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

[Imuka]

If they double down on their RNG in every system (such as relics), I'm definitely going to leave. I don't find RNG based gameplay fun at all.

This is also what drives me away. It is to much RNG just to strech Content.
They did not found a way to make the Bluemage Skillhunt a bit longer and so they went for RNG, to make people run Leviathan for 2 Hours to get the Skill.
In the end, the Players spend less time searching the Skill and spend the most time with redoing the same fights for Hours, because RNG.
And it was even weirder, to make a restricted Single Player Job, but then force the Players to Party up, to get the Skills.
This is as weird as some Offline Games, connectiong the Multiplayer into the Single Player. Progress..*cough* Mass Effect3* cough*

I enjoyed the Stone Gear System. I had a sense how long it would take to get my things done. Even Savage gave me at least some safety, that my Gear is done in x Weeks.
Except the Atma Step, I even liked the old Relics. Sure, it was grindy as hell, but I knew, that every small step brought me forward.
Everytime I used this Kristals, Sand...whatever, I made a small step forward.

I have no Problem working towards a Goal, but I prefer having a steady Progress, instead of RNG Progress.
Back then, I could finish those Weapons while doing some Dailies, which was nice.
Farming the Light took ages, but every Dungeon, Primal, Alex Fight, etc counted.
Sometimes, I got more, which was nice. But there was no "Whoops, sorry, no light this time, because RNG does not like you."

And RNG can be used in a good way,to make encounters more engageing, to make Spawns more interssting and sometimes fight more interessting.
But the Devs use this tool so often to strech things, by making people push the Button in the Skinner Box thousand times for a few Breadcrumbs.

And putting the Relic into Eureka was one of the worst decisions in this Game. An exclusive weapon, like with the POTD would have been okay, but not the Relic.
From my View, they learned one thing from the Diadem: Put a loot of exclusive Rewards into it and the people will follow the Carrot on the Stick.

This game is wonderful, but it's getting pretty stale.

I feel pretty similar to that. The Artists and the Composers do such a great Job. I loved nearly every Primal Song of Stormblood.
The Art for places like Kugane, Ala Mhigo or the Primals is stunning. But the Team works on a Budget and are at the same time so stuck in their formula, that the Game repeats itself and will repeat itself forever. And when they try something new, it often feels old.
Yoshida calls Eureka "content in an MMO that has never been experienced" in a Liveletter, while it is A something like a shallow Version of a piece of 11 Content and B something many MMOs Devs have dropped as Designs years ago.
Those are moment, when I wonder how many MMOs he and his Team had ever seen in their lifes. Sometimes it feels like they only played WoW back then, to get a Picture of Western MMOs and never played any other MMO after that.
They should send him and some of the Devs into a Room with some modern MMOs and tell them to play those, instead of all the traveling around the World to gather new Players.
If the Game is great people will come, but if you spend to much time to get new people into the Game, you start to lose the Player that are in your Game at that moment.
And I don't talk about the Veterans. I talk about every Player that is in the Game with a Sub at this moment.

[Shurrikhan]

To be honest, it feels like with Stormblood the devs just spread themselves too thin.

Like, the story is trying to be 2 independent stories about Ala Mhigo and Doma, but it ends up feeling as though towards the end of the development cycle someone went "Hey guys, weren't we supposed to also finish the Ala Mhigo story?" and everyone when "OH SHI-" and quickly rushed to finish everything off in time to start the 5.0 preparation.

Class balance feels like it took a back seat because they wanted to work on adding BLU as a Limited Job and focus on trying to create content around that instead of you know... Making actual jobs not feel gutted.

With content feeling like they had to spend too much time between dungeons, raids and Eureka to properly design any single one of them. Especially as they also wanted to expand on things such as how Ghimlyt Dark includes so many other NPC's.

Though, I'm not sure the blame rests entirely on the dev team. Since it seems that they're in a bit of a Catch 22 situation. Where, they want to keep expanding the game and its systems, but they're limited by resources. But the only way to get more resources from SE is to show them that it's worth it by showing how expansion can create increased profits to justify the expenditure.

I don't think spreading thin remotely excuses the combat/gameplay, however.

Think back to all of the Heavensward skills that easily could have been bundled into single actions or given as traits, yet given separately just to make a point of there being "5 new skills!" Often times the more efficient solution or improvement to gameplay seems secondary to selling points.

