FFXIV population decline continues

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Is not Forked Tower an example of a quality issue?

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The raid itself is amazing quality. The atmosphere, textures and music are amazing quality.

The entry system is a problem and can be argued to be a quality issue. But there are people on the forums spinning what SE said to be an admission that every single thing they make is "slop", including models, textures, environments, music and raids. That was obviously not what SE meant and that's obviously what Striker was trying to convey as well.

Really systems design and stories are the most contentious issues people have, but that's only a percentage of the overall development, and saying everything across the board is slop is also saying models, textures, music, animations, sounds, environments are not good quality when they clearly are.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Just like you're spinning every possible angle in the devs favor?

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You just seem to assume this about me these days without reading my posts properly.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The raid itself is amazing quality. The atmosphere, textures and music are amazing quality.

The entry system is a problem and can be argued to be a quality issue. But there are people on the forums spinning what SE said to be an admission that every single thing they make is "slop", including models, textures, environments, music and raids. That was obviously not what SE meant and that's obviously what Striker was trying to convey as well.

Really systems design and stories are the most contentious issues people have, but that's only a percentage of the overall development, and saying everything across the board is slop is also saying models, textures, music, animations, sounds, environments are not good quality when they clearly are.

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Again, my subjective opinion, but for me dungeon/boss design has been getting steadily worse.

I absolutely loved the ambience of early dungeons and the integrated visuals and music, as well as the variety in combat. CT gets a lot of hate, but LotA is a visually stunning experience with some unique mechanics. The Vault is a masterpiece IMO, not only for the visuals and vibe, but also for the way it sits seamlessly in the story, getting you where you need to go.

SE still does this well in some cases, but is ruining it for me with this absurd visual clutter. I don't want to have to squint or look away from the screen during a fight.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Just like you're spinning every possible angle in the devs favor? Lack of innovation is lack of quality. Stop latching onto the meanings of words, you know everyone here means the BIG PICTURE as a core point.

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Even I think your kind of misconstrusing that. Its very possible for the art and music departments to make really nice stuff, but the gameplay and writing room stuff has its issues. Like World of Warcraft has had patches and expansions like that. Stuff looks and sounds nice, shame about the actual gameplay content though.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Again, my subjective opinion, but for me dungeon/boss design has been getting steadily worse.

I absolutely loved the ambience of early dungeons and the integrated visuals and music, as well as the variety in combat. CT gets a lot of hate, but LotA is a visually stunning experience with some unique mechanics. The Vault is a masterpiece IMO, not only for the visuals and vibe, but also for the way it sits seamlessly in the story, getting you where you need to go.

SE still does this well in some cases, but is ruining it for me with this absurd visual clutter. I don't want to have to squint or look away from the screen during a fight.

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Objectively, they aren't getting worse. They are exactly the same as they've been since at least SB and that's actually still a problem. It's bland and we're all over it.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Objectively, they aren't getting worse. They are exactly the same as they've been since at least SB and that's actually still a problem. It's bland and we're all over it.

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I just gave a specific example in how they differ.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

I just gave a specific example in how they differ.

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I didn't play HW, but I will say that today the vault is just clunky. Story wise, its great. Otherwise, its still entirely too easy and its clunky as heck. It's also 10 years old.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

CT gets a lot of hate, but LotA is a visually stunning experience with some unique mechanics. The Vault is a masterpiece IMO, not only for the visuals and vibe, but also for the way it sits seamlessly in the story, getting you where you need to go.

SE still does this well in some cases, but is ruining it for me with this absurd visual clutter. I don't want to have to squint or look away from the screen during a fight.

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It's true that they added more clutter. This began in Stormblood, when they dropped support for PS3. It was easy to notice, because the Ala Mhigo dungeon was full of NPCs fighting, which was unprecedented in prior expansions and tanked FPS on machines that couldn't handle it.

In Shadowbringers, they dropped official support for 32-bit and DX9, so the effects clearly increased a huge amount. You need no greater example of this than the first dungeon, Holminster Switch, which not only had NPCs everywhere but was full of light particles and rays.

Obviously with the release of Dawntrail they did a Recommended Specs increase allowing for even greater capacity and detail in these effects. I haven't personally noticed a difference since Shadowbringers, but I don't have any of the issues others do with eye strains or migraines.

Obviously, they got away with good quality dungeons with the examples you gave, such as The Vault. But I wouldn't say that the visual effects represent lower quality. Given it's a fantasy game, they want to create the vibe of magical effects and particles and things going on in the background, after all.

I can understand that a lot of people may want some settings to reduce such effects or adjust them but as someone with no accessibility needs in this area, I don't really notice any issues myself. Probably the worst issue I have is when a ranged DPS does LB3, but that's been there since ARR.

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Originally Posted by IdleBlood

I don't care about the number of players. Actually I enjoy the game, having good times with friends. I understand everything could be better but cant follow players that prefer FFXIV going deep and deep with losing amount of players. It seems its not your game or? Wishing bad things to your own game is cringe as F.

This forum, every day same people complain about same things, invest your time in something better for you.

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I think you might want to work on your reading comprehension. The people who complain are the ones who want the game to be better. What's wrong with that? The game is hemorrhaging players either way and all people are saying is that maybe, this drop in player numbers are finally going to get SE to invest more into the game.

And yeah, we complain about the same things. Because nothing has been fixed.

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Originally Posted by IdleBlood

I don't care about the number of players. Actually I enjoy the game, having good times with friends. I understand everything could be better but cant follow players that prefer FFXIV going deep and deep with losing amount of players. It seems its not your game or? Wishing bad things to your own game is cringe as F.

This forum, every day same people complain about same things, invest your time in something better for you.

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People who do not publicly complain or outright quit are the problem with this game, they just grumble privately on discord at most and pay their sub to AFK in Limsa, keep their house or just play another game and don't care to cancel.
The majority of people who complain do so because they like the game and want it to be better, how else are SE supposed to know that a system they implemented may be bad ?
The problem is that it goes on for so long because SE never acknowledge the complaint/feedback outside of a live letter so why stop complaining if you think you are not being heard.

It's gotten to the point where number drops get wished for because "All SE cares about is money, unless they start losing a lot of it they won't change anything", after all if they cannot fund their other projects anymore due to not having enough FF14 revenue to do so.

I'd love for FF14 to be the only game I have installed on my PC, I started near the end of SHB and for at least a year I didnt play another game, I didnt watch tv series, I didnt watch movies, my spare time was FF14 and nothing else. That is not the case anymore but I wish it was.

Well, SE acknowledge the issue but don't seem too concerned:
https://i.imgur.com/TImb8pO.png

Completely tone-deaf.