Melbourne International games week Interview about content

I have played since ARR so here is my input to Yoshi's "Please don't retire"

I have seen multiple things content wise from overturned stuff in HW to SBs difficulty curve then to SHB/EW/DTs faceroll.

I personally love dungeons, I always have enjoyed playing with others for no reward other than a chance at a minion from a last boss and some green items for GC seals. The Minion aspect was destroyed with the GC minion boxes. I thought that was poorly done. Not only did it crash the minions on the MBoard it took away a little chance of me thinking "ohhh I got x minion amd it's worth x!" And having that little bit of adrenaline rush.

Then we come to Eureka, I LOVED grouping with random in a FF11 style Zone. That got echoed.

Same with TG Cid - loads of wipes, loads of learning, loads on chat about strats. Echoed.

I farmed DR cause I loved it and a chance at a 15M hairstyle in a content lull and the adrenaline rush i got 3(think it was around covid) - Let's put it in Zadnor.. so now noone ques for this chance of rare hair and ppl ask for it to be in a roulette.

EW was the content lull extravaganza for me. I did do IS but it felt like I was playing alone in a MMO! Luckily I had the Mentor Roulettes to do so that kept me busy.

Now we have DT. Seriously, I love the story and have always enjoyed watching cutscenes. I skipped the 1st half with Wuk, 2nd half kept my attention but it was too short.

Now in DT I have done all I wanted to do, I adore the Moogle Events so I was super happy until I saw CT, AGAIN! I'm sorry but if you think I'm running CT/50s/whatever else with 3 buttons for a month while I wait AGAIN for something to do, you have no chance.

I've unsuited, ends in 3 days 7.1 doesn't have any longevity either so I won't be back for that either. I'll be looking at the mew exploration zone but if it's easier than aglaia I'm staying away.

I understand ppl find group content hard especially the msq stuff but I was under the impression trusts were for that?

I really wish CBU3 would deviate from the stale formula they used over and over again and I hope this decline really wakes them up and they realise us veterans are a little fed up. I play a MMO to play an MMO with others not all this solo IS, Trust in option Dungeons stuff.

Just glad I got my PS5 platinum trophy to remember the days that I was actually having fun.

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Originally Posted by DivineP

I really wish CBU3 would deviate from the stale formula they used over and over again and I hope this decline really wakes them up and they realise us veterans are a little fed up.

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Yeah. People love to rag on WoW for reworking practically the entire game every couple of expansions, but that's how you keep things fresh, and why so many people still play it this many years later. In FFXIV it often feels like we're still just playing HW part-5, and for the long time veterans, that's super boring.

He's only saying this because he sees the writing on the wall. 7.0 to 7.1 has been a stretch of people quitting. The midway content offered nothing but a savage raid tier, which... even if you do raid, this game is designed so that you're only incentivized to do it once a week. Crafting was another thing we got, but bots and undercutters ruined that real quick. God help you if you were casual or (for lack of a better word) "midcore" because what did you even have at that point? The same two extremes we've had since 7.0? Expert roulette? It was pretty dry, and a lot of people left as a result. Someone'll inevitably say "it's always been this way," and you're right, but I guess it's hitting a tipping point.

And now we're getting 7.1 and what's that gonna bring? More of the mediocre MSQ. A single alliance raid... and honestly, if it's made by the same people who did euphrosyne and thaleia, it'll be clearable hour 1 with no wipes and become a joke within a day. Furthermore, timegated loot means you'll probably run it once a week unless there's a glam you're after. It's not a lot. And then they're like, "oh, chaotic alliance raid!" but really it's looking like one alliance raid boss. And the boss they picked for .1 is a boss from the most overdone alliance raid series of all time. We heard you liked crystal tower, so here's some more crystal tower. And that's it, bro! That's it for 4 more months! Please don't retire! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease don't retire.

If they don't want us to retire they should do something to prevent that from happening. They should pump out an ARR / HW style relic quest for starters. Just slap a particle effect on the AF weapons and let us run existing content for it.

That would be an easy emergency solution which could be ready for 7.1 to get us something to do.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

He's only saying this because he sees the writing on the wall. 7.0 to 7.1 has been a stretch of people quitting. The midway content offered nothing but a savage raid tier, which... even if you do raid, this game is designed so that you're only incentivized to do it once a week. Crafting was another thing we got, but bots and undercutters ruined that real quick. God help you if you were casual or (for lack of a better word) "midcore" because what did you even have at that point? The same two extremes we've had since 7.0? Expert roulette? It was pretty dry, and a lot of people left as a result. Someone'll inevitably say "it's always been this way," and you're right, but I guess it's hitting a tipping point.

