State of the Realm

As a veteran FFXIV player (starting in 2013), and also FFXI player (at NA PC release), I'm curious to know what others' experiences and thoughts are on the current state of FFXIV and what changes / improvements they would like to see.

As it stands FFXIV seems more focused on aesthetics and mediocrity rather than challenging or compelling gameplay. Everything from Savage raids to MSQ bosses are nothing more than a scripted dance which when memorized offer little to no challenge. Completion rewards are quickly replaced by tome gear at next patch which offers no real incentive aside from having slightly stronger equip for a few months to the truly dedicated.

Jobs/Classes seem to have no true individuality aside from their weapon of choice and how they deliver their damage. Each jobs toolkit is relatively copy-paste with a slight variation in description and effect, though nothing that speaks to a strong differing factor as to how this job is significantly different than it's counterparts.

Partyfinder seems to be riddled with more advertisements for venues and RP scenarios than actual content, aside from the standard hunt group or new player looking to clear MSQ content.

While I am hopeful of the visual changes coming in 7.0 this seems to be a great opportunity for SE to address the current state of the realm while also making changes to classes / jobs / mechanics. Things that would add some depth and meaningful incentive to player progression.

I guess what I'd want most is more player agency. Right now jobs feel like they play on rails, exactly one way to play them and thats that. Theres no customization, no flare, no substance. Nothing.

I miss the concept of things like Class skills for adding some variety to your job, Bozja handles this pretty well with Lost Actions and Essences, I'd like the main game to have more of that in some form.

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Originally Posted by Stizzle

As it stands FFXIV seems more focused on aesthetics and mediocrity rather than challenging or compelling gameplay.

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For the casual content like dungeons, yes. Although I am glad that the newly-produced dungeons don't telegraph everything with orange circles so much anymore.

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Everything from Savage raids to MSQ bosses are nothing more than a scripted dance

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It's been that way for most of the game's life, except certain ARR bosses. I have no problem with it and it means you can feel confident about a fight once you've learned it.

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which when memorized offer little to no challenge.

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Depends, because some specific mechanics do have RNG in them.

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Completion rewards are quickly replaced by tome gear at next patch which offers no real incentive aside from having slightly stronger equip for a few months to the truly dedicated.

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It does feel that gear gets replaced too often. It would be nice if crafted gear for the next tier was the same item level as the raid gear from the previous tier and that this was the beginning item level of the next raid series. Getting all that raid gear only to discard it for crafted gear in the next tier doesn't feel good.

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Jobs/Classes seem to have no true individuality

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Yes that has been eroding, especially after they stopped caring about it with the release of Shadowbringers. At least a bit more uniqueness would be desirable.

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Partyfinder seems to be riddled with more advertisements for venues and RP scenarios than actual content

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If it is, then I didn't notice behind the over 100 high-end duties listed. I don't really look at the Other category much. It really doesn't matter though. Lots of people don't raid, so why not have 100 parties for people who don't as well?

I might get hate for this but i think role actions need to be removed. (Except for voke, shirk and KB resist)
They create soooo much overlap to an already homogenised mess.. I'd like to see them removed and replaced with unique abilties that make jobs different.
And now that all tank damage has been brought up to or higher than Dark knight's, i also want to see their sustain and utility dropped to the same level to keep things balanced.

I'd like to see the following:

Exploratory Content: Although Bozja and Eureka may not be everybody's particular cup of tea they both served to bring players together in a way that hasn't been seen in Endwalker. I'd like to see exploratory content become a staple of every expansion and be refined with each new iteration to have a smoother and more satisfying gameplay loop as well as more rewards to acquire. Including items that are rare and will sell for quite a bit of gil in order to facilitate longevity.

Player Housing: Although I am lucky enough to own a large house within the game, many of my friends are not so lucky. The Elder Scrolls Online allows for players to take a break for months or even years without the risk of losing their acquired houses or furniture. I'd like to see a similar safeguard implemented within FFXIV since 45 days - a month and a half - isn't really that lengthy a period of time. At the very least, I think it should be rounded up to two months.

