Zepla: Endwalker is the Worst FFXIV Expansion I have played

[VerdeLuck]

Nobody is actively deriding new players or saying that their experience of actually having backlog isn’t a valid position to currently be in with the game

It’s more trying to draw attention to the fact that
1) if you do have a backlog chances are it’s overwhelmingly biased towards content from old expansions (Bozja/eureka, old fishing titles, old relics that still actually have grinds attached, older deep dungeons etc)
2) not everyone has said backlog because either they did it on patch or they started somewhere within the last 2-3 years and play enough they have cleared their backlog, for those people the amount of content EW has released has just been unacceptable

Whether you do or don’t like a streamer or whether you want streamers to be public with their opinions (I mean if you don’t want streamers to discuss their opinions even on stream what do you even want the streamer to do) these opinions exist and people are getting fed up being shouted down as some minority that came be ignored

There's also the other side that some people seem tobe ignoring, there will never be enough content in this game for it to be a monogame situation like WoW. Streamers and veterans will always run out of content because SE cannot add content fast enough to satisfy people grinding it for 12+ hours a day every day.
The only way is to put incredibly long tedious grinds in that take weeks or months of real world time to get X of a abysmally low drop rate item to progress.
Of course zelpa is in this situation because she's a streamer who sits in ffxiv for hours a day every day. There is no way to give her or hardcore players enough content without making borderline incompletable grinds that the rest of the playerbase will never even hope to see the end of. Other games manage to do it by making content that take the most dedicated player months to complete, and that's not even close to the kind of content I want to see in this game.

[Zairava]

Lol, yeah. It's like they're trying to remain blissfully unaware of any feedback from the playerbase.

Then I just put what feedback I can in the survey so long as it's relevant to the question, there is no escape ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

[R041]

How do you guys know someone was banned (and also over what post)?

I'm alive. It's because it was the only post I've made in months and had to laugh at the fact I was temp-banned literally seconds after I posted it. lol

Anyway - EW hasn't been an enjoyable experience. 95% of my FC hasn't logged in since 6.2 and it was maybe just for the weekend. I had to login again to refresh my status to post on the forums again.

We talk about how all of the newbies have so much content to do, but also fail to realize that when they don't have their vet friends to play with, they're even less likely to keep chugging the slog. This situation is bad for all players - New, Old, Casual, Hardcore. We all suffer for the circle of fun breaking down.

We don't have to listen to Zepla to realize EW has issues, we just have to look at the playerbase as it currently is. I'm glad the Streamers and Youtubers are starting to actually acknowledge the toxic positivity as a threat to the game's existence instead of always having a giggle at the community just melting down at any small criticism. It used to just be a joke, and now it's starting to be taken as an underlying problem.

It's not enough to make fun of these players and their meltdowns, we need to show that it's actually starting to have some serious consequences to the overall gameplay and our inability to accept core loop improvements, not just QoL.

Something, something Dawntrail cope. Holding out hope for the next expansion since EW release day doesn't show confidence in much of anything.

[Frodnoxx]

The new survey that came from SE actually answers all of Zepla's points and my own, this game is not going to get any better over time, I did look at the survey, and honestly its an absolute joke, but apparently those are the questions that matter.

"What is your favorite minion/mount ?"
"What is your most "formidable" foe ?"
"Chose a character for a side story"

That's basically it

And you will tell me "they are very out of touch", and truth is, they are not, they know where the money is, and after all that's what matters to them as a company, they go after the majority of people, which no matter if people like it or not, is basically just afkers/venue people or people just existing in game for the sake of existing and just afk on youtube or whatever other game they play at the same time as they afk in FFXIV.

And this is how this game is supposed to get better over time apparently, what an absolute joke, call me doomsayer, negative nancy, whatever name you want, I actually dont care at this point, this survey shows where this game is going, what it's leaning towards, a singleplayer experience visual novel with a side of AFK in Limsa and some venues, and people spending their time modding, instead of doing actual content in the game, because it's just so bland that a lot of people dont even want to touch it, they'd rather be sitting in Limsa all day long.

I love this game, I really do, when I started it I had the most amazing experience after coming from WoW, but the job issues with how non-unique they are, the 2 min meta at high level, the general boringness of them already hit me the second I hit max level, I found a saving grace for this game in housing because the housing side of the game is amazing, but at this point even that is starting to just fade, because having houses is all good and amazing, but if there's nobody to show it off to or even some random to see it as they walk through wards, what's the point ?

