'I Think I've Fallen Out of Love with FFXIV'

https://www.vice.com/en/article/i-th...ve-with-ffxiv/

FFXIV has been my favorite MMO, hell, my favorite game for over 10 years now. I’ve vehemently defended it since ‘A Realm Reborn,’ nearly costing me friendships over arguments on why it’s so much better than World of Warcraft in every conceivable way. Yeah, I used to be that guy. I’m still that guy, but I used to be, too (thanks, Mitch). And now, I sit here, having not touched the game since ‘Dawntrail,’ wondering what’s happened. Was it a symptom of rampant Final Fantasy fanboyism? Were the warning signs there all along, and I just missed them? Am I just a boomer, shaking my fists at the sky and longing for the old days? Probably.

I’ve more fond memories of FFXIV than I can count. Meeting some of my best online friends through random FATE parties. Theorizing the plot of ‘Shadowbringers’ alongside my buddies as we experience it together. The Titan fight from ‘A Realm Reborn’. The Pre-‘Endwalker’ PvP scene. Eureka. Man, do I miss when Eureka was at its peak.

I can’t really pinpoint the exact reason for my FFXIV spark fizzling out. I just know, somewhere along the line, it has.

Maybe it’s due to the rampant job homogenization over the past few expansions, nearly stripping what’s left of any class identity in the game. Where every job essentially produces the same results with a different coat of paint.

‘FFXIV’s jobs were a beautiful mess, but they served a purpose

It’s an odd feeling, running a dungeon while decked out in classic Paladin armor. When, somewhere in my mind, I’m just imagining four blank assets, each with red, green, or blue tints to denote their role in the group. I no longer feel like ‘The Paladin’ anymore; I’m just ‘The Tank.’

Jobs may not have mattered that much in dungeons, but now? You might as well remove job icons altogether. Hell, just remove healers as a whole, since they’ve become redundant enough that parties are statistically more efficient without them. As tanks and DPS jobs become more self-sustainable with each expansion, it’s no wonder the literal hardest content in the game is being cleared without healers present.

I know, I know; job balance was all over the place before 4.0, and certain designs were counter-intuitive to engaging gameplay. But you’ll never convince me ‘Heavensward’s Astrologian wasn’t brilliant, albeit intimidating to play. You can’t deny that a good Dragoon wasn’t an impressive feat to witness or that managing MP on a Dark Knight gave players, I don’t know, something to do.

I miss the class diversity. When what little buffs and debuffs the game has mattered. Grinding a different job for specific sub-skills, creating even a crumb of agency in your skill set. When having a Bard in the raid was cause for celebration rather than glossed over to fill a ‘Ranged DPS’ role. I don’t know; I just feel like if I no longer have to adjust my strategy to play any given job under a particular role, there’s a problem here. Maybe we’ve made it too streamlined.

It’s okay to disrupt the status quo

Maybe it’s due to the hyper-formulaic approach that nearly all FFXIV PvE content suffers from. The dungeons, with each new addition a predictable pattern of three to four bosses. Those bosses, separated by a few groups of trash mobs, further separated by a series of walls ensuring your group can pull just enough (but not too much!) to force one or two Cures out of your healer.

Yeah, The Aurum Vale was a nightmare, but guess what? You’ve never forgotten about it. The wipes, the DPS standing in the piss pools, the bad breath. It’s burnt in every 2.0 player’s mind. On the contrary, I couldn’t tell you the name of a single dungeon from ‘Dawntrail’. Not one!

Now, FFXIV‘s content formula is all the more apparent, increasing the gap between patch cycles while giving us less content than ever before. One new dungeon that never dares to stray from the usual, tired format. One new trial boss that just might wipe your party a few times. Maybe a new raid series that, really, are just trial bosses with slightly more advanced mechanics.

If we’re lucky, a new relic weapon quest series may appear. If we’re really lucky, obtaining those relic weapons may actually require a modicum of effort from the player aside from spamming duty roulettes. Hey, if we’re really, really lucky, we may even get a rehashed seasonal event that somehow requires even less effort than before to complete.

“Alexander?” *lights cigarette* “Haven’t heard that name in years”

Remember when raids in FFXIV felt like, you know, raids? When you’d enter massive labyrinths, each with their own unique designs, and had to fight your way to a boss? When some Turns of a raid didn’t even feature a boss, but instead a challenging gauntlet of enemies, or something less predictable than what we’re offered today?

