Ultimate demise of 14?

[Sivante]

OP, I genuinely do think you may be a little burned out, but your gripes are not invalid to me. This has touched on some topics I've been considering: Mind you I don't think this is the demise of FF14. I'm gonna Novel a little, and I'm sorry for that fellas and fellettes.

TL-DR: I get it, OP. I get it.

I know why they said the release schedule is the way it is, but I don't honestly believe it still applies now. It was then slowed to give time to polish content, but 'polished content' looks like the Hrothgal rigging and Savage's being cleared in record time and so on and so on. There's no advantage to players being gone and returning that EX mount drop rates are so low, and there's no real advantage to the system outside of to SE itself. Do the math on it and you'll get a broad idea of my issues with it, keeping EX2 as an example: EX2 takes 15 minutes or so to clear. At a 2% drop rate, you'll have to clear it (on average) 50 times. 50*15=750 minutes. Assuming a perfect, consistent clear rate that means seeing the mount once ever 12.5 hours, running nonstop. There's room for error and luck, of course! But most players I know farm 99 totems, as you aren't assured to get that 2% drop. 99*15=1485, 24.75 hours assuming consistent clears to get 99 totems. That's enough time to prog an ultimate. Prog an ultimate.

I am fully of the opinion that the schedule is drip fed because that promises the longest subs. Genshin Impact is a free game that releases more content, more regularly, with more polish. I'm not saying this to convince people to play Genshin, but Genshin is free. By contrast for FFXIV you pay a sub, in addition to that you pay expansion fees but you are handed the Expansion contents like it’s a pre-release kickerstarter game you bought on steam. As an adult I bought a game, but I’m being told I will not be given that game save by drip feed, and I will be throttled to play it as they wish. Even forum posting is drip fed to a limit.

There's a massive prioritization from CS3 to repeat the exact methods that they deem to work, and to maintain a sense of control. Drip feed the content, drip feed gear acquisition, drip feed tomestone acquisition, force the player to move at a pace that is easy to adjust and compensate for by CS3. And CS3 is smart to do that, it makes balancing and keeping up with the game much easier – They aren’t doing it to be evil, they do it because it’s intelligent.


Equally much of the balancing in the game is handled through force. Summoner tanking Titan? Do you elegantly tweak and work around it? No, you nuke nugget from orbit. Tanks becoming too lax? You add more tank busters, or broader ones. Healers bored? Add raid wides. The repetition of force rather than elegant solutions or innovations is difficult to address in MMO's, but CS3 seems to be falling more and more out of trying to build ergonomic systems, and more into ways to force you to do things. Force you to slow gear acquisiton or content intake. Force you to bring X comp, force you to do all these things but not addressing the core issues that led to peoples disatisfaction. Is it any wonder Tanks are running solo, healers are furious?

For EX2 by example the obvious rebuttal here is true: You don't need those things, it's side content.

I see the argument here all the time, but I feel the wings in this case are emblematic of a larger issue. You don't need those wings, sure. Savage is bugged or too hard? Well you don't need Savage. Don't like Criterion Dungeons? You don't need to do them. I agree that not all content is for everyone, but the dismissal of peoples discomfort is borderline to toxic: we don't need to pay a sub. We don’t need to be coddled and drip-fed.

When I came to FFXIV I had played other games: EQ, WoW, and what I liked about FF14 was how friendly it was to my time. It felt like it respected my time. As time has passed I've found myself feeling that way less and less. As the OP insinuated it's 'Get on the treadmill at 8:30', 'Find a static at 9:30', 'Clear post MSQ at 10:30.' It's all so... formulaic, so... sterile and mechanized. There's no life in it, no surprises or thrills. Sure we get events, which seldom give much in the way of rewards anymore due to Mogstation prioritization (which is business savvy), and now and again we are thrown something like a BLU update or a new variant dungeon.

This would be fine to be clear, and business wise is entirely valid: many of you love this I'm sure and content creators love the reliability. But the rub for me is - they are falling behind. Genshin is the example I've used here but it's not the only one. FFXIV isn't failing me, I am not important enough to be 'failed' by CS3, and I mean that realistically and honestly. But they are failing to keep up with their own competition. They release less content, less frequently, and bridle the treadmills and drip feed to the point that it's hard to enjoy it. Even when they lift our level cap they carefully adjust everything in such a fashion that it doesn't... actually feel like you've grown stronger at all. I don't feel like the time I put in has 'grown' my character. Just another expansion where I'll be given another button to initiate a high-velocity lens-flare ability from a Michael Bay movie, but all the monsters have been made so much stronger that I'm equally as 'strong' as I was without that ability 10 levels ago. MMO's have to match your level to some extent, but... is this all there is? In an MMORPG, a game genre based on growing you strength over time, I don’t feel that at all?

EQ, by example, had the AA system. A system in which you could 'level' past your max, but instead of getting levels you got points to buy permanent upgrades for your character. A way to 'grow' long-term in a meaningful fashion, and a single level took ages to level in the AA tree. It wasn't a perfect solution by any means, but it was an attempt. I see no attempt here. I see... the same stats that barely do anything. I see the same gear cycle, same release cycle. Another expansion, another 5 dungeons, 3 trials, 1 month to savage drop and treadmill begin. There will be 3 beast tribes, MSQ gating all of it, 2 world spawn mobs worth tracking, and a new keystone ability. There will be 2 new classes with questionable balance, some other classes will break, and there are new treasure map dungeons. It's all the same book, over and over, punctuated by drip-fed live-letters and “Look forward to it”s.

I understand I can go elsewhere, I understand these are hard problems to address and I understand many of you don't see the same issues, or don't take the same gravitas to them and that's entirely valid. But I get where OP is coming from here. FFXIV has begun to feel... recycled. The same recycled ideas, the same recycled mechanics, on the same recycled treadmill. The same pointlessly bottlenecked materia and stat system on the same recycled schedule.

Like a stale joke, it’s scheduled that someone will throw me a recycled plastic smile in a liveletter with a recycled promise it'll be better this time. Just give a little more time. Just say on the drip a little longer, and consider buying a fifty-dollar mount in the meanwhile to support the team, because your expansion fee and sub fees don't go back into the game you love to help support it and develop it.

But this is just my (long-winded and overly dramatic) opinion. No one else has to validate it, and no one else has to share it. I understand a lot of the choices being made, and they aren’t ignorant, evil, cruel or childish. They are business decisions. I don't think FFXIV is doomed or dying, not at all. But I have begun to think the FFXIV I knew and loved might have passed away in the night and left this weird little monetary goblin behind. He seldom says anything original, doesn’t really fix problems so much as band-aids them, and keeps promising me tomorrow he’ll be a beautiful princess. But for right now, and for the past few years, he’s just been a goblin.