Thoughts on changes made to the game

Powercreep has made you able to skip mechanics, so why make the mechanics in the first place.
Mob packs/most bosses are meaningless because you have overloaded kits and the potencies of dps skills are too high.
There is no danger in dungeons, most normal trials and now in 24 man content.
The nuance and interesting gameplay has been deleted and it shows. Making fights harder does not make the class gameplay any better.
Having more states of failure makes gameplay interesting.
Making everything too easy develops a toxic mindset as well (class responsibility, laziness, babying players,
no responsibility over anything).

Class interaction is nonexistent. Tp/aggro/debuffs offered varying gameplay. People whined way too much for the effectiveness it brought unless you tried to
min max at the very top end. Overcoming adversity and having varied gameplay is more fun than doing the same thing over and over with 0 variability.

Why have different classes if the gameplay is almost the same?
Shouldn't the fun be having to learn completely different playstyle so you have varying gameplay?
People don't need to have everything maxed. If you have a busy life you shouldn't expect yourself to be able to play most classes or do most content and
developing the game to these kinds of people will serve just to make the game worse and hold less interest for players in the long run.

14 has developed a toxic mindset that it is ok to be bad and there are people who will do the job anyway.
Chat interactions are shunned because of the tos rules and the rules are babying people. Shouldn't we try to let people resolve situations themselves
and have natural interactions rather than try to limit them so much that you dont even know if you get banned for having a normal argument.
People grow when they get to resolve things themselves rather than trying to limit them with arbitrary rules that make them feel caged or worse yet
make a toxic mentality possible where people act like they are helpful but are actually just passive agressive.

Devs chasing max balance/caving into player "demands" is the thing that made all of this happen.
FF14 blew up because it was a good game before the changes and because of WoW exodus, not because the devs made the gameplay braindead

I'm gonna stop you right after that first paragraph and point out that a good deal of this is actually just you getting better at the game and not challenging yourself to match. Dungeons in particular have literally never at any point in this game's lifespan been very dangerous unless you were doing overtly stupid things (with maybe a couple exceptions if we're being generous). Normals and Alliance Raids are also considerably more mechanically dense than they were in previous expansions - they're still easy to the modern player, and they're supposed to be.

Those have nothing to do with devs, 'demands', other games, or anything else. They're not even really changes. That's all on you. Go do Savage.

Anyway, TP sucked. Debuff and support play being stripped down to nothing sucks but it's a curse that hits basically every MMO eventually because of player behavior and complaints that they can't be solo gods or that composition has made their class 5% less desirable this year. Rotation homogenization around the two minute window is the worst actual thing here and you're giving it all of two sentences.

Wait, now we're complaining about being too busy to level different classes? This is exactly why buffs/debuffs got stripped down to nothing - one-class wonders who won't switch but want to be exactly as viable as every other class in all situations. The harsh truth about synergies is that you will never balance all of them, so you either accept that some classes will occasionally be less favorable, or you level the playing field. Mixed messaging here...

And now we're complaining about the TOS. Yeah, time to wrap it up.

30/100 points. You can do better.

"Chat interactions are shunned because of the tos rules and the rules are babying people. Shouldn't we try to let people resolve situations themselves
and have natural interactions rather than try to limit them so much that you dont even know if you get banned for having a normal argument."

They're nothing to stop anyone from having a "normal" , or civil discussion with anyone- aside from in a mode such as CC, when it's restricted. People should still be able to resolve a situation through discussion, I can understand if there's an actual language barrier it can be difficult, otherwise it's probably due to a lack of empathy.

What one person considers to be a "natural interaction" can be seen as extremely rude by someone else. People don't need to be mute. I think it helps to realize that the other party members aren't trusts/NPCs, sometimes I think some people may forget that there is a person on the other end who could be a child or a senior citizen. Just take a second to think before blurting something out.

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Powercreep has made you able to skip mechanics, so why make the mechanics in the first place.

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This bothers me a lot, particularly for previous expansions. Gear progression is important when the expansion is current, but it is irrelevant for previous expansions because everyone can just get max poetic gear, so they may as well sync them to minimum IL.

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Mob packs/most bosses are meaningless because you have overloaded kits and the potencies of dps skills are too high.

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That is mainly true in old content because it wasn't designed for the current potencies.

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There is no danger in dungeons, most normal trials and now in 24 man content.

