Your thoughts on the direction of this game?

[Jynx]

Personally the game has fallen into the most obvious trap with constant progression only being focused on endgame item progression with power creep allready becoming an issue.

They have caught themselves in a perpetual cycle.

-Release new content
-Invalidate content
-Release content that isn't even relevant to anyone
-Repeat.

They need to break out of the power cycle and focus on more of the games subsidary systems, they release some things but they always feel less than half baked with the brunt of focus going into the endgame raid that you can progress in once a week with only a select group of players.

They need to focus on community building IMHO.

[Volcano]

I agree a lot with you. However, dungeons in general are pointless at higher levels and all they really have is "glamour gear" whether its the hard modes or the one new dungeon they add. EX primals are a little rehashed i'll agree with you and again mainly pointless except for vanity. Crystal Tower in my eyes is not a raid but a chore. If they made Crystal tower on par difficulty wise with coil when they add pre made alliance then that'd be a step in the right direction.

This is not new to any MMO, once you reach endgame all of it is "pointless" and all you do is hunt for gear for looks or sidegrade uses.

No one really likes the lockouts but if you look at the other side of this, if coil/tower didn't have lockouts at all we would get the exact same complaints that we are getting now with hunts. people would cap out on everything within weeks to a month. and then what? level new characters? What would you do then? most people would just un-sub untill a new patch then repeat same process. You really have to look at this from a business point of view.

[Lionhand]

At the moment, the game is tiresome. You never feel you accomplished anything, not when every patch completely obliterates what you have done so far. The contents drive to force you to grind for gear, crafting, vanity even leveling up chocobos is getting to me. Too much grinding in the past fooled everyone to believe that there is no other route but to do them. Then SE pulls out Hunts where progression becomes a cinch if not easier just by mindlessly killing marks. It would have been acceptable but the rampant use of apps and teleportation hacks ruined it. Expecting fairness in the game is at the all time low for me.

[Appleh4x]

The basic problem I personally have is that I have ceased to care about some aspects of the game. The new DOL and DOH mainhands, simply don't care. Finishing my Novus, don't care. Increasing my Desynth skills, don't care. Maxing out my retainers, don't care. This is mostly due to the heavy RNG factor in almost everything, even vanity items for crying out loud.

I enjoyed furnishing my FC room, I enjoy the garden, I care about my gear because my static relies on me being able to pull my weight. I even enjoy leveling my chocobo. But, the vertical gear progression and the ungodly RNG is slowly sucking the life out of the game, at least for me.

Good post. This is actually the reason I like hunts. No lockouts, no RNG (outside of free logs,) and whether you do it for glamour or oils/sands you have progression that is clearly defined towards that goal.

[Tupsi]

That's the unfortunate part about this content design compared to say XI. Remove lockouts, you'll exhaust the content instantly and nothing to do for the next 2-3 months. Another issue with XIV's content design is that a lot of the throwaway content can't even truly be utilized because people want them to focus on vanity. Lost City of Amdapor...a Lost city with only 1 route and boss...? That is a huge wasted potential for something amazing, if it was XI it would have pretty much been akin to Ru'Aun Gardens - Housing multiple content and progression, you'd have the main route that lead to Diabolos, then you could have side routes that led to different boss or even different story elements altogether.

It's little things like that which could extend the life of content without needing to artificially lockout..heck even in 1.0 some dungeons had multiple objectives in it..or even bosses like the multiple Diremite bosses.

[Barimu]

That's the unfortunate part about this content design compared to say XI. Remove lockouts, you'll exhaust the content instantly and nothing to do for the next 2-3 months. Another issue with XIV's content design is that a lot of the throwaway content can't even truly be utilized because people want them to focus on vanity. Lost City of Amdapor...a Lost city with only 1 route and boss...? That is a huge wasted potential for something amazing, if it was XI it would have pretty much been akin to Ru'Aun Gardens - Housing multiple content and progression, you'd have the main route that lead to Diabolos, then you could have side routes that led to different boss or even different story elements altogether.

It's little things like that which could extend the life of content without needing to artificially lockout..heck even in 1.0 some dungeons had multiple objectives in it..or even bosses like the multiple Diremite bosses.

