What went wrong? Is it the game or the grenre?

[Zanfire]

Patch 2.2 by the look of it is even worse it brings nothing new excepet more quests, i have enough of more armors and more dns, we got for now planty of them.

i made a joke about this in "that thread that got deleted". Basically i said im a future seer and we will have a dungeon layout that will go: trash mobs > boss1 > trash mobs >boss2 >trash mobs > boss3 = end (dropping gear weaker then we have already). Then i mentioned levi will be in a small circle arena with a "nails" mechanic, plenty of dodging and will drop weapons weaker than we already have...we will later have an XTREME! mode with accessorys. Likely a few quests we will blow right through in a weekend afternoon (only the hildabrand will be worth the story) and more of the same being added on to what we already have....thats about the most of it.

If you expect more than that your expectations are too damn high for a mediocre MMO. And if what im saying is pretty much right on...my money every month will go back in my pocket along with a few RL friends.

[Goodberry]

Mankind has gone wrong. Mankind. :P

[Mook_Mook]

I never liked crafting in 1.0 but I was glad it.rewarded.people for hard work. now I'm almost all 50s and it feels unsatisfying and I think that sums it up. it just doesn't feel satisifying. minus having a flawless titan ex run

[Arrakis]

I'd hazard to guess it's a mixture of both. While I do enjoy FFXIV I pretty much log in and finish everything I need to do by the end of Tuesday night (Coils 1-5, CT, Extremes). Once everything is done there is nothing to keep me interested in the game. Certainly dailies don't interest me enough to force me to log in for a few hours every day to do them. Most of the game is repetitive and while I enjoy coils after four month's even it's becoming stale. CT is painful most of the time I do it so I just take the first piece that might be useful to one of my jobs and call it day. Once my weekly goals are done I just feel like I'm wasting time when logged in. 10 years ago when I was in HS I could probably play 12 hours straight (like I did in XI) without feeling guilty but I guess now that I'm older I'd rather do things around the house, walk the dogs, or go out to dinner with friends over running around the game all day doing the same things again and again and again.

[Quesse]

I will keep paying for the game and I will keep logging in because I have a duty to my LS and FC members to do so. My wife is still loving the game and I'm sure once she's back from her overseas work trip, she'll be jumping back in and encouraging me to get back into it, and to be honest I probably will.

However, these are the reasons (and I can only speak for myself) that I have lost a lot of the interest I once held in the game.

1. I have other games I want to play. I got six for Christmas, and I just completed the fourth of them. Once I'm done with the sixth, I'll probably get back into XIV:ARR - however, I have to keep in mind that there are even more games I'd love to get back into including Football Manager and anyone who knows this game knows that such things can't be done at the same time as an MMO, they're both "full time games". Likewise Dwarf Fortress, which I do miss. I'll also likely get Lightning Returns and perhaps Thief soon.

2. I have other hobbies I want to keep up with. I recently bought the FF fansite in my sig after working for it for over a decade, and a lot of my time has been taken up with it. Managing an FC on top of it... I'm struggling, let's put it that way. Both have their stresses and it's nice to be able to get away from the two different but very linked social environments so I can have some "me time".

3. Housing release in patch 2.1 broke me. I spent all of Patch 2.0 looking forward to housing and saving up for it and then the pricing was released and, while the FC and I managed to focus on saving for quite some time and did fairly well considering we weren't massive (still decently sized with 75 members dotted around the world, of which 12-16 are usually on throughout each weeknight in the UK), but after spending that long looking forward to something in particular, it really did take it's toll on me and our savings have dropped notably as the price of the large housing continues to be months away from being achievable by our group. We could settle for less, but it seems like a waste of money if we spend all that hard-earned gil just to have to save up all over again. Making gil in this game is a bitch enough as it is with the crafting system / economy ignored in the way it is because of SE's perspective of RMT and how to deal with it.

4. The Social Slip. There's a lack of easy pop in, pop out party work where I can make friends with people on my server, for a start - I suppose treasure maps would be good for this but they aren't required for progress so it's not common to find treasure map parties, and of course there is the loot to consider and people can get crabby about that. The Duty Finder is used for almost everything that is required, and I miss having people shout for an L50 WHM quest to get their body piece or whatever (talking 1.x here). These simple missions took five minutes, were only tricky the first couple of times or so and after that were just a great way to meet friends. Likewise level-grind groups. The more we could sit in the same spot, the less we had to use our keyboards for moving around, the more we could chat with one another. Everything in this game seems to be a rush, and it's a darn shame. This is the reason I spend more time helping people with story DF's than I do with endgame DF's. People are so quick to speed run that they forget that this is a social game designed for you to do things with other people. PEOPLE. This game spends a lot of time forgetting that. Luckily my LS is pretty great for being very social, so I can jump on the game at any time and generally have at least one or two people up for just chatting about whatever while we craft, gather, do treasure maps or some other random job that can be done completely in the open world.

