This game is on a terrible state right now.

[Ath192]

Always was -mostly- irrelevant. Again, the game is a glorified co-op masquerading as an MMO

I can assure you the game has many systems since its inception which are the antithesis of an MMO,

Okay if we mostly agree then why are we arguing? I already gave you my biggest example making all main content braindead. Dungeons, normal raids, alliance raids in other MMOs have normally been more on the challenging side of things, this makes people talk and cooperate as they should in an MMO. Then there's removal of exploration and travel, now you can teleport into every 5 inches of any zone in the game, they are taking out all the grinds, relic included. They let RMTs design the economic system so naturally most good things are untradeable so commerce kind of sucks.

The cardinal sin this game has committed to me is to make you, the player, irrelevant. The game does it all for you. And it gets worse each xpac. Did you know that you don't matter? Content is so easy that outside of very few select raids you are utterly unneeded. Where in other MMOs a vet player can have a good time helping other people get through content, run a lot of midcore stuff and they are usually the staple of good guilds you as a player in this game couldn't matter any less. FC's, even large ones don't have a lot going on in regards to actual gameplay. As a vet in this game there isn't anything for you to do, and unless you're into savage and feel like hopping in a PF for fun, same 4 fights for months at a time, there's hardly anyone to help either because content is so watered down it runs itself. But at least you can throw yourself into a grind with the relic for a cool weapon... oh wait. They took that out too.

This is something Bozja excelled at with CLL, people actually had to talk and coordinate. Same with Stormblood in Orbonne, and heck even in the mist, a dungeon. You had to explain to people, at least a few things to minimize the risk of a wipe. But nope, people apparently proved allergic to talking and working together so they asked for a nerf so they could do whatever the hell they felt like and still clear the instance.

By Zones I consider Coerthas a zone for example, you zone into everything, Limsa, Eastern La Noscea. I don't mean instances. Imo Bozja shouldve been a zone accessible by travelling to it in the overworld, not an instance with a timer. Same with Eureka. If at all possible I would like the overworld to not be split into zones and just become a single mass of land. There's a lot of places that I'd like to go explore. Like the shores and distant forests you can see looking down from Idyllshire.

[Kaurhz]

Okay if we mostly agree then why are we arguing? I already gave you my biggest example making all main content braindead. Dungeons, normal raids, alliance raids in other MMOs have normally been more on the challenging side of things, this makes people talk and cooperate as they should in an MMO. Then there's removal of exploration and travel, now you can teleport into every 5 inches of any zone in the game, they are taking out all the grinds, relic included. They let RMTs design the economic system so naturally most good things are untradeable so commerce kind of sucks.

The cardinal sin this game has committed to me is to make you, the player, irrelevant. The game does it all for you. And it gets worse each xpac. Did you know that you don't matter? Content is so easy that outside of very few select raids you are utterly unneeded. Where in other MMOs a vet player can have a good time helping other people get through content, run a lot of midcore stuff and they are usually the staple of good guilds you as a player in this game couldn't matter any less. FC's, even large ones don't have a lot going on in regards to actual gameplay. As a vet in this game there isn't anything for you to do, and unless you're into savage and feel like hopping in a PF for fun, same 4 fights for months at a time, there's hardly anyone to help either because content is so watered down it runs itself. But at least you can throw yourself into a grind with the relic for a cool weapon... oh wait. They took that out too.

This is something Bozja excelled at with CLL, people actually had to talk and coordinate. Same with Stormblood in Orbonne, and heck even in the mist, a dungeon. You had to explain to people, at least a few things to minimize the risk of a wipe. But nope, people apparently proved allergic to talking and working together so they asked for a nerf so they could do whatever the hell they felt like and still clear the instance.

By Zones I consider Coerthas a zone for example, you zone into everything, Limsa, Eastern La Noscea. I don't mean instances. Imo Bozja shouldve been a zone accessible by travelling to it in the overworld, not an instance with a timer. Same with Eureka. If at all possible I would like the overworld to not be split into zones and just become a single mass of land. There's a lot of places that I'd like to go explore. Like the shores and distant forests you can see looking down from Idyllshire.

Mostly on the premise of 'too MMO' / confusion. - I personally think the game has always been this case. I don't necessarily think the game has gotten easier, bar job execution. I just think the players have gotten disproportionately better when compared to how the game has been growing. E.g., I think for the most part, the game has gotten harder, if I were to look at it mechanically. However, the amount of leeway afforded is greater. e.g., unless the attack dooms, or daisy chains you to death, then for the most part you can just ignore it and your HP will regenerate naturally before the next mechanic. If I were to compare, say, HW/SB to ShB/EW, I feel that I have had to look at the environment a bit more rather than just cast-bar.

Some of this may be answered as I'm replying as I read...

Exploration and travel should be integral to the game. People should feel inclined to go out into the open world, rather than everything be a zone. E.g., rather than have a Bozja equivalent, I would just have the core systems of Bozja embedded into the open world. Part of the difficulty in networking in this game is that it is not entirely fluid, e.g., in an ideal situation and MMO you will just meet people in the open world, rather than needing to, for example, go to a city-state. - In this sense, yes, the onus would be on the player to socialize, however, the onus is should also be there to ensure this is facilitated in a more natural manner. It's not an expectation of feeling entitled, but rather just the game does not do a good enough job in pitting players with players outside of an instanced duty. In the ideal world, I could traverse the world doing the MSQ and see people naturally along the way, e.g., in Western Thanalan. It's never really done this, except prior to the release of PotD 3.35, back when people were actually running FATE trains in the open world, exactly as they did with Eureka Anemos/Pagos, albeit in a faster pace.

The biggest reason I dislike Eureka and Bozja is simply that they are demonstrable cases of how the world itself should be and not just a singular zone, and the simple fact it realistically took them 5 years to actually get to something that wasn't just... FATEs in a new aesthetic.

I can't say that I can relate to CLL... This is not me being a contrarian or anything but of my 40-ish runs of CLL, people didn't really communicate much bar the % of the doorman. Beyond that? Was just people throwing corpses at the boss until it fell, with no real major communication behind it. This, I only really felt with BA, frankly.

I could get behind this, but I could only get behind it in the sense of whether it is something that can be done from the get-go of the game, in the sense that any leveled player could do it, if it's not then I still take issue, personally. I think the fact that many people seem to view exploratory content as making or breaking for an expansion (which is fine), just goes to highlight the sheer mistake of not trying to apply it to the grander scheme of things. Do you know how sad it is, that the only reason I have to visit Eastern La Noscea is to kill 'The Garlok'? - Personally, I think there should be just as much incentive for any player regardless of level to visit any given area of the game, as they would with visiting Eureka or Bozja, that is to say, I think the incentivization should mostly be the same. Granted, I'm a little more understanding of limitations, hence my 'vocality', or lack thereof on this. I do think everything should be a single mass of land, yes. Or at the very least should be larger than it currently is. At least enough to make flying feel warranted. Again, flying in areas that are 'zoned' off, which I think are no bigger than, say, Wilderness in Runescape... Just makes the world feel so much smaller than it is.