Please grow the MMO part of the game. End game is lousy.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

“take a break do something else, but don’t be gone for more than 45 days otherwise you lose your hard earned house and now to get it back you need to play with rng.” Y.

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The housing situation is a scam . The fact that people go to such lengths and put themselves through misery and great gil cost just to get their own house , and then buy goodies to make it look "nice" and then be blackmailed into keeping a subscription going or you loose it all , tells me there are simply quite a unfortunate amount number of players that are absolutely gullible and are so easily coerced into giving over real money for an insignificant piece of virtual property , so blind by it that they fail to see and to pressure the developers for the only true solution to stop this ponzi scheme from happening.


No lists, no anti-bot this lottery pick that will fix the scheme because they dont want it fixed:


The housing system , designed to be virtual neighbourhoods and not solo instances , requires the server hardware and space to facilitate anyone that wants a home , yet they created artificial scarcity by not providing the server space, intentionally creating the caveat of holding you hostage tying the land lease to a subscription , and the gullible fall for it year after year.


Sunk Cost Fallacy

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Originally Posted by Felis-Silvertis

This is the prime example of confirmation bias.
There are of course lots and lots of people whose mental picture of an MMO is 14 year-olds furiously typing "your mum" in chat and they wouldn't touch this genre with the barge pole. Tapping into that market is a smart business strategy.

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The world doesn't work this way. You can't just decide you want to tap into a demographic, stick a bendy-straw into it and start magically sucking out all the money.

You have to create a product that appeals to that demographic, and partially retrofitting a subscription MMO into an extremely suboptimal feature-incomplete singleplayer experience absolutely isn't going to do that. Do you really think someone who's primary interests are games like God of War, Horizon, or The Last of Us is going to come pay upwards of $90 usd ($60 usd for the complete edition, and a few months of subscription to complete the msq) to play through this games story? You'd be paying an insane amount of money for what is essentially half of a game. At most, you're going to appeal to an incredibly small demographic (which Yoshida himself defined) of Final Fantasy holdouts who don't want to play the game because it's an online game. Amusingly, many of these supposed holdouts already play the game, further shrinking the supposed target demographic.

I think it is a decent approach to increase the player base.
Maybe it will be worth it, maybe not. But it's a one-time investment that they need to do to "clean-up" old content, just like when they invested time to implement flying in ARR and cutting it's story really....

Me personally, I would take more varied activities over more bosses.
Island sanctuary, criterion dungeons, etc. while they may not be huge (and while we don't know anything about either of those), are a good things to appeal to a wider audience IMO.

However, I certainly agree that the subscription cost is what ultimately makes it so that people wouldn't want to commit.
IMO, they should find a way to make it so that, as long as you paid the game/expansion you can still log on without paying your sub, but basically cannot do anything other than the MSQ and what is available to free trial players. Actually, expanding the trust system to the whole MSQ is a needed step for this of course.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

The world doesn't work this way. You can't just decide you want to tap into a demographic, stick a bendy-straw into it and start magically sucking out all the money.

You have to create a product that appeals to that demographic, and partially retrofitting a subscription MMO into an extremely suboptimal feature-incomplete singleplayer experience absolutely isn't going to do that. Do you really think someone who's primary interests are games like God of War, Horizon, or The Last of Us is going to come pay upwards of $90 usd ($60 usd for the complete edition, and a few months of subscription to complete the msq) to play through this games story? You'd be paying an insane amount of money for what is essentially half of a game. At most, you're going to appeal to an incredibly small demographic (which Yoshida himself defined) of Final Fantasy holdouts who don't want to play the game because it's an online game. Amusingly, many of these supposed holdouts already play the game, further shrinking the supposed target demographic.

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A further addendum to this is the lack of long term retention. These story centric hold outs are likely going to quit once they've completed the MSQ, which calls into question if the investment will actually pay dividends when the pool is already extremely shallow to begin with. They're clearly banking on these players becoming hooked enough to stay subscripted far beyond the MSQ and possibly dive into other content. Which could happen but does seem like an odd choice to focus on over the existing playerbase. Granted, FFXIV has always put a lot more investment in attracting new players than retaining old ones.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

The devs have the retention numbers, and I believe they understand what the majority of players actually do and what tends to retain customers the best. The devs have also made it clear that making, tweaking and balancing fights are incredibly time consuming when compared to other things they could make. The fact they don’t spend more on such things tells me that endgame stuff likely just isn’t as popular as many make it out to be, or the development time doesn’t give as big a return on investment when compared to some other things. Indeed, they opted to cut deep dungeon and an ultimate entirely from 5.0’s cycle in favor of something like the Ishgard restoration.

