I want to play *This* game

[Deceptus]

We'll have to wait and see what they have in mind for the 7.x relics now.

But we won't get any information on that until 7.2 / 7.3 so a year after expansion release.

[Thurmnmurmn]

I queued for floors 21-30 Thursday morning outside of peak hours and got a group in less than 5 minutes, so does that mean the content isn't dead? Or does only your anecdotal evidence count. You can also enter by yourself to complete lower floors and raise your Aetherpool levels.

I wanted to respond to this person too but thought it was too long ago in the thread that I just let it go.
It's honestly a real shame that floors 1-20 are just dead after the first couple weeks it's out. There's 0 reason to go back to them unless your doing solo runs.
What I think they should do for that is make the chance of getting aetherpool lvls the same for LVL 1-30 and put them all on the same q. Make it act like a roulette where it just fills in whatever of the 3 sets is being queued up for.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

Ideally you do content because it's fun to play. This seems somewhat of a foreign concept to mmo players though.

Regrettably, Final Fantasy XIV is an MMORPG and has no choice but to be designed as such. I don't know for sure, but Square would probably lose a fair few subs if they nixed the idea entirely. It's just part of the price that comes with the genre they elected to implement here. I don't redo every piece of content in this game multiple times, but not every available option is so dull as to be a one and done neither.

[TaleraRistain]

Exploratory zones, particularly Anemos due to dyeable relic gear and Bozja/Zadnor.

Grinding Ivalice raids for gear, along with the NieR raids before the stat squish made the latter impossible to complete in under 40 minutes.

The previous deep dungeons given that they actually rewarded things like the Kinna weapons / Jeudi mount and other things I was interested in + releasing early enough before I had a chance to level my classes to 90 thanks to extended patch cycles.

Extremes back when their weapons weren't as gaudy as they are this expansion and the mounts weren't cats with small heads.

Restoration content - grinding out and selling rewards for gil.

Occasionally dungeon farming but with both 6.3 and now 6.4 set to have recycled sets there's no point in me running patch MSQ dungeons more than once.

8-man raid set grinding except for when they released the atrocious Genta Eboshi sets.

Roulette and tome farming which is basically all there is to do this expansion has always been dead last in the list of things I've wanted to do. Even if I don't rush new content when it releases this expansion it's all been short-lived and each major patch doesn't provide more than a few hours worth of things to do. 6.4 is likely to be the last major patch I stick around for until 7.0 - which is still roughly a year away. Even then 7.0 is no longer a definite yes for me because I'm not willing to endure another expansion's worth of Endwalker's constant mistakes.

Nearly everything on your list exists this expansion. You can't complain about a lack of battle content when the content is still there. You're just choosing not to do it because the reward doesn't fit your aesthetic. Fine not to do it if you don't like the reward, but don't try to claim there isn't content when the content is still there.

And for as much as people complain about the rewards for Criterion, it was hard 4-man content that the playerbase was asking to get for years.

Exploratory zones are a mixed bag. While many people say they enjoyed doing them, I'd hazard a guess from how low population they've become even on an active DC like Aether that those people aren't going into them to keep them alive. They did them when they were current. They got what they wanted and left and care nothing about anyone who tries to do them after that point. But SE does care about things like that and I'm sure they have the numbers on the longevity of that content and whether it's worth the development time to create it or not. So maybe we'll see it again. Maybe we won't.

[StarRosie]

Exploratory zones are a mixed bag. While many people say they enjoyed doing them

It's weird watching a lot of these folks wax poetic about Eureka and Bozja like they were beloved content on release. I was around when Eureka Anemos dropped and it dropped to...fairly negative to highly negative criticism. It was also just upsetting for folks that the relics were locked behind it. People did not like the ultra vague quest steps and the "We aren't going to put a map marker for quest steps because we want to force you to 'share information'." and all that. Pagos is Pagos...enough said. Pyros got a pass because it had the one saving grace of "I'm not Pagos!" and Hydratos got a pass because BA is a fun raid. But Eureka as each step released was met with mostly...negative reactions. It wasn't until after parts got nerfed and the folks who LIKED Eureka did 99% of the legwork to make Eureka more streamlined, that it's become more tolerable and fun for some folks.

