I need to vent about FFXIV as a whole at this point.

[IOwn92FCHouses]

I return from my hole in the ground to say.

This game cannot in any universe claim to be a game that deserves a monthly sub fee with the little amount of stuff it gives you to do and with the neglect the devs are doling out with not even fixing basic functions like some characters not being able to wear hats, . (And no, content from years ago does not count.)
They should have two tiers.

One, no sub, access to an apartment, and "content"

Two, luxury sub, access to housing, monthly addition of cash shop currency and some other luxury stuff

This game is not an MMO, its a singleplayer game wearing the skinsuit of one. I hope someone in the studio wakes up and kicks their combat designer out, so they can replace it with someone who can create more exciting fights with variables, rng and player engagement, instead of DDR-memory gauntlets with you repeating the same rotation over and over and over again.
A quest designer that doesn't surmount to an AI repeating the same quests with a different text and same mechanics of... purple kill two mobs, or talk and talk with the dumb Soken recycled "Feel happy now, the quest is over" piano music. Might as well be Christmas when they give us the "Follow npc and hide" quest, that actually had some effort in it. Recycle recycle recycle recycle is FFXIV in a nutshell, it's lazy and lacks integrity.

While you're at it, please never let the Primals do another themesong again for an expansion, leave them outside of the game. I don't want to pay for the "privilege" of witnessing Sokens and Koji Fox's boomer band midlife crisis as they live their band dreams out, they should buy Harley Davidsons or Ferraris like any other self-respecting middle-aged person. This is exactly how Hildbrand went from a fun little sidequest-series into now ruining the integrity of the lore and feel of the game because "Haha funny meme".

I will never, ever get tired of people saying that fights are a ddr dance, memory gauntlet, and that the combat devs should be replaced, while at the same time the person saying it struggles to do normal raids, let alone entering the challenging, interesting content they say the game lacks.

You want more exciting fights? They're right there, waiting for you. Though I do understand that parroting things you've heard others say is far easier than working on your own gameplay and approach, it's unfair to speak of "exciting" combat without ever even attempting anything harder than normal 8 man raids.

Like, my man. You haven't even displaced the air around the surface of the game's combat, let alone scratching that surface. Maybe if you cared a bit more about your gameplay, you'd find the gameplay more fun.

All I know is that I wouldn't find it fun to be hard carried by 3 to 7 people for... 5 or so years, from the looks of it.

[Jeeqbit]

This game cannot in any universe claim to be a game that deserves a monthly sub fee with the little amount of stuff it gives you to do

It doesn't necessarily give you "little to do". But I can accept that the stuff it does give is stuff a lot of people don't see as their type of content (beast tribes, custom deliveries, FATE farms, Extreme farms, TT farms, hunt farms and raiding). Nevertheless, the game has always been this way.

With many story games, you pay many times the sub fee just for 1-4 days of story then move onto the next game. So paying a fraction of that for just the patch story seems to even out whether you do the grindy stuff or not.

This game is not an MMO, its a singleplayer game wearing the skinsuit of one. I hope someone in the studio wakes up and kicks their combat designer out, so they can replace it with someone who can create more exciting fights with variables, rng and player engagement, instead of DDR-memory gauntlets with you repeating the same rotation over and over and over again.

I don't think it's that the fights are "not exciting". It's the second part of what you said - the lack of RNG eventually makes them feel like the same experience over and over again. Usually the way that has been solved in this game is they simply release new fights, but when for example you get the same dungeon in Expert roulette for 8-9 months it becomes painful to continue doing it.

Recycle recycle recycle recycle is FFXIV in a nutshell

Recycling isn't a bad idea in itself. It's quite logical, actually. It's just recycling it effectively. For example, a lot of enemies are actually reskins but many of us don't notice this because the reskins are that good, or are re-used re-skinned throwaway bosses from years ago that we completely didn't remember existed. Likewise, re-using a core mechanic isn't necessarily a problem if it's re-used in a fresh way.

The way I put it before is that core mechanics like in and out aoes are like the nuts and bolts that they use to form fights and that reducing them to that is not really looking at the overall dance they have composed with them.

They could make fresh mechanics, sure and I think that is their goal throughout Dawntrail but they probably won't stop making the fights scripted. They might add specific RNG into specific mechanics but they've just always had this script, as far as I can tell, with the only exception I've seen being ARR hunts that cast in completely random orders.

never let the Primals do another themesong again for an expansion

Quite a hot take there. Soken is revered more than Mozart, The Beetles or Shakespeare in the FFXIV community.