Just my humble opinion.

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Both of those assessments are untrue. They opted to cut out Deep Dungeon before Shadowbringers even launched, and have repeatedly said they were surprised how much demand there was for it to return. Which kinda throws out the whole retention argument since the numbers would have shown player interest yet they never realized it. As for Ultimate, Yoshida openly admitted it was due to poor management more than anything else. Not only was putting it in the .5 patch cycle incredibly shortsighted as it put a major encounter design up against the expansion development but they were only using eight people to play test it. If anything happened to them, be it the odd sick day; other projects, and etc., they literally couldn't test the fight.

Neither content being cut had anything to do with them focusing more on side activities like Ocean Fishing or treasure maps. The people designing that content aren't playtesting Ultimate, or likely any battle content. And Yoshida has acknowledged their mistakes last expansion.

I think people are looking at the current Trust system as a system that cannot and will not be improved upon for some reason. The prevailing idea is that Trusts won't kill group play because they haven't so far and that real people will "always" be the faster and more efficient route.

I agree that for the most part, real people are the more efficient way to run dungeons. For now. That is not an all to say that there isn't a future where the Trust system could become far more efficient than running with real people. For better or worse, Yoshida and the gang bend over backwards to appease the fanbase. Is it farfetched to believe that this influx of "traditional FF fans" won't call for improved Trust performance, and that request would be met by the development team?

Depends really on what you look at as efficiency when it comes to trust dungeons. If your your dps and have to spend a long time in queu to get into a dungeon for the msq the extra time it might take to run a dungeon might be more efficient. Trusts are actually pretty good teaching tools for dungeons, i have actually learned certain mechanics quite well from shadowbringers and endwalker from them it can be a bit frustrating though while learning the fights if you dont do it perfect having to restart everytime. Plus trusts can actually give you the opertunity of practicing with new classes you might be interested in.

I don't understand the arguement about solo players not willing to pay a sub. How is it any different than paying for dlc pack? Play the main story and do extra stuff you want, wait for the next major patch then pay 15 dollars to do the new "dlc".
Not that different from paying 60 dollars for a game and extra 10-15 dollars for extra story and content dlc packs. ie Nioh 2 and its three DLC, or even Dark Souls 3.

This behavior is what Yoshi even encourages. Pay to play what you want, then drop your sub until more content you want comes out. He doesn't want to foster mono-gamers.

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Originally Posted by Shiro--Tsubasa

I don't understand the arguement about solo players not willing to pay a sub. How is it any different than paying for dlc pack? Play the main story and do extra stuff you want, wait for the next major patch then pay 15 dollars to do the new "dlc".
Not that different from paying 60 dollars for a game and extra 10-15 dollars for extra story and content dlc packs. ie Nioh 2 and its three DLC, or even Dark Souls 3.

This behavior is what Yoshi even encourages. Pay to play what you want, then drop your sub until more content you want comes out. He doesn't want to foster mono-gamers.

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If only the playerbase at large agreed with Yoshi P then things would be good. Can't tell you how much grief I got from my 100+ member FC when I decided to take a break from XIV to play BFA.
But more to the point, a game with too much DLC is often looked down upon, and it isn't even like...a little bit of DLC. You have to buy the base $60 game, buy $75 of "DLC" (X.1-X.5), then buy another $60 expansion pack to purchase more DLC afterwards. That's a LOT of DLC, and most single player games only have like...2-3 pieces of $15-$20 DLC?

What's more, proper DLC is just additional content to continue enjoying the game with, and the base game without the DLC is SUPPOSED to be a complete package. I wouldn't say that any one part of XIV's storyline is a complete package. You have to do it all to get the whole story.

I don't understand the comments. Back filling content that doesn't have trusts is simply finishing the job that was started, this is not wasted resources, we already have these in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. I'm quite frankly shocked it took them this long to start working on it. This is a good thing for multiple reasons. I honestly don't see a downside. Some of the comments make it seem like it's the death of multiplayer and other content or something.