Character Customisation:

Let's not beat around the bush - there's some very dubious and outdated design decisions plaguing this game. Perhaps one of the most prominent examples is the lack of authentic eyebrows for Highlander men. The face paint simply doesn't cut it, particularly when many players have spoken up over the years asking for more of a bone to be thrown to those of us who like and/or play men in this game. Better faces along the lines of Snow (FFXIII), Gladio (FFXV) and Basch/Gabranth (FFXII) would go a long way towards encouraging more people to try out this game and pick out a player avatar that appeals to them.

In addition, the game should take cues from World of Warcraft and The Elder Scrolls Online by taking the time to add new scars, tattoos and facial hair as customisation options. More short hairstyles that are primarily designed with men in mind would be excellent as well.

Deeper Dialogue Choices:

The game is in a rather strange place these days where it is becoming more akin to a single player game on many fronts. That would ordinarily serve as an excellent opportunity to grant the player more agency in regards to certain situations. For example, not everyone is eager to have their character fawned over to such a large degree by G'raha and Alisae. The option to put one's foot down would be wonderful. It would also be great to have more choice in terms of how our character chooses to react to some of the deeper revelations in the MSQ's. Not everyone is interested in the 'chaos gremlin' archetype that the game desperately seeks to push upon our character.

Reconstruction Content:

I'd like to see more of it, once again as a staple moving forward. There are a lot of places within the game world - such as Garlemald and Ala Mhigo - that could stand to be rebuilt. Having each server come together in order to rebuild parts of the game world is peak MMO as far as I'm concerned.

New Rewards:

From time to time and in order to encourage older content to become relevant again to both new and veteran players alike I think it would be wonderful if new minions, mounts, cards, emotes, glamour, orchestrion rolls and furniture were sprinkled across various aspects of the game.

We reached a point where all critics sounds the same, and many of them holds relative concepts.

I would love if jobs went back to heavansward or stormblood design and if dungeons and trials had some difficulty again like they did during arrr-hw. And would like to have as much content per patch that we use to get during arr and heavansward.

I wish they expand their job designer team. Four brains would inevitably run out of juicy creative ideas when they’re spread thinly across 19; soon to be 21 jobs in Yawntrail.

But lmao who am I kidding we get to touch HD grass in-game!

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Originally Posted by Stizzle

Everything from Savage raids to MSQ bosses are nothing more than a scripted dance which when memorized offer little to no challenge. Completion rewards are quickly replaced by tome gear at next patch which offers no real incentive aside from having slightly stronger equip for a few months to the truly dedicated.

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When has this not been the case in FFXIV?
It has been that way for as long as I have played FFXIV, which is since shortly after the release of Heavensward.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

When has this not been the case in FFXIV?

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Exactly, V&C is an attempt to add variety. People are expecting something that only advanced AI can do: be better than the player on his own style. We are watching the genesis of this concept with GPT in Skyrim.
Anyway, it's weird to read something like that.

Overall i believe FFXIV is a good game, but I believe it personally has quite a few flaws and some head-scratching decisions made by the dev team that just don't make any sense to me. I probably can't list everything in this post, but here are some things that come to mind:

Crystalline Conflict (Casual) should be queueable with friends

-Keep rank solo queue if it means that much to the devs to keep the ranked system "integrity". Let the casual mode allow for players to queue in together without having to try to queue at the same time to get a game together.


