Where is the gameplay?

Dawntrail has been criticised heavily for having the least amount of gameplay of any expansion, slowly turning more into a visual novel than an actual RPG game.

The new summer event is two quests, where the only "gameplay" element is running between npcs and using 2 emotes. What happened to interactive events? Other MMOs do it, why can't FFXIV? Even FFXI, SE's 22 year old MMO had more involved events than FFXIV does.

I acknowledge that there is a climbing mini-game, but it's just kinda... there. There is no reason or reward to do it, and it's not even included as a part of the quest for the event.

Lack of solo duties doesn't mean less gameplay. I noticed that they just replaced those duties with "NPCs follow you" or "follow an NPC" or "kill NPCs in a purple circle". I think they just used to achieve all that with the solo duties but now they have the technology to do it in the open world without conflicts.

Dawntrail itself is going to have more content than Endwalker, so I assume you mean specifically the MSQ.

The seasonal events have been 1 or 2 quests for years. They were often more involved than clicking NPCs, such as doing an easter egg hunt, running around surprising people for halloween, entering a haunted house to play mini-games or doing the 2-person duty for Valentione's day or playing music (before we even had Bard music), or brand new jump puzzles for this event. But now they often just re-use these things from the past.

Honestly though, my analysis of the lodestone in the past (to check linkshell member activity) is that seasonal events are the most completed content in the game. Why? Because it's among the shortest content in the game, so the absolute most casual players who don't have time for anything else do it (and this allowed me to know if they were still playing).

In that sense, it is content for the most busy person on the planet who only has time to do the seasonal event every few months and that's it. If it makes them feel good, then good for them, although personally the seasonal events in their current form are just a chore to me. So much talking to get to the part where I do what the event is about.

"Gameplay will be there in 7 months when the new systems will finally be added to the game, please look forward to it !"


Signed -Mr Yoshi "look forward to it" P- :3

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

Dawntrail has been criticised heavily for having the least amount of gameplay of any expansion, slowly turning more into a visual novel than an actual RPG game.

The new summer event is two quests, where the only "gameplay" element is running between npcs and using 2 emotes. What happened to interactive events? Other MMOs do it, why can't FFXIV? Even FFXI, SE's 22 year old MMO had more involved events than FFXIV does.

I acknowledge that there is a climbing mini-game, but it's just kinda... there. There is no reason or reward to do it, and it's not even included as a part of the quest for the event.

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This is how FF has always done events. It's got nothing to do with DT. I honestly can't remember them having an engaging event outside of the Fall Guys collab. It's pretty depressing but complaints have been made over the years and no changes have been made.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

This is how FF has always done events. It's got nothing to do with DT. I honestly can't remember them having an engaging event outside of the Fall Guys collab. It's pretty depressing but complaints have been made over the years and no changes have been made.

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The halloween event used to be amazing with a totally new dungeon (Haukke Manor with tweaks) and puzzles and tricks to solve.

The FFXIII event was amazing, chasing Lightning around Eorzea doing diferent Fates.
We had that Costa del Sol event with a gigantic bomb trying to invade the beach.

Now the events are just a bunch of "speak to NPC", kill 1 mob, that's it. Certainly, other MMO's do MUCH BETTER seasonal events than nowadays in FFXIV. Even Swtor has a recurrent event when people gets a kind of a zombie disease and they have to fight those zombies and get vaccines or they will spread the sickness with other players doing normal content.

"Where is the gameplay" is something I asked myself several times during the DT MSQ. It's 40 hours of "talk to Wuk Lamat and watch a cutscene". The game used to have better MS quests with more stuff to do other than "talk talk talk", and most of the "talk" quests are pointless and the only thing said is "oh great everybody is here, lets talk about the topic.....but better let's go to another place firts". I guess the Visual Novel players got what they wanted? A MSQ with 0 gameplay. They cry rivers of salt every time the team incorporates some gameplay feature into MSQ. I remember the rivers of cries with Thancread solo duty and the absolute sea of tears of the From The Cold quest in Endwalker, for me one of the absolute BEST QUESTS of the game. But when Visual Novel players have to press more than the glamour buttons they come here to cry about how hard the game is and the game forces them to play in order to keep playing. SAD.

