Monster models were so huge in XI relative to the player. Seeing an Ampiphitere swoop down from the skies in Beaucidine Glacier [S] and the Cerberus bosses and Chimeras like Apademak. Man, did a lot to really sell ya on their deadliness lol.
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To be fair, you can give non-raiders things to actually do and progress outside of raiding, albeit at far less efficiency*, without requiring every player to go through "endless grinds".
You leave an at least partly connected incentive for raiding (e.g., doing will at least slightly accelerate Relic progression, directly [such as via additional spendable item drops] or indirectly [via faster farming]) but allow alternatives to it for those who want that shiny and needlessly* high-ilvl gear.
Better yet, you could make that upper-casual-to-midcore content that would be thereby available to nearly all players, raiders and non-raiders alike, more enjoyable, so the hours played there feel less like a "grind".
* Heck, it might not even be so terribly inefficient... when compared to post-prog days where any non-farm Savage PF is 90+% likely to be a 'trap' group.
* I say "needlessly" because unless new content forms are added that are tuned analogously to Savage but have lower difficulty, one will find little to no benefit to having that gear outside of that same Savage raiding that they don't want to do anyways.
It reaches a point where why do we bother playing this game then
I want to play *this* game, but all i really log on for is raid and to keep my house from being demolished (making that argument of there's very scummy, oh go play other games but dont unsub if you want your house)
I would recommend taking Zepla's opinion on this with a huge grain of salt. After playing the game as a full-time job for years on end, she made a video in the past few months about how she had burned out and finally needed to get away from it. It was a perfectly reasonable step to take, but in the meantime she hasn't been doing much in the way of FFXIV, which suggests to me that it's quite possible she's still burned out.
Burnout can really do a number on how we experience things. Which isn't to say that the opinion she came to was wrong or anything, just that I'd encourage folks to take that context into account while hearing her out.
I feel like this makes little sense if/when the negative opinion is about exactly what caused them to burn out. Feeling encouraged to play many hours per day but having no interesting long-term goal to invest in/towards could very easily be a factor in that, and it's an avoidable one, unless we're to consider casual/midcore-accessible means of satisfying progression a waste of resources.
I'm not quite sure what you mean? When Zepla announced that she was taking a break from FF14, she made a video explaining why she was burned out, and she cited 2 reasons:
She explained that her burnout was as a content creator, that she was was burned out from trying to create content on FF14 all day everyday after doing that for 7 years. That's a very unique problem to have that doesn't have anything to do with how normal players play the game.In fact, in her burnout video Zepla explicitly states that FF14 isn't designed to be played at the magnitude that she was playing it at; that it's designed to just have a trickle of content that doesn't pressure you to play a lot, and that you can just come back to play when you want to. Which she most definitely did not do. And she burned out. And I greatly respect that she was able to acknowledge that, and that she was able to own her burnout and proactively step away to address it.
She also mentions that something that contributed to her burnout was that she put together a poorly-vetted group for the Omega Ultimate, and she spent 8-hours a day in this negative, mismanaged group that made her miserable and contributed to her burnout. I would find it hard to see this as anything besides a subjective personal situation.
Okay. Let's put it this way:
She's a content creator who's established herself around FFXIV. To make money, she will primarily be playing XIV (or reacting to other content creators' [reacting to other content creators' [etc.] XIV-related, -comparative, or -adjacent content), and her doing so has to be at least decently entertaining to her viewers. To avoid burnout, it must also be decently entertaining to herself without overwhelming stress as she perceives it. Good so far?
Now... if the only thing you can create some sort of many-hour-spanning stream narrative out of after MSQ is (briefly Savage, and then) Ultimate, then the chance of entertaining both self and audience without overwhelming stress... is limited to solely the most stressful content in the game (exempting minority reactions to say, seemingly unfair Triple Triad NPC fights).
Now, compare that to what would be relevant to her even as a full-time streamer / content creator... if there were more midcore content. See how those aren't likely to be all that separate of issues?
But at the same time, such would benefit the rest of us, too. What would help address her complaints wouldn't be an undue expense to the rest of us; it would probably be a boon.
As such, I don't see why her complaints about having less to do surrounding, say, Relic progression should be ignored just because she burned out or just because she's a XIV streamer. That seems a misread of the larger picture there, equivalent to mistaking a problem felt in (potentially reluctant) option A with being somehow unrelated to any issue in lacking any real options other than A.
