From another site: `Endwalker is the last expansion where the FF14’s “Formula” works`

Just thought this is a topic worth discussing here on the OF:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...ast_expansion/

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I swear this is not an attempt at doomposting, but I wanted to share some opinions I have about the game and maybe spark some discussion.

I think FF14 is hitting a point where it can no longer sustain its content release formula. Every single expansion must include, for example:

· 10 additional levels for players to achieve, in battle and crafting content alike.

· 2 or 5 new abilities that HAVE to be earned in that 10 level gap, and one of them has to be reserved for max level. Moreover, the jobs are mostly tuned to that specific level, with little to no regard to how the Job plays on lower level.

· At the same time, every single job has to stay in the limits of around 25 to 35 actions to neatly fit onto a player’s hotbar, so abilities get pruned or consolidated.

· The usual batch of initial release and post-release content (i.e. an exact amount of raids, dungeons, an exploration zone, etc).

· A new Job or two that must draw players in to play them or at least try them out.

The list goes on, you know the drill. New content secures its popularity by the virtue of being new, while most of the old content is supposed to be supplemented by duty roulette bonuses. Every new expansion is essentially a soft reset, where old ideas get a new coat of paint.

The problem here is that, as the time goes on and new expansions get released following the same formula, too much of the game’s content becomes ‘shelved’, while the newer content is becoming rarer by a large margin.

To put this into perspective, in HW about 40% of the game’s content was in the actual endgame and 60% was ARR (this is an estimate, not an accurate number). With each expansion, that discrepancy becomes larger and larger in favor of old content (for obvious reasons). In other words, you wouldn’t feel that there’s an inherent issue with how the game tackles its outdated duties earlier in the game’s lifespan.

As a result, several problems arise:

· The players end up not using their shiny new kit that is balanced and works at max level in the majority of the game. What is the point of getting that sweet and cool looking Communio or Pneuma, if in the end that ability gets taken away from you as soon as the game takes away even 1 level off of you?

· In a lot of cases, the lower you go, the less coherent a job’s design becomes, and more often than not less fun. As an example: Reaper. Below level 70 its kit is so barebones its kind of amazing, actually, and may put one to sleep due to its absent design. Conversely, at lvl 90 it feels like one of the most active jobs out there due to Enshroud.

· It is very easy for parts of the game to die if they are not a part of the duty roulette system. Who runs Delubrum Reginae normal without a premade right now, I wonder?

Let’s imagine that 5 years from now, SE keeps the formula and we enter 8.0, and reach a lvl cap of 110. Keeping in mind that they need to keep the same release format they established, they will need to spread out jobs’ abilities like the last piece of butter on dry bread. This would reflect negatively on the levelling process in general if gaps between getting abilities is too huge, as well as willingness to participate in synced outdated content.

One fairly recent-ish example that comes to mind is the Augmented Law’s Order relic step in ShB. For this step, not only did they have to farm fates in old zones to revitalize them for a brief period of time, but also run Crystal Tower raids to get the relic step done in a most reasonable way, as doing it in Bozja was too unreliable due to RNG drops.

This prompted a negative response from players to the chosen approach for the relic step. Crystal Tower was probably the biggest offender – not only is it already incentivized heavily and did NOT need the boost in players, but everyone running the raid was forced to play with a lvl 50 kit, which is notably less fun than max lvl. I believe this was the fastest relic step nerf I’ve ever seen.

The biggest issue here is probably the fact that this game offers so much content, but it becomes outdated and shelved once a new expansion launches, and in my opinion it will soon become too much.

I sincerely hope that SE recognizes that there is an issue and plans to tackle it one way or another in the future and does not elect to do nothing about it, as it may lead to players losing interest in the game.

I personally think that allowing players to keep their max level abilities in all content and just syncing stats is one of the better solutions, but there are a lot of opinions that exist on this topic in particular.

TL;DR: New expansions get released, old content becomes irrelevant outside of Duty Roulette. Jobs kit become too spread out across levels and do often have to be synced down, diminishing the importancd of reaching max level in the first place. This is becoming very problematic and I hope the devs recognize this and plan to approach this issue.

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This is kind of something I've harped on for a bit - when the vast majority of the game's content puts you under level sync, it feels terrible. Of course, people here are typically very against this poster's suggestion of allowing players to retain their kit while level sync'd.

Nonetheless, consider for a moment, using Deep Dungeon as an example since we might get one this expac. The original Deep Dungeon syncs you to level 60 at most, which feels pretty terrible and makes it hard to get people. Now the new one? Typically SE introduces it towards the very end of the expansion.

