What is going on with Square Enix and the 14 team?

[CrownySuccubus]

The new pvp mode is incredibly fun, but it’s also incredibly unbalanced and buggy.

This can be fixed with time.

To be completely frank, if they had launched a brand new PVP mode that was balanced and free of bugs, I would be questioning whether the dev teams were using blood magic and sacrifices. In my many years playing PVP titles (fighting games, racers, sports games, shooters, MOBAs, etc.), you expect crap to be 100% broken on launch. Hell, for most games before the advent of patches, it was nuts how much broken nonsense people found after launch that would be in the game forever.

No, I'm not saying we should go back to those days. Just saying that the PVP issue seems relatively fine, since "fun" is the most important factor and balance can always be adjusted.

[Oshirigami]

Between the healer problems for 6 years being ignored, the recent Hrothgar problems where they waited patiently for 3 years and got literal shit, to the horrid job design in 6.1, the pretty controversial story of EW, to now the housing system just imploding on itself. Do the devs just not care anymore? The game is seeing it’s peak, the game is bringing in more money than ever, and yet we’re somehow getting more broken systems. I guess this is what happens when they let the popularity get to their head? They start thinking they can half ass everything and people will continue to stay and kiss up to them. Seeing this community’s history i don’t blame them for thinking that way but…my god. The game is taking such a downward spiral. At this point i’m expecting Ultimate to have some major errors and that would be the icing on the cake.

I came to this thread expecting the OP to be rambling nonsense.
But nope.
Concise, to the point, and as close to objective as one can be on the issues.

When I saw the job changes, I thought they were mostly bizarre but I didn't care much. But it adds into so many other issues and nonsense that feels like they aren't taking the game and players seriously.
There's some high points I guess. Adventurer cards are nice. PVP is a step in the right direction. Though ... that brings up a point on how it seems like PVP is made by a small team who cares about the game? And they actually do cool things with job design? But then you have the "main team" on PvE job design who just... doesn't seem to care?

[ShadowyZero]

Maybe I'm missing the point of the OP...., but I find it difficult to see what FFXIV has failed to do.

1. housing is a broken mess

2. glamour is heavily restricted by job/class, and level based. not too mention items being rerolled and recycled to the point of why bother even making new clothing items?

3. horrible homogenization of existing jobs

4. dungeons cut down significantly and less frequent and designed now as nothing more than a single narrow path

5.same content cycle since HW with no signs of stopping now baby, lets keep that boring repetition rolling til we all die and while we are at lets copy the previous expansion we just did but place a new sticker on it.

6. severely lacking in open world interaction and retention (FATES are not fun to spam for 2+ expansions it just becomes a chore, and hunts are way to exclusive an not nearly inclusive enough due to weekly lock out rather than than just having the big baddies respawn on a timer every two-three days.) and for beast tribe content see point #5 above.

7. as for PvP maybe CC was good flavor to add to PvP but it quickly becomes boring after 10+ matches of doing literally nothing than pummeling the other team while playing tug o war with a giant moveable crystal and the rewards are not new but recycled too this ain't it chief we need some PvP that keeps player attention an requires actual effort and planning not a mindless slog feast to grind til you become blue or red in the face etc

[Listrella]

1. housing is a broken mess

2. glamour is heavily restricted by job/class, and level based. not too mention items being rerolled and recycled to the point of why bother even making new clothing items?

3. horrible homogenization of existing jobs

4. dungeons cut down significantly and less frequent and designed now as nothing more than a single narrow path

5.same content cycle since HW with no signs of stopping now baby, lets keep that boring repetition rolling til we all die and while we are at lets copy the previous expansion we just did but place a new sticker on it.

6. severely lacking in open world interaction and retention (FATES are not fun to spam for 2+ expansions it just becomes a chore, and hunts are way to exclusive an not nearly inclusive enough due to weekly lock out rather than than just having the big baddies respawn on a timer every two-three days.) and for beast tribe content see point #5 above.