You can watch it happen, watch the population shift slowly to singleplayer users, venue people and afkers, that's most of what you see anywhere you go, PF's are pretty much dead after less than a week except on Aether because the game just offers NOTHING aside from content that is done extremely fast.

I only have been playing for 2 years, and I find it absolutely depressing how big the shift is in such a short amount of time, I cant imagine for the people that have been playing since the beginning of the game.

I share all these sentiments, including job design and the experience you have had with housing. I also didn't know about the survey but your interpretation of "they know where the money is" sounds spot on.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

I can personally concede that even though im having fun in game every single day still yet, if I was finished with my goals, which at this point are still many, even after two years (finishing crafting/gathering jobs, all side quests, bozja, eureka,)

If all I had to keep me entertained in game was Endwalker patch content, I would probably feel bored/burnt out etc. But thankfully the social ties in this game and the community itself are stronger than any online I have ever seen.

And someday Ill do it again on a new character.

[Supersnow845]

There's also the other side that some people seem tobe ignoring, there will never be enough content in this game for it to be a monogame situation like WoW. Streamers and veterans will always run out of content because SE cannot add content fast enough to satisfy people grinding it for 12+ hours a day every day.
The only way is to put incredibly long tedious grinds in that take weeks or months of real world time to get X of a abysmally low drop rate item to progress.
Of course zelpa is in this situation because she's a streamer who sits in ffxiv for hours a day every day. There is no way to give her or hardcore players enough content without making borderline incompletable grinds that the rest of the playerbase will never even hope to see the end of. Other games manage to do it by making absolutely long arduous grinds that are meant to last even the most dedicated player months to complete, and that's not even close to the kind of content I want to see in this game.

That is not a topic commonly discussed because most people can see a middle ground between “you are a slave to the game” torghast style and “within a 1.5 year span of time we are releasing what amounts to 6-7 hours of content and it’s more of the same content you’ve gotten for the last 10 years”

And it’s not like optional grinds to increase longevity are hard to implement or even foreign to this game, 10/10/10 is a perfect example of something that can be grinder out of you like Bozja, but you aren’t in any way punished if you don’t grind it out

[AlexiaD]

As someone who has been playing since arr released i seen a significant shift towards being more of a single player game that started with shadowbringers and has gotten worse in endwalkers and seems it will continue going down that route in dawntrails.

People call me a doomsayer, and honestly as I mentioned in my last post I dont care anymore, these same exact people either are part of the problem, or are just too blind to even see what is happening to this game, especially since mare was introduced, it took a massive speed boost when that happened, and it's going downhill very fast

I share all these sentiments, including job design and the experience you have had with housing. I also didn't know about the survey but your interpretation of "they know where the money is" sounds spot on.

Thank you for your opinion, glad you agree with my vision of it all.

[Zairava]

There's also the other side that some people seem tobe ignoring, there will never be enough content in this game for it to be a monogame situation like WoW. Streamers and veterans will always run out of content because SE cannot add content fast enough to satisfy people grinding it for 12+ hours a day every day.
The only way is to put incredibly long tedious grinds in that take weeks or months of real world time to get X of a abysmally low drop rate item to progress.
Of course zelpa is in this situation because she's a streamer who sits in ffxiv for hours a day every day. There is no way to give her or hardcore players enough content without making borderline incompletable grinds that the rest of the playerbase will never even hope to see the end of. Other games manage to do it by making content that take the most dedicated player months to complete, and that's not even close to the kind of content I want to see in this game.

what part of this quote: "I'm tired of hearing people say: 'well we don't want this game to just be a huge grind'. No one is saying that, stop jumping to this extreme" do people not understand

[AlexiaD]

what part of this quote: "I'm tired of hearing people say: 'well we don't want this game to just be a huge grind'. No one is saying that, stop jumping to this extreme" do people not understand

It's so tiring at this point, it's like there is no middle ground with these people, either its a 24 7 grind or its no grind at all

[Nebelheim]

People call me a doomsayer, and honestly as I mentioned in my last post I dont care anymore, these same exact people either are part of the problem, or are just too blind to even see what is happening to this game, especially since mare was introduced, it took a massive speed boost when that happened, and it's going downhill very fast

As a long time player i see all the problems you mentioned with the game and a lot of the people that disagree tend to be newer players that joined mid-shadowbringers or long time players that happen to focus more on achievements and old content and don't really touch current stuff much.