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Not really true. I've seen multiple full wipes in the previous normal trial and the current one does often lead to a death on people's first time. The more accurate statement would be that they stop feeling dangerous once you understand the mechanics, which is when it's no longer your first time. They do telegraph things more now though, and telegraphs make it significantly easier compared to content where they are removed like Extreme, Savage and Ultimate.

I do not feel that normal trials are challenging enough for me personally, so I do the extreme versions.

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Having more states of failure makes gameplay interesting.

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I agree. I especially think this is relevant for solo duties where you are not relying on others. It's alright to struggle with duties such as In From The Cold or following characters in stealth because that's what a video game is (yet people on these forums have complained about the difficulty of these things).

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Making everything too easy develops a toxic mindset as well (class responsibility, laziness, babying players, no responsibility over anything).

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Making everything too hard develops a toxic mindset as well (demanding people watch guides and know all these things that they didn't know, just so they can complete the story and watch a cutscene).

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Class interaction is nonexistent. Tp/aggro/debuffs offered varying gameplay.

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I'm all for class interaction, but the examples you mention here are not good ones.

TP was mostly useless and you would only notice it if DPS was extraordinarily low while doing AoE or if you accidently pressed Sprint in battle.

Debuffs applied to players were useless and mostly just a nuisance, such as mobs applying random paralysis, sleep, silence and stuns on you and you didn't even know which enemy did it and it interrupted your strict rotation. Players applying debuffs to enemies is alright if it's like a DoT or a stun, but when it comes to slow, sleep or bind they are virtually not on people's hotbar.

Aggro was alright, but it was complicated to explain this to a new player. When someone starts tanking, they are usually afraid of it and have anxiety, so when you started explaining all this stuff like enmity combos and stance dancing, it confirmed their suspicion that tanking is hard (even though it's not). We had a massive gap between people who played tanks exclusively to spam enmity and people who played them like a DPS and it didn't feel right to have such a massive gap between player performance.

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Why have different classes if the gameplay is almost the same?

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Glamour, animations, is the obvious answer.

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Chat interactions are shunned because of the tos rules and the rules are babying people. Shouldn't we try to let people resolve situations themselves

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The problem is that many people in this game are not capable of resolving it themselves because they are unreasonable. It could be for various reasons, including personality disorders or substances they take, but it is fairly common to meet people who are just not chill, reasonable people.

I was once in a party with someone that I agreed to do a dungeon with and as we went through the dungeon, they stunned me by berating the tank constantly. The tank didn't do anything wrong and they kept quiet until near the end, then explained they had farmed dungeons all day without any problem. The truth is that the person I was in a party with just had aggression issues and was being unreasonable.

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People grow when they get to resolve things themselves rather than trying to limit them with arbitrary rules that make them feel caged

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I've heard it was really, really bad in games that didn't police it such as WoW, LoL or Halo. I didn't play them but they have a certain reputation... https://youtu.be/8cMkQRBknto?t=133

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Originally Posted by Sindele

30/100 points. You can do better.

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This game's community is a laughing stock to everyone else in the gaming world because of how overly self-righteous its fans are. You get less and less with each expansion and yet constantly beg everyone else to come play FFXIV as if it's the best game ever made. You refuse to accept that some people have opinions about the game. As we're headed into the longest drought in FFXIV history, the copes are becoming more and more outlandish. It's like FFXIV players are turning into a parody of themselves.

FFXIV is not the #1 MMO. It's not even the #2, #3, or #4. People legitimately see this game as not even worthy of consideration. Your friends will leave the game too and it will wither away until there's nothing left because everyone hates playing while hating those who also hate playing. Funny how that works. Whatever good used to be in this game has been replaced by "fans" bashing other people while they barely play the game themselves.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

This game's community is a laughing stock to everyone else in the gaming world because of how overly self-righteous its fans are. You get less and less with each expansion and yet constantly beg everyone else to come play FFXIV as if it's the best game ever made. You refuse to accept that some people have opinions about the game. As we're headed into the longest drought in FFXIV history, the copes are becoming more and more outlandish. It's like FFXIV players are turning into a parody of themselves.

FFXIV is not the #1 MMO. It's not even the #2, #3, or #4. People legitimately see this game as not even worthy of consideration. Your friends will leave the game too and it will wither away until there's nothing left because everyone hates playing while hating those who also hate playing. Funny how that works. Whatever good used to be in this game has been replaced by "fans" bashing other people while they barely play the game themselves.

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Are you going to bring anything to the table to address the actual points, or are you just going to keep copy-pasting your rants from other threads and pretending they have substance to them?

