4.25 and beyond

[Darrcyphfeid]

this qoute sums up what i mean perfectly i guess this game isn't succeeding to them when the game never dips under 500k players which is the second highest mmorpg community besides wow.

I know you think this is a good and compelling point, but it's not. This is a (dubious) measurement of the game's population ranging from lv35 through lv70, and is by its nature reactionary. If you only look at the current number of players you don't see and can't plan for problems until it's already significantly affecting your bottom line. In a world where subscription-based MMOs are largely a relic of the past, in a market where "Games as a Service" is quickly becoming the norm outside the constraints of the MMO genre, being reactionary is an incredibly dangerous prospect.

Square has to be constantly proactive, and this is where community feedback is vital. Very little that has transpired since the launch of Stormblood has indicated that they're taking (or, truly, even hearing - see: the Urgamax situation) and incorporating that feedback, however, and meanwhile other cracks in the game's foundation are being revealed (see: Main Scenario Roulette, widespread connectivity issues, repeat of the solo instance failure, any number of "server limitation" excuses). The sky isn't falling, necessarily, but ignoring things because "the game is doing well right this moment" is very shortsighted. I haven't seen positive word-of-mouth about the game beyond here and r/FFXIV in nearly a year, whereas back in ARR and (early) HW I'd see people saying good things on a regular basis on multiple websites that I still frequent. That in and of itself is a problem.

this game has been SO successful that yoshi p has now gotten TWO...TWO promotions out of it.

The team did a good job developing and marketing the relaunch of XIV with ARR, but that has no actual bearing on their ability to continue making it successful by any standard in any way. Again, this is reactionary.

[Musashidon]

The team did a good job developing and marketing the relaunch of XIV with ARR, but that has no actual bearing on their ability to continue making it successful by any standard in any way. Again, this is reactionary.

i snipped and just left this part but my comment is about all you said.

you are right i am not saying this game can't fail, but so far it hasn't for the last 4 years there have been doomday sayers saying the game is going to end se is going to fail and everyone will see what they do.

until the game actually fails be it next week, 10 years from now or anytime between it's all hypothetical saying the game will die someone has to be right eventually as nothing lasts forever even WoW it will one day end but for now both games are going and going strong.

they are also working on fixing all the issues didn't they say they will looking into upping the main scenario roulette rewards again?
and they fixed the instance issue almost instantly this time like less than a couple hours with 4.2 so it wasn't like raubhan/pippen ex

now i am not saying they completely fixed the issues just that they are listening even when players feel they aren't.

[Darrcyphfeid]

they are also working on fixing all the issues didn't they say they will looking into upping the main scenario roulette rewards again?

This ultimately cuts to the heart of the matter.

There was a vocal segment of the community that begged them for years to adjust Castrum and Praetorium, whether that entailed making them into solo instances or moving the cutscenes outside of the dungeon. Instead, and again I'm going to point out that this happened years later and months (a full year?) after they first acknowledged the feedback and said they would be making adjustments, their "fix" was to make cutscenes unskippable. Even while doing the dungeons unsynced from what I've gathered (I've made no effort to touch either dungeon). For them to double down on their absolutely idiotic decision and say they're going to increase the "rewards" is both laughable and quintessentially Square Enix. The company as a whole has been completely and utterly out of touch with damn near everything for, I don't even know anymore, 12 years?

Meanwhile MSQ Roulette wasn't even the most glaring problem with the leveling experience to begin with. That honor would go to all of the now-obsolete filler quests added to the 2.0 storyline. Or most of the 2.1~2.55 storyline slog. Or the low-level experience becoming an absolute snoozefest post-4.0 job adjustments. And/or that DR 50/60 contains several story-required dungeons but the community has no actual incentive to queue for that and results in ridiculous queue times. But we can't get them to deal with most/any of that besides throwing up an offensive cash shop item (story skip potion) because, again, they spent months doing something stupid, will spend weeks deciding how to best double down on that, and then will invariably get forced into doing another change that may or may not be the thing they should have done the first time around.

and they fixed the instance issue almost instantly this time like less than a couple hours with 4.2 so it wasn't like raubhan/pippen ex

You're correct. But the fact that it happened again at all is a red flag and worthy of at least 7 facepalms. I don't really even understand why Sigmascape (and probably Omegascape come 4.4) requires a solo instance that's effectively a copy of Deltascape's to begin with.