Exploring the Coils of Bahamut in FFXIV, navigating within the chambers of Alexander. Both incredible experiences that really drilled down the idea of the foreboding presence you were up against. I imagine it’s much like the feeling of entering Molten Core for the first time for WoW players.

It’s a stark difference from today’s FFXIV raids, teleporting you to familiar square-shaped arenas with bosses conveniently placed before you. Wanna bet the fourth boss of that new raid series has a second phase? Was actually traveling through a raid too difficult? Too time-consuming? Is this what players want now, an à la carte menu of appetizer-sized content?

In an effort to remove even the slightest amount of friction from the average FFXIV player’s experience, they’ve swung the pendulum so far that I fear it’s never returning. What once felt like an adventure now feels like skating on a smooth lake of ice, grazing the occasional pebble along the way to remind players they are, in fact, playing an MMO.

Maybe ‘FFXIV’ could use another shake-up

But FFXIV‘s reluctance to rock the boat has made it the most stale it’s ever been. Its sparse content output, packaged and served like Lunchables, is designed for mass consumption that anyone can stomach. Easy to digest, and even easier to forget.

Maybe I’m just a bitter elitist, waxing nostalgic for a game that’s outgrown my tastes. I can’t help it. Growing up with Ultima Online and Final Fantasy XI, two games with virtually no streamlining (back then, at least) and a penchant for making players earn every ounce of their progress, conditions me this way. I want that sense of achievement, but instead, I feel I’m standing in line for my inevitable turn to grab the bag of party favors.

Though, I can’t be the only one bitter with the way things are. Especially when FFXIV‘s shortcomings are constantly excused for its 1.0 “spaghetti code” year after year. Or when World of Warcraft, an MMO almost twice the age of FFXIV, releases a housing system that outclasses the latter in almost every way. Or when a consistently updating online store features purchasable headgear that still isn’t equippable by two of FFXIV‘s races.

I’m not sure what the point of all this rambling is, really. I’m not providing anything particularly helpful or new to FFXIV discourse. I still think it’s the best MMO available, and though it’s changed in a way I may not vibe with anymore, there’s clearly a reason behind it. And, you know what? If this is what players want Final Fantasy XIV to be, then this is what Final Fantasy XIV should be. Who cares what I think? I guess I’m just looking for a way to say goodbye to a game I love.

Bro literally came and copypasted a whole vice article in the forums and called it a thread

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over 10 years now

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We got old, man. The game got old. It happens. I know it's a bummer, but people are acting like not loving FFXIV is the end of the world. It's just a video game, and it's not going anywhere. Just unsub for awhile -- or don't, even; stay subbed and keep your house or whatever is important to you -- and when you feel the urge to play again, it'll be right here waiting.

Tired of people acting like online games (not just MMOs, I see this same stuff with Monster Hunter, Diablo, PoE, etc.) need to keep them busy for full-time-job hours for multiple decades. Get literally any other hobby. You'll enjoy gaming so much more when it's not the only thing you do with your free time.

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Envoyé par LinaAkayomi

Bro literally came and copypasted a whole vice article in the forums and called it a thread

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I love how white knights never have anything of substance to say about the game. It's always meta commentary from these white knights

It's almost as if they realize it's easier to comment on the criticism than it is defending the game.

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Envoyé par Fagotura

I love how white knights never have anything of substance to say about the game. It's always meta commentary from these white knights

It's almost as if they realize it's easier to comment on the criticism than it is defending the game.

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But... you just copy pasted someone else's article. You literally have nothing of substance to say yourself in this thread.

I just love being proven right in real time.

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Envoyé par Fagotura

It's always meta commentary from these white knights

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They have literally nothing to say other than trying to bash the thread because it's sharing a well-written, heartfelt article from someone else. Rock bottom lmao

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Envoyé par Exmo

But... you just copy pasted someone else's article. You literally have nothing of substance to say yourself in this thread.

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Wow. A lot of people are feeling the same way that they can copy and paste the problem. Wonder if we're quitting the game not only to move on but to also send a message to square. /think

I agree that job homogenization went too far. I understand why it happened to a degree, because there was a lot of unused, pointless or unintuitive stuff in Heavensward. They cut down on it a lot in Stormblood and they'd mostly got rid of it all by Shadowbringers. Also, when people don't have an ability they complain their job is not balanced ie. people asking for DRK to get heals, PLD to get a gap closer.

