The Many Deaths of Final Fantasy XIV

[Cilia]

I haven't played other MMOs to compare, but isn't that just the structure of the game? You pay for access to play the game in its current state, and "the current state" gets updates every so often. You're only paying for nothing if you don't actually want to play during that period.

Anyone complaining about the lack of updates probably hasn't played another MMO.

WoW, still chugging along, only gets major content updates (e.g. X.Y -> X.Z) every 9 months and has done so for as long as I can remember. People whining about FFXIV "only" getting content updates every 3 / 4 months are spoiled. Granted WoW functions a little differently, but the idea that a 3 / 4 month patch cycle is too slow to hold people's interests is crazy in my opinion.

The reality is that with every expansion and major new patch, lapsed players return and new players will join up until they've had their fill and move on, and may or may not be back for future content. That's just the nature of the beast.

[ForsakenRoe]

Anyone complaining about the lack of updates probably hasn't played another MMO.

WoW, still chugging along, only gets major content updates (e.g. X.Y -> X.Z) every 9 months and has done so for as long as I can remember. People whining about FFXIV "only" getting content updates every 3 / 4 months are spoiled. Granted WoW functions a little differently, but the idea that a 3 / 4 month patch cycle is too slow to hold people's interests is crazy in my opinion.

The reality is that with every expansion and major new patch, lapsed players return and new players will join up until they've had their fill and move on, and may or may not be back for future content. That's just the nature of the beast.

Said WOW update that goes from, say, 10.1 to 10.2, gives a new highend raid tier. The equivalent gap for us would be going from 6.2 to 6.4, the gap between Savage tiers releasing, which is also now at around 8 months.

Also, big things can sometimes happen in X.Y.5 patches in WOW, not so much here. Paladin and Mage got a big rework to their gameplay in one such patch, we're stuck with whatever abomination of a gameplay loop the devs hand us for two years because 'big changes can only be done at an expansion'. Unless you're a class that doesn't fit the 2m meta like PLD used to, in which case, somehow it's actually VERY possible to do said big changes in a random patch. The fact that they have acknowledged that AST is in such a state that it needs a rework so big it needs to be 'expansion level', yet it gets ZERO adjustments for QOL in hte meantime (like a second charge of Lightspeed) is absolutely paradoxical

[Lyth]

The commentary that we're seeing isn't really about quitting the game, because most people just do it and don't waste time talking about it endlessly. It's purely about trying to control the game's direction. Playing the game for years and posting on the forum every day doesn't make any one person's singular voice any more special than the rest. And I know that this concept is very real struggle for some people.

I will also point out that if you're one of those people for whom the privilege of renting a virtual property is enough to keep you permanently subbed to the game, then your sub unfortunately doesn't have any influence on the rest of the game design direction. Even if the game never releases another patch, you'd still be subbed for that privilege. Better to just let the rest of the forum debate over the changes that we want to see added in.

[Rolder50]

Anyone complaining about the lack of updates probably hasn't played another MMO.

WoW, still chugging along, only gets major content updates (e.g. X.Y -> X.Z) every 9 months and has done so for as long as I can remember. People whining about FFXIV "only" getting content updates every 3 / 4 months are spoiled. Granted WoW functions a little differently, but the idea that a 3 / 4 month patch cycle is too slow to hold people's interests is crazy in my opinion.

The reality is that with every expansion and major new patch, lapsed players return and new players will join up until they've had their fill and move on, and may or may not be back for future content. That's just the nature of the beast.

The difference being that the content WoW adds last FAR longer then anything we get in FF14. Mythic plus along keeps dungeons evergreen for basically that whole time. Not to mention what the other poster mentioned about raid tiers being every patch rather then every other.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The difference being that the content WoW adds last FAR longer then anything we get in FF14. Mythic plus along keeps dungeons evergreen for basically that whole time. Not to mention what the other poster mentioned about raid tiers being every patch rather then every other.

Isn't that partially due to the nature of how drops and gearing works, rather than the content itself?


Like, if gearing wasn't the way it was in WoW, would anyone bother with Mythic+?