Some of the nays seem to think monthly sub will stop new players. While that is partially true, lets not forget there is a very generous free trial period that will most likely get expanded to include Stormblood at some point. With trusts, that leaves no reason to not try, and it can be advertised as such. Will all of them stick around after the trial? Prob not, but some will. There are tons of people I know that only play this game for the MSQ then unsub already and it's not because of a lack of endgame content. This also helps future proof the game a bit for when the population does eventually and inevitably die off.

I personally look forward to running through again with these long over due additions. I want to see if it helps preserve some of the older content in a way that is more enjoyable than joining bots via duty finder. I say bots because half these groups don't talk, nor wait or explain things. Playing with these people blazing through the encounters isn't exactly exciting. I mean you spend huge swaths of time talking to NPC's finally get to a dungeon, wait 10-20 min and a bunch of 90s join your group and just steam roll the thing while you are in a CS still like "oh, ok" Then they complain later that you don't know a mechanic that appeared in an earlier fight or that you don't know your job, like "Ya, well I didn't get to hit much on the ride up." This is how imagine a lot of new players feel.

Anyway, this contributes to retention. You spend all your time reading, then the battle content you do finally get to do gets steamrolled and you are right back to more reading. The amount of people I know that have quit the game because of this is actually staggering. It's one part filler quests and one part high levels blasting through too easily. I'm hoping Trusts fix some of this, meaning the dungeons play out more how they were originally intended, mechanics and all. People that want to rush endgame still have the option of being carried by DF parties, getting a skip potion or having a friend low man speed run them through.

As far as OP is concerned. What activities are you looking for at endgame and how many do you deem appropriate? I personally find it hard to keep up with everything I want to do in a week as it is.

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Originally Posted by Shiro--Tsubasa

I don't understand the arguement about solo players not willing to pay a sub. How is it any different than paying for dlc pack? Play the main story and do extra stuff you want, wait for the next major patch then pay 15 dollars to do the new "dlc".
Not that different from paying 60 dollars for a game and extra 10-15 dollars for extra story and content dlc packs. ie Nioh 2 and its three DLC, or even Dark Souls 3.

This behavior is what Yoshi even encourages. Pay to play what you want, then drop your sub until more content you want comes out. He doesn't want to foster mono-gamers.

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We already do pay for dlc though. Every expansion we pay, plus an added sub. So not only do you have to pay for the actual “single player game” but you need to pay an extra $15 per month to play it.

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Originally Posted by Amon-ster

If only the playerbase at large agreed with Yoshi P then things would be good. Can't tell you how much grief I got from my 100+ member FC when I decided to take a break from XIV to play BFA.
But more to the point, a game with too much DLC is often looked down upon, and it isn't even like...a little bit of DLC. You have to buy the base $60 game, buy $75 of "DLC" (X.1-X.5), then buy another $60 expansion pack to purchase more DLC afterwards. That's a LOT of DLC, and most single player games only have like...2-3 pieces of $15-$20 DLC?

What's more, proper DLC is just additional content to continue enjoying the game with, and the base game without the DLC is SUPPOSED to be a complete package. I wouldn't say that any one part of XIV's storyline is a complete package. You have to do it all to get the whole story.

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I don't really count our expansions as DLC packs. They are like their own games that are tied to the stories before with how much content is in them. Think kind of like Trails of the Sky with how it is 3 separate games telling one longer story.
Those players could also opt to wait until the end of the expansion before resubbing to do the patch content and saving money and treating it as one large dlc. By DLC I'm strictly speaking of patched content and how much you pay is entirely up to the player whether it is 15 dollars at the end of an expansion cycle or 15 dollars each major patch.

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Originally Posted by Shiro--Tsubasa

I don't really count our expansions as DLC packs. They are like their own games that are tied to the stories before with how much content is in them. Think kind of like Trails of the Sky with how it is 3 separate games telling one longer story.
Those players could also opt to wait until the end of the expansion before resubbing to do the patch content and saving money and treating it as one large dlc. By DLC I'm strictly speaking of patched content and how much you pay is entirely up to the player whether it is 15 dollars at the end of an expansion cycle or 15 dollars each major patch.

