4.25 and beyond

[ShanXiv]

I'm not sure how accurate it is to say they were fired. Maybe some of them were sort of getting pushed aside from the roles they had been doing and it made leaving the best option for their lives. Fortunately Matsuno was brought back freelance to help with the Ivalician raids in XIV.

I do miss the times when Sakaguchi was steering the FF ship because they were blazing a path in those days, very aggressive, not afraid of taking risks, innovating and making emotional and beautiful games.

I guess with how huge the company is now and the insane budgets of modern games, they just aren't able to take such big risks on exploring niches so XV was somewhat modelled after successful Western action-adventure games and XIV took many ideas from WoW.

I don't like WOW & western RPGs.
I think SE had invested too much on the CG movies & graphics, & ignored the gameplay.
Playing XV is like watching a movie, it feels cool for the first few hours....then what?
They should learn something from Nintendo.

[Ayer2015]

I don't like WOW & western RPGs.
I think SE had invested too much on the CG movies & graphics, & ignored the gameplay.
Playing XV is like watching a movie, it feels cool for the first few hours....then what?
They should learn something from Nintendo.

Odd... the narrative was the weakest part of 15 imo.
That said, I hated the magic system... basically feels like throwing grenades

[ShanXiv]

I've seen this kind of cycle before. What I mean is that asking 'why are they still here?' doesn't have a clear black and white answer. People are still here, yes. But that could be for a variety of reasons. It's hard to measure if people still love the game unconditionally, or are merely still here because they're in a transition phase and haven't yet found anything better to play. And I'm seeing an increase in the amount of people that speak as if they are in the transition phase, because as far as I've seen, SE has spent the past 2-3 years not really addressing the fact that they have locked themselves into a predictable patch cycle.

My former raid group in particular had half of its members quit the game two weeks before 4.2 came out for this very reason, and I haven't been able to find another raid group since on account of the vast majority of raid groups running at evenings, when I have to work. One member in particular was extremely upset that there wasn't really anything long-term to work on this expansion cycle - that relics being tied to Eureka and Eureka being delayed as long as it was, was a really terrible decision. And that's coming from a raider, where the need to have relics for gearing isn't necessary, but it gave them something to do.

It took me two years to quit from my previous MMO, after all. And one year to quit from the one prior to that. It's not to say that I am even in the transition phase right now (as I am not), but more to say that someone can not just drop an MMO immediately, especially if they've invested years into the game.

Relics are pointless in this game, spend 1-2 months for a powerful weapon, for what? raid? ex? df??
if you raid or join some EX parties, you will get a same ilv(or 5ilv less) weapon in few ten minutes...
and after 3 months, you go back to the beginning.

the current formula is a joke

[Ayer2015]

Relics are pointless in this game, spend 1-2 months for a powerful weapon, for what? raid? ex?
if you raid or join some EX parties, you will get a same ilv(or 5ilv less) weapon in few ten minutes...

the current formula is a joke

Relics are for the skins.... no other weapons compare to them. Unique and high quality cosmetics are some of the best motivators for many.

[HyoMinPark]

Relics are pointless in this game, spend 1-2 months for a powerful weapon, for what? raid? ex?
if you raid or join some EX parties, you will get a same ilv(or 5ilv less) weapon in few ten minutes...
and after 3 months, you go back to the beginning.

the current formula is a joke

A lot of people do relics for Glamour. Or to just have something to do. I'm on the 270 > 275 step for the PLD Anima, and the 260 Light step for WHM, and I'm doing them because of sheer boredom (and because the 270 PLD Anima is gorgeous). There are various reasons people enjoy grinding relics.

I did 3 of them to 275 when they were relevant. I've done 3 more since then for just Glamour. And to give me something else to do.

As for Savage weapons, not everyone wants to do Savage. The relics are there for the players that don't have any interest in the content, among many other reasons (mainly, a time sink).

yay glamour is the true end game
omg, grind months for a glamour, fun?? I don't understand...

That's fine if you don't understand. But don't say they're worthless when clearly they aren't. They become automatic BiS at their final step, give the non-raiders a nice weapon almost on par with Savage, and give players something to do if they want to. And they provide some beautiful Glamour options. My BRD, DRK, and AST relics are constantly used for Glamour. Same for my SCH relic.

[ShanXiv]

Relics are for the skins.... no other weapons compare to them. Unique and high quality cosmetics are some of the best motivators for many.

yay glamour is the true end game
omg, grind months for a glamour, fun?? I don't understand...

