DT writing is not even the biggest problem XIV has right now.

[Grumblecakes]

Same, my friend, same. And for the SHB times it was working so wonderfully. Right now though? All I can say is it makes me incredibly sad.
What is worse however, is not the fact they aren't doing anything, it's the fact they are not even attempting to even change the formula, despite all the debt, both technical and game systems.

I agree. I am over here asking to give them money to play yheir game, just give me some good content. I can only "want" to give them my money for so long. In a way it is good I am not alone feeling this. I miss how I felt when I first entered Holminster Switch. Damn that was a good first dungeon. The music, the atmosphere, the bleakness of hope. It was motivating to fight. In DT I am not motivated to fight for Wuk Lamat or anything in that land tbh.

[TDawnstar]

That is awful. I had no idea it was on that level.

Well, what is "nice" (if that word can even be used) is the fact that WoW went through exactly the same path several years prior. Granted, there are some profound cultural differences between JP and NA/EU, but my guess is, we are assisting into the same transformation of FFXIV into a raiding simulator that we witnessed with WoW a few years before. Except that FFXIV skipped all the borrowed power grind part, because THAT would make a lot of JP players mad.

And of course, there is the whole "buy our other games when you are not playing FFXIV OwO" part which isn't helping, either.

[Grumblecakes]

Well, what is "nice" (if that word can even be used) is the fact that WoW went through exactly the same path several years prior. Granted, there are some profound cultural differences between JP and NA/EU, but my guess is, we are assisting into the same transformation of FFXIV into a raiding simulator that we witnessed with WoW a few years before. Except that FFXIV skipped all the borrowed power grind part, because THAT would make a lot of JP players mad.

And of course, there is the whole "buy our other games when you are not playing FFXIV OwO" part which isn't helping, either.

Yea I am not buying their other games for the sake of it being from them. We will see how it plays out. I am trying to have some form of positivity that this is a blip but if this game goes the raiding route then I am done. Just like I was done with WoW. The raiding scene is something I have no desire to even glance at. I like normal raids, they are fun but just hearing about progs and BiS is a reminder of what I hated about this kind of stuff.

[TDawnstar]

Yea I am not buying their other games for the sake of it being from them. We will see how it plays out. I am trying to have some form of positivity that this is a blip but if this game goes the raiding route then I am done. Just like I was done with WoW. The raiding scene is something I have no desire to even glance at. I like normal raids, they are fun but just hearing about progs and BiS is a reminder of what I hated about this kind of stuff.

As far as I am concerned, I just play MMOs, so whatever they may have in store (even if it is very good) doesn't interest me

[ZXN]

There is a lot I could say that I have already said before in many other threads, so I won't repeat most of it. Endwalker was awful to me personally. Dungeons were very easy and very boring. Island Sanctuary just turned out to be a giant time-gated spreadsheet simulator. The Another/Savage tiers of Criterion dungeons were a mess until the 3rd dungeon when they actually finally gave players an "incentive" of some kind to attempt them besides just some materia and a title. The relic weapons were reduced to a boring tomestone grind where you just slam your face against the same dungeon 1000 times because it's the fastest way to do the grind. You CAN go "Blame Covid" or "Blame FF16's development taking away from FF14", but that doesn't change the fact that ultimately, to me personally, Endwalker was complete shit, and others felt the same way.

People might joke about "Dawntrail is Stormblood 2.0" given the story, but Stormblood post, in retrospect, released banger after banger after banger during their patches. Eureka [The last parts of it anyway], The 4 Lords Trial Series, Ivalice Alliance Raid series/story [Pre-nerf anyway], the first ultimate raids, the omega raid series, etc made up for the story quality for a lot of people by the great optional content.

Dawntrail's patches are going to have A LOT of things coming. FF11 Alliance raid series, Cosmic exploration, Eden Ultimate + another one no doubt, Beastmaster Job, Devil's Triangle exploration area, new criterions, the rest of the Arcadion raid series [Which started off as a banger], and more. I won't inject the copium though and just assume all the Dawntrail Post-Patch stuff will be all bangers. 7.0 somehow left an even worse taste in my mouth then Endwalker's post patch MSQ did, and that made me stop playing for almost a whole year because I thought it was that abysmal. I'll wait until I see some actual results before I even attempt to start "hoping" for anything.

[Rekh]

square enix never learns, we've been telling them this for the last 3 expansions to give us the relic quests earlier, as in at release; but they just refuse to give us a long term grind at release because they think people will spend 4-5 months leveling all the jobs.

They really need to rethink their content structure, it's stale right now, specially at expansion launch.

[Angeldust]

I mean are we surprised? They ignore jobs and have been since end of Stormblood. They strong arm a morality bs on people. They design around 2% of the game aka savage/extreme and unreals which is 2% of the game and lazy design the other 98%. They are 2 stupid to realize it doesn't matter how the hell savage and that end game is designed if the rest of the game is boring and your job design puts people to sleep instead of keeping them engaged. Honestly, it is honestly fate that its at its current state, them creating this your either hardcore or casual bs. Its both their fault and the community's fault on average. this bs they are doing does not last that long. Yes it may seem good and w/e else but honestly I knew it would get to this state after heavensward first came out and they removed a bunch of abilities.


We never just gain anything we always always lose a ton of things when they add something new, I mean who here remembers when every healer had a different esuna? They removed leechs and other abilitys that made it feel like you were playing something diffrent than just a white mage They replace dumb down, and steal animations from us every single thing they add comes at the cost of 4-5 things we had.


They strip things down, ruin jobs for the sake of savage and unreal which is wrong, sorry but it is

[WaxSw]

They are afraid of the QQ from the JP raiders who will throw a tantrum if they have ANYTHING else to do beside log in and raid. Quite pathetic really, on both sides.

I'm very curious why you blame eveyrhting that goes wrong with the game to raiders tbh.

I've raided for many years and if anything the people who raid are the most motivated to grind content and tackle all forms of it and ask for more that i've found, while the more casuals are the ones who tend to QQ the moment a slight challenge or grind is introduced. Not only that but the job changes that are slowly ruining the game where also made with non raiders in mind, such as the idea of reducing the skill gap, remove fail states or making the jobs as easy and approachable as possible.

[TDawnstar]

I'm very curious why you blame eveyrhting that goes wrong with the game to raiders tbh.

JP Raiders. Big difference. There is a reason JP savage clear rates are about 2x as big as NA/EU.

[Ramiee]

Yeah the reason why the design of this game has everything so telegraphed and rigid is because of positive responses from the JP raider community.
I imagine that the Devs focus on the game is split between Story enjoyers and Raiders, everyone else is an after thought and of course as a Japanese game the Japanese community has more reach.