Meaning, we'll be lucky to have it for 6 months before level sync kicks in, disrupting rotations and resulting in wonky sub-max-level balance.

I'm not sure what the solution is. Again, I know those on this forum are very against removing ability locks from level sync (which wouldn't help with the bad balance below max level true enough, but it'd at least feel better to play). But I do feel like it should be talked about and something should be done.

As the post also notes, given that levels are just going to keep going up and up but that there's a max limit of what we can have on our hotbars, abilities are just going to get further and further spread out too.

Give me 6.08 Samurai and I will continue to spam " ALL CONTENT " endlessly.

• Dungeons
• Fates
• MSQ reruns
• Redoing my Samurai job quest for funzies
• Every yellow quests
• Beast tribes
• Community service Extreme's spam
• Community service Raiding spam
• Striking Dummy spam

Everything under the sun of combat gameplay I will spam it to the ground... because I loved doing that, simply cause of my Job. If I had my Kaiten not removed and if I had my Tenka Goken not being a darn Circle and kept a cone, if Samurai wasn't ruined by 6.1, i'd spam everything still cause it was fun and now its not.

I could give a rats ass about content, the job I love overnight got ruined. NO amount of content will be worth doing now for me. Except Housing.

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

Give me 6.08 Samurai and I will continue to spam " ALL CONTENT " endlessly.

• Dungeons
• Fates
• MSQ reruns
• Redoing my Samurai job quest for funzies
• Every yellow quests
• Beast tribes
• Community service Extreme's spam
• Community service Raiding spam
• Striking Dummy spam

Everything under the sun of combat gameplay I will spam it to the ground... if I had my Kaiten not removed and if I had my Tenka Goken not being a darn Circle and kept a cone, if Samurai wasn't ruined by 6.1. I could give a rats ass about content, the job I love overnight got ruined. NO amount of content will be worth doing now for me. Except Housing.

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What about Crystal Tower?

Even if SE gives you 6.08 samurai back, no Kaiten for you.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

What about Crystal Tower?

Even if SE gives you 6.08 samurai back, no Kaiten for you.

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But at that point we'd still be playing the same game we were 2 months ago.

I skimmed OP post, but I agree that playing anything below 60 for most jobs is extremely lacking. For instance, I loved playing SAM, but only at 65 or above due to the kenki generation. But at 50, it's still OK. Without kenki to use, I'm not nearly as annoyed about my kit being slow.

Same goes for most jobs I play. GNB? Gotta be 70 for that Continuation. I'll also say I think any ability tied to Continuation should already be available upon unlocking Continuation at 70. Looking at you, Hypervelocity. And if Fated Circle gets a follow-up, I'll say that should be available too even though Fated Circle doesn't unlock until 72 which is also weird. I think it should be a few levels after Burst Strike, but I digress.

Abilities on a lot of jobs unlock at weird levels and in the vast majority of gameplay they're usually unavailable. But in favor of not wanting the game made any worse, I think it's at least bearable for now.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

What about Crystal Tower?

Even if SE gives you 6.08 samurai back, no Kaiten for you.

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My point on my post is about that I enjoy FFXIV simply cause my Job is enjoyable. Then any content you throw at me is probably going to be fun. If you give me content with jobs that aren't fun? and by fun I do mean what I personally enjoy, which happens to be Samurai, then yes - I care not what Square produces.

• Anything AoE related is really braindead and ruined
• Anything Single target is now less think Raiding
• Anything I want to farm think Extreme's or Fates or anything that requires combat is even more dull

The only thing I enjoy now is Housing, helping friends and parties clear content and that's kinda it? so whatever new content they produce? I could care not. They could come with a new entire world with entire reflections, and probably a re-vomitted beast tribe yet again with new fates yet again and probably with a new job that probably has a lot of what we used to enjoy from other jobs rehashed, it would not even surprise me I could not care... if they didn't ruin Samurai.

So you might think I am demanding? I think I am the least demanding player. Too please me you dont need to write a new story or make 10 new raids or 20 new dungeons or 30 more NPC stories or 100 more glamours or even a 1000 more items to farm or 10.000 new furnitures or the infinite new amount of mogstation attires and emotes you wanna buy... I asked the bare minimum of unF'king a job I loved that made me play this game.

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

-wall of text snip-

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Frankly, I think you need your own thread on samurai. While your points may have varying degrees of validity, they are wildly off topic and putting words in mouths that haven't been said because... again, completely different topic.

