FFXIV made it onto a list of healthiest live MMORPGs at the end of 2019

[Sloprano]

I say well and deserved. When it came to sights, sounds, storytelling, pacing and music there are many points that still stick out in my memory. The zones were a huge step up from Stormblood, the way the story ebbed and flowed with it's characters driving it forward from the most disheartning to the highest hype. The tie-in of plot points from many years ago suddenly made fit in so many places was a joy. And even more good places to sit and fish, watching the sun go up and down as the lovely music changes.

But this praise feels awkward when they bungled up this one thing. I can deal with many changes. Had it been some potencies, maybe added new interesting ways to play, change crafting(which they did), made fisher only able to use the gig, sweeping changes to the chocobo races or triple triad games I would've looked into learning a new sometime. But this is too big to gloss over and it's the moment to moment fighting. The rudimentary, obligatory and downright forced amount of battling we're expect to do, not only in dungeons and trials, but both for quests and MSQ where we put our chosen job to the task to fight off whatever is there. And whoever looked at Scholar 5.0 and said "Yes, this is good. Ship this." must've either been lied to what enviroment this job was supposed to played or made for some Bizarro -FFXIV where I can heal my way through the story and where the pet hotbar, arcanist, Selene and Cleric Stance never existed. I want to ignore these changes and go about playing my favorite job, but I can't when the the horrible changes are in my face and felt every single gcd I'm trying to play.

A simple but strong core playstyle with good loop and flexibility defined Arcanist/Scholar from level 1 back in 2.0 and 3.0. Ever since had to sit and watch the job deteriorate without anybody at SE saying why I have to deal with Broil III when they suddenly turn around and go "Ta-da! Blue mage update! Look at aaaaall these weird and wonderful spells!" and I'm here shouting "I had weird and wonderful spells, what did you do them!" Five months and counting only answer has been in the form of a hardcoded two second delay on my level 80 skill.

[JunseiKei]

Taking risks and constantly innovating is why WoW is still the top MMO 15 years later. Not everything works, and not everyone likes every change, but shaking things up periodically is how you keep people interested for so many years. FFXIV is now in version 5.x and things are still pretty much the same as they were in 2.x. This game is incredibly solid, but it's also incredibly safe and predictable, and that's not great for keeping people engaged over long periods of time.

Next to WoW, there's no other MMO that compares to FFXIV. They all lack so far behind in quality, consistency and content. WoW's future looks uncertain from those that never touched it and lack any nostalgia to cloud judgement. You can hear disgruntled, long-term players that say the franchise feels very Activision now and not Blizzard. Right now, Blizzard is still doing well because of that nostalgia keeping players for classic. Then you have the players that have been in it for so long, they don't want to throw all of that... work... away. They don't like the game anymore, but they are heavily invested in it monetarily (that's what, nearly $3,000 if you've played the game for 15 years, assuming you just paid for a sub each month?).

I'm more interested in seeing how well WoW, and Blizzard, will do once classic content is all used up and should their next expansion fail to grasp players.

What I do know is FFXIV is doing very well. Even if you fault the team for taking no risks and is safe and predictable, but still manages to be as popular as it is, there's simply no reason to change. I'm a bit puzzled to what you'd want, because a game that is incredibly unpredictable and questionable definitely doesn't sound like a game I'd stay engaged in.

[rachcouture]

You want to get rid of the guy who single-handedly saved the game? Damn, I swear your posts just get more stupid.

It wasn't just him; it was an entire development team. Yes, his direction helped turned a flop into a success, but that alone doesn't save a game, nor does it keep it creatively interesting six years after the fact. Shadowbringers—despite having the best narrative to-date—took major steps backwards in overall game design and balance. Healers are a complete and utter mess (if not stripped of their identity), several other jobs only fair marginally better, Viera and Hrothgar are still incredibly limited, the shift to 72 player only Alliance effectively killed the only relatively active PvP mode, dungeons haven't evolved in design for most of the game's lifespan, progression in every expansion is painfully predictable, and a ton of other things that were fixed, but weren't broken to begin with. (Crafting rework, anyone?)

I like Yoshi P because he does seem to genuinely care about what he does. I think he could use some fresh ideas though, or a fresh set of eyes on current ones.

Or this. Vahlnir beat me to it.

[Wolfsbane706]

I'd at least like to see some of the changes that came with Shadowbringers to be applied to the other portions of the game. For example, height markers on quest areas.

[purgatori]

Next to WoW, there's no other MMO that compares to FFXIV. They all lack so far behind in quality, consistency and content. WoW's future looks uncertain from those that never touched it and lack any nostalgia to cloud judgement. You can hear disgruntled, long-term players that say the franchise feels very Activision now and not Blizzard. Right now, Blizzard is still doing well because of that nostalgia keeping players for classic. Then you have the players that have been in it for so long, they don't want to throw all of that... work... away. They don't like the game anymore, but they are heavily invested in it monetarily (that's what, nearly $3,000 if you've played the game for 15 years, assuming you just paid for a sub each month?).