With SB, enough people had commented on the inefficiency of many of the HW abilities that using traits and the like was itself a selling point, yet again many of the skills offered little by way of gameplay, being just tossed in. Worse, the largest selling point -- the trimming of bloat via Role Actions -- not only failed to trim bloat, but in some cases even cost core gameplay. Fracture optimization on Warrior - gone. Monk's 1 free positional per 18 seconds and another per 30 to mitigate their otherwise absurd positional dependence (and to do so via skill, rather than blanket buffs, at that) - gone. All because having something big and shiny to point at while saying "we're making improvements" apparently means more than making actual improvements.

To be fair, it's often been that way since ARR. Strawman this to make a scarecrow from which we are progressing/escaping, over-accentuating the relative improvements while glossing over whatever's been degraded in the process. One day it's shaders, despite barely improving actual frame rates. The next its UI element count, despite little improvement despite consolidation. Then it's imbalance, at cost of identity. Then it's simplicity, at cost of bloat. Then it's bloat, at cost of gameplay. None of them needed to have that costs, but tunnel vision and quick solutions don't well avoid collateral damage. You have to wonder when it's going to loop right back around, such that the heroic trajectory of one expansion's improvements are the same thing scorned just a couple expansions prior.

[Deceptus]

And putting the Relic into Eureka was one of the worst decisions in this Game. An exclusive weapon, like with the POTD would have been okay, but not the Relic.
From my View, they learned one thing from the Diadem: Put a loot of exclusive Rewards into it and the people will follow the Carrot on the Stick.

And look at the state of Diadem now. Dead. Previous relics are all still done because they can mostly be solod at this point.

Eureka will never be that way. And due to that, it will die just like diadem once Shadowbringers comes out.

[Imuka]

And look at the state of Diadem now. Dead. Previous relics are all still done because they can mostly be solod at this point.
Eureka will never be that way. And due to that, it will die just like diadem once Shadowbringers comes out.

Yeah, I even did one a few Months ago, as some kind of side activity, because I was bored by release of Eureka.
The big Problem around Eureka is, like you said, that it will be dead in Summer and the Devs bury every Mount, every Relic, every Minion, every Song, every Hairstyle, etc with it.
Lost forever...or till someone in a Guild is able to annoy his whole Guild, to do this Content for the Rewards.
And that is like with the Bluemage not how this Game should look like in the long run. That you need to "annoy" your Guild, to be able to play Content, because no one else is doing it.

The only reason, why this Game feels so small on Content despite having a ton of Content is that they bury everything with a Patch.
Release Pagus, bury Anemos. Release Pyros, bury Pagos. Release Hydatos, bury Pyros.
Instead of a connected Lootsystem, they just bury everything behind them. I can't trade Anemos Crystals, for Pagos Crytsals and the other way around. To help Players and still get my Gear done.
And the people who fell out of the System, will never see a chance to get this done in the future.
It is scalled depending on the Players in the whole instance as I heard, but how much fun is Eureka with 6 Players. Running around this empty Map, trying to spawn a Fate with just this small Party.

The Diadem is dead, because people did not like it. And it always baffles me, that Yoshi is not able to drop this Idea of the Diadem. Like I said "Fail Faster". He spend Time and Money for this Idea and now he is unable to drop it, because he invested time for it. While nearly 75% of the Community could have told him back then:
A whole Area just geared around Fates and more Fates is a bad Idea.
It feels like he wants to say "No, it is not unfun and boring. You just play it wrong.".

When new Players join the Game, they get the Picture, that FF14 is a MMO about Dungeons, Bosses, Raids, etc. and as soon as they hit max Level, they suddenly now get an Endgame about Trash Mob Farm and doing Bosses with 100 Players that just do super Basic Mechanics, like punching left or right. There are the Raids, but with Eureka a lot of more casualy Raids Parties stopped playing, because Eureka.
It feels like Black Desert would say "Grats, you unlocked your Awakening Weapon and not this Game is a Raids MMO for 8 Players.


I see so many people say "It is not unfun, you just don't play it effectively.".
This is a Game, I start the Game to have fun in the first place, not to feel like I am sitting at my second Job.

Or I hear "It is fun with friends.".
I got this horrible DayZ Standalone back then, when it was new gifted by a Friend.
And it was okay with friends, but I played it maybe once alone for 5 Minutes and noticed pretty fast "This is not fun at all.".
The thing that was fun was spending time with friends, not DayZ.

