Concerns for the State of the Game

I almost never post on the forums so forgive me if this isn't the appropriate place to post this. Also feel free to air your grievances here if there is not another thread dedicated to that. I started playing during ARR right when through the maelstrom patch dropped. Up until until 5.0 and I took around a 5 year hiatus in which I promised to return when fem hroth became a thing because I've wanted a beastman race since before it was teased in the viera poll...

-Seasonal events. We used to have a lot more than a few cut-scenes. What happened to the special fates and instances?

-Story. I'm actually still in EW postgame so maybe I can't say much about content drought. But after hearing and seeing what I have of DT I absolutely dread going through msq content...Trials and dungeons may be the saving grace but I play this game more for the story and it seems to have a very negative reception.

-Class homogenization. I've been a DRG main since starting the game. Didn't care for it when battle litany and dragonsight seemed to be taking my class in a more psuedo support melee direction but still rolled with it. As a ps3->ps5 player I can even appreciate trimming buttons. The whole point of DRG is to rotate between two combos while weaving gcds between with the jumps being a crucial part of the jobs identity. In DT we lost a jump and it was replaced with a really stupid dash. Now we just lost a couple more weavable nastronds because why? Now I work manual labor and come home tired with a fried brain. A super casual if you will. So out of 19 classes now I picked DRG as the favorite and put lots of time into somewhat mastering one class. Taking away what makes a job a job in order to make it "on par" with every other class just makes it unfun and takes away the identity and what made it appealing in the first place. Forgive me I'm not a very profound speaker so maybe someone else can phrase it better. Something similar happened with AST. I never mained it but it was my healer of choice which I haven't enjoyed since SB. What made it cool was that it could be one of the two types of healer by choice though slightly weaker. But it also had rng cards that you could choose how to manage as compensation.

-Fem Hrothgar. As I said before I've wanted a "beastman" race since before the viera poll. Lo and behold SHB rolls out and it's male only. I took a long break because irl reasons but promised to return when female hroth released. I came prepared to deal with limited headgear and hairstyles. But the rigging? Why is most armor broken on femhroths? Where is the sub money going SE, your other products?

Extra bit, post was too long:

Sure these are probably a bunch of "small things" but they sure do come together to make some major gripes. Especially about classes, it's okay if some are a bit harder than others. If a job clicks with someone enough surely they will take time to get good at it. I understand it's tough to balance them in a way where most can perform the bare minimum but should the identity of jobs really be stripped to compensate for poor gameplay? There must be a better solution and if no one says anything nothing will be done.

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Originally Posted by Karminae

Seasonal events. We used to have a lot more than a few cut-scenes. What happened to the special fates and instances?

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Although we did have cutscenes sometimes, you're right that we've just had cutscenes lately or rehashed old event instances. It's just a sob story always now.

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I can't say much about content drought

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Despite what people say, it's the same formula it's always been. There used to be people who complained of a content drought in Heavensward and Stormblood. It's no different now. Patch lulls always existed, and still do, and the formula is mostly the same but with some extra things.

What made these voices louder was: playerbase growing (thus louder complaints in all directions), the gradual reduction of dungeon releases (because we have over 100 now), steamlining of jobs, the patch cycle being extended by 1 month, Endwalker having a lot of solo content and lacking a core midcore content (relic grinds and Field Operations).

But despite the above things, the actual content release formula is not really different and if anything is more than we used to get, technically.

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I absolutely dread going through msq content...Trials and dungeons may be the saving grace but I play this game more for the story and it seems to have a very negative reception.

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True but best to just judge it for yourself. In any case, it's impressive to go through this many expansions and this be the first one with a reception this poor. I wouldn't go through a game with this many expansions and expect every single one of them to be my thing. Eventually one of them is going to miss, so I just make the most of it if it does.

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In DT we lost a jump and it was replaced with a really stupid dash.

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That wasn't a good decision and they should just reverse it (same on DRK).

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Taking away what makes a job a job in order to make it "on par" with every other class just makes it unfun

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They have tried to make jobs more intuitive and harder to play wrong. This started in Stormblood where they replaced status effects with Job Gauges and removed bloat. In Shadowbringers they removed the remaining bloat and made most jobs simpler to play. In Endwalker they tried to make it impossible to mess up the rotations. In Dawntrail they are finishing off that process - for example with BLM clearly highlighting which action to use next, which was one of the anomalies that remained.

I agree that the fun of Dragoon is weaving lots. It was real boring at level 50 without all that weaving. It was always a thrill doing that weaving and I enjoyed playing it lots in Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

I agree that the fun of AST was the RNG and up through 5.0 it was fun, but then they began to reduce how frequently the cards appeared and removed RNG through Endwalker and Dawntrail. Now it's just become "press all your DPS cooldowns" like other jobs.

My suggestion is, play through the story and form your own opinion. Stories are personal for people, but I personally feel like the writing has gone more childish as of late, and aimed for.. pre-teens? Because I would've probably hated the writing as a teenager too. Which is a really weird aim, as most people playing MMO's are 20-40+ , even odder is the shift, because formerly their story was really nuanced and respected the worldbuilding and tone of the world that was far more serious.

They said they will look at jobs at 8.0 but then again they have said a lot of things and words are words and P.R.

When it comes to everything else like the rigging, even the current housing changes with "no pillar" it seems like a shoddy job, I don't know what the devs are smoking but they clearly arent doing their job or their coding / engine isnt allowing them to do something. But this is not good work at all. And yes, still no hats for Viera and Hrotgar, pathetic.

For me, it's the same old hamster wheel. DT just made it worse though

I have little to no interest in the MSQ. Only reason to do it is to unlock Expert Roulette again.
Alliance raid is good, however you only can do it once per week for reward so... Got my drop first time this week I'm done till Tuesday.
Already have my gear for mage before patch dropped so no real reason to ruin daily roulette outside of gear other jobs.

7.1 looks good for Raider but for the average player that don't do extremes or raids it either craft or craft. Which they would try some different like Relic Armor grind along with weapons. Use tomestone to purchase something more than gear and craft items.

Really could have used that grindy mid tier content to keep players logging in each week for more than an hour. Oh well i guess.