Zepla: Endwalker is the Worst FFXIV Expansion I have played

[Berkin]

No.

The more nuanced claims talk about repeatable content...but that's really JUST Eureka/Bozja, and maybe Isghard Restoration (though that wasn't exactly repeatable, it was more just "big event"), and in some cases, by users who have said they don't like Eureka/Bozja content, in which case, what DID ShB have for them that EW does not? A REALLY nuanced claim would note the longer patch cycle, but not many (any? other than me, that is) people seem to mention that.

It seems more like general dissatisfaction, not that the game/Devs are giving them less. People wanting more and being annoyed with being given the same amount and wrongly calling it less when it simply wasn't more.

Talking about exploratory content as "just Eureka/Bozja" sounds a little disingenuous when considering just how big that kind of content really was. There's really no single instance of content to replace it when so much goes into it. (DRS is still the most fun I've had in this game and it was just one instance inside Bozja).

Restoration was actually something to work towards with every patch too, with no real replacement to it besides IS, which was supposed to be the replacement to exploratory content already.

[Zairava]

Talking about exploratory content as "just Eureka/Bozja" sounds a little disingenuous when considering just how big that kind of content really was. There's really no single instance of content to replace it when so much goes into it. (DRS is still the most fun I've had in this game and it was just one instance inside Bozja).

Restoration was actually something to work towards with every patch too, with no real replacement to it besides IS, which was supposed to be the replacement to exploratory content already.

Ah yeah, resoration. That content is future proof, too. People can always go there and have a secondary way to level crafters if they don't want to do levequests. I don't recall if it's viable for post-80 though.

I actually enjoyed ishgard restoration, a part of me wishes I took my time instead of finishing all of my leveling during stage 1.

Even without the leveling aspect, it has rewards for you to go back and get too, it's easy profit if you have them already as well.

[Lyth]

I think the point around field content was probably the most useful take-home from the video.

There's a sizeable group of players who are predominantly here to socialize, and just won't engage with even moderate difficulty content despite investing hours into the game. You can't entice them into actually trying content by simplifying job and fight design (which is a mistake to begin with). To them, Extreme Trials, Criterion, Deep Dungeons, and Savage might as well not even exist.

If you take away their fate grind, there's no way for them to distinguish themselves from 'casual' players who just log on for a dungeon or two. You need some sort of status symbol attached to a time sink. Otherwise, what do you have to show for your time in the game in Endwalker? Maybe you can grind Frontlines, but that's about it.

It's also a more social, community-orientated style of content, so you'll find players of all different walks joining together for exploration and banter in shout chat. And there are still challenges to interest players who are out looking for that sort of thing, like the Bozja duels. There's a danger of making an MMO too streamlined, and you risk streamlining out the community aspect of it. Players complained about grinds for the better part of the past two expansions, but I don't think any of us realized how valuable the exploratory content was until it was gone.

[Renathras]

it’s very rare...

I mean, you know I'm a massive proponent of Eureka/Bozja type content, right?

That said: People were highly critical of them at the time. I think it's more "absence makes the heart go fonder"; it took not having one for people to see that they're good to have and that the complaints ("Eureka/Bozja suck! We want a HW Relic grind where you just do content and turn in some parts!") were bad. This also goes into the whole thing about people complaining about the wrong things.

I'm not dismissing it.

I AM pointing out that it's the only difference.

"Raids suck now"; We have the same amount of fights in EW as ShB and SB and HW. And the fights are largely more technical and "hard" than they were back then (in terms of "the dance"); what's easier is the uptime so difficulty has been shifted away from rotations and into mechancis.

"The Trial series isn't a separate story"; but it's the same number of fights, and the fight mechanics are arguably more difficult (and more body check filled). So that means (in a way) more content for hardcores (at the expense of the midcore). "But it was more story content"; yes, but this time we have Tataru's quests, which in term of length to do (cutscenes and all) are similar in time expended to Wyrlit or Four Lords were. That is, we still have that AMOUNT of content. And 4 Fiends was at least slightly more compelling imo than 4 Lord was (aside from Phoenix).