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

yay glamour is the true end game
omg, grind months for a glamour, fun?? I don't understand...

Why is grinding for months for anything fun? Why is grinding for years to get to level cap fun? Why is grinding for years for a piece of gear fun, even if it lasts a while? Was it the journey that was fun, or was it finally getting the item? Does someone else getting the item years ahead of you make it less fun?

What makes things "fun"?

How is glamour less of a reason to grind for than stats? Stats only last as long as an item is relevant, glamour can last for the games lifetime.


As to the topic of the post, I am not saying different content is bad, I am saying that everyone has different expectations of what should be added. Hardcore raiders wanted harder stuff, so they got Ultimate. People are mad they added that. People wanted a place to grind out horizontal gear, they added Diadem. That was a mess, people hated it. They redesigned it, but with fates. People hate fates for some reason, I'm honestly not even sure why. They are as varied as any other content. They even added a couple new types in 4.0, namely the roaming mech one in the Peaks.

Maybe Eureka will be bad, but maybe it will end up what people want. If you go in with the mindset that it sucks, however, then you will only see the bits that are bad, and not anything it does right. That is where I see the problem lying. People will yell at the devs for the bits that are bad, and no one will say, hey this stuff was good, we want more of this, but tweak this bit so its not bad. Meh. Its been like this since the game relaunched.

[Dzian]

Also, if the majority of people were unhappy with the game, why are they still here? I have a feeling the sample size is quite small in this.

I cant speak for everyone but a fairly common view amoung my friends and I is that generally speaking the game isn't currently that good and hasn't been for a long time. Content is mind numbingly easy / repetitive. Rewards and gear are incredibly lack lustre and thus no real motivation to pursue them. (see earlier points) and all things considered theres just nothing that great or exciting to do.

So why do we stay?

Generally it's a means to keep in touch and we can have a laugh together in the game but it's more the people we enjoy more than the game itself. The game is more a means to an end than something we truly enjoy playing. When we're together we can have fun even in a roulette we've done 1000 times. But outside of that we're all pretty bored with it.

It's kind of a catch 22 situation. The only reason I play is generally because some of my friends still do. The only reason they still play is because my other friends and I still do. The group has shrunk over time though. What used to be a circle of 45-50 people that started playing together way back in our ffxi ls and eve online has slowly dwindled down to about 12 of us. The others tend to sub for the odd month to catch up on story and then vanish again.

And we haven't found much in the way of alternatives to go and play either so we're kinda stuck here hoping at some point things will get better and maybe one day there will actually be real group content we can do together and not this bunch of people soloing together junk.

All in all its not great when the thing that keeps players in your game isn't actually the quality of the game. I think that's why so many new people drop it quite quickly. Because they don't have those social bonds. Which again comes to another point i made earlier in the thread

[MomomiMomi]

As to the topic of the post, I am not saying different content is bad, I am saying that everyone has different expectations of what should be added. Hardcore raiders wanted harder stuff, so they got Ultimate. People are mad they added that. People wanted a place to grind out horizontal gear, they added Diadem. That was a mess, people hated it. They redesigned it, but with fates. People hate fates for some reason, I'm honestly not even sure why. They are as varied as any other content. They even added a couple new types in 4.0, namely the roaming mech one in the Peaks.

Maybe Eureka will be bad, but maybe it will end up what people want. If you go in with the mindset that it sucks, however, then you will only see the bits that are bad, and not anything it does right. That is where I see the problem lying. People will yell at the devs for the bits that are bad, and no one will say, hey this stuff was good, we want more of this, but tweak this bit so its not bad. Meh. Its been like this since the game relaunched.

Saying "this is bad" and not saying that about another part should be interpreted as the other part being fine, so there's no real need to tell them that it was good.

Also, the devs apparently don't listen anyway. People have been saying for years that they hate FATEs, and what did they do to Diadem? They shoved FATEs into it. How out of touch can you be to do something like that?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Saying "this is bad" and not saying that about another part should be interpreted as the other part being fine, so there's no real need to tell them that it was good.

Also, the devs apparently don't listen anyway. People have been saying for years that they hate FATEs, and what did they do to Diadem? They shoved FATEs into it. How out of touch can you be to do something like that?

Not necessarily. Something can be bad, without the other part being good.

And again, WHY do people hate fates? I understand that they do, but WHY. I don't think I've ever seen someone actually say why. I find them fine personally.