Also 11 did have lockouts, JP midnight, 3 day lockout etc however there were more things to do! Especially end game wise to get gear. This game feels more like a single player rpg with dlc released every 3 months not an mmo with huge content

This is not new to any MMO, once you reach endgame all of it is "pointless" and all you do is hunt for gear for looks or sidegrade uses.

There is no sidegrade uses in this game. In WoW(since yoshi praises this like its the greatest thing in the world) in order to do endgame you had to grind gear from heroic dungeons, there was more than 4 bosses in a raid, this game there isnt any of that because SE would rather people who aren't playing the game get everything than make people work for it that are playing.

[Dyvid]

Also 11 did have lockouts, JP midnight, 3 day lockout etc however there were more things to do! Especially end game wise to get gear. This game feels more like a single player rpg with dlc released every 3 months not an mmo with huge content

Well it's unfair to compare like that since FFXI had a year under it's belt and an expansion before international release. Heck add an extra year when the general populous fiinally hit end game. ToAU was really when FFXI's end game really took off and that was four or five years after the fact.

But again the issue is ilvl gear grinding and the dead end it creates. WoW is a perfect example because you could have the top gear in the game then when an xpac dropped, you where getting better loot from random green drops. That is what FFXIV needs to move away from. Personally I like Atma/Animus/Novus because even though it is grinding, it gives me a goal to work toward and something to do. To me it's similar to FFXI merit system, which breathed new life into the game.

[Magis]

If you're going to preach about how the game is ridiculously easy then he should be able to back up his claims. Technically, with his statement, he should be face rolling Savage Turn 9... yet he hasn't even cleared normal. I'm sure you're intelligent enough to spot the irony in this claim.

One piece of content doesn't make "the game". Other than one raid (and really it is 1 raid, just been split into 4 instances), the game offers no difficulty, open world or in it's dungeons/previous raids. A lot of people can see the rest the game as easy, while at the same time cannot get a group together to player enough to down the latest coil. I myself am lucky I'm in a static slowly knocking down the turns. At the same time, those who HAVE cleared it now have nothing to do for a week cause guess what? SE has decided 1 piece of hard content is enough.

[Tupsi]

Also 11 did have lockouts, JP midnight, 3 day lockout etc however there were more things to do! Especially end game wise to get gear. This game feels more like a single player rpg with dlc released every 3 months not an mmo with huge content.

The other thing is a lot of content played together in XI, for example crafting played into uncursing certain gear which you need an item that dropped from end-game content (abjuration scrolls) or you needed to do Tiers of a place to reach the ACTUAL boss, e.g to Fight Odin you needed to gain 9 Feathers to access his chamber in Einherjar, each dropping materials or gear along with currency to buy more gear in time.

Basically tiering content is another way that XI extended life on content without resorting to 1 week lockout in general.

Well it's unfair to compare like that since FFXI had a year under it's belt and an expansion before international release.

XIV is as old as XI was when it got its first expansion..and XIV isn't expanding...at all in that time frame, so that's one good point in that both games were at basically an 'expansion' point after a year.

ToAU was really when FFXI's end game really took off and that was four or five years after the fact.

CoP, actually - Zilart gave Sky, CoP gave Sea, the two main end-game areas which housed various content in itself, e.g Ark Angels/Divine Might, Gods, Limbus, Sea Jailors and he who will not be named.

ToAU end-game was simply more accessible to people as it only required minimal mission progress.

[Appleh4x]

There is no sidegrade uses in this game. In WoW(since yoshi praises this like its the greatest thing in the world) in order to do endgame you had to grind gear from heroic dungeons, there was more than 4 bosses in a raid, this game there isnt any of that because SE would rather people who aren't playing the game get everything than make people work for it that are playing.

That is true for the most part, but not entirely so. As a tank I just made/pentamelded a full set of I90 accessories to get str/vit/parry/accuracy/whatever extra secondary instead of just going full i110 vit. Granted only tanks have the option of sidegrades, they are super limited, and super expensive... but they do exist. I wish we had a lot more options like this that benefit every job though, and on all gear instead of just accessories.