Relic quests should not be X amount of tome turn-ins most/all the time

-We already have a tome weapon that comes with each savage tier. The relic should not fill a void that is already filled with tomes that are already used in plenty of other avenues


Savage BiS gearing needs a serious rework

-BiS gearing in Savage is the only system in the game (that i know of) that is built with 1 job per character in mind instead of all jobs per character (which FFXIV is advertised as the latter)
-Ultimates are the only true need for BiS currently, and we don't get an ultimate after each savage. There needs to be more content that needs this BiS (Savage and Criterion don't need the gear. It is just beneficial).
-Previous BiS savage gear being completely outclassed by the new crafted is bad game design. They won't change it because it would tank the crafting market, but using this tier as an example, previous savage should've been 640/645 and new crafted should've been 630 (new crafted gets you into min ilvl for p9s)


Boss design needs to be reworked

-Bosses shouldn't all be bigger hitboxes, wall bosses, or swivel bosses. Bosses shouldn't always teleport to the center. Boss positioning doesn't matter in normal content, and those responsibilities should be kept in hardcore content. Basically we need better role responsibility in fights again


2 minute meta needs to be reworked

-They've over-hemogonized the jobs and they still can't balance them properly. We are literally getting the worst of both worlds in terms of job design right now, so they've opted to decrease the dps checks considerably as a "temp fix" lol. Dawntrail needs a serious revamp


That is all i have from the top of my mind right now, but i'm sure there are other things :).

Eh, there's a lot good in FFXIV, and most of the complaints aren't new - they're things the game has been doing since AT LEAST SB, and in many cases, since HW or even ARR. People are finally just feeling they're getting stale, but in Human norms are...a bit prone to hyperbole. That is "The game's been doing the same thing for 10 years and it's worked pretty well, but is getting stale, how about mixing it up?" is less click-bait than "The game now sucks and is going to die if Dawntrail doesn't do a complete turnaround!"

...but the former of those two is more accurate. The gearing, patch content amount, content amount in general, encounter design, trend of Jobs over time; all of these have been going on since 4.0. Some since 3.0 or one of the 2.X patches.

THAT.
SAID:

What I said above is still accurate; it's gotten stale.

To their credit, the Devs are trying to mix things up, in fits and starts. The PvP actions, the whole PvP system for that matter, and Criterion Dungeons are all attempts to mix up and experiment with different things. They're doing it, of course, alongside the fits part - SGE being a near carbon-copy of SCH, dungeons still being hallways of 2x double packs + Box repeat x3, and a slower patch cadence that also dropped Exploration Content this expansion in favor of IS/Criterion, and poor reward structure for Criterion - but they are doing it.

As for what changes need to be made: Depends entirely on who you ask.

I've literally seen some people defend the 2 min meta, something that I had previously thought was universally hated.

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But one of the Yoshi P interviews talked about changing up rotations, it sounded like he was saying DT will have the stuff we had here but also an Exploration Zone and something "new" that we've never done before, etc. I'm waiting to see what the next Fanfests and the Media Tour reveal, since that will set the tone, but I do think it's time to shake things up a bit, and it looks like we may get a bit of shake up, the question is just how much of one.

(Also: There should be nothing other than Ultimates that REQUIRES Savage gear. Though it does seem previous tier Savage gear should be the entry level for the next tier's Savage, with Crafted being a side-grade (same ilevel, different substats) for people to spot fill slots or gear an alt Job, as opposed to a total replacement. But that's just me.)

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I guess what I'd want most is more player agency. Right now jobs feel like they play on rails, exactly one way to play them and thats that. Theres no customization, no flare, no substance. Nothing.

I miss the concept of things like Class skills for adding some variety to your job, Bozja handles this pretty well with Lost Actions and Essences, I'd like the main game to have more of that in some form.

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Strongly agree to this. There is more than enough lore in the FF universe to add unique skills / actions which contribute to specific a class / job's strengths and weaknesses. While also allowing for customization and diverse toolkits.

i get 2002 and 9002 30 to 40 times a day when im online and im so sick of it houseing is a joke o better luck next time = bs

i have a 100 wow charters and im gonna go pvp some hord at least there i wont get 9002 or 2002 i got all my charters in a hotel there i figure there all family so its time to bust them out . and do a lott of pvping im ranked there

Much of the casual content has suffered greatly in the claim of making the game "accessible". However it's done little more than systematically reduce the effected content into only requiring a few functioning braincells to complete. Duties are now basically a linear path in the same format. Sure some people complained about specific things in some of the older duties back in ARR and HW, however they at least felt different from each other which made spamming roulettes far less monotonous.

