Are we expecting TO MUCH from 8.0?

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Originally Posted by Shinku_Tachi

100, this is me!

I'm not interested in doing Savage anymore. I don't find it fun. I don't want a "stepping stone" to savage. I won't be convinced to do savage.
I like having a bit of battle content that provides a bit more tension than the regular ish, but isn't "slam your head against the wall till you finally clear it" content.

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100%. I'm tired of this gap between Extreme and Savage content.

Extreme is doable with Party Finder. Savage requires statics that know what the ffff they're doing.

I'd like to see more content that falls within that Extreme, preferably 4-player content.

It's not Criterion content either, the difficulty of that is about Tier 3 Savage.

But why can't Occult Crescent have a harder difficulty than slap an enemy once and get credit? Wasn't Eureka a lot harder?

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Originally Posted by FeyFavilla

they have just implemented housing, low entry cost, available to EVERYONE, in a way that is smooth, well rounded and flexibly upgrade-able without even the threat of having everything taken from you if you cancel your sub.

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Don't they also require a specific housing-only currency? I'd wait to see just how microtransaction-heavy it is before I would even consider moving, especially since you have to buy access to patch cycles rather than expansions. Also, their story's awful and their writing team suffers from Millennial Writing Syndrome way worse than the XIV localizers do.

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8.0 has to slap. It HAS TO. The competition is actively sliding into their market. They cannot afford to just do a cookie-cutter expansion. The internet talks. Having to watch other MMOs innovate and move on, be on top of trends and technical progress, listen and communicate with their players will drive people away.

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This I can agree with, but from the looks of it, SE as a company is more interested in cost-cutting than making sure 8.0 is going to keep the company afloat. I'm not going to expect much of anything because I don't think CS3's going to get the support they need from above to keep up. It's sad, because I could see 8.0 being make or break on a corporate level. At least if Ubisoft's any indication, they can sell themselves to Tencent rather than go bankrupt entirely if it fails.

The WoW devs straight up said they looked at everything FFXIV was was doing, our issues with it, and made it their goal to fix everything while still being the system we like making stuff in.

I finally got the hairstyle locked behind grinding Pilgrim's Traverse yesterday. I still haven't actually gotten to floor 100 and it's not likely ever going to happen because I took full advantage of how easy it was to grind iLVL 750 weapons for every job instead of trying to go the distance from the start. Yesterday, reset day, it took about 5 hours because of how long I had to sit in queue. (One player was in three of the 5 runs with me.) It's already dying content unless you intend to solo.

And I still don't have either minion, which I do want.

I will likely never experience the new Quantum boss. And I also missed the boat on Chaotic last year because I took a few months break around Christmas last year. I really wanted THAT minion, too! Still do!

I can only imagine how frustrating that is as a dev, too, to put months to a year or more of work into a new thing fir players only for the vast majority to chew it up, spit it out, and never touch it again in two weeks.


But, yes, 8.0 has to slap. We all agree. The devs agree.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

100%. I'm tired of this gap between Extreme and Savage content.

Extreme is doable with Party Finder. Savage requires statics that know what the ffff they're doing.

I'd like to see more content that falls within that Extreme, preferably 4-player content.

It's not Criterion content either, the difficulty of that is about Tier 3 Savage.

But why can't Occult Crescent have a harder difficulty than slap an enemy once and get credit? Wasn't Eureka a lot harder?

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I did two ultimates with a pf and plenty of savage i would disagre with that yet the DDR patterns to lean all over and over again are life-draining.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

100%. I'm tired of this gap between Extreme and Savage content.

Extreme is doable with Party Finder. Savage requires statics that know what the ffff they're doing.

I'd like to see more content that falls within that Extreme, preferably 4-player content.

It's not Criterion content either, the difficulty of that is about Tier 3 Savage.

But why can't Occult Crescent have a harder difficulty than slap an enemy once and get credit? Wasn't Eureka a lot harder?

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As Myotis said, even Ultimate can be done in pf. Savage absolutely does not need a static, there are standardized strategies for PF every raid tier and it's cleared by randoms every raid tier.

What I can say however after raiding through PF in 6 different raid tiers over 4 expansions is that it can be incredibly frustrating and has become increasingly more so over the years.

