CBU3 has abandoned us

[Stormpeaks]

Today my 700+ days of subscription streak ended. Its not much compared to most players but to me its big. I started near COVID era where I found this game to be the only reason to get up because at the time I got sick.

Fast forward a few years later, my emotional attachment to the game can only help so far. There is no content. And near the end of expansion like this feels like playing a game thats about to get shut down. I think they really need to cut the "RPG first MMO second" bullcrap. This game is an MMO, won awards for MMOs and as an MMO. MMO is about immersion and progression. The game direction has shifted from MMO to a single player game. Which means it doesnt have an identity. It doesnt stand out at both single player and MMO because it tries to be both.

I know sometimes people say, it has to be RPGMMO because there are a lot of casuals. Well guess what in other MMOs there are also a lot of casual players. Doesnt mean the devs will go out of their way into making their MMO into a single player game.

I am not even big on social ascepts of MMO, I play mostly solo and know like 1-2 people in the game. Yet even for me, this game doesnt feel like an MMO anymore. Most mobile MMOs feel more alive and thats worrying.

Well said tbh for everything you mentioned, it actually got to the point where people are creating their own content by going to venues and stuff, because if it wasnt for that, they actually just wouldnt be playing the game at all, there really is nothing to look forward to, and that's a big problem, there has to be SOMETHING to look forward to, but in FFXIV that's not a thing, it's just reclears after reclears after reclears with an absolutely atrocious loot system, if you want to gear up your alt jobs, be ready to wait for a few months if not longer, and that's PER job, and once you've done the ultimates its just repeating the same thing ad nauseum just for the sake of doing it to say you're actually doing something with your game time, I cant even count how many times I've heard friends tell me that they're doing savage after getting their weekly loot just to keep busy because there is nothing else for them to do, even though they cant even loot it anymore, they just do it... to do it because if it wasnt for that, they'd just close the game so they try and fill the void of content that exists in this game, by repeating it over and over again knowing they'll get nothing out of it.

I've played WoW for 15+ years, I have never heard of someone doing the raids multiple times with no loot at all to even get (when its current content) just because they'd just close the game if it wasnt for that, to me it speaks volume when your playerbase does that, just to justify their subscription fee.

[PaulH]

Well said tbh for everything you mentioned, it actually got to the point where people are creating their own content by going to venues and stuff, because if it wasnt for that, they actually just wouldnt be playing the game at all, there really is nothing to look forward to, and that's a big problem, there has to be SOMETHING to look forward to, but in FFXIV that's not a thing, it's just reclears after reclears after reclears with an absolutely atrocious loot system, if you want to gear up your alt jobs, be ready to wait for a few months if not longer, and that's PER job, and once you've done the ultimates its just repeating the same thing ad nauseum just for the sake of doing it to say you're actually doing something with your game time, I cant even count how many times I've heard friends tell me that they're doing savage after getting their weekly loot just to keep busy because there is nothing else for them to do, even though they cant even loot it anymore, they just do it... to do it because if it wasnt for that, they'd just close the game so they try and fill the void of content that exists in this game, by repeating it over and over again knowing they'll get nothing out of it.

I've played WoW for 15+ years, I have never heard of someone doing the raids multiple times with no loot at all to even get (when its current content) just because they'd just close the game if it wasnt for that, to me it speaks volume when your playerbase does that, just to justify their subscription fee.

Setting aside the MSQ which is integral. Do you think that would have not been an issue in 14 if when creating character you were limited to one single job? therefore gearing up multiple different characters to play a variety of roles. I haven't played wow but I think it is one character per class/job?

[Jojoya]

Even if they are focusing only on new players, I'd argue they aren't really even doing a good job of that. The biggest barrier to entry for *retaining* a new player is the massive MSQ that you have to go through in sequential order. No matter how good the story, people are going to get burnt out and quit if they are doing it for dozens of hours.

I think many are either forgetting or didn't hear which type of new player they're trying to focus on.

The long time Final Fantasy franchise fan that has had no interest in playing a MMO. MSQ certainly wouldn't be a barrier to them.

Whether the changes they're making will attract those players, I don't know. I'm not a franchise fan. Certainly they can play through most of the MSQ solo now but they're still going to hit a roadblock on most of the trials unless SE does something else to handle those.

Isn't that what SE has already suggested they're doing for DT?

They had said in the past that they intended to create a new starting point. Some of the more recent interview comments seemed to have backtrack on that.

I'm not certain what their plan for addressing length of MSQ is anymore.

Today my 700+ days of subscription streak ended. Its not much compared to most players but to me its big. I started near COVID era where I found this game to be the only reason to get up because at the time I got sick.

Fast forward a few years later, my emotional attachment to the game can only help so far. There is no content.

What were you doing in previous expansions during the same "no content" or is this the first expansion where you've reached level cap before the expansion ended?

I've talked to a few people that are starting to feel bored and asked them what they would be doing in past expansions and they told me they would be leveling additional jobs. They finally got everything to level cap this expansion for the first time and so that's removed part of what kept them busy in the past.

