SE needs to listen, to improve FFXIV

[PharisHanasaki]

Ofc PF for savage is dead on the weekend, since everyone who PUGs it and knows what they're doing gets their clears on tuesday or wednesday. The further down the week, the more skilled players have already cleared and go to do other things, so PUGs become more and more of a sh*tshow of "leftover" people struggling with clearing, or you get helpers who already cleared so there is less loot, 0 chests if you get unlucky. Waiting till the weekend for pugging is literally the worst thing you can do.

Your are sorta right, but at the same time, there used to be more parties up before. Now the game is kinda dead during the weekends.

I wonder if it's because they're waiting for the next patch, but I've never seen PF so empty since it was made data center wide.
So yes, for savage it's not a good idea to wait until the weekend, but for everything else it was fine.

[RoyalBeef]

Your are sorta right, but at the same time, there used to be more parties up before. Now the game is kinda dead during the weekends.

I wonder if it's because they're waiting for the next patch, but I've never seen PF so empty since it was made data center wide.
So yes, for savage it's not a good idea to wait until the weekend, but for everything else it was fine.

Probably people who came back for ShB and are now waiting for 5.1, more and more people being done with mount farms etc. Moogle tome grind in PVP doesn't help PVE content PF either.

[PharisHanasaki]

Probably people who came back for ShB and are now waiting for 5.1, more and more people being done with mount farms etc. Moogle tome grind in PVP doesn't help PVE content PF either.

Yes, that what I'm thinking, most people not subbed or waiting for next patch. My FC is dead for the first time in 2 years. I'm the only one online right now.

My first post was just sarcasm directed at OP's, btw.

[RoyalBeef]

My first post was just sarcasm directed at OP's, btw.

That's what I assumed ^^ I just got back from a 10 day ban for making a similar comment

What I also notice is that many people are not pro active. They need something but don't make parties for it.I know a ton of people who need HW and SB mounts, and when I did farmparties they were always joining. Yet since I got all mounts and retired from running farmparties I've seen none of them starting their own. I mean I get being partyleader can be annoying, but that's the price you have to pay for getting stuff done ^^

[Vidu]

Your are sorta right, but at the same time, there used to be more parties up before. Now the game is kinda dead during the weekends.

I wonder if it's because they're waiting for the next patch, but I've never seen PF so empty since it was made data center wide.
So yes, for savage it's not a good idea to wait until the weekend, but for everything else it was fine.

While I'm pretty sure that pre-patch-lull plays a part in this, I'm also wondering if the growing popularity of Discord might be another one - while I'm personally not using it much outside of our FC-discord and personal chats, I know that there are quite a few big discord-servers dedicated to specific aspects of the game so I wouldnt be surprised if part of the matchmaking process happens there instead of PF - not even in the form of forming statics but just setting up a group for the next evening in advance instead of putting up a PF.

When it comes to Ex-primals and PF we also need to consider that woth the crafted ilvl450 gear and the Eden NM drops being 450 aswell gear-drops from Innocence and Titania are not excatly worthless but have at least strong rivals. Why put up a farm party for either when you can buy gear of the same ilvl from the marketboard or get your quick and easy Eden NM loot for the week? Not even to mention that you'll be using tomestone-gear (or Savage) for your main anyways, so even less reason to get a Titania-weapon or Innocence-earrings.

[PharisHanasaki]

That's what I assumed ^^ I just got back from a 10 day ban for making a similar comment

What I also notice is that many people are not pro active. They need something but don't make parties for it.I know a ton of people who need HW and SB mounts, and when I did farmparties they were always joining. Yet since I got all mounts and retired from running farmparties I've seen none of them starting their own. I mean I get being partyleader can be annoying, but that's the price you have to pay for getting stuff done ^^

Wow, some people sure are sensible.
I make my own parties, but yesterday none of them filled, farm parties, savage learning parties, both were unpopular. I had to do one with 7 instead of 8 (Tsukuyomi ex) cuz the 8th person was taking a long time to join.

While I'm pretty sure that pre-patch-lull plays a part in this, I'm also wondering if the growing popularity of Discord might be another one - while I'm personally not using it much outside of our FC-discord and personal chats, I know that there are quite a few big discord-servers dedicated to specific aspects of the game so I wouldnt be surprised if part of the matchmaking process happens there instead of PF - not even in the form of forming statics but just setting up a group for the next evening in advance instead of putting up a PF.

That's interesting.
I've only joined a couple of discord servers for hunts, but one had way too many rules most people just didn't post, and the other wasn't very active.

[aesteval]

I wouldn’t worry, it seems Square Enix is beginning to realize they can’t keep catering to the lazy audience all the time, and dumbing mechanics down so much. In the live letter digest, they mentioned (for crafting anyway) that they realize how bad end game crafting content is, and how easy it is, so they’ll be balancing it out to make it fairly difficult.

That’s probably the first time since Stormblood they’ve ever said that and acknowledged that. So it seems even they have limits. Anyways, I mostly agree with what you say.

Citation needed. Where did they say this in regards to the crafting system at large? I remember seeing mention of adding some challenges for crafters to take on, but at no point was it mentioned that these challenges would be present in the wider crafting game.

I'd also argue that removing cross class abilities from crafting is more along the lines of "dumbing down" than not as well. The vast majority of the changes they're hinting towards for crafting appears to be about making it easier on the whole and not more difficult.

[aesteval]

Shadowbringers was amazing on launch. One of if not the best expansions for any MMO while burning through the actual content.

...unfortunately it's still an MMO. And by contrast, it also has one of the worst if not the worst endgame out there. Not sure if it's at or near the bottom, but one thing I am sure of is that the disparity between what was offered at launch and what level of effort went into the content beyond the final boss is the largest quality gap I've seen since my first MMO expac (EQOA Frontiers back in like 2003)

That's nice. Not really relevant to the point that I was getting at, but nice all the same.

[aesteval]

But my point is SB was released in July. A lot of this content could be finished in a short period time. It's now October and a lot of use are still waiting for some meaningful content...It's been damn near 3 months.

Using SB to refer to Shadowbringers is confusing due to Stormblood.

Otherwise, they seem absolutely set on the timing of their patches. 3.5 to 4 months between big content drops. We should all expect this at this point. I don't think that complaining about it is going to change anything, not matter how many of us do it or how vocally. Having a fixed release schedule with an established understanding of how much can be accomplished within that timeframe makes too much sense from a project management standpoint.

[aesteval]

I believe Yoshi knows this. Back in February at some press thing or other he even commented and said that the future of the final fantasy brand needs to move away from the masses and go back to its fans if it wants to be sucessful.

One of the games big problems is that it has alienated a good chunk of the final fantasy fanbase in its attempt to go more main stream and wow like. Classic final fantasy elements and staples have been absolutely butchered in the name of simplicity to attract the masses and the game has suffered badly for it.

So the implication that you're making is that XIV is deviating to far away from what makes FF an FF? Because I have an opposite view. From the perspective of someone who was playing FF1 back in 1990, XIV has done more to regain my interest in the series since content that was released on PS1. The release of FFX on PS2 killed my interest in the games and this one has done more to regain my interest than any of the PS2 era and later games.