You can construct all the harebrained mythology you want about where the game's failings truly lie - there are plenty of real problems! - but if you come out swinging with 'story dungeons and normal raids aren't as hard as they used to be' and 'the TOS won't let me talk to anyone', you're not making an argument based in any kind of fact, and it deserves to be treated as such.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

FFXIV is not the #1 MMO. It's not even the #2, #3, or #4. People legitimately see this game as not even worthy of consideration.

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But hey, if you want to talk about arguments founded entirely on cope...

Because of powercreep you can defeat a boss in EW and never see half of the mechanics.

Take Nald'Thal. The scales, You may never see it anymore because he dies too fast, let alone all of the "Underworld" stuff he does with switching colors and heads. And this is not to mention the remainder of the game. So many trials, raids, and dungeons, are just complete push overs form older content.
Take A9, The Refurbisher. It routinely kills folks because no one knows the mechanics, but also dies just after Full-Metal Faust is defeated. Cruise Chaser skips entire phases and will go straight into Eternal Darkness easily. Alexander Prime can die before or just as it casts "Summon Alexander", doing Time stop once or twice.

The content is completely trivialized, you can fail mechanics several times in a row, and never die. You almost have to TRY to fail, so if someone does fail, its always "this guy must be trolling".

"Go do Savage". What a lame answer. I do Savage and it sucks. Partner up, Spread, Light Party Stacks, Raid Wide, Tank Swap. The entire experience is so rigid, planned, scripted, whatever you want to call it. With the number of body checks in savage force you to restart time and time again after small mistakes. I've seen many people refer to it this way, its like playing Dance Dance Revolution. Savage isn't hard as much as its tedious. What will you say next? Go do Ultimates? What then?

The two-minute meta is the end result of homogenization and lazy design/balancing. And should honestly just have a whole essay about by itself. Its a culmination of several different factors that I could go on literally forever.

The TOS is a problem. And without trying to sound like a certain someone who frequents the forums, they do not enforce their "3rd party tools are cheating" bit. They, however, will take action if you are even just a little frustrated or in disagreement. I've had a friend who just started the game after EW released. In Sastasha, he was only single pulling and a DPS told him to pull everything. He said he wasn't going to. He was reported and had to talk to a GM shortly after. He tried the game and at the first disagreement someone had with him, his first interaction with another player, and he got a strike on his account. He has not played since.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

This game's community is a laughing stock to everyone else in the gaming world because of how overly self-righteous its fans are. You get less and less with each expansion and yet constantly beg everyone else to come play FFXIV as if it's the best game ever made. You refuse to accept that some people have opinions about the game. As we're headed into the longest drought in FFXIV history, the copes are becoming more and more outlandish. It's like FFXIV players are turning into a parody of themselves.

FFXIV is not the #1 MMO. It's not even the #2, #3, or #4. People legitimately see this game as not even worthy of consideration. Your friends will leave the game too and it will wither away until there's nothing left because everyone hates playing while hating those who also hate playing. Funny how that works. Whatever good used to be in this game has been replaced by "fans" bashing other people while they barely play the game themselves.

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And yet, you're still here, giving them money and paying for fantasias.

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Originally Posted by KenZentra

Because of powercreep you can defeat a boss in EW and never see half of the mechanics.

Take Nald'Thal. The scales, You may never see it anymore because he dies too fast, let alone all of the "Underworld" stuff he does with switching colors and heads. And this is not to mention the remainder of the game. So many trials, raids, and dungeons, are just complete push overs form older content.
Take A9, The Refurbisher. It routinely kills folks because no one knows the mechanics, but also dies just after Full-Metal Faust is defeated. Cruise Chaser skips entire phases and will go straight into Eternal Darkness easily. Alexander Prime can die before or just as it casts "Summon Alexander", doing Time stop once or twice.

The content is completely trivialized, you can fail mechanics several times in a row, and never die. You almost have to TRY to fail, so if someone does fail, its always "this guy must be trolling".

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Sure. That things could be reeled back and sync levels dropped is a much more compelling argument. Being able to power through and skip mechanics just isn't anything new - this was happening in SB at the absolute latest and frankly good groups were doing it in HW. If anything, you could argue that the existence of scales - and subsequently skipping scales - has made it a much more obvious problem.

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"Go do Savage". What a lame answer. I do Savage and it sucks. Partner up, Spread, Light Party Stacks, Raid Wide, Tank Swap. The entire experience is so rigid, planned, scripted, whatever you want to call it. With the number of body checks in savage force you to restart time and time again after small mistakes. I've seen many people refer to it this way, its like playing Dance Dance Revolution. Savage isn't hard as much as its tedious. What will you say next? Go do Ultimates? What then?

