14 the love hate

You know, I've criticized this game a lot over the years and agree with most of the community in regards to job design etc but I feel like as much as I hate the same old formula this game does over and over again with raid tiers and loot gains....the reason we all play it and come back to it is because there really isn't anything like it on the market.

I started playing this in 2018 on my ps4 pro and my buddy sucked me in as I was very suspect about mmos after all the time I put into wow. It obviously grew on me and many players later and many fc's later here i am. I will be honest this is my go to game. Said buddy always tells me I need a new game but I love fighting games and when I'm not playing those (or dying in wc2 remastered online matches because I forget my strategy when I was 12) I'm here.

For all the bad this game has, an mmo that's fun and functional and looks great on console is pretty impressive. Wow should be on console but because of necessary add ons it will never be. My sub runs out April 3 and it just dawned on me that if I really quit I'm gonna miss it. Not that I don't have other games to play, it's just nothing really fills the gaming void like 14.

I love my character and my glams and many of us have spent thousands of hours in this game together and I guess the point of this message is instead of attacking the devs for all the sh*t we hate, maybe remind them that we actually love this game and that's why we criticize it so vigorously. We want it to be better and are frustrated our concerns always seem ignored. If a dev team really cared they would listen to their community especially in a sub based mmo. Blizzard has been making some seriously hot garbage the last decade but in wow they're listening far more then square. It feels like a slap in the face to us all and I wish they would understand that.

Most of what you say I agree with. It's been hitting a point where new and old players have totally different experiences of the game and our expectations clash with each other. Everyone says 'this game' but there are so many more layers to it than that. There are mini games within the game. It's a social chat room with multiple different stories and crafting a personal style and identity of yourself.
It's absurdism vs nihilism.

I tuned out of the story during the EW patches. I am still here because of the aesthetics and the soundtrack, and my house.

It's not a good game though on console anymore.
Frankly crafting is unplayable agony without myriad QoL add-ons.
Serious be ready for savage crafting.
Then there are people that add-on RP and there are people that don't. That doesn't bother me, I could use add ons but it didn't interest me (any add-ons. I don't mod any games). But if you are on console you are now socially distanced from that clique of a game within a game.
My mind image of XIV is now just sweaty raiders, and porn addicted youngsters brought up on Pornhub.
Yeah there are still some lalafel players.
The game has become unrecognisable in just 2 years frankly. (Oh, I've noticed there are a LOT less lalafells in the cities and stuff. And the fun and charm is gone. It's all cat girls and bun boys in peephole top contemporary gear and trainers. Fckn hate it to be honest. It's like being back at school again except I enjoyed school.)

I consider consoles the number one reason this game's UI is still stuck in the medieval era, but to be fair it's on the devs not being able to actually design something that works better on pc as well.

I do think this game is very good for new players and will probably still prove engaging and entertaining for a while. The main issue is player retention since we keep eating the same soup over and over, which includes the same bugs, the same engine limitations, and the same content design that not only repeats itself like a broken tape record, but also now extends its homogenizing tendrils to other types of content (like deep dungeons, etc).

It turns out I enjoy this game a lot more when I'm playing it less, so I've just been playing it less. I've still got all the same issues with it, but they don't seem like a big deal when I'm only playing a couple hours a week. Plus, I'm getting older, the game's getting older...seems reasonable that we would begin to part ways at some point. Got a lot of good years of fun out of it. I think some people want a game they can play like a job every day for twenty years without getting bored, but that's just not really a thing that can exist for most people.

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Originally Posted by TemporalFruitsAndVeggies

It turns out I enjoy this game a lot more when I'm playing it less, so I've just been playing it less. I've still got all the same issues with it, but they don't seem like a big deal when I'm only playing a couple hours a week. Plus, I'm getting older, the game's getting older...seems reasonable that we would begin to part ways at some point. Got a lot of good years of fun out of it. I think some people want a game they can play like a job every day for twenty years without getting bored, but that's just not really a thing that can exist for most people.

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This is probably one of the reason I still coming back to FFXIV.

I am not a loyal player I take break between expansions, even lose my plot in The Mist.
I try other MMO, it either grinding hell (most of the Korean) or I have to sell my soul to go online everyday to not miss out, because once I miss out the progression there are no catching up.

FFXIV I do feel burnout almost every expansion to .1 patch and I usually take break after that and come back around .5, although the formula seem to be the same but the break give me enough of “flesh contents”

The relatively slow pace in FFXIV work quite well for me, after long working having only 1 hr come online during week day, this fit my lift schedule

To be quite frank:
I'm pretty bored of the product and only really log in now for cactpot.

The downfall of this game has been very painful. I joined these forums for the first time last year because I was so dismayed by what I saw in the benchmark trailer when it came to the new character graphics that I had to make my voice heard along with so many others. I wouldn't do that if I didn't care.

This game gave me a way to connect with friends who had moved out of state. I found a whole community here during a dark time in my life where I had lost my old community and felt lost and alone. Now, years later, my raid static and some of its former members all met up IRL together last year for the first time, and it was so much fun. I branched out and connected with even more players, we started Discord servers together, we run things together, we talk to each other both in text and voice. All of the people I've met through this game are not just avatars on a screen to me, they're real people with real lives who I've connected with. They matter to me. And Final Fantasy XIV was the venue that allowed all of that to happen.

It's not "just a video game" to me. It's a place I visit to be with my friends. In a previous era, it would have been the local park, a community center hosting a hobby event, a local coffee shop, a theater... but in this day and age, I found that space online. Watching it disintegrate under poor management and baffling decisions as time has gone on has been devastating. It's truly painful. It doesn't matter that it's virtual. It's the same pain as watching a beloved local park slowly deteriorate and fall apart because funding was cut, or watching local venue get bought out and gutted and taken over by new management who runs the place into the ground. It's real, and it sucks.

I don't know where I can go to meet up with the friends if this game keeps fumbling like this. What other game to we all go play instead that drew us in the same way this one did? There isn't one. I don't live near any of my friends, I can't just go visit them and do something fun together IRL on a whim.

But this just isn't the game we love anymore. It doesn't feel like our fun shared space anymore, between the watered-down story and jobs and characters we no longer recognize after the graphics "update." I want so desperately for it to get itself together and be the great game it once was. I want to look forward to patches and new content again! I miss reacting to things live with my friends, but I just don't care enough about any of the current content to tune in. Yeah, sometimes this game, even in the best of times, has been a janky PoS, but it was OUR janky PoS that still gave us hours and days and years of fun in spite of that. This game means so much to me. But I probably would have left it behind many months ago if I had found somewhere else to play with my friends. Maybe that's why the game is still going at all...

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Originally Posted by RinaB

If a dev team really cared they would listen to their community especially in a sub based mmo.

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Listen to who, though? We do see indications they're responding to feedback. People say they don't like field content. They have an expansion without field content. People say they want field content. Field content is back. People say they don't like Hildy. They have an expansion without Hildy. People miss Hildy. Hildy is back. People say they don't like Deep Dungeons. They have an expansion without Deep Dungeons. People say they miss Deep Dungeons. Deep Dungeons come back. People say Criterion doesn't have good enough rewards. Next one comes out with those glowy weapons. People say dungeons and trials are too hard. They make dungeons easier. People complain they're too easy. They make dungeons harder again.

Now, it's not anywhere near the same groups but you have to see where all the varied viewpoints can make it a constant game of whack-a-mole. If anything, they may listen too much. They sway too often with the whims of who's loudest and could stand to stick to their own plan and path more often and give us the chance to see if we like what they decide to cook.