We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[WhyAmIHere]

FFXI was also an imbalanced mess half the time. You had builds that were straight garbage—to the point people wouldn't invite you. We may meme on BLM and SAM, however neither are even close to the level of ostracization you saw in FFXI. That being said, FFXIV treats its job switching flexibility as specs. If I want to play a faster paced melee DPS than Dragoon, I can switch to Ninja. There simply isn't a need to have specs which allow Dragoon to play like Ninja or Warrior. Not to mention, that creates a balancing nightmare since you've essentially doubled the jobs. And if Tank Dragoon isn't good, well, you're not getting invited to parties. Nevertheless, they're supposed trying some variation of this in the next Eureka. So maybe it'll work well enough they keep the idea around. At least if Eureka: Mach III is even worth doing.

The logos system'll just be a duty action to correspond to your selected role.
DPS? here's a 20% damage boost for 35s, recast of 45s.
Tank? here's 30% mitigation for 20s, recast 30s.
Healer? here's an insanely potent heal and a 25s regen, recast of 35s.

[Kallera]

In a word, yes. Welcome to MMOs. They are grindy by necessity because no dev team can produce content fast enough sate how quickly players devour it. Say Alphascape comes out in a month and gives everything upon being killed once. How do you purpose th devs keep people entertained for the next 7-9 months? The raid that's intended to last two full patch cycles has no relevance after one clear.

Basically, you want a single player experience in a MMO. That isn't how this genre works.

I understand your point, but usually after I figure out how to fight the boss, which takes time and deaths in itself, I've had my fill of fighting them. There are some gimmicks that I find more discouraging than others, and have straight not even done some fights because the gear is simply not worth the trouble.

[Deceptus]

FFXI was also an imbalanced mess half the time. You had builds that were straight garbage—to the point people wouldn't invite you. We may meme on BLM and SAM, however neither are even close to the level of ostracization you saw in FFXI. That being said, FFXIV treats its job switching flexibility as specs.

That's basically what I think jobs are. Specs to roles. You have 3 tanking specs, 3 healing specs, 2 magic ranged dps, 2 physcial ranged, etc

[Jkap_Goat]

I wanted to say that I definitely got bored of FFXIV after three years. The gear you get from dungeons ain't worth it. Because they will be obsolete in 3 months so there's no point of grinding unless it's for glamour. I also didn't feel that there was a sense of danger in the world like I had to be careful where I was going. Also I am a Omni Crafter in 14 and I can tell you right now there's no point of getting the newest crafting gear because there's nothing to make unless it's the new battle gear HQ, you can just get iLvL 360, 370 gear using the tombestomes and have optimal gear. I actually stopped caring about making the newest crafting gear ( which I have the whole set HQ) because there's no point.. absolutely no point.

( A ffxi rant)

and I feel like I wanted a challenge so I started to play Final Fantasy 11 and oh my God I am so in love with it. Right now I am a warrior leveling up to use as a subjob for dancer. And I love how the monsters are actually dangerous like I had a quest as a level 25 RDM to go into a dungeon that had level 99 monsters and they had an ability to sense sound and sight, I had to actually get the Scrolls to learn it as a Red Mage and if I failed it I would have l died and had to teleport back to windurst and walk all the way back ( unless I had reraise ) Just the sense of that Dangerous scary area just made it feel like it was really worth it.

Also to become a dancer I have to go in the in the past of Vanadiel ( which I thought was very cool and added some excitement for me) and going to this very very dangerous forest with very high level monsters that can one shot me just to get this woman a pebble so I can be a DNC was insane. I felt so accomplished afterwards I got DNC, it really made you be really careful when going to the unknown ,I loved it so so much and I hope FFXIV can bring this into the new expansion, we are going on lvl 80, the world should be very dangerous by now.

Also I'm loving DNC, very refreshing TP healer and I might stop playing FFXIV and start paying my ffxi sub and yes FFXI feels like a real Final fantasy game. I love how spells actually have effects intead of increasing just DPS, like in FFXIV. FFXIV needs something new, like BLU as a DoM tank that actually learn monsters spells and DNC as a DoW healer.