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The counterpoint to "It's always been this way" is that we used to get more content more frequently. They started reducing the number of capstone dungeons per patch a long time ago(it used to be a completely new one and an incorrectly named hard mode), and then have been gradually stretching the patches out more and more.

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Originally Posted by Avoidy

He's only saying this because he sees the writing on the wall.

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Is it truly on the CBU's side or rather than SE itself that keeps holding CBU's budget on short leash?

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Originally Posted by MAJRIS

Is it truly on the CBU's side or rather than SE itself that keeps holding CBU's budget on short leash?

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Possibly both. Seeing how CBU3 has to still ask for budget to use on FFXIV (which, in and out of itself is a travesty already), and Yoshi-P, who is literally on the board of directors apparently not changing that status quo for whatever reason.

This is of course just an assumption of mine based on observations, and should not be taken as a fact.

This whole "please don't retire/please dont unsub" reminds me of 1.0 all over again. Gettin nam flashbacks (except the game's actually not on its last leg and damn near broken lol)

Since some have already recounted their own stories, I guess I could indulge, even though no, I am not quitting. I am not quitting because I found a renewed enjoyment in 6.1 pvp and crystalline conflict, and I do wonder what would have happened to me and this game were this not coming out of the blue, unexpectedly. I have a house with months of hard work on invaluable submarines keeping me quietly on a leash, and am seriously invested into some community aspects that are hard to forego. It has taken a big place in my daily life and it's as simple as that, as MMOs can do.

I have started playing at the release of HW. I am part of the old guard and have been progressively and more consistently part of the "hardcore" community of players, which is obviously a sheer minority. I have been involved in the balance that I was offered mentorship, I have seen the casual as much as the high end raiding and have raided since SB. Still, that's how I am, and perhaps it's Asperger or whatever I have, but I can go deep into learning about things. I did enjoyed XIV precisely for what it offered mechanically, even in the most casual dungeons. I even started as a healer, and actually main healed for 9 months until Creator came up, even though I have always had a DPS profile. That we used to have a more varied and interesting kit on healers in freaking Sastasha than we do have at max level today should tell everything there is to tell about healers, and why even this role back then kept me engaged. Managing resources, managing kit interactions, having a more brutal and punishing battle system, tanks taking crits from behind, dangerous autos, MP being a thousand times more interesting and meaningful on every caster, but also rphys, PLD and DRK, actual role identities to play in most content where today everybody is the same with a blue, red or green colour (and tanks are all three). I could go on. That's where part of the meat of the game was. We had a lot of junk and clunky systems that I don't want to see back, but the core RPG system of the game was still there to entertain. Running casual dungeons wasn't that much harder than today because mechanically, they were like the old dungeons are today (for those not reworked), but we had actual depth behind jobs and the battle system where we could express our skill.

SB started something bad there but it was still a great expansion, the nail in the coffin was ShB that nuked everything. That's where the devs started inexplicably to alter their game so much that it became all about DDR mechanics, and more recently visual puzzles everywhere and everything based on memory games and formulaic patterns. There is no creativity mechanically anymore. The encounters don't interact with kits anymore. The jobs are shallow husks of what they used to be. They do have identity, perhaps more than before, but their gameplay and intricacies are gone. It's just about rehearsing the same dance again and again and I feel like I'm playing a game of ballet more than an actual RPG. I can't have fun anymore in casual content, even in dungeons that I loved running as chill content. It's faceroll on the enemies, and faceroll on the keyboard. And also facedesk when I get hit by a stupid DDR mechanic that is trying to challenge me, but it's not about intellectual challenges anymore, it's just attention span and perception or quick reactions. This is not fun to me. Perhaps I'm the only one like that, I don't know, but I feel so alienated by what the game has become those days that I don't know. Pve repells me. It repells me so much that I'm burnt out of raiding, and I honestly can say that I can't take of your rigid, scripted, savage identical bosses anymore. The intricacies I miss have been brought back in pvp somehow, with thrice less bloat on the hotbars to boot.

I never liked exploration areas / fields operations. Diadem was garbo but everyone hated it anyway. Eureka and Bozja were so divisive because while they had interesting concepts they were an utterly tedious, boring grind doing brainless tasks, and the only interesting thing was in between when making groups or tactically socializing, or the occasional gem like CLL or Dalriada (which should be the creative model for every non trial / standard savage pve content with varied environments and objectives, sorry not sorry). Farming mobs over and over or fates over and over is NOT the epitome of fun. At least to me. Relics? Same. I only liked dungeons because I could run some of them on a daily basis without losing my mind. Say what you will about tome relics, but at least you can get tomes through many ways you like (Hildi relics were obviously suffering from not even trying though). But at least in HW/SB I could have fun by running some pve content that was still interesting, even the most casual stuff. And sure, I was a newer player, so there was more things to do to catch up on content, but that mostly lasted HW tbh.

