To Square Enix, these are the reasons why I am currently unsubbed from the FF14.

[Bubblegum01]

To clarify, I am only able to post because I am leeching-off the free login campaign. I want Square-Enix to know my reason for not continuing my sub since there they never asked me why. (Probably because they don’t care, but I still want them to know why. I am stubborn that way). This post will contain a LOT of WHAT I FEEL and a HUGE wall of text. So beware.

Reason 1, the formula in the game never changes.
When I say formula I meant that every 3 months, new tomes will appear where player has to farm the same 2 dungeons repetitively to get new gear in a certain amount of time. I started playing this game during ARR up until last Christmas when my sub ran out. I have repeated the formula countless time. I don’t like how my hard work and sacrifice to get the best gear, is reset every 3 months. It makes me feel the whole process is pointless. It also doesn’t help that my life has picked up a lot since last year. I have less time to play the game, meaning I have less time to farm for tomes and run 24-man raid or normal raid to get that ONE specific gear I need for an upgrade. In this time, when new patch comes out and my progress is ‘reset’, it seriously made me angry of the formula and the system as a whole.


Reason 2, I can’t be an effective casual.
I like to do dungeons and progress through the story. However the item level (ilevel) made it difficult for me to do both of these.
At the beginning of Stormblood, it occurred to me, that I don’t have the luxury to become a hardcore gamer and set out to become a casual instead. I played a couple of times a week, doing contents that I like which is running dungeon and progressing through the story. At this time I was playing as a redmage, a DPS. The queue time were slow and I had to wait a long time (I can’t exactly say how long but definitely more than 10+ minutes) for each queue. This further killed my motivation to play the game and farm the new tomes. Which means my ilevel didn’t get an upgrade. Which led to me unable to enter new dungeons/raids because my ilevel is too low.


Reason 3, other contents other than the mainstream contents has low population of players.
When I say mainstream contents I meant contents that were released with the current patch or the latest the previous patch. Every other content other than those contents have low population and longer queue time, especially as a DPS. So I decided to play level up a tank and a healer to get faster queue time. However, spamming the same dungeons over and over again burnt me out relatively fast so I did not manage to level up tank and healer to level 70. Doing deep dungeons repetitively also burnt me out. The same goes with fate. Everything (SB levelling dungeons and deep dungeon) is so repetitive and sometimes queue time is so long even when I go as a tank or healer.

I wanted to try Diadem. But it was dead as a door nail.

Reason 4, mostly uninteresting side quest for me.
I had always loved DOL/DOH but the limited inventory space limited my ability to craft and gather. I tried to sell these crafting mats but it sells so slowly on the Market board that all 20 slots on all of my four retainers a full. I didn’t want to trash these crafting mats because I might need them again in the future. So stop crafting and gathering altogether.

I look at a summary of the steps for a relic weapon. But I thought it was not worth it since probably a newer relic will be released before I can finish the current steps.

There were some interesting side quests like Hildibrand but it ended too fast for me. And currently that is the only interesting side quest that comes to mind right now. I know there are more.

The beast tribe quest was infuriating for me because it is time-gated. I felt like it was only designed that way to force player to remain subbed.

Reason 5, my lack of motivation made me sloppy.
Over time, I lost the ability to keep up with the fight especially in 8-man trials. My dps reflected my casualness. And I couldn’t really find or put much effort to improving myself, dps and strategy wise. I became sloppy. In my head, the mantra ‘why bother, you will have to learn a new fight all over again in 3 months’ time’
And then a few days after last year Christmas, I tried to log back in and couldn’t because my sub had run out. I wanted to resub, I really did, but, why bother?! Nothing last for long in this game. It is a hamster wheel that I am refusing to run anymore.

BUT I REALLY LOVE FF14. I MET MY HUSBAND BECAUSE OF THIS GAME (LOL). I HAVE A HOUSE IN GAME AND GOD IT WAS SO HARD TO GET A HOUSE ON MY SERVER. I HAD BEEN PLAYING THIS GAME FOR NEARLY 3 YEARS ALREADY. So, I decided to wait until something in the next patch hit to catch my eye and to resub.