[Magic-Mal]

Oh you know, there's something I didn't add on to the opening post because I forgot but the job leveling in SB is absolutely atrocious. With the release of SB came alot of job editing and attack pruning. Devs, you've absolutely GUTTED the jobs for Level 1-60. It's mind-numbingly boring to level jobs because all of the tools and attacks we used to have available that would mix up gameplay are now gone.

Dragoon and MCH suffer hard from this as they don't get anything meaningful to gameplay at all way until Lv61 and up. It's just spamming the 1-2-3 combo buttons mainly with MCH being a little different but similar in the end anyway. No oGCD attacks or anything, especially for MCH. Just extremely boring play.

Even worse, the classes feel totally off or incomplete before level 70 in a way where it can sometimes feel like it's made incorrectly. MCH is yet again, another example of this. I feel the gauge system is the cause of the issue as gauges are a new system and almost every class revolves around it. There are some exceptions like AST, MNK, and BRD. These are more well-designed jobs that are not restricted by gauges and leveling instead, adds on to the existing attacks and abilities. Jobs like DRG, DRK, and MCH, have gauges added in later that don't sync well with the leveling. Nothing beats MCH however.

The pure frustration of how odd MCH felt when leveling 30-64 made me want to quit early on. Devs, please take early leveling into account when changing core job mechanics that are learned in the future. It would make the leveling experience way more fun.

On one last side topic, the new player retention is - from what I know - extremely low. Not many players make it to level 70 because they quit early on. FFXIV gets constant complaints on the early game. The bland, and boring early leveling experience and inflated main story quest with fillers is likely the cause of the complaints. SE, I sincerely hope you do something to fix this issue.

[Edax]

Oh you know, there's something I didn't add on to the opening post because I forgot but the job leveling in SB is absolutely atrocious. With the release of SB came alot of job editing and attack pruning. Devs, you've absolutely GUTTED the jobs for Level 1-60. It's mind-numbingly boring to level jobs because all of the tools and attacks we used to have available that would mix up gameplay are now gone.

Dragoon and MCH suffer hard from this as they don't get anything meaningful to gameplay at all way until Lv61 and up. It's just spamming the 1-2-3 combo buttons mainly with MCH being a little different but similar in the end anyway. No oGCD attacks or anything, especially for MCH. Just extremely boring play.

Even worse, the classes feel totally off or incomplete before level 70 in a way where it can sometimes feel like it's made incorrectly. MCH is yet again, another example of this. I feel the gauge system is the cause of the issue as gauges are a new system and almost every class revolves around it. There are some exceptions like AST, MNK, and BRD. These are more well-designed jobs that are not restricted by gauges and leveling instead, adds on to the existing attacks and abilities. Jobs like DRG, DRK, and MCH, have gauges added in later that don't sync well with the leveling. Nothing beats MCH however.

The pure frustration of how odd MCH felt when leveling 30-64 made me want to quit early on. Devs, please take early leveling into account when changing core job mechanics that are learned in the future. It would make the leveling experience way more fun.

On one last side topic, the new player retention is - from what I know - extremely low. Not many players make it to level 70 because they quit early on. FFXIV gets constant complaints on the early game. The bland, and boring early leveling experience and inflated main story quest with fillers is likely the cause of the complaints. SE, I sincerely hope you do something to fix this issue.

Yeah, having to go on a long adventure just to make tea for Tataru Taru in the MSQ was almost meme worthy. The Dark Knight quest line was a satisfying rebuke to all that nonsense. In fact, when I first started the game, the bland leveling experience caused me to quit, but that was partly because I was still burned out on WoW at the time. After playing World of Warships for a year and a half, I was more willing tolerate the hotbar combat of the early levels again since it seemed fresher after a long break.
However, I'm not sure they can fix the MSQ of AAR now, not unless they introduce a "skip quest" button for all the filler.

[RiyahArp]

FFXI was also an imbalanced mess half the time. You had builds that were straight garbage—to the point people wouldn't invite you. We may meme on BLM and SAM, however neither are even close to the level of ostracization you saw in FFXI.

I'd take that level of ostracization if I could have jobs like FFXI. I'd be perfectly happy switching to an alt class in endgame if I had something like puppetmaster for casual content. I played BST, yeah they were ostracized, but we could just make our own pet parties and do things, or we could even solo things no one else bothered with. It would probably work even better in this game, since casual content is forgiving enough we don't need to optimize as much.

