Xenosys Vex explains how to save the game

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Originally Posted by Kyrj

You know what would really help the game? Is if SE would stop locking new side content behind a massive MSQ wall. Why is it that they learned this lesson for new jobs but not things like say Eureka Orthos? We had a massive influx of new players which is good, that means that they'll be able to start grinding out things like Bozja, Zadnor, Eureka, PotD, HoH, EO, and so on......once they finish the MSQ which takes a lot of time for most of those to even be available and some of them require more than just MSQ (Bozja needing a whole raid and side story). The problem is as we're waiting for newer players to get to that point of say Eureka Orthos, you have players who are already at that point, leaving the game because it takes 75 mintues to even get into EO. And I get it, a lot of these things have a big overarching story attached to them but at some point the MSQ starts to hurt the game more and more.

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It's why a lot of people are hoping for 7.0 to be this big reset event.

I seriously doubt 7.0 will be the reset people are hoping for. In order for that to occur, the devs will have to admit that the current game is as wrong as some in the community are making it out to be.

No where in the marketing nor LLs or interviews does Yoshida ever acknowledge the major problems that people have been clamoring for years (minus a very few). I 100% guarantee that Dawntrail will be just the same safe, consistent and predictable content we have had for the last 10 years or so. They've already outlined what is coming with 7.0 in the keynote and people hoping that somehow the entire design of the game will change is nothing but folly. Again, in order for the next expansion to be very different, is for them to realize that the game is in a terrible state.

Its just the truth of that matter. Whether we stay on the boat or just jump off or stay and continue to be bitter about the game is up to everyone.

The game was more interesting during ARR. Today it is predictable and boring. Dawntrail: go through 3 boss dungeons that all have the same 3 square rooms and 3 hallways, get the same gear with higher numbers, no interesting gear stats or mechanics or purpose, unlock the new job: painter, ironic since job are the same with a different coat of paint, follow MSQ and watch NPCs nod their heads in too many cutscenes.

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Originally Posted by Noumenon

Because most gamers care not about the carrots but about the actual meat, the substance of the gameplay. And most of these players have long since quit, which is why we have a remaining echo chamber of players fighting over rewards when players should be debating over how to make the actual gameplay more fun.

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PvP is actually good example of that.

This is something that when fun can carry the game by itself and the reason why multiplayer-only games even exist.

Since PvP was never good in FFXIV and did not had good rewards it was basically dead.

But it was improved and got "battlepass" to incentivize doing it. Still activity significantly drops when people get what they want from it as its gameplay loop is not fun enough to warrant doing it by itself.

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Originally Posted by SquishyPlushie

It's why a lot of people are hoping for 7.0 to be this big reset event.

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If SE is giving over the work to interns it will not improve and just get even more stale as interns will not take risks and might lack experience/talent to create good content.

In the short term I agree with Xenosys on gearing needs to be faster, but the reason for that is that the developers literally made the gear the most important and meaningful thing. It has literally turned into a world of warcraft gear grind with a bunch of seasonal things that people need to grind out before the next patch hits.

"Variant dungeons? Okay awsome, does it have a time limit on when I can do it? No? So I got to grind the pvp season first because the rank 25 reward I want goes away on the next patch. Okay I'll go do that... Oh and I need to grind out the extreme mount or get the 100 totems while people are still doing it... and I need to get savage done quickly so I can go unlock the ultimate before the next patch hits as well..."

There is a mountain of difference between Bozja grinding where nothing is really on a time limited basis, and the grinding we got to get through now where everything is on a time limited basis because of community or because of some stupid reset timer they threw in.

Job simplification is detrimental, I have seen several streams of players running endwalker content having zero idea how to play the job, zero care on actually wanting to learn it, clicking on abilities, seating in CDs, using OGcds like they are non OGCD... SE seems to want to lower the ceiling of jobs towards this players. Is disrespectful

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Originally Posted by ValkyrieL

Job simplification is detrimental, I have seen several streams of players running endwalker content having zero idea how to play the job, zero care on actually wanting to learn it, clicking on abilities, seating in CDs, using OGcds like they are non OGCD... SE seems to want to lower the ceiling of jobs towards this players. Is disrespectful

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When the game expects you to learn by sitting down and reading weird tool tips or consulting outside sources, then you're not doing a very good job to begin with.

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Originally Posted by ValkyrieL

Job simplification is detrimental, I have seen several streams of players running endwalker content having zero idea how to play the job, zero care on actually wanting to learn it, clicking on abilities, seating in CDs, using OGcds like they are non OGCD... SE seems to want to lower the ceiling of jobs towards this players. Is disrespectful

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This is like 80% of the playerbase they have 0 reason to balance towards anyone else. Frankly, it's working! I think I've only run into like, 1 tank since shb that couldn't hold threat. I run into a lot fewer honest healers. Feels like I run into fewer complete failures for healers, but nowadays even when I do, the tank and dps can kinda muddle through with their own sustains, fight dependent.

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Originally Posted by Aldath

When the game expects you to learn by sitting down and reading weird tool tips or consulting outside sources, then you're not doing a very good job to begin with.

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There are only a few jobs that are sort of hard to pick up. Ninja, Bard, and potentially Dark Knight are the three that are the hardest but only because the first involves having to do something that none of the other jobs really perform, which is comboing pieces of a skill to get an effect, while the second two are priority system jobs that take more baby sitting than the more heavily combo based ones. Even then, DRK is still stretching it a bit on being a challenge since they have such a loose priority someone could probably face roll on the keyboard over the OGCDs and be okay.

If anything, the story fights getting nerfed each time a new expansion hits is probably more an issue than the jobs themselves. Someone doesn't even need to throw a single mitigation up on Hades anymore.

I think the game could use some more optional grindy content. I didn't really know what a nice role Bozja filled until we didn't have a Bozja/Eureka equivalent in this expansion. The relic weapon series in Endwalker in particular was a disappointment. At first I liked being able to just get the relic with the lesser tomestones each patch cycle, but now by the end, I feel so little satisfaction towards the weapons. They almost feel like just a filler weapon to tide you over until you have the tomestone weapon for the patch cycle, as opposed to an end-of-expansion achievement that I worked for.

Zepla made a great video on this topic. There's a nice middle ground between too much grind and too little grind, as well as too many incentives to log in versus too little incentive to log in, and Endwalker was way too far into the "too little" category on both counts.

I feel like Stormblood and Shadowbringers found the nice happy middle ground between the two and I hope we'll return to that in Dawntrail.

I'm kind of hoping that Endwalker's lackluster content patch cycles was caused by them having to develop Final Fantasy 16 at the same time.