[ovIm]

You want more exciting fights? They're right there, waiting for you. Though I do understand that parroting things you've heard others say is far easier than working on your own gameplay and approach, it's unfair to speak of "exciting" combat without ever even attempting anything harder than normal 8 man raids.

Like, my man. You haven't even displaced the air around the surface of the game's combat, let alone scratching that surface. Maybe if you cared a bit more about your gameplay, you'd find the gameplay more fun.

What fights are you talking about here? You mean the scripted experiences the combat designers create, I assume? The DDR-Memory Gauntlets Hallarem mentioned?

Personally, I agree with Hallarems sentiment, as I too have no enjoyment in having to Memorize 256 Steps of a dance to come out victorious and would much rather react to things than resolve them. For example, the heart spam in M2N - hugging the boss the entire time while dodging AoEs left and right was much more engaging and fun for me than resolving Hello World or Light Rampant in Savage. Stopped raiding in 6.0 cause I felt more annoyance in raids than enjoyment.
People look for different things in video games. Whats fun to some ain't fun for others.

[IOwn92FCHouses]

What fights are you talking about here? You mean the scripted experiences the combat designers create, I assume? The DDR-Memory Gauntlets Hallarem mentioned?

Personally, I agree with Hallarems sentiment, as I too have no enjoyment in having to Memorize 256 Steps of a dance to come out victorious and would much rather react to things than resolve them. For example, the heart spam in M2N - hugging the boss the entire time while dodging AoEs left and right was much more engaging and fun for me than resolving Hello World or Light Rampant in Savage. Stopped raiding in 6.0 cause I felt more annoyance in raids than enjoyment.
People look for different things in video games. Whats fun to some ain't fun for others.

Cool opinion. Doesn't change the fact that someone seriously is suggesting removing the fight dev team when they don't even engage in the content. Especially when the main praise of the expansion has been the increased quality of the easy casual content both you and the dude I was speaking to seem to play exclusively.

And that shit is hilarious to see every single time. Sad to hear you lost that drive to raid though. Fru has been extremely fun. Best first phase we've ever had in my opinion. You would have enjoyed it, considering your m2n example.

[ovIm]

Cool opinion. Doesn't change the fact that someone seriously is suggesting removing the fight dev team when they don't even engage in the content. Especially when the main praise of the expansion has been the increased quality of the easy casual content both you and the dude I was speaking to seem to play exclusively.

Personally speaking, I don't think removing the fight dev team is the right course of action here either. Would prefer to see Square Enix instead increasing team size and reworking on both class and fight designers to give us more variety, be a bit fresher, for the lack of a better term. Fun class gameplay and interesting fights. Its clear that the 4 or 5 people working on classes definitely need backup.

Sad to hear you lost that drive to raid though. Fru has been extremely fun. Best first phase we've ever had in my opinion. You would have enjoyed it, considering your m2n example.

It is what it is. When I started playing PVP in earnest in 6.1, I ended up having so much more fun in the game than a raid ever made me feel. Quicker, more reactive, and variable. And doing a few PVP matches is less of a time commitment. Thus, I don't really see me really returning to proper progress raiding ever again.
Thats not to say Square Enix should cease creating raid content - raid content is just as important for the health of the player base as other content. And personally speaking, seeing people have fun raiding does make me smile. I love this game, and want it to succeed on every front.

[OMGJesuis66]

Cool opinion. Doesn't change the fact that someone seriously is suggesting removing the fight dev team when they don't even engage in the content. Especially when the main praise of the expansion has been the increased quality of the easy casual content both you and the dude I was speaking to seem to play exclusively.

And that shit is hilarious to see every single time. Sad to hear you lost that drive to raid though. Fru has been extremely fun. Best first phase we've ever had in my opinion. You would have enjoyed it, considering your m2n example.

Quality of the easy casual content? Where? There is no Casual content in Dawntrail, this is all planned for patch .3-4-5.

We are in .1.

And yes, the fight is a DDR. Safe spot will always be at A, then you move to B, sometimes you need to go to A, then move towards B as mechanic resolve. Now everyone to the center for a stack, now everyone spread.

The fact Ultimates are faster and harder, doesn't change the core concept. And if we are to praise battle combat just for Extremes and Ultimates, then hoo boy.

It surely isn't fun to only have content for a week or month while the next patch is in 6 months. Combat needs to be engaging beyond just those two contents. Which ain't a thing.

So, yeah, if your solution is: "Just go Raid Ultimates, bruh." Then you missed the point of the complaints.