[Vaer]

I'd take that level of ostracization if I could have jobs like FFXI. I'd be perfectly happy switching to an alt class in endgame if I had something like puppetmaster for casual content. I played BST, yeah they were ostracized, but we could just make our own pet parties and do things, or we could even solo things no one else bothered with. It would probably work even better in this game, since casual content is forgiving enough we don't need to optimize as much.

That's not necessary now though, back then most jobs couldn't solo worth anything so those jobs had a place as a niche, now all jobs can solo so it would be relatively pointless to have a job like that. The job closest to that niche is RDM which has a niche in Deep Dungeon.

I mean I guess you could have a job that is good for soloing in Eureka, but who would even care.. seems like a waste of dev time when they could have a cool new job that could be close or on par with existing jobs with a new playstyle for all content vs. a niche job that is a dumpster spec in group content but good at solo content that everyone else could do anyway. It's just not the same.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I'd take that level of ostracization if I could have jobs like FFXI. I'd be perfectly happy switching to an alt class in endgame if I had something like puppetmaster for casual content. I played BST, yeah they were ostracized, but we could just make our own pet parties and do things, or we could even solo things no one else bothered with. It would probably work even better in this game, since casual content is forgiving enough we don't need to optimize as much.

You might, but the playerbase as a whole feels quite differently given reactions we see here or on reddit. The constant whining about groups refusing to take Samurais, debating the meta and etc would all become that much worse. They don't design jobs just to do the casual content. They want them to be viable in everything, which simply wasn't the case in FFXI. You can ask how Paladin mains felt in Heavensward, or White Mages after the Astro Balance buff. Both were treated as a meme because Dark Knight and Astro were simply better at virtually everything.

[Dzian]

You're misunderstanding what I meant. I'll say it again, I'm not talking about getting top-end gear from little dungeons or FATE farms. I know that content needs to have some sort of difficulty or special grind involved to grant gear that's as strong or stronger than the raid gear. I'm referring to new methods to get gear that aren't raids.

The raid system is exactly the same in pattern except the raids are trials now. I'm tired of raids. Or at least Omega. I'm taking about things that could benefit both raiders and non-raiders. 1.0 was that kind of thing. In the end, a high level raider could also get super-powered piece of i210. The difference being that they actually know how to use it. Diadem was the first kind of horizontal progression we ever had. Diadem had incentive. That's a fact. Raids? You do them, gear up. And then what? Nothing that's released in the next 6 months will have any use to you and you won't even get Ultimate anymore(right?). So just quit until raid cycle reset? Where crafted gear is better than your awesome raid gear? I guess if you like it then hey.. but to me it's bad. To me anyway. We need gear worth something. As it stands all gear in the game is released already trash...

The issue with gear and progression isn't raids or anything it's simply the lifespan at which content is designed.. and that includes raids. the moment 4.4 lands even the top tier gear raiders have from sigma scape will be trashed by crafted gear with a few melds tossed in. the other issue is the gear stats ahve been dumbed down and simplified so much that the only option they have is just keep throwing out bigger numbers. and that ultimately makes all previous content obselete and expired... when you look at it this game actually has a shed load of content. yet players never have anything to do. because 99% of that content is obselete and a total waste of time... everything is trash or dead on arrival not because of raids but because of design. even if you ignore the rewards content is still DOA. the ridoraa lighthouse is an i335 raid released at a time when most player are 360+ it's obselete content before you even look at the rewards....

the main reason gear is governed by raids is because of the pace at which content is made obselete.. if you allowed hoh or lighthouse to provide better gear than savage raids then all you succeed in doing is increase the power creep massivly. which in turn would only serve to kill content even faster....

Oh, and I also don't like how everything is so easy. I did say that in the opening post after all. So please, understand I'm not talking about getting i380 gear from expert roulette. Howeverrrr if they made something where you had to do 100 expert roulettes to get a piece of powerful gear then maybe I might accept it xD.

