We covered hopes for 5.0, but what are your fears?

[dinnertime]

Hmmm, basically if 5.0 was Stormblood all over again.
No innovation on casual content, "New" type of content isn't exactly new, adding new features that'll get ignored later on like the past ones, overworld is still boring and irrelevant, FATEs and Hunts are still bad, Jobs are still unbalanced and/or have questionable design choices, band-aid fixes to every problem.
Also if they dumb down the game further by streamlining already simple mechanics and the devs doing nothing to fix the gear treadmill.

I'm also concerned about the server capacity or whatever. I feel it's keeping the game from getting improvements, especially for character customization.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I fear them getting rid of Eureka because of all these hateful people. That don't realize its optional content and that if they don't want to do it they don't have to. I myself love Eureka and hope it stays around for the long haul.

If there were other things to do, and Eureka didn't have the relic tied to it, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The issue people have isn't necessarily Eureka but the fact this "optional content" took the primary focus away from virtually everything else. If you don't like Eureka, what else is there to do? Nothing. The game simply doesn't have enough content to stretch out across a four month span without counting Eureka. Therefore, our options become "do Eureka or play a different game entirely." Not a good design philosophy. The other factor is how the relic has been locked behind it. They took something away from people and told them "do this optional content if you want that pretty relic we've normally let you do regular content to complete it."

How would non-raiders feel if they locked a relic step behind Savage or Ultimate? "Don't like it, well, it's optional!" I sincerely doubt the same Eureka defenders would appreciate that statement. Welcome to how many people who dislike Eureka feel.

[ShinMetsu]

Eureka is the most pleasant relic to do so far imo.

Screw farming FATEs in the open world and running O1S 50 times farming light.

[Iscah]

I have a different sort of fear - that the story will take our characters in a direction that I don't like.

I didn't like a lot of what Stormblood had us do. Starting a war, however just and however forced our hand was in it (because the writers still put us in that situation in the first place). Getting ourselves into a Xaela tribal custom with the specific aim of becoming their ruler and recruiting them into a war that doesn't concern them.

A particular example that sticks in my mind was the dialogue 'choices' given when they sent us to accompany Yugiri on her solo attempt to assassinate Zenos. I felt it was a terrible idea. All I could say was "we'll do it together" or "I'm coming with you". No chance to portray my character as sharing my doubts about it. An option to say "I don't like this plan, which is why I'm not letting you go alone" would have made a lot of difference.

I much preferred Heavensward where we were trying to stop a war, rather than start one.

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I'm also a bit worried that their avoidance of integrating "optional" storylines back into the MSQ will mean that the really-quite-critical Warring Triad plotline won't be recognised as having happened, when it should be relevant for a few reasons (ie. Unukalhai and Regula). Perhaps this is more of a 4.5 fear than a 5.0 fear, but it's probably relevant to both.

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I wonder about world design as well. Hopefully there'll still be an interesting variety of locations to visit, and not too much of the "Garlean metal" or Allagan architecture.

Thavnair should be a contrast at least, assuming we go there.

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And a minor one, but glamour. I'm not so keen on the Garlean costume designs we've seen so far (eg. Ironworks). Hopefully we still get a good variety of new costumes in other styles as well.

(There's that nice steampunk design from the gear design contest, at least. Could work for some sort of "old Garlean" style?)

[Aellae]

Eureka is the most pleasant relic to do so far imo.

Screw farming FATEs in the open world and running O1S 50 times farming light.

Instead farm fates for weeks with a most obnoxious level and party system in a monster spammed (sorry, some prefer calling it "dangerous") separate instance that has about no tie to any other content presently available, mostly not even to your social list.

[HyoMinPark]

I fear them getting rid of Eureka because of all these hateful people. That don't realize its optional content and that if they don't want to do it they don't have to. I myself love Eureka and hope it stays around for the long haul.

My issue with Eureka is that there is no variance to the content—it is a mindless grind and I have no choice in the way I want to go about it.

