Please grow the MMO part of the game. End game is lousy.

[Ath192]

Those aren't put up by me. If you hover over those tags you can see the names of the people who put them up.

=O Today I Learned.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I doubt it, given that many of the same problems are beginning to manifest here as well.

One of the biggest criticisms of World of Warcraft by many was the lack of consistency in the story and the bizarre decisions to turn even well liked characters into raid and dungeon bosses. To say nothing of how poorly the decision to resort to weird and contrived time travel as the justification for an entire expansion. Tying everything to 'Old Gods' was also criticised...as well as various other factors, such as Sylvanas and Jaina being pushed as victims when they decided to indulge in a bit of genocide. It's particularly revolting in Jaina's case given that her target was the Blood Elves - a race that was not only the most popular pick for Horde characters but was only a part of the Horde in the first place due to the Alliance already trying to wipe them out through no fault of their own.

So, bringing the discussion back to FFXIV...much of the above is now present in FFXIV as well. The weird attempts to excuse genocide when Venat is responsible for it, the contrived time travel, everything being linked to the Ancients to the point of considerable character agency being lost in the process and so on.

I know this thread isnt about that topic but I dont agree with that whole statement about this game's story going as haywire as WoW's awful plot. Are we just going to ignore the actual villains and how they committed genocide 7 times for the sake of bringing back a dead world? Are we just going to say its ok to deny the lives of the sundered their right to exist?

Lets not forget the whole reason this situation started was because of Hermes's irresponsible decision to decide the fate of the world and the universe based on the conclusions of an emotionally distressed bird about the meaning of life. If anything we should all point the finger at him. What Venat did was a gamble and it wasnt like she didnt suffer any consequences for her sundering. Every strife, every war, every extinguished life and the multiple rejoinings the Ascians made brought pain to her as she was connected to all life within the shards. But she knew that it was necessary for suffering to happen for us to appreciate the meaning of life and find the answer to Meteion's question, which is why you constantly listen to the words "Hear, Feel, Think" hinting the concept of dynamis. Nobody is saying what she did was 100% correct which is why Yoshi-P addressed in the live letter with his statement that "she really was an Ancient after all" for as the Ancients were akin to gods and in their hubris and power would leave the inevitable demise of their own making (as seen with the perfect society in the Dead Ends wanting to end their existence due to not knowing suffering).

Anyway this is how I saw it with Endwalker's story and I for one think its nice and beautiful.

[Lauront]

The great thing about the internet is that allows people to be both obviously wrong and extremely confident at the same time.

Telling the company that makes the FINAL FANTASY series that no one plays single-player games is the hottest of takes.

You may want to re-read his post.

Single player holdouts (=players intimidated by it being an MMO) also willing to pay a sub fee for a newly rebranded 'single player' game; yes, I'd wager those are pretty rare.

[Theodric]

I know this thread isnt about that topic but I dont agree with that whole statement about this game's story going as haywire as WoW's awful plot. Are we just going to ignore the actual villains and how they committed genocide 7 times for the sake of bringing back a dead world? Are we just going to say its ok to deny the lives of the sundered their right to exist?

Lets not forget the whole reason this situation started was because of Hermes's irresponsible decision to decide the fate of the world and the universe based on the conclusions of an emotionally distressed bird about the meaning of life. If anything we should all point the finger at him. What Venat did was a gamble and it wasnt like she didnt suffer any consequences for her sundering. Every strife, every war, every extinguished life and the multiple rejoinings the Ascians made brought pain to her as she was connected to all life within the shards. But she knew that it was necessary for suffering to happen for us to appreciate the meaning of life and find the answer to Meteion's question, which is why you constantly listen to the words "Hear, Feel, Think" hinting the concept of dynamis. Nobody is saying what she did was 100% correct which is why Yoshi-P addressed in the live letter with his statement that "she really was an Ancient after all" for as the Ancients were akin to gods and in their hubris and power would leave the inevitable demise of their own making (as seen with the perfect society in the Dead Ends wanting to end their existence due to not knowing suffering).

Anyway this is how I saw it with Endwalker's story and I for one think its nice and beautiful.

The recent Q&A during the Live Letter revealed that Venat, herself, is ultimately responsible for the Rejoinings. She knew full well that if Emet, Elidibus and Lahabrea survived the Sundering then they would fulfil their duty as members of the Convocation and seek to do everything possible to restore their people and civilisation to what it once was.

Which is something they can't be easily faulted for, given that Venat sat around with foreknowledge of the Final Days and allowed it to happen and then inflicted the Sundering upon the Ancients in a way that left them entirely unaware of why Venat chose to do it in the first place.

I'll be honest - I don't particularly care if Venat was 'sad' over what happened since she is the individual ultimately to blame for the torment of both the Unsundered and the Sundered is...Venat.

I'm also gay, so the whole 'mOMmY sO pReTtY aNd SaD' thing doesn't do much for me, I'm afraid.

[Skyborne]

It's hard to make a full assessment based only on what was said in the LL. My take is that given the trend for people to play MMOs as an increasingly "Alone Among Many" experience rather than the early generation experience of needing to have people to progress, I wouldn't be surprised that they've decided beefing up the Trust system is a sort of future-proofing. When it comes to social interaction in general content, I hardly experience any; even when I'm in an all EN party. The only time I get any real interaction with non FC members is in RP or general "hang out" locations while waiting for queues and such. This has created a situation where, at least for me, DF groups are essentially glorified Trusts that get things done faster and earn more tomestones.