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Much content?

3 Trials?
8 Dungeons? (basically the same long and tedious corridors that follow the same path -> 3 mobs - >run -> 3 mobs -> aoe - > boss -> repeat)
MSQ its a 2-3 hours movie, walls of texts while(most of them non-voiced for no reason at all) moving in between Y->Z -> Y - > X
Most jobs got skills removed (again) to gain new passive traits (basically potency lol) and 1-2 new skills added to the rotation (No job quests again)

I've not a single reason to even visit again the new areas because the MSQ part its done, maybe I could do fates but they have been here since ARR.

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Originally Posted by Imoen

I don't understand the comments. Back filling content that doesn't have trusts is simply finishing the job that was started, this is not wasted resources, we already have these in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. I'm quite frankly shocked it took them this long to start working on it. This is a good thing for multiple reasons. I honestly don't see a downside. Some of the comments make it seem like it's the death of multiplayer and other content or something.

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I can't speak for everyone else but like I said earlier, but I'm more so thinking about the potential future of the game. Players will tend to go with the most efficient way to deal with content, or the "meta" so to speak. If Trusts become the meta over real people, then yeah, it will be a massive hit towards multiplayer content.

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Originally Posted by Amon-ster

I can't speak for everyone else but like I said earlier, but I'm more so thinking about the potential future of the game. Players will tend to go with the most efficient way to deal with content, or the "meta" so to speak. If Trusts become the meta over real people, then yeah, it will be a massive hit towards multiplayer content.

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We have trusts. What makes you think they'll be 'meta'?

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Originally Posted by Amon-ster

I can't speak for everyone else but like I said earlier, but I'm more so thinking about the potential future of the game. Players will tend to go with the most efficient way to deal with content, or the "meta" so to speak. If Trusts become the meta over real people, then yeah, it will be a massive hit towards multiplayer content.

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I mean, I see where you are going with that, but not really. Anyone that doesn't want to play with people already are not. This is mostly for MSQ which is one and done. After which you are either grinding huge amounts of the singular Trust dungeons that is allowed at endgame, or you are partaking in 2-3 dungeons and raids with multiplayer. Additionally roul won't change, because there is no "Trust roul" where you get bonus rewards for it. At least not as of right now. This doesn't hurt the current game, it only helps it really.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

We already do pay for dlc though. Every expansion we pay, plus an added sub. So not only do you have to pay for the actual “single player game” but you need to pay an extra $15 per month to play it.

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I have no problem with that. I've been solo in MMO games since EQ1, earlier depending on your definition of MMO.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

So not only do you have to pay for the actual “single player game” but you need to pay an extra $15 per month to play it.

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Incorrect. We are paying to play an MMO, with an occasional purchasable DLC (every 2 years) and regular "free" updates. How one spends that time, however, is up to the player.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Incorrect. We are paying to play an MMO, with an occasional purchasable DLC (every 2 years) and regular "free" updates. How one spends that time, however, is up to the player.

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It isn’t incorrect though. I’m saying for the people that the devs are trying to cater to, aka people who want to play it as a single player rpg story game. In this case they would be paying the $60 of the expansion and then a monthly sub for however long it takes them to finish the story. I understand it’s an mmo, i’m not arguing that lol. I’m talking about in the context we’re talking about. The updates aren’t “free.” That’s like saying if you buy a season pass and say the dlc is ”free.” You’re paying for it in both the expansion price and the sub fee.

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Originally Posted by Snorky

Please provide proof of your claim, because as far as I can see this company has enough proof for them to invest in more solo content. A company as large as SE would not invest in this aspect of the game if there were not a call for it. What are you worried about? Why force your preferred play style on anyone? This game was never about raiders I think you may have confused this game with a game that only caters to raiders. Just because there are a bunch of other players on your screen doesn't mean you have to interact with all of them. It's like going to a club and thinking you have to say hi to every single person you pass. It's a rather ridiculous notion and I am a older player and guess what I only talk to my FC and mostly do content by myself. I do two fights from the duty roulette just for the tombstones other wise I do trusts. I don't get why people are so controlling of others game play.

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it's a mmo go play a solo game if you want to only do solo content .