I feel the actual audience Yoshi-P has shifted to catering to are the gaming equivalent of "social drinkers". Social drinkers don't actually enjoy alcoholic beverages, they simply drink them at social events or with friends to maintain an image.

However the job design in the game on the other hand has had the most damage done to it in an attempt to cater to the elitist part of the raiding community resulting in homogenization of jobs and loss of identity to fill cookie cutter templates and more recently the whole 2 minute meta.

The Endwalker relic acquisition and upgrade process is atrocious and I find it ridiculous they're trying to call it an amazing success based on the number of weapons obtained and upgraded by players when it's essentially being facilitated by players going "oh, that type of tomestone is capped again, I'll go buy 3 more space rocks. If they wanted a more obtainable tomestone weapon they could have just deleted the raid token requirement from the existing ones. I personally enjoyed the Hildibrand quests, however I would not have tied the Manderville weapons to it and instead would have preferred something centered around Godbert possibly involving an exploratory zone of some kind of massive Manderville labyrinth hidden beneath the Gold Saucer that house Manderville had been using to store all manner of things over generations to uncover the secrets to create said weapons.

I would love for them to revisit older parts of the game.

Chocobo
Bring it up to date, like removing outdated stats like accuracy, and give it more/better things to do.

An interesting overworld
The ARR overworld is really interesting, but the further down the expansion lines we go, the more empty the open world becomes. Side quests help a little, same with fate. But side quests you only do once, and fates are so easily stomped on because syncing is completely screwed up in this game (Bozja skirmishes melting like ice for example)
I think flying ruins a lot of the game, and that we gain it way too easily. I'm not saying it should be as difficult to unlock as it can be in MMOs like WoW, but just a little more.
Mindblowing to me that it took them until ShB, to realise that maybe they should give players the opportunity to gain mount speed increase earlier than AFTER completing MSQ.

After we got flying in ARR, I really wished they would add something to the areas we suddenly had access to. So many empty high up areas that just screams "we were not intended to be seen!"

An world that changes over time
With the moogle tribe, you help them rebuild... a square, rest of the zone is perpetually still in ruins. Wish that over a long time period, maybe sped up by helping them, you could see the moogles improve more in the zone.
Same with Ishgard, The Doman Enclave (what wasted potential) Garlemald, and for that matter, Gyr Abania! If nothing else, an airship landing in the Lochs. So that you can travel from New Gridania and to the Lochs with an airship.

Island Sanctuary
Making it a cooperative experience would be so much better.

Gearing should be more flexible and interesting
The substats are boring. Tenacity feels pointless, Piety is "take only as much as you need".
Speed is generally only a "take a little to reach a slightly better speed for comfort".
Beyond that it is mostly just a rule of "as much crit as possible, then DET/DH."

For a game about playing any job you want, they really hamstring you when it comes to raiding gear, to an honestly baffling point. Only one piece per week, and that even applies to alliance raid gear that is near pointless for anything other than catch-up and fashion. If you are unlucky, you could be spending months of clearing just to get 1 body/leg piece. That's insane, and a fast way to burnout.

Grand Company
Keep them relevant throughout the game. You keep feeding them items blessed by gods, yet the best they can trade you is a coat for level 50?
Beyond pvp, there should be more reasons to care about the GC.
Ishgard as a Grand Company should be possible.
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I could probably go on, but yeah....

Here's my most wants for the game going forward. (Note that this isn't really realistic)

Class Design Revamp.
-One of the pressing issues that a lot of people talk about especially this expansion is how watered down the class design has become, I think moving away from the 2 Minute meta and making sure Classes have unique and different niches (Especially tank and healer) would help make Jobs feel more fresh and unique. I'd go into more detail but I'd likely post a giant thread on tank changes, for healers stuff such as slightly more DPS buttons, white mage having long cast times, Astros cards being interesting, Scholar and sage not playing the same ect.