Agree with this... personally think an MMO should be facilitating interaction between people as much as possible, I don't think people should have to go out of their way to seek out social interaction in an online game at all times. Things like everyone just sitting and squatting in samey Discords (once you've been in one FC discord you've been in them all pretty much with little exception) doesn't really help either, not that SE can do anything for that.
All I really want from this game since the beginning was an actual continuous world that you are rewarded for exploring, games like GW(2) and Archeage (but without the 'swipe credit card to become invincible as 30 people wail on you') and not a series of disconnected big boxes. It makes sense for 'special' areas like the Moon to be its own thing, but I'd like to ride my chocobo from Limsa to Doma to Thavnair without loading screens in between. Engine limitation, perhaps?

[Tyjacon]

You may want to re-read his post.

Single player holdouts (=players intimidated by it being an MMO) also willing to pay a sub fee for a newly rebranded 'single player' game; yes, I'd wager those are pretty rare.

I'll take that wager and raise you 1,000gil.

Your wager is based on personal assumptions and speculation without a shred of proof.

And talking about assumption;
All the computers are going to crash on Y2K, didn't happen.
Life was going to end with the end of the Mayan calendar, it didn't.

Why don't we just wait and see.

[Conundrum]

Single player hold outs will NEVER play this game, regardless of what you think you can do. The mere fact that this game connects to the internet makes it a no go for most of those people, as an older player who knows scores of these exact people, take it from me.

Please grow the MMO part of the game. It's been eight years since ARR and our end game is still the exact same as launch. Your game is literally emptying out right now because of low content.

<---Am single player

<---Plays game


This is never going to be an endgame epeen raider based hardcore game. WoW is over there if you want that garbage. You can also go grind endgame Lost Ark for elveventy-three thousand hours if you want that.

[Hysorn]

Agree with this... personally think an MMO should be facilitating interaction between people as much as possible, I don't think people should have to go out of their way to seek out social interaction in an online game at all times. Things like everyone just sitting and squatting in samey Discords (once you've been in one FC discord you've been in them all pretty much with little exception) doesn't really help either, not that SE can do anything for that.
All I really want from this game since the beginning was an actual continuous world that you are rewarded for exploring, games like GW(2) and Archeage (but without the 'swipe credit card to become invincible as 30 people wail on you') and not a series of disconnected big boxes. It makes sense for 'special' areas like the Moon to be its own thing, but I'd like to ride my chocobo from Limsa to Doma to Thavnair without loading screens in between. Engine limitation, perhaps?

Well, even though each zone is just a box "connected" to each other, I think what FFXIV really struggle is to make them feel part of the world. I mean, unless you are fate grinding(Which let us be honest, it isn't the most enticing of contents) or doing the MSQ, you don't have much of a reason to be out in the world, it just feels... Kinda dead. Most of my playtime right now is sitting in Ul'dah waiting for queue to pop to level a new job. There are train hunts, but likewise, train hunts makes most of the world bosses kinda trivial.

[MagiusNecros]

They have stuck to the same tired old formula for 5 expansions it isn't going to change at all. Things aren't going to change. If anything things are going to be like FFXI where it'll be more difficult to find groups for dungeons since you can farm for gear more easily by running trusts and avoiding queues.

[Lauront]

I know this thread isnt about that topic but I dont agree with that whole statement about this game's story going as haywire as WoW's awful plot. Are we just going to ignore the actual villains and how they committed genocide 7 times for the sake of bringing back a dead world? Are we just going to say its ok to deny the lives of the sundered their right to exist?

Lets not forget the whole reason this situation started was because of Hermes's irresponsible decision to decide the fate of the world and the universe based on the conclusions of an emotionally distressed bird about the meaning of life. If anything we should all point the finger at him. What Venat did was a gamble and it wasnt like she didnt suffer any consequences for her sundering. Every strife, every war, every extinguished life and the multiple rejoinings the Ascians made brought pain to her as she was connected to all life within the shards. But she knew that it was necessary for suffering to happen for us to appreciate the meaning of life and find the answer to Meteion's question, which is why you constantly listen to the words "Hear, Feel, Think" hinting the concept of dynamis. Nobody is saying what she did was 100% correct which is why Yoshi-P addressed in the live letter with his statement that "she really was an Ancient after all" for as the Ancients were akin to gods and in their hubris and power would leave the inevitable demise of their own making (as seen with the perfect society in the Dead Ends wanting to end their existence due to not knowing suffering).

Anyway this is how I saw it with Endwalker's story and I for one think its nice and beautiful.

Yeah, it's just those darn ancients... not like the sundered would ever do that!

That's not really what he was getting at and even Venat herself denied the notion that they did not know suffering when she was addressing the strawman in that fast-forward scene. What they're getting at is the possible fate of the star if they continued the pursuit of perfection from there on, assuming she told them nothing about what was motivating her concerns.

I also call BS on his point about her "really being an ancient". Yes, they're not humans, but is he forgetting all the sundered antagonists, like Thordan, Ilberd or Yotsuyu (and that is just in recent memory and just to name a few) who tried to inflict their own viewpoint on mankind? Or that the ancients valued debate and the notion of autonomy?

I thought the story was one of the most meandering messes I've seen in a game in recent times, and certainly not a beautiful one, but each to their own.

Anyway, not the main topic of this so I'll shut up about it.