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Originally Posted by Amon-ster

I can't speak for everyone else but like I said earlier, but I'm more so thinking about the potential future of the game. Players will tend to go with the most efficient way to deal with content, or the "meta" so to speak. If Trusts become the meta over real people, then yeah, it will be a massive hit towards multiplayer content.

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If that's the case then it just mean there's indeed a large audience for that kind of solo option. If there's so many people that would rather deal with the trusts than other players then it just mean the multiplayer aspect of the game isn't what many people are looking for.
And quite frankly I don't see how it is a problem. You can still play with your friend or create a group to play the content with, you just deprive yourself of the incredible multiplayer experience consisting of saying "hi" at the start of an instance and "gg" at the end. Or having to deal with people that could screech at you if you dare not taking the game more seriously than your job when you're trying to do harder content and you couldn't align your real life schedule with 7 other of your friends.

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Originally Posted by Conundrum

<---Am single player

<---Plays game


This is never going to be an endgame epeen raider based hardcore game. WoW is over there if you want that garbage. You can also go grind endgame Lost Ark for elveventy-three thousand hours if you want that.

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classic clasual toxic player. endgame = hardcore grind . This forum is just pathethic seriously

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Originally Posted by Waterscape

classic clasual toxic player. endgame = hardcore grind . This forum is just pathethic seriously

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Their tone leaves a lot to be desired, but they aren't entirely wrong. This game just isn't an endgame-centric MMO.

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Originally Posted by Hysorn

I am holding out hope that these Criteon dungeon will be some sort of repeatable content that don't require you to form a big party. The end game feels pretty bad, especially when you've been struggling to find a raid static. I thought I would get into raiding Savages this expansion but nope, only group I raided with had their tank friend return so I got benched.

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Criteon dungeons are likely our new Deep Dungeon. And we all know how soloable DD is.

The deep dungeon was listed separately as an item for 6.3.

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Originally Posted by Sigiria

If that's the case then it just mean there's indeed a large audience for that kind of solo option. If there's so many people that would rather deal with the trusts than other players then it just mean the multiplayer aspect of the game isn't what many people are looking for.
And quite frankly I don't see how it is a problem. You can still play with your friend or create a group to play the content with, you just deprive yourself of the incredible multiplayer experience consisting of saying "hi" at the start of an instance and "gg" at the end. Or having to deal with people that could screech at you if you dare not taking the game more seriously than your job when you're trying to do harder content and you couldn't align your real life schedule with 7 other of your friends.

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The main issue with it is that it's classified as an MMO. A lot of players came to XIV specifically BECAUSE we were looking for an MMORPG. It's not like we get multiple big MMO releases every year like virtually every other genre of video game in the market, so losing more multiplayer aspects of an MMO is sort of a big downer. I know that the amount of people that play XIV looking for an engaging multiplayer experience is incredibly low, but after the LL where the dev team explicitly stated that their goal is to move AWAY from being an MMO and more towards being an RPG with multiplayer aspects (like Monster Hunter or something), well, it just cuts down our already small selection of games that we can play.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

The deep dungeon was listed separately as an item for 6.3.

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Interesting. Makes me wonder what exactly it is then.

He had said in one of the streamer Q&As that they wanted to look into doing something to address the desire for smaller scale challenging content. Based on what Criterion is described as, it seems to fit that bill.

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Originally Posted by Waterscape

it's a mmo go play a solo game if you want to only do solo content .

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Where in my statement did I say I only wanted to do solo content? Why are you playing a game that offers solo content if you only want group content? I prefer to do many things solo but I never said that is the only content I do. And to be frank you are one of the reasons I would prefer more solo content.

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Originally Posted by Amon-ster

The main issue with it is that it's classified as an MMO.

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MMORPG = an online game with a persistent world and multiple players who you can interact with.

MMORPG =/= an online game that requires playing in groups.

If you don't agree with the second statement, you no longer believe World of Warcraft is an MMORPG. There isn't a single dungeon instance required to get to max level in that game.

