Positivity!

[Theodric]

MMORPG's are dying either you get gatcha games coming from Asia or Korean markets or you get Western MMO's that fail to deliver i.e. New World. Growing up I always wanted to play a MMO then when I finally got into FF14 back in 2014 I was excited at first. Now I feel like the light of MMO's are fading out, communities are lackluster and making friends online is near impossible. The genre is dying and maybe MMO's are better off just fading out of existence since none of them can do anything exciting or new.

I'm not entirely convinced that they're dying, we've just put the days where one single MMO overwhelmingly dominated the market behind us. FFXIV, WoW, GW2 and ESO are all doing fairly well for themselves and receive ongoing content updates and they're far from the only ones.

There's a few MMO's set to launch at some point in the future and eventually one of them will capture the lightning in the bottle effect and do something that brings genuine innovation to the table.

[Minarisweet]

The negative nancys around here have good points and I hate that I can't argue against them without someone else making snarky remarks that I can upvote its so unfair.

[Antharaes]

Not a strange reaction when the OP lists some of the most common complaints in the forum and then somewhat dismisses them (to OP, not even accusing that it was on purpose, it's just very easy to read it that way). I guarantee you that the response to this thread would be extremely different if it looked like it wasn't made in retaliation to negative posts.

Two positive threads off the top of my head that have been very well-received were the "What do you guys do for fun" one that was posted recently (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/483942), and the "Positive Feedback" one posted soon after 6.4's launch (https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/482641), and both of them were just that. Regular topics with non-inflammatory opening posts. I struggle to think of a more vocal critic than Stormpeaks, for example, and they left positive feedback in both.

Thanks for those links, will have a look at those when I need to wait again for the paint to dry...literally.

[MonsutaMan]

I do not understand it outside that "people come to the forums to vent and complain".

There is this notion, that people who criticize a game are "Negativity....."

but in actuality, you have to pay to be here.....

...So, I assume they are simply passionate, & really want the best for the game; otherwise they would spend the $14 on Porn or something.......

[Antharaes]

There is this notion, that people who criticize a game are "Negativity....."

but in actuality, you have to pay to be here.....

...So, I assume they are simply passionate, & really want the best for the game; otherwise they would spend the $14 on Porn or something.......

Limsa..nuff said.

[Archeron]

People come to these forums to leave feedback, positive or negative on the game for developers to consider. Forum dwellers come in to derail those threads and the result is no useful feedback being left behind.

If you like something about the game, people immiediatly remind you that the game is trash. If you don't like something about the game, people will call you a negative nancy and tell you to "unsub".

The fights on every single thread are the reason they ignore our forums. A lot of people here have the maturity of a child, and take someone disagreeing with them as a personal insult. The forums really needs to be modernized, and we need moderators to do their job. Until then, welcome to the Wild West.

[CNitsah]

So an echo chamber is what you desire? Feeling angry and disgruntled with the game you claim to love and have voices justify your feelings? You know from what i've read on the first 2 pages no one is offering feed back? What will make the story better, what will make the game better? Do you have to kill off important scion characters like Y'sthola for the story to have impact? Do raids need increased difficulty, more mechanics? Are you wanting your raiding expereince to be like a dark souls game? Are the rewards not good enough for your time? Even though games are meant for you to have fun and enjoy yourself in? But please, insult me instead of trying to fix anything.

You haven't read of lot of thread on the subject then, sure there are people complaining for the sake of complaining, but there are a lot of constructed post on the subject. Problem is people put the two in the same basket, as bitter people. But take the time to actually read the thread, you'll see several complain that continue to come. The msq being lackluster. 6.3 was a deception because none of the golbez generals were nearly as well build up as the 2 in 6.2, and instead we got the twin shoehorned there. 6.4 was basically a glorified fuel run that cut its climax because "not 2 trials in one patch". The Garlemald part, while not bad, was not important enough to be well developped yet too present to compared to the actual main story of Azdaja Golbez, which lead many to say the patch feels like fillers. Those are reaction you find not only on the forum, but with many players. Maybe not a majority, but enough to not be called two people screaming harder than the rest.

There is also the whole relics fiasco, who by the lack of a proper relic story and the fact it's limited to doing roulettes feels totally underwhelming and uninvolving, nobody cares about that story.

There is also the suppression of the trial storyline, which gave the problem we have with msq, were the progression of the story stopped being guenine, but feels like a checklist.

There is the lack of proper long running content, that that the relics related content used to be. You may not notice that since you still have classes to up or content you have not done, but 6.3 and 6.4 are dead content wise. Since the 6.4, getting caped in tomestone and doing the Khloe journal are the only thing I have to do. Everyday there is a moment I think "I'll play to XIV a little", just to not having anything to do. Even the 6 month without content because of the covid didn't feel as dry as the last month since the release of the 6.4.

