How is anyone fine with the 4-month patch delivery schedule?

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Every time someone says there isn't anything to do, they just mean anything they personally want to do. The content is there, they just don't want to do it.

there's a lot of content this game offers but the fact that people just cherry pick the ones they want and then call out "game has no content" is stupid.

[Kyrj]

That's how they get you. 2 weeks at a time. 3 months. Then 3.5. Now 4. One day people will ask "why are we getting a patch every 6 months"? And people won't be able to pinpoint the turning point because it comes so gradually people are numb to it.



I mean the fact that you have to go out of your way to find stuff to do to enjoy FF14 says it all really.

The unsub argument is ridiculous considering all the ways the game keeps you hooked: housing, tome caps, Savage loot gates, seasonal events, etc.

I would be fine with the unsub argument if the game actually lets you unsub after a month and still allow you to be ready for Ultimates. As it stands, I have to play this game for three months to get BiS for two to three different roles in time for Ultimate. Even if I only cared about a single role that is still two months, which is 6-7 weeks more than necessary. Despite what Yoshi P says, this game is not unsub-friendly.

Not to mention that they intentionally stagger releases so that it covers 2 months of sub time: .x0, .x1, and .x5 always come out in waves to get maximum sub time out of people.

The unsub argument is just idiotic for both the players and Yoshida to use. Imagine starting a business and being fine with telling your customers to go use another product, just idiotic.

[SturmChurro]

Me playing since 2.0: "First time?"

But seriously, content lulls happen all the time in this game. Yoshi-P himself encourages taking breaks from the game. So take a break from the game for a few months before returning for the new stuff added, no need to make a mountain out of a molehill.

I don't want to though. I want there to be lasting content with a nice reward structure that can keep me wanting to stay subbed between patches, beyond keeping my house or posting on the forums. Literally, something as little as the game having more quality glamours, mounts, or general collectibles - like for the adventure plate. Just having something to work towards would go a long way to helping alleviate this issue. Things could be added to more achievements for example. Just look at the new PvP mode, now the PvP outfit and weapons are more easily attainable by the wider audience, look at just how popular it launched. Queue times even a couple weeks later are still very quick. I'd say it was quite the success, but the reward structure is lacking.

They'd still need to do something about some of the content, and job design, but there are ways to placate the playerbase, and maybe give them a reason to not want to play another game. Just look at the hrothgar hair situation, if they had released a quality hair or two, and fixed the fantasia issue, or maybe even just fitted the other already available hairs to the different heads, I think we would have seen a much different reaction from the community. Of course, there would still be players who would want more, but I don't think they would have been anywhere near as disgruntled as the hrothgar playerbase is now. I do not believe a game like this needs to become predatory for player retention, and often times that has the opposite effect.

I don't want to have to play another game, I want to want to play this game.


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Please, quit with this "one game" mentality. No matter how many excuses or reasons you tell to yourself, the simple truth is that its unhealthy. Dont complain that this game doesnt cater to fulfill you 24/7 or any other game for that matter.

I don't think a player should have to play another game. There is a difference in context. I even made it a point to explain that it doesn't need to be predatory. I gave examples of collectibles, as somebody can do that at their own leisure. I think having more reasons to want to stay subbed, and playing during patch lulls would be a step in the right direction for this game. This isn't about having "one game".

[Atelier-Bagur]

I don't want to though. I want there to be lasting content with a nice reward structure that can keep me wanting to stay subbed between patches, beyond keeping my house or posting on the forums. Literally, something as little as the game having more quality glamours, mounts, or general collectibles - like for the adventure plate. Just having something to work towards would go a long way to helping alleviate this issue. Things could be added to more achievements for example. Just look at the new PvP mode, now the PvP outfit and weapons are more easily attainable by the wider audience, look at just how popular it launched. Queue times even a couple weeks later are still very quick. I'd say it was quite the success, but the reward structure is lacking.

