Mr. Naoki Yoshida, have you forgotten your own "Three Easy Steps to Failure"?

[LittleArrow]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Dawntrail is my most disliked of all expansions, and if this is the direction the game is going in regards to the writing and content - it will fail. We've seen it happen so many times before, so much that Yoshi even has this formula to predict it. Player numbers high or low currently doesn't matter - what matters is the staying power of the expansion to draw people back in with seasonal events and patches. I can only speak for myself, I couldn't care less. Even as a XI player that squealed when I saw Vana'diel's raid announcement at the fanfest (which was such a disappointment in and of itself), I don't care.

The writing team has showed they couldn't care less about my character, backseat or not - 2.0 did a better job handling the WoL before they were the WoL as a backseat character, as did Stormblood and Heavensward and every other expansion that focused on other cast members. The content isn't there, it's constantly being pushed off in patches and next expansion. Lastly, Yoshi isn't playing this game anymore - I can't believe he is with the comments he's making. Even those that I've seen somehow enjoyed this slop of a story recognizes the blaring issues that are brought up - they just focus on their enjoyment than the negatives.

I hate seeing this. I'm so invested in XIV. I've white knighted this game so hard for over a decade. No more. If Yoshi doesn't course correct and get the writing team to actually handle the WoL properly, fix these stupid plot holes in the main scenario and not beast tribes / side quests (looking at you Endwalker beast tribes...), and actually implement what fans are asking for instead of silly ideas from the whimsy of the team (Summoner anyone?) this game will fail.

[Reimmi]

All points you bring up has been present since ARR, and you were blind to them back then.
So why now? Why is Dawntrail the sticking point to you all.

You are out of your mind if you think all 3 of those have been a problem since arr lol

[Supersnow845]

The devs up until EW at least felt like they knew what an MMO was and what people want to get out of it. These days I have no idea what the primary design decisions going into this game are being based off.

As for “everything can be fixed in a future patch” we don’t even get that any more at this point they just ignore problems until 14 stans gaslight themselves into thinking it’s a feature

[Larirawiel]

1. An unhealthy obsession with graphic quality

Dawntrail is planned as the first major graphic update. However, have you been overly focused on very specific graphics, such as the grass and every polygon on Lalafell faces? It took the first benchmark and players flooding the forums to point out that there is more to the game than just grass and Lalafell. As a result, for the first time, there was a "patch" for a benchmark.

The game looks way too bad, that you could assume, that Yoshi-P is obsessed with graphics. They added some more polygons to the faces and they messed it up. Because either the devs do not know what they are doing or the small indie company is lacking of ressources.


Cheers

[Hallarem]

The only reason the game has received a lot of criticism now is because there is no good story to shield it and blanket everyones eyes. Criticism leads to change. The cardinal sin aside from the two expansions in a row rushing their story is the lack of any open world content.

Its substandard for an MMO. You have randomly popping fates you cant even hide away, that cut the flow and a little bit of enjoyment of traveling around. The questing is bare bones "walk to A and press B" or "Go to purple circle and kill an enemy"
The maps while pretty are only that. No substance just pretty to look at. They dont feel alive. Settlements STILL have 90% of the houses locked.
More quest types, more living areas, open houses, camps and minigame areas, chocobo minigames, flying minigames. More dynamic quests not "you enter into a cutscene for 1.5 minutes". And stop being stingy on the VA's. Get voice acted npc's already.

[Calysto]

1 - the graphical update was wasted on XIV, it was still great before.
FF7 remake is a thing, but it's a complete remake not just a coat of paint.
It should have been FFXI getting an update (graphics on par with 14 and "modern" UI), not 14.

2 - Writing aside, the rpg aspect of the game is getting stream-lined into an action/ddr boring mess for "balance reasons"
The gameplay diversity butchered into a few flavors with different colors of sprinkles.
For DT, most job got one(1) extra m&m as topping.
A while back, we had interesting flavors mixed trough AND a specific topping. Chocolate and Caramel worked great ; Mustard didn't ; Mayo was strange but interesting. These are now removed for artificial coloring.
Bringing back writing, the lack of job quests & lore leave these favors bland because "Writing quests for 20 jobs is too much work". I don't think it's more work than the graphical update, and in 10 years you'll just have a shallow story and outdated graphics.

3 - "Job homogenization" has been a problem since ShB. Thousands of complaints, mostly unacknowledged for 7 years, and we got a "it'll be for 8.0".
Except you lost and kind of trust some of us had for that to works.
We gave feedback for years here, yet they almost always go with their idea and back it with "players feedback" that comes from nowhere.

[Eyrilona]

Thousands of complaints, mostly unacknowledged for 7 years, and we got a "it'll be for 8.0".

You know you are in a weird market when them responding to complaints after seven years still actually makes it one of the faster response times among the large MMO companies, no?

[Wolwosh]

I'm so confused by all of this.
I've been playing since ARR and i've been loving the story and pretty much everything about it.
People seem to be raving about EW while I thought the whole expansion including combat was mostly boring af..
I enjoyed the story including Wuk. Maybe the difference is is that I didn't hype DT at all after not expecting much after EW.
Different folks different strokes I guess.
Not saying ppl arent entitled to their opinion, but geez its a bit over the top

[BakoolJaJa]

You know you are in a weird market when them responding to complaints after seven years still actually makes it one of the faster response times among the large MMO companies, no?

No. Because that's not the case. The whole "ffxiv devs are great at communicating" was always such a meme. Even Destiny devs were faster and better at communicating. Their equivalent of live letters releases every week. GW2 devs address complaints faster. OSRS devs have surveys and address complaints faster. WoW devs it depends. Probably same level of speed. As in sometimes they don't address anything for many years, and sometimes they do collect feedback from their beta testing and actually fix/change things. At least they have beta testing though. FFXIV you don't even know what kind of slop you'll get before it's too late. LOTRO and DDO address complaints faster, and that with the 2 devs they share between those MMOs.

What MMO does not address complaints faster? Only completely dead ones like SWTOR? I mean, sure, if that's the bar we're setting for ourselves.

[Eyrilona]

No. Because that's not the case. The whole "ffxiv devs are great at communicating" was always such a meme. Even Destiny devs were faster and better at communicating. Their equivalent of live letters releases every week. GW2 devs address complaints faster. OSRS devs have surveys and address complaints faster. WoW devs it depends. Probably same level of speed. As in sometimes they don't address anything for many years, and sometimes they do collect feedback from their beta testing and actually fix/change things. At least they have beta testing though. FFXIV you don't even know what kind of slop you'll get before it's too late. LOTRO and DDO address complaints faster, and that with the 2 devs they share between those MMOs.

What MMO does not address complaints faster? Only completely dead ones like SWTOR? I mean, sure, if that's the bar we're setting for ourselves.

You are right, and I should have narrowed it down to 'conventional MMORPG companies', because MMORPGs are the only kind of MMO games I play. I never occurred to me that the MMO label also applied to MMOFPS games like Destiny which to me feels like an entirely different genre and I will immediately agree, indeed more responsive. The particular example I had on my mind at the time of my comment was indeed World of Warcraft's reputation for how long they'll delay taking complaints about the direction of the game seriously.

But you're even more right, even within that definition there are faster innovators I just hadn't thought off. I'll completely take my loss on this one. Have a Like