As everything you do with randoms it's a roll of the dice whether or not you get people who are as committed as you to clearing the fight.
And because modern fight design is a lot more of a fail or pass check than older ones there is little you can do to prevent a wipe when you have players who just aren't very good at the mechanics, which can lead to hours of just repeating the same thing over and over with zero progress.

Not to mention the increase in people who simply lie about their progress and join parties they really have no business being in.

Honestly after dawntrail...i dont really care...i been playing other games logging on to do pvp and waiting for 7.4 fashion outdide of that i feel like dawntrail really sucked all the fun i had my fc feels the same mind you these guys been playing since arr. Dawntrail manage to make me care less. Hopefully 8.0 is better but heck i might not even buy 3 day headstart if 8.0 introduction quest are boring. I usually buy 3 day head start but welll see.

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Originally Posted by Myotis

I did two ultimates with a pf and plenty of savage i would disagre with that yet the DDR patterns to lean all over and over again are life-draining.

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I am willing to bet that those PF parties are very tuned on their PF requirements so the barriers are still there, just in a different form.

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Originally Posted by Drimn

Don't they also require a specific housing-only currency? I'd wait to see just how microtransaction-heavy it is before I would even consider moving, especially since you have to buy access to patch cycles rather than expansions. Also, their story's awful and their writing team suffers from Millennial Writing Syndrome way worse than the XIV localizers do.

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While I am also side-eyeing Microsoft for shoving micro-transactions in the housing system please do remember that SE bleeds players in the cash shop for emotes and now individual set pieces as well. Not to mention the other big money sink in FFXIV - item storage. If there's any folks in here who are playing or have played WoW you will know that you can massively upgrade storage for each character. You have a bank - two technically - and your inventory size is determined by how big the equipped bags are.
In FFXIV you literally have to pay for retainer space and the extra chocobo slots. Monthly. It adds up. So if I can save all of that money and instead spend a tiny amount on my personal house, honestly, that is a worthwhile trade-off.

And as for the story, I disagree heavily actually. WoW is a 'show don't tell' game. While the actual text might not always be as well worded or cinematic as FFXIV likes to be the world's lore and history is insanely rich and interesting. I could gush for hours about individual sidequests. It is a world alive outside of the main character because there is no main character. You just experience the story as an observer. The MSQ is only a fraction of the writing that goes into the whole thing. I'll be honest, FFXIV writing has been just as bad or worse many times before DT but considering this is currently their main selling point they absolutely have to knuckle down and deliver a story worth all of the consumer-unfriendly nonsense that comes with it.

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Originally Posted by FeyFavilla

It is a world alive outside of the main character because there is no main character. You just experience the story as an observer. The MSQ is only a fraction of the writing that goes into the whole thing. I'll be honest, FFXIV writing has been just as bad or worse many times before DT but considering this is currently their main selling point they absolutely have to knuckle down and deliver a story worth all of the consumer-unfriendly nonsense that comes with it.

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Maybe I misunderstood you but...
As much as I disliked the 7.0 story, the WoL being more than just an observer is what made the story actually what it was in the first place.
The player character mattering is what made the story hit home for people.
DT showed that a good chunk of people do not want their character to play second fiddle but want the final fantasy feeling.

The last thing I want is FFxiv to follow the WoW story telling.
FFxiv can and should learn a good number of things from the competition yes, but for the story it should stay true to itself because frankly if it turns into WoW 2.0 in that regard I am done with it.
I want the game to change in certain places and take risks but I still want it to feel like the game I originally started in, a final fantasy game regarding the story.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

What I can say however after raiding through PF in 6 different raid tiers over 4 expansions is that it can be incredibly frustrating and has become increasingly more so over the years.

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I myself have cleared content via PF many times over the years but every single time it has never ONCE been an enjoyable experience. At the end of the day, this is a video game. Should the higher end content be easy? No, but the difficulty should be -enjoyable-. Trying to herd a gaggle of PF randoms through savage and even EXs on some occasion is the opposite of enjoyable. It's such a miserable experience I haven't done it once this entire expansion yet and now only bother if the tier has something I really want such as a unique piece of gear I desire for glam.

