Yoshii P wants to know why people are leaving

[Rithy255]

I think theirs a few reasons why people are leaving honestly.

1. Gameplay/job reasons, it's not a secret that people have been complaining a lot about watered down combat, healer & tank design are a great example why the current version of job design just doesn't work well, I'd like to say dawn trail at least has fun casual content, but to many the new raids savage versions were pretty lacking to many. I think one thing we're clearly missing is job variety, again imagine being a tank main for example, you should be able to pick up another tank and have a pretty different experience, but in reality every tank feels the same so theirs no replay value into leveling another tank job loses it's value a lot. I think honestly if they made jobs more fun at their core, we'd see a lot more people invested into learning different jobs which makes the battle content stand out more as replayable, but currently when everything is very samey theirs no point.
2. Content coming out is slow, patches taking 4 months (or usually longer), is not enough. waiting 4 months for what is a few weeks of content at most is a stretch, theirs also never any real exciting balance changes that keep things interesting to look forward to, so it's only usually the content itself which is mostly a alliance raid or 4 8man raids and a tiny bit of story with a trial if you're lucky.
3. going into too many "directions" this game focuses on Varity a lot, but apart of that deal is not everyone will like certain parts of the game, but this also means people who likes a certain part of the game would get less of that, then a game that mainly focused on one part, I do feel like MMO's do tend to want Varity, but waiting ages for small updates because of that isn't fun. I personally don't like alliance raids at all.
4. Open world doesn't really feel open, This is something common, the open world really doesn't feel like a place we even need to go to a lot outside doing the msq, you end up sitting in a city and queueing for the content you want, theirs nothing to really "explore" theirs no real challenges out in the open world.
5. Story related reasons. Don't need to really explain, personally i wasn't too bothered with story, i enjoy msq but it's nothing make or break for me personally.

With this most of the games appeal feels like it's towards the user generated side (aka role play, clubs ect.) which is the only real "endless" part about the game, I like this game but I have even not been in the mood to play it when theirs nothing to actually do.

[Batbrat]

exactly, same shit with fandoms that eventually die because of the same rhetoric, "if you dont like it, dont watch/play it" then the season/series/movie/game franchise melts into nothing and met with "you guys killed X thing because you didn't consume the content" lmao

This is something that is very important to notice. I've played many MMO's over the years. Every single time a fan base turned to "just quit if you dont like it!" as an insult, people did just that. They quit. and the game slowly died, and by 2 years later, was shut down completely. Suddenly they werent so smug anymore, now that their favorite game was gone forever. Anyone who actually thinks "just quit" is completely braindead. You NEED people complaining. You NEED people posting grievances. Because the alternative to that, is a ton of people quit, and just like that, your hobby is gone. It doesnt matter if its XIV. It didnt matter for any other MMO's that were huge smash hit successes until they werent, and closed down. XIV is not immune. It will ALWAYS rely on people still subscribing and logging in. Once people stop complaining, it means they stopped caring and they left, and THAT is a complete disaster. Because once people quit? Verrry difficult to drag them back. Very difficult. I myself have never gone back to any game that I quit. So. The need to get it together while people still care. People lighting these forums on fire are doing Square a favor. They need to see the passion and take action while there's still time.

[Loggos]

I think honestly if they made jobs more fun at their core, we'd see a lot more people invested into learning different jobs which makes the battle content stand out more as replayable, but currently when everything is very samey theirs no point.

Yeah, they are really ignoring the gameplay variety and replayability factor that jobs alone could bring to the game. They could instantly multiply the game's (perceived) content offer by having unique classes because every fight would automatically receive 21 different gameplay angles to be approached with.


Right now the challenge lies almost exclusively with the fight. Once you have mastered it you can easily play it on any job in casual mode because the knowledge required to beat the fight stays more or less the same no matter what class you are on. Not much of that required knowledge changes when you switch classes, unlike in games with actual class variety. In those games in addition to knowing the fight you also need to know how to approach the fight differently with each additional job.
The gameplay variety is provided from two sources and not just one (the fight) like in FF14.

I assume it's similar for savage, that is, once you've mastered the fight transferring that knowledge to other jobs is doable, esp. if you are an experienced raider.

Of course there are things like rotations that need to be practiced but compared to games with more unique jobs they basically play the same with minor differences/quirks and can be understood (relatively) easily once you have internalised the 2 minute meta rhythm.

It allows for a lot less skill expression because your success is almost entirely measured by the fight: either you have the ability to do the mechanics or not.

That's why I prefer PvP (even though it needs a lot more love): here the difficulty comes almost entirely from mastering your job and knowing how to apply it in different situations.
Sure, there are some basic skills like game awareness, keeping track of your enemies' skills etc. that stay the same no matter the class you are on but you have to approach each fight very differently depending on the class you play and the classes you are matched up against.

CC is the only place where I actually feel like a paladin because gunbreaker, warrior and dark knight are so different. Being a sage feels like a proper dps healer and is completely different from scholar. Red mage is an actual black and white magic user etc. I can spend a whole evening cycling through different classes without getting bored because it's always a completely different game play experience.

Even though the classes are a lot more reduced in terms of skill number and complexity I feel a lot more engaged because I actually get to express my skills. I can see my improvement, work on my weaknesses, figure out which classes suit me well and which types of gameplay I struggle with etc.

CC, despite being a meager side activity, is what's keeping me subbed right now because it's more fun than all of the main content I can do.

