We need to talk about the PC Gamer article

[WetShoelace]

XIV could have evolved into a compelling MMORPG but I gave up hope with Shadowbringers. The simplistic philosophy felt alright for a development team that was recovering from the failed launch of the original XIV back in Stormblood. But ShB was deliberately horrible for the game and set the trend that the game has no direction.

The problem isn't really the lack of rewards but the fact there's too much content to make rewards for. Gear is far too simple, jobs are far too simple, nobody is unique or important because everyone can be all jobs in both combat and life skills. How can something ask for so much time and money of you and provide so little in return?

What are they going to reward you that's worth something? A title? Gear? A mount that you can't ride in dungeons or raids? Where are you going to use the gear? Well, you can't use gear anywhere because roulettes are synced and end-game gear is only for the sake of end-game.

I can't tell if Square Enix respects the player's time too much or not at all. Hundreds of hours raiding savage and Ultimate for what? For a title? For the experience of organizing eight people together? Because the Music syncs up with the graphics? To master the jobs that keep becoming more streamlined? All of that time crafting and gathering for a house full of furniture but without any people in it.

But I do know Square Enix is more than happy to keep things this way, after all, people keep paying for a mediocre and overpriced service. You know it's bad when it feels like Blizzard cares more about the player than Square Enix with how much they pamper us with account-wide systems in World of Warcraft that actually respect your time compared to XIV. And despite everything Blizzard has removed out of their games, they still understand progression and reward it well.

Hell you even get to play two games for the price of one subscription, can you imagine if we could play FF11 with the XIV sub?

Not just Warcraft but even games like Destiny 2 make sure that everything you do is rewarded with cool gear and that this gear can be used without restriction in other game modes, different content of other expansions, and even between characters. An example of a good level sync system that doesn't remove gameplay features you worked for.

Those games also have active cheating detection systems and even if something is going under the radar it at least feels like the regular player doesn't blatantly disrespect them like people disrespect Square Enix' authority.

But instead of asking the developer to be better, the community simply tells those with justified dissatisfaction: "Leave". So that is what we must do, leaving is better than being cattle for CBU3. Maybe after most of the community has moved on to something else they will start expanding XIV rather than releasing simple content updates that remove more game mechanics we previously paid for.

Leave this game full of wasted potential behind.