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But again - it was always this way. You have been playing Dance Dance Revolution the entire time, apparently without realizing it. And let's be frank - have you ever seen what passed for difficult content in 2013? Again, this isn't a case of the game getting worse, or design principles changing significantly - it's you outpacing the average skill growth and expectation.

If you find Ultimates too easy, well, congratulations. You can comprehensively say at that point that you have beaten the game. Do you expect an infinite well of curated content specifically tuned to every skill level in all existence, dynamically adapting to your desired expression of skill? I would also love that, but there are some notable limits to what is possible in reality.

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The two-minute meta is the end result of homogenization and lazy design/balancing. And should honestly just have a whole essay about by itself. Its a culmination of several different factors that I could go on literally forever.

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I would love to see it, because I think on this point we're likely to agree. A lot has been lost in the pursuit of neutralization here. I just think it also deserves note that this is something some players have specifically asked for. You're not just being handed this from on high - some people actually wanted this, even if they got monkey's pawed in the exchange.

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The TOS is a problem. And without trying to sound like a certain someone who frequents the forums, they do not enforce their "3rd party tools are cheating" bit. They, however, will take action if you are even just a little frustrated or in disagreement. I've had a friend who just started the game after EW released. In Sastasha, he was only single pulling and a DPS told him to pull everything. He said he wasn't going to. He was reported and had to talk to a GM shortly after. He tried the game and at the first disagreement someone had with him, his first interaction with another player, and he got a strike on his account. He has not played since.

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I just can't agree from personal experiences, and I find a lot of the anecdotal claims to be short on evidence. I'd love to know what really goes on in the GM cubicles, but I have not yet been successful in bribing any current or former GMs into giving me a copy of the company policy book. Still trying, though. Cash prizes! Anyone?

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Originally Posted by KenZentra

The TOS is a problem. And without trying to sound like a certain someone who frequents the forums, they do not enforce their "3rd party tools are cheating" bit. They, however, will take action if you are even just a little frustrated or in disagreement. I've had a friend who just started the game after EW released. In Sastasha, he was only single pulling and a DPS told him to pull everything. He said he wasn't going to. He was reported and had to talk to a GM shortly after. He tried the game and at the first disagreement someone had with him, his first interaction with another player, and he got a strike on his account. He has not played since.

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the ToS is fine. I chat all the time and havent gotten any warning or anything.

had the same scenario in a dungeon, dps wanted bigger pulls, tank said no, they werent comfortable doing so. everyone was fine with that. I did say that I was comfortable in the dungeon healing and he could pull as much as he wanted, I was rewarded with a "F you". could I have reported, sure, but reality is, not everyone can "self police" so the ToS is required for people who really cannot be civil. thats the only people the ToS is a "problem" for. I would say a majority of people dont run into issues with it. personally I somehow doubt it was as simple as your friend saying he wasnt going to pull more. but thats because my experience on any game forum is half the story is always left out....usually the part where the angelic player who was reported had a full blown meltdown on someone else

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Originally Posted by Sindele

but if you come out swinging with 'story dungeons and normal raids aren't as hard as they used to be'

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So you disagree with Yoshi-P...why, exactly? I'm not sure why you turned against the director in this odd about-face, but he intentionally and vocally made the MSQ dungeons easier for solo play. If you had watched any live letter from the past few years, you would have seen that. This is not a conspiracy, this is a deliberate design decision. The director has talked about the gameplay changes at length.

I'm sure we're all pretty upset that FFXIV hasn't taken the mantle from WoW despite all our shilling efforts, but this isn't going to help our cause.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

And yet, you're still here, giving them money and paying for fantasias.

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And yet you are paying $13 each month to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation. You're not even doing it for free, you're paying for the privilege.

Final Fantasy XIV in 2023 is a lifestyle product. Like owning a trapper keeper in 3rd grade, it makes you a "part" of something without actually having to do anything.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

And yet, you're still here, giving them money and paying for fantasias.

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https://i.redd.it/siwsfakh4l6a1.jpg

Easier than what, though? The average difficulty of current-day dungeons is one that expects considerably more of the player than even the pre-Duty Support versions of ARR and HW dungeons. I don't think that's really even a matter of opinion, aside from some nitpicking about whether clearer telegraphs offsets higher mechanical difficulty. (If you want to argue that some of those dungeons took an unfair beating in the Duty Support transition, that's a fair - but different - argument.)

