patch 7.2 or next expansion

[ForteNightshade]

The problem I'm seeing with the community is asking for something then being upset when they're given what they ask for.

Except they weren't given what they asked for but instead a shallow or poorly executed variation of it. Hence the continued complains. You even go on to partially acknowledge that only to promptly gloss over it. So let's review

Exploratory Zone

I'd argue most people are generally pleased with what was shown during the last Live Letter. Yes, it's largely going to be the same as Eureka/Bozja, however that's more or less been the expectation. Those complaining now either never enjoyed that content to begin with, thus were always going to have a negative opinion of it or they're simply frustrated with other aspects of XIV like the stale gameplay. A major complaint even amongst those happy with Shade's Triangle is the content release schedule. It's been nearly a year into Dawntrail's lifespan and only now are we actually getting content with any sort of longevity that isn't raid specific. I suspect a fair number of people have reached that point of "too little, too late" where content they were once excited about they've soured on because it's simply taken far too long to release.

Criterion

They originally advertised Criterion as a split between casual, EX and Savage level difficulties. What we got was a casual version rendered so easy a toddler could complete it, an "EX" in name only that was closer to a lower tier Savage equivalent and a "Savage" mode that was a glorified achievement mode. In other words, they reneged on initial expectations and wound up only appealing to a very small demographic. Not at all helped was the downright horrendous reward structure. It's downright insulting you go through the frustrating difficulty of not making a single mistake only to be given an earring or housing item for your troubles. Even for the hardcore players who enjoyed this, a very common complaint was they found it boring because Savage does quite literally nothing different. They wanted new mechanics to prog, specifically to incentivize doing the actual Savage mode not going into "EX" for practice.

Meanwhile, the midcore to higher end casual players--which make up the overwhelming majority of players who would have any interest in content like this got nothing. Variant is not only comically easy, but is rendered completely pointless after four runs. Which can be completed in a couple hours at most. While Criterion "EX" was simply too difficult despite having the best rewards. Even if they were still pretty mid given the expected difficulty.

All in all, Criterion was hated because the devs pretty much catered to almost no one.

Island Sanctuary

Where do I even begin? Yoshida, in a rare example of terrible PR, widely overhyped what this was supposed to be. He outright stated the dev team was inspired by Animal Crossing, a statement that needed to be walked back several times due to how ridiculously misleading it was. It's truly baffling what they were trying to accomplish here. Who asked for what essentially began a glorified retainer venture? The devs kept insisting this was lifestyle content despite it having less depth than Farmville, a facebook mobile game that released in 2009. Even basic functions you'd expect from lifestyle content is absent. What you feed your animals doesn't matter, nothing you build has any real impact on the "farm" itself, tending to things like crops amounts to clicking on them once a day. Mentioning Island Sanctuary in even the same breath as Animal Crossing is, frankly, absurd.

Nobody, and I do mean nobody wanted anything remotely like what Island Sanctuary ended up being. Even those who did wind up enjoying it to some extent. Complaints were rampant because they didn't listen to a single thing people wanted from this sort of content. A piece of content so shallow they deliberately had to neuter their own gathering system just to give it some form of artificial longevity.

Chaotic

I'd argue the issue here is less the content itself, but the fact it's yet another raid when that's all they've been releasing. Which tends to build resentment when ten months into an expansion there's little else on offer. People are just fed up now.

[Daralii]

Island Sanctuary

Where do I even begin? Yoshida, in a rare example of terrible PR, widely overhyped what this was supposed to be. He outright stated the dev team was inspired by Animal Crossing, a statement that needed to be walked back several times due to how ridiculously misleading it was. It's truly baffling what they were trying to accomplish here. Who asked for what essentially began a glorified retainer venture? The devs kept insisting this was lifestyle content despite it having less depth than Farmville, a facebook mobile game that released in 2009. Even basic functions you'd expect from lifestyle content is absent. What you feed your animals doesn't matter, nothing you build has any real impact on the "farm" itself, tending to things like crops amounts to clicking on them once a day. Mentioning Island Sanctuary in even the same breath as Animal Crossing is, frankly, absurd.

Nobody, and I do mean nobody wanted anything remotely like what Island Sanctuary ended up being. Even those who did wind up enjoying it to some extent. Complaints were rampant because they didn't listen to a single thing people wanted from this sort of content. A piece of content so shallow they deliberately had to neuter their own gathering system just to give it some form of artificial longevity.

Don't forget that Yoshida's main takeaway from the Island Sanctuary feedback was that they "couldn't win" when trying to be "inventive" with non-raid content, so they were just going to stop.

[BigCheez]

Don't forget that Yoshida's main takeaway from the Island Sanctuary feedback was that they "couldn't win" when trying to be "inventive" with non-raid content, so they were just going to stop.

Do you have a source for this?

If they legitimately designed spreadsheet sanctuary and their main takeaway from the poor reception to it was that they just can't win, that would be slightly troubling.