Even the complaint about Orthos is more "It's the same thing again", not that it's less.

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So it seems less EW has less content, or significantly so, and more a combination that the content isn't as repeatable and it doesn't have MORE. So people saying it has so much less are kind of lying (though, to be fair, most aren't going to lay out the content side-by-side to realize it's about the same amount overall). They also, in praising past expansions, are defeating their own argument that we had so much more content because we, in fact, did not. Or in different words:

"People are stating the wrong complaint."

They had SPECIFIC content that had more longevity. That's the only complaint that actually registers.

But it hasn't...

I mean, it kind of is.

Zepla, for example, was not complaining about ShB or SB's content. The forums in ShB were more complaining about healer damage button removal (which wasn't a big deal outside of the healer forum) and how Bozja sucked.

For some people who have been complaining since 4.0, it wasn't a "straw that breaks the camel's back" situation, as they've been complaining for like 6 years and have been perpetually unhappy. For those that haven't, many of them were fine with ShB despite it being basically the same thing.

EDIT:

I have to wonder what world you are living in to say that ShB and EW have "roughly the same amount of content"

OVERALL CONTENT is roughly the same.

We have similar amounts of:
MSQ
Dungeons
Trials
Raids
Alliance
Sidequests
Story sidequests (stuff like Tribal, etc)
PvP (actually we seem to have more of that)
Minigame stuff (new Triad cards, BLU, etc)

What we gained that ShB didn't have:

2 (soon to be 3) Criterion
Deep Dungeon (remember ShB didn't have one)
Island Sanctuary (love it or not, it's still content)
Hildibrand (love it or not, it's still content)

What ShB had that we don't have now:

Bozja (2 zones, 3 raids)
Ishgard Restoration (one-time content, though there's a lot to it)

Vs SB specifically:

SB did have HoH (so Orthos is covered)
Eureka (4 zones, 1 raid)

Are these a big deal?

Oh absolutely! For anyone who somehow has missed me talking about this for literally months AND has missed me saying so in this thread dozens of times including in the post quoted: I LOVE Exploration/Foray zones/content. I think it's great for the game and is really bad Bozja lost one (or two?) zones due to the pandemic and we don't have one in EW. I'm also old enough to remember people ENDLESSLY COMPLAINING about Eureka and Bozja both. It's not the same people, I'm aware, but the fact remains the Devs were responding to feedback, not just being cheapskates or lazy.

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So in terms of OVERALL CONTENT, the OVERALL CONTENT was similar, yes. It was different. The big change from ShB to EW is we traded Bozja and Ishgard for Orthos and Criterion and Island. As I don't have a Static to run stuff with I just did Sil'di for the story and have only run the new one once because I kind of am not that interested in the setting; and I hate Island being mostly a spreadsheet since I'd rather gather AND CRAFT the stuff myself like I did in Ishgard. But in terms of content, it's a lot of CONTENT, it's just content I don't personally care for. Island has a similar amount of stuff to do as Ishgard Restoration, for example, and once we have all three Criterions, they'll be a similar amount of fight/encounters to Bozja's three raids, especially considering the number of bosses and three difficulty tunings. Add in Orthos for another 10 fights and zone/environments - remember ShB didn't have a Deep Dungeon - and that should equal ROUGHLY the same amount of OVERALL CONTENT.

So yes, the amount of content is similar - laugh all you want - it's just different and, I believe, inferior since it doesn't appeal to as broad an audience and doesn't have the longevity.

This post..baffles me. We have stated on and on, or at least I have, that it isn't the amount, it's that they don't have incentive to keep doing.

I mean, the person right above you said it was the amount. XD

People get mad when I make big posts replying to multiple people, but when I make shorter posts replying to some complaints, they assume it's about theirs and more expansive. Make up your minds, people! This is why I can't make short posts.

And again: Have you not seen MY OWN POSTS talking endlessly about how I love Eureka/Bozja and think their absence is bad?

Talking about exploratory content as "just Eureka/Bozja" sounds a little disingenuous when considering just how big that kind of content really was.