I swear we're devolving into a solitary, dumb and angry society. I've seen plenty of social Gen Z people but the amount of people making up mental problems and thinking that their problems can't be fixed by actually being social is growing rapidly. You don't have to befriend or even like the people you play with. It's the same with work. You tolerate other people until you're done and then you do you. Words can offend you and it's okay. Accept it as part of life. Learn to deal with it and move on. Social anxiety wasn't always a thing, sure some people might have had this issue in the course of history but it was never a big chunk of the population and you wouldn't survive very long if you did have it. Even today, if you have social anxiety you're not going to fare well in life once you reach adulthood and do adult things. If companies keep pandering to these people, then these people will never learn to be better.

I'm not saying that everyone needs to be social, but being able to involve yourself in a social situation even if you don't say anything isn't the end of the world. To not play a game because you're scared of a chat box is pretty sad. Just treat other players as NPCs if you want to get used to it. Parents need to step-up and be actual parents rather than friends, this is how you cause problems.

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Originally Posted by Waterscape

it's a mmo go play a solo game if you want to only do solo content .

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By your definition, World of Warcraft is not an MMO, since it does not require you to group up for any content in order to get to max level.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

MMORPG = an online game with a persistent world and multiple players who you can interact with.

MMORPG =/= an online game that requires playing in groups.

If you don't agree with the second statement, you no longer believe World of Warcraft is an MMORPG. There isn't a single dungeon instance required to get to max level in that game.

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I also think WoW has gone too far down the soloable route, which is likely one of the reasons why it's been losing players since WotLK and why one of the biggest successes in the MMO space in the last 5 years was the re-releasing of a 17 year old game, WoW Classic.
I don't think that you shouldn't be able to do anything at all as a solo player in an MMORPG, but I do think that multiplayer cooperation should be encouraged rather than more ways be invented to circumvent it.

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Originally Posted by Amon-ster

I also think WoW has gone too far down the soloable route

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Hahahaha. Nice one. Having played from Burning Crusade through Battle for Azeroth, I can pretty much guarantee that WoW went too far down the soloable route in, um, 2004, when it released. I got extremely good at leveling alt characters classes over those ten years.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Hahahaha. Nice one. Having played from Burning Crusade through Battle for Azeroth, I can pretty much guarantee that WoW went too far down the soloable route in, um, 2004, when it released. I got extremely good at leveling alt characters classes over those ten years.

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Compared to like, Everquest before it? Absolutely.
Compared to XI or XIV where you can literally bring in NPCs to do content? I mean...I guess if you consider other players NPCs then sure.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Both of those assessments are untrue. They opted to cut out Deep Dungeon before Shadowbringers even launched, and have repeatedly said they were surprised how much demand there was for it to return. Which kinda throws out the whole retention argument since the numbers would have shown player interest yet they never realized it. As for Ultimate, Yoshida openly admitted it was due to poor management more than anything else. Not only was putting it in the .5 patch cycle incredibly shortsighted as it put a major encounter design up against the expansion development but they were only using eight people to play test it. If anything happened to them, be it the odd sick day; other projects, and etc., they literally couldn't test the fight.

Neither content being cut had anything to do with them focusing more on side activities like Ocean Fishing or treasure maps. The people designing that content aren't playtesting Ultimate, or likely any battle content. And Yoshida has acknowledged their mistakes last expansion.

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That is literally my point; they laid out all the things on the table to decide whether to devote time/resources/staff to it, or cut. Some things were cut, some things were not. Especially with Covid, resources got stretched very thin.

They've said it is hard to do combat stuff because they either don't have enough staff to do it (who can play at that difficulty), or that it's otherwise very time intensive. If it was truly a priority, the dev team could work a way to test it better, or hire staff to do it (or even just contract players to beta test). Initially hiring staff is big negative for development time because a huge time loss in training, but it's been years since they've been aware of this problem. Nearly 2 years since Covid started; 3ish since Shadowbringers was released. They absolutely could have put out Ultimate or whatever other content, but it might have been at a large cost, easily cutting something they felt was more important... so they opted to cut the more "troublesome" content, and not invest in additional staff to devote towards this. Or they understand it's not a worthwhile investment to do at all.

All that said, I prefer things as they are- I do not care at all for endgame stuff and I trust them to do what they think is in the players' best interest.

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Originally Posted by Amon-ster

Compared to like, Everquest before it? Absolutely.
Compared to XI or XIV where you can literally bring in NPCs to do content? I mean...I guess if you consider other players NPCs then sure.

