Live letters have lost their magic - Zepla

I dont think this game's LLs were ever good. They're very slow, very long winded and I generally find the optimal way to watch them is at 20x speed or just reading clip notes after the fact.
I dont care to watch Yoshida hold up Printer Paper of random armor sets and I'd prefer a 5 minute edited video with actual subtitles rather than a 6 hour slog thats tryinng to spread 5 minutes of content over 6 hours.

I feel this way about fanfests too, they're not worth watching.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I dont think this game's LLs were ever good. They're very slow, very long winded and I generally find the optimal way to watch them is at 20x speed or just reading clip notes after the fact.
I dont care to watch Yoshida hold up Printer Paper of random armor sets and I'd prefer a 5 minute edited video with actual subtitles rather than a 6 hour slog thats tryinng to spread 5 minutes of content over 6 hours.

I feel this way about fanfests too, they're not worth watching.

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Your join date suggests you joined 4 years ago. If you're that new to the game, I can totally understand your perspective.

Live Letters used to have a full half hour to an hour of reading the forums and responding back to the community. They were exciting and informational.

They started doing away with that around Stormblood. When we got into Shadowbringers/Endwalker, the videos became a lot more formulaic instead of interactive. The Q&A was replaced by a random development team member (who were usually very shy and didn't seem like they wanted to be on the video). Then they started doing away with that too. Now it's just a lot of filler.

When Zepla was talking about times when Live Letters were exciting, I'm pretty sure she meant back then. Now you can tell what they're going to cover before you even start watching them. The formula is so structured that you can scroll through the video and know exactly what to expect.

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ike_dawntrail/

"I liked it!", with no explanation of why. Meanwhile those that don't spend literally paragraphs explaining why, in detail, it's a bad story and bad expansion.

There are even literally two "I loved it!" directly in a row with basically no elaboration. And I found that in like, 2 minutes of searching on Reddit for "Dawntrail I liked it"

I'm literally not going to engage with you any further on this.

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Ok that's fine.

I'll address the example anyway. For reference, here's what it's supposed to be an example of.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6676438

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

People have written "laser-focused, good-faith critique" of Dawntrail. There have been forum threads with lengthy posts discussing and dissecting the problems with DT's plot, characterization, world-building, job design, staleness and repetitiveness of content, etc. There have been many of these threads, all done in good faith and with reasonable attempts at discourse. Do you know what happens to those threads?

They get buried in an avalanche of simplistic "I LIKED IT!" or "YOU'RE JUST A HATER, A DOOMPOSTER, A TROLL."

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The link you give...
- is a reddit post, not a thread in this forum
- of someone saying they liked DT, not criticizing it
- that gets normal responses from people, not buried in rabid positivity.

There are a few replies where people write 5 paragraphs criticizing DT, but others respond to them mostly normally.

There are a few people who post short comments praising DT, but there's no avalanche and no-one's being shouted down.

Overall, this is a bad example in every way. Since you've said you won't give any more examples, we'll end it there.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Your join date suggests you joined 4 years ago. If you're that new to the game, I can totally understand your perspective.

Live Letters used to have a full half hour to an hour of reading the forums and responding back to the community. They were exciting and informational.

They started doing away with that around Stormblood. When we got into Shadowbringers/Endwalker, the videos became a lot more formulaic instead of interactive. The Q&A was replaced by a random development team member (who were usually very shy and didn't seem like they wanted to be on the video). Then they started doing away with that too. Now it's just a lot of filler.

When Zepla was talking about times when Live Letters were exciting, I'm pretty sure she meant back then. Now you can tell what they're going to cover before you even start watching them. The formula is so structured that you can scroll through the video and know exactly what to expect.

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I've been here since Heavensward but I didnt join the forums til Shadowbringers, I just never could get into them even back then. Something about waiting til 6am for a non-translated slow as shit video slogging through whatever the game was getting never really kept my interest.
I'll give you they used to interact with the community a bit more, the last time I can even remember that happening during a LL was what? Very early endwalker had a Q&A on the forums, I think? And even then they picked the absolute safest and easiest questions to answer.

But I stand by the statement that I'd rather have a profesionally edited, officially translated video that covers the content in a reasonable time rather than the strange live stream marathons we get now. You know the bog standard for the game industry.

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Originally Posted by yesnt

I find it funny that you don't include the MSQ in the 'the actual game'. I don't think that most people quit because of DT story. They quit because of the bad DT story and the lack of 'the actual game'.

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The Dawntrail msq takes maybe 40 hours to complete (I don't know exact numbers) but everything after that is hundreds and hundreds of hours of content. Right now I have 11,000 hours on Steam alone and I still have many more to come (trying to get all the mounts in the game... 7 left!)

So yeah, the msq is a very minute part of the game as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Nadda

And it’s not something the devs can fix with the flick of a switch. Disillusionment, pessimism, and apathy are coercive. They’re demoralizing, not just for yourself, but for the entire community. It’s self-harming.

