FFXIV is too simplistic and bland

[Melichoir]

Welp, fine.

I didnt want to interact on the forums but I saw your comment and wanted to respond.

Ok, so Ill say you are definitely bordering on trolling. The "I didnt want to interact but had to respond" shtick is old hat. If you didnt want to interact on the forums, then dont post. But you clearly wanted to post your thoughts and clearly wanted people to respond. Stop trying to be cute.

Now to touch on everything else you've said.

Your basic gist of everything you said, was along the lines of "trivialize" boss' in previous Final Fantasy games. I'm not sure you've played very many to say that. Even with absolutely maximizing your characters to their fullest potential, which takes weeks and weeks sometimes months, and in FFXI's case, years and years, there are numerous boss' who cannot be trivialized.

While the case is the same for FFXIV. The "rotation" I use in FFXIV, is the same, or "roughly" the same rotation for literally every boss. There is no variation. This is what I was referring to. Same for gear.

Same Rotation? this is your issue? That there is an optimal Class rotation at max level and this is boring? Welcome to most MMOs. There is some nuance in teh fights about when and how you use yoru abilities in regards to CDs, but this isnt new to any MMO let alone FF games. There is always going to be a 'general level of play' among games because whether you like it or not, its about numbers in the end, and there is always going to be a number pattern that is more or less optimal in most fights. The nicer things about FFXIV, at least from my perspective, is that the fights are moving to be more mechanically driven. Yes, rotations will remain because that is the nature of hte beast, but fights are more about mastering the mechanics within the fight while maximizing that rotation. This means working with your timings a bit to make sure you dont do something like pop Brotherhood right before the boss phase changes, or other things like that. Is it the most fun combat system Ive ever played in an MMO? No. I really enjoyed Blade and Souls combat system but even then there is a fairly set rotation of skills you will be using. Boss does X, you do Y. Boss A, you do B. There is an 'answer' to boss mechanics and there is optimal skill rotations you use to maximize your damage. So your gripe here is pretty damn superficial. Youre acting like somehow FFXIV is some weird boring outlier where every other MMO has unique skills and fight patterns fro the bosses, when the reality is they all operate the same - Maximize how much numbers you do while anticipating the boss mechanics so you can keep your numbers up. WoW does this. GW2 Does this. Tera Does this. BnS does that, etc. No MMO is free from the numbers game and optimizing your damage rotations and skills. This, btw, is what creates class balance and consistency.

If you think you can wear one set of gear, and do the same actions for numerous boss' in another Final Fantasy game, then you absolutely clearly have never played any other one.

Just what are you stating here? You cant wear one single set of gear in the entirety FFXIV and do the exact same actions for every single boss in FFXIV, much like you dont in any other FF title. Quite literally FF series is a numbers game. Start off, go to hub, get basic gear, go adventure, get to next hub, buy gear with better numbers, etc etc. Youre not beating E8S wearing Gear from Sastasha. Youre gonna go through multiple gear sets as you level till you reach the current tier's BiS. And thats what you use until the next tier becomes available, in which you'll replace your current stuff for gear that has better numbers. This is true of most FF titles. Gear with the better numbers is what you equip. This is also more or less true of most MMO titles, with very few exceptions.

And for actions, or more accurately, a rotation, yeah welcome to MMOs and min maxing numbers. Welcome to RPGs broadly too. You will be given a set number of skills and you will essentially use those skills in response to boss mechanics and will almost invariably using the 'stronger version' of the same skill. Lightning II is better than Lightning I in most RPGs. You will always cast a spell, attack the boss, or cast a support move in response/anticipation to a boss mechanic. This isnt any different in FFXIV than it is from FFVI. Boss does a hard hitting aoe, you pop an aoe heal skill. Boss is weak to something, you abuse that weakness to maximize damage. In earlier FF titles, this mightve been spamming an elemental skill. In FFXIV its maximizing buff windows during those weakness phases. The concept is the same, just application is different.

But for some reason youre behaving like somehow FFXIV is a dumb stupid version while previous FF titles were deep and thoughtful. They weren't. They were all very surface level without that much strat to them. Have the best gear/items, and youre fine. You can brute force 99% of the bosses. Hell if you really were bored and wanted to cheese, just grind incessantly on low level garbage till you are vastly over-leveled for the area and even if your gear is crap, you still can smack down anything you encounter.