5. No more reward for exploration. I've seen everything now. I saw everything a long, long time ago. There is little I need to traverse the world for nowadays and I'm not very interested in doing a DF run of the new dungeons anymore because it's just a rush job.

6. Life! Work is busy. I want to come home and relax. Because of point #4, I don't feel very relaxed when I play the game. I spend about as much time running around as I do fighting, and I spend far more time fighting than I do getting to know people. If I wanted to relax my way into a non-social game, I have much more interesting/enjoyable solo games I can play! I want more multiplayer, but I want to have multiplayer that I can enjoy instead of feeling pushed around by.

This combination of things worked towards me spending far less time in the game.

EDIT: Perhaps the biggest irony in all of this is that if there were a little more focus on allowing players to relax in "casual" leveling, they might be more excited by the more "hardcore" instances. I know that if I could relax in this game and spend time getting to know people then I would be far more interested in doing the harder challenges. Instead, I feel that there is nothing to hold me in the game long enough to make me want to do the harder challenges. In 1.x, I could grind away on Natalan parties, craft gear to SB/sell, craft endgame gear for myself via an endless destruction of items (that unforgiving materia melding!)... which would relax me and also help me get to know people. Then, when I got to know people, and was relaxed enough, I could say "Alright, guys, let's take on Van Darnus!" and we would crack on until we beat him.

Wow. I can't believe how exactly this represents how I feel about the game. I was already on the border due to items 1 and 2 but 3 put me over the edge. When housing came out, I lost all interest in the game since it was apparent that SE didn't care one tiny bit to follow through with their original promises. I was so upset.

As for 4-6, they were hard for me to put my finger on but they definitely accurately reflect my attitude. I often ask myself why leveling 1-50 can't be as fun as endgame content? Why can't it? Someone please. Tell me why? Why can't exploring be something crazy fun? Why can't MMO's have a solid sense of adventure? Why can't crafting be integral to the game? I can't wait until some company figures this out. I initially thought, with 1.0, that it would be SE. But 2.0 took any progress made during 1.0 and for some unknown reason, threw it away.

I still have hope that things will turn around, mistakes will be rectified. I can't see how but at this point I would settle for being able to buy a house :3

[ZephyrAM]

Leveling can be as fun as end-game, but it's not the game that makes it so, it's the player.

Are you just pushing through the levels to hit end game quickly so you can raid? You're ruining your own 'journey' by looking down on anything in the game that isn't a raid. Why do you enjoy lower level dungeons less? Why is questing less fun then gear grinding? What makes end game content more interesting then low or mid game?

The game is filled with content. Stop ignoring it, stop worrying about getting the best gear, and play because you 'want' to play. Yes, the game design is focused on letting players hit max level easily so they can join the end game content, but that doesn't make the leveling process less enjoyable, just shorter. But then, you can go back and do it on seven other combat classes, eight crafting classes, and three gathering classes. If you believe leveling isn't fun, then it won't be.

The MMO genre is very different then it used to be. There's more to do, but you do it all much, much faster, whereas before, there were a few specific goals, but they took 'ages' to accomplish, and many players never did. Now they do; I wonder what percentage of players enjoy their playtime now as opposed to before?

[TrystWildkey]

Leveling can be as fun as end-game, but it's not the game that makes it so, it's the player.

Are you just pushing through the levels to hit end game quickly so you can raid? You're ruining your own 'journey' by looking down on anything in the game that isn't a raid. Why do you enjoy lower level dungeons less? Why is questing less fun then gear grinding? What makes end game content more interesting then low or mid game?

The game is filled with content. Stop ignoring it, stop worrying about getting the best gear, and play because you 'want' to play. Yes, the game design is focused on letting players hit max level easily so they can join the end game content, but that doesn't make the leveling process less enjoyable, just shorter. But then, you can go back and do it on seven other combat classes, eight crafting classes, and three gathering classes. If you believe leveling isn't fun, then it won't be.

The MMO genre is very different then it used to be. There's more to do, but you do it all much, much faster, whereas before, there were a few specific goals, but they took 'ages' to accomplish, and many players never did. Now they do; I wonder what percentage of players enjoy their playtime now as opposed to before?