7. as for PvP maybe CC was good flavor to add to PvP but it quickly becomes boring after 10+ matches of doing literally nothing than pummeling the other team while playing tug o war with a giant moveable crystal and the rewards are not new but recycled too this ain't it chief we need some PvP that keeps player attention an requires actual effort and planning not a mindless slog feast to grind til you become blue or red in the face etc

1. housing has always beena problem, but this has never been the focus of the game.
2. this is just petty, nothing more than easthetics, no effect on gameplay.
3. i'm just amazed they've made all classes viable, if they tried to make all the classes too different some would surely be left by the wayside in terms of job balance, I think this is the best way.
4. you want to know what we got when the tried to have a dungeon with branching paths? toto-rak which is it's previous form was the most boring dungeon they've ever done.
5. why fix what isn't broken? they keep this content cycle because it works. i've seen SWTOR try to mix up what content they deliver and it's been a disaster. and also it's not like we don't new things each expansion, for instance we have island sanctuary and criterion dungeons coming up.
6. any open world content will become repetitive after a while. i've seen games handle it far worse.
7. PVP has never been this game's focus, just be glad this patch is and improvement, any form pvp will becoming boring after a while. though granted i'm probably the wrong person to ask about this, I just don't like pvp in general.

[Sqwall]

Story is subjective. Myself and many others thought this expansion was the worst so far.

Engaging combat? That’s also subjective but i’m curious on your opinion of how spamming 1 button 90% of a fight on healer is seen as engaging, especially in dungeons where that is very prominent and if you have a war you don’t need to heal whatsoever.

Savage tier was okay, i’m not a big raider i just do it for the rewards but also subjective. I will say the lack of a phase 2 boss theme for p4s was extremely disappointing, especially considering every other final raid boss has had such a thing i believe. No voice acting was even more of a disappointment especially considering the teaser for the raid was voice acted.

Trimmed your post.

The Endwalker story is amazing compared to sotrmblood's. This story is soooo much more focused and a great capstone to the entire story. I let the credits roll feeling completely fulfilled.

I suppose my only question was...what were you expecting? If you were expecting dungeons to be incredibly hard and inaccessible then you haven't been paying attention. The main line dungeons are STORY content, and should not be difficult for that reason.

FFXIV is RPG first....MMO second... Yoshi P's words. The game needs to be accessible to all. If you find content to easy or boring...try something harder...you might find something there that you never thought you would like before. Savage for me was my boiler plate content that I thought was never going to be accessible, and then discord opened that door for me. Now I can't stop doing savage content.

With every MMO I try to curb my expectations and start out low. Especially expansions.
*spoilers ahead*

Heavenward - exceeded expectations
Stormblood - not a good start, but a great finish. Slow burn definitely
Shadowbringers - completely exceeded my expectations. Did not expect that good of a story nor expansion.
Endwalker - A great climax that has been building for 4 entries. It felt like the story was very breakneck speed, but that makes sense if it's the ending.
I laughed (Estinein had me rolling this expansion) ( And that damn bird in Elpis giving you looks)
I cried (when that kid get's crushed by that monster in Thavnir crying out Father!....that hit me hard as I was thinking of my own kids)
I gasped (I thought gra' ha was going to die)
I cheered (when Zenos came out of NOWHERE to aid me on removing meteion as a threat as the fight is "worthy of him", I felt so much adrenaline with the Final Day fight (that music)
and then the subsequent fight with Zenos that you win, which is setting up a CRAZY future for the story to come by releasing his avatar upon death (you see when we almost kill gra'ha tia)

[WaxSw]

1. housing has always beena problem, but this has never been the focus of the game.
2. this is just petty, nothing more than easthetics, no effect on gameplay.
3. i'm just amazed they've made all classes viable, if they tried to make all the classes too different some would surely be left by the wayside in terms of job balance, I think this is the best way.
4. you want to know what we got when the tried to have a dungeon with branching paths? toto-rak which is it's previous form was the most boring dungeon they've ever done.
5. why fix what isn't broken? they keep this content cycle because it works. i've seen SWTOR try to mix up what content they deliver and it's been a disaster. and also it's not like we don't new things each expansion, for instance we have island sanctuary and criterion dungeons coming up.
6. any open world content will become repetitive after a while. i've seen games handle it far worse.
7. PVP has never been this game's focus, just be glad this patch is and improvement, any form pvp will becoming boring after a while. though granted i'm probably the wrong person to ask about this, I just don't like pvp in general.