They'd still need to do something about some of the content, and job design, but there are ways to placate the playerbase, and maybe give them a reason to not want to play another game. Just look at the hrothgar hair situation, if they had released a quality hair or two, and fixed the fantasia issue, or maybe even just fitted the other already available hairs to the different heads, I think we would have seen a much different reaction from the community. Of course, there would still be players who would want more, but I don't think they would have been anywhere near as disgruntled as the hrothgar playerbase is now. I do not believe a game like this needs to become predatory for player retention, and often times that has the opposite effect.

I don't want to have to play another game, I want to want to play this game.

Please, quit with this "one game" mentality. No matter how many excuses or reasons you tell to yourself, the simple truth is that its unhealthy. Dont complain that this game doesnt cater to fulfill you 24/7 or any other game for that matter.

[MintnHoney]

No matter how many excuses or reasons you tell to yourself, the simple truth is that its unhealthy. Dont complain that this game doesnt cater to fulfill you 24/7 or any other game for that matter.

Please stop with this strawman. Not only is it not an actual argument against what's being said, but you also very likely don't actually know what is or isn't healthy for them.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Please stop with this strawman. Not only is it not an actual argument against what's being said, but you also very likely don't actually know what is or isn't healthy for them.

Argument is that the person feels like they constantly want to play this game, yet despite the various side activities you can do, they still want more? The game structure isnt catered to have retention systems. We can argue that housing is a paradox to this philosophy which I mean, not gonna lie it totally is, but the point is that the poster isnt satisfied with the content thats already in this game and this is where I find the problem. There's a lot of stuff to do, heck I have legacy friends whom played this game since 1.0 and they still have yet to do everything. Thats because they're not pressured to doing all the content and they're just enjoying what they want and once thats done they go back to doing other things in their life. Its straight up unhealthy MMO addiction if you're seriously telling me its ok to stick to "one game".

Heck for a good example just look at Asmongold recently who spent a good majority of his life playing only WoW until he finally started to get sick of it and is now enjoying playing other games.

[MintnHoney]

Argument is that the person feels like they constantly want to play this game, yet despite the various side activities you can do, they still want more?

The argument you're presenting is wrong anyway because they do play other games (Lost Ark, for example). Even if you didn't know that, either by reading other threads (the Lost Ark thread, for example), or by just asking (which you didn't care to), you can't even make the call that they are only playing just the one game because you wouldn't actually know. The foundation of your strawman was poor and based on assumptions, which, as you may have heard, makes an ass (that I would rather play bongos on, because it's friday and I just wanna have fun).

Second, just because there are many options on what can be done, does not mean that those options are necessarily "good" options, nor are they options that someone would normally want to do.
I could go over every piece of content available, if you'd like, but I think it's best that I leave it at "most of the experiences in Final Fantasy XIV, on their own, tend to be shallow ones whose entertainment value tends to fall exponentially over a period of time (which seemed to get longer, and now is officially extended), and it wouldn't be a bad thing to consider what could be offered to players that could be consumed meaningfully on a more consistent basis in order to tide them over once they reach the point where the fun dropped off, until what they were originally here for can be updated." At least, that's my opinion. Also in my opinion, since we're paying a subscription for this game, it's not unfair to inquire as to whether or not more may be afforded to make the subscription be more availably worthwhile.

And yes, I know: 'ugh, Aylin Bielawska, you're so annoying, you should go play some other game because I don't want to deal with you!" Well, you and my brother, both. But that doesn't stop me from knocking him out in Smash Brothers, and that argument is not a counterpoint to "we're getting content and updates that feels shallow, and might not be ok with giving more time to get it out if the quality stays the same or gets worse." And, so far, it seems to be getting worse.

P.S., I'm actually kind of ok with giving them more time, at least on a temporary basis as they work to upgrade their engine for 7.0, but there's a limit to the amount of bullshit I can overlook just because they want us to see more grass in every eyeful of field.