I could probably find a few other reasons, but that's why people complain. It's sure if you still have content you're not up to date with, you won't even notice it, because the backlog is still very big. But if you are up to date, the last patches are a snooze fest. And I say that as someone who was hyped as fuck when I realised the story we were gonna cover was what happened to the last of the first brood.

One year later, I just want that story to finish, I feel it overstayed its welcome, and it makes me feel sad that after the masterclass that ShB was storywise, and the good conclusion that EW vanilla was, we got that for a point I was excited about. So much wasted potential.

[Fawkes]

Most of the people complaining about having nothing to do aren't the people who've done DSR, TOP, Pandaemonium or Criterion, they're the people who don't want to or cannot put in the time for raiding. Outside of job design, "raiders" have had it good this expansion relative to other groups. It's the people in the middle who didn't start playing in the past year or two that don't have content with longevity being designed for them. If someone found a majority of their playtime in content like Bozja or Eureka, they don't have anything for them this expansion.

It's funny how you described me pretty well, except that I'm perpetually inundated with things to do to the point where I have a backlog that I'll never get to since there's constantly something new added every patch and the best time to do a thing is always right when it's added. Like ocean fishing for example, they just added a new route and I feel like I already "missed the boat" on getting the new titles. And since I did spend most of my time in Eureka when it was new, that means I never got everything I wanted out of Heaven on High. Patch 4.35 added HoH and Patch 4.36 a month later added Eureka Pagos, which was just too much content all at once.

[Ivtrix]

Hey Siri please set the “pat ourselves on the back” counter to 2 please

[Jeeqbit]

I see a lot of negativity on this forum for some reason. I do not understand it outside that "people come to the forums to vent and complain".

Correct on both counts.

Sometimes I just feel like i'm drowning in content and it is glorious!

But you are newer to the game. You said you had played WoW for 16 years, so imagine someone who has played FFXIV for 10 years. They have done all these things you described in that 10 years and now feel bored.

However, I do agree with you, that I don't get through even the new content as fast as they apparently do, because I still have PvP to grind (I've put this off), more Eureka Orthos to do, more raiding and ocean fishing to do, so maybe your idea that they don't do all of the content or don't try to get all of the new rewards such as mounts has some truth to it.

I don't see how people think Endwalker is bad, let alone the story or gameplay. I don't understand how the class mechanics are "2 min meta" / "bland, boring, and the same".

I agree about Endwalker being good, but the people criticizing the class mechanics in the way you described are not wrong and here's why.

Even SE has admitted they altered all the jobs to work within 2 minute bursts in statements and patch notes. But this is also obvious. Jobs that had varying bursts that began at different times (30s, 60s, 120s, 180s) or no burst at all and just had sustained damage the whole time, were changed to be bursty jobs at 60s or 120s, and therefore felt more similar.

Now the jobs may be more varied and different than what you are familiar with in WoW (I don't play WoW), but when people say they are the same, they mean how similar they have got compared to ARR and Heavensward.

• For example, Warrior had a cone AoE that behaved as a sort of positional. You had to aim it correctly so it hit all of the enemeis, or some would be missed. Now it's just a circle AoE like all other tank combos. Paladin had a sustained and varied 60s rotation but has now changed to be a 60s burst similar to Gunbreaker's to the point you can setup your hotbar almost the same way.
• Mitigation would be more unique (but ultimately useless). For example, we had Awareness that nullified critical hits (useful in big dungeon pulls, but not exactly your heaviest cooldown). Raw Intuition parried physical attacks... but not magic. Foresight increased physical defense by 20%... but not magic defense.
• Mercy Stroke was an attack you could only use when the enemy was below 20%. Paladins were one of the only jobs with a knockback immunity that also cured bind and heavy (in addition, Hallowed Ground or Holm Gang also worked for knockback immunity in many cases).
• Provoke was uniquely a Paladin ability, unless players unlocked Paladin and cross-classed it. Paladin had a proc called Shield Swipe, an ability called flash to get the attention of enemies (instead of having an aoe attack). Paladins had an ability called Convalescence to increase HP restored.
• Paladins reduced physical damage from enemies with their combo, while Dark Knights and Monks reduced magic damage with their combo.
• Dark Knights used to be the only tank with a gap closer.

The point is, all tanks have a 2-button aoe combo now and all of them are circle AoEs. All tanks have had those useless but unique abilities removed in favor of ones that mitigate both physical and magic attacks, and useless attacks removed, or merged together to become role actions (such as their stuns), and damage reduction combo effects were all merged into a role ability called Reprisal that reduces all types of damage from an enemy. All jobs have knockback immunity now, not just Paladin. All tanks have a gap closer, not just Dark Knight, which reduced some of its unique appeal.

When people say jobs have become the same, this is the sort of thing they mean. All of them have a familiar aoe combo that works the same. None of them have unique combo effects like they used to that could synergize together or be strategically paired. All of them have a gap closer, so you don't need to choose one job over another.