[Aldath]

Today my 700+ days of subscription streak ended. Its not much compared to most players but to me its big. I started near COVID era where I found this game to be the only reason to get up because at the time I got sick.

Fast forward a few years later, my emotional attachment to the game can only help so far. There is no content. And near the end of expansion like this feels like playing a game thats about to get shut down. I think they really need to cut the "RPG first MMO second" bullcrap. This game is an MMO, won awards for MMOs and as an MMO. MMO is about immersion and progression. The game direction has shifted from MMO to a single player game. Which means it doesnt have an identity. It doesnt stand out at both single player and MMO because it tries to be both.

I know sometimes people say, it has to be RPGMMO because there are a lot of casuals. Well guess what in other MMOs there are also a lot of casual players. Doesnt mean the devs will go out of their way into making their MMO into a single player game.

I am not even big on social ascepts of MMO, I play mostly solo and know like 1-2 people in the game. Yet even for me, this game doesnt feel like an MMO anymore. Most mobile MMOs feel more alive and thats worrying.

Honestly that's how many MMOs operate nowadays. Reliance on non instanced content for multi-player aspects runs a higher risk of becoming dead once its relevance ends and of you want to future proof them you'll eventually need to make them either single player or work for very small groups. Gw2 had open world maps that needed the cooperation of many players to go through, and now unless you have mounts to cheese the content you won't even be able to explore most of it. Lost Ark had multi-player events like drinking mini games and large scale ship battles and they're all dead in favor of instanced content. Want a local example? See Eureka and Bozja. Go ahead, try to complete their storyline and alliance raids without Discord help.

We have plenty of quality multi-player content in this game already, CBU3 just isn't doing anything with it and there's a chunk of the playerbase who doesn't wants to replay it.

[Midare]

This logic has always been weird. What good is a house in a game you don't enjoy? Paying 15$ a month to keep a house you're most likely doing nothing with makes no sense. Folks will blame SE but it's the players making the choice to fork over that money.

What is this? Someone else who gets this?

That's it, that's all I got, the overly dramatic tone of the OP just made me facepalm and go speechless, but this I had to mention.

[Lauront]

I'm probably going out on a wild limb, but something tells me someone using a new account to post on because their prior accounts were permabanned off the forums isn't going to have nice things to say about the company that actioned them.

SE shouldn't listen to the forums when this sort of thing is ongoing. In fact, they should start by blocking comments coming from an IP that is the location of a perma'd account, or one with matching billing info to one.

And where should they listen to? Sites where you can create as many accounts as you can create an email account for, like reddit or twitter?

If this site has the occasional alt account and should be ignored for that, then so much the worse for the others which allow alt accounts with even lower barriers than that.

They certainly should moderate their own site better, but let's not pretend they have a high bar for those sites they do harvest feedback from.

You really should stop trying to abuse the tag system, BTW. It is reportable, as per this (see also.)

[SquishyPlushie]

What you have linked is a case of someone being mad someone else is correctly tag categorizing their sockpuppet threads, and being unable to comprehend more than one person is tagging as such because many threads are that blatant.

If more than one person is doing it, maybe it means there's a trend. In fact, I have zero tolerance of sock puppets or alt accounts which is specifically why I use tags to categorize potential sockpuppeting threads to help people understand which threads are what.

Additionally, if you were concerned about correctly tagging posts to help sort as being somehow offensive, you would not have indulged in linking a false witchhunt.

And where should they listen to?

Listening to the forums after they institute said suggestions.
Are you implying we should all give up and leave the front page be full of bad faith alt posts such as this one?

[Lauront]

Listening to the forums after they institute said suggestions.

Yes, I won't hold my breath. But even implementing this suggestion would require that they a) care about the forum enough to do so and b) that they're currently obtaining feedback from it. And that is assuming they could not already simply filter out feedback they considered to be offered on false pretences out. Have we heard a peep from the CM who announced their arrival the other day? All the while, they are harvesting feedback from sites with more pervasive issues along these lines, as I mentioned.

Also you thing you linked is just someone trying to rationalize what they are doing by false projection onto others which weren't true in the end.

If you say so.

[SquishyPlushie]

Yes, I won't hold my breath. But even implementing this suggestion would require that they a) care about the forum enough to do so and b) that they're currently obtaining feedback from it. Have we heard a peep from the CM who announced their arrival the other day? All the while, they are harvesting feedback from sites with more pervasive issues along these lines, as I mentioned.



If you say so.

Relying on "saying so" isn't enough hence this

In fact, they should start by blocking comments coming from an IP that is the location of a perma'd account, or one with matching billing info to one.

[Lauront]

But really, it is just say-so if you are cognisant of the fact that it won't be implemented any time soon (perhaps ever.) So it remains a case of: if you say so, and your request not being proof of anything one way or another. I have no further opinion on the claims he put forward beyond that.

However, as I said, I am fully on board with them moderating their forum better. It would indeed be very interesting if certain posters were still around depending on how they chose to go about it. As it stands, your suggestion reads to me like it's trying to discount OF feedback more than anything, particularly if it's offered in the knowledge it won't be acted on.