If Yoshi-P disagrees (and that's taking this claim on faith because I really don't care to go research it), well, he's entitled to, but I'm chalking that one up to another case of producers and directors saying things that don't mesh with reality. He ain't the one designing the dungeons, after all.

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

And yet you are paying $13 each month to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation. You're not even doing it for free, you're paying for the privilege.

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This makes no sense. It sounds like the person you're responding to is enjoying the game. They're not paying "to defend a corporation." They're paying to play a game they enjoy, and pointing out how you in fact seem to continue paying that multi-billion corporation to play a game you don't enjoy. That would be the action that seems to make no sense...

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Originally Posted by KenZentra

https://i.redd.it/siwsfakh4l6a1.jpg

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That is the worst version of that meme I've ever seen. Comparing someone who supports the same corporation they supposedly hate to someone who has no choice but to participate in society to have basic needs met. That's..wow lol

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

And yet you are paying $13 each month to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation. You're not even doing it for free, you're paying for the privilege.

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Oh oh! here's my cue! What exactly are YOU paying your sub for?

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Originally Posted by caffe_macchiato

This game's community is a laughing stock to everyone else in the gaming world because of how overly self-righteous its fans are. You get less and less with each expansion and yet constantly beg everyone else to come play FFXIV as if it's the best game ever made. You refuse to accept that some people have opinions about the game. As we're headed into the longest drought in FFXIV history, the copes are becoming more and more outlandish. It's like FFXIV players are turning into a parody of themselves.

FFXIV is not the #1 MMO. It's not even the #2, #3, or #4. People legitimately see this game as not even worthy of consideration. Your friends will leave the game too and it will wither away until there's nothing left because everyone hates playing while hating those who also hate playing. Funny how that works. Whatever good used to be in this game has been replaced by "fans" bashing other people while they barely play the game themselves.

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Which begs the question why are you here, if you're a real gamer you will cancel your sub immediately and go play something that worth the consideration of the gaming community.

dont mind me, I'm just here to watch them go off topic having a internet karen episode.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

But again - it was always this way. You have been playing Dance Dance Revolution the entire time, apparently without realizing it.

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I dont think it has. Sure, we've always dodged AoEs, but we've had other mechanics in harder difficulties that didn't have a "Go here to dodge thing or prevent overlap".

Ifrit had tethers you had to deal with, and constant knockbacks put onto healers. As well as, a tank swap that was really up to how much the tanks could handle before needing to switch. And of course the Nails that you can defeat at your own pace, depending on how much the healers can handle. You dodge AoEs of course, but to sum it up, the largest emphasis was on managing buffs, debuffs, and adds rather than dodging AoEs.
The same can be said of nearly of all of ARR as a whole, and a fair bit of HW.

Zodiark and most of Rubicante (for current expansion examples) can be cleared with a dorito on someone's head that knows where to go with everyone else being blind.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

That is the worst version of that meme I've ever seen. Comparing someone who supports the same corporation they supposedly hate to someone who has no choice but to participate in society to have basic needs met. That's..wow lol

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"Why would you buy or own a car if you are going to complain about how it could be better?"

Also, they have yet to say they hate the game. I'd assume most critics actually... like the game and want the game to be better? Maybe even that they used to like the game and want to CONTINUE to like it? God forbid.

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Originally Posted by KenZentra

Ifrit had tethers you had to deal with,

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Which amounted to just staying near each other, then, consider you always killed the nails in a certain order, it really wasn't that hard to do.

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constant knockbacks put onto healers.

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Which amounted to them standing in a certain spot to not be annoying.

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As well as, a tank swap that was really up to how much the tanks could handle before needing to switch.

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Normally 3, however, he does sometimes do 2 debuffs quickly one after the other, which is why you end up with 4 sometimes. Considering 5 is death, 3 is the best to swap at.

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And of course the Nails that you can defeat at your own pace, depending on how much the healers can handle.

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Until you take too long and he kills you from enrage.

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You dodge AoEs of course, but to sum it up, the largest emphasis was on managing buffs, debuffs, and adds rather than dodging AoEs.

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Of which buffs/debuffs/doing any mechanics comes down to solving what the devs are asking of you, then you just do the dance that is asked of you.

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The same can be said of nearly of all of ARR as a whole, and a fair bit of HW.

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Sorry, but all fights are DDR. You can try and say otherwise, but is is a case of, if you have X go to Y.