But it started to go overboard in Shadowbringers and Endwalker, removing things that are part of the job identity such as:

• random AST card management
• making WAR and SAM's conal AoE not a cone
• making PLD about as full of heals as WAR that no longer respected PLD's identity (casting heals and other magic)
• removing Kaiten
• DRK going from having too many ability interactions to having none except for TBN
• I understand why keeping stuff up was scrapped but it was still an enjoyable aspect for some players

I still find the jobs fun at max level, to be honest, but I find myself having to actually switch between them now whereas I didn't used to need to.

Anyway, they are going to look at this issue in 8.0. They should really do this through 7.x, but they said 8.0 so that's what they are doing. If job identity is that big of a sticking point for people they should probably just try the game in 8.0 and see if it changed enough, especially since they have been considering ideas like skill trees.

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Jobs may not have mattered that much in dungeons, but now? You might as well remove job icons altogether. Hell, just remove healers as a whole, since they’ve become redundant enough that parties are statistically more efficient without them.

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Don't get me wrong, I enjoy self-healing myself in dungeons, and it did feel a bit frustrating to rely on the healer in the past. But I accepted that was part of the game and that I was doing my job (pull+mit), and they did their job (healing).
Now I can do all 3 jobs on my own in dungeons (tank, heal, dps). If a healer disconnects I pull anyway. If a tank disconnects, the party continues anyway because tanks don't matter and you can cast Sleep if needed. If a DPS disconnects, you only need 1 DPS anyway to do a decent amount of damage for it to not take ages. If a party member goes AFK, I continue going through the dungeon because they're frankly irrelevant.

The team play was always a part of what made it feel good. You worked together to tackle this dungeon. It was never that it was that hard, but if the healer didn't heal, people died. If the tank didn't mit a pull, it was a wipe. Although there are remnants of that, especially with tanks applying things like Nascent Flash, it's largely eroded in favor of "you can handle everything yourself" - with DPS literally healing themselves with Second Wind, Bloodbath, their own misc ability/attribute they have and why not throw potions into it.

It does seem better in High-End duties now. Even with all of WAR's heals, high-end duties still wreck me currently if the healers aren't looking, so they've restored that aspect somewhat. The autos hurt again. In Endwalker it was at a point where soloing through a few phases of Extreme/Savage was actually possible and it had got ridiculous.

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When what little buffs and debuffs the game has mattered.

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They announced moving away from status effects with the release of Stormblood and introduction of job gauges. I get why, because people who've never played MMORPGs before this one won't understand buffs/debuffs very much, but for those of us that understand them they are fine. But obviously they want to solve it for people that don't understand little status effects and cast bars hence those giant casts in the middle of the screen now. This is where I would like the old design but I understand why they are making it work for people new to MMOs.

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The dungeons, with each new addition a predictable pattern of three to four bosses. Those bosses, separated by a few groups of trash mobs, further separated by a series of walls ensuring your group can pull just enough (but not too much!) to force one or two Cures out of your healer.

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The leveling dungeons still demanded a lot of healing from me when I was leveling healers due to their tight sync. So there is an element of item level bloat just making the max level dungeons melt always. They have abandoned some of the unique ideas they used to do with trash as well like in Sunken Temple or Hullbreaker Isle. But I think the issue is more just that lack of variety in Expert roulette. They can make it the hardest dungeon ever but if you get it for 8 months, you become such an "expert" at it that it makes you sick to do it without at least changing job.

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Remember when raids in FFXIV felt like, you know, raids?

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It's obviously to reduce time wasting. If they are to add trash to Savage they should make it very easy, then it creates the feeling of a raid but you get to the boss quick at least. At the moment, the "travel" to the boss happens in a story instance or solo battle, with the Gates to Pandaemonium instance area being an example and the Omega solo battle being another.

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Envoyé par Fagotura

I just love being proven right in real time.



They have literally nothing to say other than trying to bash the thread because it's sharing a well-written, heartfelt article from someone else. Rock bottom lmao

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Maybe you can add just a single original thought that you came up with all by yourself? Nothing?

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Envoyé par Jeeqbit

Anyway, they are going to look at this issue in 8.0. They should really do this through 7.x, but they said 8.0 so that's what they are doing.