[Dysvalence]

We all have our grievances but above all else the real issue is that *Endwalker* had no foray and instead had crits where playability is near zero, let alone replayability. There's no casual/midcore repeatable combat content and there hasn't been any decent ones to speak of in a loooooooong time.


I have plenty of stuff keeping me in the game but it's all very niche and largely noncombat things, and you know there's a problem when you're going out of your way to find a reason to use a job just so you can show off the glam you made.

[Grumblecakes]

I think they first need content releases that aren't only savage related. Then get to fixing jobs over time. There is simply no reason to log in for me right now due to content.

[remiff]

The reason I'm getting tired of FF14 is simple: I've been playing since the release of Heavensward, and the game has only evolved through excessively lazy design choices.

Back then, the jobs had really strong identities and, more importantly, an extremely interesting synergy, which peaked in Stormblood,
but then gradually lost all appeal due to changes in the battle system that weren't as well thought-out by the job designers as they should have been.

Some jobs have even been reworked poorly, like the Summoner, which still feels like a level 60 job today, with no flavor beyond visuals, no resource management, and all buttons replacing each other so you can just make a 1,1,1 macro.
Jobs have lost their former brilliance, and the gameplay hasn't evolved at all.

Everything is still the same, except that instead of waiting three months per patch, it went to four months and now to 4.5 months on average, while offering content that always follows the same pattern, which feels like just new skins without innovation.
The devs seem like they're giving us smoke and mirrors, just reskins without really bringing any innovations or new ideas, which will inevitably lead to players feeling burnt out.

[TemporalFruitsAndVeggies]

A big part of why I'm leaving is simply that I've been playing the game for a decade now, which is slightly over a quarter of my entire life, and I believe it's finally run its course for me. I knew exactly what I was getting with Dawntrail before I bought it, because it's the same collection of stuff we've gotten with every expansion since Heavensward. I bought it anyway, because some friends wanted to do savage raiding. And that's been fun enough, even though I think the encounters are a little uninteresting this tier.

I'm just not willing to do it again. The game feels outdated at this point, partially because of its now impossible-to-ignore janky client-server interactions, but mainly because the team has failed to innovate even the tiniest amount over the past decade. The game's obsessive adherence to strict formula is its own slow undoing. There is a complete lack of player agency; every aspect of the game is on rails. Nearly every job has needed a complete redo, with a tightening of action lists and a restoration of identity, for several years now, but they just keep tacking on largely uninteresting changes ("'delivers an attack' -- wow, just like my other 28 buttons!").

I see no need to keep going after Dawntrail unless the team does something truly wild to shake things up -- I mean, like, "almost a whole new game" wild -- but I have a feeling that, despite Yoshi-P's PR-speak about big changes coming, 8.0 is going to bring level 110, six new open-world zones, five new leveling dungeons, three end-game dungeons, three trials (two with extreme versions), four raids (with savage versions), two new tomestone tiers, pages of useless crafting recipes, etc. And a month after launch, the open world will be dead and we'll all be sitting in queues in town, beholden to the same roulette system we've been beholden to for a decade, the prison in which the developers have trapped themselves. I'll be very pleased to be proven wrong here.

Finally, the barrier to entry for new players hoping to play with their friends is unreal at this point; if any of my friends expresses interest, I tell them to be prepared to spend an extra $25 to boost to current content, because the time investment required is obscene, and the absolute tedium of low-level content makes it difficult for most reasonable people to persevere. But honestly, it's just hard to suggest the game at all to new players these days.

[Eyrilona]

Also, I tire of spaghetti code. And I do not mean I am tired of code itself, I am tired of hearing the excuse. If you have not been able to refactor any of a shortlist of glaring problems that have been in your project from day 1, ten years into continuous development, you are not trying.

[Volgia]

So I'm unsure if I'm gonna come back on the next expansion myself, but I don't know if it's because the game needs some improvements, or because I am growing apart from it. It happened to me when I played WoW and GW2. Eventually you just want to play something new or just move on with your life.

I'd say that the biggest crime this game made was during Endwalker, with it's lack of meaningful replayable content. This is an MMO, no matter how much Yoshi P says it's an FF first, however it is the loneliest MMO I've played, the only type of content I felt like other people mattered was Extreme/Savage/Ultimate and Bozja/Eureka.

[Eastwall]

This is something that is very important to notice. I've played many MMO's over the years. Every single time a fan base turned to "just quit if you dont like it!" as an insult, people did just that. They quit. and the game slowly died, and by 2 years later, was shut down completely. Suddenly they werent so smug anymore, now that their favorite game was gone forever. Anyone who actually thinks "just quit" is completely braindead. You NEED people complaining. You NEED people posting grievances. Because the alternative to that, is a ton of people quit, and just like that, your hobby is gone. It doesnt matter if its XIV. It didnt matter for any other MMO's that were huge smash hit successes until they werent, and closed down. XIV is not immune. It will ALWAYS rely on people still subscribing and logging in. Once people stop complaining, it means they stopped caring and they left, and THAT is a complete disaster. Because once people quit? Verrry difficult to drag them back. Very difficult. I myself have never gone back to any game that I quit. So. The need to get it together while people still care. People lighting these forums on fire are doing Square a favor. They need to see the passion and take action while there's still time.

Lol. I still remember how l complained msq should be optional, Then someone on this forum told me to go play another game