[Xapapetsu]

[QUOTE=ForteNightshade;6667188]Except they weren't given what they asked for but instead a shallow or poorly executed variation of it. Hence the continued complains. You even go on to partially acknowledge that only to promptly gloss over it. So let's review

I actually agree with you on many of these points. Criterion and variant, although they are fun don't have much replay value due to the reward structure, I think it was a good form of content, it just needs to be improved on. I've always knew island sanctuary wasn't going to be content I would like but I just held my tongue since a lot of people seemed interested in it, there are a lot of things that could have been done differently and yoshi p did oversell it, but I'm wondering if it was originally planned out that way but changed over time due to limitations they ran into during testing, I can't really speak on that end because I don't know what happened during the testing phase. I think it was good to try it out but not at the expense of an expansion zone. As for only having raiding content at the beginning of an expansion, I'm a firm believer that expansion zones should be released at expansion released and then continue the standard patch cycle where it would be updated in patch x.2.

I've got my own personal issues with the game but I'm seeing it slowly move in a better direction. My issue is that raid content is frontloaded, but the game does absolutely nothing to prepare players for raid content. There's normal content, a big gap, then extreme and from extreme it's easy to move into savage and ultimate. What I think should be done is add hard dungeons and trials back into the game with interesting mechanics that could prepare players for extreme content, make it part of duty finder which I think was an issue with criterion, and make the reward structure on par with msq roulette and expert dungeons. I could speak on how FFXIV has an issue with currency bloat but that's a subject for another time.

Sorry I couldn't add the whole post, it was too long after my reply and the system would let me reply.

[Auro_Seldaris]

[QUOTE=Xapapetsu;6667399]

Except they weren't given what they asked for but instead a shallow or poorly executed variation of it. Hence the continued complains. You even go on to partially acknowledge that only to promptly gloss over it. So let's review

I actually agree with you on many of these points. Criterion and variant, although they are fun don't have much replay value due to the reward structure, I think it was a good form of content, it just needs to be improved on. I've always knew island sanctuary wasn't going to be content I would like but I just held my tongue since a lot of people seemed interested in it, there are a lot of things that could have been done differently and yoshi p did oversell it, but I'm wondering if it was originally planned out that way but changed over time due to limitations they ran into during testing, I can't really speak on that end because I don't know what happened during the testing phase. I think it was good to try it out but not at the expense of an expansion zone. As for only having raiding content at the beginning of an expansion, I'm a firm believer that expansion zones should be released at expansion released and then continue the standard patch cycle where it would be updated in patch x.2.

I've got my own personal issues with the game but I'm seeing it slowly move in a better direction. My issue is that raid content is frontloaded, but the game does absolutely nothing to prepare players for raid content. There's normal content, a big gap, then extreme and from extreme it's easy to move into savage and ultimate. What I think should be done is add hard dungeons and trials back into the game with interesting mechanics that could prepare players for extreme content, make it part of duty finder which I think was an issue with criterion, and make the reward structure on par with msq roulette and expert dungeons. I could speak on how FFXIV has an issue with currency bloat but that's a subject for another time.

Sorry I couldn't add the whole post, it was too long after my reply and the system would let me reply.

EDIT I actually agree with you on almost all of this. I VERY MUCH agree with you on the frontloaded raiding and difficulty spike of the game going from normal, to ex, to savage. I think honestly we're not that far off from each other, you just see me as 'complaining just to complain', when I actually want some of the same things you do in this post.

[Hallarem]

I think its perfect and honestly the devs should just do their own thing. Its that perfect MMO that comes once in a lifetime.
You think you want content, but then you get overwhelmed. And people get stressed out and anxious.

Please Yoshi P on behalf of the community! Dont change the formula or be pressured to try new things.
If they dont like it. They can leave

[USAFJerrySo]

I think its perfect and honestly the devs should just do their own thing. Its that perfect MMO that comes once in a lifetime.
You think you want content, but then you get overwhelmed. And people get stressed out and anxious.

Please Yoshi P on behalf of the community! Dont change the formula or be pressured to try new things.
If they dont like it. They can leave

Nice sarcasm

[Xapapetsu]

[QUOTE=Auro_Seldaris;6667419]

EDIT I actually agree with you on almost all of this. I VERY MUCH agree with you on the frontloaded raiding and difficulty spike of the game going from normal, to ex, to savage. I think honestly we're not that far off from each other, you just see me as 'complaining just to complain', when I actually want some of the same things you do in this post.

I don't particularly think you're complaining just to complain, same with many other people, you have valid concerns and actually explain why you're upset with why the game is how it is. The issue is that the people who do complain just to complain lump themselves in with you. When it comes to raid gear for criterion I'd actually like to see that, for current bis, it doesn't have to be 730 gear to outclass savage gear, it could be 725 gear to give that extra boost for anyone struggling with the savage tier. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that, plus the only reason to work towards bis is to run ultimates, if you're not doing that bis is practically worthless.