Maybe I’m just an old head who doesn’t get it anymore, maybe this same predictable rinse-and-repeat formula that’s been going on for almost 11 years now is exactly what the player base actually wants?
Within the official forums and even in-game, I’ve started noticing something: Yoshi-P seems to be losing some of his strongest long-time supporters, the players who used to accept anything he presented because, for them, he could do no wrong. Ironically, that very vocal group might have been one of the biggest obstacles to real change. Maybe their unwavering support made the dev team too comfortable, leading to these increasingly shallow updates and event contents that can be cleared in 20 minutes for a quick cosmetic or mount.
Was this really the goal of the game?
The same can be said for many FFXIV streamers who came from WoW and monetized their time here. A lot of them milked the hype for as long as possible, and once that dried up, they jumped ship and started criticizing SE and the dev team. Of course, there are still some around who won’t speak up honestly out of fear of burning bridges with SE just to stay in good standing and keep their audience entertained.
I’m genuinely trying to understand why this mindset exists how this game drifted so far from its foundation and became what feels like a WoW clone. And how we, as players, allowed this to continue for so long.
Before anyone jumps in with the classic “this isn’t a WoW clone” response there’s literally an interview where Yoshi-P told his team to study and play WoW, since it was the top-selling MMORPG at the time. And sure, I get the logic behind that. But here’s the thing: shouldn’t whatever you create still be unique?
People often bring up the argument that FFXI borrowed ideas from EverQuest, and that’s true but FFXI still managed to stand on its own. It had its own soul. It felt like Final Fantasy. FFXIV, on the other hand, feels more like a generic MMORPG with a Final Fantasy skin layered on top.
Countless times I’ve seen new players in the Novice Network say things like, “Oh, this job reminds me of [WoW job].” And sure, comparisons are natural both are MMORPGs but no one plays Mortal Kombat just because it reminds them of Street Fighter and picks Scorpion because he “feels like Ryu.” They're both fighting games right?
That logic just doesn’t hold up yet it’s become normal here.
In my honest opinion, Dawntrail’s writing has been quite poor. A lot of it feels rushed, scattered, and emotionally flat. The expansion didn’t introduce anything truly new either. These days, FFXIV feels like a ghost town people don’t socialize, don’t chat, and many just log in to maintain their houses.
This game should offer us so much more than that.
Most of us 1.0 players also came from FFXI. None of us wanted FFXI 2.0, but we definitely didn’t sign up for Final Fantasy: A WoW Clone Reborn either.
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10-12-2025, 04:14 AMSkizzleAbernathThoughts and observations from a 1.0 player about the current state of FFXIV
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10-12-2025, 04:38 AMFawkesI think lots of people wanted that, they just didn't stick around much longer than ARR because this game is a gear treadmill and doesn't have any theorycrafting depth.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkizzleAbernath
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10-12-2025, 05:48 AMSkizzleAbernath
How could it go so wrong? Why were 1.0 players so deceived, putting their faith and trust in Yoshi-P, only to have FFXIV built at their expense? It feels like the underlying plan was always to use one player base to appeal to a completely different one. If that weren’t the case, why would so much effort have been put into studying WoW for development purposes? It’s hard to ignore the fact that Blizzard’s player base seems to have been the primary target all along.
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10-12-2025, 05:58 AMInfindox
If XIV was anything like XI I would not be playing today.
The game is currently not in a good spot, though. That I will agree with. -
10-12-2025, 06:10 AMStriker44
I wouldn't in any way, shape, or form call FFXIV a WoW-clone. If it was, I'd still be playing WoW. There's a reason I left that game behind almost 5 years ago, made FFXIV my main MMO, and have never looked back. They may both be MMO's, but they have very different target audiences. WoW went all-in on the eSports approach with Arena PvP, ever higher levels of Mythic+ dungeons, etc., and the result is a notoriously toxic playerbase focused on those things. FFXIV has always been about the story, role-playing, and a decidedly more casual approach to gaming. WoW sees leveling as an inconvenience that gets you to endgame, where everything really exists; FFXIV sees the journey as an essential component of the experience.