The public lynching of positive thinking—bringing others down for showing optimism, as if misery is the only appropriate response to critique that isn’t productive. It never will be.

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Devs have shown time again and again that they don't bother with constructive criticism, nor do they give indicator that they acknowledge it. So don't be surprised when people go from still caring about the game to jaded/apathetic.

And for the love of god, stop playing victim, will you? FF14 community is notorious for shooting down any criticism and public lynching of those who dare to say anything negative. "GCBTW" meme exists for a reason, just saying.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I dont think this game's LLs were ever good. They're very slow, very long winded and I generally find the optimal way to watch them is at 20x speed or just reading clip notes after the fact.
I dont care to watch Yoshida hold up Printer Paper of random armor sets and I'd prefer a 5 minute edited video with actual subtitles rather than a 6 hour slog thats tryinng to spread 5 minutes of content over 6 hours.

I feel this way about fanfests too, they're not worth watching.

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Yeah, I think we all just gave them leeway because the game was in a good place and the humble approach to dropping news was sort of charming and personable. Now it just feels like a shoddy waste of time, even though nothing has changed about the LLs themselves.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

These aren't exactly baseless concerns though, really.. If the general population is dropping and if the number of overall returner players is lowering, then yeah, there's a concern. Sure, we can dance around the "ThE NuMbErS ArEnT ThAt BaD" all day long, but the general decline in population is nothing to scoff at, especially when the reason for it you can pretty easily ascribe to their current formulas.

A lot of players have had their wishes, and content type ignored for well over 4 years, and they should very little enthusiasm in actually curbing this issue, or putting the necessary investment or changes to the core content pipeline to mitigate that issue.

Based on their current trajectory, we will get the final iteration of Occult Crescent in, what? 7.55 with a new area and new Phantom Jobs, then in 8.25, we will get whatever content type or new iteration of Exploratory. This will still be an 18 month gap between the major content types for the general player base.

If you don't think these issues are tied pretty exclusively to the steadily declining player base, or if you don't think it will continue to decline expansion-by-expansion, then I really don't know what to tell you. The numbers are OK, but the trajectory of where it is heading is not good. If the content pipeline trajectory continues on the path, then so will the dwindling population as a result.

Again, these aren't really baseless concerns.. Obviously they are not as extensive as some believe, but the trend is heading that way. Sure we'll see a small population explosion when the expansion launches, but it will also go right down again, and then it's a question of how low if we're already heading to Stormblood numbers. Then you also need to consider this is probably the first expansion in a very long time where they've visibly annoyed casual folk and story-enjoyers.

As for the PLL, the content and structure is exactly the same, but the passion isn't there.... The way I would consider it, is that it's like taking certain courses on LinkedIn, or general corporate training materials (e.g., manual training) where the overall tone is so monotonal that it's so hard to actually watch with passion to learn.. Then when you compare it to some on-demand optional instructional training resources where the passion is very visible.

It's very easy to spot passion, even in text form.. and much easier in video, and this just ain't it tbh.

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Notice how I'm not typically criticising the substance of the complaints in and of themself, but the motivations of those making them? I can say the game's not in a great spot, but also not go full "WOKE LMAO, FFXIV LITERALLY DYING, 4 HOUR VIDEO ESSAY ON WHY EVERYTHING SUCKS AND THE DEVS SHOULD ALL BE FIRED, HERE'S MY HOUR LONG RANT ON WHY THE GAME'S TERRIBAD NOW, AND IT'S ALL THE CASUALS FAULT".

Seriously, why is every other thread on Dawntrail basically the above?

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

Notice how I'm not typically criticising the substance of the complaints in and of themself, but the motivations of those making them? I can say the game's not in a great spot, but also not go full "WOKE LMAO, FFXIV LITERALLY DYING, 4 HOUR VIDEO ESSAY ON WHY EVERYTHING SUCKS AND THE DEVS SHOULD ALL BE FIRED, HERE'S MY HOUR LONG RANT ON WHY THE GAME'S TERRIBAD NOW, AND IT'S ALL THE CASUALS FAULT".

Seriously, why is every other thread on Dawntrail basically the above?

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I'm personally tired of everybody saying the game is "woke" -- what does that even mean? Diversity in the characters? Real-life symbolism? The whole concept of "woke" immediately dings off 100 intelligence points from an argument.

I think you can constructively address the game's faults without using deadbrain catchphrases.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

Notice how I'm not typically criticising the substance of the complaints in and of themself, but the motivations of those making them?

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For once they admit to it!

Tone policing is real and alive folks.

If the game is in a bad state and live letters do not show much to look forward to theirs no wonder why live letters aren't interesting.

If the game has stuff to look forward to then live letters will be interesting and exciting.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I'm personally tired of everybody saying the game is "woke" -- what does that even mean? Diversity in the characters? Real-life symbolism? The whole concept of "woke" immediately dings off 100 intelligence points from an argument.

I think you can constructively address the game's faults without using deadbrain catchphrases.

