COVID showed why the Developers need to release Relic content sooner.

[Evergrey]

Not really sure why folks keep citing the same 'just quit during downtime' sentiment. If everyone did that the game would be dead.

The whole point of a subscription is that you pay monthly with the expectation that you will continually be fed content, this game isn't a one and done deal. It's an MMO and it needs to be at least somewhat evergreen or why even charge a monthly fee? Might as well just charge for patch entry and leave it at that.

I feel like the idea that the game isn't designed to keep you playing is just a weird excuse to be lax with content releases. You guys should expect more from the companies you give money to.

And as a side-note, no I don't think the devs should endanger themselves to work on the game, but they should definitely be a lot smarter/professional with their practices so events such as these aren't so damaging to the game.

I understand that. But people also have to understand that creating content takes time and it's impossible to keep a steady flow of content without any downtime between.
Also, it's up to the players themselves to make something to do while waiting and not just sit and wait to get spoonfed content when they got multiple options ingame to do.
But if one might have already done everything there is to do, just take a break.
Even YoshiP have said to do something else while waiting if the downtimes are too much for you.

海外ゲーマー
ミスター吉田、俺は『FFXIV』が大好きなんだ。でも、ずっとプレイし続けるのが辛くなってしまって、いまはゲームを休んでいるんだ。すまない。何かずっとゲームを続けるためのコツや、モチベーションがあれば教えてくれないか？
"Hey YoshiP, I love FFXIV, but it's hard to keep playing your game (because of the lack of content) and now I'm taking a break here. Sorry for asking this but is there a way or a reason to keep playing? or anything that can you teach me how to keep my motivation for playing your game?" - A player asking Yoshida during Gamescom

Yoshida's answer
無理して毎日やらなくていいよ。ゲームなんだし、辛いならやめればいい。むしろ、いまはたくさんゲームが発売されるから、ひとつに絞るのはストレスだよ。だから、メジャーパッチがでたら一気にプレイして、飽きる前にパッとやめて。ほかのゲームをやればいいよ。またメジャーがでたら戻ってくる。僕はそれがいちばんうれしいし、結果、それがいちばん長くゲームをプレイするコツだと思う。
Yoshida "It's alright not to play it everyday. Since it's just a game, you can stop forcing yourself if it's hard on you to keep that up. Rather, it'll just pile up unnecessary stress if you limit yourself into playing just that one game since there are so many other games out there. So, do come back and play it to your heart's content when the major patch kicks in, then stop it to play other games before you got burnt out, and then come back for another major patch. This will actually make me happier, and in the end, I think this is the best solution I can answer for keeping your motivation up for the game."

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...otivation_and/

[Euphares]

-snip-

While this sentiment does have merit, and is refreshing in the age of companies exploiting every ounce of money from its players.

There is still a content threshold not being met in this game (imo), especially when you consider the X.Y patches aren't even the full package and major features are gated behind X.YZ patches which are also staggered.

And some people might not like this, but when you compare an entire patch in this game to other MMO's, its basically peanuts; and yet this game costs effectively the same as other games on top of having micro-transactions. I don't think that this is sustainable, and if everyone just quit after consuming this sparse content we're given the game would quickly lose lots of revenue. For even when I was a casual player (2 hrs of playtime a day, sometimes 2 days), I completed patches in less than a month. FF14 is really lucky in that its gotten a lot of (deserved) attention and traction, and has avoided a lot of traps other MMO's have fallen into because its a newer game, but I also feel like the devs are creating pitfalls for themselves that will ultimately hurt this game's lifespan.

My solution: Stop spreading patches out and just front-load them at launch. Things that we get teasers for should just drop with the X.Y patch, it would feel a lot better to stay subbed for two consecutive months and quit instead of unsubbing, resubbing, then unsubbing again, to consume every mini-patch. Redo the code to allow in hot-fixes, and release mini-content updates that way and much quicker, and if the current code doesn't allow it then stop putting out stuff until it does, I would've had no problem waiting six-months to allow the devs to update a lot of the subpar coding that restricts them and this game a lot. Because I at least would know that this would affect the game positively in the future.

As far as what new content they could put in to bridge the gaps, I would suggest adding in incentives to visit older zones and ways to keep old content evergreen, roulette's do a good job of this, but they are once a day. FATES, Side-Quests and more broadly the entire over-world in this game needs an overhaul to be worth traveling to instead of players just naturally afking in cities in between duities. Because the first thing I thought when seeing that ARR zones have flying is "who cares?" Due to the fact that travel in this game is already quick enough due to a well-made teleport system, and the fact that after you outlevel the zones there's nothing that warrants a revisit. Even something as simple as 'go complete a hunt-log in an old zone for progress on an end-game system' would be very good. XIV has a giant, beautiful world with tons of nifty nooks-and-crannies, but its wasted because virtually all things worth doing are instanced.

[Maleficent]

My solution: Stop spreading patches out and just front-load them at launch. Things that we get teasers for should just drop with the X.Y patch, it would feel a lot better to stay subbed for two consecutive months and quit instead of unsubbing, resubbing, then unsubbing again, to consume every mini-patch.

I suspect this solution was the problem to which its solution was to "spread patches out" instead of "front-loading them at launch".

I also suspect you may have unintentionally stated a more achievable solution to the problem of "unsubbing, resubbing, then unsubbing again, to consume every mini-patch" :

For the tail end of each major patch just "stay subbed for two consecutive months and quit". It should feel a lot better.


Jokes aside, stay safe everyone and be well.

[kaynide]

My solution:...:

It’s not a bad idea to have a ton of extra content frontloaded, but it causes problems:
Certain players blaze through the content very fast, so unless it was hella-grindy, they will still run out of things to do. Moreover, it will make it hard for everyone else to catch up (which isn’t a bad thing necessarily).

I think being upfront about having a very time consuming grind to get BiS, but being very transparent along the lines of making the grind super easy when it’s no longer current. Like how easy older tomestone gear is to get.

It would mean people who absolutely want BiS will work hard for it/have something to do, but when it’s no longer BiS that particular step becomes es easy to catch up on.