The JP PF experience is allegedly vastly different and while I wonder what makes it so one thing is absolutely clear to me. At least on the EN side, the current approach to difficulty has failed. The lion's share of players are not prepared enough to handle even current EX level content, let alone savage or ultimate. I believe this is largely in part due to the severe dumbing down of jobs and the sharp increase of content difficulty compared to normal mode. The current justification for jobs being so bare bones and brainless is because the high end content is as hard as it is. But what happens when someone hasn't ever played any of the harder content and goes through a baby mode story playing a baby mode job and then tries to do the hard stuff? They hit a brick wall. I have been playing this game since 2.0 open beta and while there's always been bad players (and always will be) I have never seen such a wide rift between the good and bad ones as we have now and I absolutely blame this on the way difficulty is handled.

To fix this, I feel three things need to happen:

1. Remove some difficulty from the high end content and put it back into the jobs. Less DDR spam, more difficulty and rewarding rotations with DPS/mitigation/heal checks.

2. Make the story content harder as you progress through it. Story dungeons/duties/trials should get slowly harder as you progress and we should introduce mandatory role specific duties. Note that I am not asking for them to make the story "hard", I am asking for them to have players ready to jump into midcore content by the end of it if they want to.

3. Add more midcore content. EXs are the closest thing we have, and they are not enough considering each patch only adds one of these tops. A good fix for this would honestly be if they repurposed the unreal system. Instead of just cosmetic junk, have it reward some sub-savage level jewelry or something to go with the current EX weapon and release a new unreal every raid tier alongside a new EX. This adds two "EX level" avenues of midcore content a progression-minded player is incentivized to do. Field operations are also another avenue they could rehash to be midcore.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

Maybe I misunderstood you but...
As much as I disliked the 7.0 story, the WoL being more than just an observer is what made the story actually what it was in the first place.
The player character mattering is what made the story hit home for people.
DT showed that a good chunk of people do not want their character to play second fiddle but want the final fantasy feeling.

The last thing I want is FFxiv to follow the WoW story telling.
FFxiv can and should learn a good number of things from the competition yes, but for the story it should stay true to itself because frankly if it turns into WoW 2.0 in that regard I am done with it.
I want the game to change in certain places and take risks but I still want it to feel like the game I originally started in, a final fantasy game regarding the story.

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Oh no you are right, that is exactly what was a major problem with the DT MSQ. I also felt massively sidelined.
The difference is, and that was all I was trying to point out, that in WoW the player is not canon. The WoL is, in contrast, literally the main character. The entire story of FFXIV is based around them.
WoW lore is simply told differently in its entirety and even if the MSQ suffers there is always flavor to be found in places. It was more about the general statement that WoW has shitty storytelling, which I just can't agree with as someone who was hugely into its lore and worldbuilding.

That said, I would never ask for FFXIV's storytelling to be changed. It would just not work with the way the whole story structure is set up and with how, as you already instantly clocked, players feel about actually mattering as an individual. I did not mean to insinuate I would prefer this game do its MSQ how WoW does it. I'd probably drop it too in that case because then I may as well go back to WoW, what would even be the point anymore.

Sometimes it is nice feeling like you belong in this group you have spent hours upon hours with and being acknowledged for all of the things the PC has achieved. It's a good formula that creates a solid bond for the player with the game, but as we have seen with DT that can also backfire insanely hard if you are left feeling like "Why am I even here? There's a million more important things to do".

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Originally Posted by Selsix

I believe this is largely in part due to the severe dumbing down of jobs and the sharp increase of content difficulty compared to normal mode. The current justification for jobs being so bare bones and brainless is because the high end content is as hard as it is. But what happens when someone hasn't ever played any of the harder content and goes through a baby mode story playing a baby mode job and then tries to do the hard stuff? They hit a brick wall. I have been playing this game since 2.0 open beta and while there's always been bad players (and always will be) I have never seen such a wide rift between the good and bad ones as we have now and I absolutely blame this on the way difficulty is handled.

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It absolutely is to an extent due to them dumbing down the jobs and putting all of the difficulty into fight mechanics.
I don't think players have necessarily gotten worse, it's that those that are bad at executing mechanics are now simply brick walling everyone else. The disparity became more obvious because the consequences are that much more apparent, it's no longer just that one player dying but instead everyone.