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Yeah people should drop the word "woke" and call it what it really is - political propaganda.

I can say I don't even look forward to watching these as I used to be. It's the same routine over and over. Almost as feels like they are doing their own thing and we're just the audience on mute. I wish Yoshi P would interact and answer questions on stream, anything at this point to make it feel like we're least being heard about things.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

Notice how I'm not typically criticising the substance of the complaints in and of themself, but the motivations of those making them? I can say the game's not in a great spot, but also not go full "WOKE LMAO, FFXIV LITERALLY DYING, 4 HOUR VIDEO ESSAY ON WHY EVERYTHING SUCKS AND THE DEVS SHOULD ALL BE FIRED, HERE'S MY HOUR LONG RANT ON WHY THE GAME'S TERRIBAD NOW, AND IT'S ALL THE CASUALS FAULT".

Seriously, why is every other thread on Dawntrail basically the above?

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and what grounds do you have to infer what the motivation behind the criticism? Again, people have been ignored, neglected and met with passive aggressive response when creating criticisms for long before this time, and with time, peoples' patience is only going to wear thin over time.

To posit a simple question... If the population is in a decline, and if the trend is statistically visible, and if this decline is associated with the content pipeline, and if the developers show no motivation of changing that content pipeline, then why shouldn't people be more critical of the developers and their structure?

To make it better... People have been making these comments for well over 5 years, and they have been ignored for well over 5 years, and now the population direction is clearly supporting that their pipeline just isn't working -- and guess what? Still ignored.

How much longer do people need to complain in a civil manner.. How many more times must they repeat the same criticism on ad nauseum, how much lower does the population need to decline before the developers realize that maybe they should start acknowledging the issues at least and providing a reason or an outline as to what they are doing, as opposed to vague remarks like "We've been too relaxed"... All of this would be OK, if they could establish themselves against a core demographic, but they haven't.. It's just a constant yo-yo, and people wondering why people take an issue with it.

Now if we want to continue the speculative nature of "What's the motivation for this" -- Why has the response now turned from "Ur a minoritahh", people that enjoy the game are a majoritah.. "Population is increasing"... "This happens all the time" ---- To now being concerned with trying to do psychanalysis on peoples' motivation for making the criticism.

Maybe you aren't encompassed in this, but a lot of people are less concerned with why, or trying to do some reasoning, and are much more concerned with how they can undermine the complaints, and trying to speculate on motivation as a means to undermine the complaint,

This whole thing works in both ways.. Not just the people making the criticisms.

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

I can say I don't even look forward to watching these as I used to be. It's the same routine over and over. Almost as feels like they are doing their own thing and we're just the audience on mute. I wish Yoshi P would interact and answer questions on stream, anything at this point to make it feel like we're least being heard about things.

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I hope this is the biggest takeaway out of this forum thread.

The Live Letters have devolved in respect to audience participation and questions. They no longer exist.

We want them back.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I'm personally tired of everybody saying the game is "woke" -- what does that even mean? Diversity in the characters? Real-life symbolism? The whole concept of "woke" immediately dings off 100 intelligence points from an argument.

I think you can constructively address the game's faults without using deadbrain catchphrases.

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Yeah, I completely agree.

The argument that DT is bad bc "woke" is genuinely ridiculous. The story itself is the most milque-toast and vague "peace is good" kind of story that has been told for decades in all types of medias. This is not ~political propaganda~. DT is barely political at all, it has such a surface-level understanding of society and politics that it rarely says anything meaningful about the state of our world and politics. How have people who complain about "politics in games" made it this far when literally every other expansion is vastly more political lol.

Every "political" theme in DT has been handled in past expacs, but often with more depth:
Colonialism and war actually being bad? ARR. Stormblood (I know SB has been criticised for still being rather shallow in this regard but it was not as shallow as DT).
Religious oppression and a draconic church regime (and war being bad)? Heavensward.
Representation of tribal people and their customs? Au Ra in SB
Exploitation of natives? Merlwyb's story with the goblins where she literally accepts Limsa has been oppressing them and even offers her life as a way to repent for her failed leadership.
Female characters in lead roles and positions of power? Literally since ARR and consistently throughout every expansion.

I'm not saying past expansions handled these themes perfectly and with immaculate philosophical and political depth. But the themes were there and you could feel that there was at least some thought and seriousness put into it even if the outcome was sometimes sub-par.

DT's real problems are all rooted in the quality of the writing, not the themes. There's nothing new in terms of themes in DT. It's writing like giving Wuk Lamat such an overbearing presence that no other character, not even your own WoL, has room to breathe and develop. Erasing the individuality of the scions. Shafting the stories of important side characters like Krile and Erenville. Making the most nonsensical writing decisions that create infuriating flaws ("Releasing Varligamanda? No no, that's not a reason to be disqualified. Also, Bakool Ja Ja is actually good now because people were nice to him for five seconds. Forget everything that happened. :)"). Avoiding conflict and tension by not allowing Wuk Lamat to fail and instead have the story bend to her needs, robbing her of character growth ("Wow, the completely random decision to hold a festival while people are starving actually solves the problem in the best way possible by pure accident?"). Trying to "tell" a story while showing something different, creating to an inherent dissonance. Like trying to say Koana is not respectful of other people's cultures while showing him caring very much about what people think. Saying the scions will be at odds and fight each other in the rite of succession but everybody is buddy-buddy.

