Is it time to Sunset FFXIV?

[Jeeqbit]

it pains me to think it may be time to slowly let this one fade

It would be absolutely crazy to "let this one fade" at its peak. There are many more active players than in HW or most of SHB, for example, both the most well-received expansions we had.

With no active open world content

It's fine to say that the open world content is not good enough, but to say there is no active open world content at all is untrue - people do hunts, fates, maps and gathering regularly and this content has grinds.

the deeply invested player base is slowly starting fizzle out...

See, I'm not particularly saying that the "invested players" aren't quitting or taking extended breaks. I'm just saying the statistics overall remain high, even if that is just sprouts/casuals/returners/veterans returning briefly for a few days.

[Supersnow845]

It would be absolutely crazy to "let this one fade" at its peak. There are many more active players than in HW or most of SHB, for example, both the most well-received expansions we had.
It's fine to say that the open world content is not good enough, but to say there is no active open world content at all is untrue - people do hunts, fates, maps and gathering regularly and this content has grinds.
See, I'm not particularly saying that the "invested players" aren't quitting or taking extended breaks. I'm just saying the statistics overall remain high, even if that is just sprouts/casuals/returners/veterans returning briefly for a few days.

I say this in the nicest way possible but please please please learn the difference between pointed hyperbole and and regular statements

That person was in no way saying there is absolutely zero open world content, they are obviously saying there is no open world content of value to anyone who is invested in the game and nobody besides you thinks that killing 10,000 A ranks is actually content

[Fatch38]

I say this in the nicest way possible but please please please learn the difference between pointed hyperbole and and regular statements

That person was in no way saying there is absolutely zero open world content, they are obviously saying there is no open world content of value to anyone who is invested in the game and nobody besides you thinks that killing 10,000 A ranks is actually content

you're wasting time answering to a blind white knight. that dude is the perfect example of why we can't have nice things in the game, he will always defend SE and yoship like it's their own mother even when critics are totally accurate.

and to answer no, there is no real open world content at least no valuable that make your character progress when you reach max level. always found crazy that ppl yap to get more field operation when it should be directly in the open world but heh rather have instanced shit (personnally i found field operations to be the most boring content in the game, only did them for relics and ozma/ iklil mount but didn't had any fun in it)

[Jeeqbit]

obviously saying there is no open world content of value to anyone who is invested in the game and nobody besides you thinks that killing 10,000 A ranks is actually content

I know plenty of others that do, actually. And it's of value to invested players to cap tomestones and get materia etc. Again, not saying it can't be better.

[Larirawiel]

https://steamdb.info/app/39210/charts/#1y

Unfortunately it looks not good for FF14. It's very likely, that the player numbers are lower now than in the pre expansion content drought.




Cheers

[Ghost_of_Ebina]

I do hope the devs get their heads out of their nether-regions and understand that the storytelling (among other things) had major issues in DT -- for the time being it seems they are holding fast to the idea that "the response was expected, and we have answers in 7.x" which is horse-manure. However, I don't think the series is at the level of saying "they should scrap the whole thing" either. That is a bit too extreme of a take for me -- I would expect at least two more utter failures before saying "this is a lost cause."

[MaxDetroit]

I also think it's time to shake things up.
This game needs new interesting mechanics and game modes, other ways of stortelling, or maybe bring back some stuff that was patched out long ago.

1. Limit Break Combos
You can borrow a mechanic from Lord of the Rings Online, where you could do Fellowship Combos. See: https://www.lotrolife.com/fellowship_combos/
In a group of four, for example, everybody could press a button (red, blue, yellow or green), and you could get some interesting effects (2x blue and 2x yellow, or a straight with red, bluw, yellow, green, etc.)
FF14 could enhance limit breaks this way, if a player starts a limit break, other players have a limited window of time to answer a pop up and enhance the limit break somehow. How exactly this plays out would be up to the game devs - but you could enhance limit breaks to little group mini game.

2. Bring back a little bit of Aggro Management
For endgame, you could make aggro managment more important again. When FF14 ARR started, I played a White Mage and had to be really careful with overhealing (there also was a skill to explicitly reduce aggro generation). At the moment aggro management is not important, at all. Maybe in the endgame lean back into some old school MMO mechanics and bring back a little bit more aggro amangement for healers and dps?

3. Design encounters that require Crowd Control
Crowd Control is another feature that is somehow lost in FF14 these days. E.g. you have a group of enemies, and there is one enemy that buffs others (+200% damage, but it has a lot of health). So you need to sleep this mob, kill the others first, and then finish that one off. Just an example. But sleep, root, stun, etc. are basic MMO mechanics, that you can bring back for endgame encounters, so we get more tactical depth into fights - especially fights with mob groups in endgame dungeons or raids, where you have to be careful how much you pull and think about when and how you need to use crowd control. Mage and Healer classes in FF14 still have the sleep skill, why not use it a little bit more? This is an old school MMO after all.

4. More Skills with Synergies
You could give more jobs role based skills that synergize with other roles. E.g. have a debuff for ranged mage dps classes, and give other classes a skill that gets enhanced when used on a mob or boss with that debuff on it. So you can cooperate more and different jobs synergize a bit more with each other. And Role actions are perfect for that, why not use that a bit more? https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Role_actions

I think, specially in endgame, you can really challenge the players a bit more when it comes to game mechanics, other than dodging AOEs all the time.

[BabyYoda]

...

I think they value investing their time to another failure game instead of FFXIV, they just want to have their own god of war..

ShB was the most successful game that SE dreams of in their last 15 years, little investment and more profit, ShB good expansion but it gives an idea to the management that invest small and hope for big fish, which is unreasonable and what works once can't be done twice, ShB is a blessing that they can't have the same thing again and SE should understand it before this game is dead like how forespoken is dead and FFXVI not meeting the expectations

[MaxDetroit]

I think they value investing their time to another failure game instead of FFXIV, they just want to have their own god of war..

For all you Doom-Sayers, FF14 is still the major cash cow in Square Enix Lineup. They will continue to support this game, a lot. It's a money machine.
After the negative Feedback for Dawntrail and Yoshi P back from his FF16 encounter, you bet they will invest a lot into the game to get everything back on track.

See:
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/...le-games-drop/
https://www.bitget.com/news/detail/12560604143370

[Aneshda]

I'm not holding my breath and there's no excitement for the next patch in 4 weeks. What we're getting is so little that it won't even last 1 week. And it's going to be more Wuk Lamat, which means I'm skipping everything. I feel sorry for the players who play this game for the story like I do. We're just getting a kick in the ass with this bullshit expansion. There's absolutely zero content to make up for this crappy story. Maybe there'll be something for us in 5.5 months when the next patch comes.