Dawntrail needs to better, not just more.

[ty_taurus]

People saying the game is fine are wrong. Recent statements by a Chinese producer of XIV confirm people are logging in but they are logging in for less time overall and doing less activities. His literal job is to analyze the Chinese data and forward it to SE.

Interesting. Do you have the source for that info? I'd love to read it.

[Oizen]

It be cool if they shook things up but that seems pretty unlikely at this point. They have their safe formula and they'll stick to it.

[Rolder50]

There's the operative word, was. If anyone on here was allowed to design the game it would flop in a week. Thank god the devs don't read this trite.

At the same time, if the game as it is now was released but without the Final Fantasy brand to carry it, the game would also flop in a week.

[Zairava]

Interesting. Do you have the source for that info? I'd love to read it.

I don't know if there's a readable version, but Arthars covered the video and posted a Translation video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iykDHV5_UiE

[Nebelheim]

There's nothing wrong with the game, go play 11 if you want bad design choices lmao

FF14 isn't a perfect flawless game as you claim. You also sound like someone who hasn't played ff11 and declared it bad based off watching a few videos on it because it isn't ff14 so therefore ff11 supposedly bad. People need to stop being defensing and offended defending the game/company just because people criticize the game and point out it's flaws as if there life depended on defending there favorite game.

[Teno]

They said a new type of "lifestyle content" was coming, though I'm sure that's not what you're interested in.

A good question is what are you hoping for if they do add something new for combat content. Is there something in particular you've experienced in another MMO that would also work in this game?

Nothing groundbreaking actually, I'm not expecting the game to reinvent the wheel.

1. Gameplay rework, it's just too stale, ESPECIALLY for healers, and it's been so for multiple expansions at this point. The 2 min meta is also just a lazy way to balance everything, besides the absurd homogenization. They don't need to redo everything from the ground up.

In truth, they did great with the 6.1 pvp rework, and it feels like what the gameplay should be had the devs free reign. SGE is an offensive damage support, DRK is back to hp drain gameplay, DRG has damage based on jumping around (might be unsuitable for pve), MCH has to deal with smart positioning, SCH can spread dots again, etc... Not everything is perfect but so many of the changes people want, or what the jobs used to be, are implemented in PvP.

2. Content variety. Exploratory areas like Bozja, deep dungeon "rework", how they will improve criterion (basically 4-man savage), Rival Wings/Secure pvp maps rework (and deletion of the snow map), anything with gameplay that is not a straight continuation of what is currently existing.

[Mimilu]

I don't know if there's a readable version, but Arthars covered the video and posted a Translation video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iykDHV5_UiE

For those who can't/don't want to watch the video, here's a bulleted list. °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
(Important note: this is based off of Arthars' translation of the video)

•The CH producer first talks about the culture differences between Chinese and Japanese game developers: He compares JP devs to a ramen shop, focusing more on the craftsmanship, having only a few traditional flavors, and cooking/preparing the food in front of the customer, while CH devs see a mechanic they like and/or is popular from another game and just add it. He also says that Yoshi-P is not like that and is more open-minded and willing to look at other games for inspiration. However, because patches are designed like a year in advance, these new additions to the game might not be as fresh.

•Even with them being one patch behind the world release, there are CH players who feel the game is getting stagnant, the 2-min meta is boring, and, while the quality is still good, the game doesn't feel fresh enough anymore.

•Both he and Yoshi-P looked at the log-in data: there is still a healthy amount of players logging in but for less time. This is one of the reasons why Yoshi-P made so much solo able content and/or content with fewer people involved in EW.

•Yoshi-P told him that in 7.0, they will be making more content for both solo-playing and large-scale groups.

•The previous CH server producer (the current producer's boss) supposedly foresaw some of the issues the game currently has but didn't say anything because of the state of 3.0 and its raiding scene. Arthars didn't know how bad HW's raid scene was outside of JP because JP was still pretty active and asked Xenos if it was that bad. Xenos told him HW's NA raid scene was a graveyard. The previous producer also said that if the game could survive 3.0, it would turn out fine, regardless of if it grew stagnant or not.

•When the current producer first started playing the game, he didn't know things like what a burst window was or about aligning buffs. Arthars says it makes sense because he's a SAM main. Only after ShB and the 2-minute meta was introduced did he realize people were aligning buffs and burst windows.

•He thinks the current discussion about the 2-min meta is interesting and wants to hear suggestions. He does say that he doesn't like 90 or 180 second cooldowns, saying that it would make the game worse. He thinks making the jobs more fun/unique without decency on others would make the game better. Arthars summarizes it as "if you need x amount of damage to clear the fight, it doesn't matter how you get that damage, whether you're doing the 2-minute rotation or not, as long as every individual job is balanced to the point that its uniqueness takes care of their individual DPS.