The story of DT could have gone so hard in the hand of a competent team, same themes and everything.

Meh Zepla has hated the game ever since she couldn't blind prog TOP and realised she's not as a good a player as she thought.

In terms of the story they all get as dull as ditchwater due to way too many cutscenes (seriously MGS4 is jealous) so why people moan about DT ill never know, the Trials and Dungeons were top notch so all good.

In terms of content cycle i've literally made a post on the perfect content cycle but when someone comes up with a solution it gets ignored coz people just want to moan.
My suggestion which needs traction if it is to get implemented next expansion is really simple.
Call Savage X.02 not X.05 have a serious X.05 which drops the Exploration Zone and relic, drop Variant/Criterion in there with Criterion giving BIS accessories and upgrade mats, Then X.1 the catch up and Chaotic then X.15 more Exploration such as a 48 man here. IE the content spaced out more rather than waiting over a year.
So Exploration updates in X.05,X.15,X.25,X.35,X.45, X.55. If they need to hire more devs so be it otherwise they will lose players so a worthy investment.

>sees zepla
>clicks thread
>op is agreeing with zepla
>immediately stop reading

I love how everyone here suddenly doesn't care about Zepla's opinions anymore now that she isn't just blindly praising the game. Maybe it's possible she and a lot of others came to recognize the flaws with the content offered when the story turned to shit by the end of EW and dropping further off a cliff in DT. She clearly cares about the game still but it's very hard for a story first kind of player to feel attached to the game when the story is what it is right now. Especially when the casual players have been so starved for content since basically the end of Shadowbringers.

The Complainer Queen Zepla and her minions who complain about everything.

She may have terrible taste in what qualifies as good story by hating on Werlyt and praising Endwalker, also belittling everyone who was expressing disappointment with Endwalker's MSQ back then, but she's right about the live letters.

Even during the times I wasn't subbed I'd have the live letters running in the background. But over time they started feeling less and less of an earnest Dev to Players communication venue. Fan Fests haven't been as interesting to watch streams for either, unless you still care for The Primals segments which are the only parts that matters now.

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Originally Posted by HealerGuy

...

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HealerGuy has something personnal about her i think reading his history.

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Originally Posted by Majatok

There are other content creators that gave out their opinions on Dawntrail, why does everyone talk about Zepla only? Makes me think she is being targeted, which is weird because the people who have an issue with her seem to be the same people that value positivity and respectful interaction.

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I wouldn't be surprised if it was former fans of her who are throwing tantrums that they lost their paladin of blind white knighting for XIV and the dev team when Zepla started to see the issues with the game. Now they are seething when Zepla is making mostly critical content instead.

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Originally Posted by Majatok

There are other content creators that gave out their opinions on Dawntrail, why does everyone talk about Zepla only? Makes me think she is being targeted, which is weird because the people who have an issue with her seem to be the same people that value positivity and respectful interaction.

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She came from WoW and has been complaining about more and more aspects of the game for a while, which is really all it takes. She was everyone's favorite for a bit in 2022 when she had to flee Ukraine because of the war.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

She may have terrible taste in what qualifies as good story by hating on Werlyt and praising Endwalker, also belittling everyone who was expressing disappointment with Endwalker's MSQ back then, but she's right about the live letters.

Even during the times I wasn't subbed I'd have the live letters running in the background. But over time they started feeling less and less of an earnest Dev to Players communication venue. Fan Fests haven't been as interesting to watch streams for either, unless you still care for The Primals segments which are the only parts that matters now.

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Ironically, I was actually a bit hyped watching 7.2 LL when they reveal field operation and phantom jobs. Hence why I resub now to prepare for it, as I've been taking a break since a month after 7.0.
But as I login into the game and play, everything feels underwhelming and more of a chore rather than fun. It's genuinely sad.

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Originally Posted by Kozh

But as I login into the game and play, everything feels underwhelming and more of a chore rather than fun. It's genuinely sad.

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I felt the same yesterday. Tuesday is supposed to be the all-exciting Reset Day. I played Jeuno, I did the Moogle event, and I went to bed.

The time tables for Gold Saucer are too far spread thin for me. I wish I could spend a "day" having fun but you're waiting a half hour between each event.

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Originally Posted by Sheriyana

I wouldn't be surprised if it was former fans of her who are throwing tantrums that they lost their paladin of blind white knighting for XIV and the dev team when Zepla started to see the issues with the game. Now they are seething when Zepla is making mostly critical content instead.

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This is exactly what it is. They use words like "betrayal" constantly.