No Way.. many people i know dont even touch expert these days or dungeons at all. grinding them 100 times for a gear reward would just be another monotoous unfun grind. braindead easy just time consuming...
instead of make it easy and grind it 100 times just make it harder it is called "expert" after all. make it actually challenging and people wouldnt be so mind numbingly brainless when they did it. and would feel more accomplished at the end. where as currently nothing is ever satisfying its just another chore ticked of the endless list.

you mentioned player retention and how the game loses many players because the levelling experience is so dull and the msq is so bloated with crap.. what about the other side of the game? many of my friends and contacts have stopped playing because of the endgame structure and game design. everything is ridiculously easy that its never satisfying when you clear a piece of content. a patch lands you enter the new omega raid and within a couple of hours you've completed it all.. they add a new dungeon and players just rofl stomp it.. and get literally nothing from it.. there's no satisfaction in getting gear or rewards either because it's all so incredibly bland and worthless junk that will be tossed in a month or glamoured over in minutes because it's ugly as hell all it really does is boost your strength or int by a few points.. wowwwwwwww.. nothing ever actually changes.... look at spell speed as a stat. a level 50 blm with something like 300 spell speed casts flare at the exact same speed as a level 70 player with like 1500 spell speed. so what does that stat actually doooo... absolutely nothing..... and that is a major factor of why stats are soo boring and uninteresting... the game just isnt a rewarding one to play and thats why retention is so bad. everything is soo easy that theres no accomplishment or satisfaction in clearing it. and often the lack of difficulty actually destroys the sense of atmosphere the story tries to create.

even in ARR the garlean empire was meant to be this major threat to eorzea because they were so strong and unbeatable it would take the whole eorzean alliance to even stand a chance.... yet 1 level 50 player could run around the castrum in mordhona or the one near vesper bay and absolutely roflstomp the whole place... completely destroys the strength the tension the stories tries to create.. heavensward was the same and stormblood was even worse... the plot made it out to be this really difficult task to retake that bridge where minaago glamours the flag. this whole big build up and tension creating and knock knock courier at my door put my controller down go to sort out my packages make a sandwhich come back duty complete.... probalby like 6-8 minutes of not even being in the room and i still roflstomped that fight....

i think its also why people complain about so many players being so bad because so much of the games content would actually take more effort to fail than it would to suceed.. when it's that easy why the hell do players need to up there game.... and when the rewards for everything players do are nothing but junk trash that players don't even care about whats there motivation to improve... there's no incentive..

the other issue is the devs never seem to actually listen to the players. they might hear them but they don't listen..

it's like eureka. what players said was they wanting some endgame content like XI's endgame. structured content with purpose and objectives and stuff like how most of ffxis endgmae was built. what the devs heard was "stuff......xi... stuff" and what we got was basically a vlakurm dunes exp grind and the devs said that is what we asked for......

glamours another one.. players have asked for a glamour log for years and quite often came up with detailed ways that would literally take no server resources at all... and what the devs gave us was some highly messed up glamour dresser with some major restrictions that were just blatently uneccessary and for some reason uses like 100 times more resources than it needed to.

diadem was another players hated it told the devs why. the devs closed it down. spent some time on it apparantly listening to our feedback and then reluanched diadem 2.0 and it was everything players hated from the first one and they somehow made it even worse... then players went and said they hated it and told the devs why... and then we got eureka which is diadem 3.0 everytihng players hated and made even worse.... and now we got pagos which i hear is basically diadem 4.0 and people still hate it for the exact same reasons..... are the devs actually listening.....

they really need to change up the formulae and make content relevent for longer than a single patch.. ramp up the difficulty. increase the value of the rewards. and they'd probably find players find the game to be alot more rewarding and satisfying and that would probalby do a lot for player retention.. if the game is rewarding. players will continue to play it..

they need to bring eorzea to life as well. i've said in threads before ffxis vanadiel was 100 times deeper and more dynamic and living than eorzea. and vanadiel is almost 20 years old... how the hell can eorzea be so static dead and lifeless.. technology has advanced so much but the game world has gone backwards not evolved...

in ffxi literally everything you did impacted the whole game world in some way. it was dynamic and ever changing based on player actions.. eorzea never changes.. oh look a fate... ignore it or complete it. makes no difference at all. nothing you do ever does

the other issue is that many of XIVS problems have been the same ones players have complained about ever since ARR. players said way back then that the treadmill was horrilbe that the vertical progression was dull and stats were meaningless. the comabt system was crap... and back then players would flame the hell out of anyone who said such things but more recently a lot more people agree. its like players are opening there eyes and seeing waht these players said years ago...