With previous Relics, you always had a choice of how you wanted to go about completing the steps (with very few exceptions). Need to get Unidentifiable items for the Anima step? You could do Hunts (for Allied Seals), run dungeons (for Tomes), do Beast Tribes (for Tokens), or even do Gordias Normal modes (for Precision Pieces). Need to farm light? You could do the fast way (A9S or A1S farms during a Stalwart window), or a “slower” way (I personally farmed all my light for my HW BRD Relic by farming Ex primals for the mounts, but dungeons, 24-mans, 8-mans, even FATEs were all options with varying levels of Light obtained from each).

Previous Relic steps also kept the older content alive—some people didn’t want to farm A9S or A1S for light, so they would do other content. Some people didn’t want to do Hunts for the Unidentifiable items and instead farmed dungeons for Tomestones. The fact that the Relic is locked in Eureka shows in that a lot of older content is suffering from it.

So they can keep Eureka—they can even do a smaller scale version of it in 5.0 if they want. But I don’t want them investing everything they have in it, because I feel like other aspects of the game are being ignored and it’s not better off for it. And if they throw the Relic in there (and every other desired item in a patch because one carrot is no longer enough), myself and a lot of other people are just done with it at that point. I’d rather have the unnerfed Unidentifiable step back over doing Eureka any day, and that step was the most hated of all the Anima relic steps. But at least I had a choice how I wanted to complete it, and not trapped between choosing the lesser of two evils (FATE farming versus mob chaining) in Eureka.

Eureka is the most pleasant relic to do so far imo.

Screw farming FATEs in the open world and running O1S 50 times farming light.

At least Light Farming during the Anima relic had other options going for it. I finished my BRD relic while farming for the Sephirot and Thordan birds. Much better way to spend my time compared to mindlessly FATE farming or mob chaining in Eureka. A1S wasn’t the only option for light.

As stated above, there is no option—no variance—in Eureka. It’s boring; I would much rather have multiple options for doing a relic, so that I can mix it up when I get bored with one. I don’t feel like spamming A1S anymore? Well, now I can just go farm an Ex primal for a mount instead. Or I can take it slower and do daily roulettes for a few days, then jump back into something else.

[Sandpark]

If there were other things to do, and Eureka didn't have the relic tied to it, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The issue people have isn't necessarily Eureka but the fact this "optional content" took the primary focus away from virtually everything else. If you don't like Eureka, what else is there to do? Nothing. The game simply doesn't have enough content to stretch out across a four month span without counting Eureka. Therefore, our options become "do Eureka or play a different game entirely." Not a good develop philosophy. The other factor is how the relic has been locked behind it. They took something away from people and told them "do this optional content if you want that pretty relic we've normally let you do regular content to complete it."

How would non-raiders feel if they locked a relic step behind Savage or Ultimate? "Don't like it, well, it's optional!" I sincerely doubt the same Eureka defenders would appreciate that statement. Welcome to how many people who dislike Eureka feel.

Not other things to do? There are tons of things to. Fates, crafting, dungeons, raids, Golden Saucer, etc, etc. Relic is tied to Eureka though. You don't get Golden Saucer rares by doing raids, and you don't get raid stuff by doing fates. Everything is optional. I am sure lots of people don't do Golden Saucer, lots of people do not raid, and lots of people are not doing Eureka.

Relic used to be done in steps like low level fates and stuff and some people did not like that. Relic is meant for casual players. Maybe Eureka is not casual in the sense it takes a long time but it is easier difficulty wise versus doing ultimate. Though raiding is pretty lively here it is by no means for the casual player due to needing to have more people and the degree of difficulty in the upper tiers of difficulty. So if relic is aimed at casual then I expect casual players to be pretty pissed if it was locked behind the most difficult content in this game?

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Not other things to do? There are tons of things to. Fates, crafting, dungeons, raids, Golden Saucer, etc, etc. Relic is tied to Eureka though. You don't get Golden Saucer rares by doing raids, and you don't get raid stuff by doing fates. Everything is optional. I am sure lots of people don't do Golden Saucer, lots of people do not raid, and lots of people are not doing Eureka.

Relic used to be done in steps like low level fates and stuff and some people did not like that. Relic is meant for casual players. Maybe Eureka is not casual in the sense it takes a long time but it is easier difficulty wise versus doing ultimate. Though raiding is pretty lively here it is by no means for the casual player due to needing to have more people and the degree of difficulty in the upper tiers of difficulty. So if relic is aimed at casual then I expect casual players to be pretty pissed if it was locked behind the most difficult content in this game?

