This game is on a terrible state right now.

[aveyond-dreams]

Although two threads have already been made on it, I feel it's worth mentioning that we're in for yet another joke of a relic step in 6.45. "Just do whatever you want to get the tomes for the relic!" = extreme laziness in the fact that this relic has no associated content with it.

The people who don't want an actual game to play just keep scoring victory after victory.

[Kaurhz]

A response to a few posters, but try not to single anyone out. If you read part of the problem is old content. It isn't felt fun or very rewarding or just a general pain to do. The bicolor gems aren't a bad idea for fates, but they added a few reasonable items to start and then one unreasonable item and ignore it whole expansion. Why do I want to run fates again? I did Eureka and it was pretty casual, would be better if they tweaked it to 90. But I get to the end and find out I have to join discord and have certain abilities and do a bunch of other stuff. This is old content that is casual all the way to the end and then has a huge change in entry. From casual fun groups running around the zone to apply for spots on discord. Why would I want that when the rest is casual?



The game has years of content to do, that doesn't make it good. You can't honestly think old content is well designed and enjoyable in it's current state. The time between new content is to far apart. So when you go and do old content your like this isn't that fun. That doesn't diminish your enjoyment. Your enjoyment is not directly tied to if content is good for the masses. I liked 3.0 PvP (pre-exp) , that doesn't make it good. That also doesn't make it enjoyable for most people

I feel like the emboldened part is probably part of the bigger issue with older content, and content in general. I think to a degree cosmetic rewards, e.g., mounts, minions, or vanity titles are perfectly fine, but there's a sort of... Milestone issue in that... On one hand, the goal is maybe farming all of the orchestrions, minions, etc., from Gemstone rewards, which you will largely get naturally just engaging on said content, but then you go from that to grinds such as Wings, or the mount which collectively requires upwards of farming 8300~ FATEs, with nothing really sitting on the middle-ground e.g., a reward for 30-70 Bicolour vouchers.

I suppose to top this off, they've also traditionally put all grind-related content towards the end of the expansion or right at the start when people are largely least likely to actually interact with them. E.g., At the start of the expansion, you're mostly leveling, doing the story, melding crafters, and gatherers, etc., - Similarly, at the end of the expansion, you're also preparing for the subsequent expansion or just playing other games to come back with a fresh mindset. When really they should be introducing these sooner to fill some of the earlier gaps.

Similarly, the content does need better rewards on milestones rather than, here's a cookie 3 hours in, and then here's the main prize 300-500 hours in (With nothing between). Ishgard Restoration suffered heavily with this, in that, you would get a cut-paste title for each job, but you wouldn't really get much in the way of a tangible reward until getting every class to that point. e.g., would have been nice to have had more minion/mount-based rewards for getting all classes to, say, 100,000, and 250,000. Like the Legatus critters, or Buer from the old Diadem EM.

I don't think there is a lack of it or content to replay to some degree, nor do I think older content is inherently bad, but they make the issue so much worse when these are incorporated, most especially with the milestones for some of these more significant grinds.

[RyuDragnier]

Only to a certain degree, while redoing old dungeons as challenging content at max level will be fun for a run or two, it’s still a 10 year old dungeon in the end that we have run umpteen times already.

I agree with previous posts that Criterion failed but my reason, besides the rewards, is that it was way overturned for the target audience. They should have been tuned at the same difficulty as casual raids or at most, EX trials.

Yeah, my group noticed it quickly that it was basically Savage level and not EX level. If it was EX level, it would have been a lot better. Also for rewards, they could probably have the Criterion dungeons give either gear on par with unupgraded tomestone gear, or even better, use the criterion dungeons for a relic armor set. Something that takes a while, but is slowly upgraded as the patches go on. It could have been i620 gear on par with the tomestone gear at start, and they could have upgraded it to i630 this patch. Meaning it's good armor, but it's not going to help you raid too much in the current patch (outside of ultimates once it upgrades).

[Amenara]

Yeah, my group noticed it quickly that it was basically Savage level and not EX level. If it was EX level, it would have been a lot better. Also for rewards, they could probably have the Criterion dungeons give either gear on par with unupgraded tomestone gear, or even better, use the criterion dungeons for a relic armor set. Something that takes a while, but is slowly upgraded as the patches go on. It could have been i620 gear on par with the tomestone gear at start, and they could have upgraded it to i630 this patch. Meaning it's good armor, but it's not going to help you raid too much in the current patch (outside of ultimates once it upgrades).