It does suck how if you enjoy casual content, the devs sort of treat you like a toddler without thumbs and make every mechanic irrelevant. And since the jobs have been pretty homogenized at this point, there's no sense of like... "sure, the content's a little dull, but actually playing the job is fun so I'm okay." It's just a boring 123 job in a boring encounter. Back when I played tera, I'd do the full range of difficulties because just playing the game was enjoyable for me. I'd tank and heal easy stuff. I'd tank and heal hard stuff. And because the classes and the gameplay were enjoyable, I never felt bored even though the content felt easy or frustrating. But in XIV, when I hop in the partyfinder and do some EX content with randos and we're wiping over and over again, the retries feel exhausting because the rotations are so boring and the encounter design is so scripted. It's literally just re-running the same scenario over and over again until we wipe because assigning clock spots and small groups and expecting people to just remember them is too much for some people. Idk, I'm in a weird spot. I like being able to just jump into the roulette and do stuff and clear it. But it's so insultingly simplistic; it's like they think anyone who does this stuff is playing the game without thumbs. Meanwhile, the more challenging stuff doesn't even feel particularly enjoyable. It just takes longer because you're all held hostage until That One Guy who doesn't know where to stand finally learns where to stand, and in the meantime you're just redoing the same dance over and over and over.

I want engaging supportive elements. I want to feel like I'm actually helping my team. I want normal mode dutyfinder content with mechanics that -- while simple -- might do more than barely tickle if you don't do them. I want fight scripts that are faster; it's nuts how in something like Aglaia, the bosses take so long to get to the stacking mechanics that in 2023 they're dead before they finish "teaching" the mechs. Maybe speed it up a little bit? Or in Thaleia, the first boss really takes the cake. He spends like 20 years winding up the most obvious tidal wave telegraph ever, and you don't even have to do it; you can just arms length it. Or the arrow guy, he literally has a mechanic that points to where the bad spot is going to be for a century. It just feels like the devs are afraid to do anything engaging for their casual content (which is a BIG chunk of the game's content) because every time they do there's this really loud minority that shows up to complain about it being too punishing like they did with cid or the EW solo duty, or too long like they did for the nier raids, etc. etc.

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Originally Posted by KenZentra

I dont think it has. Sure, we've always dodged AoEs, but we've had other mechanics in harder difficulties that didn't have a "Go here to dodge thing or prevent overlap".

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But at the same time as Ifrit: Garuda, Titan, ADS, Twintania...

Most mechanics, once strategy optimization takes place, get reduced down to choreography. And to be fair: it's hard to avoid this between the 8 person limit and the underpinnings of XIV's system design. (For better or worse, this is also a consequence of the healing paradigm and intimately tied to a lot of the healer complaints in recent years, particularly after homogenization broke the back of AST cards and green DPS in general.)

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Originally Posted by KenZentra

"Why would you buy or own a car if you are going to complain about how it could be better?"

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No one said this. Here, let me make it clear, if you're going to actively mock people that ENJOY the game, accusing them of paying to defend a game, while YOU YOURSELF are paying for the game, be prepared to get called out for it.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

Powercreep has made you able to skip mechanics, so why make the mechanics in the first place.

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Happens in every game with power progression and it's always worse during the extended end game period when players are generally focused on grinding out the power progression.

Stats are power. Knowledge is power. Skill is power. As those increase, what was originally a challenge becomes easy.

You won't be skipping those mechanics when you lack the needed power. You will start skipping them once you've acquired what is needed and the rest of your party has as well.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

There is no danger in dungeons, most normal trials and now in 24 man content.

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Tell that to those that are dying despite trying their best because they're still learning.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

Making everything too easy develops a toxic mindset as well (class responsibility, laziness, babying players, no responsibility over anything)

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No one is being babied by the game. The toxic "everyone should be on my level or uninstall" mindset comes from the toxic players who have forgotten their own beginnings in gaming.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

Shouldn't the fun be having to learn completely different playstyle so you have varying gameplay?

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Did you ever stop to consider that not everyone finds the same things fun and different people play the game for different reasons?

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Originally Posted by Solakor

People don't need to have everything maxed.

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Most players don't, nor are they trying to.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

Chat interactions are shunned because of the tos rules and the rules are babying people. Shouldn't we try to let people resolve situations themselves

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I chat with others frequently. No problems.

If rules are babying people, it's because some people are acting like small children instead of mature adults.

