Players and the game design's mindset has become increasingly individualistic

[HikariKurosawa]

Combat wise, this game has become so streamlined it's abysmal. Bare with me here for a second, but why not just keep the jobs more "difficult" "difficult" and push out a few newer jobs to be easier to pick up and play instead? For example, take SMN rework, it's a good rework and such a great baseline to start with overall but, they managed to split the SMN playerbase heavily by turning it into a mindless blob of a job.

Summoner rework makes the job feel like a summoner.

The reason for all jobs becoming streamlined and well designed is because this is what really matters most: enabling people to play their fantasy job whatever that is. The people who don't want to play difficult stuff are far more attached to being able to play the job they want to play from a fantasy perspective than playing what is accessible. What if the only accessible jobs to this demographic are ones they feel are thematically a poor fit for them? People who care about skill expression and difficulty will often say things like "it doesn't matter what my job is or what it looks like, I just want to play difficult rotations". Even your own statement proves that you couldn't care less about what job you're playing. The problem is you're trying to force that on others and you're doing it in a really maladaptive way.

If you want something difficult and cerebral, that feeling should come from the level of encounter you are up against. Not the rotation of the job. You are trying to gatekeep people from their fantasies. The gameplay of a job on a training dummy shouldn't be too complicated in any case, the complexity and difficulty of the game should come from encounter design. You people are too attached to making jobs difficult, and this is why encounter design has become so simple.

[Turtledeluxe]

Can you name me one game, MMO or otherwise, that managed to innovate itself after 10 years? Because I can't think of any. Ideally, that's why I don't think an MMO should last for more than 10 years otherwise it will buckle under its own weight and the expectation of veteran players. Not even WoW managed to do that. It peak during Wotlk, and Cata should have been the swansong. But when Blizz decided to cancel WoW2 and reinvest everything to upgrade WoW ... it's just downhill from there. And I feel FF14 is reaching the very same point IMO. At this point I'm not sure it's possible to satisfy the expectation of both the old players and still drawing in the new players at the same time.


I think Dawn Trail gonna be the last expansion for me unless it does something really refreshing and amazing. But ... I'm not complaining neither I'm feeling bitter about it like some other people. If you eat the same apple for nearly 10 years, then complain why doesn't it involve into an orange or something else ... but would that be the apple's fault? If you've been eating at the same restaurant for 10 years then finally get bored of the menu ... while it maybe somewhat valid to complain but looking at it from another angle: the menu must have been good enough for you to keep coming back that long? No? And there will be new customer coming in that will find the current delightful just like you did on the the first visit.

So that's my take, when I finally leave the game I want it to be on the good note. I would like to appreciate FF14 for a good ride that it gave me, and I want to wish everyone stilling playing FF14, especially new players will be able to continue enjoy it for the next 5-10 years. I don't want to leave the game in resentment and contempt for the developers, accusing them of being lazy or incompetent. I don't want to selfishly believe my taste if the ultimate ingredient for success, and anything doesn't please me is destined to fail. So yeah, fully expect Dawn Trail to be my swan song, if it anyone think they're getting to the same point it may be better to prepare yourself mentally with a positive mindset. Everything must come to an end eventually, but the ending don't have to be on a sour note over unrealistic expectation.

Isn't this more of an argument that they should have stopped with Endwalker and allocated those resources into FFXVII? Same with WoW-- maybe they should've sacrificed some money in the short term for the long term gain of a next gen WoW. We won't ever know what the results of these things because they didn't/won't happen. It shouldn't really be a thing where players become jaded of a game imo. Devs should intuitively understand when it's time to sunset their game based on the market, player expectations, and their own creative ambitions. Maybe the publishers are at fault for the stagnation of these big titles, who knows.

[Raven2014]

Isn't this more of an argument that they should have stopped with Endwalker and allocated those resources into FFXVII?

If FF17 is an MMO, then yes, that's exactly my argument.

It shouldn't really be a thing where players become jaded of a game imo.

The point is you can't really attribute the blame in a practical manner though. A quick scan of the forum and you'll see the majority of the argument are split. 10 years is a long time for a lot of thing to change. You have new player vs old player who does not share the same taste or mind set, and even someone taste can change over time. And that is before you account for logistic and practical issue, here are a few examples of issues that often came up:

- Class balance: since the launch the game had added 10 jobs, that's a lot more job to balance comparing to launch. Assuming in the next 10 years we will have at least another 8 job ... well, unless they somehow hire some miracle workers, there will be absolutely no way to avoid classes become streamline or feel the same. I'm never an pessimists but for a game to have 30 classes, anyone to expect all of them gonna be balance and unique at the same time ... well, I think the chance of humanity discovering new cure for cancel in the next 10 years is probably HIGHER than that.

- Difficulty: this is another split. If I look at it objectively, I can tell the upper tier contents (savage) had gotten harder. But as a veteran, I'm also harder to please. Outside of Ultimate nothing really excites me anymore, but again, is that the game fault? I think a lot of people severely underestimate how much institutional knowledge can affect one perception. I have seen mythic raider come to FF14 and fail miserably at the beginning, just like I've seen FF14 savage raiders got kicked out of heroic dungeons in WoW for being bad. The point is ... it's not really just about the innate difficulty, but experience as well. To its credit, FF14 does try to please everyone with all these different tiers. But then as we repeatably see, EVERYONE, from the casual to the hardcore always gonna be arguing for their interest to be deserving a bigger pie of the content, and everyone consider it's the developer's failure to do so.

That's why IMO, it's not just gaming but sometime you see overachieve people decide to move on, to seek new challenge. Instead of demanding the current working formula to change for your sake, you can simply seek it out. If I move on to a new MMO, it would be more challenging but it won't be necessary because it's harder than FF14. It would be more challenge for me simply because I no longer possess 10 years worth of institutional knowledge.

Devs should intuitively understand when it's time to sunset their game based on the market, player expectations, and their own creative ambitions. Maybe the publishers are at fault for the stagnation of these big titles, who knows.

Must we always find something or someone to be guilty and at fault? That's kinda my whole point. Sometime a relationship broke down because of some catastrophic failure, but some other time you can accept that things have run its course and part amicably, not everything have to be drama.

And it's always easier to talk idealistic, I prefer to be a bit more grounded. Yes, ideally I think an MMO should only last for 10 years at most. But MMO is expensive to make, and always a big risk, don't forget 1.0 almost killed SE itself. You also see other ambitious tittles from deep pocket publishers that fail to capture the market. The development cost of a MMO and the size of the market makes me think FF14 maybe one of the last of its kind. I think other people realize it too and maybe that's why they're still trying to hang onto it so bitterly, once you jump off this ship ... there isn't really a better one to land on.