[Deceptus]

The Diadem is dead, because people did not like it. And it always baffles me, that Yoshi is not able to drop this Idea of the Diadem. Like I said "Fail Faster". He spend Time and Money for this Idea and now he is unable to drop it, because he invested time for it. While nearly 75% of the Community could have told him back then:
A whole Area just geared around Fates and more Fates is a bad Idea.
It feels like he wants to say "No, it is not unfun and boring. You just play it wrong.".

Eureka: Lets make all these FATES have time and weather conditions. Not to mention low spawn rates!

Can go entire lockouts without seeing certain NM's. I waited over an hour to see any NM in Hydatos despite people trying to spawn them.

[Kalise]

Eureka will never be that way. And due to that, it will die just like diadem once Shadowbringers comes out.

And thus... All the time and resources they spent making all the unique systems, creating the zones... Artificially inflating all the enemies stats... Giving enemies different types of "Aggro" styles...

*Poof* Gone.

At best, they might be able to translate Elemental Levels and maybe Logos to new "Eureka" content... But that would likely end poorly as people would then feel pressured into grinding out Eureka before being able to go into the new zone which is supposed to be the new "End Game" content (Which is different to how HoH requires PotD because both HoH and PotD are side content)

The only reason, why this Game feels so small on Content is, that they bury everything with a Patch.

Either a patch or an expansion.

I've mentioned in another thread how having an "Extreme Roulette" could be beneficial for the game, to allow old EX Trials and Raids to be run by sync'd groups. As opposed to leaving them to rot and never be played outside some people putting together specific parties for fun or steamrolling through them unsync'd for Wonderous Tails progress.

They have this plethora of content, but they condense the relevancy down to purely the latest dungeon/trial/raid/"Eureka" zone. Which drastically shrinks available content down to a pathetically small amount.

Like, people complained about how previous Relics had you "Running old content" when it sent you through a dungeon from a previous patch... But that at least gives that dungeon a longer life by making it relevant even when it's not required for the latest MSQ or loot farm. As if it's supposed to be better when you limit yourself to farming the one latest dungeon ad infinitum.

It is scalled depending on the Players in the whole instance as I heard, but how much fun is Eureka with 6 Players. Running around this empty Map, trying to spawn a Fate with just this small Party.

I imagine that unless they do something to address 5.0 killing Eureka by adjusting FATE spawn rates and difficulties (And/or ilevel sync in the place) that working on anything in the future might just end up being farming Bunny FATEs until a NM randomly pops of its own volition instead of actually grinding enemies to spawn stuff (Given it can still take 10-15 minutes even with 100 people farming to spawn a NM)

While nearly 75% of the Community could have told him back then:
A whole Area just geared around Fates and more Fates is a bad Idea.

Yeah... The issue is that FFXIV's combat is designed around instanced bosses. So that you have interesting mechanics.

This doesn't work with open world content such as FATEs, because you have to dumb down the mechanics so that they can function with variable amounts of people as well as open "Arenas".

Then, due to how XIV's actual combat functions, you can't just carry the enjoyment on the back of it being particularly fun to just fight things. Compare to something like Black Desert Online which is entirely open world fighting, it works because combat itself is actually fun and interesting. It doesn't matter that you're just mass murdering a bunch of enemies with few to no actual skills, because it's about how you attack stuff that makes it interesting, how you manage your resources, how you decide between what weapon to use for the situation (For those classes that don't have an Ascended weapon that's just 100% better than their default weapon in all cases)

XIV it's... You push your rotation. 2.5s GCD. Maybe if you're melee you have directional requirements for bonus damage (But that's irrelevant if you're solo as XIV has no tools to set up solo positionals)

Heck, BDO even does Limit Breaks better than Final Fantasy... Where each class has their own LB gauge to build and several ways to spend them even when solo. While XIV you have DPS LB3 that is the only thing that really means much and its only available in a Full Party...

When new Players join the Game, they get the Picture, that FF14 is a MMO about Dungeons, Bosses, Raids, etc. and as soon as they hit max Level, they suddenly now get an Endgame about Trash Mob Farm and doing Bosses with 100 Players that just do super Basic Mechanics, like punching left or right.

