State of the Game prior to Liveletter

[AziraSyuren]

It seemed less like a major feature and more like the only feature they actually bothered to advertise, which is really no better. Maybe even worse.

[Raskbuck]

Been playing since the ARR Beta, and I've been seeing a steady decline. There's way too many things to talk about like for condensing and addressing them in a single post. All I can say is that the old pacing they had in ARR and Heavensward (called Hellsward internally by the dev team) wasn't sustainable without accruing immense burn out. So they have been downsizing and packaging content differently now.

We used to get all of the patch features the day they were released, but nowadays a patch is compartmentalized in several micro patches thinly veiled under the guise of "we don't want to overwhelm our players." It's just artificial padding to more or less cover how scarce the content is; such as releasing the beast tribe and custom deliveries grind well after the initial patch came out, to name an example.

The relic weapons also used to be a lot earlier in the cycles, too, but they've been kicking them further and further away to justify having a grind towards the end of an expansion cycle. The first step from the Shadowbringers one was incredibly disappointing.

My pet theory is that right now, a lot of the team is occupied with FF16. It's Yoshida's first attempt at making a numbered Final Fantasy game without inheriting it from another person. People like Koji and other devs have been shifted to other parts of the team internally, and they are spreading their resources thin.

I'd personally unsubscribe until the next expansion comes out, but I'm too attached to my house and FC like for losing them. Well played, SE.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Been playing since the ARR Beta, and I've been seeing a steady decline. There's way too many things to talk about like for condensing and addressing them in a single post. All I can say is that the old pacing they had in ARR and Heavensward (called Hellsward internally by the dev team) wasn't sustainable without accruing immense burn out. So they have been downsizing and packaging content differently now.

We used to get all of the patch features the day they were released, but nowadays a patch is compartmentalized in several micro patches thinly veiled under the guise of "we don't want to overwhelm our players." It's just artificial padding to more or less cover how scarce the content is; such as releasing the beast tribe and custom deliveries grind well after the patch came out, to name an example.

The relic weapons also used to be a lot earlier in the cycles, too, but they've been kicking them further and further away to justify having a grind towards the end of an expansion cycle. The first step from the Shadowbringers one was incredibly disappointing.

My pet theory is that right now, a lot of the team is occupied with FF16. It's Yoshida's first attempt at making a numbered Final Fantasy game without inheriting it from another person. People like Koji and other devs have been shifted to others part of the team internally, and the are spreading their resources thin.

I'd personally unsubscribe until the next expansion comes out, but I'm too attached to my house and FC like for losing them. Well played, SE.

Whats especially funny to me is yoshi p saying him working on 16 wouldnt affect 14 and wouldnt draw him away from it yet.....im sorry but thats pure bs and it shows. Both content wise and both attitude wise with the way hes been dismissive of problems in the past live letters. He just doesnt seem to be very responsible when it comes to 14 anymore and it doesnt look like he cares.Him laughing at hrothgar players and telling healers to f off is just the straws breaking the camel's backs.

[Denji]

Whats especially funny to me is yoshi p saying him working on 16 wouldnt affect 14 and wouldnt draw him away from it yet.....im sorry but thats pure bs and it shows. Both content wise and both attitude wise with the way hes been dismissive of problems in the past live letters. He just doesnt seem to be very responsible when it comes to 14 anymore and it doesnt look like he cares.Him laughing at hrothgar players and telling healers to f off is just the straws breaking the camel's backs.

Oh yeah, it's absolutely affected xiv. With that, the overall sloppiness of even the cash shop items and his obscene bias toward lalafell and black mages I wouldn't believe that man if he said water was wet.

[SturmChurro]

The simple reality is that EW is seen far and away by the playerbase as a fun, enjoyable, successful expansion, and people are overwhelmingly happy about the current state of the game. Thankfully, the devs realize this and give little credence to the attacks and pathetic insults thrown around on the NA forums. Sadly, what happens is the small group of malcontents create an echo chamber here among themselves, and start managing to actually convince themselves that they represent the playerbase instead of the tiniest sliver of the minority that they in truth are.

I mean, just look in this thread at people declaring things as "facts" which aren't by any means, purely personal opinions, and ones in opposition to the opinions widely shared by the general playerbase. It's okay to be dissatisfied with something. But to call opinions as facts and make pathetic, puerile attacks on the dev team doesn't do anything useful.

People can say how they feel, but they are still here subbed, they are still here playing the game, and they are still here buying microtransactions. Yoshida could announce NFTs tomorrow, and they'd be sold out. A few people would state they are unsubbing, but, even if they do unsub (which is doubtful), they will be back sooner than later.

[Neoyoshi]

And yet, the majority of the forums at best represents a extremely small swath of overly vocal voices that think they speak for everyone.

[Rolder50]

-A three-way civil war between Summoner players that is unlikely to ever be resolved until the remaining pantheon and associated abilities are added along with a Necromancer/Time Mage job that encapsulates whatever could be salvaged of the previous iteration.

Just to clarify, whose the third party? I'm only aware of two - people who like the new summoner and people who don't.

[aveyond-dreams]

The third group refers to the people whose takes on the job include things such as "Carbuncle should be the future of the job!" or things of a similar strange nature that I've seen over the past months that do not fit into either category, yet they will argue things like that as loud as they can.

In any case by this point both the people who favored the previous version and those who favor the current version are tired for various reasons - one because they want the old version yet there is no replacement for it and the other group because they want more of the new but have to wait until January 2024 for more abilities. Assuming there are no delays to 7.0, of course.

The correct way to address this issue would be to dedicate some time to improving the current gameplay of this iteration during 6.X and the eventual release of a caster job that captures the non-broken aspects of the previous version for next expansion. Unfortunately for both groups no precedent exists that points to them doing that, not at the rate at which they churn out meaningful job adjustments and because a new caster doesn't fit their pattern of job additions because Blue Mage is sitting there taking up space, and its fans refuse to let anyone alter their "unique" job despite its potential for being a more complex caster.

[Theodric]

And yet, the majority of the forums at best represents a extremely small swath of overly vocal voices that think they speak for everyone.

This is exactly what people said back when words of warning were presented over on WoW's official forums in regards to the direction of that game. There's a lot of overlap in terms of development issues between both products.

[Shougun]

People can say how they feel, but they are still here subbed, they are still here playing the game, and they are still here buying microtransactions. Yoshida could announce NFTs tomorrow, and they'd be sold out. A few people would state they are unsubbing, but, even if they do unsub (which is doubtful), they will be back sooner than later.

Slow down there Blizzard... lol

I can understand some people's complaints and like to participate in ideas or trying to be constructive to the criticism, but at least given the game has done better and better .. not sure it's on the death bed like some people type. BUT I am of the belief you should be careful not to wait till your deathbed to do something about the concerns people have lol, so if there is a growing mass.. if it's possible.. try to pop it before it's a painful mass

I don't fully agree with everything in the OP, or think some are as bad as stated, but as I said I do think some points are interesting or SE should be mindful (like what I've said in the healer centric thread). Each point would require it's own response so I'm not going to give a general "this is what I think might be good solutions" because it would change drastically on each point, and theoretically they could do nothing as you said and at least for a 'while' they'd be fine xD.

Besides I always like the hungry position of a company over "we're settled and you can expect nothing more from us but less" lol. I like when they try new things, even if I don't like those new things.... ... and I feel they do, sometimes slowly, adjust those things from feedback- so that's nice too.