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Originally Posted by Loggos

The argument that DT is bad bc "woke" is genuinely ridiculous. The story itself is the most milque-toast and vague "peace is good" kind of story that has been told for decades in all types of medias.

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If anything actual, serious "woke" people like the postcolonial anthropologists will get an aneurysm going through the story.

I find it so hilarious that so many of the "woke" fans of FF14 defend DT to death and called it peak writing and more importantly scold others for lacking media literacy. These people unironically believe that most folks hated DT because it embraced multiculturalism and featured minorities.

The people who actually lack media literacy are exactly these white knights. They've got to read Edward Said's Orientalism or something like that. Because THE ENTIRE MSQ IS FULL OF TROPES. Every single tribe WAS A TROPE. The Pelupelu are nothing more than TRADE TRADE BARTER BARTER. The Hanu are so helpless they can't figure out their crops and they have to be TAUGHT their cultural traditions by a "Westerner" from Eorzea. Half the culture in Tuliyollal was just TACOS FOOD TACOS.

It reveals so, so much that certain segments of the playerbase virtue signal about being so woke and so aware and so embracing of multiculturalism and yet loved Dawntrail. And it's because they probably see IRL cultures and peoples as nothing more than their tropes. They are the essentializer, the people who Orientalize foreign cultures. Seriously, I don't know how anyone who's interested in "wokeness" or serious cultural representation would unironically love that LatAm representation in this game is just TACOS! TACOS!

These aren't real NPCs. They exist only to give WoL and co a sightseeing tour among the oh so exotic cultures of the New World.

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Originally Posted by Fagotura

If anything actual, serious "woke" people like the postcolonial anthropologists will get an aneurysm going through the story.

I find it so hilarious that so many of the "woke" fans of FF14 defend DT to death and called it peak writing and more importantly scold others for lacking media literacy. These people unironically believe that most folks hated DT because it embraced multiculturalism and featured minorities.

The people who actually lack media literacy are exactly these white knights. They've got to read Edward Said's Orientalism or something like that. Because THE ENTIRE MSQ IS FULL OF TROPES. Every single tribe WAS A TROPE. The Pelupelu are nothing more than TRADE TRADE BARTER BARTER. The Hanu are so helpless they can't figure out their crops and they have to be TAUGHT their cultural traditions by a "Westerner" from Eorzea. Half the culture in Tuliyollal was just TACOS FOOD TACOS.

It reveals so, so much that certain segments of the playerbase virtue signal about being so woke and so aware and so embracing of multiculturalism and yet loved Dawntrail. And it's because they probably see IRL cultures and peoples as nothing more than their tropes. They are the essentializer, the people who Orientalize foreign cultures. Seriously, I don't know how anyone who's interested in "wokeness" or serious cultural representation would unironically love that LatAm representation in this game is just TACOS! TACOS!

These aren't real NPCs. They exist only to give WoL and co a sightseeing tour among the oh so exotic cultures of the New World.

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Don't forget that SE paid cultural """"experts""""(that have likely never been outside LA) to create this """"authentic"""" experience.

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Originally Posted by Fagotura

I find it so hilarious that so many of the "woke" fans of FF14 defend DT to death and called it peak writing and more importantly scold others for lacking media literacy. These people unironically believe that most folks hated DT because it embraced multiculturalism and featured minorities.

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I'm super woke but DT put me to sleep.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

and what grounds do you have to infer what the motivation behind the criticism? Again, people have been ignored, neglected and met with passive aggressive response when creating criticisms for long before this time, and with time, peoples' patience is only going to wear thin over time.

To posit a simple question... If the population is in a decline, and if the trend is statistically visible, and if this decline is associated with the content pipeline, and if the developers show no motivation of changing that content pipeline, then why shouldn't people be more critical of the developers and their structure?

To make it better... People have been making these comments for well over 5 years, and they have been ignored for well over 5 years, and now the population direction is clearly supporting that their pipeline just isn't working -- and guess what? Still ignored.

How much longer do people need to complain in a civil manner.. How many more times must they repeat the same criticism on ad nauseum, how much lower does the population need to decline before the developers realize that maybe they should start acknowledging the issues at least and providing a reason or an outline as to what they are doing, as opposed to vague remarks like "We've been too relaxed"... All of this would be OK, if they could establish themselves against a core demographic, but they haven't.. It's just a constant yo-yo, and people wondering why people take an issue with it.

Now if we want to continue the speculative nature of "What's the motivation for this" -- Why has the response now turned from "Ur a minoritahh", people that enjoy the game are a majoritah.. "Population is increasing"... "This happens all the time" ---- To now being concerned with trying to do psychanalysis on peoples' motivation for making the criticism.

Maybe you aren't encompassed in this, but a lot of people are less concerned with why, or trying to do some reasoning, and are much more concerned with how they can undermine the complaints, and trying to speculate on motivation as a means to undermine the complaint,

This whole thing works in both ways.. Not just the people making the criticisms.

