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

[Seraphor]

I find it hard to take these "wrong demographic" comments seriously when I am that demographic.

For years I was an "except 11 and 14" FF fan, but 14 is incredibly single player friendly, and affordable in that you get 2 games for free, and then a free months sub to get through most of the other 3 games.
You can get 5 single player games worth of content for the price 2 plus one or two months subscription. It's a bargain what what is probably one if the best Final Fantasies.

The game will always be a Final Fantasy, just as much as it is an MMO. This isn't an either/or situation. They literally just need to roll back the trust system and all the boxes are ticked.
Stop getting your panties in a twist hardcore MMO fans.

[kaynide]

I find it hard to take these "wrong demographic" comments seriously when I am that demographic.

For years I was an "except 11 and 14" FF fan, but 14 is incredibly single player friendly, and affordable in that you get 2 games for free, and then a free months sub to get through most of the other 3 games.
You can get 5 single player games worth of content for the price 2 plus one or two months subscription. It's a bargain what what is probably one if the best Final Fantasies.

The game will always be a Final Fantasy, just as much as it is an MMO. This isn't an either/or situation. They literally just need to roll back the trust system and all the boxes are ticked.
Stop getting your panties in a twist hardcore MMO fans.

Not directly @ you, more I'm with you in that "wrong demographic". I'd rather the MMO neckbeards play whatever they want- if it happens to be FFXIV, great! If FFXIV isn't what they want, I'd rather not morph this into their kinda game because, frankly, their kind of game already exists.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

Please provide proof of your claim, because as far as I can see this company has enough proof for them to invest in more solo content. A company as large as SE would not invest in this aspect of the game if there were not a call for it. What are you worried about? Why force your preferred play style on anyone? This game was never about raiders I think you may have confused this game with a game that only caters to raiders. Just because there are a bunch of other players on your screen doesn't mean you have to interact with all of them. It's like going to a club and thinking you have to say hi to every single person you pass. It's a rather ridiculous notion and I am a older player and guess what I only talk to my FC and mostly do content by myself. I do two fights from the duty roulette just for the tombstones other wise I do trusts. I don't get why people are so controlling of others game play.

This post is beautiful. I lived in New York city for about 2 years. I loved the ambience of constantly being surrounded by people. Hate living in the country. Doesn't mean I wanted to say hi with every person I encountered lmao. Most of the time spent inside playing games. The atmosphere of being around other people is enough for some.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

Frankly, I'm all for them expanding on Trusts; not because I agree with this odd philosophy they're pushing about attracting single player holdouts, but simply because as it stands, SE has created an environment that pushes for the selfishness and inadequacy of some players to be carried through content by those who actually put effort into performing to a basic standard expected in team-based content. So much so, that I'd rather just do things with Trusts when my friends aren't available to fill out party space.

They may be slower, but at least Thancred isn't going to start screaming and threatening me when I pull the second pack of mobs to him. At least Alphinaud will DPS his little heart out when he isn't having to heal. Honestly, if they ever gave Trusts the ability to AoE? They'd probably kill things much faster than a good majority of players, lately.

I think SQE is a little tone-deaf right now with this decision, and are not focusing on the people they should be focused on - MMO players who will be here for a long time, rather than people who avoid MMOs entirely for very specific reasons - but if it means they improve on Trust capabilities, then sure. Go for it, I guess. Here's hoping they actually give them an Engage button a la squadrons, and let them AoE.

Did you know Thancred actually does have one of GNB's AoE skills? Yeah. Now let him do that multiple times instead of just the once to gain aggro.

[xenahawk]

So let me just get this question out of the way. Why do so many players have an us verses them mentality? They have plenty of things out there for group content and continually add new stuff but the moment they devs say ghey are adding the feature to allow solo playing. They arent temoving the ability to group with other players but still there is an outcry of its not what i want so dont do it. I never understood this position in any game i have played. Im not a high end savage or ultimate player but i dont cry out against them adding stuff like that because some people enjoy it.

[Ilisidi]

For years I was an "except 11 and 14" FF fan, but 14 is incredibly single player friendly.

Btw, the Story-Side of FFXI is also soloable and has been for some time. It has trusts as well, they work a bit different as FFXIV and used to be for over world content but nowadays you can unlock them to for the story fights. Graphics are ten year older than FFXIV's of course. But the stories hold up imo.

[kaynide]

So let me just get this question out of the way. Why do so many players have an us verses them mentality? They have plenty of things out there for group content and continually add new stuff but the moment they devs say ghey are adding the feature to allow solo playing. They arent temoving the ability to group with other players but still there is an outcry of its not what i want so dont do it. I never understood this position in any game i have played. Im not a high end savage or ultimate player but i dont cry out against them adding stuff like that because some people enjoy it.

It's pretty simple; it really just boils down to this:

1) Devs announce feature X, or adjustment Y
2) The vocal player(s) who don't like the above, complain that dev time should instead be going towards thing Z.

Both sides have vocal annoying players who complain about every single thing on this forum, but the grand majority don't really care THAT much beyond offering an opinion.

There are times where it is a genuine complaint that does raise enough concern that the devs respond to it, but often not. Like, I would prefer dev time not be spent on viera/hrothgar headgear when it could go towards, say, another dungeon...but there are many who DO want that..and indeed maybe it is time for the devs to focus on such back-burner issues.

[Felis-Silvertis]

I agree that they're chasing the entirely wrong demographic.

The game's population exploded over the past year, due to a massive influx of people interested in the game because it's an mmorpg. Timid, single-player 'holdouts' are a drop in the ocean in comparison, and not worth potentially compromising an opportunity to please a demographic that is already known to be highly active and lucrative. This feels like another example of the developers being largely out-of-touch with the NA/EU playerbase, where most of the population expansion has been focused.

This is the prime example of confirmation bias.
There are of course lots and lots of people whose mental picture of an MMO is 14 year-olds furiously typing "your mum" in chat and they wouldn't touch this genre with the barge pole. Tapping into that market is a smart business strategy.

[DPZ2]

This all doesn’t even account for the fact they’re now going to be focusing on making the game a single player visual novel basically. Which means less time put towards new content and more time being put towards old content for new players, something that we saw happen in ShB.

This misinterpretation of what the Producer actually stated would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Players asked SE to expand the Trust system to older content. There were enough players asking that SE decided to implement them.

The sad part is that players who believe this appear to have ignored every other mention of new content in the game from those same slides. A new deep dungeon; Criterion dungeons; mention of post-savage raids.

By the way, "take a break, do something else" does not require you to stop paying a subscription and lose your house. It does mean you have to decide whether a single MMORPG is going to be the primary focus of your life or not. There is no law in the entire world that requires you to play FFXIV, and only FFXIV, every single day in order to get your money's worth of enjoyment from the game. That way lies madness and burnout.

[DPZ2]

The extremely bad ff7 remake that game was masterpiece

Yeah, I agree, and I haven't even had a chance to play it yet (don't have a console).

I was using the words of the original poster, since SE has apparently produced a lot of 'extremely bad' games lately according to them. They did have games that weren't particularly successful back in SE's FY2020. [March 2019-March 2020]