Some Fight design "changes"
-For the most part fight designs are fine, I'd kind of like it if they experimented more with less pattern based attacks and have a bit more RNG in what attacks happen, just for bosses to be a bit more dynamic and less scripted. Obviously we have to have a certain degree of it being scripted. Also Make general DMG higher, Healers should need to heal a lot more, Utility from other jobs should obviously help healers but not be able to replace them, Another thing is to allow tanks to pull way more then just 2 mob packs and remove war's aoe healing aspect to make pulls more fun on tanks/healers.

Custom Role Actions
-Make Provoke and Arms length, any other "required" role action just apart of the jobs kit outright, add some job flavour to it like tank stances IG.
-You should be able to select from some abilities to "customize" actions such as selecting 1 of 3 Options as a defensive cooldown, instead of just having rampart.
-Allows for roles to "solo" a little more if you added something like "lost cure", obviously we would have to make sure it doesn't step on healers toes too much, but I think this could help make solo duties or open world content hit a bit harder and be more engaging

More "midcore" content, content that scales and gets rougher
-I honestly think we Need scaling content, This would be so good for people who are looking into getting to hard content but the Jump between Normal duties and EXT is just a bit too much.
-This might be pretty hard to implement but I think it would really help casual players bridge more easily into hardcore content, Instead of just making jobs easier which is kind of a counterproductive thing currently.

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Originally Posted by Sjark

I would love for them to revisit older parts of the game.

An interesting overworld
The ARR overworld is really interesting, but the further down the expansion lines we go, the more empty the open world becomes. Side quests help a little, same with fate. But side quests you only do once, and fates are so easily stomped on because syncing is completely screwed up in this game (Bozja skirmishes melting like ice for example)
I think flying ruins a lot of the game, and that we gain it way too easily. I'm not saying it should be as difficult to unlock as it can be in MMOs like WoW, but just a little more.
Mindblowing to me that it took them until ShB, to realise that maybe they should give players the opportunity to gain mount speed increase earlier than AFTER completing MSQ.

After we got flying in ARR, I really wished they would add something to the areas we suddenly had access to. So many empty high up areas that just screams "we were not intended to be seen!"

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More standalone overworld content (as in content that isn't tied to doing fates for ambiguous crystals required for some weapon/armor grind *hint frickin' hint, Square...*) are some of my most sought after additions. An example that came to mind recently...

It's been a long while since I played WoW, but one of the things I always really liked about it's world, at least the bits I explored, were these little chests you'd find every now and then, usually among some group of enemies and/or hidden away in some nook off the beaten path. I don't remember there being anything exceptionally novel in them, but to me they were always nice little distractions, and I'd like to see something like that in XIV.

Chests scattered around every zone, guarded by a group of enemies, and/or an elite enemy. Slaying all of them will grant you a key to the chest(s) they guard. They could contain a handful of zone-specific gathering materials, enemy drop materials, a bit of gil (or allagan coin pieces to vendor for gil), some shards/crystals, and like 5-10 poetics or something. You wouldn't always get all of these, but that could be the base spread. Make chests personal (player-specific) so you can't have your chest sniped by another player, have the guards on a mild respawn timer, just long enough to discourage camping one single chest location. Everyone in a party is granted access to chests, though maybe divvy the loot between each member so you're not just multiplying loot per member. Add some relevant achievements and weekly challenge log entries, and you've got yourself a new thing. It's not a big thing, but it's at least a thing in an otherwise empty overworld.

I just want the dev team to get creative, make overworlds interesting again. Do aaaanyythiiiing, please.

Mr.Happy's podcast :O

State of the Realm:
MSQ is fantastic. 5.0 to 6.5 are some of the best story telling in the history of video games.
Non-MSQ content:Extremes, Savages and Ultimates are still great. It's the relic weapon that made the content lull feels bad. In the last 2 expansions, it's tied to an exploratory zone. This time, it's just tomestones. Their thinking is players would have a choice on what activity to do to obtain the tomestones for the relic. However, players will always choose the most efficient way to farm tomestones, which means the new Deep Dungeon and V&C became one and done contents.