More unneccesary nerfs to older content

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

Yes, because I play video games to get knocked off and then watch other people play the game for me while I just get to sit there and stare. If I wanted to watch people play the game so I can learn, let me direct you to this site called YouTube.com.

Easy solution is avoid bad things on the floor.

Though I like how I even say that I don't personally care one way or another about the permadeath removal (except in EX... why take it out of the content that's supposed to be harder?), and people still find ways to throw a fit about it and defend it to the death like your very subscription to the game is on the line if you don't. Touch grass.

I wonder if they're ever going to change up CT, something tells me I doubt it or at least I doubt anytime soon. Anyway besides CT in the DF I hardly get ARR content lately, but I also don't really do leveling unless I'm leveling a baby job.. and even then I just potd or something. But yeah I'm in agreement I wish endgame content was more robust but clearly it hasn't been their focus for a long time.

Also it's probably not just me that tabs out/looks at my phone when permadeath is in play, right? I guarantee you most people likely mentally clock out once they realize they can't be revived lol. It's just not fun to sit there dead. A good way to learn mechanics is by.. doing them too. Which I'm sure the majority would rather do than just simply watch, but to each their own I guess

When I'm running content for the first time and die, I don't tab out, no. I watch the fight until I get raised (if I can be raised), so I can try to understand what's going on to be somewhat more prepared for things when I raise or run the content again. Apparently it's too much to believe new players would do the same.

But yeah, I doubt they're ever going to touch CT. They clearly want everything to be so easy you can afk or mentally check out for the entire thing and still get through it (usually on the backs of players who bother to learn and improve). I'm waiting for 8.0 to come around and just remove half of the battle content we have in the lower levels, just so new players won't "run into roadblocks to their experience".

Forgive me if I sound salty, Padudu - I'm not particularly upset with you, personally. I'm just incredibly tired of seeing everything in this game consistently dumbed down for the lowest common denominator, new player experience favored over veteran experience and endgame, consistent focus on niceties and bits and bobs like character plates and new stickers for gpose and the like over gameplay content with actual staying power, and the general lack of care put into a lot of things lately. See: Hrothgar hair cutting their ears off, Reaper enshroud removing all semblance of racial traits from everyone, poor adjustments to the 2B hair to make room for viera ears, Hrothgar and Viera releasing in the state they did, etc etc.

And people consistently defend all of this, on top of it. They ignore problems, or say they aren't that bad, or tell people to quit if they don't like it, etc etc over and over again, desperately trying to drown out any dissenting opinion from theirs. People want everyone to either worship this game and dev team, or leave if they refuse.

I've played and loved this game for 9 years, and I've had to watch it consistently go down in quality in many areas despite getting more and more successful, and it's a frustrating and saddening experience.

[Padudu]

snip

If you're doing content for the first time, yeah understandable as to why you would watch. If I'm able to be raised, yeah also not a reason to tab out unless it's going to take a while. But even when you're not doing new content and permadeath is still a thing, it's just.. boring. I've fallen off arenas before the fight has even started before (don't ask, just know that sometimes my brain isn't there lol). I agree with the poster above me actually, I think enrage would be a more interesting mechanic than permadeath. I don't really think it adds anything to the difficulty tbh, maybe artificially I suppose, but most people try to avoid falling and dying anyways.

I know for me though I've sadly never been a visual learner so staying dead and trying to watch isn't going to happen. I basically need to repeat, repeat, repeat until it's driven into my head. I think at least in lower content, IMO perma death has always been more of a turn-off and a "whelp, guess that's that." which is a feeling I don't think should happen. Given that some people in SB/ShB/even EW refuses to even read their tooltips on their skills, not a far stretch to believe that people won't watch mechanics.. I mean heck in the 3rd Nier raid, 2B TELLS you the mechanics and people still die to it lol.

No apologies needed, I'll send virtual hugs your way. I just wish SE would consider more of a middle ground. It can be true that "hardcore" players might be a niche and that casual players are a majority, but there's no reason to disregard one playerbase in favor of the other. It just seems like they're doing TOO much in one direction without regarding the other, call me the optimist but I hope they'll wake up and see that it's not the way.

No one should be defending Hrothgar hair lol. That's just insanely silly. As for the job changes.. I think that's where the divide starts to come in. Either people think it's fine because they're having fun and for them it's challenging enough, or people don't like it because it's not nuanced, hard enough, ect. But with a casual majority and SE seeming more and more that they only cater towards casual, it looks bleak.

I completely understand why it's just seemingly everything is being dumbed down. I think though as far as permadeath goes, meh.. I could do without. The other changes though - as far as shortening lengths and ect - I'll guess we'll have to see.

I'll keep on my hopium and hope that somehow they'll be able to see that making the game too easy is just a good way to lose players, too.

[Illmaeran]

They ignore problems, or say they aren't that bad, or tell people to quit if they don't like it, etc etc over and over again, desperately trying to drown out any dissenting opinion from theirs.