Bozja got A LOT of flak for having multiple slog grinds almost one after another. Folks were upset that they made doing the Relic steps IN BOZJA far less efficient than fate grinding in HW areas and running Antitower 6 times. Which also then stressed the playerbase because "Hey, you need to be this mettle rank to progress the story and therefore progress the relic! But you've been relic step grinding OUTSIDE of Bozja because it is far more efficient, soooo...you're rank 1. Have fun grinding mettle!" The one time grinds are still a pain point for people just starting Bozja. And DR is basically a barren, empty raid that you have to PF for and then wait 10 minutes in queue just to slog through it multiple times for relic steps. Which is another pain point for people just starting Bozja.

Personally, I did a lot of this stuff on their respective releases and my reactions were mostly "Neat." to "Meh." on most of this stuff. Would I take another Eureka/Bozja area? Eeeehhhh...maybe? If it was just a side thing that didn't lock a relic behind it and was just there for folks who enjoy that stuff, sure. But if it's another relic gate...then no thanks. But honestly, I would much prefer if they put a lot of that stuff in the game's main overworlds, cause they are barren 90% of the time and that sucks, cause this game has a lot of beautiful areas. But ah well. I still got a bunch of other stuff to grind for, so a lot of these complainants don't apply to me.

[Aword3213]

Ideally you do content because it's fun to play. This seems somewhat of a foreign concept to mmo players though.

Definetely not foreign to me

It's fun to redo those fights from time to time

Play them as different jobs. Play with new people. Enjoy the lols and chaos.

What do I need reward for? Digitial items that would soon lost their efficacy in the next expansion? Glamor for my 800/800 glamor dresser? Mounts I can only ride 1 at a time?

[Zachia]

I know this isn't what OP or people who agree with OP want to here but I dedicated 12 years to world of warcraft and world of warcraft alone, barely touching any other game. I heavily regret not playing other games in that time, what did 12 years of dedication lead me? To disappointment and burn out, and all that i have achieved, all the rare quality items and cosmetics meant nothing. When I look back and even when i go play for a few weeks on every new patch, it just feels and tastes like ash. Nothing matters anymore except having fun for a bit. FF14 I enjoy and love and I don't mind if i take breaks from the game as it doesn't punish me and its fun. The community is amazing and i know it will always be here... at least for the next 10 years. Don't dedicate your entire life to one thing, its to short to do that. Find other games or hobbies to enjoy.

[aveyond-dreams]

In my case my previous mmorpg was FFXI, so a grind akin to Anemos didn't phase me in the slightest. Pagos on the other hand was a disaster and I did not go back and finish all of Eureka until Shadowbringers. That being said, Anemos did provide me with enough to do in grinding out not only relic weapons but also the relic sets, in addition to the other stuff I was chasing after at the time.

Nowadays there's literally nothing.

[Ransu]

XI was great because...well, I was a teenager with all the time in the world to play it when that game initially came out. I have many fond memories of XI, and yet, I never want to play that kind of game ever again.

XIV doesn't require that kind of investment and that is a good thing.

[Sheriyana]

XI was great because...well, I was a teenager with all the time in the world to play it when that game initially came out. I have many fond memories of XI, and yet, I never want to play that kind of game ever again.

XIV doesn't require that kind of investment and that is a good thing.

Well I can't speak for everyone but I'm not asking for the game to force me to keep playing it however much a day to keep caught up. I just want content with some longevity to it. There is room between being forced to play the game 5 hours+ every day to stay caught up and you being done with patch content 5 hours into a major patch and having to wait 4 months for hopefully more stuff to do. No one was forced to do Eureka or Bozja when those were current content. I don't know why people struggle to grasp such a simple concept, now we have content that is one and done and nothing else besides the same old roulettes we've been doing for 10 years. I just want more out of the game, I know it can do better, it has in the past. Now people just settle for less because daddy Yoshi-P(rimal) has indoctrinated half the playerbase into being corporate thralls or something... I don't know.

I played XIV exclusively for a year and even that was horrible, you can still play other games, it's good that the game allows that without falling behind but now it has tilted to basically being forced to play other games all the time since XIV doesn't offer anything to keep you logged in aside from RP or whatever, and I don't RP so there really is nothing.