SE, no effort anywhere lately.

[Stormpeaks]

WoW does experiment more - and those experiments led to the player base dropping to 10% of what it had been at the game's pinnacle. That's a double-edged sword and Blizzard ended up cutting itself far too many times. It shouldn't be surprising that some other games prefer to stick to a formula that worked for them.

Dragonflight has been getting some great feedback at least. Good for Blizzard after a couple of major expansion failures.

But I don't feel like FFXIV is in maintenance mode either. YoshiP has brought up some of the problems the game has after a decade and hinted at changes that will be coming in 7.0 and beyond. The 6.x series very much is downtime in preparation for the transition. We'll have to wait for 7.0 to see if they nail the changes needed, or if it will truly end up with the downward spiral that WoW went through after its first 6 years.

For now I'm still very happy here and haven't heard enough out of Dragonflight to tempt me to go back to WoW (especially when members of my Marilith FC quit Dragonflight after 6-8 weeks mainly because of community toxicity but also because they started feeling bored after reaching max level). It could very much be a matter of personal preference. Some enjoy WoW more, some enjoy FFXIV more. That's not only perfectly fine, it's healthy for the gaming industry in general.

7.0 is literally next year, that means what we have now and for the past AT LEAST 9 months is basically maintenance mode with minimal content, so much for a "working" formula

[Denhith]

7.0 is literally next year, that means what we have now and for the past AT LEAST 9 months is basically maintenance mode with minimal content, so much for a "working" formula

Between now and then we have...

New raid tier (4)
New savage raid tier (4)
New alliance raid
At least 2 new trials
At least 2 new extreme trials
Unreal Trial(s)
New Variant/Criterion/Savage dungeons
Major Island Sanctuary Update
Relic Weapon Upgrades
Relic Tool Upgrades
2 major MSQ content drops (at least)
That's not even taking into account what we are getting next week in 6.35.

You're outright trolling if you consider that to be "minimal content" and "maintenance mode".

Try harder.

[R041]

Between now and then we have...

New raid tier (4)
New savage raid tier (4)
New alliance raid
At least 2 new trials
At least 2 new extreme trials
Unreal Trial(s)
New Variant/Criterion/Savage dungeons
Major Island Sanctuary Update
Relic Weapon Upgrades
Relic Tool Upgrades
2 major MSQ content drops (at least)
That's not even taking into account what we are getting next week in 6.35.

You're outright trolling if you consider that to be "minimal content" and "maintenance mode".

Try harder.

What sucks is you list all of this, yet we all know if all content between expansions dropped on the same day, we'd finish it in a week of casually playing. lol

So it's not that we don't get content, but the overall gameplay, repeatability, engagement, and combat mechanics themselves make all of this only last a week because you only want to do it once then AFK in Limsa for the rest of the year.

Also, after doing all of that - I go and try and do roulettes and guess what, it's just all ARR shit. So more of the same old, same old. They put all this effort into new content only for it to just die off and then we're pushed to repeat ARR until the next batch of content. Sounds fun.

[Denhith]

What sucks is you list all of this, yet we all know if all content between expansions dropped on the same day, we'd finish it in a week of casually playing. lol

Casually? Not a chance. We don't even know (at this point) for example, how grindy the new relic weapon is going to be.

But I will say HOW we consume content probably needs to go hand in hand with any debate about how MUCH content we get.

[Stormpeaks]

Casually? Not a chance. We don't even know (at this point) for example, how grindy the new relic weapon is going to be.

But I will say HOW we consume content probably needs to go hand in hand with any debate about how MUCH content we get.

So the only way to make the content last is to play 10 minutes a day, great content

[Denhith]

So the only way to make the content last is to play 10 minutes a day, great content

That's not what I said.

You're really bad at this aren't you?

Poor thing.

[Stormpeaks]

That's not what I said.

You're really bad at this aren't you?

Poor thing.

You literally said it yourself that it's all about "how" you consume content, and that the only way to not finish all the content in a week is to do it casually, your own wording.

[Kaurhz]

Between now and then we have...

New raid tier (4)
New savage raid tier (4)
New alliance raid
At least 2 new trials
At least 2 new extreme trials
Unreal Trial(s)
New Variant/Criterion/Savage dungeons
Major Island Sanctuary Update
Relic Weapon Upgrades
Relic Tool Upgrades
2 major MSQ content drops (at least)
That's not even taking into account what we are getting next week in 6.35.

You're outright trolling if you consider that to be "minimal content" and "maintenance mode".

Try harder.

I mean, I get their angle, because a lot of content just doesn't have a replay incentive behind it, at least not something that people feel they may get a tangible benefit on their character (Which for many people is their prospect of fun) - In this regard Variant dungeons and criterion would have been received much better had it a proper reward structure. I'm fortunate because a lot of my fun comes from completionism - I basically have infinite content in this regard.

But in the same vein, this has literally been the exact same thing since as early as Heavensward - So it's really nothing new. People have just simply played long enough that they have exhausted their 'catch-up' content, in effect.

[Denhith]

In this regard Variant dungeons and criterion would have been received much better had it a proper reward structure.

Absolutely agree. I'm hoping this is something they improve upon with future iterations.

[Kaurhz]

Absolutely agree. I'm hoping this is something they improve upon with future iterations.

Personally, I just like to think their idea behind this minimalism was just gauging interest and general reception before investing more resources, just as they did with Eureka. Anemos was about as minimalist as you can get, but they expanded on it. Aside from this, and unfortunately from our perspective, it's just not a good idea to go full-on with it from the get-go. I would like to imagine that if Anemos had the same system as Pyros or Hydatos, then it would be SSDD by the time we actually got to Pyros, same stuff, different scenery, no innovation.