Should FF14 take a new route? Discussion

[dinnertime]

Well, for one they can add more than just killing mobs with little mechanics to spawn NMs in Eureka. So far that's the only thing you can do there to progress and it's boring.

Also I wouldn't call deleveling a huge change, but it adds a sense of cautiousness while being there I guess.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It might. Or it might not. If they're going to stop content updates for a patch cycle or two in order to focus on netcode and infrastructure level stuff that will help us later, their usual method of "tell players nothing until right before it's done" will result in total failure.

This here may be FFXIV's biggest failure. The utter lack of communication with the playerbase only creates resentment. Look no further than Eureka. Had they been more upfront with potential difficulties or outright acknowledged they intend to add more; they simply couldn't do everything all at once. I suspect people would have been far more forgiving. Why? We can hang our proverbial hats on "we're working on many of the things you're asking for." When they say nothing, people tend to assume their feedback isn't being received. Granted, XIV has a poor habit of asking for feedback only to ignore it. Ask the PvP crowd.

But doing that in secret doesn't give us that. All we see is nothing happening for months and weak updates when they do come out. Without a mindset shift, the only way this works is if we limp along as we are right now and 5.0 surprises us with major fixes to this stuff. But that makes the entire 4.x cycle pretty painful. I mean, honestly I'm not sure how 4.3 is going to go because while 24 person raids are great, one of those alone can't sustain Stormblood for 3 months given the mess that Eureka is. People will get bored, fast. They need something to look forward to. Right now, everyone who dislikes Eureka has a pretty big hole because it was intended to give them content to do for a while and it's not delivering on that.

My prediction?

• New MSQ
• New EX Primal (will be easier than Shinryu)
• Rabanastre v2.0 (Hopefully closer to Weeping City)
• Ultimate
• Updates to the Glamour Dresser (Items can be removed; plates increased by five)
• PotD v2 (in 4.35)

I fully anticipate they will hope Rabanastre and the new Primal carry people's interest alongside Eureka until PotD v2 comes around. Admittedly, despite progging Ultimate, I do sometimes wonder if it's truly worth the endeavour. So few people can or even want to prog it. I feel a second primal or raid boss would be better for the community even if I'd miss the challenge.

[ToriiMiyuki]

Gonna say what I said in another thread.

Square is a traditional company, motivated only by profit.

The reason why Eureka took so long is because Eureka itself is already finished. LIKE ALL OF IT. This is why Square remains dead silent.In this scenario, redoing Eureka or making large changes to its features will cost, a lot. Better to just leave it be. It's not like the player count / profit will drop by any large margin, right?

By the way, all of us that disliked ARR since the start warned you about this.
This is the ending you chose.

[MistakeNot]

Out of all of those, people tolerate Treasure Hunts and to a lesser extent, PotD/Deep Dungeons.
They are new, yes, the problem is it actually isn't. It's still the same trash mob-killing you always see but in a new coat of paint. It's not innovative nor interesting and people are already tired of that.

People often claim they want new, innovative stuff - not only here but in general. When they get it, they usually don't like the results.
Should the developers add something really new and different to FFXIV, then players will complain that this new thing does not feel like FFXIV.

[Stormfur]

Eureka could be improved upon by adding things that already exist in the game like the Hamlet defense (which I've never played so can't comment either way).

Right now it's just a mindless mob grind. So it wouldn't take much development time to port things over. I'm assuming it's not as easy as just copying and pasting, but since they're reusing assets anyway in-game, might as well make it funner.

Some of the things they could add:

- Client-side treasure chest spawns. Make it fun and rewarding to explore. Things you could put in the chest: Older minions or items (like from Aquapolis), crystals or clusters, rare crafting materials, etc.

- Support crates: It would be nice to find things that temporarily boost your attack or magic, or sneak ability. Different weird potables and potions that give you a little boost - good only in Eureka of course.

- The original hamlet defense of the island - give crafters/gatherers X hours in-game to make the mats needed to defend the place from monsters. Then X hours to actually battle and hold them off. I never played 1.0 but man that sounds like fun.

[Vyriah]

So telling a tank to use DPS stance is trashtalk?
Telling a healer to cast Stone in between their heals is trashtalk?

Sometimes I just wish I could make 7 clones of myself so I could play by 'myself', so I wouldn't have to worry. Chees the mentality of people playing this game!!!

If your boss tells you that he didn't liked the way you handled something and said 'I'd rather like you to do it like this next time' that is trashtalk too then?

All this projecting, every single time.
What about you too go check my performance ? Go check yourself how much what I'm saying currently leads to mediocrity. I'm not among the best player arround, but I'm pretty sure I'm "pulling my weight" and willing got improve myself as much as your random raid player. You'll need much stronger argument to back up your claim than vague assumption if you wanna go that way.

Also, as I said in a earlier post, the difference between your WoW experience and your current experience of FF XIV is not in the community (much less the raid community, that is composed of a lot of WoW players), it's the because of tools outside of the game. Texte guides, reddit, You Tube guides. All of those things makes communication inside the game pointless. Wich in turn change advice between player with "fail = kick" parties or "l2p git gud scrubs". This isn't helping anyone and certainly not raising the player base skill level as a whole.
More than "cuddling the bad players", the lack of communication between player is what causing all everyone is talking about. All that lyth arround "those bad player" is some basic down playing the other to make yourself bigger. That's why every single one came to me with the basic though that I was some thin-skinned filthy casul they would obviously over perform. And they were wrong about it.

