Quote Originally Posted by Valic View Post
You think this only affects duty finder random queues? You're funny.


As for the many tools in this game that allow you to leave? So you think a player that actually means to try should suffer a 30 minute penalty because 1-2 players in the group they're in aren't trying at all? You also assume this is only roulette content..... There's a LOT of players in PF just as well that don't know some of the most basic skills. Dark Souls isn't an mmo, MMO's typically set base content to require some form of competence beyond hitting 1 button. Stop acting as though my post is about being an elitist and stop accepting this low as a standard. You people are why this gets shrugged off and why there's so many players who think its okay to not gear up or learn their job.
Just a few thoughts, because I think you need to step back a bit, with and rethink your arguments.

1. PF is NOT DF. The argument you presented is incorrect because you added in the penalty that DOES NOT exist in a full Party Finder drop than you would in a Duty Finder.

That said, has some of the content become "too easy"? Yes.
Are there people who still can't perform basic functions in the game? Yes.


Has their subscriber base dropped due to it? Doesn't look like it.

Yoshi has come out and said he wanted it more accessible and that he didn't want people to feel it to be too much of a grind anymore. That someone can come back and play instead of being on it all the time.

Part of the complaints about the game's state do come from people who do burn through a lot of this content too much too quickly and those negatives start piling up because that's what our human memory latches onto the most: negative experiences.

There is still quite a bit of content out there that is challenging but due to the reward structure has certain access locks to it, be it weekly lockouts - having to form a job composition around it etc... Part of this problem is that depending on the culture/region - it brings its own set of problems. Japanese culture will work to make sure achieve the goal with different compositions. Raider mentality in the states is general complaints about a job that is "trash" due to hyperbole over "the meta" That's not to say that there are genuine concerns over a job, bugs and reward satisfaction. Then job identity arguments making different jobs in the same classes "feel the same" because the devs trying to breakup the meta. So yes it is "our" fault that some of this blandness has happened and the game feeling less challenging overall is one issue.

Age is another issue. While I think this game isn't THAT bad off technology wise. I think it's far easier to feel that FFXIV needs a technological overhaul due to the way tech has progressed, over how FFX11 may have needed it (till the time of 14's first appearance). There's also the feel that the staff ....or at least the time to roll in content is running thin. From the way they had to do half a race for each gender (and you can see they had to keep adjusting down to the wire and on after launch) to other small "impact" but noticeable things like why only one model of Mystel like Dulia when you had a CG movie showing that quite a few were overweight. Yet it's her model NPC that's roaming around, which kind of minimizes the story's impact in some ways (it's WELL written, and still has a lot of fantastic story building elements - make no mistake) . Then not having craftable weapons for the new Jobs that were primal based. Not to mention we're this far into the patches and still no relic quests.

Now I know I digressed posting the above paragraph, but that's to show that you can see it's getting a bit "threadbare" overall.

But one other point to this problem is that in the end this is a business. If they're still gaining subscribers with a lowered bar, then that's what's gonna happen until it starts losing people.
There isn't one factor to this problem of mediocrity and some of it isn't easily solvable due to cultural differences, while the other is going to take time (if they need to just have a better game engine and at that point would it be worth it to move to a 3rd engine when you can just do another MMO from the start?)

The problem isn't also SE accepting mediocrity itself, from the tone of your rant/rebuttal this is a community problem and some of which the blame lies on ourselves in the way we approach this content and caused a clash in mentalities that many sides take to an extreme.