I guess it's time

[NaesakiAshwell]

The story is arguably the best part of XIV! It's so deep and there are a lot of people who really care about it and come up with theories to discuss based on the clues the main story feeds us. I'm going to be one of those people who remembers the XIV story forever.

I'm honestly really enjoying the story in XIV, and I really can't wait for more.

I loved FF XI as well back in the day and the storyline really did pull me in tight and the same is happening with XIV, the one's who burst out saying XIV isn't up to par are either just generally jaded towards SE and the FF series as a whole and nothing will ever live up to their "glory" days and also a combination of heavily rose-tinted nostalgia goggles.

[Seraphyna]

The story is arguably the best part of XIV! It's so deep and there are a lot of people who really care about it and come up with theories to discuss based on the clues the main story feeds us. I'm going to be one of those people who remembers the XIV story forever.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I really am.

I grew up playing these games. From the very first one to now. There's a certain expectation there that comes from the Final Fantasy name (and it's a high mark). And they just have not hit that mark for me.

I'm honestly really enjoying the story in XIV, and I really can't wait for more.

I loved FF XI as well back in the day and the storyline really did pull me in tight and the same is happening with XIV, the one's who burst out saying XIV isn't up to par are either just generally jaded towards SE and the FF series as a whole and nothing will ever live up to their "glory" days and also a combination of heavily rose-tinted nostalgia goggles.

It has nothing to do with "heavily rose-tinted nostalgia goggles", their "glory days", or "jadedness".

I happen to love to XIII franchise, which seems to be hated everywhere except Japan. It has an excellent story if you play through all 3 games, which most people didn't bother with. And yes, I do have XV pre-ordered even though it's not getting very good reviews.

Their storytelling is lacking, for me, as someone who grew up on their games.

[Iromi]

I don't really like how "take a break" is the usual response or some acceptable answer. That is the worst thing someone can suggest to someone in regards to this situation. People from 1.x and beyond I've known who have "taken a break" and never came back. There is so many people in my FC who used to play regularly, got bored "took a break" and never came back..lol.

With FFXI I have never once had this problem or boredom, redundancy or felt the need to "take a break" -_- There was always, ALWAYS something to do and when a patch came out, most of the time my friends and I didn't even realize it..we were still doing so many things. I'd go back and play XI but for some reason they are not merging dead servers and I am not flocking to asura, also they've changed it so much it doesn't even feel like the game I used to play. You could also stop playing FFXI if need be (like if you have RL things to do) and come back and not be far behind. With this game? You have to do stuff with these weekly and daily lock outs or you fall behind. It feels worse...

But anyway..the point I am trying to make is, my BF and I have done EVERYTHING in this game, yes everything (he has on TWO characters!), and nothing feels rewarding or fun anymore and it has not for a while. We we're sticking around hoping they would finally keep their word with the one final thing (The interesting stats) but now they back peddled again and I feel this truly is the final straw. We have 0 desire to log in now, like Serapnya said, " Weekly - WC, VA, Craft + Gather red scrips. Daily: Trial + Expert roulette" that is extremely boring and I am tired of doing it for 3 years now, going on 4.

I do not like also how they tied to relic weapon, a very special and unique weapon in the Final Fantasy series to helping noobs/newbs. I don't want to be carrying people through trials and the like to get my relic (Which is why I do hunts, but even those have finally gotten boring after a year or so of doing the SAME THING!) I do not mind helping others, but don't tie this weapon to it. They already back peddled on that also saying that instead of making boss fights and fun dungeons or some challenging encounter, this is meant to be done as some long boring grind. I am all about the grind, np, I played Lineage II and FFXI lol..but what I am against is using the weapon in hopes that people will carry others through stuff. If people want help fine..ask. I will help you..do not try to make a quest to force it...and then not add interesting bosses and make up some excuse. We KNOW it is to carry people.