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Improved combat encounters was supposed to arrive in 7.2, and there are only two days left to prove that wrong.

Improved job design in 8.0? They'll conveniently forget to say anything about it and hope everyone forgets about it with them.

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Envoyé par Exmo

Maybe you can add just a single original thought that you came up with all by yourself? Nothing?

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Why does that matter? Why does a complaint have to be original? Wtf is the logic in that? Are you just here to white knight? lol

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Envoyé par KhudusQestir

Why does that matter? Why does a complaint have to be original? Wtf is the logic in that? Are you just here to white knight? lol

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I'll give you the benefit of the doubt just once.

The first post I quoted from OP was him saying someone else had nothing of substance to say, meanwhile the OP is the definition of having nothing of substance to say, it was 100% someone else's words.

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Envoyé par Fagotura

I love how white knights never have anything of substance to say about the game. It's always meta commentary from these white knights

It's almost as if they realize it's easier to comment on the criticism than it is defending the game.

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Envoyé par Fagotura

Improved combat encounters was supposed to arrive in 7.2, and there are only two days left to prove that wrong.

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Their aim is to fix the combat encounters throughout the 7.x patches and obviously 7.2 is where they are prepared to make stuff tougher than at expansion release. I expect that the assessment on these forums won't be positive whatever they do though, because it never is. :p We will see though.

I think that the first tier of raids and dungeons and trials are an example of their design changes so, ultimately if that doesn't make someone happy, they probably won't be impressed by 7.2 either.

There ARE actually people who have talked positively about Dawntrail content though, so really gonna depend what your expectations are and if they are met. I wouldn't personally expect SE to change that much.

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Improved job design in 8.0? They'll conveniently forget to say anything about it and hope everyone forgets about it with them.

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Maybe, but in my experience, if they say something they are planning it. They are media savvy and know that they can't say something unless it's actually happening.

A recent example of them saying something then not doing it was the Dragoon rework. But they did actually acknowledge that we were expecting a rework and just said it turned out they didn't need to change much, which is good because I was speculating they were going to make it a Reaper clone and destroy what little difference there is between them.

I think they will do something. Like usual, I don't expect it to be enough to satisfy you or most people on these forums though. At the end of the day, whatever changes they are planning, they probably aren't gonna be something that transform a person from not wanting to play, to wanting to play, because there's not much track record of that in this game.

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Envoyé par Exmo

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt just once.

The first post I quoted from OP was him saying someone else had nothing of substance to say, meanwhile the OP is the definition of having nothing of substance to say, it was 100% someone else's words.

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Cool. So are you the forum police? Are you going to GM jail him for stealing/copying a complaint?
My question was what's the point of your posting and that's still the question

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Envoyé par KhudusQestir

Cool. So are you the forum police? Are you going to GM jail him for stealing/copying a complaint?
My question was what's the point of your posting and that's still the question

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Why are you defending him? Is he your brother? Did he make you a delicious cherry pie? Does he pay you to white knight his posts?

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Envoyé par Jeeqbit

I think they will do something. Like usual, I don't expect it to be enough to satisfy you or most people on these forums though.

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I'm sorry but this isn't a "forum" issue or a "me" issue.

This is a SE issue.

I'm not sure how some people still have so much copium over the game when nearly a decade of live letters have shown them to describe minuscule, petty changes as being something far greater than what they actually are. And it's always written in the vaguest language possible, just so that they can get away with saying that they technically delivered on their promise.

I suspect the only reason they get away with it is because this game's churn rate is very high and there is no "memory" in the playerbase. Compared to a lot of other MMOs, most of the players in the game have played only one or two expansions.

Because of this when they hear things like "we're making healer DPS busier this expansion, please look forward to it", the playerbase thinks "we're getting a real DPS rotation!" or "maybe they'll make healers just like SB again". Instead what it actually means is that you'll get a combo action to Chain Strategem and you'll press that extra button that you will always press every 120 seconds and you will like it.

No, they will not deliver anything substantial. It takes a tremendous amount of bad faith to argue that things like Baneful Impaction delivered on their promise.

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Envoyé par Exmo

Why are you defending him? Is he your brother? Did he make you a delicious cherry pie? Does he pay you to white knight his posts?