Interestingly, this Eureka end-game would have made some sense back in ARR. Back when FATE Trains were a popular way of leveling up. So someone would have leveled up via FATE Trains and then had an end-game that was FATE Trains.

However, since then, XIV has moved far more towards Duties. Be it Dungeons, Trials or Other Trials Raids.

Though, this isn't to say that Open World content can't be compatible with XIV anymore. If done correctly, it's quite possible to have simultaneously a focus on Duties but with a relevant Open World experience.

For example:

* In "Leveling Zones" increase the Exp rewards from FATEs and sidequests (Also, make some sidequests repeatable)
* Make zones have their own daily Rank B Hunts with decent experience and Tome/Seal rewards (For purchasing gear upon freshly hitting max level) with the Rank B Hunts being level appropriate for the zone.
* Make Rank A and S Hunts level appropriate for the zone and give a bunch of Experience.

There, you've made playing in the Open World to level up more meaningful. Where people are incentivized to work together and go exploring for Hunts and FATEs.

* Create new max level zones. Scale enemy difficulty to a set item level, with a warning if you swap to a class that is under the minimum ilevel for the zone. Make the ilevel be something not too high, but that requires some work to attain (Not just Eureka's "Do level 70 job quest, GG you're 300 item level")
* Make the FATEs give appropriate rewards, such as end-game Tomestones. Make the Raid FATE(s) give pages and maybe even chances for normal raid loot.
* Let chain bonuses grant worthwhile loot, something relevant like a currency. But make it possible for solo players to still get something for their time killing stuff not just parties whom run around with max chain bonus.
* Again, Rank B, A and S Hunts to do with relevant rewards.

There you get something relevant for max level players to utilize. Where they can grind out to work on relevant stuff, even if they're still queuing for duties. Where they can do something solo, but can be more efficient in parties and might want to work together for Hunts and the like.

The focus can still be on Duties, but now you have open worlds that aren't completely garbage or shoehorned in while stripping out a large portion of the activities (Like Eureka)

[Edax]

Yeah, it's a particular decision that makes little sense.

Given that we have literal evidence how how incredibly profitable an MMO that is properly funded and worked on can be.

It's because the stock market rewards growth above all else. Investors now care little for profits, all they care about is growth and the best way for a video game company to provide that explosive growth is through new games. The potential for the FFXIV to rapidly expand its playerbase is low so Square Enix Holdings Co Ltd has a financial incentive to neglect their profitable games. It sounds backwards and it is because investors have that mob/herd mentality, piling all of their collectively money onto the highest growth stocks and forgetting all about the profitable companies and offer slightly less growth. FFXIV may be very profitable, but that profit may not exactly be growing much.

[Kalise]

It's because the stock market rewards growth above all else. Investors now care little for profits, all they care about is growth and the best way for a video game company to provide that explosive growth is through new games. The potential for the FFXIV to rapidly expand its playerbase is low so Square Enix Holdings Co Ltd has a financial incentive to neglect their profitable games. It sounds backwards and it is because investors have that mob/herd mentality, piling all of their collectively money onto the highest growth stocks and forgetting all about the profitable companies and offer slightly less growth. FFXIV may be very profitable, but that profit may not exactly be growing much.

*Checks video game company stock trends over the last year*

...

...

Well, this certainly seems to be working out well for them doesn't it

[Imuka]

Snip

Someone said it once quite well about the 14 Combat and Trashmob Farm.
"It is to slow to be engaging, but to fast to chill and chat with others.".
The Person also said, that was the reason why it felt okay in 11. The Game did a Part of the Job itself and you could Chat a bit with your Party, while farming Enemies for a few Hours.
Which is a bit funny, because going straight for a Voice Chat seems to be more a western approach to it, than an eastern Version of chatting with the Party.

BDOs Combat is fast enough to be enjoyable for it's own, while 14 always needs a second Actor to work. But 14. In short fights against Trash Mobs, you often don't want to use your long CD Skills or can't really fill your Gauge and 1/4 of the Job is missing.
It feels a bit like Dance Styles. Some work on their own like Street Dance and other look just ridiculous when one Person dances alone.


For the Roulette. I had the Idea of a "half synched" Roulette.
Your Stats get synched, so you can't one shot a Primal like Zurvan, but you keep all your Skills for the fight.
I would love to do some of the old fight, but the Classes play horribly on Level 50 or 60.
And unsynched is not fun. There is no fun in beating Zurvan in 3-4 Minutes and skipping half of the Mechanics.


