EW may be one of the worst expansions for raiders but was one of the best for casuals

[Rolder50]

Surprised people not mention the PvP rework from 6.1 and the 'series malmstone pass' and the new PvP items you can buy, which gave casuals something to work for and do their daily frontline, or dive into CC.

PvP still has the critical problem of just not being very fun due to how unresponsive and annoying the combat can be in PvP situations. I sure do love popping guard / potion and still dying to an attack that came after I hit the button.

[PercibelTheren]

I think that depends on what type of casual content you enjoy. I'm glad someone likes the new features, most of them aren't for me. I hate streetwear, I think most of it is hideous. Adventurer plates seem pointless to me and portraits can go die in a fire. I tried out the system at the beginning but it's so incredibly finnicky that I gave up. All it does is ensure that I no longer receive commendations. I haven't even unlocked Island Sanctuary and after having seen what it is, I have no intention to. The only thing I somewhat agree on are the dungeon and trial revamps and even those are pretty hit and miss.

[Sjark]

Because of my health issues I decided to skip raiding for the final tier this expansion. It has made me realise how staggeringly few reasons the game is currently giving me to log on and play.
I -want- to play FFXIV, but there is nothing to do for me that isn't tedious, boring, both or insulting. One of the reasons I initially fell in love with this game was the the knowledge that even if I didn't raid at a particular time, there would always be something to do.


I tried doing Island Sanctuary, it made me frustrated with how it was aggressively wasting my time, that I gave up on it. I think it would have been a much better experience if you could actually cooperate with friends/FC/whatever on making the island a cool place, furthermore there's no good reason to not let crafting or gathering be a part of it. The island is so restrictive in what you can build, and capturing animals feels like the game is mocking you.
I've tried doing PVP, but it has so many issues of its own that it is difficult to stay motivated for it.
The new Alliance raids for this expansion are extremely disappointing and uninspired.
Trials? Also disappointments, sometimes the normal version was more interesting than extreme (Endsinger)
Already completed Eureka, and done as much as I could be motivated to do in Bozja - but even that is a struggle because combat this expansion is dull.
I got my crafter and gathering relics, but there isn't much merit in doing either because the market is so oversaturated, and what am I gonna spend my gil on anyway? Ugly golden mounts that I will never use?
I've done my fate farming, and side quests completed.
I did as much as I could be bothered with the tribes quests, not having completed the bunnies as I got bored. The only good one was the café one.
Dungeons? Once you are done levelling, you only got extremely boring max level dungeons. I struggle to think of positives for all the expert dungeons, I liked the first boss in The Dead Ends, and the second boss in Lapis Manalis - but that's pretty much it. The dungeon bosses generally don't do anything cool, and you'll have them killed before they are even halfway.
Variant/Criterion? One is done in 1 day, and easily soloable. The other is extremely punishing and has no good incentive beyond "I beat that", which I don't find a good enough reason for how the criterion experience goes - though I will say it was refreshing to do a dungeon where adds and bosses were actually scary without it being a savage fight.
Hunt trains? Hitting a massive training dummy and teleporting multiple times while the game is struggling to load all the models isn't fun - hunts really need an adjustment to player count

In the end, I realised that the only thing that kept me going was doing my solo runs in deep dungeons. I need more than that to stay interested in this game.
I played lots of other games during this expansion, but I want to play FFXIV, and I just can't find any good reasons to log on.

[Mayhemmer]

So is it a bad game you don't enjoy, or is it a game you still enjoy but has room for improvement?

"Not wanting to quit" a game you genuinely think is bad and don't enjoy is a sign of addiction.

If it's just a matter of "I think things could have been better this expansion", I can agree with that. There are some things I felt could have been better. But I don't think it's a bad expansion. It just wasn't their best effort and coming on the tail end of what was arguably their best effort to date, the difference stands out more.

The later. I still greatly enjoy playing this game.

A lot of what I would consider could have been done "better," in my case, is synonymous with what I would have preferred to have been designed differently entirely. I think Island Sanctuary would have been 'better' if it's primary activities were more engaging and less of a funnel into a time-sink that doesn't even try to hide the fact that it's a time-sink.

I think the Alliance raids would have been 'better' if, as I said, the bosses didn't trivialize themselves as harshly as they do and the raids aimed for a higher degree of difficulty.

All of my wishes are subjective though. The content may work better for others, which isn't wrong, just disappointing to me.

And a word of advice, playing armchair-psychologist isn't attractive.

[ReynTime]

Endwalker has been one of the best expansions for demonstrating how many players are susceptible to gaming addictions. They keep saying the game is bad and yet they still can't walk away from it.

Endwalker has been one of the best expansions for demonstrating how far certain individuals are willing to fervently defend large faceless corporations and ridicule people who voice complaints.

[Boblawblah]

Endwalker has been one of the best expansions for demonstrating how far certain individuals are willing to fervently defend large faceless corporations and ridicule people who voice complaints.

People that like the game: continue to sub

People that hate the game: continue to sub

I mean, you do you, but one of these seems insane to me.

[caffe_macchiato]

People that like the game: continue to sub

People that hate the game: continue to sub

I mean, you do you, but one of these seems insane to me.

People are already taking your advice. You want it to get worse? Are you sure you want that? Many people here have come from a worse MMO and would all agree: you think you want this to happen, but you don't.

[iVolke]

They're able to play the game if they want. Nothing is stopping them. They don't even have to pay the monthly sub = the free trial exists.

The question is why are they paying a monthly sub for a game they call bad?

Why are they continuing to pay a monthly sub if there is no content that is meaningful to them?

If you think this expansion is "unwashed buttcheeks". why are you still here paying a sub instead of cancelling the sub and walking away like a rational person would do? The game isn't going to change because you and others toss juvenile insults at it and the developers.

Because we want the game to get better.

Criticizing a product doesn't mean you hate it, it often means you want it to improve.

"Little Timmy you did very poorly on your schoolwork, your mother and I are disappointed and want you to do better."

"OMG MY PARENTS HAAAAAAAATE ME"

It really is a mindset I'd expect from a child.

Unwashed buttcheeks isn't an insult towards the devs, it's an insult towards the poor product they put out. This is a multi-million megacorporation. F*** me for wanting quality, right? You got people messaging death threats towards people on Twitter, yet criticizing the games on the forums THEY TELL US TO OFFER FEEDBACK ON, is an insult?

Imagine if players had your mentality during 1.0. The game would've been killed in 2014 and we wouldn't be posting on these forums. WHY do ffxiv players today so strongly feel the need to defend mediocrity? That's killing the game more than any of these poor content releases, because y'all ensure things will never improve.

[Lyth]

...

That's because both of those categories are fully invested in influencing the game's direction. Some of these people are so passionately caught up with game activism that I wonder how they find time to achieve anything meaningful in the game at all (though in several cases the answer to this is self-evident).

It does gets a bit tiresome seeing doomposting being used as a rhetorical tool to force personal visions of what the game 'ought to be' on to others, which is why the rest of us tend to call it as a bluff. If a recommendation actually has merit, it'll stand up to community scrutiny and people rally behind it. If it doesn't, it gets laughed off the forum (see: fanfics around how the story 'ought' to have been written). The game won't fail simply because we collectively reject a bad take. It's the point of a discussion board, really.

[Renathras]

Because we want the game to get better.

Everyone wants the game to get better.

Some people are just more constructive in how they state their opinions on the matter than others are.