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Ok, avoid the question cause you know I'm also making a point.
As for your question, he should! But no I'm defending him because I agree with it and I think your attempt in attacking his post is ridiculous.
If you disagree with him then make a more useful post like something convincing that the game isn't /that/ bad otherwise you're just being a Karen by complaining about something extremely tedious. All you're doing is just complaining about his complaining. Nothing benefit at all.

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Envoyé par KhudusQestir

Ok, avoid the question cause you know I'm also making a point.
As for your question, he should! But no I'm defending him because I agree with it and I think your attempt in attacking his post is ridiculous.
If you disagree with him then make a more useful post like something convincing that the game isn't /that/ bad otherwise you're just being a Karen by complaining about something extremely tedious. All you're doing is just complaining about his complaining. Nothing benefit at all.

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Don't waste your time on him.

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Envoyé par Fagotura

Don't waste your time on him.

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You're right.

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Envoyé par KhudusQestir

Ok, avoid the question cause you know I'm also making a point.
As for your question, he should! But no I'm defending him because I agree with it and I think your attempt in attacking his post is ridiculous.
If you disagree with him then make a more useful post like something convincing that the game isn't /that/ bad otherwise you're just being a Karen by complaining about something extremely tedious. All you're doing is just complaining about his complaining. Nothing benefit at all.

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All you're doing is complaining about my complaining, which by your logic is also a waste of time.

Why are you defending an obvious troll? He hasn't said anything original worth talking about, all he's done is copy other people's opinions and rehashed conversation points long since talked to death.

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Envoyé par Fagotura

I'm sorry but this isn't a "forum" issue or a "me" issue.

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I wasn't saying it was a forum issue or a you issue, but rather that I've been here long enough to know that SE ain't gonna change things such a substantial amount that everyone universally starts expressing positivity on the forums.

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I suspect the only reason they get away with it is because this game's churn rate is very high and there is no "memory" in the playerbase. Compared to a lot of other MMOs, most of the players in the game have played only one or two expansions.

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Pretty much that. It's also the casual/returner factor - where they take a break, come back and complete two expansions they missed. So the gameplay is catered to guarantee the smooth progression of the potential player that hasn't played for 4+ years and just came to do MSQ - maybe a percentage of them do an extreme or a bit of savage, then they get bored and quit.

It depends a lot if they find a social connection as well. That's the biggest thing to tie someone to an MMORPG long-term. A lot of people don't find this, but the ones that do often get pulled back regardless of their enthusiasm for the game itself. Managing an FC, RP, being in a static, hunting, their partner plays, etc. Once they lose that social connection they often question if they will continue playing.

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so that they can get away with saying that they technically delivered on their promise.

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It takes a tremendous amount of bad faith to argue that things like Baneful Impaction delivered on their promise.

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What a lot of people have misunderstood when I've said things in the past is that I'm just arguing they technically did it, not that it's necessarily satisfactory.

I'm a newer player and thought coils and alexander royally sucked ass and weren't interesting whatsoever. Especially alexander. That felt so tedious and mind numbing.

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Envoyé par Lizzit

I'm a newer player and thought coils and alexander royally sucked ass and weren't interesting whatsoever. Especially alexander. That felt so tedious and mind numbing.

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Coils and Alex belong to another game at this point. Doing them with the current battle system (post HW) makes little sense: it's like the encounters and the modern game talk two different languages and one of them just bruteforces the other into submission anyway. That and the powercreep is so dire that you can steamroll almost everything.

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Envoyé par Jeeqbit

They announced moving away from status effects with the release of Stormblood and introduction of job gauges. I get why, because people who've never played MMORPGs before this one won't understand buffs/debuffs very much, but for those of us that understand them they are fine. But obviously they want to solve it for people that don't understand little status effects and cast bars hence those giant casts in the middle of the screen now. This is where I would like the old design but I understand why they are making it work for people new to MMOs.

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People can learn. They still had to add advanced hall of the novice to make them learn everything that's not a buff or debuff ANYWAY.
By doing this they literally changed the genre of the game. They alienated half of their vets.

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Envoyé par Jeeqbit

It's obviously to reduce time wasting. If they are to add trash to Savage they should make it very easy, then it creates the feeling of a raid but you get to the boss quick at least. At the moment, the "travel" to the boss happens in a story instance or solo battle, with the Gates to Pandaemonium instance area being an example and the Omega solo battle being another.