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I want things to improve, same as anyone else. Heck, there's another comment on here of me going over several things in the game I don't like, so it's not like I'm some glorified 'white knight' looking to 'protect the billion-dollar corporation'.

What doesn't help, what allows some people, or even the devs, to point and say "This criticisms are in bad faith, we should dismiss them", or just tune out from whatever's being said, is slop like Pyre's video, which is 5 valid complaints wrapped up in an hour of ragebaiting, vagueposting (game bad, game dying, game stale), and grifting for clicks.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

I want things to improve, same as anyone else. Heck, there's another comment on here of me going over several things in the game I don't like, so it's not like I'm some glorified 'white knight' looking to 'protect the billion-dollar corporation'.

What doesn't help, what allows some people, or even the devs, to point and say "This criticisms are in bad faith, we should dismiss them", or just tune out from whatever's being said, is slop like Pyre's video, which is 5 valid complaints wrapped up in an hour of ragebaiting, vagueposting (game bad, game dying, game stale), and grifting for clicks.

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She literally explained multiple issues with the game like the stalking plugin, healer gameplay, patch cadence but OK.

I'm sorry but you ARE a white knight and your throwaway fake concerns to make you seem like you aren't completely biased does not make you not a white knight. It just means you went an extra step to pretend to be reasonable when the 99% of the other posts you make are all concern trolling and tone policing.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I'm super woke but DT put me to sleep.

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I'd likely fall under the "woke" labelling myself (I personally think it's a silly buzzword people tend to overuse to much now it's got no meaning). This doesn't stop me from not liking DT either, I don't understand why liking DT vs not liking DT has anything to do with being "woke" but I guess here we are...

though my issues with DT even far exceed just the story (because as much as i like the story up to shadowbringers it's not important to me that DT is bad) but it's the fact the gameplay is really in a bad state right now in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Kazuke_Miso

She literally explained multiple issues with the game like the stalking plugin, healer gameplay, patch cadence but OK.

I'm sorry but you ARE a white knight and your throwaway fake concerns to make you seem like you aren't completely biased does not make you not a white knight. It just means you went an extra step to pretend to be reasonable when the 99% of the other posts you make are all concern trolling and tone policing.

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You're absolutely right, I should stop trying to be tactful and evasive about my overall feelings.

"Stalking plugin"

Yep, SE messed up there, and the devs should communicate better. Big difference between "we asked them nicely" and "we threatened to sue them into the poorhouse if they didn't purge everything". That's on them.

"Healer gameplay"

Gonna be honest, this is an actual difference of opinion. Aside from White Mage, I really don't think the other jobs need extra DPS buttons, at least at the moment. What DOES need to change is high-end encounter design, as there's far too much downtime between damage, which is what leads to Glare spam complaints. More instances of Natural Alignment-esque mechanics, less instances of long damage downtime would be ideal. (Though people malded about Abyssos having bleeds, sooo...)

"Patch cadence"

I get why the devs don't release exploration zones early (Diadem, Pagos), but they really should at least throw something grindy and casual-friendly into the base expansion or .1 patch, perhaps an early form of relic grind. .1 patches are by far the worst to sit through, so agreed.

Heck, I'll throw in one of my own:

The Savage loot system and overall gearing is in dire need of improvement. The game advertises itself as "all jobs on one character", but the current gearing system undermines that. Chaotic is a good start, but the loot system and tome cap are long overdue a rework. Perhaps ditching the coffers limit for the same rule as the Normal Mode raids, and raising the cap to 900 in the off-patch could be a good start?

So yeah, like I said, 5 valid complaints wrapped up in an hour of ragebaiting, vagueposting (stale how?), and grifting for clicks (permadeath? Really? The thing the devs purged because it was genuinely godawful game design?).

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

You're absolutely right, I should stop trying to be tactful and evasive about my overall feelings.

"Stalking plugin"

Yep, SE messed up there, and the devs should communicate better. Big difference between "we asked them nicely" and "we threatened to sue them into the poorhouse if they didn't purge everything". That's on them.

"Healer gameplay"

Gonna be honest, this is an actual difference of opinion. Aside from White Mage, I really don't think the other jobs need extra DPS buttons, at least at the moment. What DOES need to change is high-end encounter design, as there's far too much downtime between damage, which is what leads to Glare spam complaints. More instances of Natural Alignment-esque mechanics, less instances of long damage downtime would be ideal. (Though people malded about Abyssos having bleeds, sooo...)

"Patch cadence"

I get why the devs don't release exploration zones early (Diadem, Pagos), but they really should at least throw something grindy and casual-friendly into the base expansion or .1 patch, perhaps an early form of relic grind. .1 patches are by far the worst to sit through, so agreed.

Heck, I'll throw in one of my own:

The Savage loot system and overall gearing is in dire need of improvement. The game advertises itself as "all jobs on one character", but the current gearing system undermines that. Chaotic is a good start, but the loot system and tome cap are long overdue a rework. Perhaps ditching the coffers limit for the same rule as the Normal Mode raids, and raising the cap to 900 in the off-patch could be a good start?

