please give us something to stay in the game! (and keep keep the subscriptions up)

My FC consists mostly of long-term players, and thanks to that it is almost dead. It can take 2 years to reach that point, but then the game becomes, sorry to say that, boring.

I haven't reached that point yet but can see already it heading there one day, after only half a year. Why?


- Eorzea is breathtaking beautiful -- but alone that does not keep you playing.
- The story is great, but honestly how much story has been released since the expansion? Lots of cutscenes yes, but actual story? Not that much.
- The first dozen or two instances are fun. Then you start realizing they are all more or less the same. Some you could even just switch the optics and a few mechanics and they are really the same. Running them over and over? Gets boring sooner or later.

What else is there? Grinding tomes or relics again and again and again? Sorry to say, but eventually it gets boring, all the more as you realize this is an eternal circle of the always-same things. Anima is mostly a copy of the old relic, and you just farm tomes through the aforementioned cloned instances to run even more cloned instances. (And just making them harder or a new mechanic here and there is not necessarily making them more interesting)

FFXIV is doing a fantastic job in getting a player hooked through ARR and then HW.

And then you do some stuff here and there. But very little "new" or "long-term engaging" (aforementioned grinds aside). Luckily I am deeply into crafting/gathering so that will keep me a bit longer than someone only into battle, but even figuring out the best rotation and gearing up for that in addition has limited shelf life.

In the long run, just playing to get new gear to be able to get even better gear that will become obsolete often within a few months? Not something to keep players long-term.

And there is little else in the game, unless you are a hardcore raider who just wants to ever-increase that gaming skill or an RPer.

Getting new subscriptions is good, but not keeping old ones in the long run is bad business for SE. Acquisition-only is not a viable business model for subscriptions. There is a limited amount of players you can reach in this world.

I think the game needs more things that actually keep players motivated long-term, that increase immersion level and offer varied, new experiences.

Story is a good thing, you come back to learn how it continues. That means not just a load of cut scenes, beautiful as they are, but actual _story_. But even beyond that there need to be new goals, long-term involvement.

Housing could be such, but not just is it ridiculously scarce, it never really got beyond being over-sized, immobile glamour. You get a house, put furniture in, look at it... and that's it. More usage, more interactivity, real features to be added could make housing (once it becomes actually more widely available) something that might add to stay in the game. Same goes for minions (unless you are into LoV), glamouring your gear etc. -- nice features but running themselves empty sooner or later. Diadem could have been fascinating, but unfortunately it is also little more than a glamoured, over-sized open air instance with mindless grind + added gathering opportunities, little to really explore!

Other long-term goals besides what I have mentioned would be good as well, that are not just the next copy-paste grind. How about the players help really developing Mor Dhona or Idyllshire? Or founding a village? Found an enterprise? Or or or. I am sure more creative heads than me can come up with even far more!

Just copy-pasting dungeons and cloning the gear grind forever won't keep people interested in the long run.

I am now seeing it in my FC, and I have no doubt this trend will increase as players reach the point in the game where there is nothing new left for them to do. Three days, maybe a week worth of new content (quite a bit not even feeling so new after having been in the game for quite a while) every patch or two at best won't keep people subscribed and FCs alive.

Last summer we celebrated 2 years of ARR. It would be a shame if with each passing summer fewer of the old guard are still there to celebrate it, subscriptions suspended out of sheer boredom.

So please... less cloned theme park and mindless eternal grind, no matter how cheaply this can be produced (and I understand the need to keep production costs low). And more things that keep old players motivated to pay their subscription fee.

Eorzea is a bit too beautiful, the stories (when actually happening) too catching to die a slow death of boredom in the long run :)

Yeah stuff is pretty slow right now, but I still look forward to every new primal, personally. I've liked them all so far except maybe Ramuh. Even Bismarck is okay with a party that can read at a 3rd grade level.

I play less often as of late, but playing less has also given me more time to be more productive on other things. It's not all bad, I guess.

In any case, I'm not going back to playing any free-to-play games any time soon after experiencing what FFXIV has to offer. (e.g. Haircuts & glamours that don't cost cash, many many mounts, many emotes, great music, no cash RNG boxes, Lalafells, regular dev & community rep interaction, and a great localization team....etc.)
I still feel it's worth my $13 a month.

EDIT: I feel I should also throw this in,
Being around people you get along with is also a big part of what makes a game fun and worthwhile. It's not just content that keeps most people around.

