The slow decline of FFXIV, a summary.

[Supersnow845]

Okay let me ask this to people

Anyone who has been around the forums long enough knows that im not happy with the state of the game and I can be annoyingly persisting with my opinions. It’s because I still think this game can change. But my patience is fading and I’m considering permanent outs. If 7.2 doesn’t wow me I likely won’t be around much longer. Sending things on the forum is basically just a side time spender while I’m doing something else

For those of you here that spend about as much time as me on the forum (you know who you are) but profess to love the game as it is genuinely what is your angle? If I enjoyed the game in its current form as much as you profess to right now I wouldn’t be on the forum. I’d be playing the game. Because I really don’t like having to be here and complaining when I want to play. If you enjoy the game as much as you do why aren’t you spending that time playing the game. Like what’s your endgame? What’s your angle?

It’s not even like it’s a case of “I enjoy x thing that I know is controversial in the community so I’ll go onto the forums and let the devs know I like x so they hopefully don’t change it” because in that case you’d respond to specific feedback and attempt to refute it rather than entering general threads like these and going “game is amazing I’m having fun”

Like please explain your reasoning because I don’t understand what benefit you are getting out of the forums

[NaoSen]

Okay let me ask this to people

Anyone who has been around the forums long enough knows that im not happy with the state of the game and I can be annoyingly persisting with my opinions. It’s because I still think this game can change. But my patience is fading and I’m considering permanent outs. If 7.2 doesn’t wow me I likely won’t be around much longer. Sending things on the forum is basically just a side time spender while I’m doing something else

For those of you here that spend about as much time as me on the forum (you know who you are) but profess to love the game as it is genuinely what is your angle? If I enjoyed the game in its current form as much as you profess to right now I wouldn’t be on the forum. I’d be playing the game. Because I really don’t like having to be here and complaining when I want to play. If you enjoy the game as much as you do why aren’t you spending that time playing the game. Like what’s your endgame? What’s your angle?

It’s not even like it’s a case of “I enjoy x thing that I know is controversial in the community so I’ll go onto the forums and let the devs know I like x so they hopefully don’t change it” because in that case you’d respond to specific feedback and attempt to refute it rather than entering general threads like these and going “game is amazing I’m having fun”

Like please explain your reasoning because I don’t understand what benefit you are getting out of the forums

For me it's basically a support / education / awareness group and in some cases awareness spreading (like stalker plugin).

I posted asking a month ago if issues brought up in this forum had ever changed things and the answer was no, which isnt a surprise since SE dont really care about feedback. I also asked about if maps are as bad as I feel they are or if its just in my head.
Content creators do farm the forums for content and maybe some points get brought up that spread awareness that make them in turn spread it.

Lets face it, if you truly dislike a game you not going to be in these forums, you would just uninstall, unsubscribe and never look back. I want the game to be good and I'm not just going to shut up and give up even if it feels hopeless.

[Red-thunder]

Okay let me ask this to people

Anyone who has been around the forums long enough knows that im not happy with the state of the game and I can be annoyingly persisting with my opinions. It’s because I still think this game can change. But my patience is fading and I’m considering permanent outs. If 7.2 doesn’t wow me I likely won’t be around much longer. Sending things on the forum is basically just a side time spender while I’m doing something else

For those of you here that spend about as much time as me on the forum (you know who you are) but profess to love the game as it is genuinely what is your angle? If I enjoyed the game in its current form as much as you profess to right now I wouldn’t be on the forum. I’d be playing the game. Because I really don’t like having to be here and complaining when I want to play. If you enjoy the game as much as you do why aren’t you spending that time playing the game. Like what’s your endgame? What’s your angle?

It’s not even like it’s a case of “I enjoy x thing that I know is controversial in the community so I’ll go onto the forums and let the devs know I like x so they hopefully don’t change it” because in that case you’d respond to specific feedback and attempt to refute it rather than entering general threads like these and going “game is amazing I’m having fun”

Like please explain your reasoning because I don’t understand what benefit you are getting out of the forums

I mean when half of the posts are just reply guys trying to one-up the criticism...

I don't think they actually care whether the game is good or not lmao, they just want to "counter the doom".

It's why 80% of them post in a snarky tone. Jeeqbit is the only "positive" (but honestly he's posting more balanced + negative points now) person who isn't just consumed by a need to snark on the "haters"

Also, notice how they have not said a single thing about healers in the last few LLs (although I don't watch them these days so I could be wrong) and interviews. I also kinda question if Yoshi P has even watched Zepla's video or some random intern just told him the gist. The forums functionally does nothing for a change in direction of their game, which is what people ultimately want because the game is stale now.

And even if it did something, it's usually on very small issues like localization bugs.

And even if it's a somewhat major issue it often seems like they completely misinterpret or put very little effort into it (e.g. more exciting 4-man dungeon content).

And even if they genuinely had some vision and cared about implementing requests properly I also don't think they know how to do anything other than dance dance revolution raids.

