Zepla: Endwalker is the Worst FFXIV Expansion I have played

[ZephyrMenodora]

Well it's part of a deliberate design decision to make it more single player-like/friendly, a key goal they outlined for the next 10 years of the game. People voiced concerns over this being revealed as a major aspiration and selling point of the MMO for the next 10 years for this precise reason. And while I don't think it would be a problem in and of itself, if there were other stuff going on and they made full use of it (e.g. using it to provide more fine-tuned segregation in difficulty), the fact that there isn't and that the resources allowed to them are so constrained worsens the situation.

I understand their desire to attract new players, and goal of attracting players who don't like playing with others so they can play this as a single player game.

But at some point when it feels like a lot of development time went into this, and not for content for actual MMO players and veterans who have supported this game all along, or for many years, I can't blame veterans for feeling slighted.

I do feel they chose this at the expense of veterans. I don't feel like they hired more people and this was just an extra. Because so much time went into this, I do feel there is less for ME to do as a veteran, and at the end of the day, I care mostly about whether I and people in my circle that I play with feel enjoyment. Not people who haven't played the 10 years the game has been out. Especially if they are solo-only and I'm unlikely to ever run into them.

[Nebelheim]

I understand their desire to attract new players, and goal of attracting players who don't like playing with others so they can play this as a single player game.

But at some point when it feels like a lot of development time went into this, and not for content for actual MMO players and veterans who have supported this game all along, or for many years, I can't blame veterans for feeling slighted.

I do feel they chose this at the expense of veterans. I don't feel like they hired more people and this was just an extra. Because so much time went into this, I do feel there is less for ME to do as a veteran, and at the end of the day, I care mostly about whether I and people in my circle that I play with feel enjoyment. Not people who haven't played the 10 years the game has been out. Especially if they are solo-only and I'm unlikely to ever run into them.

I feel like they started focusing more on retaining new players with shadowbringers and double downed on developing for new players with endwalkers. Compared to arr-stormblood where they provided content for both veterans and new players.

[ZephyrMenodora]

I feel like they started focusing more on retaining new players with shadowbringers and double downed on developing for new players with endwalkers. Compared to arr-stormblood where they provided content for both veterans and new players.

It's kind of sad.

While I dislike clickbait titles, and was ready to immediately dismiss the video because of this, they are attention grabbing and I do think there are a lot of good points in the Zepla video. And whether it's deserved or not, I think the game devs do like Zepla and she does have a platform to hopefully reach them.

The more I thought about it and listened, the video is coming from a good place and the game won't succeed long term if it continues to ignore the playerbase who made the success of this game possible to begin with.

I already thought this game was new player friendly since the game is so easy for the most part.

[Nebelheim]

It's kind of sad.

While I dislike clickbait titles, and was ready to immediately dismiss the video because of this, they are attention grabbing and I do think there are a lot of good points in the Zepla video. And whether it's deserved or not, I think the game devs do like Zepla and she does have a platform to hopefully reach them.

The more I thought about it and listened, the video is coming from a good place and the game won't succeed long term if it continues to ignore the playerbase who made the success of this game possible to begin with.

I already thought this game was new player friendly since the game is so easy for the most part.

I agree i think zepla does seem to still care a lot about the game and seems genuine with her love for it and her criticisms and it seemed to hurt her for feeling she needed a break from a game she played since heavansward. And her point on the game starting to feel like a single player game and focusing too much on the hyper casual side could be just as detrimental to the game as what wow did on the extreme end of hardcore. They need a balance of casual and hardcore and focus on both ends not on the extreme end of casualization.

[Bonoki]

I understand their desire to attract new players, and goal of attracting players who don't like playing with others so they can play this as a single player game.

But at some point when it feels like a lot of development time went into this, and not for content for actual MMO players and veterans who have supported this game all along, or for many years, I can't blame veterans for feeling slighted.

I do feel they chose this at the expense of veterans. I don't feel like they hired more people and this was just an extra. Because so much time went into this, I do feel there is less for ME to do as a veteran, and at the end of the day, I care mostly about whether I and people in my circle that I play with feel enjoyment. Not people who haven't played the 10 years the game has been out. Especially if they are solo-only and I'm unlikely to ever run into them.

I feel like they started focusing more on retaining new players with shadowbringers and double downed on developing for new players with endwalkers. Compared to arr-stormblood where they provided content for both veterans and new players.

I can't help but wonder if they thought veterans would want a break after the 10 year journey to EW, so they focused on new players being able to catch up for the fresh new adventure in 7.0

A lousy explanation but one I could very well see the dev team expressing

[Lauront]

There's a healthy balance to be struck where both new and veteran players can be appeased. As it stands, I very much get the impression that the game is slowly marching towards another 1.0 of lesser proportions due to taking veteran players for granted.

It's why I'd like Yoshi-P to sit down and devote some time specifically talking about what his plans are for veteran players rather than tell them to 'go play ultimate' or to 'take a break'.

He's devoting considerable time and effort into revamping large swathes of the game for the sake of new players. Which would be fine, ordinarily, if such future proofing didn't come at such a steep cost elsewhere.

I understand their desire to attract new players, and goal of attracting players who don't like playing with others so they can play this as a single player game.

But at some point when it feels like a lot of development time went into this, and not for content for actual MMO players and veterans who have supported this game all along, or for many years, I can't blame veterans for feeling slighted.

I do feel they chose this at the expense of veterans. I don't feel like they hired more people and this was just an extra. Because so much time went into this, I do feel there is less for ME to do as a veteran, and at the end of the day, I care mostly about whether I and people in my circle that I play with feel enjoyment. Not people who haven't played the 10 years the game has been out. Especially if they are solo-only and I'm unlikely to ever run into them.

That appears to be the trade-off they're gambling on. There seems to be a lot of churn in the LB player statistics (although the new player rate is now dropping) and the current model they seem to be working towards is sating players who are newer and therefore have a backlog of stuff to work through before they begin running out of content on the one hand, and people who are content to just log in for every major (and maybe minor .x5) patch.

The issue, as has been mentioned, is that when you eventually get to the point where there's fewer more experienced players logged on, the social experience decays... So once the new player churn eventually dies down, you're stuck with not an awful lot to do at max level content and not much to hook people into sticking around to make that viable. That explains the focus on making the game more single-player viable, but I don't think it can compete with dedicated single player (or even some coop) games so I'm not really convinced this will pay off.