Naturally, games look to each other and borrow things here and there, and for FFXIV making 2.0, it made sense to look in WoW's direction since it had recently hit its peak but was also rapidly shedding players, so the dev team here could get a good sense of what worked and what didn't. For example, pretty much the main thing they "borrowed" from WoW was the token system for getting high-end gear that WoW was getting criticized precisely for abandoning in favor of low-% RNG drops.
This happens to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The forums aren't really a good indication, because this place is always negative, and largely populated by whichever specific people happen to not like the current expansion, while those who do largely tend to just play the game and don't post much. Heck, ShB is widely viewed as the "best" expansion, but you'd never know it if you were actively perusing the forums at the time.Quote:
Yoshi-P seems to be losing some of his strongest long-time supporters,
And that's exactly what FFXIV has done. Seriously, just poke around the forums and you'll see the usual litany of complaints that largely amount to pointing out all the ways FFXIV is not like WoW.Quote:
But here’s the thing: shouldn’t whatever you create still be unique?
Studying a game doesn't mean you're taking everything from it. See above for how little of WoW's systems were actually brought to FFXIV.Quote:
Before anyone jumps in with the classic “this isn’t a WoW clone” response there’s literally an interview where Yoshi-P told his team to study and play WoW
With apologies, this actually makes me laugh out loud. One of the common refrains from some particular doomers around here is that FFXIV "failed" precisely because it didn't actively do anything to become "more like WoW" and attempt to keep those who came here during the infamous WoW Exodus. Again, simply studying other products while designing your own doesn't somehow mandate that everything you do afterward will copy them. It may mean (as it did here) taking very specific things like gear tokens while precisely avoiding other things that you realize you don't want your game to have. The take I'm reading just doesn't feel believable.Quote:
If that weren’t the case, why would so much effort have been put into studying WoW for development purposes? It’s hard to ignore the fact that Blizzard’s player base seems to have been the primary target all along
I'm not familiar with your server or what DC is might be on, for me on Greg (Aether), FFXIV feels just as populated as usual at this point in a patch cycle. FC and NN chat is alive, Hunt trains are as social as ever, and there's often various chatter going on in the random Roulettes and WT content I do. I'm not getting the sense you're getting. At all.Quote:
These days, FFXIV feels like a ghost town people don’t socialize, don’t chat, and many just log in to maintain their houses.
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10-12-2025, 06:29 AMJeeqbitPeople saying it drifted from its foundation is not about it being a "WoW clone". It's about how they "fixed" a lot of things by simply removing problematic or annoying mechanics, and not replacing them with anything new, simplifying and trivializing the entire game over time. Elements, damage types, job synergy with damage types/MP sharing/TP sharing, MP management, enmity management, positionals mattering, nuances (things doing more than just damage requiring you to actually read the tooltip).Quote:
Originally Posted by SkizzleAbernath
Ironically, some of the complaints are about it not moving from its foundations - there have been many issues since the game was created that we let slide because we figured they'd get solved at some point. Of course they'd solve this or that issue by the time it's been 10 years, right? But here we are, 12 years later, with a lot of issues unsolved that anyone with programming knowledge would have solved in that time.
Well yes but they didn't even manage to make it the same as WoW. If you want a WoW clone, I'd suggest playing SWTOR. That's a game that actually pulled off the feat of copying WoW to the letter.Quote:
Before anyone jumps in with the classic “this isn’t a WoW clone” response there’s literally an interview where Yoshi-P told his team to study and play WoW, since it was the top-selling MMORPG at the time.
After 2.0 release, this game drifted from WoW and just kinda added whatever was logical in response to players. It is possible some of these logical responses were also happening to WoW but it's pretty obvious that SE have been ignoring WoW for a long, long time. Yoshi-P had no idea WoW had a housing update, for example, and recently was surprised when an interviewer brought it up.Quote:
shouldn’t whatever you create still be unique?
It's pretty simple why. SE just adds content with an expiry date. For example, you farm a mount from an extreme trial and then you're done, never to touch it again. What made older MMORPGs strong was their focus being on adding replayable systems that involved work and social interaction, rather than "content".Quote:
These days, FFXIV feels like a ghost town people don’t socialize, don’t chat, and many just log in to maintain their houses.
Requiring a player to craft for you is an example, something that you can't get from the market board or elsewhere. PvP is the most obvious example. Chocobo Racing with players, Triple Triad PvP, are examples that currently exist. Systems that make players rely upon eachother, have to socially interact, and therefore create a different experience every time, which makes it different every time and enjoyable to do again.