It’s waiting in 8.0 along with the ‘fun unique exciting’ job designs

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Originally Posted by royox

"Where is the gameplay" is something I asked myself several times during the DT MSQ. It's 40 hours of "talk to Wuk Lamat and watch a cutscene". The game used to have better MS quests with more stuff to do other than "talk talk talk", and most of the "talk" quests are pointless and the only thing said is "oh great everybody is here, lets talk about the topic.....but better let's go to another place firts". I guess the Visual Novel players got what they wanted? A MSQ with 0 gameplay. They cry rivers of salt every time the team incorporates some gameplay feature into MSQ. I remember the rivers of cries with Thancread solo duty and the absolute sea of tears of the From The Cold quest in Endwalker, for me one of the absolute BEST QUESTS of the game. But when Visual Novel players have to press more than the glamour buttons they come here to cry about how hard the game is and the game forces them to play in order to keep playing. SAD.

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Honestly this is a mix of sad and insulting to visual novels. Even the worst visual novels I've read are more engaging than 'Wuk Lamat Worship Simulator 2024', they actually have interesting things, coherent plots and multiple characters that aren't cardboard cutouts. I honestly hope whoever wrote this 'story' and whoever signed off on it are never allowed near story writing again.

Are you guys new to the seasonal events? Aside from stuff like the FF15/FF16/Fall Guys events, these things are always like this. Sometimes you might have to kill a level 15 fate. That's about it. I usually just speedrun these events as fast as possible.

Ngl, I finished DT a week ago and now I need a break. I usually enjoy a slow burn and I don't mind walking simulators but XIV is too much of a visual novel nowadays with barely any gameplay. I reached the press more buttons part but now I don't feel like it anymore. lol

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

This is how FF has always done events. It's got nothing to do with DT. I honestly can't remember them having an engaging event outside of the Fall Guys collab. It's pretty depressing but complaints have been made over the years and no changes have been made.

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Yeah, doesnt mean its good.
I think the fanbase has been tamed by their loyalty into being conditioned to accept mediocrity.

Another L to Square Enix

The game is on maintanence mode, it's just not official yet.

But we're supposed to enjoy our once in a while robe glamours, your expensive cash shop item and the lackluster gameplay.

Don't dare to complain!!!1111!!1 /s

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Originally Posted by angienessyo

Are you guys new to the seasonal events? Aside from stuff like the FF15/FF16/Fall Guys events, these things are always like this. Sometimes you might have to kill a level 15 fate. That's about it. I usually just speedrun these events as fast as possible.

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Absolutely not.
Halloween event with fun dungeon,
Christmas event with nice letter reading,
Rising event with maze minigame,
Rising event with monsters spawning in the city,
Summer event with a fate where you have to dance,
Summer event with bombers and the sentai squad.

There absolutely were good events in this game. Yes most are just fates but there were quite a number of good ones and even some of the fate ones had a spin on them.

I don’t really care for this summer event because it’s shortly after an expansion and I usually don’t bother with emote collecting but this is just false information.

I wonder…all who say it has always been like this.
Since when do you all play?

Lazy events: check
Cash shop focused announcements: check
Mobile FFXIV in the making: check
Lack of moderation: check
Feedback keeps getting ignored: check
Complete homogenization of jobs and lack of innovation: check

Have I been teleported back in time to Aion or something? :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Wildheaven182

Yeah, doesnt mean its good.
I think the fanbase has been tamed by their loyalty into being conditioned to accept mediocrity.

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Any time "this is how it's always been" is stated in an argument, you know the rest can probably be safely discarded

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

Dawntrail has been criticised heavily for having the least amount of gameplay of any expansion, slowly turning more into a visual novel than an actual RPG game.

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Same complain has been made for years. It's not a new one.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

The new summer event is two quests, where the only "gameplay" element is running between npcs and using 2 emotes. What happened to interactive events? Other MMOs do it, why can't FFXIV? Even FFXI, SE's 22 year old MMO had more involved events than FFXIV does.

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I agree I miss the interactive activities during the seasonal events. There's nothing wrong with bringing back some of the old ones that weren't specific to the event's story for the year.

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Originally Posted by Collin_Sky

I acknowledge that there is a climbing mini-game, but it's just kinda... there. There is no reason or reward to do it, and it's not even included as a part of the quest for the event.

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There is a reason to do it - to have fun seeing if you can get to the top. To socialize and cheer on other jumpers.