You want to know how surface level this got? FFVII is a pretty good example: Once you get to a decent level, have mime materia, and W-Summon Knights of the Round, you can literally W-Summon Knights of the Round, Mime, Mime, and put down your controller for the next 5 minutes and watch Safer Sephiroth die because there is literally nothing he can do to stop you. The full rotation does 750k worth of damage, when he only has 500k. You can literally obliterate the hardest bosses in the game with this 'strat'. And its not like this was some deep hidden strat. Playing the game and being semi thorough would get you the levels, items and materia to accomplish this feet. There was no thinking - it is literally what is the best way to min/max damage. Even in non FF titles like Chrono Trigger, building parties where you literally spam Luminaire with Double Cure from Marle/Frog combo made taking down most bosses pretty straight forward and handle virtually every mechanic the boss chucked your way. All youd do is have Crono do his thing non stop while keeping the others on reserve for that hard hitting super heal. Might not even have been the most ideal damage strat but it was effective and easy, because the strat isnt that deep.

SE games and JRPGs as a whole typically boiled down to this. There wasnt this grand strategy where you had to change things up for every single boss. All that happened was you got to high enough level with the gear with the best numbers and you figure out which strat cheeses the boss the hardest, and after a certain point, the strat was always the same.

The variety in FFXIV is gonna stem from resolving Boss mechanics while optimizing your damage output. Youll have a set kit but how and when you use them will vary a small bit per fight. It may not have the 'elemental weakness' aspect like previous games, but it compensates for this with burst phases, avoiding boss mechanics, resolving tethers, and other factors. It's just a different way to achieve the same thing - whats the best way to cheese the boss.

FFXIV, is extremely simplistic, because it is possible to perform a full days worth of "adventuring" from one single location, and never requires you to take a single step.

This idea, bleeds into the entire game. Sure FFXIV has positive aspects, and does try to consider "casual gamers" in the sense that it does cut out the "BS" as you mentioned. But what it also does in this process, which is what I was saying it doesnt need to do, is it cuts out the "adventure" part as well.

Once you complete the main story, the game immediately becomes dead and empty. No thats not me saying there is nothing to do. In fact, I've poured 10s of thousands of active hours into FFXIV. What I mean, for example. In FFX you are required to revisit old areas and capture 10 of one kind of monsters for numerous types. Then after you do that, you fight new monsters, that were created from those captured monsters, for new and unique rewards.

FFXIV does not utilize this concept at all. Its all just do old content again, and do new content, which is created in the exact same formula as the old content, to get new item level gear.

There is no variation, there is no challenge there is no "new content" after you reach level 50. All the content is exactly the same. From crafting, to gathering, to battle classes, you name it. Not a single new feature is added. The furthest they go, is with Eureka and the elemental wheel. But really Eureka is just FATEs that are spawned from mob farming. Thats it.

I dont see why youre making this weird distinction here. Youre suggesting that FFXIV is S.S.D.D. after level 50, but in FFX its "new and unique" to go back to older zones and capture 10 of one kind of monster for rewards (aka grind the same monster till you get the sufficient amount for the reward). Hows this any different from mounts from old content? Or rerunning HoH or PotD for drops? Hows this different than fate grinding for Bicoloured jewels, or pvp grinding? It's not. You are repeating an activity to acquire a reward. Just because youre forced to go back and do it in a low level zone doesnt make it any less than what it is : A grind of a specific mob for a specific item to collect a specific reward. This isnt any different in FFXIV than FFX in that regards.

Yet you seem to think this is just something unique to other FF titles and not to FFXIV.

Thats the whole game. There is nothing new after level 50. Not a single piece of content. To go further, the content is reduced and watered down. What I mean, is ... just go do the binding coil then do Eden. If the difference in those 2 raids doesnt enlighten you on what I'm saying, ... I'll try some more...

Go obtain a lucius tool, then go get a level 80 scrip tool.

Go unlock a crafting book at level 50, now to unlock a crafting book at level 80.

Go do a battle leve at level 50 then go do a battle leve at level 80... oh.. wait.. there are none.

They have watered down the content they created in 2.0, and then reduced the varying types, then continue to just copy paste the formula over and over.