Helping new players was also a fundamental part of older games that made them fun to replay. It wasn't about you, it was about the new players. Helping them get their first steps and being the tutorial because these games didn't know how to help them with that. There are FCs that do this still, but it can be largely ignored by those players with Duty Support, Duty Finder. Raids being either extremely easy or being so hard that there are wipes due to a single mistake, with mechanics that disincentivise helping people clear savage (losing chest loot), makes it harder to get people into raiding, the main thing they spend development resources on. -
10-12-2025, 08:26 AMMyotis
Lack of innovation take its turn on the game.
Mechanics are outdated
Figths are outdated
Classes are dead boring.
All you have to do is to learn where to stand in certain frame of the fight.
People get tired of it and quit over the time.
Whats is in here to be supprised about?
On top of that there are :
Massive submarine fleets what people actually bot owning +30 houses at once leading to flooding the market with empty gil and enforcing the issues related to healthy economy.
Lack of accessability towards the content you might not be able to do latest 4th fight of the raid tier to unlock the newest ultimate as nobody does do it anymore as people moved on.
Lack of accessability towards learning the forced patterns in fights the game does not teach you things specially if you are a sprout
600h+ of visual novel based on emotes what is not exciting over certain period of time.
There is way more moments when a player can feel that the game is against them than the opposite where the content is not something to be happy about but more of a chore or heavy duty grind like 99 tomes for a mount if you got a bad luck. - Is it really fun to beat the same boss for over 99 times? It's not a content it's just a punishment for trying if your luck is bad.
Then newest relic area if we are at the luck side and it's drop rate.
My question is to who is this game targeted - Casuals no most of them left, RP community is shirnking each day and raiders we all know they cheat and push the raids quickest as they can same as the top ultimate clearing teams getting caught cheating each new ultimate is being realised.
So to what a type of the player is this game? Because i deeply did belived it was meant for everyone to enjoy and cheerish what it does have to offer not put obstacles each time something is realised. ( beating lvl50 of oldest deep dungeon as an example )
*edit*
Fates I forget about fates.. how repetetive and about nothing they are it's almost always not worth to bother aside of the special fates for special rewards
there is nothing about them what is exciting other than being dead repetetive. -
10-12-2025, 09:46 AMDastan
I think my main complaint with this game, is that they are clearly trying to please and satisfy every type of gamer that exists. Someone has a problem that a lot of people agree with, they will make changes based off that. But at the same time, it will alienate others who hate that change.
You literally cannot make everyone happy. They should just take a direction they want the game to go in, and stick with that. If someone doesn't like it, they can unsub and go somewhere else. It might make people leave, but the game will stay on a consistent path and they can only make improvements to what they already have. People that enjoy that will stay. -
10-12-2025, 06:12 PMValenceWell I sure as hell wish they'd listen to some of the problems I have then. Considering the follow up every time I brought some of those up, why is SE never acting upon it then?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dastan
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10-12-2025, 10:45 PMSkizzleAbernath
@jeeqbit & @Striker44
At the end of the day I get that this is a business players don’t own anything here, SE does. But we’re ignoring some key history.
@Myotis this one is for you!
One example is the old direction survey from like 2012 I think: the community split was roughly 62% vs 38%, and the majority did not want to be locked into a hamster-wheel progression loop that doesn’t respect limited playtime. In practice, it’s the same routine every tier: you log in, clear your weeklys for tomes, gear up 1–1.5 jobs, and by the time you’re “caught up,” your progress is invalidated and you farm again. There’s no breathing room for players who can’t no-life the game. Despite what a majority wanted you went against their wishes. Why even bother with a survey if you're not going to respect what your players want?
Another example: at the first EU Fan Fest, Yoshi-P was asked almost exactly what you mentioned about crafting and coordinated gameplay. The proposal was to have multi-role, multi discipline objectives e.g., go to Dungeon X, clear certain conditions to spawn an alternate boss that drops a unique item; hand that to a crafter; have gatherers bring complementary materials; craft a key item to spawn a world boss or unlock a special fight/dungeon(This sounds like MAPS I get it but this was meant to have a bigger purpose than maps.. The idea was dismissed as “too complicated for newer players.”
