This game is on a terrible state right now.

[SturmChurro]

The Problem is, that they have no other place to go! Most regular Gamers, no matter what their preference is, have a myriad of alternatives to pick from, at this point.

But which game would you recommend them for E-Dating/ERP?

Also, i am wondering how the overall retention and engagement Metrics for the game would look like, if you took all the heavy socializing and Fake-RP away. Most likely a lot worse...

Well, the thing with FFXIV is that it has somehow fostered a community with a certain number of people who believe their characters to be them, not to mention that they.. like the character models and characters of this game to an unhealthy degree. I don't necessarily think it's because there aren't alternatives, it's because they have these attachments to this game and it being largely accepted. It was always a problem, but definitely has blown up since - apparently - Covid. Not to mention, people are now making money, and winning popularity contests with their mods. Due to SE not cracking down on it early, and seemingly embracing it, according to some, it has only exploded in popularity.

The fact that there are alternatives, or they would simply make their own alternatives, is why that retention would go down. It's an unfortunate demographic to be catering to, or rather no need to cater to, as simply not cracking down on venues or banning players is enough. If they can keep relatively high retention, and not have to add much to the game, while simply leaving the servers open for these players, that is a win-win for them.

[Oldschoolegamer38]

Hi there. Time for personal experience here.

Outside of finishing (keyword finish, I've not done the 4th of any tier) raiding and by extension ult content, or BA from Eureka, I have dabbled in all the content the game has promised. Trials? I got every mount set so far, ShB one even being done when it was current. Leveling? All 90, craft and gather too... Twice (why?). Relic quests? All done at minimum of once, ARR the only one done outside of current. Social related? I've done plenty of community interactions through just interaction and roleplay stuff, getting the good, the bad, and the really REALLY ugly.

I even interacted with the gold saucer stuff, and as an example, I got the triple triad mount when it was current. NPC's are very fun when they get to cheat though, right? Firmament was fine, while I didn't get involved in the race for titles, I did at least touch on it. Maps have been done so to death, and was even how I chose to farm to pay a 19m debt I had (LOL) back in Stormblood days.

Now, why is this information important? Because when someone tells me I simply haven't done enough content in the game and that's why there's a lack of it for me, I get confused. I have touched all of it at a minimum. I did not like all of it, but I gave them all a chance, and found some I did and some I did not like, and that's fine. The problem is, I only have raiding left, content I have given multiple tries for, and found unenjoyable for multiple reasons. This means by the statement, I am literally the opposite of the very player you say complains there is nothing.

And there is nothing.



Wasn't aware of this one too, hehe. So many pages.

But, for your case, I appear to have done all the theme park rides. Even the ones I didn't like, simply to be sure of it. I didn't write off the ride because I MIGHT dislike it, I wrote it off afterword once I could use experience to judge it.

So, does this make me idiotic? I mean, I appear to meet your check, and yet agree there's nothing here currently.

Stop playing the victim, and word games, your being intellectually dishonest with people...you only covered what any savage raider would do when they are done with savage raid content...

[Oldschoolegamer38]

you need that more than anyone else

[Alleluia]

I've been leveling other jobs out of desperation. I'm not raiding, and only run dungeons for the weekly challenge logs. And, I never socialize in game.
I'd be trying out the WoW Dragonflight expension if they hadn't killed my target closest enemy macro. (The new talent system is overly complex as well.)

Leveling other jobs is something to do, though. Right?

SE flopped hard on EW. all my friends that played since HW have pretty much quit. there's no content except the same roulettes over and over. and even those suck now b/c all the jobs are so braindead and homogenized now. SE needs massive shift in direction the ship is sinking atm

Hard disagree, but its a free country internet.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

Hard disagree, but its a free country internet.

I could have sworn one had to pay to put one's opinion on this forum.

[MonteCristo]

I have played since 2.0 and many of my friends were from FF11 -> FF14 1.0, we have stuck with the game the entire time but this expansion cycle… it’s bad. Very long content droughts, patches that (besides savage and ultimate) that can literally be done in a single day… We are all worried, very worried. It feels like the game is in maintenance mode now and many of us are sadly, starting to think that the game has peaked and we are on the downhill slide.

If this game is SE’s most important game, it really does not feel like it anymore. None of us are excited for 6.4, instead we feel more of a very sad sense of apathy. By the time 7.0 arrives… I do not know if any of us will remain, and that, for me, is the saddest thing.

This is literally my exact situation. Came from ff11(since beta) to ffxiv(alpha) and for the first time i sadly dont know if ill make it to 7.0...especially with diablo 4 dropping next month. Feels like the end of an era and i sincerely hope its not

[MonteCristo]

The release of Criterion wouldn't have changed the reaction.

People need an incentive to keep farming content intended to last a whole patch cycle, much less several. Take Euphrosyne, for example. If you remove the rewards, which are primarily glamour and not gear upgrades for a lot of people, the raid is dead within the same month. Trying to unlock it in a later patch would take hours of sitting in queue. All this despite people openly praising the content save for it a being a bit too easy.

You can apply this to almost any piece of content. In fact, one of the reasons Trials can take forever (Endsinger, Shinryu, Barba and etc) is the roulette gives paltry rewards. Thus, people don't often queue. The same problem arises with Legacy Roulette.

Circling back to Criterion, it suffered from a bigger problem: tuning. For whatever reason they decided against their original plan of a Normal, EX and Savage variant. The EX version is on par with the current Abyssos tier's earlier fights. One could make a strong argument Zeless Gah is even harder than Carby or Hegemone. So now we're taking on near Savage caliber bosses for an ugly chair mount you could just buy outright. Savage is even more comical, demanding you play perfect for... a single grade X materia. The latter is downright insulting and completely destroys any reason to farm the content.

At the end of the day, Criterion just doesn't have an audience for how they've tuned it. Due to the increased difficulty of the supposed "EX" version, it pushes out the majority of midcore players and the Savage version just isn't with the investment for one than a single clear. Innovation alone is not enough without replayability, which Criterion simply doesn't have.

This was basically going to be my response @jojoya

[MonteCristo]

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.

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".

This resonated in ways i have never thought to consider and makes alot of sense as to why ffxi was scratching itches that i have yet to scratch in my 10 plus years here /salute

[Absimiliard]

Stop playing the victim, and word games, your being intellectually dishonest with people...you only covered what any savage raider would do when they are done with savage raid content...

You still haven't answered the question you were asked before. What of the people that have in fact done everything the game has to offer? Because those do exist, and some of the people speaking up about the lack of content are from that demographic. Are you going to say they're playing the victim too? Heck, the poster you rather disingenuously accused of playing the victim seems to fall right in line with this demographic.

For that matter, are people that ran out of non-savage stuff to do playing victim? Because people that can't or don't want to engage with savage content are also getting screwed, and some of'em aren't happy about it.

[Alleluia]

I could have sworn one had to pay to put one's opinion on this forum.

I meant free speech, but true. Though I'm not quite sure what point you are making, if I'm honest?