Most people already are resolving situations themselves. If it's going to the GMs, it's usually because someone isn't interested in resolution and continues to behave like a small child. Act like a baby, get treated like one.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

and have natural interactions rather than try to limit them so much that you dont even know if you get banned for having a normal argument.

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Being insulting and confrontational, and provoking others is not "natural interaction". Usually the best thing to do is keep your mouth shut and walk away if you're at the point you want to insult someone.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

People grow when they get to resolve things themselves rather than trying to limit them with arbitrary rules that make them feel caged or worse yet

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What arbitrarily rules?

Again, you're given the chance to resolve things yourself. If you're constantly on the receiving end of a stern talk with a GM, sounds like you're not interested in growing.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

make a toxic mentality possible where people act like they are helpful but are actually just passive agressive.

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I think most people get passive aggressive when dealing with someone who refuses to grow up. It's a fairly natural reaction when frustration sets in.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

Devs chasing max balance/caving into player "demands" is the thing that made all of this happen.

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Which is true in some cases but not in others.

You seem to forget that the developers are employees of a large for-profit corporation. If something is unpopular enough that it's driving away players and the profits those players would otherwise generate, they're going to make some of the requested changes when they feel it's reasonable.

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Originally Posted by Solakor

FF14 blew up because it was a good game before the changes and because of WoW exodus, not because the devs made the gameplay braindead

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The WoW exodus did not make FFXIV a good game. The WoW exodus occurred because WoW had been a bad game and WoW streamers decided to give FFXIV a try, finding it to be a more interesting game than they had expected.

If Shadowbringers was good and Endwalker is braindead, exactly what changed in the gameplay between the two expansions that has you upset?

Or is it just that you became a better player over time and so the game no longer feels as challenging to you? Many underestimate their own growth as a player. Where they think the game has gotten easier, more likely the difference is that they have gotten better at playing it. The new player rushing through MSQ is not going to consider a dungeon like The Dead Ends easier than Stone Vigil.

You won't understand what I'm talking about if you didn't play before ShB because the big changes started after SB. The real ogs will argue that it went downhill after HW but i think that's a bit too far even for me

The best point to play Final Fantasy XIV is at the start of a new expansion. After the expansion drops, every subsequent patch increases the item level slightly to give a sense of progress and as a consequence, the older content becomes easier. The reason this is done is so that people can more easily catch up to the max level crowd and participate in the same activities, because more often then not the MSQ locks content behind it, and some side routes also have pre-requisite runs like the current 24 man raids.

The worst point in the entire cycle is the "final breath" of the current expansion because no matter how the statistics are scaled, the content released at the start of the expansion is practically 5 levels behind the current characters. To give an example of this, look at the endwalker dungeons and look at the item levels on the gear that the dungeons are dropping: In most cases the poetics gear lasts up to whatever the mid level is, and then is overtaken by dungeon gear shortly after. Character level has little impact on the capabilities of damage outside of whatever multipliers are gained from new abilities or just modded old abilities, so for all intents and purposes people with 660 iLvL are level 95.

Additionally, this expansion is sort of turning into the wild west with content because the stat squish changed a lot of factors. I went back to my old recordings of e12s when it was current and compared them to p12s now, and the scaling of damage vs peoples HP and defense is just completely trash in endwalker. Gear could help carry people through e12s by allowing them to survive hits that would otherwise kill them which prevented the issues we see currently in late end game, where as in this current expansion all the attacks that are designed to do a high amount of damage usually are going to be lethal unless someone remembers to throw a mitigation up, and the only time it isn't is when people are at 100% hp. Even in that later case, healers are being worked a lot harder to keep people up if they get that low. (also RIP ranged since they drew the short straw for some reason. They just die way more often from failed mits than anyone else)

What i often do now as a healer is be lazy just stand in sh*t (unless extreme and above) because lets be honest most aoe's at this point hardly do any damage >_>

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Originally Posted by Solakor

You won't understand what I'm talking about if you didn't play before ShB because the big changes started after SB. The real ogs will argue that it went downhill after HW but i think that's a bit too far even for me

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And it begins.

If you need context, I started playing at Heavensward's release though I didn't get really into the game until near the end of that expansion because I was still playing a lot of WoW back then.

I understand that things have changed in the game. Again, different people play and enjoy the game for different reasons. You don't like the changes they've made over time. Other players do.

