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

[ManuelBravo]

The game should always be blamed if there's a lack of motivation to play it. In fact, the sole goal of an entertainment product is to make itself appealing, to make itself a desired escape, regardless of various other aspects of one's life. FFXIV has been failing spectacularly in this regard for quite some time now, because the development team appears to be allergic to change. They're like the mid-career novels dumped out at a prodigious rate by Stephen King; once you've read one, you've read them all, mod a few superficial changes.

While I respect your perspective I do have to disagree to some extend. In a perfect world yes the game would always be motivating enough and would keep it's audience entertained. Now lets comeback to reality, the game itself is appealing and your comment about development team appearing to be allergic to change is a very poor argument. Many things have changed since v1.0 from cross job traits, dungeons, housing, gear, and many more aspects. The reality is that they will never be able to please everyone. We as the consumer determine what we consider to be appealing.

Example; Eureka...many people judged it after day one as terrible. Many liked it, I myself found it entertaining , simple, and bit too easy. Others did not even give it a chance and based on feed back they adjusted it. What happened after it was adjusted? Pleased some not all. This is the nature of this type of business. However putting down a product, giving a reason, and not giving a suggestion is only 50% effective. We programmers love insight about solutions that may help and based on that we can set priorities to our projects. If no suggestions are given we just focus on what needs more priority.

I love a good challenge when it comes to gaming so my entertainment values may be different than others, so while many like certain changes some of us find them unnecessary to an extend. Some like the frustration of using our skills and common sense to complete content while others just want a trophy for trying. The product it self is made to try and entertain as many people as possible. What some find appealing others may not. True some of the repetitiveness and grinds can get on peoples nerves....however it does not take a college degree to realize the concept and nature of the game. Their business module for this product is actually very friendly compare to other games I've played. Do I agree with everything? No, can I live with it? sure I choose to pay to play. Have they implemented changes that have been suggested? Compare to other companies yes more than I expected in fact for as long as I've played this game. ( Beta ) Can we cut them some slack? It would be nice, however there are too many spoiled people who want things for just trying and skip some of the work. Hence rage quitting over content is more of a good riddance in my eyes. We all have choices, I still play FFXI while I wait for queues at times and how old is that game? It's repetitive also, yet I choose to play it. In conclusion people have find entertainment values based on different factors, how we see things vary and while certain aspects may not appeal to some they do to others. Just depends on a persons value and satisfaction of what they achieve in their own way. Relics for me is a nice time killer and love the achievement score. FFXIV and FFXI have been two of the best games I've ever played and have helped me relax during stressful times in my life. From this perspective I understand how MMO's work and lets face it in any game there is some kind of grind.

Hopefully this character that your posting with is your alternate, there is much more content that is more appealing once you hit 70. Judging with out even knowing full content just lowers your credibility.

[Derio]

The incentive for leveling content needs to be increased. But more importantly from a western standpoint there should be 3 dps per run. But I think that might put even more pressure on new players trying to be tanks

[SendohJin]

It's natural that MMOs will venture into this territory from time to time, but they typically change their formula up once every couple of years, maybe coinciding with an expansion launch.

when you say "they", what games are you talking about exactly? list like 3.

[ManuelBravo]

The incentive for leveling content needs to be increased. But more importantly from a western standpoint there should be 3 dps per run. But I think that might put even more pressure on new players trying to be tanks

If tanks are well geared and know their job it should not be a problem, it only becomes a problem when players don't communicate properly, follow simple mechanics, and can't count so they ignore numerical markers making the job harder for the tank.

[miraidensetsu]

So long. We'll se you here at 4.3 patch.

[DPZ2]

The game should always be blamed if there's a lack of motivation to play it.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense when it comes to MMOs.

Lack of motivation to play an MMO is not generally caused by the game play itself.

Motivation to play an MMO appears to vary with the player themselves. For an in-depth look at some of those motivations, may I suggest this paper:

http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uplo...6276.26370.pdf

and the expansion of the paper by the author:

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

If an MMO is appealing in 2014 and not-so-appealing in 2018, one cannot immediately jump to the conclusion that the game is at fault. We constantly change.

Change isn't bad. Deciding a game is no longer interesting is not bad. Blaming the MMO itself, assuming there was a time when you were entertained, is misguided. It may just be time to move on.

[Colino]

Re-sub now dude the new gear is gonna be sw-eet! And get this, it'll be several ilvls higher! Aren't you excited?

[Remedi]

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense when it comes to MMOs.

Lack of motivation to play an MMO is not generally caused by the game play itself.

Motivation to play an MMO appears to vary with the player themselves. For an in-depth look at some of those motivations, may I suggest this paper:

http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uplo...6276.26370.pdf

and the expansion of the paper by the author:

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

If an MMO is appealing in 2014 and not-so-appealing in 2018, one cannot immediately jump to the conclusion that the game is at fault. We constantly change.

Change isn't bad. Deciding a game is no longer interesting is not bad. Blaming the MMO itself, assuming there was a time when you were entertained, is misguided. It may just be time to move on.

I appreciate the readings even if not directed to me

[Noshpan]

Stop equating casual play to being a sloppy player! I play casually (ie I don't raid even though I would like to) but I don't play like I'm some blind mouth-breather. Augh!

[Vstarstruck]

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense when it comes to MMOs.

Lack of motivation to play an MMO is not generally caused by the game play itself.

Motivation to play an MMO appears to vary with the player themselves. For an in-depth look at some of those motivations, may I suggest this paper:

http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uplo...6276.26370.pdf

and the expansion of the paper by the author:

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/3-2.pdf

If an MMO is appealing in 2014 and not-so-appealing in 2018, one cannot immediately jump to the conclusion that the game is at fault. We constantly change.

Change isn't bad. Deciding a game is no longer interesting is not bad. Blaming the MMO itself, assuming there was a time when you were entertained, is misguided. It may just be time to move on.

Not when you have these problems:

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 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.

The high turn over rate is an issue, making content outdated in 1-3 months is a very bad design. Look at Eureka, that lasted 2 weeks at best. sigma normal? why bother outside the last one for weapon drop? You want to appeal to people that like crafting and gathering more? or more so, people doing it all? You can't be having glaring problems with your inventory. Then to help fix that issue they add a second sub? No that is design flaws. That list of motivations is a bit off point with this thread since it does not factor a MMO that keeps reskining itself 1-3 months, even yoshi-p made statements about this, that they need to get off the formula, or "it is the 3rd expansion, people will get board if we keep doing the same thing" and yet here we are doing the same thing.

Also the idea may be trying to appeal to as many as you can, i mean it tries with the sightseeing log, but as far as discovery, FFXIV overall is too small. You are hard pressed to find things others don't know about, it is too straight forward with everything.

For the social aspect, I would love a better design that encoruged more social interactions with the housing districts.