That's where you're making mistake with your boss/employee analogy : there's no hierarchy between player unless a fixed group decide there is. And in the possibility there were one, you wouldn't be my boss, and neither would be that guy I told to go back playinf in WoW if that's what i wanted that much.
So what about drinking your own medecine and taking this as an advice from somehow good performing mid-core raider : cooperation beats competition in a MMO. Being the best of the worst is the exact definition of mediocrity, while making your team mistake as your own is what makes trully better players in cooperation based game.

[Tinibou]

I really can't understand why the game is in this situation right now.
They saved FFXIV from the ashes, remaking the game, releasing A Realm Reborn and it was great.

But now, it's like the game's fate is to die like the vanilla version of 2010/2011. Except that their won't be any "A Realm Reborn Again" this time.
It's sad. How can they do that ? How can they have spend so many hours and energy to save Eorzea and it's like they do nothing to prevent it from slowly dying again... I don't get it.

And meanwhile, they are porting the game on Switch and XBox...

[Vyriah]

I really can't understand why the game is in this situation right now.
They saved FFXIV from the ashes, remaking the game, releasing A Realm Reborn and it was great.

As many other people, I thing ARR is the current problem. More specifically, the short amount of time and the fact they had to work an already pretty broken game. It's already a feat that ARR was something playable. But now it's hard to know how much new thing can get added to it, and what you need to do to make them work. Almost everyone saw Eureka as 17 month developement long plain content but you can also see it as "that's how long making something as Eureka in FF XIV takes". Because we're talking about a game where you can't both teleport and sit at the same. Where every management to be made in both an overly simple and roundabout way at the same time, because how how much weird restrictions there is too it.

We can't rule out the possibility that we're playing an even more sophisticated version of 1.x patches meant to wait yet another more complete game, but that look like a vicious process no one sane would try to pull off. Contrary that what I've read a lot those, I think they actually base their new release on popular demand (with the most recurrent being "more content" and "new things to do") without regards on how well it could get into the game.

But getting the game to run on Switch is the good idea no matter what. Everything on Switch sells like freshly baked cookies, it's getting ridiculous.

[Lord_Zlatan]

As a life long SE fan, through the good and bad, I am going to say that I love this game and will continue to play it (even if it means less frequently) if they keep the same cycle going.

HOWEVER....

Certain things to add to the game that would mix it up a bit and breathe life into it (these are not necessarily innovations, but things I believe would improve the game drastically).

1 . First and foremost, the gear needs to be drastically improved/overhauled. I dont think this really needs to be explained. Its the single biggest problem with the game and it effects almost all aspects of the game.

2 . Raids/Trials need more diversity. Currently in HW we have 4 encounters labeled as trials: Lakshmi, Susano, Shinryu, and Byakko. You go in, fight a boss, and your done. We also have 4 "Raids". You go in, fight a boss, and your done. They are the same exact thing, just different bosses. Additionally, there are 2 versions to each (EX and Savage [isnt that the same thing, too?] as opposed to their normal incarnations). I propose that you either stop branding the raids as raids and just move them over to trials OR give us an actual raid (you know, trash pulls that will completely own you if your not up to snuff, effects within the instance that interact with the player, perhaps mechanics that make the party split up etc etc).

3 . Dungeons need to be harder. While I fully support the Duty Finder/Roulette approach, when you consider that this is all thats available for 4 man parties, it simply isn't enough because they are not challenging. As a PLD I can just Flash, Cooldown, and RoH combo the whole time if I want to. Thats what it used to be at level 50 (26 if you want to be technical) and the sad thing is, it still works (albeit not as effectively) at level 70. If they insist on keeping 4 man duty roulettes a thing, thats fine. A different option needs to be there for those that want a challenge they can just pick up and do thats not savage raids/primals, and I think one that would freshen up the pace of the game is in my next point...

4 . Open world dungeons/danger need to be a thing. Make it so that I can queue up for duty roulette if I want to have a casual/easy experience. But let me get my FC together and go on an adventure to some of the truly interesting places that exist in the game world. I remember when I looked at the Dusk Vigil in Coerthas Wester Highlands for the first time... it looked ominous, foreboding, scary, dark... evil. I queued in and it was a snoozefest. Let me go into a non instanced version of that thats harder and non linear. You dont have to give me insane gear for an open world level 51 dungeon... but maybe theres a tie in to treasure maps. maybe theres treasure hold filled with just gil. Maybe theres an altar inside there where I can take blue unconvertible there and convert it into specialized materia. Give me something to do with people on a daily basis that doesnt involve sitting in my house and queuing. Let me take my gathering friend deep into scary places so he can gather rare materials. Something besides queue and leave.

5 . I find alliance raids to be fine. Mid level content that serves its purpose.

[Nerfworthy]

No... I love the game as-is. I would like to see more QoL improvements and new content, but I don't want a drastic change. There's a reason why I quit WoW completely after being loyal to that game 10 years. It changed too much from the game I loved originally. It's a shell of its former self imo. I don't want that to happen to XIV as well.......