Future direction of FFXIV

[KizuyaKatogami]

According to Matsuno himself, the Bozja storyline ended abruptly because the reception to the plot was mixed in Japan and Bozja is already freed anyway.


The whole thing was divested from the Garlean storyline anyway. The whole point of the plot was a whole legion going rogue trying to make their own country and having nothing to do with Garlemald anymore. It would never have been a part of a possible Garlean expansion MSQ regardless unless they decided to pull another Crystal Tower and require all players complete the Return to Ivalice and Bozja storylines, which would have been a tall order.

And while I wish we got more Garlemald, they kind of flubbed the whole pacing by sending us to a side-dimension while things on the Source go on without us and then revealing probably a little bit too much about the greater backstory. And there's also the fact a Garlemald-centric expansion would have been Stormblood all over again, which would have just been covering the worst-received expansion for a second time.

I don’t see how it would have been stormblood all over again unless every war story is now just stormblood. I’d imagine if it was purely garlemald focused it wouldn’t suffer from the split areas problems, and they had a lot more to draw off of than they did for the ala mhigans at the time. As far as the bozja story goes, Bozja was freed sure, but then we have the whole post credits scene contradicting that the story was over… So i’m not really inclined to believe that so much.

[MikkoAkure]

As far as the bozja story goes, Bozja was freed sure, but then we have the whole post credits scene contradicting that the story was over… So i’m not really inclined to believe that so much.

I took that as the devs doing as they have done for the past 10 years and throwing a possible plot hook in there in case they decide to come back to it.

We've already seen that with G'raha going into the Crystal Tower and the WoDs going off with Minfilia to save their world. We've also seen plot hooks they put in that have already been aborted or have not yet come to pass like the Heart of Sabik.

[IdowhatIwant]

We’ve now entered the part of the conversation where some of those dissatisfied argue that they’re opinion should outweigh others because they’re apparently the true connoisseurs of video gaming and the masses are just pigs eating the slop set in front of their faces.

The games doing fine. Sub counts are up, it’s winning awards and getting reviewed well. You have every right to not like the direction it’s heading, but don’t make it anything more than that.

If people don't like the direction, than people aren't going to buy the future expansions. It doing fine now has nothing to do with it's future and it's boom actually has little to do with how successful the game has been and more to do with twitch hype and mass number of players jumping ship from another game. If Shadowlands was not a catastrophic failure, FFXIV would have seen far less gains and probably received less awards than it did with this expansion. This expansions success and boom had less to do with the games success and more to do with another games failure and that is the hard truth. But please continue to blow off criticism as nothing

Perhaps I’m incorrect but to “not respect the players time” is to make content specifically to maximize how long a player would need to spend to finish it so as to extend sub lengths. Telling subscribers to unsub until their preferred form of content comes out is the opposite of that I believe.

Clearly you read one thing and respond. A good example of the game not respecting my time is expert roulette. Where I need to run this daily for my tome stones, but I am given 1 to 2 dungeons as my options for 4 - 6 months. Do you think that is respecting my time in game? How about a relic weapon quest that wants me to do 50 fates in one zone to get to the next step, which is go do 75 more fates in that zone? Is this respecting my time in game either? The example I used referred to a player X wanting to get into savage raiding during a casual content patch cycle. Due to the nature of the game most players have cleared savage and unsubbed, or are returning players with little interest in savage. This model does not respect player X's time. To respect our time you would have various players engaged in various content at all times not select patches.

[KizuyaKatogami]

If people don't like the direction, than people aren't going to buy the future expansions. It doing fine now has nothing to do with it's future and it's boom actually has little to do with how successful the game has been and more to do with twitch hype and mass number of players jumping ship from another game. If Shadowlands was not a catastrophic failure, FFXIV would have seen far less gains and probably received less awards than it did with this expansion. This expansions success and boom had less to do with the games success and more to do with another games failure and that is the hard truth. But please continue to blow off criticism as nothing

It’s especially strange because as i posted earlier, clearly the devs see criticism as even more important than compliments, so i don’t know why the community is so against it. They’re supposed to side with the devs yet for this one thing they conveniently don’t. Hmmm…

[EaraGrace]

If people don't like the direction, than people aren't going to buy the future expansions. It doing fine now has nothing to do with it's future and it's boom actually has little to do with how successful the game has been and more to do with twitch hype and mass number of players jumping ship from another game.