But… isn’t this an MMORPG? Isn’t the genre fundamentally about interdependence combat, crafting, gathering, exploration creating content together that no single role can complete alone? If we only want solo-friendly, single-path content, there are fantastic single-player RPGs like The Witcher or Skyrim. FFXIV can (and used to) be more than a weekly checklist treadmill.
When you backtrack statements across the years, the pattern often reads as goal-post shifting: things said to the community vs. what’s actually implemented later. That doesn’t have to mean malice but it does come across as contradiction without accountability. And for many of us especially 1.0 veterans that erodes trust.
TLDR: The player base repeatedly signaled it didn’t want perpetual treadmill design. Systems that could’ve fostered lasting, cooperative MMO depth were waved off as “too complex,” while the game doubled down on time-gated weekly loops. Over time, the gap between stated intent and delivered design makes long-time players feel misled and that’s the core of the frustration you’re seeing now.
Anothering thing Jeeqbit, I doubt that you're that gullable to believe that Yoshi P doesn't know that WoW had housing. News about housing travels fast and I'm sure plenty around him informed him of Blizzards next moves for their mmorpg. It's transparent that he does live in his own little bubble when it comes to FFXIV but I'm sure he knows very well what WoW had planned but had to be diplomatic about in a interview if that actually happened (haven't checked the interview). -
10-12-2025, 11:54 PMDastanYeah, that's kinda what I mean. It's not that they don't listen. But a lot of people feel like they don't because they are trying to listen to every single person at the same time. So it creates a problem of always having frustrated players no matter what decision they make, That's why I'm saying they should just own a vision for the game and keep that their goal focus. So there is no confusion or anger with the game. It will be expected.Quote:
Originally Posted by Valence
The OP is literally a 1.0 veteran that clearly misses the 1.0 experience they had.
Then you have the raiders who want more innovative mechanics and better rewards to show off.
Then you got those people kinda in between casual and hardcore raiders who will clear extremes and might dabble in savage raiding a bit.
Then you got the sole casual players who are just here for the MSQ, daily and weekly chores. They want that to be easier to do.
Then you have the pvpers, rpers and other types of players that don't really fit into any niche.
But the problem isn't that these players exist. It's what makes up the community in this game. The problem is that the dev team is trying to make every single one of these people happy and they literally can't do that without making someone else pissed off and wanting to quit the game.
I've thought about this for awhile and I realized that every person wants something different out of the game. Some want it to be easy, and others want more challenging content. There will be complaints no matter what kind of feedback gets addressed because not everyone agrees with the same thing. -
10-13-2025, 12:16 AMValence
But that's exactly what I was trying to convey: they do have a vision. There are just things that they deem not compatible with it or that they maybe just don't like, and there are things that they actually think would make the game better.
Reverting to the usual "they're trying to please everyone so they make nobody happy" is crazy. That's simply not true, else they'd be listening to everyone, and yet they don't. -
10-13-2025, 12:22 AMHyperia
Almost everything we currently have is rehashing of existing mechanics that were developed long ago. While they do try to innovate and develop new content, their entire system for development is backwards. They develop content for the 1% (hardcore raiders) and then try to scale it down to casuals. It should be done in reverse, make casual content and then ramp it up. That is what Quantum should do and we will see. Also, enough with the body checks that result in wipes or dozens of one hit mechanics in fights. Let the vuln stacks do their thing, if you want them to hurt more, do that instead of endless insta death or wipe mechanics.
The other major problem, and I consider this the largest problem, Is reward itemization. They come out either some really good content but we have little or no reason to do it after we have done it once or at all. A music roll, house item, materia? We honestly need more than that. They could even add very old items that are discontinued. The moogle event does a decent job at this. Rewards should have 50% of the art budget. I’ll grind till my fingers hurt to get a cute glam, remember, fashion is the true endgame. Make it achievable too, hardcore get the items faster than casuals but let it be achievable. -
10-13-2025, 12:22 AMXieldrasI don't know about you, but casual players have been served quite poorly this expansion compared to others. There are multiple threads that discussed that and were mocked relentlessly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dastan
There's only so much "oops it's savage lol" that I can tolerate before saying "screw this". And it's becoming clear to me that the pitiful allowance that the dev team gets mostly goes to harder battle content, if the Forked Tower debacle is anything to go by.