So yeah, like I said, 5 valid complaints wrapped up in an hour of ragebaiting, vagueposting (stale how?), and grifting for clicks (permadeath? Really? The thing the devs purged because it was genuinely godawful game design?).

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Just to point out high end encounter design discouraging healers from actually healing by having so little to heal is just as much of the problem as the nature of the damage rotation (side note why do you think WHM should get more but not say SCH who has the fewest options for damage) and both fall into the problem of healer gameplay. You also have to remember that upping high end damage design doesn’t fix casual content. Do you think it’s balanced the tank is healing itself while you literally only have AOW to spam as an example.

Also side note abyssos having bleeds was a problem precisely because the bleed snapshotted the initial damage mitigation. So people would under mitigate the initial hit, try to mitigate after the fact then blame the healer for underhealing when really the others undermitigated

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

I want things to improve, same as anyone else. Heck, there's another comment on here of me going over several things in the game I don't like, so it's not like I'm some glorified 'white knight' looking to 'protect the billion-dollar corporation'.

What doesn't help, what allows some people, or even the devs, to point and say "This criticisms are in bad faith, we should dismiss them", or just tune out from whatever's being said, is slop like Pyre's video, which is 5 valid complaints wrapped up in an hour of ragebaiting, vagueposting (game bad, game dying, game stale), and grifting for clicks.

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My take is different. I think every 'complaint' was valid. Yes the tone of the video wasn't very 'professionally diplomatic', but it was for their own 'fun'.
If Square expect their gamers to write a concise memo, with accompanying PowerPoint presentation, or have so little emotional maturity that they can't get past the 'bend over' jokes... then we truly are fckd.

But I think Lucy's message was more to us players.
You can't change people so it's not going to happen, but it is I think more try to get white knights that they are the ones who need to STFU or leave and go play other games, or just accept that they will always be surrounded by once new players but now veterans, who've sat at end game for a couple of years, and are sick and tired of the game's various issues which is nothing really changes, nothing gets better, it just slowly but surely gets worse and worse.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

"Healer gameplay"

Gonna be honest, this is an actual difference of opinion. Aside from White Mage, I really don't think the other jobs need extra DPS buttons, at least at the moment. What DOES need to change is high-end encounter design, as there's far too much downtime between damage, which is what leads to Glare spam complaints. More instances of Natural Alignment-esque mechanics, less instances of long damage downtime would be ideal. (Though people malded about Abyssos having bleeds, sooo...)

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This one jumped out at me and I feel compelled to debunk/respond. Sure, add Natural Alignment style mechanics to every fight. New problem, they're hard as heck to heal through in the minimum gear (eg the crafted set) but as you get gear from clearing the Savage, you need to heal less and less. Eventually, we're back at the same point we're at now, where you handle the whole thing with way less 'Healing GCDs' used. What started as 'put Regen on both purples, and keep up Medica2 through the whole mechanic' as WHM, eventually became 'use just one Medica2 for the whole thing, the rest is handled with Raptures and OGCDs'. So, back where we started after a few weeks, and the problem remains unsolved. Additionally, that's Savage. A solution that doesn't tackle all levels of content is no solution at all (in my view), and the lower level the content (EX roulettes, Maps, etc), the more desperately changes are needed

People said that EX was 'fixed' and 'fun again' because the Dolls at the end of Strayborough spammed those raidwides and it did 'so much damage'. Now we have to GCD Heal again! Only, once we got 10 item levels by going from AF gear to Tome, we needed to GCD heal a lot less, and could instead get away with using 'all of our OGCDs and it sorta works'. Then, we get 10 more item levels from NM Raid/Crafted, and suddenly we don't need to even use our entire OGCD kit. Now, some of us have BIS at 730, and it's a joke to heal through, to the point where we don't even need a Healer in the party to get past it, the Tank can do the Healing.

Point is, 'more healing required' is a very ephemeral solution, dependent entirely on being at a certain gear level, and once you outgear it, the extra difficulty quickly falls away because of how fast we scale in output when we get more gear

If SE wants to give us a way to need to heal more, they could consider adding Heal Absorbtion'(though I'd call it Aetherblight, so it has a more thematic name)' as a mechanic for Healers to handle. Maybe that'd also help curb how strong Tank healing actions are (eg a Tank could clear their own Aetherblight with ease, but they can't clear the whole party in time due to the CD on tools like Bloodwhetting)

Also, WHM has more damage options than SCH (due to Misery's interactions), so why is SCH not deserving of extra actions? If anything, I'd argue that ALL of the Healers should get at least one new action, and some could reduce how many 'new' buttons they need added by simply shortening the DOT timer, such that we're needing to press it more often. The one exception to this would be AST, if, and only if, they can make the card system be a functional replacement for the 'additional DPS actions' the other Healers would get (thereby making AST's gameplay focus be on 'buff allies', rather than 'do damage yourself')

Looking at direct competition, not only do I have to press my Healing GCDs more often (a lot more often), I also have access to three DOTs on my spec (Resto Druid), and if I rejigged my talents specifically to maximise how many I have, I could have up to SIX. 'More damage buttons' and 'more healing demanded of the player' are not mutually exclusive.