I'm more interested in seeing how well WoW, and Blizzard, will do once classic content is all used up and should their next expansion fail to grasp players.

What I do know is FFXIV is doing very well. Even if you fault the team for taking no risks and is safe and predictable, but still manages to be as popular as it is, there's simply no reason to change. I'm a bit puzzled to what you'd want, because a game that is incredibly unpredictable and questionable definitely doesn't sound like a game I'd stay engaged in.

But, as the poster you're responding to stated, you can have a solid, predictable foundation of content, and then innovate on top of that. FFXIV has done just that over the course of its lifespan—most recently with BLU and Eureka—it's just that few of the attempts to innovate have actually been successful due to very questionable design decisions undermining what could have otherwise been great additions to the game. Take Eureka, for example: an open-world area that has challenging enemies and allows you to grind towards sweet loot over the course of many months? That sounds great to me, but the implementation (forced grouping, unable to queue for stuff in the DF while you're grinding, stupid mount restrictions, Pagos's map) undermined the concept.

Now I disagree that WoW owes its success to constant innovation. Instead, I think it essentially McDonalds-ized the MMO formula, and made it accessible to a wide audience... That is, after all, kinda Blizzard's thing in general. But what I am fairly certain of is that people will eventually tire of the same old gig unless it is livened up with some twists on the formula every now and then, and while this may not be hurting this game yet, it is only a matter of time unless they start introducing experiments that actually yield dividends.

[JunseiKei]

But, as the poster you're responding to stated, you can have a solid, predictable foundation of content, and then innovate on top of that. FFXIV has done just that over the course of its lifespan—most recently with BLU and Eureka—it's just that few of the attempts to innovate have actually been successful due to very questionable design decisions undermining what could have otherwise been great additions to the game. Take Eureka, for example: an open-world area that has challenging enemies and allows you to grind towards sweet loot over the course of many months? That sounds great to me, but the implementation (forced grouping, unable to queue for stuff in the DF while you're grinding, stupid mount restrictions, Pagos's map) undermined the concept.

[...] people will eventually tire of the same old gig unless it is livened up with some twists on the formula every now and then, and while this may not be hurting this game yet, it is only a matter of time unless they start introducing experiments that actually yield dividends.

First of all, resources are a thing; people, money, data, time, etc. are all things that must be acknowledged when people start to talk about 'shaking up the mundane formula and experiment.' All of which are very finite, especially given XIV's content cycle. Most people are unwilling to admit that we're pretty spoiled on a consistent 3~4 month patch cycle; most MMOs do not keep that short of a content cycle.

Yes, they are saying FFXIV plays it too safe and is predictable, despite having side content that is seemingly meant to be experimental and let the developer team play around with, like your mentioning Eureka. The dev team did it with relic because they were bored of just making a quest line like what we had in ARR and HW. Personally, I hated that decision, especially with how we had finished out HW's relic with a fully sentient weapon.

I apparently need to remind people that Eureka is not new to XIV - majority of what was done in Eureka, aside from Baldesion Arsenal, was already done in Diadem versions 1, 1.5 and 2, pretty much perfectly mirroring Anemos, Pagos and Pyros in how players reacted to each reincarnation. I will continue to question why the XIV team decided to repeat things other than to make sure that those were things that players did, indeed, not like. I hope. I really don't want to experience the same outcomes thrice. Speaking of Eureka, while you might have enjoyed it, someone like me equally hates it - it brought back a style of MMO playing I grew up on some 20 years ago. I was glad XIV did not follow that formula. Had the Baldesion Arsenal not been in there, I would certainly dare to say it would not have seen as nearly as much popularity as it did.

However, it was still a gamble and a shake up to XIV's patch cycles.

The problem with innovation is that you have to identify a problem or niche that needs to be filled. XIV is full of niches, but it seems like MMO-players especially, are looking for something, but not really saying what other than "we're tired of what we have, give us something new." (Which, BTW, is something that is pretty much being said by players regardless of the MMO and is not unique to XIV from what I've read.) I'm not even sure that's a majority saying, since I can only read what English speakers say. In an already hard-to-survive genre, I can honestly understand businesses not wanting to break from what they know works all for the sake of experimentation. Especially with an ever increasingly fickle consumer.

[Rasikko]

FFXIV makes list of healthiest MMO of 2019. Majority of posts though suggest why it shouldn't be there. Hmmm...

[Xatsh]

FFXIV is one of the healthiest mmos out there.

In terms of content being developed, size of the dev team, community, and playerbase.

