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

[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]

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]

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.

Wrong...I play Warrior...that's a healer right? lol j/k

You're correct, but also wrong. I play AST as my healer of choice, and I find it incredibly engaging with the cards, DPS, and healing. But I also understand my main goal as a healer...is to HEAL. DPS comes second, and it's an after thought for me. If I wanted to DPS...I would have picked a DPS for that fight. Which IS what I do. Sometimes I feel like healing...sometimes I feel like DPSing, but mostly I tank as I find that most enjoyable. And the fact that I can just switch roles and still feel comfortable healing while knowing each fight as a tank....is a testament to job balance in this game. Every job is viable. Anyone can play them.

The healers in my static are CONSTANTLY talking about there healing tactics and take healing the party to a whole different level I will never understand, and they are crazy good at it. AND they still seem to keep everyone alive...AND DPS....and I don't hear them complaining about it. I would go out on a limb and say...they enjoy the playstyle of healing despite the one button dps "rotation" everyone wants? The AST on our team is insanely good at playing that job.

[WaxSw]

You're correct, but also wrong. I play AST as my healer of choice, and I find it incredibly engaging with the cards, DPS, and healing. But I also understand my main goal as a healer...is to HEAL. DPS comes second, and it's an after thought for me. If I wanted to DPS...I would have picked a DPS for that fight. Which IS what I do. Sometimes I feel like healing...sometimes I feel like DPSing, but mostly I tank as I find that most enjoyable. And the fact that I can just switch roles and still feel comfortable healing while knowing each fight as a tank....is a testament to job balance in this game. Every job is viable. Anyone can play them.

The healers in my static are CONSTANTLY talking about there healing tactics and take healing the party to a whole different level I will never understand, and they are crazy good at it. AND they still seem to keep everyone alive...AND DPS....and I don't hear them complaining about it. I would go out on a limb and say...they enjoy the playstyle of healing despite the one button dps "rotation" everyone wants? The AST on our team is insanely good at playing that job.

Ok what it is then

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

or

I would go out on a limb and say...they enjoy the playstyle of healing despite the one button dps "rotation" everyone wants? The AST on our team is insanely good at playing that job.

I'm sorry to say this but you don't seem to understand healers properly, efficiency is the objective and as such dps is not a sideline, is the main focus while keeping the party alive due to the binary nature of healing, and under that scope this design is probably one of the most barren of depth in the market. 1 button spam is not fun on the long run, maybe when you don't understand/care for the role and are learning or playing casually it can work but as soon as the novelty wears off the enjoyment goes away.

Viablity is not an excuse of bad design, any armchair dev could make a game with 5 identical jobs all with 1 button with the same damage, all of them would be viable, none of them would be fun or properly designed.