I think it's hilarious that people try to frame Lucy as "grifting for clicks" when she almost certainly took a loss by spending the time to make a video in the first place

She doesn't need to talk about xiv. Her regular audience doesn't care about xiv. She has a successful twitch career and collabs with some of the biggest names in the vtubing indie scene (Filian, Bao, Neuro-sama, etc...), and shes till took the time anyway to research and put together a video criticizing a game she's clearly passionate about. Meanwhile xiv is twitch kryptonite that can't even clear the viewership of runescape, yet people still cling to the idea that anyone making a video being critical of xiv is "attention seeking" because they just can't fathom that someone they once associated with xiv could possible be more successful by abandoning the game

All this is to say, nobody cares about xiv except xiv players, and that's not a big enough audience to bother grifting. Any content creator actually looking to make a quick buck would be better served by making a video about literally anything else.

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Originally Posted by Fagotura

If anything actual, serious "woke" people like the postcolonial anthropologists will get an aneurysm going through the story.

I find it so hilarious that so many of the "woke" fans of FF14 defend DT to death and called it peak writing and more importantly scold others for lacking media literacy. These people unironically believe that most folks hated DT because it embraced multiculturalism and featured minorities.

The people who actually lack media literacy are exactly these white knights. They've got to read Edward Said's Orientalism or something like that. Because THE ENTIRE MSQ IS FULL OF TROPES. Every single tribe WAS A TROPE. The Pelupelu are nothing more than TRADE TRADE BARTER BARTER. The Hanu are so helpless they can't figure out their crops and they have to be TAUGHT their cultural traditions by a "Westerner" from Eorzea. Half the culture in Tuliyollal was just TACOS FOOD TACOS.

It reveals so, so much that certain segments of the playerbase virtue signal about being so woke and so aware and so embracing of multiculturalism and yet loved Dawntrail. And it's because they probably see IRL cultures and peoples as nothing more than their tropes. They are the essentializer, the people who Orientalize foreign cultures. Seriously, I don't know how anyone who's interested in "wokeness" or serious cultural representation would unironically love that LatAm representation in this game is just TACOS! TACOS!

These aren't real NPCs. They exist only to give WoL and co a sightseeing tour among the oh so exotic cultures of the New World.

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It's usually white americans who may have 1/5 of latin american lineage and barely know a couple sentences in spanish who scream that you're being a bigot attacking their desire to be represented or some nonsense like that. The usual people who think they can speak for minorities they're not part of, angrily witch hunting online from the comfort of their north american suburbs.

Speaking as someone actually born and raised in a latin american country, Dawntrail's cartoony, stereotypical, childishly utopic depiction of a fantasy latin america is borderline insulting. XIV barely depicts its version of latin american inspired culture with any more realism than hollywood did in the 80s. It's not anything more than a developed country's idealistic vision and the phony accents done by americans who think having family origins in hispanic countries they didn't grow up in or brazil suddenly makes them some kind of authority only add to the insult.

I absolutely despise american voice acting's obsession with forcing accents into foreign characters unless it's the rare case like Erenville being voiced by someone who actually speaks that way naturally for being raised IN the environment.

This is one of the patterns that I have witnessed here and in Reddit regarding any criticism being raised about this game and SE, particularly by any individuals who have platforms on YouTube, twitch, etc. They are treated as darlings of the community when they are happy and positive about the game, but the moment they express dissatisfaction about the direction things are headed, the community instantly turns on them. It doesn’t matter if they played for years and years. It doesn’t matter if they have expressed deep, abiding passion and love for this game. The moment they give even the most measured of criticism - let alone unfiltered or impassioned critique - they are suddenly “grifters” and spoken of as if they have somehow “betrayed” the community.

Nevermind the overhead that goes into releasing hour-plus long videos that are so clearly filled with love and care. Nevermind that it is likely a LOSS for the content creator to put such videos together and share. They have a platform - one that SE has been shown to listen to in the past - and they are leveraging their platform to speak out and be heard. Instead of seeing this as a labor of love by people who want this game to not only survive but thrive, it’s easier to write them off as grifters and stick our heads in the sand. It’s “no true Scotsman” made manifest.

Then there are the complaints about the “tone” of criticism that I see everywhere. Using a harsher tone doesn’t automatically make your criticism less valid. A lot of the current tone is the result of years of members of this community feeling like they are shouting at a brick wall. Content creators like Zepla and Lucy Pyre have been trying to say since EW that this game is heading in an unhealthy direction. Even when they give a measured response, people find excuses to dismiss them instead of considering that - amid the “tone” - there could be merit in what they are saying.