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Uh, Trusts were not in XI at that time, don't think they were even added till like 2013. You could solo WoW on release. Obviously not all the content but that's the same thing here, so I don't see what all the fuss is about.

Either way it really doesn't matter. It's not like mp interest is going to suddenly evaporate. Do you think you're the only person that likes playing mp or something? It just seems really weird to be upset about this. It's not like the multiplayer aspect is going anywhere, yet you seem like you think it is or is on the verge of disappearing. Like they are putting trusts in Savage raids or EX trials or something.

I don't see in any way, how forcing people that don't want to team with people, to team with people, makes your game play experience better. I can however think of how doing that would make those people not play the game at all.

As I said earlier, anyone that doesn't want to play with people, already is not playing with people, either they are leveled up and running trust dungeon, doing other content that doesn't require people, or they simply don't play the game at all.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

I either stop this game due to burn out or having nothing (enjoyable) to do. Things like the Bozja relic grind - where they stretch out what little content there is to an exhausting amount. Even the casual content is taking a hit. Often times, I don't actually want to stop playing the game, but there really is just nothing to do. Right now, if I had things I actually wanted to do in the game, I'd still be playing it. I am not currently burned out, but I have been playing other things for about a month. Yeah, I know Yoshida has said to take breaks, but this is a problem in their game design.

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I have to tentatively agree. No one enjoys every possible piece of content just for the sake of it --and most will, in the end, still turn their sight towards whatever gives progress meaningful to them, whether that be housing, glams, and/or gear-- so outside of relic grind patches, those able to play more than an hour or two per day will soon enough end up with nothing to do. Even in those patches, the remaining places in which to spend that time are very narrow in what spans of players they attract in terms of mostly intrinsic entertaininment; essentially, if one doesn't particularly enjoy progging Ultimate or grinding Exploratory Missions, that's it -- the options are exhausted.

We have a decent number of content styles, but relatively few at much polish, and even fewer at breadth of difficulty enough to engage but a small portion of players (where engagement first requires just having perceived access -- in a practical, not just technical, sense).

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Hahahaha. Nice one. Having played from Burning Crusade through Battle for Azeroth, I can pretty much guarantee that WoW went too far down the soloable route in, um, 2004, when it released. I got extremely good at leveling alt characters classes over those ten years.

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How do you play XIV, then? It's far more solo-focused than WoW even now, let alone back in Vanilla.

WoW soloing was an inferior way to level, but an option nonetheless. Here, for the majority of leveling, there isn't even any real disadvantage in leveling solo and the storyline frequently forces you to drop your party.

The way I understand their new direction is that they want the MSQ to be able to be completed completely solo if a player so desires, and I think they chose this direction in part because of the near constant complaining from the NA/EU players about MSQ roulette and the DF in general. Everything else that would be considered side quests or extra content in a single player game will all be multiplayer in this one, so alliance raiding and the 8 man stuff and probably even extra 4 person dungeons will all still require matchmaking and the DF. What they should not do is try to turn this into WoW 2.0 just to appease the new players that migrated which would in turn alienate the player base that has been subbed for years and the players that joined looking for something new. To be honest I am not sure why so many people are worried about the new direction when for years people complained about the "bad players" that only wanted to play for the story and plagued their roulette runs making them take maybe 2 or 3 minutes longer.

Well the devs did do a research survey that the majority of the player base would be in favor in having more ways for solo content. Dont know the specifics or where and how they got that data but it was something that was mentioned in the live letter and not just something that they pulled out of their butt. Honestly though the major thing that's going to occur is the fact that Trusts will be implemented in previous msq content; a system we already had in both Shadowbringers and now Endwalker and nobody is crying about it from what Ive seen.

Its not like the devs are going to abandon multiplayer content in general, this is an MMO after all. They're just trying to keep a good portion of their playerbase and future players happy to have more ways to play the game. Nobody is forcing you to do solo content if you dont want to. I for one dont bother with trusts when I level through dungeons because its a lot more fun and efficient to run with a group anyway and besides enticing new players who enjoy the solo aspect of Final Fantasy will also potentially entice them on the appeal of playing with friends, since they'll still be exposed to all other content as well as other players. This is how and why Dragon Quest X is such a huge deal over in Japan.