I DO understand this, but this is also true of other stuff. Criterion is going to be 3 dungeons, 15 bosses, with 3 difficulty settings and mechanic sets, and the boss attack patterns and abilities, even within a difficulty, have alterations (e.g. I'm only counting the first boss as "1", but it's actually "3" since it's on each path AND each one has at least two variations, so it's actually "6"). Island Sanctuary is a grind and customization and minion and outdoor furnishing and party/venue/friends group and "grind" for rewards content. Calling them "just Criterion/Island" is disingenuous, too, but it's what people are doing.

Though, again: I complain about Bozja/Eureka being gone. Have you not seen me do so in my posts?

I don't recall if it's viable for post-80 though.

Not really, no. The xp drops off hard. The best way is to maybe get to 81 then use the Levequests in Sharl to get from 81-90. If you have 99 allowances, that's plenty, and you can just go to the NPC vendors in the EW zone settlements to buy the gear to do the gear turn-ins.

It has rewards, but some are ridiculous grinds (the pterodactyl is insane), a lot are complete RNG (Kupo of Fortune), and a lot are about as future proofed as the Timeworn Relic step of the ShB weapons/Delubrium is in terms of you needing to go and grind specific mats if people aren't actively doing the content and flooding your MB.

I think the point around field content was probably the most useful take-home from the video.

This.

Most points can be argued one way or another, but this is the big one.

Field content is a social avenue and a midcore avenue and a casual avenue and a hardcore avenue. Everyone has something. Bozja, for example, you've got casual grinds for relics (it really is, you can do a lot of it with just FATEs and some Roulettes), but also midcore content with some of the fights and raids or people wanting to grind out more for the armor sets and the 10/10/10 seals, but you also have DR Savage for the hardcore people out there, as well as the duels. It really was content for just about everyone, social and soloers alike.

[Jeeqbit]

Now the question is at which point a character is considered no longer active.

If there is no observable change on their lodestone profile. I don't think they check gear or title changes, but it does check for a lot of other changes such as a different job, changes in level, exp, mounts or minions.

we actually have no idea if this is monthly active players or daily or simply characters active between those two data points

They are very clear it is since the last survey, which at the moment seem to happenen every 2-3 months. Obviously, this doesn't necessarily reflect the number of people subscribed right now, but the data is still relevant because it allows you to compare survey to survey or the difference between a survey in one expansion compared to another, or between the same month on two given years.

If a survey now is saying "more than 1 million" and surveys always used to be under a million, it still tells us that the game is in a better place statistically than it used to be and therefore to see a decline we'd have to start seeing numbers below 1 million again.

and then you also have to take into account that "active characters" doesn't actually mean "subscribed accounts" since it includes alts

"Comparison of the number of people who acquired bonus mounts from the 7-Eleven collaboration campaign held in 2016 and the number of active characters who owned the same mounts at the time. The other is an article from June 13, 2019, which compares the number of paid members at the general meeting of shareholders at the same time and the number of active characters at the time.

In the 2017 survey, the alt character rate was 14%. A 2019 survey estimated 20%.

The reason for the increase in the latter is that it was during the pre-expansion period, when there were few updates, and also because level boosts that were not available during the former period made it possible to exceed the active threshold. Still 20%. If there are 5 characters, one of them will be an alt character for one of the remaining 4 characters."

(Translated from their blog)

[Shurrikhan]

EW is effectively ShB 2.0

difference is only that it doesn't have a Eureka/Bozja... and 2 weeks more per patch...

This.

Most points can be argued one way or another, but this is the big one.

Field content is a social avenue and a midcore avenue and a casual avenue and a hardcore avenue. Everyone has something. Bozja, for example, you've got casual grinds for relics (it really is, you can do a lot of it with just FATEs and some Roulettes), but also midcore content with some of the fights and raids or people wanting to grind out more for the armor sets and the 10/10/10 seals, but you also have DR Savage for the hardcore people out there, as well as the duels. It really was content for just about everyone, social and soloers alike.