I partially agree with you, because that is how I am playing. I've taken my time to get my first and now second level 50 job. (Monk doesn't count, it was from 1.0 and I haven't played the job in 2.0 because of the massive changes to it.) I take my time and go through quests, the occasional fate when I'm out in the field doing quests or hunting log. I do the dailies, the treasure maps, I took almost all my crafts to 50, I've crafted 2 star recipes, I've done a lot of different content. I don't even have my first relic yet ^^

But, I still feel that the game is missing something important. A lot of people have mentioned a number of different things that just aren't right. Crafting is useless if you do dungeon runs to get darklight and myth gear. Gil is useless since dungeons drop so much gear. The world feels sooooo much smaller and claustrophobic. The storyline lacked depth, I just didn't care much about anything, unlike how much I cared with the 1.23 story, and even the earlier 1.0 storyline with your path companion and the echo. The world has no teeth, nowhere is dangerous, mysterious or worthy of being explored. Combat lacks strategy and flexibility. There's one rotation for each job, one stat that affects your job and one BiS set of gear. It's so fast paced and mindless to me, it's more about fast reaction times than thinking through an actual strategy.

To be honest, I've been feeling let-down by 2.0. I thought 1.23 had them headed in the right direction to make a fantastic game. When housing prices were released I just got really, really discouraged. And before anyone tells me that it'll just take work to get the gil, please look at what server I'm on. I'm on the most expensive server group, so if you're on one of the non-legacy worlds, I just don't want to hear you say anything about housing at all.

The only reason I'm still here is because my husband still likes the game. So, we log in together and do things, and that makes it kinda fun. If he's not logged in with me, I find myself not really caring about anything I could possibly do.

Anyway, there are a lot of things that 2.0 gave us, but they seem to lack depth. Because my husband and some friends of mine are still playing, I'm still here. And because I'm apparently an incurable optimist and remember that the team we have now is the same team that brought us 1.23, so there may still be hope that things will get better.

[Akiza]

Most people who play an MMO tend to play through the main story then they leave, but Square retention rate is 60% which is good since most MMO's retain only 30% of new players. Also more adults play MMO's now they have 8hr jobs and real life so they just want to log in get as much progress they can get in as little time then log off. That is why modern day MMO's are theme park as opposed to sandbox because the target audience is people with 2-3hrs a day to play. Hardcore players that play 8hrs a day and get to lvl 50 in 3 days and after several weeks finish all the content are not the target audience. Eve Online and other Sandbox MMO's usually stabalize at a population of 250k and themepark MMO's generally a population of 500k

[Battlewrench]

Hi Red, probably noticed but I've basically quit, can tell the company to kick me from the roster if they haven't already. Sub runs out in like 70 days though so....probably wont be back on though.

Edit : I'd honestly say it's the game AND the genre though. With so many MMOs currently out there giving the same if not a similar experience there isn't a huge reason to play another. Hardly anyone justifies spending time or money subbing for two different games at once so people usually stick to the one. The people who played this game for the short time usually end up going back to whatever MMO they came from. They probably wanted something fresh and new but with all of the friends they met on the old game, probably still playing, why sub for another game so similar without your friends and as much content? Some people hop from game to game constantly looking for the perfect game they'll never find.

The genre in a whole is hard to break away from because so many are used to playing the game they've played so long that when they join something new they want all those features and conveniences that the game had. All these new games are almost expected to be similar if they want to survive and no company is willing to take such a risk in the AAA MMO market that they'll deviate from the blueprints of the theme park genre. I'm being pretty vague but I think I made the point I was going for.

Edit #2 : As for the game itself I think you have three subcultures who've joined. The game is pretty solid but it does have its many problems putting it, in my eyes, below the other MMOs out today.

Subculture one is the people who've come from FFXI or 1.xx and want something similar or at least up to par. I think I honestly fall into this category of players. I played FFXI for years and enjoyed the experience. It felt like I was a part of the world and an actual person in this world instead of "Neo the chosen one". You were a member of the party, instead of playing the entire party in a Final Fantasy game every member of the party was an actual person. I loved it, and think that we can have a more modern MMO that has that feeling again.

The second subculture is those who have come from other MMOs. Honestly I think I've said enough about it so see above.

The third subculture is the newcomers to the genre. I feel like most of these people are the ones who might enjoy this game the most. The game is pretty standard in MMO terms and fairly easy to learn making for a good experience for new people to the MMO market. They might not stick around either though, once they have gotten used to what an MMO is I think they'll either quit altogether or join a one of the other subcultures.

[chococo]

Also, the speed at which people can level decides the speed at which people expect to attain their goals, I think. If it took a good 3 months just to get to level cap, one can be sure people won't be expecting to get their relic in one night. They'd expect the relic quest to be so epic it takes weeks to finish.

I think this is so true. The leveling pace does set the pace for acquiring/achieving other goals in the game.

I think one of the reasons they wanted to speed up the leveling process is so as to encourage leveling multiple classes. But as it stands, many are not interested in doing so, cos it's just the same end-game chores even if you bring up other jobs to level cap. Ironically, FFXI takes ages to level, yet people do look forward to leveling other classes. Maybe because you get out much more from the journey.