In older fights you could compensate for a player that wasn't very good at their job by getting better gear or simply playing better yourself to still meet the damage/healing/health threshold requirement.
And you could compensate for someone who wasn't very good at mechanics by simply dragging their corpse through the parts they couldn't do if you still had the DPS to beat enrage.

But now that everything is about executing the "mechanics dance" perfectly there is little you can do to compensate. Everyone has to do them and if someone fails it most likely results in a wipe because the mechanics that people struggle with are not only more difficult in their execution but also the ones that will flat out wipe the party.
This means that a single weak link can bring your progress to a complete standstill and that quickly becomes a miserable experience.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Stopped raiding last tier and I've been very happy about it so far. Not everybody is interested into every piece of content. Expecting people to all go for extremes/savage+ isn't very far off expecting everybody to go for ranked pvp or mahjong to me.

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This is an ongoing problem for people who can't think outside the WoW-Refugee formula. When you come from older MMORPGs you understand very well that there's more to an MMORPG than just endgame raiding. When you follow the logic of replies not just in this thread but others within the forums, it’s always the raiding selling point as if nothing else can be brought to the table to convince you why you should play FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Extreme is doable with Party Finder. Savage requires statics that know what the ffff they're doing.

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I disagree. People do all sorts of content on PF all the time. The real issue with PF is that it's DC-locked and that it dies in after the fourth week really badly. But not even Ultimates require a static, it's just for convenience (or extra torture depending on how many clows you've got in there)

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Originally Posted by RedLolly

I will likely never experience the new Quantum boss. And I also missed the boat on Chaotic last year because I took a few months break around Christmas last year. I really wanted THAT minion, too! Still do!

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If it helps in any way, you haven't actually missed the boat; they just moved to organizing groups over Discord once the PF died down. It kinda sucks if your schedule doesn't line up with theirs, but at least in EU there's 2-3 different servers all organizing runs fairly often, even for complete newbies or mid-prog. I can't tell you any exactly since you're on NA and I'm on EU, but Google and Reddit are good spots to begin searching.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

I am willing to bet that those PF parties are very tuned on their PF requirements so the barriers are still there, just in a different form.

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I might be misunderstanding this, but nothing really stops you from prog-lying like it was said before (although it will be extremely obvious to everyone else). The only "barrier" is waiting for the community to settle on a guide, for EU it's typically Hector or some raidplan, and you're golden. The first week or two in PF is pure chaos because you have 3 raidplans, Hector, Kobe, some dude that came out of the woodwork and someone pulling out JP strats out of his hat, but you can still clear fine and it gets really streamlined after that first week or two. I'm not saying it can't be frustrating because it is, but it's also the nature of playing with completely random people. You get terrorists at all content difficulties lol
The real barrier is the waiting time. Depending on the content, you might actually be sitting there, waiting, for hours. Unable to do anything that would put you in a duty. It sucks.

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Originally Posted by Selsix

I myself have cleared content via PF many times over the years but every single time it has never ONCE been an enjoyable experience. At the end of the day, this is a video game. Should the higher end content be easy? No, but the difficulty should be -enjoyable-. Trying to herd a gaggle of PF randoms through savage and even EXs on some occasion is the opposite of enjoyable. It's such a miserable experience I haven't done it once this entire expansion yet and now only bother if the tier has something I really want such as a unique piece of gear I desire for glam.

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Although I perfectly understand where you come from, I've had a nearly opposite experience. When PF works, it's a dream. Statics are much more complicated in my experience...
Admittedly I haven't been in the Savage scene for a hot second (what the hell is the Arcadion glam??) but I find most fights enjoyable when your teammates aren't sniffing crayons between pulls. I have so many nice memories of Anabaseios and so, so many memes from UWU PF.
My only real issue with PF is that having it be DC-locked instead of Region-locked makes things really annoying if you have to wait a long time for your group to fill on top of being away from your home world already. I can't decorate my house or even AFK in it while I wait, I can't check my retainers, I can't do much of anything, really; and I'm not contributing to Light's population by standing in the middle of some ghost settlement because I'm trying not to torture my potato PC. I'd just love to be able to stay in Chaos.