Influencers are wined & dined, thus are obligated to say nice stuff about things they get for free.......
"Beggers cant be choosers" sort of deal. What.....??????? You gonna complain about $hit you got for free lol? When they receive their fresh 7.0, they will be back to shilling. That is how it works........
Anyway, if WoW players invaded Champions Online it would be the most popular MMO on the market. We really gonna act like XIV was popular on its' own, and not due to the most profitable MMO in gaming history? Come on now....lol.
XIV was never HIM, WoW was though.....& if you are associated with HIM, you are cool by default.
Why listen to the opinions of content creators when you can just form your own opinion.
Manderville relics are lazy and unsatisfying to obtain. There is no overarching storyline to tie them to the expansion, there is no actual 'content' based on them, leaving you to just repeat the same dungeons/raids you have already been doing on repeat all expansion and are sick to death of.
Relics, in the past, were used as a way to keep player retention up and fill the empty overworld with players doing activities to progress their characters, or offer alternative zones where communities were built to complete the content over the lifespan of an expansion.
They would have become a 'tome step' after the expansion ends anyway, the same as every other relic in the game. There was no need to just make that 'fast track' step the only way to obtain them ON PATCH.
Square Enix needs to start taking risks with content, People need to remember that content designed for the average and above player, becomes 'casual content' in the next expansion for anyone not willing to challenge themselves when it is current.
How many 'casual' players run old extreme fights unsynced and call it content?
How many 'casual' players run old raids unsynced for glamour?
Now how many of those 'casual' players even do current expansion content?
None of that content would exist if it wasn't first made for the average or above player, It is that 'harder' and 'more grindy' content that backfills the game and has so much replayability later in the games lifespan.
Right now, Endwalker is slowly moving towards the end of it's lifespan, and the content left behind for 'casual players' to soak up is basically zero.
I'm very confused. Is "HIM" here supposed to be an acronym? I was even on the lookout for references to "the guy", "the man", "the big bad", etc., etc.... but there was nothing.
Best guess so far:
This guy... but as a metaphor?
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FDQqZj36d...mpowerpuff.jpg
I have my own opinions for Endwalker. It turned out to be my favorite for its message (for just the main story end arc). My Dad passed away a few weeks before it released on early access, so I was going through a rather rough time leading up to it. And it helped me through moreso because my WOL is essentially a reflection of my own person irl. So it did hit me the hardest after the ending. Everything that came after 6.0 (6.1 and so on) bored the crap out of me lmao. I'm glad I finished XVI and Diablo IV this year-- but I went back to XI after. There's not much for me to do till savage next release in 7.0 honestly (had some really bumpy runs with a lot of prog groups and gave up because I was tired of bad party finders and groups who cannot communicate well across all the DCs in NA). My attachment to the game has gone stale though with all the content we've received thus far since the start of the expansion. I'm hoping 7.0 has something better in store. :/
I feel like we're both operating in good faith but are probably misunderstanding each other. To be clear, I don't think that Zepla's criticisms should be ignored. Rather, I think that whether or not a player enjoys any game — especially one with as much complexity and variety as FF14 — is a highly subjective experience. Someone who's here for the hardcore raiding is going to naturally have a different experience than someone who's here for crafting. Someone who plays for just a few hours on the weekend is going to have a different experience than someone who puts in several hours daily. These diverse players have different wants and needs, and these provide valuable context that relates to how satisfied they will be with the game or any given patch. In particular, burnout can often make a defining difference between enjoying something and hating it; I've seen it so many times, and experienced it as well.
So what I'm trying to suggest is that when people hear Zepla's criticisms of the game, they should also consider the context within which she makes her critique. Do not dismiss her! Just be thoughtful. That's really all I wanted to say.
Why are you guys debating about Zepla when it's a sentiment shared by MULTIPLE content creators, not just Zepla. Seems like she's just easier to attack so people choose that lmao
@ me when you guys try to explain why MrHappy should be ignored too. Oh wait sorry, not "ignore", just put into context so that it's super convenient to dismiss, but don't actually explicitly dismiss guys! Because that's not thoughtful. Just hint at dismissing. Wink wink.
Zepla gained my respect back when she was the only influencer to actually have the balls to go off script and push Yoshida about the steadily growing unrest over endgame healing. Perhaps it was a byproduct of the impending burnout but she seemed much more willing to burn her chances of getting future interviews than Mr Happy who was as spineless as ever at the time.