I disagree. Not all players have problems with things others have problems with. For example, I personally like what they've done with jobs and will express my thoughts that the changes aren't a bad thing. I respect that others have different opinions; especially folks like us who've been here for a long time as we've seen what the game's been and the changes made over time. As far as ignoring problems, that may or may not be the case. I personally love the Ward system we have for housing and will defend it, but I also have a *significant* issue with them keeping them limited while also not upgrading the apartment system to accommodate people wanting a house-sized space to decorate. However; I realize the team have limited amounts of time to do things and that they address things if/when they can, such as the host of QoL changes this coming patch. Understanding this makes it a whole lot easier to have empathy for the dev team, accept the things I can't change, and keep my mouth shut.

I've told many people that if they don't enjoy this game then it would be in their best interest to find a different one. Hobbies are something that's done purely for the enjoyment of doing it. If the enjoyment's not there, then find a different activity you derive joy from doing. It's the same thing with games, not all games are for all people and often times finding a different one to play when bored or exhausted with the current one is a good option. I can't stand FPS, so I don't play them. I do enjoy single player and MMORPGs so I play them. Six years ago I went on a huge Skyrim bender and played it day in and day out for the better part of six months. It's a great game and I loved the mods I used, but eventually I wasn't enjoying it so I came back to XIV.

I'd argue that a good portion of people who tell others to find a different game if they don't like this one enough aren't being malicious, but are actually suggesting something that's healthy for the other player. Never once have I said that to someone with anything but helpful intent based on my own experience with MMOs over the decades.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

I disagree. Not all players have problems with things others have problems with. For example, I personally like what they've done with jobs and will express my thoughts that the changes aren't a bad thing. I respect that others have different opinions; especially folks like us who've been here for a long time as we've seen what the game's been and the changes made over time. As far as ignoring problems, that may or may not be the case. I personally love the Ward system we have for housing and will defend it, but I also have a *significant* issue with them keeping them limited while also not upgrading the apartment system to accommodate people wanting a house-sized space to decorate. However; I realize the team have limited amounts of time to do things and that they address things if/when they can, such as the host of QoL changes this coming patch. Understanding this makes it a whole lot easier to have empathy for the dev team, accept the things I can't change, and keep my mouth shut.

I've told many people that if they don't enjoy this game then it would be in their best interest to find a different one. Hobbies are something that's done purely for the enjoyment of doing it. If the enjoyment's not there, then find a different activity you derive joy from doing. It's the same thing with games, not all games are for all people and often times finding a different one to play when bored or exhausted with the current one is a good option. I can't stand FPS, so I don't play them. I do enjoy single player and MMORPGs so I play them. Six years ago I went on a huge Skyrim bender and played it day in and day out for the better part of six months. It's a great game and I loved the mods I used, but eventually I wasn't enjoying it so I came back to XIV.

I'd argue that a good portion of people who tell others to find a different game if they don't like this one enough aren't being malicious, but are actually suggesting something that's healthy for the other player. Never once have I said that to someone with anything but helpful intent based on my own experience with MMOs over the decades.

I'm not even going to try to explain to you how the mentality of "if you're dissatisfied with what we get, then leave" is not only unhelpful to both the person who is unhappy and the dev team who will lose players without knowing why, but also an incredibly backwards and toxic mindset no matter how 'genuine and nice' you think you're being when suggesting it.

People express dissatisfaction because they want to play this game, and want the devs to know what could be done to improve their enjoyment of it so that they will keep playing it. Telling them to just leave and find something else is incredibly rude and dismissive, at best.

[Illmaeran]

People express dissatisfaction because they want to play this game, and want the devs to know what could be done to improve their enjoyment of it so that they will keep playing it. Telling them to just leave and find something else is incredibly rude and dismissive, at best.

I'm all for people expressing their desires for change, I don't believe I said anything close to being against that. I want to play the game and I've expressed ways for the team to make changes to things that I believe will improve it. There's a difference between not enjoying and not liking something and expressing discontent and requesting changes. If someone's not enjoying or liking an activity specifically made to like and enjoy the time spent doing it then yes, they should find a hobby activity that they do like and enjoy. If someone wants to play this game and wants to express dissatisfaction with it, by all means, it's within a customer's right to do so. Who knows, the change may actually be made.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

I'm all for people expressing their desires for change, I don't believe I said anything close to being against that. I want to play the game and I've expressed ways for the team to make changes to things that I believe will improve it. There's a difference between not enjoying and not liking something and expressing discontent and requesting changes. If someone's not enjoying or liking an activity specifically made to like and enjoy the time spent doing it then yes, they should find a hobby activity that they do like and enjoy. If someone wants to play this game and wants to express dissatisfaction with it, by all means, it's within a customer's right to do so. Who knows, the change may actually be made.

"You can express dissatisfaction, but you also should leave the game if you aren't enjoying it, even though you're expressing your dissatisfaction in the hopes that things will be improved so you enjoy playing it again because you want to keep playing it."

If you can't understand how backwards that thinking is, I'm not even going to bother responding to you anymore. You or that other poster parroting the same thing you did.

Absolutely ridiculous that people's only response to dissatisfied, long-term fans of this game voicing their concerns and unhappiness with the state and direction of things, is "leave and go play something else then, we're perfectly happy and you should find something new if you aren't". This community is an absolute s***show.