So, if you love level 50 samurai - which doesn't have kaiten before or after 6.1 so not much has changed there - good for you. But this topic is, basically, that many jobs feel lacking and unfun when level sync'd.

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

Abilities on a lot of jobs unlock at weird levels and in the vast majority of gameplay they're usually unavailable. But in favor of not wanting the game made any worse, I think it's at least bearable for now.

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Is there a point where it becomes unbearable? Level 100? Level 110? As the kits become more toploaded towards those levels? As the ratio of max level vs sync'd content becomes even more and more towards said sync'd content?

I'm not expecting a solution next month, and I don't think the original poster is either. SE doesn't really move on those timescales, for one. But if you want something done by maybe next expac, it's good to talk about it now.

I wonder if for synced content if they couldn't just keep your max level rotation as is and just downscale the damage. The Unreal trials are a lot of fun to do, even if they feel much easier now than they did at original launch.

One thing that I have noticed with Endwalker is that there has been a move towards simply upgrading old actions with a new animation and some extra effects. This is probably the first expansion since Heavensward where we haven't seen a ton of old actions get discarded and replaced. It's a smart move, because players always get extremely emotional over seeing old actions get removed. It also means that there's less adjustments that you need to make to acquisition levels, as you're only changing the animation to a progressively bigger rock to hurl at your opponents. The downside is that you'll probably see a lot less variation in a job's rotation from expansion to expansion. Players will eventually start complaining about how their only new abilities are Inner Release 7 and Glare 12 and how they've been effectively doing the same rotation for the past five years, but this seems to be what the community wants for now.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Frankly, I think you need your own thread on samurai. While your points may have varying degrees of validity, they are wildly off topic and putting words in mouths that haven't been said because... again, completely different topic.

So, if you love level 50 samurai - which doesn't have kaiten before or after 6.1 so not much has changed there - good for you. But this topic is, basically, that many jobs feel lacking and unfun when level sync'd.



Is there a point where it becomes unbearable? Level 100? Level 110? As the kits become more toploaded towards those levels? As the ratio of max level vs sync'd content becomes even more and more towards said sync'd content?

I'm not expecting a solution next month, and I don't think the original poster is either. SE doesn't really move on those timescales, for one. But if you want something done by maybe next expac, it's good to talk about it now.

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It'd definitely be interesting if jobs were more front loaded, but it would require a fine line. New SMN is basically already there because it's exactly the same from 50 to 90, though, so if that's the future they're going towards, I don't know if that's actually better.

Just keeping actions scaled down would be the easiest solution probably. They already have that working for role actions, so I don't see why that can't work for job actions.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

So, if you love level 50 samurai - which doesn't have kaiten before or after 6.1 so not much has changed there

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Quote me properly on where I said Lv50 specifically before putting words into mine.
I said " ALL CONTENT ".

This includes Lv80/70/60 synced content as well. Not just Lv50. You care enough about un-synced content, even to post a thread about it, but suddenly these levels of synced content doesn't exist to you? Not to mention Tenka Goken at Lv40 feeling like crap that's pre Lv50 for that Non-Kaiten Crystal Tower argument point of yours.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

But this topic is, basically, that many jobs feel lacking and unfun when level sync'd.

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True, of which you're posting it in the DPS section expecting a non DPS take on it? To reword what I posted before, " Job-Satisfaction is crucial to enjoying content ". This includes skills and rotation changes that might affect lower level synced content as well yes. Not just from level 90. That to me is important, and the recent changes made the more horrible.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

As the post also notes, given that levels are just going to keep going up and up but that there's a max limit of what we can have on our hotbars, abilities are just going to get further and further spread out too.

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Square can solve Button Bloat issues by fusing a lot of buttons together with good procs and removing a lot of skills that aren't as meaningful if they really really desperately need to make room for better skills yes. Or they could also just not break what isn't broken. I personally don't see a button bloat issue for my job at least that can't be solved easily to make room for 4 more new skills.

But heck, my apology if that's a Samurai's take on the DPS section of the forum


Lastly, your reddit post goes on to state about older content becoming irrelevant. That's what un-syncing does, farmable glamour/rewards/titles/mounts etc, are all made less valuable due to it. And it will only get easier with higher levels. To care about the relevancy of synced level content, is to tackle the ability to unsync it for rewards. I couldn't care less they ruined my job so, knock yourself out with this. That's how I view it.

They should free Blue Mage from Prison.

Also I don't think they will change their formula at all. The game isn't going to change. Hasn't changed since Stormblood. The game hit it's peak in Heavensward and hasn't been better since. It just gets progressively dumbed down.

Not being critical it's just a fact.