When I have watched successful clears on streams, I used to hear thunderous cheering but as of late, all I hear is people sighing and saying “thank god is over”. That in itself is a problem with difficulty, you should be happy you finished and not thankful that you have been released from a burden.

I really think that the devs need to dial it down, it’s ok to reuse mechanics if they are fun. Constantly having to create something that is new and innovative can strip the fun out of content because most of the fun stuff has already been done.

I used to be in a static before I had my child, but now my playtime is not that structured anymore. When I have two hours to play, I want to play and not waste two hours in PF hoping to find a capable group.

As to raid plans, it sounds wonderful but I am an experiential learner, I can watch videos and look at pretty pictures all day, but I won’t learn until I do it. Most PFs of the past did not have any patience for how I learn and that’s why PFs are something I am uncomfortable using.

Also, I main WHM, sorry, not sorry.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

I used to be in a static before I had my child, but now my playtime is not that structured anymore. When I have two hours to play, I want to play and not waste two hours in PF hoping to find a capable group.

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We agree on that.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

As to raid plans, it sounds wonderful but I am an experiential learner, I can watch videos and look at pretty pictures all day, but I won’t learn until I do it. Most PFs of the past did not have any patience for me learning so that’s why PF is something I am uncomfortable using.

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Blind PFs are a thing you can create, that exist, and that I see filling fairly often. It takes longer to fill which gets in the way of your first point, but if you want this type of experience you have to compromise somewhere. Either waiting in PF or a more structured time with static, I'm afraid.
The good thing about week 1/2 PF is that everyone is blind so you'll get that experience like it or not lol

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

Also, I main WHM, sorry, not sorry.

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What does this have to do with anything? I see WHMs everywhere, I play it too. Anyone telling you to leave because of your job (unless regen spot is already taken) could be reported for it.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

100%. I'm tired of this gap between Extreme and Savage content.

Extreme is doable with Party Finder. Savage requires statics that know what the ffff they're doing.

I'd like to see more content that falls within that Extreme, preferably 4-player content.

It's not Criterion content either, the difficulty of that is about Tier 3 Savage.

But why can't Occult Crescent have a harder difficulty than slap an enemy once and get credit? Wasn't Eureka a lot harder?

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As someone who cleared everything up to M8 phase 1 in PF, including FRU. I disagree entirely. Can PF be frustrating? Oh heck yes. I have far too many pulls in M6S because people couldn't do adds week 1. That being said, it's very doable if you're willing to stick with it.

What I often find is people expect a faster clear and get upset when it takes several hours to prog. Which, hey, fair enough if you're schedule doesn't permit lengthily sessions. But that's the real trade off between PF and statics.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

When I have watched successful clears on streams, I used to hear thunderous cheering but as of late, all I hear is people sighing and saying “thank god is over”. That in itself is a problem with difficulty, you should be happy you finished and not thankful that you have been released from a burden.

I really think that the devs need to dial it down, it’s ok to reuse mechanics if they are fun. Constantly having to create something that is new and innovative can strip the fun out of content because most of the fun stuff has already been done.

I used to be in a static before I had my child, but now my playtime is not that structured anymore. When I have two hours to play, I want to play and not waste two hours in PF hoping to find a capable group.

As to raid plans, it sounds wonderful but I am an experiential learner, I can watch videos and look at pretty pictures all day, but I won’t learn until I do it. Most PFs of the past did not have any patience for how I learn and that’s why PFs are something I am uncomfortable using.

Also, I main WHM, sorry, not sorry.

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Just because someone is expressing relief the "slog" is over doesn't mean they didn't enjoy it. The day I cleared FRU was probably the biggest roll coaster of emotions I've ever heard in this game. I went from three 0.2% wipes to an acquittance I met in PF putting together a party to help me clear only for her and her friend to be on jobs they weren't ready to play at an Ultimate level. So we never made it past phase three. To say that was soul crushing would be an understatement. I literally screamed to the whole of my apartment building. Four hours later, I got into a proper group thanks to Sausage Rolls clear squad and finally beat it in three pulls. That said scream was both relief and joy I was "finally free"

While I wouldn't necessarily want to go through all that again. I did actually enjoy a lot of the prog prior to that day. Meeting people, vibing to the fights and etc.

