Why this Live Letter Matters

[Avoidy]

OP, you're expecting way too much from a live letter. These things are not even worth staying awake for. As others have noted, content roadmaps are designed waaaaaay in advance, so there's no way in hell they're going to be like "sorry you're bored" and switch gears. The only thing we can look forward to from this live letter is once again frantically paying attention to two screens at once, while a discord volunteer live-translates the 2 billion dollar company's presentation for them. And some powerpoint slides confirming more details about the content they've already told us we're getting. And then another 2 weeks of people close-reading fan-translations of Yoshi's off the cuff remarks and guessing about his tone or intention or whether or not he was joking or serious because all we have are discord screencaps of really fast translations done by somebody in their spare time for free because holy shit imagine just hiring an official translator for your most consistently profitable live service game jesus christ

I just wanted to pause a moment to provide a list of complaints from OP just this month (May 2023), a month we are 11 days in. I probably have not picked up everything as I am not thoroughly reading, nor do I plan on going further back. It's just possibly why even if there is something of interest to be had in their message, my eyes at this point just glaze over.

1. Estinian’s Ponytail
2. Island Sanctuary not having battle content
3. How SE advertises the game
4. Chinese Magician Emote being in the SE Store
5. Endwalker Storyline, “Worst” being the entire expansion outside Garlemald
6. WoL being overpowered
7. YYshtola having no personality
8. Female characters being “slay queens!”
9. Being stuck with certain characters in the storyline
10. Underwhelming content rewards
11. Lack of Content, in the generic
12. Titania’s cosmetic outfit
13. Devs Ignoring Feedback
14. Combat Design & Balancing of Numbers
15. Healer Gameplay
16. Endwalker Relic
17. Variant/Criterion Dungeons
18. Ugly Allagan weapons
19. How others spend their time in the game (ie, chat lobby)
20. And of course….other posters on these forums who disagree with him.

I did get a chuckle at a post of his I passed where he wondered why people think he doesn't like FFXIV.

Most (like 16 of them) of those complaints aren't even controversial imo. These forums, like most video game forums, are just deeply divided between people who think the game is perfectly perfect as it is and people who can identify faults and want it to improve. I'm not going to speak for the OP's intentions, but in my own experience coming from such shitshow games like maplestory and bdo, I'll say that it's 100% possible to find a lot of faults in a game, and speak about those faults, but still love the game for what it was before it declined, and for what it can still become. I'll also say that having watched many mmos rise and fall over the years, noticing red flags in a game's life-cycle is really easy for me. So it's out of love for this game that I'll say something if I spot a red flag. Job homogenization was one. The excessively expensive cash shop outfits in a buy to play + subscription game is another. The lengthier periods of time between content cycles with nothing substantial to do in-between, is another. I think for some people, it takes time to notice these faults because just reaching endgame takes like 200 hours, and there's quite a bit of content in the game at this point from previous expansions (how accessible it all is in current year is another matter), so loads of players are still vibing. But if you're caught up, the cracks in the game become really obvious and it often feels like XIV is begging you to just quit until the next major patch, while simultaneously destroying your house if you do, because for some reason THAT'S a system in this game. And if you ever make a thread proposing a better housing system, be ready to fight people who think that system is perfectly perfect and doesn't need to change and blablabla

idk I'm rambling. I don't think OP's wrong for having grievances with an imperfect game run by Square Enix, aka the EA of Japan. If anything, your list just shows that he has more time on his hands than most people, and can be bothered to articulate why my friends list and former FC are both fucking dead