Another example. In 2.0 you had stat point allotments. Sure in 2.0 they were only a headache because when they reduced their meaning from 1.0 to 2.0, they didnt do it properly. So instead of creating a different more fun, more engaging, or more meaningful system, they just cut it out.

This is a matter of perspective and opinion. Like always, there are plenty of people who seem to look at past content as being 'better' than current cause it was more unique or harder. It's rose-tinted specs. Alexander was a funner tier!....except people tend to forget that over-tuned mess that broke tons of statics in A3S. Pepsi man was so much fun that tanks, as an example, would forgo vit and defense to maximize dps just so they could barely make that dps check. It wasnt fun for almost anyone involved in the tier. It was an over-tuned mess that made people quit raiding. The truth is some of the design choices in previous content was not great. This doesnt mean everything is better now a days. I have my criticisms about how they handle content and the dumbing down of things. However, I think they do have the right idea moving away from DPS checks to mechanically driven fights. It's no longer having the perfect rotation + gear, but having decent of both and understanding how the fight mechanics work is where its at. It is an improved design direction.

And this applies to a lot of stuff. Some of what was done in ARR was a convoluted mess. And some of what they ended up designing took a long while to refine. Eureka illustrates this pretty well. It was ok, then crap with Pagos (god pagos was awful), then Pyros was cool, and Hydatos was great. It took a few iterations to get something that worked and was interesting. I am hoping that this next part for the relic weapons will start at hydatos level of interest and get better.

The game, overall I think has improved in design and sharpened up. But I also understand it's because I am looking for a particular content set. If youre thing is to have a game with convoluted means of getting items, over-tuned boss fights, and being grindy as hell, then maybe yeah the game has moved in a direction you dont like.

Beyond that, the last issue to take to task is how you are defining 'new content'. New stories and plots is new content. New pvp maps with different strats to win is new content. New boss fights with new mechanics and strategies is new content. Youre arbitrarily over simplifying things when it suits your needs. It's all the same cause ARR had extreme trials, and so did every subsequent xpac, therefore nothing has changed! Its like saying "Well that 1990 camry has 4 wheels and an engine, and this 2020 model has 4 wheels and an engine, so nothing at all has changed!" You are not addressing nuanced differences in design philosophy and how they address content.

There is nothing to your character outside of item level. You can meld materia, but its really "did you meld materia or not" the "bonus" is a very small increase in damage. Then people complain about melding materia.

The "argument" here is 1. you think I hate the game, I dont, I want it to be better, and said it doesnt take that much more work to do so. 2. your argument, "basically" is "cut out the BS" where as mine is "stop cutting everything out."

Or more specific, you're saying too many "pointless steps" are only beneficial when they are removed.

I'm saying pointless steps are still pointless, but if you add something meaningful such as a cutscene for boarding a boat, or difficult quests to unlock an additional materia slot on gear, or ... something that adds value and variation can be fun and engaging.

You can say there isnt much to your character outside of gear with most RPGs in general. I will admit that there is some room for them to tinker with how substats work and what the benefits of it is, but part of the issue isnt a dev problem - its a player problem. You could build a speed meme Samurai, but it is not the best damage output, and as a result is tended to be looked as a troll build - even if its funner to play and still more than functional in content. I do think that branching ability trees so you can customize a bit more would be ideal, but that is a balancing can of worms. To bring up a classic, Ragnarok Online was fun cause you could make a variety of builds for Knight (as an example). Spear Knight, Agi Knight, Vit Knight, BBash spam, etc. You could tailor your character a lot more than most MMOs. The trouble? There was still an optimal DPS build and every single one of those builds required an exorbitant amount of resources to function. Youre screwed as an AGI knight without a whisper muffler cause you were to squishy. Vit knights needed Raydric Cards. Etc etc. A high level of customization comes with a high level of gear and time cost. Even then, there are still 'BiS' stat builds, where you couldnt just stack whatever stat you wanted and be functional. There would be a few set ones that were optimal and thats it. Most RPGs have gone the way of simplifying that system overall partially for ease and partially because the illusion of choice was just that, an illusion. Youd build the same stat build more or less per class because that was what was optimal.

In FFXIV, theyre way of dealing with player play style customization is multi-classing: Being able to swap to different classes with different styles of play. Every class is its own playstyle, so the variety comes from which classes you play, not specifically within a class. It may not be ideal, but it isnt as simple as youre stating.