Making the fights easier takes away from the experience to some degree. I wouldn't be anywhere near as satisfied with FRU if they toned it down more than it already is. Case in point, while beating Wicked Thunder week 1 was exciting. It didn't last because her DPS check is so comically forgiving. But I'm also someone who will go out of their way to install difficulty mods in games like BG3 because I enjoy the challenge. So long as it's fun. Which is, ultimately, subjective.

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Originally Posted by FeyFavilla

While I am also side-eyeing Microsoft for shoving micro-transactions in the housing system please do remember that SE bleeds players in the cash shop for emotes and now individual set pieces as well. Not to mention the other big money sink in FFXIV - item storage. If there's any folks in here who are playing or have played WoW you will know that you can massively upgrade storage for each character. You have a bank - two technically - and your inventory size is determined by how big the equipped bags are.
In FFXIV you literally have to pay for retainer space and the extra chocobo slots. Monthly. It adds up. So if I can save all of that money and instead spend a tiny amount on my personal house, honestly, that is a worthwhile trade-off.

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I started WoW in Wrath before dropping out for a while, then rejoined in Legion before leaving in early BfA. I know you can upgrade storage with crafted gear. If anything, when I moved to XIV, I was glad to not have to worry about throwing down money for Dreamweave bags and such and having a rather generous amount of storage right from the very beginning. I'm not a major fan of having to pay for more market board slots, but to me, it does help mitigate the kind of clowns you get on WoW's market board where they put up 99 single stacks of an item just to drown out the others trying to sell their own stuff. I personally would rather they fix undercutting than anything else involving the retainer system. It's fine for what it is, even if it's a bit of an immersion-breaker.
I spend $4 for two more retainers and I have never once had an issue storing things. My wife doesn't even do that because she's not as into crafting and gathering as I am, and she's never had an issue with storage space, either. FFXIV is rather generous, all things considered. Not perfect, but the amount of storage you get for free between two retainers and a chocobo is a really good amount, and you can get more optionally if you like.

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While the actual text might not always be as well worded or cinematic as FFXIV likes to be the world's lore and history is insanely rich and interesting.

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Its best days are behind it, I think everyone can agree on that. The people responsible for the vast majority of that lore are either retired or left the industry in disgrace thanks to the Cosby Room controversy. What they created was honestly really, really deep for a video game lore-wise, and it's a shame to see what's become of it as of late. Even then, the world doesn't update with the occurrences that happen in the story, and the head dev basically admitted that zones are meant to be consumed and disposed of. They've all become ways to facilitate raiding.
I do really wish FFXIV would place more emphasis on world building to help flesh out the story some. I like Ishikawa's work, but a criticism I've seen of her is that she gets far too wrapped up in characters and neglects anything resembling world-building, and it's hard to dispute that. ARR, for all of its flaws, did a decent job of setting up the world around us, in that it gave us three distinct cultures grappling with a bunch of second- and third-order effects of the plot. It showed, and didn't tell, like you said. We haven't had anything resembling world-building since Stormblood. Look at the Azim Steppe and look at all of Tural. That one zone has more thought put into its backstory than an entire expac and continent did.
And I don't want to hear about FFXIV selling cosmetics being "consumer-unfriendly" when WoW literally integrated RMT into their business model with their WoW token stunt.

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Originally Posted by Drimn

(...) the kind of clowns you get on WoW's market board where they put up 99 single stacks of an item just to drown out the others trying to sell their own stuff. (...)

Its best days are behind it, I think everyone can agree on that.(...)

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Blizz did actually fix this by condensing AH listings. Any item will be shown for their prices only and how many are available. Even if one person lists 500 of one item it is only one listing now, and even if they list a full stack you can buy only 5 of them. That problem was solved a long time ago, shortly before I left, so I suspect you were not around to witness it. Another point to them actually listening to community gripes.

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Originally Posted by Drimn

(...)Its best days are behind it, I think everyone can agree on that.(...)

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I heavily disagree. While BfA was a massive blunder and SL's MSQ was an absolute joke the many side areas were interesting and lively still and I always enjoyed witnessing the little dramas beside the main plot. Legion alone was a bloody masterpiece. There were a few small things I disliked, as any would in an MMO, but the entire setup was amazing and had just as many or more touching moments in it than I have seen in FFXIV expansions.
Granted, I cannot speak for the current state of things since I have been out of the game for a while but there is plenty to love still.