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Exploring actual raid and story tied environments, and dealing with trash on the way, isn't wasting time. Solo instances aren't the answer. You only do them once. I already forgot about all of them. If they were actually interesting they'd be burned into my memory. And if they were actually interesting, why not put them in the fucking duty in the first place? Aren't we allowed to have fun there?
If anything those days, it's the stupid trial bosses in a circle arena that are wasting time, because we just want to be over with them.

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Envoyé par Exmo

But... you just copy pasted someone else's article. You literally have nothing of substance to say yourself in this thread.

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What is this ad hominem even for?
I don't care who wrote the article. It conveys a message, which I do agree with, and which provides matter to discuss. If you have something of substance to actually discuss instead of attacking the OP, do it?

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Envoyé par Valence

What is this ad hominem even for?
I don't care who wrote the article. It conveys a message, which I do agree with, and which provides matter to discuss. If you have something of substance to actually discuss instead of attacking the OP, do it?

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Why are you following me around these forums and responding snarkily to my comments? Why do you target me specifically to respond to when OP did what you accuse me of right before my post? Your behaviour is transparent. I'd like you to leave me alone now, thank you.

You're literally adding nothing of substance to this thread. If you don't agree with OP just move along.

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Envoyé par Jeeqbit

[*]removing Kaiten.

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ah yes, good old "bring back kaiten" , another useless button that does nothing beside bloating the already bloated actian bars.

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Envoyé par LinaAkayomi

Bro literally came and copypasted a whole vice article in the forums and called it a thread

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Given the amount of forummonger who typically refuses to click on links to see what’s an OP is talking about then immediately goes “Ok BuT i’M gOnNa MaNsPlAiN wHy YoU’rE wRoNg!!”, I don’t blame them. Sometimes people also feel insecure about external links, too. So there’s that.

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Envoyé par Arohk

ah yes, good old "bring back kaiten" , another useless button that does nothing beside bloating the already bloated actian bars.

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If we go by that logic then 90% of our kits serve no purpose and could safely be removed.
Why do we need 4 different oGCDs that are just "does X potency with Y cooldown"?
Why do we need 5 different GCD "finishers" that are just "does X potency with Y cooldown" with the occasional restriction that you need to press an oGCD first to unlock it?


With very few exceptions they have no interactions with each other, just a random assortment of "press to do damage". They're just slotted somewhere into our burst windows because it's more damage, that's their only purpose.


And I'm not a Samurai main so ultimately I don't care either way, but Kaiten served more of an actual gameplay purpose than most of our completely disconnected "does X potency with Y seconds cooldown"-buttons ever did.

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Envoyé par Absurdity

If we go by that logic then 90% of our kits serve no purpose and could safely be removed.
Why do we need 4 different oGCDs that are just "does X potency with Y cooldown"?
Why do we need 5 different GCD "finishers" that are just "does X potency with Y cooldown" with the occasional restriction that you need to press an oGCD first to unlock it?.

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90%? that is a little hyperbolic, but you are correct.

by having already so many buttons just to do damage is the reason stuff like kaiten has no place to exist.

The samurai Core rotation requires already 6 buttons, if you reduced that to 3-4, you could free space for additional complexity.

Have you tried going to couple's counseling?

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Envoyé par Arohk

90%? that is a little hyperbolic, but you are correct.

by having already so many buttons just to do damage is the reason stuff like kaiten has no place to exist.

The samurai Core rotation requires already 6 buttons, if you reduced that to 3-4, you could free space for additional complexity.

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It's just so hilarious that jobs in FF14 simultaneously suffer from button bloat and lack of complexity.

Not surprising though since they replaced every ability that required a modicum of management or tracking with generic "does damage" buttons. The amount of abilities stayed the same, the thought put into actually using them was just reduced to close to 0.

But getting back to the actual article, he's pretty much expressing exactly how I've increasingly felt about the game since Shadowbringers.
As much as it gets praised for it's story, that expansion is when all the gameplay rot started to really ramp up.

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Envoyé par Arohk

ah yes, good old "bring back kaiten" , another useless button that does nothing beside bloating the already bloated actian bars.

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Ultimately, if that's the logic, then we could reduce the "bloat" down to 1 button like healers. The whole point is the "feel of powering up an attack" before using it, which is similarly what combos kind of are.