When are they going to make something new for pve? I mean actually new? Not regurgitated glorified fates, mob farm or trial bosses on a circle arena where you can fall on the edges? Are we doomed to eat the same porridge every day, every month, because that's the only thing the team is able to do? Not even trying to even shake the formula, change dungeons here and there, surprise us? I'm sorry but if doubling down on your "modern" encounter mechanics is your answer, I can't be arsed anymore. It's insipid. It's not satisfying. My jobs have been butchered. Even if I have a surplus of new content to run, what good is it gonna do me if the model is still the same bland old soup? How is this even better?

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Originally Posted by MAJRIS

Is it truly on the CBU's side or rather than SE itself that keeps holding CBU's budget on short leash?

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It's probably both. SE knows that XIV is their moneymaker, but they've always been loath to give it the funding it deserves because it prints money even when you give it the bare minimum... so they're gonna keep giving it the bare minimum. Meanwhile, Yoshida goes out there repping cbu3 and just says whatever he wants with no filter or handler to shush him, so you get these weird candid moments like Yoshida bluntly saying that ff16 sold lower than expected because "nobody owns a ps5" or weird remarks about a "scary lady" in charge of the cash shop who cracks the whip behind the scenes, or moments like these with "pleeeease don't leeeave" lol. In a way it's refreshing, but sometimes he also just says stuff that either isn't gonna happen, or isn't gonna happen even remotely soon, so you get players looking forward to stuff that won't happen until like .3 or .4 at best.

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Originally Posted by Valence

SB started something bad there but it was still a great expansion, the nail in the coffin was ShB that nuked everything. That's where the devs started inexplicably to alter their game so much that it became all about DDR mechanics, and more recently visual puzzles everywhere and everything based on memory games and formulaic patterns. There is no creativity mechanically anymore. The encounters don't interact with kits anymore. The jobs are shallow husks of what they used to be. They do have identity, perhaps more than before, but their gameplay and intricacies are gone. It's just about rehearsing the same dance again and again and I feel like I'm playing a game of ballet more than an actual RPG. I can't have fun anymore in casual content, even in dungeons that I loved running as chill content. It's faceroll on the enemies, and faceroll on the keyboard. And also facedesk when I get hit by a stupid DDR mechanic that is trying to challenge me, but it's not about intellectual challenges anymore, it's just attention span and perception or quick reactions. This is not fun to me. Perhaps I'm the only one like that, I don't know, but I feel so alienated by what the game has become those days that I don't know. Pve repells me. It repells me so much that I'm burnt out of raiding, and I honestly can say that I can't take of your rigid, scripted, savage identical bosses anymore. The intricacies I miss have been brought back in pvp somehow, with thrice less bloat on the hotbars to boot.

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When are they going to make something new for pve? I mean actually new? Not regurgitated glorified fates, mob farm or trial bosses on a circle arena where you can fall on the edges? Are we doomed to eat the same porridge every day, every month, because that's the only thing the team is able to do? Not even trying to even shake the formula, change dungeons here and there, surprise us? I'm sorry but if doubling down on your "modern" encounter mechanics is your answer, I can't be arsed anymore. It's insipid. It's not satisfying. My jobs have been butchered. Even if I have a surplus of new content to run, what good is it gonna do me if the model is still the same bland old soup? How is this even better?

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gods I wish I could give you more than one like right now. I feel those issues deep in my soul.
The only last bastion of fun in this game is PVP for me, really. That feeling of HW and SB... those games did hit differently.

Yoship going from "play other games" after complaints from players of feeling like there is a lack of content recently to essentially asking/begging people to "not retire and stay with the game" is like a complete flip he is doing. Him asking people to now not quit and give them a chance to prove upcoming content will be good makes me feel there isn't any faith in post expansion content that will be able to keep players. It somewhat worries me he is asking people to not leave and makes me think there is a bigger drop off of subs then the previous 2 expansions had on release but I could be worrying too much or reading too much into his statements.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

Yoship going from "play other games" after complaints from players of feeling like there is a lack of content recently to essentially asking/begging people to "not retire and stay with the game" is like a complete flip he is doing. Him asking people to now not quit and give them a chance to prove upcoming content will be good makes me feel there isn't any faith in post expansion content that will be able to keep players. It somewhat worries me he is asking people to not leave and makes me think there is a bigger drop off of subs then the previous 2 expansions had on release but I could be worrying too much or reading too much into his statements.

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Bleh, if you look at the entire industry this is actually a common trend recently.