Lastly, the tokens, while controversial, allow people who do not want to spend money to play for free as long as they can maintain the monthly ingame gold. I am sorry but that is a straight up benefit. And if someone wants to spend the money to get more gold in a legitimate, controlled way, that is not an issue either. The system literally prevents gold sellers from getting too much of a foothold in the game and WoW has been insanely good about preventing RMT for years. Unlike FFXIV. It does still happen but they clap the bots with a swiftness.

My expectations are in the ground but I'm sure xiv will find a way to tank them.
Idk if it's budget, stubbornness, or a mix of both but I am just endlessly disappointed.
I'm juuuuust attached enough to the pixels that make my house to stay but with WoW housing might change that.

I will remain a pessimist with regard to 8.0, until proven otherwise.

Well it's the last hurrah for me probly so yeah i am expecting alot
I don't think i'll play next expansion personally if there's not some real good changes to look forward to

I'll just return to being a single player game enjoyer

So after the new Yoshi P interview are we amping the copium more that the players are coming back?

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Originally Posted by SkizzleAbernath

So after the new Yoshi P interview are we amping the copium more that the players are coming back?

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Out of those who left, there are three groups:
* Those who are on break till 8.0
* The wait and see how it goes an may return if it’s good group
* The lost ones, they quit, uninstalled and won’t come back for years, if ever

I would say that the lost ones are between 30 to 40 percent right now. The damage is done for them, the 6.1 to 6.5 patch series and the disaster that is 7.0 burned them and they will be the hardest to try and win back, if that’s even possible. I know this because several of them are in my family.

I firmly believe that the 8.0 collectors should include a skip to 8.0 in order to try and win back as many as possible. If they use the skip and want to know what happened before, they will watch a video, read a summary or use NG+. Just do it SE, you already admitted that the previous content was a miss, make a mends by not forcing people to play it or pay even more to skip. This is the same logic you used for all of the free fantasias.

Couldn't say if players are coming back or not. But I haven't seen anything worthy of note to me that will suddenly make move me from camp "of course I'm expecting too much of 8.0 since I'm never gonna get what I want anyway" to camp "omg they're remaking the game from scratch like a second realm reborn".

Yes, the majority of people have unrealistic expectations. Now I fully expect there to be changes based off feedback, but I don't think people will actually see the game change to the point they would like until about 10.0 or 11.0. You can't change the game so drastically without feedback because you make take it in the complete wrong direction and overcorrect too hard.

Well, good news everyone with 7.4 finally giving us yet another music collaboration the entire playerbase asked for, FFXIV is officially saved.
All long-standing issues, design concerns and direction problems have apparently been cured overnight. The copium levels really did jump a few tiers.

Don’t get me wrong, music is subjective and rock is amazing but 7.4 proved that it's not going to fix anything.

Almost every month the game leans further into commercial-style partnerships no one really has asked for instead of fixing the problems.
Whether that’s Square Enix or the current leadership, the sellout direction is hard to ignore at this point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xapapetsu

Yes, the majority of people have unrealistic expectations. Now I fully expect there to be changes based off feedback, but I don't think people will actually see the game change to the point they would like until about 10.0 or 11.0. You can't change the game so drastically without feedback because you make take it in the complete wrong direction and overcorrect too hard.

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It's that kind of lukewarm approach that got us into the current complaints in the first place. We're gonna continue seeing some small adjustments ten years after the fact.

"Same boring dungeons and same boring raids" just play a different game. It sounds like u guys just outgrown the game. I personally thought this expac was fantastic and the qol updates shows they are listening( albeit very delayed lol) i cant wait for the 8.0 msq

Quote:

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Originally Posted by freshavocado

"Same boring dungeons and same boring raids" just play a different game. It sounds like u guys just outgrown the game. I personally thought this expac was fantastic and the qol updates shows they are listening( albeit very delayed lol) i cant wait for the 8.0 msq

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The whole go play something else is tiresome It's always this reply when the copium arguements run out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by freshavocado

"Same boring dungeons and same boring raids" just play a different game. It sounds like u guys just outgrown the game. I personally thought this expac was fantastic and the qol updates shows they are listening( albeit very delayed lol) i cant wait for the 8.0 msq

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Reminder from Yoshida:

https://i.imgur.com/NHDNnZU.png

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Reminder from Yoshida:

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I am sorry, this is funny in a really depressing way.