As for cutting out BS, seeing the same cutscene time and time again to do the mundane gets exhausting after a while. How would you feel if every time you teleported and landed from an Aetheryte there was a 5 or so second animation you had to view. Every time. Every time you entered a building, youd have to watch yourself open the door, walk in, and have ti close behind you. You want to mount up, theres a whole cutscene or two of you getting on your mount. And you do this for everything. Trust me, its cool the first few times, novel even, but after a while youll end up thinking "God just hurry up." Theres a lot of 'filler' that is really pointless. Fun the first time, but after the 20th, it's wearisome.

So tell me, why do you think FFXIV should not be expanded in even the slightest, and should continue the same exact formula, and continue to water down, and reduce and cut out content?
Why do you think its a bad idea, that instead of simply "copy/pasting" the existing content, they could expand upon it and make it more engaging. Using an example above, such as using MGP for a +1 STR bonus or doing something to add 1 Materia slot to a piece of gear, or anything that would branch the game out, even if it was something so simple, is a bad idea?

Every MMO has a 'formula'. Release x amount of dungeons, x amount of pvp maps, x amount of raids. How they dress it up is gonna differ, but it's the same formula. WoW has a formula. They made add new small side zones to try stuff, but the overall structure is the same. This is no different than FFXIV in this regard, or any MMO. If youre expecting every single xpac to be a wholly unique experience that is completely different from the previous, youre going to end up disappointed in MMOs in general. Once they got a method, they reproduce the method. It can get stale, sure, but this isnt unique to FFXIV. This is an industry standard because it makes the most sense to operate this way. If you make baked pies, you dont create a new version of apple pie every single time you bake. You find a recipe that sells and reproduce it. Sometimes you garnish it and change it up a bit, but you dont go from making apple pies to selling automotive parts. Theyre completely unrelated and are not what your customers are expecting when they come to the bakery known for its delicious apple pies.

Giving the players additional things to do. Giving players something worthwhile. If gil is meaningless, and MGP is meaningless after you have everything from the Saucer, if item level and gear progression is meaningless since you can just buy all the crafted gear every major patch... and nothing has real value, why is this, what I just said, nothing having lasting value to any degree. I mean literally the raid gear that you get from the hardest raids are absolutely meaningless because when they release the new patch the new HQ crafted gear makes it obsolete. They could do so many things. They could let you upgrade the previous raid weapon and body to skip the first primal/trial and body piece from the crafted set. Giving purpose to the raid tier.

They have been, but youve been insistent that theyve just been dumbing every small thing down and over generalizing. Beyond that, some of the issues you run into are literal 'content caps'. Theres only so much content they can create with any given thing. If you buy out all the MGP stuff at gold saucer, what else do you expect them to do? Youve consumed all that content, which is inevitable if youre ravenous enough.

Beyond that, no, crafted Gear is literally not going to be replace BiS gear out the gate from the previous tier unless it is specifically HQ gear. As a direct example,the normal quality ilvl 480 crafted Neo-Ishgardian Top of Fending has less armor, str, and vit than ilvl 470 Edencall top of Fending. Now if its HQ, good times, you got a better set....you also likely spent a few mil for it when some of that will be straight up replaced in the current tier but better gear. In fact, the standard Edencall 480 that you get from tokens is superior broadly unless you do over-meld simply because the sub-stats are better on the standard Edencall, and you can get that week one with some grinding. All crafting does, if you got the money and effort for it, is provide another avenue for gearing, so youre not locked into either having finished best of previous tier to be able to catch up, and that really is depending how how far/fast you want to prog the new tier. If youre taking it easy or normal, having BiS of the previous tier is more than enough to complete the current tier mechanics.

So no, it's not all pointless, unless your argument here is "New tier comes out with better gear, therefore all the effort I did before was for nothing." In which case, welcome to all RPGs and games with stat progress systems. But Ill say this again, you seem to make weird distinctions between FFXIV and other MMOs. Where somehow what other MMOs do is 'unique' while FFXIV is just terrible in this regards.

