State of the Game prior to Liveletter

[VelKallor]

-Mismanaged community expectations regarding Island Sanctuary, with widespread disappointment imminent from people who were led to believe it was the equivalent of instanced housing.

Um

We know nothing on what this will be like , so how can anyone be "disappointed' with content we havent even looked at yet?

I mean...all we know is a few vague comments.

Id wait and see before throwing asparagus..........

[Payotz]

Not quite. The difference there is that feeling was everywhere. Talk to your guildies in-game and there'd be frustration. See guilds disappear because nobody logged on anymore. Watch more and more servers become "dead."

Idk what copium you're huffing but there are frustrations when I talk with people in-game. A lot of my FC folks don't login as much anymore, and there's a lot of frustration with job design and the endwalker story as a whole whenever I talk to anyone.

Sure my experience isn't indicative of the playerbase as a whole, but so is yours and you shouldn't go running around saying "OMG EVERYONE'S FINE GUYS YOSHI P CAN DO NO WRONG UWUWUWUWUUWUWUW SO SHUT UP NOTHING'S WRONG WITH THE GAME" like our criticism isn't valid.

WoW changed its very nature to focus on eSports and made decisions openly spiting large swaths of its playerbase. FFXIV has done neither of those.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

DRK job design? Enmity changes???
PHYSICAL RANGED having its identity ripped to shreds?? They still can't use CCs in raids btw!
Kaiten removal outrage? Brd and DoTs synergy??
SMN REWORK? OLD CARDS ASTRO??
Healers literally getting a LOT of their abilities removed from the tranisition to SB -> ShB?
Hrothgar and Viera hairstyles???

But yeah the game's okay right? We shouldn't complain right?
The dev team shouldn't listen to criticism because CLEARLY we see no wrong right?

We should all just say yes to every decision that the dev team will ever make, because clearly they know what's best for the game, not us the paying customers. Nah, it's them 100%.
And we should all consider their decisions as 100% right and we should just convince them and ourselves that all criticisms are just haters who don't like the game right?

And we should just shut up and not provide criticism, right? The game's perfect as it is!
And that anyone who doesn't like the game, despite being veteran players who love the game, should just go ahead and go to another MMO right?
We think we know what we want, but we don't right?

Man, where have I heard that before?

[Reimmi]

This is the biggest one. We don't care if we don't get any new hairstyles right now, JUST FIX THE EARS. I can cope with no new hats (but we still need these badly) if I can just wear a different hairstyle and feel unique.

I wont disagree that its an issue but there's much bigger issues in the game than hrothgar hair imo lol

[Amenara]

I wont disagree that its an issue but there's much bigger issues in the game than hrothgar hair imo lol

I think there are big issues with the game, but in all honesty if you can't even be bothered to fix 2 of your races then how can I think you would be bothered to fix anything else?

[Shougun]

It is not on it's deathbed, some people think it's on it's way there. A few months ago there was sort of a boiling over here on the forums, I was more so referring to how so many people, at the time, claimed to be unsubbing and wouldn't support them further. SE still hasn't addressed quite a few of these 'issues', yet you see people still playing, and still buying. There is an argument to be made for some players to keep their sub going to retain their house (although, I don't think demolition is even active right now), but there are people over here buying this new $22 microtransaction - which I think might be the most expensive the store... so far. I'm sure if I went into town right now, I'd see loads of viera or hrothgar players wearing this new set (no hat), or riding around on their new dog mount in other areas.

I really do wonder what it would take to lead FFXIV to it's 'deathbed' in actuality, aside from a new FF MMO. I'm not convinced NFTs even would be that point. Of course, we shouldn't give them ideas.

I mean I was 'really' upset at launch of blue mage, but I knew it was no where near a death moment for the game (or everyone involved, though obviously at least I wasn't alone lol)- yet I still 'tried' to air my feelings as clearly as I could. And there were multiple points that I feel were directly listened to (or again, I might have a knack for labeling changes out of 'likely guesses'). I still hope for some more changes but the blue we have now is no where near the blue I was greatly annoyed with.

I can empathize with people fairly well, at least usually (I have a real hard time with those who try to purely shutdown conversations in haphazard ways).. so I can feel where a lot of people might be coming from and honestly in a number of situations listening and thinking of ways everyone could be happy seems 'do-able'. Like if someone says the game should be 100% ultimate content I'd have to be like "I really dislike your vision" lol, but if someone is like "man I wish playing old scholar" and I think to myself... well that was sort of green 'dps'.. not quite a healer but.. is it awful that someone liked that? Maybe not.. Perhaps we can lean into that player desire!