For instance, XIV raids would last a lot longer if they went back to the 2.x method of savage drops, aka, RNG, no books, and no coffers. PURE RNG on what gear piece drops in the chest. My Second Coil group didn't see caster earrings until after Heavensward dropped, for instance. Super longevity!


And a really, really crappy system.

[Rolder50]

Isn't that partially due to the nature of how drops and gearing works, rather than the content itself?


Like, if gearing wasn't the way it was in WoW, would anyone bother with Mythic+?


For instance, XIV raids would last a lot longer if they went back to the 2.x method of savage drops, aka, RNG, no books, and no coffers. PURE RNG on what gear piece drops in the chest. My Second Coil group didn't see caster earrings until after Heavensward dropped, for instance. Super longevity!


And a really, really crappy system.

Point me to the system in FF14 where you can up the difficulty until you can't do it any more.

[Cilia]

Said WOW update that goes from, say, 10.1 to 10.2, gives a new highend raid tier. The equivalent gap for us would be going from 6.2 to 6.4, the gap between Savage tiers releasing, which is also now at around 8 months.

The contention wasn't how often a new prog Raid tier was released, it was content not being released quickly enough to keep people's attention. This game churns out new content every 3 - 4 months, even if it's not always progression Raids. Alliance raids might be more casual, but they are still content, and there's a plethora of other content drip fed in through the patches even if that content isn't to everyone's taste (Alliance Raids, Island Sanctuary, Deep Dungeon, Variant / Criterion Dungeon, Ocean Fishing, etc).

"3 / 4 months is too slow for content updates" is absolute nonsense. Some gacha games don't even update that fast.

The difference being that the content WoW adds last FAR longer then anything we get in FF14. Mythic plus along keeps dungeons evergreen for basically that whole time. Not to mention what the other poster mentioned about raid tiers being every patch rather then every other.

M+ is part of WoW trying to make itself into an e-Sport. It isn't for everyone; in fact WoW's overt focus on endgame raiding content (which M+ is basically the 5-man version of) is a big part of why I just can't enjoy it anymore. (The other parts are the god-awful story direction and gearing system.) I do believe FFXIV should take another page from WoW's book and, say, scale every level capped dungeon to the current EX gear minimums and put them in a roulette so it's not a 50/50, but beyond that keep the M+ system out.

Content lasting a long time doesn't mean it's good content. The artificially time-gated Anima system used to advance Covenant plotlines in Shadowlands should be proof enough of that.

Point me to the system in FF14 where you can up the difficulty until you can't do it any more.

Protip: if you go with a premade party, you can do any content at any item level. You want difficult content? Do EX / Savage fights at or below minimum item level, ideally blind.

You might not get shiny special gear for it, but if you want difficulty you can make your own.

[Kleeya]

5 years ago, FF14 was killed because of Eureka, proving that all the people who were complaining so much about so much grind were right. Which is why i did then ask to add Eureka to the list :

Please add eureka and the app premium to your list, she is not up to date anymore

Now in late 2023, people are complaining so much about having nothing to grind, that they are surely right when saying that FF14 will get killed by not having something like Eureka added in Endwalker. Please add this to the list as well

[Aesclepius]

On June 7th, 2024 a certain bald FFXIV streamer named Xenosys Vex put out a video where he ran a Dawntrail dungeon during the media tour without any healers in the group. This promptly caused the healers in the FFXIV community to band together and go on strike as a result. With nobody queueing under the healer role, tanks and dps were forced to wait forever for anything to pop on the duty finder. Many players quit the game at this point, causing SE to take the servers offline as it was no longer profitable.

[Xlantaa]

Year 2024. The game has millions of players already, yet it is still dying because some people in the forums keeps crying for the same things after 10 years and they are completely convinced that no one plays the game because some dude in the forum put a image with a graph of active players which who knows where comes from, yet people believes it because it shows what people want to see. SE was unable to recover and the game has to close the game and retire from videogames bussiness because the game literally keeps Square Enix afloat alongside phone games.