It doesn't need a better reward. It doesn't need to be part of a quest.

Learn to embrace life and do things just for the sheer joy of the experience instead of turning everything you do into a job that requires compensation.

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Originally Posted by royox

The halloween event used to be amazing with a totally new dungeon (Haukke Manor with tweaks) and puzzles and tricks to solve.

The FFXIII event was amazing, chasing Lightning around Eorzea doing diferent Fates.
We had that Costa del Sol event with a gigantic bomb trying to invade the beach.

Now the events are just a bunch of "speak to NPC", kill 1 mob, that's it. Certainly, other MMO's do MUCH BETTER seasonal events than nowadays in FFXIV. Even Swtor has a recurrent event when people gets a kind of a zombie disease and they have to fight those zombies and get vaccines or they will spread the sickness with other players doing normal content.

"Where is the gameplay" is something I asked myself several times during the DT MSQ. It's 40 hours of "talk to Wuk Lamat and watch a cutscene". The game used to have better MS quests with more stuff to do other than "talk talk talk", and most of the "talk" quests are pointless and the only thing said is "oh great everybody is here, lets talk about the topic.....but better let's go to another place firts". I guess the Visual Novel players got what they wanted? A MSQ with 0 gameplay. They cry rivers of salt every time the team incorporates some gameplay feature into MSQ. I remember the rivers of cries with Thancread solo duty and the absolute sea of tears of the From The Cold quest in Endwalker, for me one of the absolute BEST QUESTS of the game. But when Visual Novel players have to press more than the glamour buttons they come here to cry about how hard the game is and the game forces them to play in order to keep playing. SAD.

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This community robbed itself of interesting duties and quests because these forums consistently harper on good and interesting things they've did in the past. Either it's too hard or it's "not interesting" or some other nonsense reason.

The community, especially on the forums, is the driver of uninspired or bad content. Too many complaints for the sake of and not enough appreciation for unique duties that require a modicum of effort.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

Absolutely not.
Halloween event with fun dungeon,
Christmas event with nice letter reading,
Rising event with maze minigame,
Rising event with monsters spawning in the city,
Summer event with a fate where you have to dance,
Summer event with bombers and the sentai squad.

There absolutely were good events in this game. Yes most are just fates but there were quite a number of good ones and even some of the fate ones had a spin on them.

I don’t really care for this summer event because it’s shortly after an expansion and I usually don’t bother with emote collecting but this is just false information.

I wonder…all who say it has always been like this.
Since when do you all play?

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There was a valentines day event that was super cute you queued up for an instance and got matched with someone and did some puzzles together...That was so adorable imo.

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Originally Posted by Wildheaven182

Yeah, doesnt mean its good.
I think the fanbase has been tamed by their loyalty into being conditioned to accept mediocrity.

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Never said it was. I literally said complaints have been made over the years.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

I wonder…all who say it has always been like this.
Since when do you all play?

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Shadowbringers, like .1 or .2. For me, they've always been bland outside of the Fall Guys event. The one haunted house I did all we did was walk around and it was more like a building tour rather than an actual event. The majority of the summer events I did were just talking to NPCs and I think I had an obstacle course once that was interesting for the first 1-2 times of doing it and then got boring. Otherwise, it's been cutscene events/running from NPC to NPC.

If they used to be better then I'm happy for those that got to experience them but I can't share the same sentiments since they really haven't been that for me.

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Originally Posted by Wildheaven182

Yeah, doesnt mean its good.
I think the fanbase has been tamed by their loyalty into being conditioned to accept mediocrity.

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For me, as someone who enjoys the game, it's not so much "accepting mediocrity" as acknowledging "every game will have its own individual strengths and weaknesses." Over the years, I've played GW, WoW, GW2, SWTOR, and FFXIV. Each one has had certain things that made me enjoy playing it while I did and certain things I didn't care for. I'm just enough of a pragmatist to recognize that no single game will "do it all" and just because Game A has a certain feature doesn't mean every game should have it. Seasonal quests aren't what brought me to FFXIV, so I smile at the ones that bring back references to other characters you've interacted with along the way (some seasonal events tend to continue a storyline from year-to-year while others just repeat themselves) and just shrug at the others. People on this forum love to take everything to extremes and just outright bash the developers...and then wonder why they don't get taken seriously...it's honestly a little amusing. I play FFXIV for the story, the music, and the veritable ton of side content, and all of those continue to please me in DT.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

Absolutely not.
Halloween event with fun dungeon,
Christmas event with nice letter reading,
Rising event with maze minigame,
Rising event with monsters spawning in the city,
Summer event with a fate where you have to dance,
Summer event with bombers and the sentai squad.