I personally don't change my hair much so all this Hrothgar stuff doesn't really bother me and I'm happy, but I did think the 'jelly bean' was silly looking lol, I can understand players want their race not to feel limited, etc (perhaps devs think "our system can't handle this, this is best you're going to get", but then I guess they'll just have to accept players wont be happy about that answer).

While I do want the devs to feel human, have the ability to go home on time, etc, and that perhaps needs support from SE too not just understanding from players, I don't want to see SE go down a Blizzard like path. It's really upsetting to watch companies drop quality here and there and full sprint to the all you can eat whale buffet, dragging their beautiful legacy in the bloody mud to get there. . It's all very hard position to be in I'm sure, but hopefully they'll always try to do their best... Personally I try to avoid thinking about their money or schedule as we're woefully underequipped to make educated plans on that, but I would say I tend to be patient (and perhaps consistent, like salt on housing systems hehe).

On the new FF MMO- I don't think that would be the death of FFXIV, just like FFXI is still living. Just ideally the new one would have something different enough that it's not a clear replacement. So I believe they could have a similar situation, I think FFXIV would be fine for some time after the new MMO.

[Jeeqbit]

DRK job design? Enmity changes???
PHYSICAL RANGED having its identity ripped to shreds?? They still can't use CCs in raids btw!
Kaiten removal outrage? Brd and DoTs synergy??
SMN REWORK? OLD CARDS ASTRO??
Healers literally getting a LOT of their abilities removed from the tranisition to SB -> ShB?
Hrothgar and Viera hairstyles???

Enmity is not intuitive to a lot of new players. It becomes this secret system that some players know all about while others don't. Making tanks work like a DPS makes them more intuitive and the tank role has been more popular ever since.

DRK is decent, new SMN is fun, astro cards are alright but Lord/Lady should change to how it was in Shadowbringers or to be like Royal Road. Healers didn't lose a lot of their abilities, they just lost 1 or 2 each.

Physical ranged's unique utility has been homogenized a lot but the jobs themselves feel very unique. Dancers don't use heat blast and robots. Bards don't use guns or dance all the time. The Samurai changes probably weren't worth it because instead of making it easier, it makes your thumb exhausted from spamming the same button.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Not quite. The difference there is that feeling was everywhere. Talk to your guildies in-game and there'd be frustration. See guilds disappear because nobody logged on anymore. Watch more and more servers become "dead."

Here? The forums are the only place you see this negativity, and then you read the various threads and recognize it's the same small group of names over and over. Meanwhile, in-game guilds are flourishing, servers are strong, people are happy. WoW changed its very nature to focus on eSports and made decisions openly spiting large swaths of its playerbase. FFXIV has done neither of those, and in fact one of the biggest "complaints" from the naysayers are how the devs are giving people what they want in the form of fan-service.

90% of the people i used to play with have quit the game. They’re over it. The lack of content, the nothing new or changed aspect of it all, the devs not listening etc have all been contributing factors. 4-5 statics i’ve been in all broke down due to people not wanting to play the game anymore and being disappointed with the raids. Servers are strong? Meanwhile they broke down on EW launch and the devs tried to pin the blame on players’ internet at first. You’re lacking to mention that Endwalker has seen the worst player retention among all expansions.

[Jeeqbit]

You’re lacking to mention that Endwalker has seen the worst player retention among all expansions.

Evidence? The game usually grows by 200,000 consistently active players after an expansion according to years of Lucky Bancho statistics, yet it's grown by either as much or more than that this time. It's double the increase we were seeing since Shadowbringers during patch lulls.

[Duskane]

I agree that state of some parts of the player base is pretty bad ,
like Hrothgar,Healers,Kaiten etc etc all pretty unacceptable stuff
but some stuff is a problem with players not the game,
like over expectations(island santuary) or just stuff that we will never hear the end of (summoner).
with Dark knight its an eternal struggle a little similar to SMN no one will ever be happy with it but it is deserving of some tweaks, Just doesn't need as much helps as Healers,Samurai or Machinist.

[tearagion]

new SMN is fun

lol, you're kidding right?