Ubisoft: after SW Outlaw flop and AC Shadow delay - two games they were counting on being the next cash cow - they went from "gamers should be comfortable not owning their games, you must use our exclusive launcher, please pay double the price if you want extra side quest and early access" to "we will make sure your old game always work! We're coming back to Steam day 1! Everyone will get the full experience day one and pre-order will give you the first expansion for free".

Electronic art: they just came out today announcing DA not only gonna be on STeam, but also will have no DRM in the most "pro-consumer" language possible. EA? Pro-consumer? Right ... You know the only reason they're doing this is because if DA Veilguard flops, that's the end of Bioware.

I serious doubt Yoshi would be playing the same tune if Rebirth and FF16 beat sale expectation, he would probably even feel vindicated for ignoring and diverting attention/resource from FF14. But now he saw those game didn't make target, this change of tune is probably the same panic reaction like the examples above that they realize the cash cown they always take for granted may not survive if they don't feed them.

I'm not renewing my sub after the current one run out. I may come back later if most of his "current" promise are actual realized, and that is assuming in the mean time whatever remain of my interest in FF14 is not just completely killed off by playing others more modern, better live-service games because right now, that has a pretty high chance of happening. For what it's worth, I hope this is not too late, and I hope they do have the manpower and talent to turn this around. But that'll need an all hand on deck situation because I have zero confidence in whatever team that launched DT.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

Yoship going from "play other games" after complaints from players of feeling like there is a lack of content recently to essentially asking/begging people to "not retire and stay with the game" is like a complete flip he is doing. Him asking people to now not quit and give them a chance to prove upcoming content will be good makes me feel there isn't any faith in post expansion content that will be able to keep players. It somewhat worries me he is asking people to not leave and makes me think there is a bigger drop off of subs then the previous 2 expansions had on release but I could be worrying too much or reading too much into his statements.

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Yeah, I'm under the impression they didn't take the critics of EW patches as seriously as they should have, probably because the subs were still there. Leaving a mmo is a long process, and DT has been a breaking point for a lot of players. When players reach that point (despite the whole "loosing your house and probably never get on again") the problem is already very deep. WoW lived that with its exodus, and at least Blizzard wanted to get their game right, and tried to fix thing up. It worked. But I'm pretty sure not all MMO can do that. Wow could do it because it's wow. Technically, I think SE could do it, but with their "we don't want to invest in FFXIV" mentality, I fear they won't be able to fix the problem.

The worst thing in this story is that the lessons from the period between 1.0 and 2.0 has been forgotten. Discuss with your players, listen to their complaints and try to do things so the players want to stay. Instead of that they fished for new players they might get by trying to make the game so solo friendly.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I'm not renewing my sub after the current one run out. I may come back later if most of his "current" promise are actual realized, and that is assuming in the mean time whatever remain of my interest in FF14 is not just completely killed off by playing others more modern, better live-service games because right now, that has a pretty high chance of happening. For what it's worth, I hope this is not too late, and I hope they do have the manpower and talent to turn this around. But that'll need an all hand on deck situation because I have zero confidence in whatever team that launched DT.

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I hope they turn it around also and do release things that keep my interest in the game to keep me subscribed.

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Originally Posted by CNitsah

Yeah, I'm under the impression they didn't take the critics of EW patches as seriously as they should have, probably because the subs were still there. Leaving a mmo is a long process, and DT has been a breaking point for a lot of players. When players reach that point the problem is already very deep. WoW lived that with its exodus, and at least Blizzard wanted to get their game right, and tried to fix thing up. It worked. But I'm pretty sure not all MMO can do that. Wow could do it because it's wow. Technically, I think SE could do it, but with their "we don't want to invest in FFXIV" mentality, I fear they won't be able to fix the problem.

The worst thing in this story is that the lessons from the period between 1.0 and 2.0 has been forgotten. Discuss with your players, listen to their complaints and try to do things so the players want to stay. Instead of that they fished for new players they might get by trying to make the game so solo friendly.

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It does feel sometimes lately they don't take our feedback or if they do take it they misunderstand what we want or not fully taken to the devs.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

I don't think Boss on Platform(Savage but New Name) will be terribly enticing to anyone for more than a couple clears, especially if the rewards are similar to Ultimate or Unreal.

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That’s why I said the hardest part will be finding 23 other dorks as a casual player that doesn’t use discord. But yeah I can agree that the content since a long time has gone down the drain. It did really start when it was 1 dungeon per patch and not 2 and when they increased patch cycles for covid and now they don’t decrease them after Covid’s is over. Plus a lot of bugs in general, like potency bugs or buggy fights aka top on release. Plus a mediocre story and absolutely atrocious voice acting in English that feels like some bad DEI hire practice plus the VA for Wuk alienating the fans and calling then racist and other phobe tropes

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Originally Posted by Mortex

That’s why I said the hardest part will be finding 23 other dorks as a casual player that doesn’t use discord.