There absolutely were good events in this game. Yes most are just fates but there were quite a number of good ones and even some of the fate ones had a spin on them.

I don’t really care for this summer event because it’s shortly after an expansion and I usually don’t bother with emote collecting but this is just false information.

I wonder…all who say it has always been like this.
Since when do you all play?

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I've played since Heavensward and the last time I remember them actually doing something cool was either in Heavensward or Stormblood when there was an old school style dungeon crawler where you talked to NPCs that represented the devs. They've been phoning it in on events since Shadowbringers, which means they've been slacking on them for 3 expansions.

Meanwhile, during LL more and more time is dedicated on merchandise, Veteran Rewards died so things can go direct to cash shop.

I'm sure all this money is going right back into the game!

Nothing will change and you will stay subscribed. The divide between the shills and the honest people will grow until you can't go anywhere without a textual diarrhea of strawmen.

Megacorporations aren't on your side and Yoshida isn't your friend. He is a salesman selling you a product and you buy it every month.

FFXIV has been in early access for ten years.

For me it feels like that at the moment FF14 is just a good game for new players. For all long term players..., it hurts me to say this, but.. it's so boring...

I guess one problem is the repeating formula. It's not fun to do the same basic stuff every expansion again. For example leveling stuff again, running the same ex dungeons for poetics and so on. I did this stuff several expansions but my motivation for example to level crafters/gatherers and craft the new armour is long gone.

So I stand here, after the MSQ, without a static and still with nothing 'interesting' to do. :/

So..., I finally got Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Finally something to do!

Yeah, the treadmill is great for streamers and dev's, but... frankly speaking super boring for players. You can trust that there won't be innovation, or any exciting changes.

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Originally Posted by royox

The halloween event used to be amazing with a totally new dungeon (Haukke Manor with tweaks) and puzzles and tricks to solve.

The FFXIII event was amazing, chasing Lightning around Eorzea doing diferent Fates.
We had that Costa del Sol event with a gigantic bomb trying to invade the beach.

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SE are variable on events. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are phoned in.

I liked the past Costa fates generally. Major General or Bomb Dance or the obstacle run.

The ummm 15 event had us doing a fate and the trial with what's-his-name.
2nd before last Halloween had us level 1 inside a dungeon.
16 event had us doing something with that what-his-name against titan.

But then, the Christmas event had us collecting four children for Laurenson.

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Originally Posted by angienessyo

I've played since Heavensward and the last time I remember them actually doing something cool was either in Heavensward or Stormblood when there was an old school style dungeon crawler where you talked to NPCs that represented the devs. They've been phoning it in on events since Shadowbringers, which means they've been slacking on them for 3 expansions.

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I don’t disagree that they are slacking but I absolutely do with the stance that all this was always like that.

The Papa Gruff and Halloween dungeon also was not in Stormblood but later as far as I remember.

They HAVE done better in the past that’s what I am saying because I am absolutely annoyed in that whole “eh, was always like that” take.

We should expect quality and not defend that stuff with apathy. That’s the entire reason I post here because I KNOW they can do better and if people would stop responding to trolls and end their little infighting here there might actually be a chance to have more structured threads like the “live letter and what we wish from it” one.
Maybe then it would all amount to more than playing don quijote.

Alright everyone, that's quite enough. Go talk to wuk lamat

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Originally Posted by RinaB

Alright everyone, that's quite enough. Go talk to wuk lamat

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That whole "Speak to Wuk Lamat" bit is the FFXIV equivalent of "Let's Go Brandon" and just as clever.

It's two things. Neither of them are really good.

1) They are too lazy, or its not their priority to make gameplay more interesting

2) The system / engine is dragging them back so much that its not worth breaking the whole system for new gameplay mechanics while questing

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

The Papa Gruff and Halloween dungeon also was not in Stormblood but later as far as I remember.

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Had some recordings of it still on my pc , it was from 3 years ago - All Saint's Wake 2021 that got delayed and pushed into January/February because of working on Endwalker. :') That event was so fun.