they resort to absurdity.

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"NO EW WAS GREAT!!!!" - You everytime. It's seems like it's all you can Mrs 2 braincells rub together

Not to be that guy, but that video tells nothing about endwalker being fine, it mostly tells that HW was far worst at release than we remember and it is now. EW can still be problematic while better on day to day than HW. One of the biggest criticism about EW is the lack of meaningful long running content (the 2 most common forms of that being the relics and the lack of exploratory zone), and both are a step back compared to ShB. As the guy himself said, the only worst part of FFXIV is ARR post patch, which means, despite being chaotic, was still an improvment compared to ARR. The whole argument "EW is fine because HW was worst" is so dumb to me, because it ignores the 2 expansions between HW and EW.