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This is the biggest issue I have. I'm a casual player. I don't mind doing some prog, but for the most part, I want to be able to clear a fight in a couple hours without having to rely on voice chat or Discord as I hate both. I'm in Zoom meetings and on Slack all day long, I don't wanna rely on essentially the same shit for my downtime.

Being able to find a group without using voice is usually fine for EX fights (though I haven't tried with Dawntrail), but it's not really feasible for more difficult content unless I can find a group later in the cycle, and by that point, it's not even worth the hassle.

I mean if you really think about it, PvP is like *THE* best way to retain players through expansions. Something replayable, challenging, enjoyable. Repeatable content that keeps people going is EXACTLY what we need, and there is lots of content they've added over the years, but it just gets abandonned and left out to rot.

SE almost universally ALWAYS takes the laziest route when presented with an oppurtunity to design something unique. Island Sanctuary? Lets make it a spreadsheet simulator, Instanced housing inside of it? Are you out of your mind? Variant dungeons? Lets make you clear it 12 times and give you no reason to ever do them again. Hrm oops we ran out of ideas uh... uh... Eureka Orothos! Lets put a new layer of paint on PoTD! Lets make an Alliance raid as easy, and brain dead to clear as possible! It'll be like Crystal tower! Everyone loves that right? Relic weapons! Lets take the grind out of it so literally everyone has a relic weapon without having to put any effort into it! I don't think a single piece of content was added to Endwalker that is enjoyable, and rewarding enough that you'd actually want to do it again for fun. An entire expansion just completely missing every single chance they had to do something unique and rewarding, and Dawntrail has set the bar even lower launching with the worst MSQ of an expansion to date, and weak PR statements from Yoshi P that show he's lost his magic. What exactly do they think they have to offer for $15/mo for those 4 months between patches that people are going to want to stick around for?

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Originally Posted by ovIm

gods I wish I could give you more than one like right now. I feel those issues deep in my soul.
The only last bastion of fun in this game is PVP for me, really. That feeling of HW and SB... those games did hit differently.

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This actually made me remember what made support roles actually interesting and miles ahead of what they are today. Sure, they had a few other battle mechanics, but they also had variable rotations. As a healer you didn't have more than tetragrammaton for example in HW as an OGCD heal, the rest, you had to hard cast. This fundamentally changed your rotation since you had to adjust to incoming damage profiles and encounters, and also to what your allies did. As a healer in dungeons you had to manage your MP a lot and the time taken to take down a pull and how much you needed to heal the tank would inform how many holy you could cast in between, and between pulls you wouldn't recover your MP like today either. As a caster besides BLM, MP also mattered (remember when Ruin III costed 1300MP to cast out of Dreadwyrm?). This in turn made rphys role fundamentally important. As a tank, you also had to adjust to aggro management and what your allies would do, as well as the party damage output and the encounter layout. This meant that your rotation would also not be static as you'd have to go between your aggro combo and your damage combo. All of this in spite of tanks and healers never having any RNG elements in their rotations whatsoever (AST excepted with cards). Fully deterministic toolkits, and yet the whole battle design made it so that you constantly had to adjust.

What's support today in comparison? It's so bland and braindead I have even stopped playing those jobs.

The comments on the page itself are a read and a half.

Edit: Admittedly, what gets me about this statement is the turnaround from "take breaks" to "please don't retire." But given the glacial pace that the game is updated, who knows how long it will take.

Edit: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2270593239 heres the whole thing actually which I'm surprised how little fanfare this got.

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Originally Posted by Valence

This actually made me remember what made support roles actually interesting and miles ahead of what they are today. Sure, they had a few other battle mechanics, but they also had variable rotations. As a healer you didn't have more than tetragrammaton for example in HW as an OGCD heal, the rest, you had to hard cast. This fundamentally changed your rotation since you had to adjust to incoming damage profiles and encounters, and also to what your allies did. As a healer in dungeons you had to manage your MP a lot and the time taken to take down a pull and how much you needed to heal the tank would inform how many holy you could cast in between, and between pulls you wouldn't recover your MP like today either. As a caster besides BLM, MP also mattered (remember when Ruin III costed 1300MP to cast out of Dreadwyrm?). This in turn made rphys role fundamentally important. As a tank, you also had to adjust to aggro management and what your allies would do, as well as the party damage output and the encounter layout. This meant that your rotation would also not be static as you'd have to go between your aggro combo and your damage combo. All of this in spite of tanks and healers never having any RNG elements in their rotations whatsoever (AST excepted with cards). Fully deterministic toolkits, and yet the whole battle design made it so that you constantly had to adjust.