Imagine saying 3 after watching the 6.0 healers where while all of where unoriginal 1 button spam classes Whm had the worst mp economy, the worst healing and the worst damage per second. Their design is inexcusable no matter how you want to white knight it

[WaxSw]

FFXIV is RPG first....MMO second... Yoshi P's words. The game needs to be accessible to all. If you find content to easy or boring...try something harder...you might find something there that you never thought you would like before. Savage for me was my boiler plate content that I thought was never going to be accessible, and then discord opened that door for me. Now I can't stop doing savage content.

Its pretty clear you don't play healers mate, we don't talk about difficulty we talk about fun and engagement and right now healers are classes that are just 1 button spam which, when is over 100 times per instance, is not fun nor deep and the worst part is that even in Ultimate that stays true. A good design should work at all difficulty levels not only half work at the hardest setting that gets released maybe once per 1-2 years.

If the RPG before MMO is true then why not making them grow? Why make their gameplay for the most part the same from lv5 to lv90? No matter at which standards you look at, that design fails at both.

[Sqwall]

Imagine saying 3 after watching the 6.0 healers where while all of where unoriginal 1 button spam classes Whm had the worst mp economy, the worst healing and the worst damage per second. Their design is inexcusable no matter how you want to white knight it

I can't get behind the healer discussion anymore. I have to just watch from the sidelines as I personally want my healers to....heal rather then spam DPS. So by that logic I wouldn't want them being frustrated by saying "UGH...my dps rotation is broken because I have to heal your stupid face!".... "SHAME on you dumb tank for getting hit by that tank buster!"...."UGH healing is broken because I can't DPS like....a DPS....i'm forced to heal...why did I pick up a healer?"

Again I just have to stand by and shrug while healers argue about getting the two lowest parses in a raid..... right......

[Rokke]

1. housing has always beena problem, but this has never been the focus of the game.
2. this is just petty, nothing more than easthetics, no effect on gameplay.
3. i'm just amazed they've made all classes viable, if they tried to make all the classes too different some would surely be left by the wayside in terms of job balance, I think this is the best way.
4. you want to know what we got when the tried to have a dungeon with branching paths? toto-rak which is it's previous form was the most boring dungeon they've ever done.
5. why fix what isn't broken? they keep this content cycle because it works. i've seen SWTOR try to mix up what content they deliver and it's been a disaster. and also it's not like we don't new things each expansion, for instance we have island sanctuary and criterion dungeons coming up.
6. any open world content will become repetitive after a while. i've seen games handle it far worse.
7. PVP has never been this game's focus, just be glad this patch is and improvement, any form pvp will becoming boring after a while. though granted i'm probably the wrong person to ask about this, I just don't like pvp in general.

This post kinda stinks of "things I don't care about don't matter and others shouldn't complain about the things I don't care about" tbh

[aveyond-dreams]

The Eastern half of Stormblood was more enjoyable for me than the later portions of the Endwalker story post-Elpis. The moon was already an oddly paced zone, and while Elpis was fun because of the dynamics between the trio of ancients, everything spiralled out of control when they decided to introduce memory wiping and Venat deciding to do: Nothing!

Stormblood also represented a "golden age" when it came to battle content rollout, Eureka aside, it felt like there was simply more to do. Shadowbringers felt "ok" once Bozja released but their decision to frontload with so much crafter and gatherer content made for a game that was void of much else to do long term.