Unless the context would indicate a likely mismatch between what would benefit her and what would benefit many of us, more common camps of players, or some theoretical "average" player, though... a warning simply to "be thoughtful" of a tangential difference alone (that of background or playtime, which does not necessarily or even that likely indicate differences in priorities as they would affect the given suggestion)... that is effectively encouraging people just to dismiss it.
If you're feeling some likely mismatch there, then why not give your guess instead of just telling people to take the given opinion with a grain of salt? No one was assuming from the start that any other person's experience or preferences would perfectly match theirs; the question is how it would affect the feedback being responded to.
If it doesn't affect it (be that in its necessary prior supporting changes, the suggestion itself, or likely consequences of that suggestion), it's not going to be relevant to the suggestion's discussion.
I don't think you're intending it to be such, but that reads very much as an encouragement to dismiss or find the worse in a given idea over its speaker's tangential/unessential/irrelevant differences.
I guess this might be a difference of opinion? I felt like the difference you're describing as tangential was relevant to the topic at hand. If you genuinely think it's unrelated, I can understand why you would see what I'm saying as something akin to a disingenuous distraction that would at best function as a flimsy excuse to dismiss an opinion. To me it seemed pertinent, since burnout can have such a tangible impact upon what we enjoy versus what we dislike, as well as the way we criticize it. Or at least, that's my experience.
I still want people to listen to Zepla; she's a person I have respect for, and her words are worth hearing and genuinely considering. It's my personal opinion that knowing about her burnout can help those listening to her to have a more holistic understanding of the context in which she's making her measurements and her opinions. And I want to be explicit: nobody should be dismissing her due to this! That is not a fair reason to dismiss anyone; that would be ad hominem, which has no place in any reasonable discussion.
When I read your most recent reply to me, I get the impression that you believe that everyone (or perhaps most?) is already being thoughtful, unbiased, and critical when they receive new information. And if that is indeed the case, then perhaps that explains why my message would seem needless to you? A major part of why I made my initial post is that I am accustomed to a non-trivial segment of people becoming invested in their side of an issue and not really considering other perspectives. I feel like everyone is guilty of this at times, myself included, and I think that a reminder to be thoughtful and see the world as shades of grey rather than purely black and white can be helpful to a lot of people and discourse as a whole. That's where I'm coming from.
Even if we don't agree on things, I hope that clarifies were I'm coming from. And again, for anyone who needs it, don't dismiss Zepla or anyone else. Hear what they have to say. And if the context I added would encourage you to dismiss someone, then please ignore that context, because I'd rather you hear what she has to say in a less optimal manner than not hear it at all.
Edit: and you know what, I just re-read my initial post and I can see now how it can be interpreted in a dismissive way, which is not what I had in mind when I wrote it. I'mma try to fix it up a bit so it's less that way.
I don't mind them until they start behaving like they're some kind of blessing in this game. There are many of them and honestly, it's so cringe to watch.
NEWS FLASH - While their video views/popularity is decent, they are so contemptibly small compared to the actual player base of the game. Majority of the people I know in the game don't even watch content creators.
Sounds good! Tried to do a thumbs up emoji but... 90's forum design.
I'm not quite so optimistic as all that; I just feel like the average person not only tends to drop critical thought in favor of oversimplified considerations of "Are they an outsider or insider?" but also will generally prefer, or be convinced/stimulated by, a reason to dismiss X than to engage with it (probably because it's just far less demanding). As such, I felt your particular tack would play on the worse tendencies of many in a way that would be very unproductive for the course of the thread. Glad to know that wasn't your intent.Quote:
I get the impression that you believe that everyone (or perhaps most?) is already being thoughtful, unbiased, and critical when they receive new information. And if that is indeed the case, then perhaps that explains why my message would seem needless to you? A major part of why I made my initial post is that I am accustomed to a non-trivial segment of people becoming invested in their side of an issue and not really considering other perspectives.
As much as I still whine about it I’ve honestly given up any hope for any change to healers though I respect the hell out of Zepla for jeopardising her position to basically say “yo what the hell”
As of now I’m basically of the opinion that when the job design finally scares off the last of the savage healers squares response will be to use that as an excuse to dump savage rather than attempting to fix healers
If I recall, not a single streamer / influencer was invited to Fanfest this time which surprised me. It makes me wonder what the marketing department is up to or if they know that they do not have much substance to offer and are trying to manage the situation. It would make sense as I have not really seen much hype for the NA Fanfest. We will know in a week but I am concerned.