I want to do interesting content. I was excited for Forked. So far I'll admit the novelty of the new PotD is nice.
Heck most slower-paced content actively feel punishing. Achievements having a ludicrous completion requirement for some mounts (no wonder those get botted), currently there's the Accursed Hoard's 30k debacle, the Yan mount's stupid low odds within Maps (and Maps still have that 1-per-inventory limit).
Perhaps I'm just very jaded, but I wish Square actually put money and care into this game. -
10-13-2025, 04:17 AMSkizzleAbernath
@Dastan
I really wish it was as simple as people make it sound. It’s not. A lot of us genuinely got duped, and that’s why there’s so much frustration now.
What was the point of that survey I mentioned if they were never going to follow through with it anyway? That’s why I keep saying an entire playerbase was used at their expense just to reshape FFXIV into what I call (sarcastically) “Fashion Fantasy XIV: A WoW Clone Reborn.” People who decided to trust the director and get the short end of the stick so people who have no desire to do anything on ffxiv but go to venues playing dating simulator using mods and god knows what. People doing exactly everything but playing final fantasy pretty much. I kinda understand why they call our community a community filled with forced positive toxicity. I understand it more and more with the years.
Instead of trying to appeal to everyone and everything like you mentioned, why not create a game that shapes its players?
FFXI shaped us.
For many of us, FFXI was our first MMORPG it taught us lessons, patience, community, responsibility things FFXIV simply does not foster anymore. We had to be considerate of our party members because we all depended and needed each other.
And let’s be clear about something: people love to claim that FFXIV invented the culture of helping others for no reward giving gil, helping clear content, crafting gear just because. No. That mindset comes directly from FFXI. FFXI forced us to socialize, make friends, know our server, and be part of an actual community. That culture wasn’t optional it was essential.
Thankfully, that spirit still survives on many NA and JP servers (not so much EU), but make no mistake: it originated from the FFXI upbringing, no matter how much some want to deny it.
In FFXIV today, you can afford to be a jerk. Why? Because Duty Finder lets you float anonymously from group to group, never accountable to anyone, never tied to a community. You’ll probably never see those players again. There are no server reputations. No lasting relationships required. Just queue, clear, leave.
That’s the core of the problem FFXIV stopped trying to build a world, and instead focused on building a lobby. -
10-13-2025, 06:12 AMMAJRISIt is targeted for those that haven't bought the game yet. That's why we get cool looking promos for new expansion, interviews, videos, collabs and what not, and at the same time various game issues where you ask yourself "did anyone test it at all?" or "why this?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Myotis
For example: Viera hats part 1/X, a feature that CAME OUT UNFINISHED, is at least one year late to feel relevant, in some cases the helms are oversized up to the point you will not use helm at all because it looks like bucket, and to add insult to injury, in the pipeline is "done" and will most likely never be fixed neither addressed.
I don't understand who approved to spend so much resources into multiple releases of benchmark tool, and then multiple attempts to fix visual update that felt like ignored half of player feedback, instead of adding the equivalent of new faces e.g. face 5,6,7,8, and let players pick the new or old. it would create much less bad taste and perhaps would save developer time and energy wasted to redo their work.
I wish certain approach towards the player-submitted feedback would change. But I have to admit, things like that don't bring in new customers.
you don't have to like Steve but he's on spot with the product vs marketing leadership. food for thought:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4 -
10-13-2025, 06:29 AMAmiableApkalluThere is a difference between "listening to someone" and "doing as someone says."Quote:
Originally Posted by Valence
Like, I have a boss who credibly goes, "Yes, I understand what you're saying," and then in the very next remark goes, "Nevertheless, I disagree with you, {this} is what I want, and so {this} is my decision."