[Atelier-Bagur]

The argument you're presenting is wrong anyway because they do play other games (Lost Ark, for example). Even if you didn't know that, either by reading other threads (the Lost Ark thread, for example), or by just asking (which you didn't care to), you can't even make the call that they are only playing just the one game because you wouldn't actually know. The foundation of your strawman was poor and based on assumptions, which, as you may have heard, makes an ass (that I would rather play bongos on, because it's friday and I just wanna have fun).

Second, just because there are many options on what can be done, does not mean that those options are necessarily "good" options, nor are they options that someone would normally want to do.
I could go over every piece of content available, if you'd like, but I think it's best that I leave it at "most of the experiences in Final Fantasy XIV, on their own, tend to be shallow ones whose entertainment value tends to fall exponentially over a period of time (which seemed to get longer, and now is officially extended), and it wouldn't be a bad thing to consider what could be offered to players that could be consumed meaningfully on a more consistent basis in order to tide them over once they reach the point where the fun dropped off, until what they were originally here for can be updated." At least, that's my opinion. Also in my opinion, since we're paying a subscription for this game, it's not an unfair to inquire as to whether or not more may be afforded to make the subscription be more availably worthwhile.

Your entire argument is based solely on your own personal preferences. Some people enjoy crafting and making money so they go around spending the most of their game time farming materials and crafting items to sell on the marketboard or items they want for their character. Others enjoy grinding, so some level alt jobs or do Eureka or Bozja (and before people say those instances are dead, I literally just got in today to help a friend out in Eureka and there's still many people going around doing NM preps and hunts) or do the numerous grinds for every single relic weapon etc. These are just examples of barely scratching the surface of activities to do in this game. If none of that interests you then thats fine, I'm ultimately not wanting to change your mind about what you look for in this game but dont pretend like this game is lacking in content to do because it clearly does not. People always find something meaningful to do in this game and its not as if the devs arent planning on adding more stuff to do; aka Criterion Dungeons, Island Sanctuary etc.

[TaleraRistain]

I don't think a player should have to play another game. There is a difference in context. I even made it a point to explain that it doesn't need to be predatory. I gave examples of collectibles, as somebody can do that at their own leisure. I think having more reasons to want to stay subbed, and playing during patch lulls would be a step in the right direction for this game. This isn't about having "one game".

The problem is that the developers have given a lot of reasons to remain subbed and have a wide variety of content available but people limit themselves to what they're interested in. Which is fine, but when there is such a variety of content, anyone who limits themselves is going to run out. There's not a developer out there that is going to be able to keep up with the rate players consume content, especially if they offer a variety of it.

I totally get wanting more content. When I played EverQuest, I was a hardcore raider and did everything. When I went to EverQuest II, I was a soloer and had to be satisfied with just the things available to soloers. There was a LOT of content I missed out on because I only rarely grouped and never raided, unless it was expansions later when everything was greyed out. I often hit a content ceiling, even as an avid tradeskiller, because I was limiting myself to only content I enjoyed and wanted to do. But there were two whole tiers of content I was avoiding and it was my own doing that shorted me on content.

There will always end up with someone who has less content, especially if we limit ourselves. That's why when we reach that point, we have to find our own reasons for subbing or decide there aren't enough and see if we want/need a break. I ended up splitting my time between MMOs at that time. In XIV, I poke around at content besides my main content or set goals for myself on my main or alts so I give myself something to focus on when logging in. Or sometimes I just take a break and play something else, like I've been enjoying the FFII pixel remaster for a couple of days before I poke my head back into XIV.

[Insertusernamehere]

I wish they had a system like daily sub.
They can include it as alternative alongside with 30 - 60 - 90 day game subscription.
If Yoshi P. really honest with their suggestion, "go play other games" a daily subscription (24 hour / 1 USD) will be great :3

I am sure I am not only one who logins weekly just for 1-4 hour progression.. and play something else when it is done..
Also benefits people who don't want to lose their home..