[Kaurhz]

I agree in premise with the problems, but where you're pointing the stick is largely incorrect. It is not just the casual and less skilled players that went ahead and ruined dungeons, for example.

The blame is entirely with SE, and to think otherwise is ridiculous at best. Any given player will only voice their concern, and it is up to the developers to translate those complaints into a solution that works for the largely player base. The biggest issue in that they over-extend on how far they implement the feedback, going beyond what many players actually request for in the first place. You can see it evident in design then, and you can see it evident in design now. Not just in dungeons, but in raids and certainly in PvP. PvP being the latest example with.. "Let's just make everything slower instead"... Players stopped complaining about the difficulty of the game a long time ago, and they still progressed going down the path of simplicity, going so far as such that even many from the casual player-base were complaining, except in favor of some minute level of difficulty increase. SE took some fairly well reasoned feedback back in ARR/HW, decided to implement it, and then decided to continued to beat on that bush over, and over, and over again, going above and beyond - That is the problem.

You can also quite as easily conclude that part of the stale design is just down to how the dungeons were played, not just by casual players, but by anyone.. W2W pulling and crying when they cannot. - Speaking of stale design.. We can talk about this all day long, but realistically when was the last time half of you even did the optional puzzle in sunken temple... When was the last time half of you even bothered doing the optional rooms in Haukke Manor? Despite the rewards for the latter actually having pretty good prospects with the varnish.

Jobs you can also partially blame on people going "Well why do they have this and why don't I?", also a lot of the ease in how fast bosses fall is as much to with with potency inflation and stat reworks, especially everything pre-4.0.

This nonsense as you so put it won't finish with the casuals being quiet or not expressing their perspective on the game, because the problem isn't the casuals in the first place, and it's ridiculous posts such as these as to why there will never actually be a substantive conversation because you're more focused on pointing sticks at other players rather than the developers themselves, and again... Fault lies entirely with the developers.

[IOwn92FCHouses]

Quality of the easy casual content? Where? There is no Casual content in Dawntrail, this is all planned for patch .3-4-5.

We are in .1.

And yes, the fight is a DDR. Safe spot will always be at A, then you move to B, sometimes you need to go to A, then move towards B as mechanic resolve. Now everyone to the center for a stack, now everyone spread.

The fact Ultimates are faster and harder, doesn't change the core concept. And if we are to praise battle combat just for Extremes and Ultimates, then hoo boy.

It surely isn't fun to only have content for a week or month while the next patch is in 6 months. Combat needs to be engaging beyond just those two contents. Which ain't a thing.

So, yeah, if your solution is: "Just go Raid Ultimates, bruh." Then you missed the point of the complaints.

I'm not going to respond to you again until you speak in good faith and you don't put words in my mouth. You're so hell bent on your critique that you made up 4 things to argue against that I didn't actually say.

I can reasonably assume you know how to read, since you know how to type (even if it's mostly nonsense). Please try again.

[OMGJesuis66]

You're so hell bent on your critique that you made up 4 things to argue against that I didn't actually say.

Hm. Okay. So.

Especially when the main praise of the expansion has been the increased quality of the easy casual content both you and the dude I was speaking to seem to play exclusively.

#1 There's no casual content in the expansion yet.

You want more exciting fights? They're right there, waiting for you. Though I do understand that parroting things you've heard others say is far easier than working on your own gameplay and approach, it's unfair to speak of "exciting" combat without ever even attempting anything harder than normal 8 man raids.

Like, my man. You haven't even displaced the air around the surface of the game's combat, let alone scratching that surface.

#2 Trivializing other content beyond Unreal, Extremes and Ultimates as not scratching the surface of combat.

#3 In the same post you spoke of "parroting" opinions because someone critique over the game combat is invalid due them not progressing in other contents.

#4 You presented as solution for the problem, to go and do harder content.

Engaging gameplay need to exist beyond these contents. It is a valid point of argument, and until the devs stop looking only at making enticing gameplay to the hardest core loop, it will remain a valid point.

Doesn't matter if someone struggle to clear normal Raids, if the gameplay is not engaging everywhere else, the problem still persist.

A game behind queues where you wait to give your ticket so you can have your 5min gameplay is not a fun and engaging game.

God bless.

[Hallarem]

I don't need to watch grass grow for fifty days to know its a very boring and unimaginative task to watch grass grow.
I can observe a person watching grass grow to make that conclusion for myself.

It's faster DDR with everyone being a glorified DPS, with the boss resetting their position automatically if they aren't already a rooted wall boss. 10/10