Expansion is only temporarily enjoyable. Fails to fix all main flaws.

[Ferocious]

Who is us? I didn't know you spoke for others. From what I've read most people think your full of it.Wildstar was a dumpster fire. Rift was a great game imo, but it went F2P, which is telling me they weren't making money. And Guild Wars was a niche game with a small player base.

Small player base? LOL! Just goes to show you don't know what you're talking about. GW1 sold over 7 million copies. That's twice of FFXIV. It's still somewhat active today after 10 years. It had the power to damage WoW's numbers, but lucky for Blizzard, the game was B2P.

Rift was the second most popular P2P MMO when it came out. It sold a million around its launch like FFXIV did. Its downfall was after expansion. It didn't sell too good even though critics awarded it the best expansion. I believe that may have to do with Star Wars going F2P the same week, which was insanely popular for F2P. Now speaking of expansion, Rift's expansion is still the best of this gen. It brought way more to the table than Heavensward. So much that people didn't complain for lack of content for six months. Here, we have people complaining already.

Wildstar is the only one you can say that didn't sell well. It did good at launch and had a lot of hype, but like I mentioned in other post, it wasn't the concept that failed. It was the execution that failed. It wasn't a polished game at all which pissed people off. Otherwise, it had all the right ideas.

[Asierid]

Stuff

Rift went F2P before the beta released and was planning to before preorders were even available. So clearly it wasn't a "good game" of it couldn't keep subs for their first year.

No. I do.

What year did you play Rift?

2011. We're talking beta into release and quite a few patches after. So yes, you do remember incorrectly.

[Colt47]

While I don't agree with the OPs listing of flaws that are not fixed, I do agree they have issues that still need to get fixed, such as the broken housing system that is lumping player housing together with FC housing, resulting with major population centers like Balmung having such heavily inflated prices that the majority of players are never going to have a chance at buying a home or any permanent space to decorate. You can buy an FC room, but if you leave the game and the FC has a policy of cleaning old characters out (quite a few do) you come back and have lost that investment with all your stuff stuck on an NPC until you join another fc, spend more gil, and rebuild your room.

Also, player population needs to be better spread out among servers. There are too many people on legacy servers and too few on others and it shows in the availability of FC and personal housing plots. I'm not even sure how they intend to handle this issue, since there are so many people who have investments in the server based housing market that forced population distribution will definitely burn quite a few dedicated players.

Finally, they still have to address inventory. However, Yoshida has at least stated they are actively trying to solve this issue, so it's probably a bit lower on the list than the first two.

Edit: They also introduced another problem with how they are making people quest to get flight unlocked. It would have been better if they made flight unlock based on the main quest progress rather than on quest completion in general, as some people level differently and may choose to ignore mindless fetch quests and other tasks in favor of just running things with their friends in party finder. I know I personally got to level 59 by running DF and PF and have so many quest markers left in the previous zones I don't even know where to start. All I did was run roulettes and farm for dungeon sets when I saw one I liked...

[Brian_]

Again, people who are talking about skill trees are missing the point.

Is the current model sustainable? No. We don't need to wait until we have 8 hotbars covering half our screen and a 51 unique input opener to realize this.

I think they did a good job with HW's new skills for the most part. They filled gaps in some classes and added skill to playing some other classes. But, I can't see this system lasting another 10 levels and 5 skills.

I don't like skill trees either and only think they're viable when you have actual choices - a caster class choosing between a DPS or healer spec, a melee class choosing between a tank or DPS spec. It's for this reason that effective skill trees won't work in FFXIV -- we have jobs with defined roles. But, there has to be some type of solution to the skill problem eventually. Like I said earlier, SE just punted the problem down the road with HW rather than address it.

[Sparktacus]

My biggest gripe would be the lack of any new systems. I was really looking forward to new things to go out and do, but there is nothing, literally nothing new that they brought to the table. I think that is a bit shocking considering the caliber and history of SE and their other mmo 11.

[3Jane]

OP, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Just because the game doesn't cater to what you want, it addresses things that people have been looking for. The world does not revolve around you and this game was not designed just for you. It was designed for everyone. So please show some respect to the developmental team for releasing a great expansion pack, even though it did not satisfied your needs, it as satisfied us other players. The developmental team broke their backs rebuilding ARR and making this expansion, so show some respect for them. They are working hard at addressing things and they will listen to us. That is what the forum is for, it's for discussion and for also providing feedback to the game.

or of the one.

[Eul]

For the re-skinning, yes I agree. It's a disappointing things for two things, Male Au Ra and equipment. Au Ra's body just like Elezen and his run same with Male Miqo'te running. Also no muscle slider for all race is the things I don't like.

Second, the equipment. You know those Kirimu's Coat that has unique sense for BRD, now MNK and NIN (iirc) can wear this stuff and you can easily obtain it from crafting that the recipe item is really common compared with Kirimu's Coat (Yet mages still can't wear this ).

[ckc22]

character builds in any game are an illusion, you can pretend all you want you can be different but you can't if you don't go the good build you are nothing but dead weight to your team.

Exactly.

I'd rather see new jobs than maybe a maximum of 2 viable "builds" from all the energy a customization system would take to be input.

[Aminore]

Its not as bad as it seems but i do have issues with the expansion. i feel like the flying was kinda pointless after you got further in the storyline. they should of at least had some easter egg areas but all we got was floating rocks. i think this a short lived expansion due to having the story unless they make something up. they should of went the FFXI route with the story missions. i was kinda upset when i saw the credits roll up and it was still week 1 of launch. I Know there's more than Alex runs in the upcoming months but the new dungeons wasn't all that. i hope the hard modes brings the excitement back cause im feeling some buyers remorse already

[Colt47]

Well, Final Fantasy XIV ARR is a 6 or 7 out of 10 game, anyway. It doesn't compare to titles like the Witcher 3 or Bloodborne for engagement and depends a lot on the community driving itself to keep people invested. That's still an amazing score for an MMORPG, mind you. The majority are so copy pasta there's basically nothing BUT a self driven community and a cash shop.

Here's the thing, the game is at it's best when people are together running content and earning rewards they can show off to each other. The running around the overworld doing mindless fetch and kill quests for npcs is annoying filler, which has been made partially necessary now thanks to it being required to enable flying. The development team did show they want to add things that players can use as personal milestones, such as owning a house, but their own population distribution strategy backfired and now they have people stuck on servers that are overpopulated or underpopulated, which is killing the ability to even utilize these systems.

That being said, one can still enjoy a game that is flawed. There are tons of people who still enjoy Sonic the Hedgehog, Dynasty Warriors, and other titles that get panned by the majority, and Final Fantasy XIV is one such game.

Edit: Also, I think MMORPGs post World of Warcraft have had a hard time identifying what they are supposed to be. The game type, despite the name, really wasn't meant to be something thronging masses of people would get into playing like Call of Duty, just as pen and paper RPGs were and still are. They are for a specific grouping of people that want to get into playing together and immersing themselves. That's why so many people have fond memories of FFXI or Star Wars Galaxies: They weren't about end game, they were about the journey. The developers would throw in their own scenarios much like WoTC would campaign modules.