Maybe Eureka as a concept would have worked much better, it they had expanded the world with a new Area and tried of people like this design.
Sometimes it is funny, how here in the Forums the Players come up with so much better Ideas, to make it interessting in the long run and how they spend time, thinking how it could be kept for a longer time, instead of being buried with the next Patch.

And I think, if they had started HW with such a Concept it might have worked, but now with Eureka, it would just feel like they gave up on building a World and instead made Eureka the Worldmap.
At the end of ARR, they had the room, to do such things, to make some larger changes, because while the Formula was there for 2 Years the first Addon is a place for changes, because people did not play the Formula for 4 or 6 Years.

Snip.

The Problem is, the Market rewards short term growth above long term growth.
A MMO can make Billions after 3-4 Years on the Market per Year, but if Activision or EA can sell them short term growth, the Investors will jump for that.
Take 5 Bucks today or 20 tomorrow and they will take the 5, then break their own arm and on the next day demand 25 get told to leave and wonder why their arm hurts.

Just look how Activision dropped 10% of their Workers for more short term income on the Paper.
While Nintendo back then refused to do that and stated, that such large lay offs, can damage the moral of your workers and lower the Quality of the Product.
And all of that despite the Problems of the WiiU.
EA ruins companies like Bioware, Visceral Games, etc. for more and more short term growth.

The second Problem is "Games as a service" how it is seen today by the Publishers
The Publishers ship a "Minimum viable Product" on the Market and then start to fix it over time.

[Kalise]

For the Roulette. I had the Idea of a "half synched" Roulette.
Your Stats get synched, so you can't one shot a Primal like Zurvan, but you keep all your Skills for the fight.
I would love to do some of the old fight, but the Classes play horribly on Level 50 or 60.

Though, honestly, this is fixable with the same fix to another significant problem.

Frontload classes skills. Make them be "Complete" earlier in the game and then rely on Traits to upgrade skills at later levels. So the core of the class exists even at low levels, but higher levels you're stronger with additional effects on your skills.

So for example:

Samurai has their 3 combos pre-50 and a rudimentary Kenki Gauge that they build up using their positionals (Like they do for 52-62)

SMN has a Demi-primal to use pre-50 along with a Tri-Disaster variant that just applies their 2 DoT's without the Ruination debuff.

Dork Knight has TBN and Blood Gauge pre-50.

Etc.

Sometimes it is funny, how here in the Forums the Players come up with so much better Ideas, to make it interessting in the long run and how they spend time, thinking how it could be kept for a longer time, instead of being buried with the next Patch.

Part of it is viewpoints. As players, we spend our time playing the game. So we see it from a perspective of "What would we like to play?".

While developers spend much if not all their time making the game instead of playing it. So they see it from a perspective of "What would people like?" or, sometimes the worse thought "What would make more profit?" - Which focuses around how many MMO players like to only sub so long as they have new gear to work towards. So little mind is paid to anything that isn't new gear rewards.

And I think, if they had started HW with such a Concept it might have worked, but now with Eureka, it would just feel like they gave up on building a World and instead made Eureka the Worldmap.

Some of it is having too much distance from the player perspective.

They only really see the numbers and maybe some loud complaints and have to figure out what that means. Which might not be accurate.

For example, when PotD and Roulettes became better than FATEs for leveling and people stopped doing FATEs as a result, they see it as "Oh, I guess people don't like FATEs" rather than the reality which is "FATEs aren't rewarding enough to bother with"

Some people comment that FATEs aren't rewarding enough and they decide to stick the Twist of Fate buffs for increased experience in rather than actually try and fix FATEs and their rewards...

Same thing with Leves, which resulted them in cutting Battlecraft Leves from SB altogether. As opposed to fixing their rewards.

A lot of these things are pretty obvious for players, but from a designers perspective, they just don't "Get" what the issues are with things, why people trend to specific content over others. It's not always a case of "Well, people do X because they don't like Y and prefer X" when it's quite often in XIV the case of "People do X because Y is not worth the time necessary compared to X"

Like, I'm pretty sure very few people actually enjoy PotD/HoH, but they'll get high volumes of players in them because they're really good for leveling DPS classes because of the shorter queues than DF with higher experience per minute than farming FATEs. But the dev's will see the player numbers and think that it's a much loved feature that tons of people enjoy.