•The producer thinks job balancing as a whole is a people problem based more on how the community plays/perceives how the game should be played. He says making all (currently) 21 jobs balanced, unique/in-depth, and fun to make everyone happy (who wants all these things for the job(s) they main/play) is impossible. He also points out that XIV's balance compared to other MMO games, bringing up League of Legend's roster as an example.

•He personally felt a difference when playing SAM after Kaiten was removed. He says, as a player, he doesn't really feel the difference with potency changes versus a rotation change. He thinks this is because he thinks he isn't a higher-tier player, so homogenization of the job made it easier for him to understand how to play the game and the job. (He's cleared four Ultimates, by the way)

•Before 4.0, he didn't do any high-tier content. He also says he doesn't think he could have done Alexander Midas or Creator. He thinks 4.0 was when the game reach the point where it was more appealing for most people. He also only started to do high-end content because SAM was added.

•He watches Xenos and agrees with him in that how XIV introduces changes now-a-days is too slow. (For those unaware, Xenos compared the changes between 2.0-4.0 and how massive they were compared to 4.0-6.0. Starting with 2.0, fight mechanics where less difficult but rotations where harder, then 3.0 made things more difficult all around, with 4.0 polishing things up, making fight mechanics slightly harder and rotation slightly easier. Because there was so few changes from 5.0 to 6.0, the game feels stagnant and really needed a change similar to 4.0's change from 3.0, with fun being more emphasized.

•He doesn't think this game is built for min-maxing.

•He doesn't understand some of the videos that complain about XIV only using repeat mechanics (Arthars uses Dynamo and Chariot as examples). He says that the fun of XIV's fights comes from solving the mechanics, so that even for someone who isn't blind progging (which he himself doesn't do), it isn't boring.

•He thinks they should add more Frontlines maps. Going back to his thought that this game isn't for min-maxing, he thinks Frontlines suits XIV's community perfectly because it's suppose to be a more fun and casual then Crystalline Conflict. If it were up to him, he would want to balance PvP more on Frontlines then CC.

•Because he had little-to-no expectation for it, he doesn't think Island Sanctuary was that bad. He doesn't really plan anything on his island and gathers random mats. He thinks the UI is bad though.

•He thinks the dev team need to finish Hrothgar females and not add any more new races, instead using that time to add more facial features and cosmetics. He thinks this will increase Fantasia sales even more.

•He also suggest to Yoshi-P, seeing as so few mogstation glamour pieces are being released due to Yoshi-P wanting to release items as sets, they should instead just release individual, stand-alone items. He also thinks they should spread out mogstation items releases. As it is now, a bunch of items are released after a few months, he thinks something like a few items released once a month would be better.

•He also thinks there should be more regional-exclusive mogstation items. As it is now, other then the items created for the Chinese and Korean servers, the dev team designs mogstation items with global appeal and application in mind.

•He likes the food in the Chinese Eorzea Cafe. He also uses some of the money gained by the cafe on XIV-only Chinese, content creators for things like live events.

•He thinks 4 to 4.5 month for patches is too long and 3 to 3.5 was better. He also thinks we are getting less "fun" content.

•He has spies through out the different types and tiers of gameplay that collect player feedback for him. The current consensus he's been getting is that people want to play the game but the patches are too long and don't have enough new things to do. He agrees with this sentiment but points out that the CH server is lucky because they pay per playtime and only have to pay for retainers once vs the rest of the world's monthly sub.

•Supposedly, SE has been trying to hint at him to remove the pay-to-play model on the CH servers and go to a monthly sub model but he thinks the current model is working fine and that as long as he is producer, their pay model will not change.

[Turtledeluxe]

Interesting. Do you have the source for that info? I'd love to read it.

It was live on a Twitch stream and translated by Arthars live as well. The clip is on his YouTube.

I see someone already linked this. Appreciated! But yes the comments indicate not so much that the game is dying as much as it does what many including Zepla have said-- that players are bored..not just a few, not just some, a notable portion.

The producer also says he basically has employees who play the game and submit feedback directly to him that they observe from the playerbase and the most consistent feedback right now is "We want to play the game but there is nothing to do". I wonder if the relic, Job design, two minute meta, island sanctuary etc have anything to do with that? A lot of new content isn't landing well with players and without very engaging job Design to offset that it seems like a recipe for disengagement.

[ThaCa]

Unless there's a major shift in the core content, we can expect more of the same baseline.

Probably the most hopeful you can be is additional side content that is replayable enough to take people through the downtime each patch.

[Battler-Ushiromiya]

an important community of players to consider feedback from.

Feedback from the same 30 people on the forums isn't important. You aren't important. Play a different game, it's not for you anymore.