And for a themepark I would argue it is the best on out there atm, WoW is still bigger due to the commitment people put into over the years they are not willing to give up.

That does not mean there are not issues. I agree the content is released quickly, but it is basically the same thing over and over with a new coat of a paint. It is so predicable atm you can probably guess the Item Level and kind of content we will have 2 years from now in the next expansion. That is not good in my opinion.

Content also has issues in terms of longevity and pacing. Game is pure linear and content is quickly negated. The long term grindy content (Relic Weapons and Such) never release at the start of patches. Thus alot of people do get extremely bored and end up unsubbing for duration of time. And yes I know Yoshida says this is perfectly ok to unsub then come back at content patches, but no it isn't not in a mmo where community is suppose to be everything. Having half your guild quit mid patch cycle or your linkshells being void of life sorta ruins alot of what make a mmo special.

[Makeda]

FFXIV makes list of healthiest MMO of 2019. Majority of posts though suggest why it shouldn't be there. Hmmm...

My perspective is that FFXIV and ESO belonged on that list...

Anyone playing FFXIV and ESO is seeing growth and proactive user-friendly devs... not everything goes the way we want... but even the mistakes are small...

The article itself gave reasons why most of the other MMOs were NOT healthy... There were a few I lack knowledge on so I can't speak for... the Star Wars and Trek ones, and Eve.

But most of the article's list was a list of MMO fail...

Weird article...

[JunseiKei]

[...]

That does not mean there are not issues. I agree the content is released quickly, but it is basically the same thing over and over with a new coat of a paint. It is so predicable atm you can probably guess the Item Level and kind of content we will have 2 years from now in the next expansion. That is not good in my opinion.

Content also has issues in terms of longevity and pacing. Game is pure linear and content is quickly negated. The long term grindy content (Relic Weapons and Such) never release at the start of patches. Thus alot of people do get extremely bored and end up unsubbing for duration of time. And yes I know Yoshida says this is perfectly ok to unsub then come back at content patches, but no it isn't not in a mmo where community is suppose to be everything. Having half your guild quit mid patch cycle or your linkshells being void of life sorta ruins alot of what make a mmo special.

There are a couple of things I want to point out.

Again, like I said before where MMO players want something new, but can't even tell you what, is how your comment of "That is not good in my opinion." What's the alternative? You don't offer one despite showing a lack of contentment with the current cycle. What crosses my mind is something seen in older/other MMOs: gear that takes much longer to obtain. You sort of tap that with the 'no long term grindy content never released at patch.' I agree on that point - I don't see a reason to keep the relic grind so far behind raid weapons, especially with ultimate weapons always being the BiS item. The argument used to be raiders weren't happy with a grindy weapon being BiS over a raid weapon (poor argument IMO), but now that spot will seemingly always be the ultimate weapon anyway. Keep relic on par with the savage raid weapon and release the relic final step sooner (like when they release weapon solvents from 24-man raids).

I digress; you're asking for tedious tasks to fill time in patch cycles. As it is, even the grindiest item, relic, has ever failed to keep even the most hardcore of grinders to last longer than a handful of days (I'm not even joking, even the worst parts of ARR relic took some only 24 hours). Other tedious tasks tend to just be complained about (centurio tiger, astrope being prime examples) and largely not done. The grind exists, but it either gets knocked out very fast (or can be; not saying everyone grinds relic that insanely hard), or the grind is set so high that the more vocal crowd just goes 'nah.' It's just that grind isn't on gear.

A lot of content is locked behind story. Most MMOs don't really care about their story, let alone focuses on it. Final Fantasy is different. To even change content longevity related to gear, it'd have to detach itself from the story completely. With how pretty much everything is explained within the game, even jokingly (looking at you allagan tomestones in Shadowbringer story and our character's face upon seeing them), that'd be really ... ... ... strange. Eureka sort of did that, but who knows if they'll continue to work on Eureka, considering the sidestory to it concluded and everything.

That being said, I can't name a single MMO that doesn't cater to the average working man other than FFXIV. It's kind of annoying when people think everyone works a simple 9 to 5 job only 5 days a week. That adults shouldn't enjoy, or have the time, to play MMOs. I really hate seeing the argument of people quitting partway through patch cycle as being a reasonable argument to force the kind of grind you can find in, literally, any other MMO. Let the one MMO that actually caters to the common man cater to the common man. The fact that it's on the list of one of the healthiest MMOs out there means it doesn't hurt for players - it just means that you're tired of seeing specific groups of people drop off socially within the game.

Note: I realize you're not saying an adult with a job can't play MMOs, but my point is look at what the alternatives tend to be; something that caters to people with tons of free time to sink into absurd grind for the sake of 'longevity.' Then you can't even really enjoy anything else, least you fall behind.