[Azurarok]

Also, notice how they have not said a single thing about healers in the last few LLs (although I don't watch them these days so I could be wrong) and interviews.

I'm not sure if they've even talked about jobs in PLLs besides the mandatory job adjustment ones before an expac releases since EW. Loosely recall seeing that happening during ShB though.

[Eraden]

And even if they genuinely had some vision and cared about implementing requests properly I also don't think they know how to do anything other than dance dance revolution raids.

This whats Mao afraid of. Mao been postings while Mao has little bits time left to try gets players to try get Devs attentions and let thems know DDR is borings and has no replay value. Mao nots so sure now that players care abouts that. Mao also nots sure Devs would even care if players did. Mao sad....

[TemporalFruitsAndVeggies]

This whats Mao afraid of. Mao been postings while Mao has little bits time left to try gets players to try get Devs attentions and let thems know DDR is borings and has no replay value. Mao nots so sure now that players care abouts that. Mao also nots sure Devs would even care if players did. Mao sad....

This game's combat system is pretty limiting, but they used to do some neat stuff back in the Alexander days. Feels like, since then, the #1 priority in encounter design has been allowing as much uptime as possible, and now almost every mechanic is just some variant of stack or spread.

[Valence]

This whats Mao afraid of. Mao been postings while Mao has little bits time left to try gets players to try get Devs attentions and let thems know DDR is borings and has no replay value. Mao nots so sure now that players care abouts that. Mao also nots sure Devs would even care if players did. Mao sad....

Feels like they promoted away all the talented writers, and when it comes to gameplay it's a bit like those music bands that start with some banger albums and once they get older their tastes just change and they serve you some incomprehensible soup.

[Supersnow845]

Feels like they promoted away all the talented writers, and when it comes to gameplay it's a bit like those music bands that start with some banger albums and once they get older their tastes just change and they serve you some incomprehensible soup.

“Promoting away their talent” seems to be the name of the game given the writer situation change between 6.0 and 6.x/7.0

[Mikey_R]

Like please explain your reasoning because I don’t understand what benefit you are getting out of the forums

Contrary to what you others might think, I reply to a lot of the more broad takes, and try and refine them into something that is actually useful feedback.

To give an example, when people come on here and say 'All jobs play the same' or other similar phrases. Ok, but that doesn't tell me anything as, objectively, the jobs do not play the same when looking at everything the have to offer, so what is the actual issue. Dig deeper, and you find they tend to say it is because jobs fall into the 2 minute meta and most have a 60 second personal buff window as well. This is mainly talking about the DPS side here.

Now, 2 minute meta is something people have complained about for ages, so, how do we fix it? Aligning buffs has always been a thing ever since Ninja was introduced with Trick Attack, going back to, say, Stormblood, where you had buffs of 90, 120 and 180 seconds could be an option. Don't need to go into detail there.

Another option would be to remove all temporary buff windows and allow jobs more flexibility in when they personally burst. This is an option I have mentioned in the past. It means you don't need to worry about fitting 2 Reawaken windows in the buff period, Getting 2 Enshrouds off etc. You can start to hold back a burst for when you need it, not just because the raid window says so. I also mentioned temporary buff windows for a reason, as that is the main cause for lining everything up. The full uptime buffs like Bard's songs and Standard Step do not have the same restrictions. This means, you can make jobs that have keeping up a raid buff part of their rotation. Bard already does this, Dancer does to an extent, but the timer is so lenient, it barely matters, tighten it up a bit and it would be a more engaging mechanic.

I do not think a mix of the above 2 would work (your opinion might differ). However, notice how we have taken a broad complaint, extracted what the issue actually is and worked to fix that. Similar things can be done to the personal buffs. Going by the second example with no temp. raid buffs, imagine if Perfect Balance was Monk's buff window, 4 GCDs of stronger attacks, short, but powerful. Useful for taking down adds quickly, similarly with Viper's Reawaken. However, keep Dragoon on a more strict timer, mainly because I have always viewed it as a more strict rotational job, and it becomes about, every X seconds, making sure you have everything lined up for the burst. Jobs burst differently and with different timers, again, helps to break away from that 60 second mould that seems to be an issue.

Now, by providing feedback on what actually matters we help to guide the team to the problems, by providing some ideas, we can give them an idea on what we would like to see. It all just helps and hopefully you can see this is a much better way to provide feedback and criticism than just saying, 'All jobs play the same, how would I change it? No idea, that is the devs jobs'. Ultimately, it is the devs job, yes, but you haven't liked what they have come up with so tell them what you want.

And, just so yo know I am not biased, when Yoshi P said on stage before DT release that 'we will look at job identity on 8.0', my first thought was, 'What the fuck does that even mean'. Ask 10 people what you think he means, get 10 different responses. And I don't mean just a generic, 'make jobs different', more specifically, how is he going to achieve that. It was, again, a broad statement that, to me, holds no meaning until I see the results.