Reason 6, Square Enix has yet to succeed in giving me a good reason to come back.
So far, the negative feedbacks, on the wardrobe system (not sure what it is called), Eureka and currently Kupo coins have been a missed for me. I am still waiting for something to grab my interest until today…

Reason 7, I don’t feel valued as a paying customer.
They also made me feel like they don’t care about their customer. They never asked for a feedback why I stopped resubbing. And I really HATE IT that the free-login-campaign is only open to players THAT HAVE BEEN INACTIVE FOR 3 MONTHS! There was this one time during Heavensward my sub ran out during the campaign, and I was baffled when I learned of the condition that I have to be inactive for 3 months to be viable for the campaign… I felt like inactive players are more valued than paying players(/customer).

I know Square Enix is a company to make profits. But I feel like they don’t value their PAYING CUSTOMERS.

And those are the reasons why I remain unsubbed until today and counting. No tl/dr.

It seems that a number of people are interested in this thread, so I will try to clarify my situation a bit more.

When I started FF14, I was a still studying and even after I graduated, I was jobless for 2 years. During this time, I had tons of free time to waste and I spend most of it playing FF14. As some of you might have already guessed, Erik Huntsman is not my main character it is my alternate character. My main character is Aerilyn White. I had so much free time and loved FF14 so much that I didn’t mind doing the MSQ again, levelling up all my classes/jobs (including crafters and gatherers) again, raiding and doing all the side quests again on my alternate character. That is just how much free time I had and I did not really mind the same patch cycle so much at that time (cause I feel like I don’t have a life LOL and FF14 gave me my reason for being alive).

However, at the end of 2016, I finally got a permanent job, which led me to meeting my husband (who also happened to be a gamer and played FF14) and we got married soon after. Next month, I will give birth to our first daughter. Suddenly, I don’t have much free time anymore. I am tired after work and would rather rest to regain my energy. On weekends, I sometimes have to work and sometimes I go see my husband since we are currently living in two different state. Playing game turned into a luxury that happened once in a blue moon. And playing FF14 once in a blue moon is just not efficient. (If you refer to my original post, this is what I meant by not being able to be an efficient casual player). Levelling up my Ilevel started to become a hassle because the ilevel keep being raised before I can get my ilevel up. I also feel that my money is being wasted on a game that I don’t play much or able to progress much. Say what you want, but in my opinion FF14 is not meant to be played casually.

I understand, for me, life just happened.

(Beware, shameless praises of another game that is not FF14)

But there are better games out there that suit me better. Currently I am playing Guild wars 2 (GW2). It is a free to play (f2p) game. The content in GW2 is not as rich as FF14 however there are more things for me to in that game because I am not gated by Ilevel. And best of all because it is f2p I can take as much time I need and still make meaningful progress. When I pay real money for an advantage over other players I feel it was worth my money. And most problems that exist in FF14 doesn’t exist in GW2. There is no inventory problem because you can buy more inventory spaces if you need it. And they have a wardrobe system where you can store all the armor skins you have unlock and GW2 did this for free! We have guild hall which is equivalent to guild house and it will not be destroyed if you don’t log in for long periods of time! There are Achievements that will reward you on special items if you obtained them, which make me feel like I am progressing in a meaningful way. The world exploration is more engaging in GW2 because there are things you need to do to complete a map.

Anyway, I feel like GW2 is more appreciative of their customer than FF14. Yes GW2 foremost purpose is to make money but they offer good service for it. They have changed and added to their formula a number of time. Recently, they slightly change the gathering system. My favourite change was the wardrobe system. All of this is happening in GW2 while FF14 keeps on singing their ‘server limitation’ song. GW2 is a free to play game, FF14 is a P2P game. I feel something is seriously wrong. I don’t mind paying money for FF14 but I do expect to have better service than a F2P game. If not, I would feel like I am wasting my money.

Now about housing, I have a medium house in the Goblet. I bought this house before the price was reduced. It is one of the reason I WANT to resub to FF14 but I have to let it go because I don’t think the house is worth my money. If I ever return to this game, I will be homeless. I feel betrayed by SE, and it just adds more salt to the wound.

That is the end of my rant and my break. Now time to return to work. To those who are still having fun with FF14, good for you. To those who already lost their rose tinted glasses, I understand you.