"Only" the loss of all of Bozja... and 2 weeks more per patch cycle, which you are treating as negligible if it's nonetheless "effectively ShB 2.0".

So, which is it? Was that difference of Bozja insignificant, as per your two posts prior, or significant, as your last implies?

[OgruMogru]

There's a difference between being critical of aspects of bozja/eureka like how Pagos had some real issues when it first launched and just nuking the content out of existence. Same with complaints about relic grind in general why is the solution always to just outright remove these things instead of rebalancing in smaller increments? This is my biggest issue with the way 14 operates tbh and EW is the culmination of lots of these little missteps.

[Supersnow845]

There's a difference between being critical of aspects of bozja/eureka like how Pagos had some real issues when it first launched and just nuking the content out of existence. Same with complaints about relic grind in general why is the solution always to just outright remove these things instead of rebalancing in smaller increments? This is my biggest issue with the way 14 operates tbh and EW is the culmination of lots of these little missteps.

Especially since Bozja showed the devs looked at why people didn’t like eureka

-skirmishes spawn at random so you always have to be in the local area rather than just AFK in town
-a skirmish that spawns a CE will provide those that complete said skirmish with priority entry into the CE
-zerging of mob packs in the overworld was a beneficial activity as it dropped clusters, rare fragments and helped spawn CE’s whereas if a eureka mob wasn’t tied to an NM it’s only purpose was to be an environmental hazard
-CE’s are actual boss level monsters with full alliance raid level mechanics
-there is a much wider array of fragments with better ways to access them, a problem that quickly became apparent with BA is that healers are overburdened with logos burden in BA (only ones who can bring refresh, only ones who can sac, preferred bringers of bravery one of only two roles that can bring feint and general default bringers of protect and shell) eureka logos actions also generally have only one access point (bunnies) and rarer logograms (protective and curative) can skyrocket in price placing excessive burden on healers, Bozja rebalances this by making off healing a more viable role with saviour, taking brave off being the rarest action and making saccing easier because reraise doesn’t cost logos space like SOTR does
-Bozja has 3 alliance raid level raids (very difficult end of alliance raid TBF considering TA and Diablo armament) countering the eureka problem of BA basically being an extreme alliance raid that wasn’t terribly accessible (and also had absolutely god awful accessibility conditions)

Each of these shows the devs directly intending to fix a problem people had with eureka, sure they didn’t all hit and a lot of people say Bozja is rather beige compared to eureka (no not the colour scheme) but Bozja shows the devs were willing to listen with field content

But since Bozja wasn’t perfect let’s throw the baby out with the bath water and replace it with C/V, definitely a worthwhile trade off

[Lauront]

Even Lucky Bancho has some funky numbers. They reported 1,130,000 "active" characters as of the 22nd of August.

Now the question is at which point a character is considered no longer active. Since the previous census was on the 20th of June there has been quite some time between the two, so we actually have no idea if this is monthly active players or daily or simply characters active between those two data points and then you also have to take into account that "active characters" doesn't actually mean "subscribed accounts" since it includes alts as long as they are actively played.

Provided you meet the criteria it has to count a character as active (he lists them here - you can run it through deepl if you don't speak Japanese) and log in at least once during the survey period and perform activity meeting that threshold, for the purposes of that survey, you are considered active within the period it ran. This is why it's neither usable as an active monthly player metric nor as one of paid subs. It also can't ferret out alts or free login campaign activity, where applicable. The fact that he says he miscalculated the cutoff date for the most recent one, meaning it captured some of 6.45, also means it would've captured some people who re-subbed for the mini patch, which was in his notes on it.

[Supersnow845]

It would be nice if lucky could do a survey that try’s to exclude transitory people to see how many people stay subbed

Let’s say patch 6.5 launches on the 9th of October, patch 6.55 on the 9th of Jan (Just making up dates here) it would be interesting if he did a survey only of people who meet the criteria from the 9th October to like the 1st of Jan or so to see how much of what is in the usual survey is made up of the transitory population who only subs for a single month around the patch itself