Announcements from Letter from the Producer Live Part LXXXV (85) - 7 February 2025

[Hallarem]

Does anyone have any acceptance pills to the fact that they are never going to surmount to anything great. Leaving QoL and system improvements to the dust.

And that I am basically paying a sub for a free to play quality game.

I'll take copium in any form too. - Final Scifi-"fantasy" fan

[Arrius]

Does anyone have any acceptance pills to the fact that they are never going to surmount to anything great. Leaving QoL and system improvements to the dust.

And that I am basically paying a sub for a free to play quality game.

I'll take copium in any form too. - Final Scifi-"fantasy" fan

If WoW's bad showcase of BFA and Shadowlands along with their internal drama proves anything, then it's that MMO gamers keep playing their MMO's even when the company gets (rightfully) dragged through the dirt.
That's why any MMO that had a measure of quality are still around after 10+ years or have been revived as private servers with a considerable player count.

So yeah, enjoy the shouting into the void. They'll always come back.

[Avoidy]

Does anyone have any acceptance pills to the fact that they are never going to surmount to anything great. Leaving QoL and system improvements to the dust.

And that I am basically paying a sub for a free to play quality game.

I'll take copium in any form too. - Final Scifi-"fantasy" fan

Honestly at the rate new content is introduced, I'm thinking my friend had the right idea all along. Dude basically comes back for a new expansion (.0), enjoys it, and then quits until .55. He returns and spends a whopping three weeks doing all the content the entire post-expansion had for him, and then he can enjoy .0 when it rolls around too. Then he quits again for two more years. Pretty sure he only continued like that because he was invested in the story though. He did not return for DT afaik.

[Iscah]

Honestly at the rate new content is introduced, I'm thinking my friend had the right idea all along. Dude basically comes back for a new expansion (.0), enjoys it, and then quits until .55. He returns and spends a whopping three weeks doing all the content the entire post-expansion had for him, and then he can enjoy .0 when it rolls around too. Then he quits again for two more years. Pretty sure he only continued like that because he was invested in the story though. He did not return for DT afaik.

Not a bad way to play (if you don't just enjoy having access to it any time), treating it more like a game series that has a release every two years, though I think doing it that way would bug me when each "release" is the second half of the game from two years ago. If I was going to go that route, I think I'd have to take the extra bit of self-control to just not play the base expansion until all its patches are out. Although then again, the patch end into new expansion tends to be a cliffhanger while the base expansions usually end more solidly.

I've kept up my sub thus far but I've lost the pull to enjoy it as much as before because the graphics update has made me not want to touch most of my alts any more, so that desire to constantly visit the game and collect things for each of them is lost. I still enjoy the gameplay but I'm only coming to do that when I feel like doing it.

[Shougun]

Not a bad way to play (if you don't just enjoy having access to it any time), treating it more like a game series that has a release every two years, though I think doing it that way would bug me when each "release" is the second half of the game from two years ago. If I was going to go that route, I think I'd have to take the extra bit of self-control to just not play the base expansion until all its patches are out. Although then again, the patch end into new expansion tends to be a cliffhanger while the base expansions usually end more solidly.

I've kept up my sub thus far but I've lost the pull to enjoy it as much as before because the graphics update has made me not want to touch most of my alts any more, so that desire to constantly visit the game and collect things for each of them is lost. I still enjoy the gameplay but I'm only coming to do that when I feel like doing it.

What a crappy way to lose interest, sorry about that : /


I generally like the graphic update but I have noticed grass lighting is a bit weird when moving now (looks great stationary), and I can tell they went a bit further on the models than I had thought they would have. Anyway, while I don't mind the change I still read that and go "damn, that sucks ...".

[CuteBucket]

I've kept up my sub thus far but I've lost the pull to enjoy it as much as before because the graphics update has made me not want to touch most of my alts any more, so that desire to constantly visit the game and collect things for each of them is lost. I still enjoy the gameplay but I'm only coming to do that when I feel like doing it.

I feel this. Previously, even when I ran out of things to do on my main, I'd just load up my story alt to play through older content. I just genuinely loved playing the game and experiencing the story all over again that much. But Dawntrail ruined her face. She looks like a total uncanny stranger to me now. She looks like a creepy mannequin with these dead eyes and a mouth that looks painted on, not organic. It's so jarring and hard to look at that I genuinely cannot play as her anymore. She is a character I'd grown to love over years as I used her to take my time with the content and really take things at my own pace as opposed to my main when I was trying to catch up to end game to play with my friends. It feels like she died six months ago and the game isn't the same without her. That sounds dramatic, I know, but it really is the feeling like having a beloved character killed off in a stupid way or badly replaced/recast. It just sucks.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Honestly at the rate new content is introduced, I'm thinking my friend had the right idea all along. Dude basically comes back for a new expansion (.0), enjoys it, and then quits until .55. He returns and spends a whopping three weeks doing all the content the entire post-expansion had for him, and then he can enjoy .0 when it rolls around too. Then he quits again for two more years. Pretty sure he only continued like that because he was invested in the story though. He did not return for DT afaik.

This is exactly how I played until Endwalker. It works well. No treadmill either as you can easily just work on the final tomestone gear and call it a day.

[Supersnow845]

This is exactly how I played until Endwalker. It works well. No treadmill either as you can easily just work on the final tomestone gear and call it a day.

The problem with this is if everyone did this the game would die overnight.

The privilege people have of “only subbing when they want” only works because there is a core players that is constantly subbed (but is hollowing out)

[ZephyrMenodora]

The problem with this is if everyone did this the game would die overnight.

The privilege people have of “only subbing when they want” only works because there is a core players that is constantly subbed (but is hollowing out)

I agree, but that would be the devs' problem, and not the problem of someone who only plays 2 months every expansion. I'm sure there are so many new stories (like Kingdom Come that just came out) to take up time and expansions written on the level of DT would not be missed at all. These players seem to mostly play this as a story-based RPG, and if the story is bad it would be an easy skip. (In fact, I just saw in Avoidy's story - the friend didn't even come back for DT and that exists now.)

The decreasing quality is definitely a concern for players who want XIV to be a more consistent part of their gaming time for sure.

[YumieYumiki]

The problem with this is if everyone did this the game would die overnight.

No, it would force them to do some efforts. FFXIV is not a "stay subbed indefinitely" game as it stands (but then again I believe that no game is or possibly can be, the people who do keep subbed all year long probably have a bad case of sunk cost fallacy). If they want more than 2 month worth of subscription every expansion then they need to work for it.

By the way being able not to stay subbed long term is not a privilege, it is a right. Having customers that are willing to remain subbed for long period of times, on the other hand, IS a privilege.