The game will never go back to what it was to you if for no other reason than you are no longer new to the game. You've built up experience that can't be taken away from you short of some serious head trauma causing loss of memory. You've acquired skill that you won't lose until you end up with physical ailments that slow your reaction times and ability to button mash quickly. Those things allow you adjust faster to changes and new mechanics that SE implements in future content than newer players will be able to adjust. If you insist on only equipping the highest ilvl gear instead of doing the content MINE, you're making the content that much easier for yourself.

If the game is no longer giving you the experience you want, it's time to move to another game. Reset your personal power progression (knowledge + skill + stats) and begin fresh. Sometimes that's what people really need - an opportunity to master something new. Games that you've been playing for several years are rarely going to offer that.

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Originally Posted by Wolwosh

What i often do now as a healer is be lazy just stand in sh*t (unless extreme and above) because lets be honest most aoe's at this point hardly do any damage >_>

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Because the combat content below EX trial level is intended to be suitable for everyone regardless of knowledge and skill.

I don't know why you would expect more.

You don't seem to understand that the game has changed so much from what it was that the enjoyment of some people has gone down too much at this point that the game is starting to feel stale or downright bad.
It has nothing to do with experience when your job plays completely different from before and not in the good way.
Removing interactions from the kits/fights and upping potencies served 0 purpose other than make the game worse.

And to state the obvious I am playing other games. Also before you say, yes iv had breaks and last one was a year long.
It just feels weird that when you loved a game and it was doing well the devs decide to suddenly axe bits and pieces of the gameplay for no apparent reason.

Also before you say, Im only sending my feedback. I know it prolly does nothing.
But it seems more and more people are starting to see the flaws that the game has and how it could be better and that is why we are doing this.

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Originally Posted by Sindele

Are you going to bring anything to the table to address the actual points, or are you just going to keep copy-pasting your rants from other threads and pretending they have substance to them?

You can construct all the harebrained mythology you want about where the game's failings truly lie - there are plenty of real problems! - but if you come out swinging with 'story dungeons and normal raids aren't as hard as they used to be' and 'the TOS won't let me talk to anyone', you're not making an argument based in any kind of fact, and it deserves to be treated as such.



But hey, if you want to talk about arguments founded entirely on cope...

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i think she did a pretty good job of destorying you arguement tbh. the fact you are lashing out at her is proof

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Originally Posted by Solakor

You don't seem to understand that the game has changed so much from what it was that the enjoyment of some people has gone down too much at this point that the game is starting to feel stale or downright bad..

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I do understand that some are not enjoying the game as much as they used you.

You're ignoring that some players, including veterans who have been playing the game longer than you, are enjoying it still.

I was addressing your complaints about content being too easy and babying players. I wasn't addressing your comments about job design but even those are a matter of opinion. Some find some of the current job designs better than the old ones, some don't. As much as I'd personally agree that upping potencies doesn't make things better, you'd be shocked at the huge percentage of players would state otherwise. All they care about is seeing huge numbers appear in the flying text on their screens. Those huge numbers whirling around sell games just like the sexual objectification of women unfortunately still does.

Things change over time. You can't stop it.

What you have is the ability to do is say "this is no longer the right game for me" and leave. Exercise your power as a consumer. If enough people take their money elsewhere, they'll notice. Maybe they make changes to bring back what you loved. Maybe they don't.

You're certainly not going to get it if you and everyone else who feels the same way you do continuing to hang around handing SE their money. After all, they're still getting it from you and there are too many people in the world who complain just for the sake of complaining. As a business, they don't mind indulging those who do if those people are willing to pay them money for the privilege. They have no way of knowing who was serious about their complaints unless they disappear.

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

i think she did a pretty good job of destorying you arguement tbh. the fact you are lashing out at her is proof

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I'm content to count this as a point in my favor.

Thoughts are you are absolutely correct and the one thing you left out is that now we are seeing a reverse exodus back to WoW in a hilarious twist.

Also regarding thr drama of dungeons being easier-- from what I understand different dungeons, trials, etc have been made easier over time. Maybe not all of them, but some. Additionally with the ongoing class homogenization and two minute meta most casual content went from being easy to simply barely being worth looking at while you do it. That's not because of players getting better. It's because dps and classes are so streamlined that combat is braindead, which is also why XIV is just becoming a joke of second lifers, MSQ andies, and raider whales who literally won't leave any game until the servers turn off.

So, no, more like 90/100 because the conplaint about dungeons doesn't go far enough. It's not that they were all universally hard but they are definitely all universally braindead now. Casual content is mere window dressing for Soken's beautiful ost and the artists/enemy designers.