Except the relic wasn't tied to Eureka until this expansion. That's the whole point. They took something already established and isolated it in a single piece of content. Now you're forced to partake in Eureka whereas before you had options—all of which are articulated above.

As for stuff to do. What purpose do FATEs serve now? I've had everything at 70 for several months now. And even if I didn't, the EXP gains were atrocious given a single dungeon took less time and gave significantly more. Dungeons? I have ran every single one several times now—many numbering in the hundreds. Again. What purpose do they serve? Some are fun, sure, but The Burn doesn't exactly have much lasting appealing every a dozen or so runs, especially given trash mobs do such negligible damage nowadays I'm mass pulling without tank stance. And I have no trouble whatsoever holding hate. Raids? I've done them all except UcoB. Crafters? All overmelded. The Gold Saucer doesn't offer much. And certainly not enough to cite it as long lasting "content."

Unless you play this game at a snail's pace or are a relatively new player, no, there isn't "tons of things to do."

And you mention the relic as casual yet how many people defending Eureka have said the precise opposite? Regardless, the point of referencing Savage or Ultimate wasn't their difficulties but the fact players are now being forced to partake in a niche piece of content they wouldn't otherwise. Eureka, while significantly easier than either, still falls under a "niche" label. The whole purpose of the relic has been progressing your character through a variety of daily activities. That isn't the case with Eureka.

Edit: Replace Savage or Ultimate with the Gold Saucer. A relic step forces you to grind MGP to progress with no alternative. There, now you have arguably the easier step ever in terms of actual skill requirements. Would you enjoy this or feel forced to do content you don't enjoy?

[Cabalabob]

My biggest fear going into any new expansion is for the jobs that are in a good place, like AST, DRG, BRD, PLD and WAR, cause when they’re in a good place there’s nothing SE can do but make them worse. Not only will this likely happen from them trying to tack new skills onto something that’s working fine as is, but also they’ll probably nerf them to boot in an attempt to make struggling jobs like DRK and WHM more attractive.

[BillyKaplan]

Screw farming FATEs in the open world and running O1S 50 times farming light.

I farmed light as I was working on my Mentor roulettes. If I got content that would give it to me, I swapped to the relevant weapon. Also, say what you want about farming FATEs in the open world, it does the one thing that Eureka doesn't let you - do it while you're queued for something else. Eureka doesn't let you parallel your game-time. It's Eureka or bust. And at least when you were farming for light, you could run it with friends regardless of where each of you were in that stage - hell, they didn't even need to be working on their relic. Hey, you want that O1S clear? Cool, I can get light and tank mount points from that, let me bounce in. Oh you're running level 50 (at the time) roulette? Cool, lemme grab my unfinished relic. I can't join my friends in Pyros because I unlocked Pagos at all by mistake, and they have very little motivation to help me through Pagos because I'm so low level.
People complain about the relic grind when the way they've been doing it isn't mandatory for the relic.
Meanwhile in Eureka, people saw the intended way to clear Anemos, worked around it, and the devs became so frustrated they designed Pagos to counter that (and eventually backpedaled...)

This nicely brings me up to my on-topic fears for 5.0 - that the devs continue to be this detached from the playerbase and tone-deaf. I don't mind the formula that much, though it certainly doesn't work with the increasing delays in content release. I do mind the devs thinking they're being brilliant when they release things like the Greed Only change to alliance raids. That I very much mind. I probably would've minded Eureka a lot less on concept (I never worked on a relic while it was relevant) if not for things like what happened with Pagos and the anti-train design.
I fear they'll continue thinking they know better than the playerbase what the playerbase wants. Now, true, you can't please everyone, but this feels like a cook telling a patron at a restaurant to shut up and eat the nut-including salad while the patron has a deathly allergy. With all due respect to the original recipe and your reputation, good cook, if I don't want to eat it, I won't, and the alternative would not be me forcing it down my throat, it will be looking for better food - and service - elsewhere. Nowadays I already play other games more than XIV, basically waiting for hunt relays and Mentor roulette queues. If I didn't have those things to work on, I probably wouldn't have logged at all.