The reason FFXIV is lacking content is because of casualization.

[Semirhage]

The release of Eureka and Bozja have been met with almost overwhelming negative reaction on XIV-focused subreddits and forums. Diadem to Eureka to Bozja was there to give a type of content that gives the MMO moniker to FFXIV. This content was made because they saw World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 and knew they needed open world content. This is the absolute basis of a MMO before they introduced instanced content.

But the community has pushed back heavily against it. Any form of pain point, a staple of MMO as you need to work for something to get it, is shunned and seen as a negative that needs to be excised. The entire philosophy behind trusts and duty support exists around this community philosophy: "do not force me to be involved with people if I don't want it.". And this ultimately ended up in our situation when you have very little to do if you're not a raider whereas we had Ishgardian Restoration and Bozja in ShB.

Lol, I pushed back against Diadem/Eureka style content because the core thrust behind its design philosophy is Yet More FATEs and boring mindless mechanicless field mob grinding. You know, the most boring part of boring Korean grinder MMOs. "Hating teamwork" has nothing to do with it.

[Shinkuno]

Lol, I pushed back against Diadem/Eureka style content because the core thrust behind its design philosophy is Yet More FATEs and boring mindless mechanicless field mob grinding. You know, the most boring part of boring Korean grinder MMOs. "Hating teamwork" has nothing to do with it.

Compared to getting your tomestones in mindless mechanicless content where you are even synced down most of the time so you use like 2 buttons?

[RyuDragnier]

Well, I had played every Front mission games, including the one that didn't come out in English. To me they're some of the best TBS games ever. But it's safe to say given its popularity, I'm not exactly in the majority :P

Front Mission 3 is forever the best in the series to me, and one of the best TRPGs ever created. I really hope SE does release the remaster for Switch, I NEED it (despite having an emulated version, the PSN version, the physical PS1 version...)

[Remish]

As a player from ARR, I don't think the ARR and HW "glory days" are as glorified as people make them out to be. I remember at the end of 2.5 that I was more bored than I had ever been in my life. The only content we had back then was extreme primal mount farming, Secure PvP (and only Secure), Final Coil of Bahamut which was pretty hard to get a party for depending on your server. Housing, crafting, gathering, fishing ect and hunt trains. The only lengthy content was relic and back then nobody liked it. Heavensward was more or less the same but we had Seal Rock, HW relic, and Deep Dungeon mixed in. If you really think about it, this formula hasn't changed over the years, there's just more retro content to act as filler. There's a lot more stuff I can do these days than I could do back in those days. It's just not anymore engaging than it was back then is the real issue.

[Deceptus]

Compared to getting your tomestones in mindless mechanicless content where you are event synced down most of the time so you use like 2 buttons?

Hey now, healers do it with 1.

[caffe_macchiato]

As a player from ARR, I don't think the ARR and HW "glory days" are as glorified as people make them out to be. I remember at the end of 2.5 that I was more bored than I had ever been in my life. The only content we had back then was extreme primal mount farming, Secure PvP (and only Secure), Final Coil of Bahamut which was pretty hard to get a party for depending on your server. Housing, crafting, gathering, fishing ect and hunt trains. The only lengthy content was relic and back then nobody liked it. Heavensward was more or less the same but we had Seal Rock, HW relic, and Deep Dungeon mixed in. If you really think about it, this formula hasn't changed over the years, there's just more retro content to act as filler. There's a lot more stuff I can do these days than I could do back in those days. It's just not anymore engaging than it was back then is the real issue.

Also, the player base itself greatly raised its own expectations since then. Many FFXIV players still played other games like WoW and never viewed FFXIV as a substitute for them. But ever since ShB, people in the community have been pressuring others to leave WoW and other MMOs, gaslighting us about our other games, and calling us “mazed” cattle. They’re so fanatic that they buy ads with their own money to promote the game on behalf of Square Enix. They relentlessly trash any and all “competing” games, particularly WoW, because they believe that FFXIV is superior and without parallel. Problem is, FFXIV was never designed to replace the old game. It’s a part-time MMO that you’re supposed to sub for only a few months out of the year at most.

It’s time that people lower their expectations for this product. It’s not the best MMO, and it’s definitely not meant to be anyone’s “main game”. Minus a few missteps like Eureka, game design has been pretty consistent in enforcing that idea. Square has simply been pruning the last remaining vestiges of inconsistency around this game by simplifying the combat and content delivery during this expac. Now FFXIV is essentially what it was always supposed to be. We need to realize that and limit our own play time (and subscriptions) accordingly. Don’t get TOO invested.

[angienessyo]

If they're going to focus on solo players I wish we would get more solo challenges like the Masked Carnivale for jobs that aren't BLU. Right now there's just what, the deep dungeons that are difficult solo content? Because you can't do the actual hard versions of the Criterion stuff alone. I don't think we need ultimate level solo fights or anything, but just some more solo stuff that takes effort and gives rewards that can't be bought with gil or tomestones. Obviously I would prefer this game to remain as an MMO where you do group content, but harder solo stuff would be nice to have on the side if that's what they're going to be spending all this effort on.

[Semirhage]

Compared to getting your tomestones in mindless mechanicless content where you are even synced down most of the time so you use like 2 buttons?

The only two choices are boring Korean grinder MMO field mob farming and tomestones. If you object to the first, you must love the second. There are no other ways to play games.

[Raven2014]

But ever since ShB, people in the community have been pressuring others to leave WoW and other MMOs, gaslighting us about our other games, and calling us “mazed” cattle. They’re so fanatic that they buy ads with their own money to promote the game on behalf of Square Enix. They relentlessly trash any and all “competing” games, particularly WoW, because they believe that FFXIV is superior and without parallel. Problem is, FFXIV was never designed to replace the old game. It’s a part-time MMO that you’re supposed to sub for only a few months out of the year at most.

Seeing how one of the biggest point people use to defend FF14 is "it's not meant to be play all the time and you should play other games in between", saying they pressure you to give up other games to play this game exclusive is just contradictory. Seeing many of the people who enjoying this game also playing more than one MMO, because you know ... we practice what we preach ...And my dude, if you, or anyone who are the type that can be pressured into playing a game by random stranger on the internet ... that's not a problem with the strangers, it's you and your metal discipline.


But we know it's not about that, it's actually ... wow, the victim card is strong in this draw. I thought I have seen plenty and all type of complains, but this, this defintely take the cake among all the complains I can remember in the last few years. I don;t think it's the kind of achievement I would like to have, but my dude, I think you probably can still be proud of.

[Saraide]

If they're going to focus on solo players I wish we would get more solo challenges like the Masked Carnivale for jobs that aren't BLU. Right now there's just what, the deep dungeons that are difficult solo content? Because you can't do the actual hard versions of the Criterion stuff alone. I don't think we need ultimate level solo fights or anything, but just some more solo stuff that takes effort and gives rewards that can't be bought with gil or tomestones. Obviously I would prefer this game to remain as an MMO where you do group content, but harder solo stuff would be nice to have on the side if that's what they're going to be spending all this effort on.

The solo duels in bozja exist but in an insanely backwards design decision doing that solo content deprives others of doing it. Imagine locking even a single attempt of a piece of solo content behind a lottery. If I proposed the same thing to be done for blue carnival I would be shown the door.