That's literally (part of) what it means to have a vision and to be willing to stick to it. -
10-13-2025, 09:40 AMMicahZerrshiaHonestly the big things I wish they would import from FFXI are stand alone expansions. Having hundreds of hours worth of forced msq is not good, esp when it got so bloated they had to cut out massive story arcs by scrapping 2-3 expansions and having writers that just default to the same boring anime tropes over and over and over because they are either just not really good writers or because the person guiding their pen is completely lacking in creativity and just too scared to do something some afk LL rando would find even slightly controversial. And every expansion in XI also brought its own unique endgame. Dynamis. Limbus, Assault. Sky. Campaign. All fantastic endgame, all unique.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkizzleAbernath
As it stands FFXI feels like a love letter from devs who enjoyed their world and wanted to create new and fantastic experiences for their players, where as FFXIV feels like a spread sheet check list given to the devs by someone who should not be anywhere near the actual game. I am kinda glad XI is off the radar for the most part since xiv launched so they can do their thing, cause it got dicey there for a moment during the abyssea era. -
10-13-2025, 11:11 AMFloortank
FFXI's world is better than FFXIV's will ever be. Its zones and PVE content actually matter. It is an actual RPG where stats and gear and Job selection matter. FFXIV will never be able to lick its boots, and the fact that FFXIV is more popular only says something about the players, not the game.
Also as a 1.0 player, I have always deeply regretted how ARR threw out the far more immersive FFXI style world and approach to Jobs for the claustrophobic nonsense of a 1/16th world we got in the trade. What that game really needed was UI and QOL support, not being remixed into a WOW clone. But then, they did what they had to grab all the customers. Whether it was a good game or not was way down the list of priorities. -
10-13-2025, 11:51 AMAbsurdityI can at least answer that for you, because the old faces are literally incompatible with the new additions they made with the graphics update.Quote:
Originally Posted by MAJRIS
The new faces have roughly 50% more polygons than the old ones but more importantly they have 50 new bones for facial animation, different mesh topology and different UV mapping (to make the texture layout uniform across all races and easier to work with I assume).
To make the old faces work they would have to increase the polygon count so they don't deform in weird ways when animated by the new bones, update all the old textures with their incredibly inefficient layout (because every race had a slightly different one), weight the old mesh to the new bones with completely different topology and hope it comes out perfectly because you bet someone is still going to complain if their Viera's corner of the mouth is 5° off on the smile expression or something.
Because that would be something only an insane person would do they instead opted to create entirely new head meshes that made the workflow easier and make those look as close as possible to the old faces, which obviously resulted in an approximation that is never going to be 100% the same.
In theory this should make it easier to add new faces later down the line, but who knows what other limitations they baked into the character customization menu when they made ARR. -
10-13-2025, 03:52 PMFudoMyoo
Opening a can of worms here. WoW clone lmao!
[quote]Yoshida san has openly stated that his team studied WoW's mechanics as the dominant MMORPG at the time, implementing what they learned to rebuild the game. However, he also emphasized adding unique elements and not simply copying it, as he wanted to create a unique and successful game in its own right[/unquote]
Frankly I don't like WoW, I did play for the free month and quit. Left FF11 and hideous 14 1.0 for Aion, back to ARR. Still loving this game. -
10-14-2025, 12:02 AMMicahZerrshiaTo be fair SE has openly admitted that FFXI was an EQ clone too. They just put a lot more care and thought into their decisions when they put it together than the FFXIV crew does. XI is not for everyone, it takes actual patience, skill and the ability to play well with others to do practically anything in XI, where as XIV is more like a loot conveyer for those who prefer small shots of dopamine over an actually rewarding system. So each game caters to different audiences.Quote:
Originally Posted by FudoMyoo
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10-14-2025, 01:12 PMFudoMyooFrankly I didn't play EQ at all but dwell in Asheron's Call for a few years. XI UI is clunky as ****, (& their hideous macro). Luckily their anime style gfx caught my attention for a few years. We lost almost everyone to WoW in 2004/2005.Quote:
Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia
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10-15-2025, 03:12 AMSkizzleAbernath
I mean that's been one of its biggest problems. Like Micha said FFXI borrowed inspiration from EQ but they actually put effort in. With FFXIV it just feels like their goal was to recoup the money loss nothing else mattered.
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10-15-2025, 10:58 AMFudoMyoo
ARR was a commitment to regain SE reputation in the FF series. 1.0 players were invited and many took part in the reforming of 2.0. (which are all used to WoW formula).
I disagree the goal was to recoup the money loss. I (we) had so much fun in 2.0 and 3.0 when they implement flying zones and 5.0 was epic closure to the Ascian story. (IMO, some may argue 6.0).