Let me tell you..back in teh 1.x days, the dev posts would be about major game adjustments, adding in stuff people asked for and seemed very sincere. Now it is only glamour, contests and fluff responses, nothing to battle or changes like forced pop tier NM's that I have seen people asking (and JP also) for years. Forget it. It is a lost cause Even the Live Letters are getting extremely boring and feel so forced. This years E3 Live Letter they just talked about glamour stuff people on Balmung wanted...in the past one they showed a new job. :/

shoot, even with Lineage II I never felt the need to "take a break" due to being so bored. The only times I took breaks from XI or L2 were when I had to..or, I actually could step away from the game for a few weeks if need be and come back as if I never left, or when I was working on my other hobbies and such. Not so with this game.

Oh and before the whole.."no life" thing comes into play..no, not even once. He is a full time student at nyu tandon and as I've said before, I am an actress here in nyc. So yes , we very much have a life and still have easily completed everything this game has to offer. It's just in the end the game feels like a very, very big puddle. It seems big but once you step in it it is very shallow. Sad that it had to go this direction but all the hope we had seems diminished.

If others are having fun, that is great..I am glad I hope it lasts longer for you then it did me, although...6 years is a long time I suppose

[CodingSquirrel]

I'm a relatively new player, so I'm first going to acknowledge it's going to look like there's a lot more content to me than it would for someone who's been playing a lot longer. However, ignoring the existing content, it seems to me like they're still updating things at a pretty decent pace. New raids are coming soon as well as the deep dungeon system. They just released some more of the story, which while short was pretty compelling for being outside of an expansion. Along with that we also got a new trial (with ex as well), a 24-man raid, and a hard mode dungeon. Maybe it's because I'm coming from SWTOR; now that's a game that is truly dying from lack of content and a woefully understaffed development team. Coming here was a huge breath of fresh air, where the devs seem to care and the game gets substantial updates in a regular period of time.

I'm not trying to say that your concerns can't be valid, but perhaps your expectations are a bit too high, if not potentially impossible. No game can produce content such that it will satiate people who spend all their time in the game. It's unsustainable. Unless of course we want the game to move into a much bigger grind, which would I'm sure scare away all but the most hardcore.

I think in cases of burnout like this it's important to move onto something else for a while or try to mix in other games. For me, if I have some down time in a game, if there's not a lot to do I'll start playing something else as well. I like a lot of different games so I have a whole big back log of games that I want to get to eventually. In fact, from a certain point of view sometimes it seems like MMOs have too much content because it keeps me from having time to go through all the other games I want to play. And that's a good problem to have I think.

[NaesakiAshwell]

I'm glad you're enjoying it. I really am.

I grew up playing these games. From the very first one to now. There's a certain expectation there that comes from the Final Fantasy name (and it's a high mark). And they just have not hit that mark for me.

Therein lies the problem with the franchise as a whole. Honestly I've played all the FF's released up to this point and I've enjoyed them all for their own merits and accept the flaws that all of them have.

Like the hate for FF 12 is pretty insane at times and the same goes for the hatred the 13 trilogy gets as well, even 10 gets is fair share of hate, people's standards are only going higher and higher while SE themselves have been kind of sailing along the same line for years now.

[RobbieH]

SE cant create content for only one group either :P

Casuals have too much to do, raiders don't.

[Kallera]

I've seen this discussion come up time an again throughout HW. a lot of people were expecting something to shake things up, but the formula remained the same, if not gotten more time gates and token trade ins. We'll see the same defenses when 4.0 doesn't deliver on this shake up, but I think using the specter of 1.0 to squelch innovation has gone on long enough. It is no excuse for stagnation.

I feel like I want to sit a new player down, show them the requirements of Coming into their own(the 210 anima quest) and saying to them "Ya see this? You wanna do this till the end? cause this is your future. maybe not for this weapon or this ilvl, but this is your future with this game. "

[RiceisNice]

I'm a relatively new player, so I'm first going to acknowledge it's going to look like there's a lot more content to me than it would for someone who's been playing a lot longer. However, ignoring the existing content, it seems to me like they're still updating things at a pretty decent pace. New raids are coming soon as well as the deep dungeon system.