If it’s doing fine now then it’s doing so for a reason. Looking through the thread I see two major complaints. One is the direction the story has taken and that the content schedule is stale. The latter has been complained about since I joined at the end of Heavensward and I think is a fair point for criticism given how long running it’s been. The former is a subjective take that one can easily find people to disagree with. In fact the latest story poll shows the last two expansions are peoples favorites. Notice how the former hasn’t killed the game and the latter isn’t clear cut.

If Shadowlands was not a catastrophic failure, FFXIV would have seen far less gains and probably received less awards than it did with this expansion. This expansions success and boom had less to do with the games success and more to do with another games failure and that is the hard truth. But please continue to blow off criticism as nothing

Subs and critical success has been on an upward trend since ARR. To claim it’s all just Shadowlands backlash is ridiculous.

It’s especially strange because as i posted earlier, clearly the devs see criticism as even more important than compliments, so i don’t know why the community is so against it. They’re supposed to side with the devs yet for this one thing they conveniently don’t. Hmmm…

I think the image you posted is a great attitude for devs to have! Which expansion did they make that slide for again?

[SamsaraTrickstar]

A lot of people would disagree with that and some would even say that it is the best FF story of any FF game. I agree that the subscription fee might still put people off and so might the former association with the MMO category. I doubt they expect to win everyone, but I do wonder if they underestimate how significant these things are in making people decide to avoid it.

and this people are purely BSing fanboy's that cant just say things how they are. this games story started ok in 2.0 wast trash in 2.1-2.4. then was amazing in 2.5-3.0 then was so so up to 5.0 . 5.0 ws really good but then 6.0 flashed it all to the toilet for a evil bird girl as the main evil of the universe. 6.0 ignored all the build up of 2.0-5.5 and for what. they pay of was? now after make it no bigy for going to fucking space, we will make a big deal from going to a different part of the planet? don't you find it a big bad.

[KizuyaKatogami]

If it’s doing fine now then it’s doing so for a reason. Looking through the thread I see two major complaints. One is the direction the story has taken and that the content schedule is stale. The latter has been complained about since I joined at the end of Heavensward and I think is a fair point for criticism given how long running it’s been. The former is a subjective take that one can easily find people to disagree with. In fact the latest story poll shows the last two expansions are peoples favorites. Notice how the former hasn’t killed the game and the latter isn’t clear cut.



Subs and critical success has been on an upward trend since ARR. To claim it’s all just Shadowlands backlash is ridiculous.



I think the image you posted is a great attitude for devs to have! Which expansion did they make that slide for again?

Afaik it isnt for an expansion, its for ARR lol, along with this one



It would seem this hasnt held true for awhile now.

[LittleImp]

Subs and critical success has been on an upward trend since ARR. To claim it’s all just Shadowlands backlash is ridiculous.

I don't think it's at all unfair to say that the majority of this games growth is a result of the state of the MMO market. Growth did in fact explode around the time Shadowlands sputtered out, far beyond what had been seen previously, and was largely instigated by the migration of big name influencers like Asmongold. Growth up until that point was steady, but fairly weak.

[IdowhatIwant]

If it’s doing fine now then it’s doing so for a reason. Looking through the thread I see two major complaints. One is the direction the story has taken and that the content schedule is stale. The latter has been complained about since I joined at the end of Heavensward and I think is a fair point for criticism given how long running it’s been. The former is a subjective take that one can easily find people to disagree with. In fact the latest story poll shows the last two expansions are peoples favorites. Notice how the former hasn’t killed the game and the latter isn’t clear cut.

When I talk about direction of the game, I more or less am talking about the game play, systems, and post MSQ content. The story is what ever in the end it's a one and done thing in my eyes and every ones opinions on that will differ. I did not like EW plot, I thought it was as bad if not worst than Stormblood, but other players like it and that is fine.

Subs and critical success has been on an upward trend since ARR. To claim it’s all just Shadowlands backlash is ridiculous.

I used the term boom for a reason. FFXIV likely would have seen an increase of 1 - 2 million players at best if Shadowlands did not fail, based on the growth from previous expansions.

[Fhaerron]

its not just 4 ppl dungeons, you have plenty of videos showing trials/normal raids and even savage raids being done without healers(sync) and its not just old content but right now EW relevant dungeons and every other old content when they were relevant.

That reminded me when Diamond weapon EX came out, it was done by 8 tanks.