I'm really curious to see how the fan fest goes, there's a a hefty disconnect that seems to building with the devs and it will be interesting to see if this continues at the fanfest or if they are going to try and get a handle on the cracks that seem to be building.
Likewise. I've seen feedback given over the years consigned to the void. And I'm not even talking about just the forums. There's no feedback surveys, there's no community pulse check, there's no activity on the forums, there's...nothing except interviews and Live Letters with Yoshida. And I'm sorry, but I cannot trust that that man alone anymore to give acceptable and in-depth responses to the community on really nuanced topics that dramatically affect gameplay, which is my primary avenue of enjoyment. Not after how long it takes to get things worked on, and the sledgehammer approach they have to all design decisions as of late.
I'm not exactly sure when this happened, maybe a little bit after the Shadowbringers Media Tour? But there was some serious WTF moments going on over the last four years or so in development, and it cannot be all chalked up to Covid, because the Media Tour non-answers and handwaving happened before that. We only have one person we can really look at who really reaches out on common channels, and that's only during live letters, in Japanese. with none of us being allowed to put in direct feedback. Can anyone point out any community managers or SE presence? If you're posting here on this forum, you know the answer to that question. We used to get interviews from the fight designers telling us how they designed fights, what challenges they had in development, some really interesting reads, but now...We only get "This is impossible" until modders do it, and then it's suddenly "possible by next patch. Check in on the Live Letter! No, we won't answer any real questions." But your reasoning for some of the changes... "NO QUESTIONS"
Yoshida doesn't MAKE all of FFXIV. He literally can't. So for those people who are on the ground floor, making the game we love, where is their voice? Those FOUR poeple on the Job Design Team, that ONE person in the STF, what are their struggles? What are their challenges? Why is some feedback like healers completely and almost maliciously ignored, while something like Sleepo strat in a SINGLE fight leads to an entire rework on the waymark system and changes to the arena of a encounter almost instantly? How is feedback even processed? Is it literally all just metrics and everything we say is pointless? Why is there such a growing disconnect between the players and developers mentality? Do the devs care that some communities are breaking down entirely right now in EW?
The developers CANNOT and WILL NOT make everyone who plays this game happy, and that's okay. People leave, and that's okay. But it literally feels like the developers are SHOVING me and others like me away from actually playing the game, unless I'm absolutely willing to go back into Ultimates. And I don't have the mindset for another 2-4 month prog. I've been subscribed for less than half of EW's length, and half of THAT time was me just going into my house to refresh, the other, DSR. I probably put more time into a 4.55 or 5.2 themselves that the entirety of Endwalker's expansion cycle. That's...wrong, right?
When I'm at Fanfest, it's not just to celebrate the game I LOVE with my friends, some who subbed for a single month just for a shot at the ticket, it's also to see if it's even worth continuing with this game in 7.0 for myself, in person. I doubt there's gonna be a QA session for stuff like this, but I can't NOT ask this stuff. I'm the only person left out of a dead Free Company running since ARR, out of a 150+ greyed-out friendlist, all of it this expansion, I'm essentially speaking for people who can't post here or offer any feedback at all anymore. If my experience and the experiences of those who are just fed up with the current situation are not valued, then at least I'll bookend my time with the game at a convention with loved ones. I do not want to fight anyone. I just want to have fun again.
I do sometimes miss the journey that the old relic steps took me on. I'm okey with what they've chosen to do now, but.. i know that the old relic grind will always be there if I'm looking for that, i do wonder if there could have been a way to find a balance between what they are doing now and what they've done in the past.
For a game designer it does begin to feel like this has become a series of choices where they can only pick a select few each time they do this; and i don't envy them.
I dont know what square is thinking, wow basically handed ffxiv its fan base, and they chose to do nothing with it at all, you would think they would of invested that boom in to their team or product, but instead they are focused on making such wonderful flops as forspoken and avengers..
hey square, youre not to big to fail, nothing is, stop being greedy and stubborn
casuals complained about eureka and bozja. "what do you mean i have to do content to earn my relic!!! square enix this is acceptable! i'll have you know i only sub to this game just to afk in limsa/uldah and use the game as a chatroom!" etc so they just shrugged and just made it tomestones only. blame the casuals, as per usual