What's support today in comparison? It's so bland and braindead I have even stopped playing those jobs.

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How I wish we didn't have so many redundant ogcd heals. ARR/HW SCH was peak gameplay. Kinda like what blizz is doing with healers right now, where you can lean in a more hybrid damage/heal style and have multiple mini bursty dps abilities to weave in. Which in itself is inpired by old scholar, so it circles back.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Yeah. People love to rag on WoW for reworking practically the entire game every couple of expansions, but that's how you keep things fresh, and why so many people still play it this many years later. In FFXIV it often feels like we're still just playing HW part-5, and for the long time veterans, that's super boring.

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So here's the thing. I really, REALLY don't want FFXIV to try and reinvent the wheel every two years. Yes, some jobs are feeling stale and homogenized, it's true. But it also really sucks to play a class, get really good at it, get all that muscle memory built up, and then have the rugged yanked out from under you with "We reworked you job and now you have a totally different rotation and buttons!" Sometimes the change, as hard as it is, can be an improvement. But sometimes it's not, or it's actually a downgrade. I don't want change just for the sake of change. I don't want my jobs getting gutted and remade if the new version is just the old version rearranged to play differently with no actual improvement. That gets really frustrating and makes me want to quit. Sorry to those who have played for a decade and think "the job system is the same!" Isn't that...normal? I don't expect the way a game series plays to fundamentally shift with every new installment in the series (though Final Fantasy as a series seems to love to try and do this, and it's partially why I don't care for the newer games), so why would a game that came out in 2013 play all that radically different now? I'm actually kind of glad a lot of the jobs didn't change too much between Endwalker and Dawntrail, because even if they weren't all in a great state then, at least I don't have to relearn the whole thing from the ground up all over again and can jump right into the new content feeling like I know what I'm doing.

I'm not saying "everything is perfect, never touch it or change anything ever again." I expect some amount of updates as the game goes on. But man oh man, I don't want them "reworking practically the entire game every couple of expansions" just to "keep things fresh." That would seriously drive me up the wall and irritate me to no end.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

So here's the thing. I really, REALLY don't want FFXIV to try and reinvent the wheel every two years. Yes, some jobs are feeling stale and homogenized, it's true. But it also really sucks to play a class, get really good at it, get all that muscle memory built up, and then have the rugged yanked out from under you with "We reworked you job and now you have a totally different rotation and buttons!" Sometimes the change, as hard as it is, can be an improvement. But sometimes it's not, or it's actually a downgrade. I don't want change just for the sake of change. I don't want my jobs getting gutted and remade if the new version is just the old version rearranged to play differently with no actual improvement. That gets really frustrating and makes me want to quit. Sorry to those who have played for a decade and think "the job system is the same!" Isn't that...normal? I don't expect the way a game series plays to fundamentally shift with every new installment in the series (though Final Fantasy as a series seems to love to try and do this, and it's partially why I don't care for the newer games), so why would a game that came out in 2013 play all that radically different now? I'm actually kind of glad a lot of the jobs didn't change too much between Endwalker and Dawntrail, because even if they weren't all in a great state then, at least I don't have to relearn the whole thing from the ground up all over again and can jump right into the new content feeling like I know what I'm doing.

I'm not saying "everything is perfect, never touch it or change anything ever again." I expect some amount of updates as the game goes on. But man oh man, I don't want them "reworking practically the entire game every couple of expansions" just to "keep things fresh." That would seriously drive me up the wall and irritate me to no end.

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That would imply the jobs don’t actually get reworked to make them worse versions of themselves every time

Does any DRG main think current DRG is better than EW DRG, same as BLM, EW SMN, AST’s 4th card system

If the jobs didn’t actually change at all that would be one thing but they do change them they just make them worse and more boring

Yeah, I suppose that's what I'm trying to get at here -- I'd honestly rather they had not changed most of the jobs from when I first started than what we have now. I think some of the changes were improvements, or net-neutral, but there were a lot more changes that didn't seem necessary at all or were changes for the worse. So when I hear "I think they should change everything every expansion," I get wary. I already really don't like the changes I've had to endure since I started playing in ShB. Can't we just have job changes that are...y'know...good? and fun? I know it's subjective, but I genuinely don't know who asked for most of the changes (removing Kaiten from Samurai sure wasn't a thing I ever once encountered and everyone I encountered was upset by it). Frankly I don't think it has anything to do with player feedback anymore and is the devs trying to homogenize everything to make it easier on themselves (likely due to budget and employee number restrictions).