I've already left, nearly. I've barely logged in the past month or so because I've been playing other games that actually offer some degree of enjoyment and don't force me to deal with the absolute kindergarten that this playerbase has become over the years. I only log in for scheduled RP (if they want to do it in-game and not over Discord), and for my FC's events which I DM for. I want more reason to log in after a major patch, and I want to stop seeing the content increasingly get easier and easier to the point it isn't engaging to do and the only thing making it 'hard' is the absolute incompetence of people who never bother to learn or improve, and steadily have the game dumbed down even more to the point they genuinely are not even passively improving their skills over time.

I want to play this game as an actual game, not a glorified chatroom and 3D RP landscape!

[Lauront]

I want to play this game as an actual game, not a glorified chatroom and 3D RP landscape!

Very well said - good post.

[StriderShinryu]

People express dissatisfaction because they want to play this game, and want the devs to know what could be done to improve their enjoyment of it so that they will keep playing it. Telling them to just leave and find something else is incredibly rude and dismissive, at best.

Of course, you're not at all wrong. But if it's a case where someone has been complaining about the game for literal years and has said the game has been going downhill for literal years, someone who says the developers have lied and ignored player feedback for years, etc. then I don't think it's really all that out of step to suggest that maybe they should find something else to do with their time and money. I can understand wanting to stick something out for a bit and see if your complaints get addressed, especially if you really do love it or want to love it, but after some point you just have to face reality, give it up and move on. Some players on these forums are of the opinion that the game hasn't been good since HeavensWard.. which is, what, 6 years ago now? In their opinion the game has actually been "bad" or at least on a downward slide for longer than it's been "good." There's "Hopium" and then there's deliberately choosing to continue beating your head against a 6 foot thick brick wall hoping it will just up and decide to move one day.

[Faafetai]

People express dissatisfaction because they want to play this game, and want the devs to know what could be done to improve their enjoyment of it so that they will keep playing it. Telling them to just leave and find something else is incredibly rude and dismissive, at best.

What I am assuming everyone wants us to say, silently at our monitor of course, is 'Yes, I love all of your decisions daddy square. You are always right and I will never question your divine judgment'. Paying for a product with a monthly subscription and wishing to give any input is always shot down with 'go play something else'. It is a really nice way of saying be quiet, and I want MY game to be the way I want it. Even though it is an MMO and they should really be looking to every player demographic and how they feel about many changes.

I understand not wanting an indie developer to not change their puzzle game into a shooter. Many times developers listen too heavily to criticism and ruin the game everyone was playing because people asked for a shooter, and they caved. There is a happy medium to which you could listen to fans but also continue to work on the game you are passionate about. How are developers suppose to know when and why someone stops playing their game? I guess maybe brain slugs or something? Agreeing with everything is unhealthy, and that is why forums exist. Many want to play the MMO they are paying for and do not wish for the devs to instead change the MMO into just exclusively a visual novel. There can be the story parts of course, but in the end you can't at this point just stop putting effort into the mmo part. If they wanted it to be a visual novel they would have release a visual novel. Sadly for me if that is what they only want to do coming forward, there are many out there story wise that blow this games story out of the water. FF14 is dear to me and though the story is predictable, I still love it. I love the cheesiness, social interaction, art style, and gameplay. But if they want to take all of that out why am I playing an mmo that wishes to no longer be an mmo.

To those people with that 'argument' they too can leave. They could also stay and we can find a middle ground, but if they are too stubborn to accept there are other people playing the MMO rather than, THEY, the most important person in the world. I can not help them.

I wonder if they're ever going to change up CT, something tells me I doubt it or at least I doubt anytime soon

I really wish for this as well and coils to receive some love and polish. The story within coils is so important, and it is extremely depressing if you attempt to queue for it. There is no way other than party finder, and it has alot of fun mechanics, some have not aged well, but that is what the polish is for!

You're being punished. Enjoy!

I sware! It is only when I go dps and I want to figure out my rotation and it is always ARR everything! >.< If I play tank or healer I get all the fun things. The Twinning a bunch, Abania, Ala Mihgo, even Ruby Weapon and I had yet to do that series ended up going through the story afterwards and was not disappointed. (I have a soft spot for Gaius he is so adorable.) If I queue to warm up in an alliance raid with level 70 bard, syrcus tower, usually snowcloak for 50/60/70 dungeons roulette, leveling always copperbell or a 4 man primal sometimes vigil, but always ARR I am trapped.

So I took a break from dps to have fun with other things. That coupled with a tank pulling a single enemy that seems to be the standard if I wish to practice an aoe rotation on a dps class that gets a potency boost with 4 or more targets like blm unless its 3 or more, I don't even remember anymore and it depends on what level because blm. I am going to end up on day in the vault and sob attempting to remember what it is I need to do at this particular level I can only imagine just ending up in 80. 'oh my gosh I have all my stuff! how do I use it at this level again?!' At least normal raids I can't get crystal tower though wouldn't mind getting coils but that is not included. That would be insane though. I can only imagine the suffering.