If you have been playing for 2 straight years maybe you and your FC need a break.

There is a constant influx of new players so maybe it will open up a few slots for them in Balmung :p

But yeah... more quality content!

I agree with this post in many ways. I love ffxiv but I am on a break from it until right before 4.0. I'm giving it some time to build up content I really want to do. Honestly in regards to the tome grind, there is no point to actually cap if I don't raid. I save time by just waiting until the second round of tomes to actually acquire them. Majority of the content in the game does not require someone to have a full or nearly full set of the newest tome gear to complete it. Outside of savage raiding, rewards are mostly glamour or just minions. Seeing how a wardrobe feature does not exist even this can be limiting to players who have a very full inventory and do not want to buy extra retainers.

I just got back recently after taking a break for a few months. I honestly dont think it helped. Im burned out on mostly everything about this game. I really only even came back because i wanted to keep my fc house, private house, and fc leadership. I do think that with so many people feeling the same as i do the devs may notice and add something that would spark my/our interest in the future. Even when i was unsubbed i stalked the forums and patch notes. lol. I love this game though. I love Final Fantasy. I want to see it succeed. No. I want to see it do more than that. I want to see it break huge ground in the mmo world. Doing things other mmos will copy in the future. Sort of like WoW and the many games(including this one) that copy 1 or more parts of it. Hoping yoshida makes good decisions for the game in the future!

I wish i could think of something that would keep me interested but at the moment i cant think of anything that would work without breaking other things in the game. I guess i just enjoy lots of customization and goals. Real goals. Things i want to do. Unlike the achievements we currently have. Who would grind leves til they made 1 million gil of leve quest just for the title? Waste of time imo. Getting ponies from all primals? Thats a goal i can understand. We need more goals like ponies. For example the Fenrir mount is a great goal. It gives me reason to play mini cactpot every single day and that only takes a minute or so. Maybe they could add more companions to fight along side you. Make it so that you have to train them and breed them, feed them, ETC. Even with that though, You cant take pets into dungeons. I think it would be lovely. But balance. :| I guess in the mean time. We will have to wait it out and see what happens. Make our own fun. If nothing changes between now and the next expansion release. Maybe ill drop my sub for good. At least i give it a chance. Til then i guess ill do daily(i hate daily limits so much) quests for beast tribe mounts and level my classes and the occasionally seasonal event/patch content. Oh and of course play other games when i cant handle the repetitiveness anymore.

To hell with this take a break mentality of this forum, seriously? thats how you deal with dissatisfaction?
You guys do realize the whole "take a break" is a terrible piece of advice? many people take a break and never return, and these are usually vet players with much to offer the community.
Instead of telling dissatisfied people to take a break, maybe lets examine why they are dissatisfied?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CookieMonsta

To hell with this take a break mentality of this forum, seriously? thats how you deal with dissatisfaction?
You guys do realize the whole "take a break" is a terrible piece of advice? many people take a break and never return, and these are usually vet players with much to offer the community.
Instead of telling dissatisfied people to take a break, maybe lets examine why they are dissatisfied?

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Except sometimes people are just burnt out. Taking a break and coming back can bring fresh perspective to a game. Nothing wrong with saying that it's time to take a month or two away from an MMO and then come back later. Being at the end of the content cycle and playing constantly means you will, inevitably, run out of things to do - and even things you once found enjoyable will get boring.

I think the game have hit it breaking point. Sure, we were excited every time a patch come out, but now we know what the patch is even before it hit. The old re-hash of 2 New Dungeon, 1 New Trials, Continue of MSQ, and new PvP having been copy and paste since 2.0. It is now almost 2 years into the patch and yet we see the same re-hash formula still being used.

Even the most hardcore or fan base of the franchised have giving up hope on this game. SE need to break out of their shell and try something new, do not afraid to take risk. You can't used the same formula over and over again just because it work well in ARR.

I made made this post recently about new ideas for the game. surprisingly, I had only 1 respounce. the community need to come with ideas this is how we fix this. the developers are not gona do anything unless we the community speak out with ideas to the game. my idea was open world content like ffxi and my idea was here http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-input-welcome

I think everyone's issue is that there was a long delay between 3.0 and 3.1 and that everyone was hopping that 3.1 was going to be amazing and found the content in the patch meh at best

(i do realize I'm repeating myself but the original thread has been deleted)