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

Yeah, I suppose that's what I'm trying to get at here -- I'd honestly rather they had not changed most of the jobs from when I first started than what we have now. I think some of the changes were improvements, or net-neutral, but there were a lot more changes that didn't seem necessary at all or were changes for the worse. So when I hear "I think they should change everything every expansion," I get wary. I already really don't like the changes I've had to endure since I started playing in ShB. Can't we just have job changes that are...y'know...good? and fun? I know it's subjective, but I genuinely don't know who asked for most of the changes (removing Kaiten from Samurai sure wasn't a thing I ever once encountered and everyone I encountered was upset by it). Frankly I don't think it has anything to do with player feedback anymore and is the devs trying to homogenize everything to make it easier on themselves (likely due to budget and employee number restrictions).

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I mean then that comes back down to when you started

You started in ShB so you don’t know for example my favourite version of the healers, which “version” of the class should we stop at

If you think the job system and the battle system as a whole hasn't changed since ARR, then you're probably a lot more tolerant and less sensitive to changes than I am. We've not been playing the same game at all for a while now. It's almost as if we had moved halfway to another game genre beyond the MMO part and that's my main gripe. Things changing and evolving to shake things up is to be expected, but changing the fundamental core of the genre is the best way to alienate veterans, and generate chasms in the community between the old guard and the new audience.

I barely touch this game anymore, I went back to WoW. A game where healers matter.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Does any DRG main think current DRG is better than EW DRG

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Current DRG is absolutely better than EW DRG (Spineshatter/Winged Glide aesthetic change aside.)

Kinda off topic, but not really, but this thread title really highlights why I can't stand how everything is called 'content' nowadays. It's such a corporate soulless term that lets them get away with delivering less, and less. A new emote in the cash shop is given the same weight as like battle system changes or social features when everything is 'content.' Grrr...

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Kinda off topic, but not really, but this thread title really highlights why I can't stand how everything is called 'content' nowadays. It's such a corporate soulless term that lets them get away with delivering less, and less. A new emote in the cash shop is given the same weight as like battle system changes or social features when everything is 'content.' Grrr...

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That's because they see us as wallets and not people.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I mean then that comes back down to when you started

You started in ShB so you don’t know for example my favourite version of the healers, which “version” of the class should we stop at

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I don't really want them to fully "stop" anywhere of course. I liked ShB Samurai more than EW and DT SAM, but maybe I would have liked SB SAM even more. All I'm saying is that even in the 4.5 years I've been playing, they've made a lot of job changes that made me go "huh? why??" and made some jobs feel totally different. People around here act like everything about the game is still stuck in ShB, but I feel like a lot has changed for me since then with regards to how most jobs play. I don't know what the game played like in ARR, HW, or SB, and I have no way to experience them to give my opinion anymore. I had a friend who played White Mage during the time who said she really didn't like her job during SB and had a difficult time finding Savage parties to raid with because no one wanted White Mages for whatever reason, and another friend playing Samurai who was having a blast and had no complaints.

My point being I don't want them just to change it for the sake of changing it and nothing else. That's just annoying, and feels like what they've been doing the whole time I've been playing it. Changes to be like "look, we deleted one button and added two new buttons that rearranged your rotation! See, it's new and different now!" Sure, I guess, but not a fun or better way. It's why I'm glad, for instance, Paladin only got a single new attack from level 90-100 that doesn't take up a new hotbar spot and didn't change my rotation at all 6.5 to 7.0. That job was already button bloated back in ShB, I didn't want anything new. I don't need a new particle effect button every 10 levels, I don't care, I just want the job to feel fun for the most amount of people.

I can't really speak on healers as I don't play them much, I'll leave it up to healer mains to decide amongst themselves what they want, I'm just a little tank/melee player who thinks most of the melee jobs were more fun back in ShB than now.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

I don't really want them to fully "stop" anywhere of course. I liked ShB Samurai more than EW and DT SAM, but maybe I would have liked SB SAM even more. All I'm saying is that even in the 4.5 years I've been playing, they've made a lot of job changes that made me go "huh? why??" and made some jobs feel totally different. People around here act like everything about the game is still stuck in ShB, but I feel like a lot has changed for me since then with regards to how most jobs play. I don't know what the game played like in ARR, HW, or SB, and I have no way to experience them to give my opinion anymore. I had a friend who played White Mage during the time who said she really didn't like her job during SB and had a difficult time finding Savage parties to raid with because no one wanted White Mages for whatever reason, and another friend playing Samurai who was having a blast and had no complaints.