I think SE abandoning variant and criterion dungeons at release is probably the worst thing they have done in EW. It is the 4 person content that people have been asking for and SE managed to half ass it seemingly just to check off a box more than anything else. The dungeons were perfect to integrate into the relic process but here we are.

I have been trying out WoW again after getting very bored of FF14 and it makes me sad to see the creativity they have over there as opposed to what we are seeing with SE. They just added a new zone with catch up gear drops that you can farm and send to alt characters to help get them geared up. They are adding another new zone with their next patch with more open world content to do and actual reasons to do it. They are adding their second raid of 9 bosses into the game with their next patch coming out tomorrow. All this in the ~6-7 months the expansion has been out. Blizzard is seeing their highest levels of player retention, granted they aren't seeing as many new players which can be expected after ~4 years of bad expansions and content. I really just want the FF14 devs to see what WoW is doing with the encouragement of playing the game, doing things in their world they spend years creating, having a reason to actually play the game's current content.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

Although two threads have already been made on it, I feel it's worth mentioning that we're in for yet another joke of a relic step in 6.45. "Just do whatever you want to get the tomes for the relic!" = extreme laziness in the fact that this relic has no associated content with it.

The people who don't want an actual game to play just keep scoring victory after victory.

Seems they know their audience.

[Bsrking5]

Hey, don't hog all the copium!

[Nizzi]

Seems they know their audience.

Their audience is sad schlubby people past their prime in their 30s and 40s who are desperately trying to relive their youth by idling inside ugly houses doing /beesknees? Yikes!

[Immut]

Frankly the game is already dead, and it just hasn't noticed yet.

The problem can be summed up pretty simply, FFXIV is designed like a single player game.

In FFXIV, you are expected to do everything and be everything. If you want the reward for content, you MUST do that content. This also means that once you have done that content, or once most of the community has done that content, that content is DEAD (see: V&C dungeons). This isn't the case in older MMOs, where the game is designed around the community and community interaction. You can do the content multiple times and sell the reward to people who don't want to do the content. Or you can do the content and sell the materials needed to progress in that content to other people so they can progress faster. In this way the entire community works together to progress.

Firmament Restoration was actually a fantastic example of this. Gatherers gathered things in the diadem, and sold them to crafters, and everybody not only progressed PERSONALLY through exp and scrips, but worked together to progress as a server. Also all the rewards are tradeable. Island Sanctuary is the opposite of this. Everything involved is untradeable. You can visit a friend's island but you can't gather for them or assist them in any way so it's kind of pointless. Deep Dungeon is also like this, you can't sell regen potions to other players, so players who are trying to do solo runs MUST do many throwaway runs to stock up, where players who only do it for the exp have a surplus of potsherds. Eureka and Bozja allow you to buy and sell lost actions and SOME gear, which is great, but not any relic materials, despite them simply being drops from FATES. Because the dev team wants every player to progress more or less in a vacuum. Single-player game design.

There is only one endgame goal, and that is savage raiding. This is the design of a single player RPG, where your only goal is to defeat the final boss. Why did Critereon dungeons not reward savage-level gear if they were savage-level difficulty? Why was Elemental Gear +2 not savage level? Why was augmented law's order gear not savage level? This is all equal difficulty content, but the development team sees it as "Side content". In an MMORPG there should be no "side content". Physeos gear makes you the best at Eureka, and lets you carry your friends through the content. Augmented Law's Order gear and merit suns make you the best at Bozja, and lets you carry your friends through content. Raiding gear makes you the best at raiding and...for some reason you aren't allowed to carry your friends through this! As soon as you clear once, you screw any other group you join over! So if your group raids on Saturday, your hands are tied. And back in ARR, you couldn't even re-enter the instance at all! This isn't just single player game design, it's overtly hostile towards the idea of "massively multiplayer".

[EorzeaWanderer]

Immut, your post really resonates with me… the collaborative activities as you described them have always invigorated my FC, the solo-focused ones like Island Sanctuary do nothing to bring us together.

[SturmChurro]

Their audience is sad schlubby people past their prime in their 30s and 40s who are desperately trying to relive their youth by idling inside ugly houses doing /beesknees? Yikes!

Actually not wrong on the age range. Most people I have met on here and in-game.. some are old enough to be my parents. Anyone in their late 20s/early 30s (like me and others I know) are on the younger side... Especially so on the forums.