But no, you say nothing should be changed, nothing should have value, cut out the BS. Why? Please explain why nothing should be engaging or lasting, or meaningful?
Why is it only a good thing, that the player who realizes there is no point in doing the savage content, because crafting gear exists, and why raid players should not be "actually" rewarded for their efforts, is the only way?
Why cant raiders be rewarded? Why cant any gear or rewards carry over, why must absolutely everything be either "done" or "not done" why cant a single thing be a true accomplishment?

What you define as meaningful is pretty damn subjective. You know what I found meaningful? Completing Alphascape Tier. All that ilvl 400 gear? Useless in current content. Nothing more than glamour. And not even unique since people can brute force it now with a moderate skill. But beating it was meaningful to me when it was still current and relevant. It was an accomplishment. You seem to suggest, whether that is your intent or not, that the only time something is worthwhile or meaning if you get an object of 'lasting value'. Short of Ultimates where it is incredibly hard to get those glamour weapons, you will never get anything that will always be meaningful in the way of being useable. There will always be things that end up replacing it. What is meaningful is the experience you get out of it.

If youre concept of having lasting meaning is things that dont get swapped out, well youre gonna be disappointed in RPGs in general. What should be meaningful is was something fun and challenging to experience. And in that regards, yeah I think FFXIV does fine. It is not perfect and god there are plenty of things I would love them to do and try, but I think youre unfairly oversimplifying the game to adhere to a personal outlook that is incredibly subjective.

Ill blow through your final points real quick:

I could give countless examples.

Letting raid players upgrade their weapons to the new item level so they can skip the primal fights.

This doesn't make sense? Most Extremes with weapons come out AFTER the savage tier release. As a point, SoS is 495 weapons, while current Eden weaps are 505. Only way you can trade up is if youre going from the next tier Primal fights for your previous tier Savage, but this would also mean that the next tier of eden would be live, so said savage weapons would not be highest in slot as it were. Also, youre creating a system for people to skip current content, so...that makes sense for improving the game?

Let raid players upgrade the body so they can skip the body token.

See Above. Same idea.

Let MGP grant any kind of bonus. Even similar to the FC bonus so you can really stack up on those types of bonus' if you play more.

You mean purchase buffs with MGP?

Sure why not.

Create content or even utilize existing content to grant the player an additional materia slot.

This content then becomes a must for optimization purposes. It's also wierd you suggest this since you said earlier materia stat differences are minor.

Allow players who clear Ultimates use a token to outright buy the next max level weapon. (I mean seriously people who put more time into the game should be rewarded. There is no reason they shouldnt be.)

Umm no. This again is incentivizing people to skip content. Ultimate completion is literally a 'weapon' measuring contest. The reward is the title and weapon prestige for going through that slog fest. It's not meant to be a path for easier gearing. It's not meant to be a normal progression. It is literally check out the 'size of my ability.', bragging rights and all. And thats plenty fine if thats what people want to do. More power to everyone in finding something that is meaningful to them in game.

Add more items to the achievement list that really benefits the player. Such as a ring that when you eat a piece of food it lasts 5x as long. or a full 24 hours. Or a key item that increases your inventory by 5 slots. They could do soooo many things!

This is power scaling issues that cause troubles, and btw this then becomes mandatory content if you 'want to compete' in game. Werent around to get that achievement that gives you a hefty advantage? Tough. Sucks for you. Furthermore how you gonna use that ring? Does the buff only stay when its equipped, or do you just stick it on when you want to abuse the buff and take it off afterwards? Things like that wont totally mess with the MB economy as it is too.

Create a fight that is job specific, that once completed grants the player a certain status proving they are proficient at their job, and allowing party finders to set this as a requirement for entry into the party finder.

This is probably something that should be done in the novice hall for roles, and something that has been advocated for in some fashion or another. But this requires raising the 'skill floor'. That's not a dev problem, thats a player problem, as there are a lot of players who cant be bothered to even learn basics.

I love how people take the time to read "level 25" but dont take the time to read "join date"

Yes. I joined in 2012 and only managed to obtain level 25. What? No. This is why I post on an alt. People will find anything to argue, and I'm not here to argue. I want the game to improve.

I dont even have an answer for someone who responds or talks this way. Sorry.

Ive addressed this issue. Why are you posting from an alt? What is there to gain by doing this, when the very least is people either see you as a potential troll who doesnt want to discuss points, or some sprout talkin' out that backside. You want to be serious, then post a serious character, instead of hiding behind alts for some god forsaken reason.