My point being I don't want them just to change it for the sake of changing it and nothing else. That's just annoying, and feels like what they've been doing the whole time I've been playing it. Changes to be like "look, we deleted one button and added two new buttons that rearranged your rotation! See, it's new and different now!" Sure, I guess, but not a fun or better way. It's why I'm glad, for instance, Paladin only got a single new attack from level 90-100 that doesn't take up a new hotbar spot and didn't change my rotation at all 6.5 to 7.0. That job was already button bloated back in ShB, I didn't want anything new. I don't need a new particle effect button every 10 levels, I don't care, I just want the job to feel fun for the most amount of people.

I can't really speak on healers as I don't play them much, I'll leave it up to healer mains to decide amongst themselves what they want, I'm just a little tank/melee player who thinks most of the melee jobs were more fun back in ShB than now.

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Healing bloody sucks in FF14 now. It is so bad I dropped healing to play warrior so I can heal at least still heal...... in a way.........

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

My point being I don't want them just to change it for the sake of changing it and nothing else. That's just annoying, and feels like what they've been doing the whole time I've been playing it. Changes to be like "look, we deleted one button and added two new buttons that rearranged your rotation! See, it's new and different now!" Sure, I guess, but not a fun or better way. It's why I'm glad, for instance, Paladin only got a single new attack from level 90-100 that doesn't take up a new hotbar spot and didn't change my rotation at all 6.5 to 7.0. That job was already button bloated back in ShB, I didn't want anything new. I don't need a new particle effect button every 10 levels, I don't care, I just want the job to feel fun for the most amount of people.

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Pretty much that yeah, im glad RDM is basically the same. I dont want a changed job every expension, it ruined Astro for me, tarnished whm... I feel on many jobs we could cut back on some buttons - we dont need the same attack as AOE and single target with shared CDs, even less if the AOE is "does 800dmg, losses 80% dmg after the first enemy"... ffs just make it one button and give us something interesting instead...

Mao worried that some jobs startings get cheesy. Mao likes do hunts trains. The way Umbrals Soul now works, Mao just has to punch it at end of first A-Rank fight in zone and by time Mao gets to second A-Rank, Mao often has full load Xenoglossy ready to dump into second A-Rank. Often is so much DPS all at once that sometimes A-Rank comes over to Mao and says "Hello Mao, A-Rank noticed Mao dumping ouchies into A-Rank. A-Rank would like to show appreciation by making Mao taste dirts." Point Mao is makings is that DT changes makings Mao job feel little bits cheezy and one-dimensional in certain situations. Mao not so keen on that. Mao preferred EW BLMs much more. (Mao also wonderings if Picto is this kind of cheese buts on steroids.)

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

I don't know if any of the teams playing some of the F2P games on the market currently. I'm playing Wuthering Wave right now and after allocating a monthly budget similarly to FF14 (15$/month), the value honestly do not even compare. One of the thing it makes me realize is just how ... dated FF14 is. Writing, graphic, cutsceen, voice is either on par or a step above FF14. And the world exploration really make FF14 open world play feel like a game from 20 years ago.

One of most significance difference is just overall how ... smooth everything is. Transition from zone to zone, dialogue to cutsceen ... comparing to FF14's where you constantly going into a 2-3 seconds black screen when you need to switch from one thing to another. I didn't care much until the beginning of DT where the constant cut to black-screen became apparent due to how many unnecessary cutsceens there was. But now that I'm getting used to the smoothness of modern game it really hits home how bad the engine FF14 is. In a way FF14's cut to black now feels like the Starfield's loading screen meme.

And this is not something I think they can fix even if they want to. There is no deniable how limited the game engine of FF14 is. They really should have not rushed to conclude the Hyadelin story line. Between Omega, Garlemard, Zodiac they probably had enough for 2 expansions after end walker. They should have used that time to sunset FF14 while working toward a new MMO's engine for the next story. I don't think FF14 is so old now that it won't have what it takes to carry for another 10 years.

Also. you get new content every 1.5 months

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When you put it that way maybe its time for FFXIV to retire when Meracydia is out.

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Originally Posted by Valence

If you think the job system and the battle system as a whole hasn't changed since ARR, then you're probably a lot more tolerant and less sensitive to changes than I am. We've not been playing the same game at all for a while now. It's almost as if we had moved halfway to another game genre beyond the MMO part and that's my main gripe. Things changing and evolving to shake things up is to be expected, but changing the fundamental core of the genre is the best way to alienate veterans, and generate chasms in the community between the old guard and the new audience.

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It’s kinda amazing if you think about it. The jobs got so many flashy skills and new abilities and they feel the most homogeneous since a long time and they do get worse because new abilities are just mostly off global and the 2 minute meta forcing all jobs in the same situation.

Dawntrail launched less than 6 months ago, but it feels like years, that's how stale things are.