What has happened to my beloved FFXIV?

[Aellae]

What also bugs me is the 8man raid this time around in SB. I mean sure, some fights have cool mechanics and are kind of flashy. But the whole thing seems more like a fanservice - just some mix of bosses thrown together (I guess that's the point). I am a sucker for a cohesive theme going on, maybe that's why it bothers me so much. It had no feel of "I beat this stage of the place, am going to the next", if you know what I mean. It's just a "yeah, this boss and then this"...

[CrimsonThunder]

I too would feel pretty bored if I didn't raid and only touched the most brain-dead content for my endgame.

Thankfully that isn't the case, thanks again for Ultimate Yoshi!

[Dzian]

You are looking for 'more satisfying and rewarding' play in a game. Sorry to say it, but the formula of 'accessibility and convenience' is built into the design of FFXIV, and it would not be successful (for the majority of players) if it was otherwise.

But is it really that successful now?

I mean I honestly don't think the current formulae is what most players want at all. They boast frequently that something like 11 million people have played this game but very very few of those players stay active for any length of time. Something like 550k based on recent censuses. That's what 4%

I would argue that if the current formulae is anywhere close to what players wanted a lot more of those 11 million players would actively be playing.

My opinion and I stress my opinion is that this isn't a game players want to play it's to accessible too easy and generally unrewarding and unsatisfying to players without connections. And i think thats why so many players drop the game as qyickly as they do and dont come back.

So is this really a successful formulae?

[Floortank]

Eureka is about as important as Hildibrand quests to this game, and just as entertaining. It's a side dish, not the main course. If you don't want to do it, don't do it.

[Hestzhyen]

Eureka is about as important as Hildibrand quests to this game, and just as entertaining. It's a side dish, not the main course. If you don't want to do it, don't do it.

Please tell me how I'm supposed to do my relic otherwise then.

I did indeed skip Eureka because I hate it that much, but there are not a few people who dragged themselves through it for the rewards since you can't get them anywhere else. When you put something a lot of people want behind content they hate there will naturally be a lot of complaints.

Feels like SE forgot the whole "if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong" bit from that apology tour leading into 2.x. And the back-tracking they had to do for stubbornly refusing to admit that their vision might not be wholly compatible with what the playerbase wants. Through 4.x they've churned out less of the same and so much bad niche content that I wonder what the ultimate goal is.

[Tint]

Eureka is about as important as Hildibrand quests to this game, and just as entertaining. It's a side dish, not the main course. If you don't want to do it, don't do it.

So... what is the main dish?

I mean I don't enjoy raiding and ex primals, so I don't do them. I don't enjoy PvP, so i don't do it. I don't enjoy Eureka, so I don't do it.

I like dungeons and 24 man and 8 man story raids. In ARR and HW I could play this content a lot because I got my relic weapon trough it. Now all I can get from this content is weekly locked stuff. I capped my tomes at tuesday and also got my loot from Alphascape normal on that day. So I am basically done for this week.

As I see it they added too much niche content in SB and there is no main dish.

Astralagos, Bard composition, ultimate raids, Eureka, Heaven on High (wich maybe is nice for leveling spamming 21-30, but 31+, the majority of that thing, is niche), Hidden Canals of Uznair, Shifting Altars of Uznair, that replay function...

But of course the real offender is that they removed the old style relic grind and put the relic in that niche content. They basically removed my favorite activity from the game and replaced it with something I don't enjoy at all.

[Bellsong]

Eureka is about as important as Hildibrand quests to this game, and just as entertaining. It's a side dish, not the main course. If you don't want to do it, don't do it.

This is a real lazy and tired excuse for boring, dull or otherwise badly designed content. Plus it's a poor comparison with Eureka tied to relics and hildy tied to nothing but story and some unique collectibles. A better comparison would be The Diadem and hildy, because they both don't have any big game features tied to them, just side content with collectibles.

There's plenty of people that want their relics, but hate how poorly eureka was designed and written or simply don't have enough fun to justify the time sink it is.

[SpiritMuse]

The game needs to sacrifice a good amount of accessibility and convenience and instead focus on being more satisfying and rewarding to play. making it super accessible doesn't do any good if it's just not fun or rewarding.

First of all, you need to realise not everyone is an elite level skilled player like you. You are way above the curve. For most, this game is not "so easy it can be rofl stomped first time every time". For most, this game is plenty challenging.

Secondly, not everyone is looking for a challenge when they play games. For me, it is exactly the convenience and accessibility that makes it a fun and rewarding experience. This game is mostly easy for me too, but I'm not interested in games that "challenge" you and make you fail over and over again, I'd much rather relax and have fun kicking ass without too much trouble.

And where you say getting gear is useless because it gets "thrown away" each month, I enjoy having new gear to collect each time. For me not having that would be boring - so you win a piece of gear, you win all the gear, and then what? Stand around uselessly in all that gear with nothing to do? I'd quit if that happened.

[Bal_Siegskeith]

If you don't like Eureka don't do it. Don't get the relic. I skipped first two relics because i felt boring and nothing happened. I bored Heavensward and his scenario. And skipped a few month in his patches because i felt bored and nothing happened at all. I liked Stormblood a lot. And I liked so much Eureka. Even Pagos, but, if you don't like it, i recommend you, don't force it. Trying to do something you don't like, even paying for it, I think is absurd.

[Gun-Cat]

If you don't like Eureka don't do it. Don't get the relic. I skipped first two relics because i felt boring and nothing happened. I bored Heavensward and his scenario. And skipped a few month in his patches because i felt bored and nothing happened at all. I liked Stormblood a lot. And I liked so much Eureka. Even Pagos, but, if you don't like it, i recommend you, don't force it. Trying to do something you don't like, even paying for it, I think is absurd.

Great! I assume you like your Relic weapon and all the other stuff you can only get in that content, right?

Now imagine all that stuff will be locked behind the worst possible content you could imagine. This is how relic feels for a lot of people right now. Adding insult to injury is how they hyped Eureka up beforehand and talked how long the content had been in production.

So the whole "Don't get the relic." Spiel falls completely flat.