Don't have high expectations because it's absolutely going to be same cluster fest as dawntrail. They even announced that those that are satisfied with current battle system, have not to worry! That alone tells you much.

7.4 patch and variant dungeons are just... same thing, dungeons as well and trial. Ye all same design and formula but it's always "new and shiny" by them. Oh wow, have nothing to do again. Crazy I know. Their resort is to change glamour, deep dungeon function and feast rewards just because they saw player number and have become desperate. But not enough to change my opinion on this game.

Then you have players that just 24/7 play pvp like zombies and wonder why they are unsatisfied with the game. So yeah nothing will change, same old formula.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

7.4 patch and variant dungeons are just... same thing

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But now they look like your favorite anime/low effort nintendo slop! Because consistant and good art direction is about as elusive to FFXIV as good job design.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

But now they look like your favorite anime/low effort nintendo slop! Because consistant and good art direction is about as elusive to FFXIV as good job design.

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The artstyle of the variant dungeon is because it's literally a book.
Are we at the point where we complain because they actually do something different for a change?

Ah well, art is subjective and such...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

Then you have players that just 24/7 play pvp like zombies and wonder why they are unsatisfied with the game. So yeah nothing will change, same old formula.

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Why you do me like that :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

The artstyle of the variant dungeon is because it's literally a book.
Are we at the point where we complain because they actually do something different for a change?

Ah well, art is subjective and such...

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But it's really not different, only different for XIV. I just would like to see something come out of Japan that isn't the default anime/nintendo slop graphics when they decide to "shake up" the art style or go a "different direction". I swear the Japanese style templates have not progressed in about 30-40 years and it's painfully dull at this point. Even the new patches are leaning really hard into the anime art style, with Calyx looking like "uninspired anime scientist #236". And frankly when you go from Eorzea to something as juvenile the Mushroom Kingdom it's just makes it all the worse. Let's go in the other direction and not make something that looks like it should be on the wall of a preschool. That would be something different.

I'm just tired of everything being infantalized, from our main protagonist to now the varient dungeon. It's so damn boring and kinda creepy when you think a little bit on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

snip.

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I can understand wanting that but two things and I don't mean that as saying you are wrong in wanting what you want:

I think it's a bit unfair to criticize this game for doing something in a direction you personally don't like and call it slop when you want change in the broader way from Japanese games.

Sorry but I simply disagree with the notion of throwing something in the dirt just because of personal taste.
The variant dungeon is a story book and the artstyle is fitting for that I think
You can dislike it and want something else, that's fine and good but frankly you guys overdo it a bit with the negative voices and by calling it "slop" or "not good art direction".
That's simply not true and even I can see that they put thought into that artstyle. They could have easily not done anything special.

Call me white knight or such a thing (at least I kinda feel like that lately here), I don't care anymore but I think feedback should stay at least partly neutral in how it's presented.
A simple "not my taste" or "would have liked a different artstyle" would have said the same thing.
Instead we have people here calling an artstyle "slop", ask devs to be fired or go to different threads calling things copium simply because people like a trailer.

Is the artstyle childish? Yeah.
Does it fit the dungeon? Also yeah.

I am getting more and more tired of this forum because sometimes it feels like some people here actually don't want the game to get better again because then they would have nothing to complain about here anymore (though I don't include you here because you at least explained your pov).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Reminder from Yoshida:

https://i.imgur.com/NHDNnZU.png

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He has a few mistakes. Moving to another country if you dislike the government isn't the only option; there is also the option to overthrow the government, which can be done. 2. kinda is one regardless, it's just more acceptable since its majority control the rest of us, get told to suck up or leave anyway. What's funny is if you look at healers etc can tell you haven't be lessened to for years as for 4. That's a double-edged edge sword

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Reminder from Yoshida:

https://i.imgur.com/NHDNnZU.png

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I mean, we spent about a year and a half where him and some of the more prominent members of the team English-side were behaving exactly the opposite of this, so I don't think we were the ones that needed the reminder.