At first glance, it really does seem that they update very frequently compared to other games. However, the quality of the content hasn't exactly been the best as of lately, as well as the lifespan of it in general. You'd see WoW updates take maybe 6 months inbetween the fastest, but they add so much each that I have maybe 2 months of content to do that isn't raids. FFXIV, I can exhaust the novelty of non-beast tribe quests in a matter of a few days, if only because they always run in the same format when it comes to the actual gameplay (Aquapolis, beyond the rewards and the RNG doors, is having you fight mobs that have very little mechanics attached to them, and Diadem in general) as they have been since I started in 2.x.

They've openly said in an article that they didn't want palace to have overly intuitive mechanics (or as they say, "Not worry about gimmicks or mechanics of a typical battle"). They're incredibly ambitious with saying that floor 100+ will be for hardcores, but that's not coming out soon, nor have we gotten good results of them being this ambitious because it tends to be short sighted (Gordias and Feast rankings for example)

I've seen this discussion come up time an again throughout HW. a lot of people were expecting something to shake things up, but the formula remained the same, if not gotten more time gates and token trade ins.

I've mentioned it a while, and I feel that this is definitely the case. When you're going into an expansion, you can't afford to cut corners on intuitive content and design. Instead of what we were previously previewed on MCH, we have what it is now (one attachment and ammo not being entirely integral to their rotation, and at the same time they manage to take away the novelty of said attachment since BRD has it too), FC crafting is anything but, gathering/crafting was an entire mess from up until 3.2 (and it still is, kind of). It sets very little foundation or a base to build upon, and instead it's repainting what we already have, and try to introduce new things in the patch cycle (which haven't turned out very well for whatever reason, such as diadem and Lov)

If we're looking at 4.0, there should be some adjustments to the currently jobs (especially in regards to button bloat) and adding layers of complexity/skill floor to the existing jobs, not taking away from it or keeping it the same. Same with the overall gameplay (espesically with non-raid bosses)

[Claymore65]

Casuals have too much to do, raiders don't.

That comes down to player demand. Let's say, for example, 10% of players raid Alexander Savage. The other 90% of the playerbase spend their time doing...casual things. Should the majority of Dev time and effort go to something that pleases 10% of players, or content that 90% of players enjoy?

To be fair, the issue isn't anywhere near that cut and dry, but that is part of the issue. There is no content that everyone will enjoy, since everyone likes different things. There is also a hard limit on the content they can produce in a reasonable amount of time. And to be fair, the FFXIV Devs make very large content updates if you compare them to pretty much any other MMO team on the market. Even WoW, despite (I assume) having a significantly larger team, barely produces this much content, especially on a 3 month basis.

That said, I can totally understand burnout. It's a very challenging issue for anyone to solve. There are certainly improvements to be made. Things like Deep Dungeon show they are moving in the right direction, while still trying to maintain the things people expect (new dungeons, raids, and story). And soon, we have an avenue to explore that (a new expansion). One other factor to consider is that the game isn't that old yet. WoW and FFXI have been out for significantly longer periods of time, and thus have much more content.

[RiceisNice]

That comes down to player demand. Let's say, for example, 10% of players raid Alexander Savage. The other 90% of the playerbase spend their time doing...casual things. Should the majority of Dev time and effort go to something that pleases 10% of players, or content that 90% of players enjoy?

There's definitely a lack of things for anyone that isn't able/want to invest time to do savage, but at the same time have been a longstanding player that non-raid content is incredibly stale. Playing since 2.2 here, the non-raid content has been incredibly stale for me because it's always been the same once you get to the base foundation, mobs have no special interaction, dungeons are straight forward (or in hullbreaker's case, outright bland and uninteresting), and the side content only has novelty and reward to fall onto because it falls back to that same base foundation for combat (I can't say that aquapolis is something I'm doing after the first week)

I'm going to step in right here before this turns into another useless argument... please don't start this them against us idea. I don't want this thread to be an argument that breeds no new ideas. I stated as much in my OP.

Don't make it seem that way. It's definitely an ongoing issue for long-time players who aren't hardcore raiders (savage), and for the lack of a better word, casual, midcore/longtime "raiders" and hardcore/savage raiders are the type of players that are in this game, and I'd say that the former two make up a good amount of the playerbase. The game just isn't doing a very good job at retaining the midcore players with the same, stale content, while at hte same time the new players still have things to do, if only because they haven't done them before for months prior.