It's perfectly valid for there to be a combat system that has more of a focus on utility and where the damage buttons are bare minimum ie. knife slash, knife throw, kick stun, a medical kit, jump, sprint... just a few buttons that you actually need.

But this game having so many damage buttons, it's more about how they feel, their animation and their sound, and navigating the sheer number of them without pressing them wrong or in the wrong order - which obviously they've made easier to get right but it's still something you can mess up.

A proper fighting game may have takedowns, blocks and other moves, or football games may have tackles. But the feedback in this game doesn't work like that because a boss just stands there and doesn't acknowledge it, so your "takedowns, blocks and tackles" just get ignored by the boss and manifest as lower HP for the boss, buffs and debuffs.

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Envoyé par Fagotura

And now, I sit here, having not touched the game since ‘Dawntrail,’ wondering what’s happened.

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X.1 happened. This happens every expansions so no need to worry.

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Maybe I’m just a bitter elitist, waxing nostalgic for a game that’s outgrown my tastes. I can’t help it. Growing up with Ultima Online and Final Fantasy XI, two games with virtually no streamlining (back then, at least) and a penchant for making players earn every ounce of their progress, conditions me this way. I want that sense of achievement, but instead, I feel I’m standing in line for my inevitable turn to grab the bag of party favors.

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Yea...I respect the writer's opinion, but I couldn't disagree more. The game they want is one I would hate. And that's fair, games change, some people will be happy with the change, some won't, in the end, all we can do is play what makes us happy.

https://media.tenor.com/makOt5I5C0wA...in-gorilla.gif

Hot take seeing that they basically needed to copy most of Vanilla WoW's system to even bring the game into a playable state (11>14).

Ah yes, a thread about a topic I somewhat agree with, time to post my opinion--

https://i.imgur.com/YPBBDdJ.png

Actually, I think I have better things to do with my time.

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Envoyé par NegativeS

Ah yes, a thread about a topic I somewhat agree with, time to post my opinion--

Actually, I think I have better things to do with my time.

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Let's be honest, the highlander face and character name should've given it away, lol.
I honestly stopped caring whether or not a thread is by one of the 20 different alts if the point he's making is still completely valid.

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Envoyé par TemporalFruitsAndVeggies

We got old, man. The game got old. It happens. I know it's a bummer, but people are acting like not loving FFXIV is the end of the world. It's just a video game, and it's not going anywhere. Just unsub for awhile -- or don't, even; stay subbed and keep your house or whatever is important to you -- and when you feel the urge to play again, it'll be right here waiting.

Tired of people acting like online games (not just MMOs, I see this same stuff with Monster Hunter, Diablo, PoE, etc.) need to keep them busy for full-time-job hours for multiple decades. Get literally any other hobby. You'll enjoy gaming so much more when it's not the only thing you do with your free time.

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For people who think this way: Asking for literally any long-term grind in an MMO, beyond what we currently have in FFXIV, has been the norm since the genre was created.

The reality now is that most of the FFXIV playerbase has played through 1 alliance raid and 1 dungeon in over 8 months of new content. In other words, less than 2 hours of gameplay.

FFXIV is taking "have another hobby" to an extreme that most of the community never asked for. People are, in fact, doing just that — and as a result, the game is losing a record number of active players.

Even with other hobbies, FFXIV still feels like it's in a content drought.

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Envoyé par Jeeqbit

But this game having so many damage buttons, it's more about how they feel, their animation and their sound, and navigating the sheer number of them without pressing them wrong or in the wrong order - which obviously they've made easier to get right but it's still something you can mess up.

A proper fighting game may have takedowns, blocks and other moves, or football games may have tackles. But the feedback in this game doesn't work like that because a boss just stands there and doesn't acknowledge it, so your "takedowns, blocks and tackles" just get ignored by the boss and manifest as lower HP for the boss, buffs and debuffs.

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I've been trying to say this for a while. This game doesn't fully function like an action combat game and rotational complexity's half of what's supposed to make the gameplay interesting. If that's not what one wants there are other MMOs out there that offer it.

And that's kinda why removing all the skill interactions like they have been is a problem. When the most depth the new skills we got offer is "using skill A turns it into skill B" while simultaneously removing any deeper skill interactions and further converging every job to a burster, a lot of things that used to be more interesting do end up being bloat even to our eyes.