Live letters have lost their magic - Zepla

[Oizen]

I dont think this game's LLs were ever good. They're very slow, very long winded and I generally find the optimal way to watch them is at 20x speed or just reading clip notes after the fact.
I dont care to watch Yoshida hold up Printer Paper of random armor sets and I'd prefer a 5 minute edited video with actual subtitles rather than a 6 hour slog thats tryinng to spread 5 minutes of content over 6 hours.

I feel this way about fanfests too, they're not worth watching.

[Veritas-Ancora]

I dont think this game's LLs were ever good. They're very slow, very long winded and I generally find the optimal way to watch them is at 20x speed or just reading clip notes after the fact.
I dont care to watch Yoshida hold up Printer Paper of random armor sets and I'd prefer a 5 minute edited video with actual subtitles rather than a 6 hour slog thats tryinng to spread 5 minutes of content over 6 hours.

I feel this way about fanfests too, they're not worth watching.

Your join date suggests you joined 4 years ago. If you're that new to the game, I can totally understand your perspective.

Live Letters used to have a full half hour to an hour of reading the forums and responding back to the community. They were exciting and informational.

They started doing away with that around Stormblood. When we got into Shadowbringers/Endwalker, the videos became a lot more formulaic instead of interactive. The Q&A was replaced by a random development team member (who were usually very shy and didn't seem like they wanted to be on the video). Then they started doing away with that too. Now it's just a lot of filler.

When Zepla was talking about times when Live Letters were exciting, I'm pretty sure she meant back then. Now you can tell what they're going to cover before you even start watching them. The formula is so structured that you can scroll through the video and know exactly what to expect.

[Exmo]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ike_dawntrail/

"I liked it!", with no explanation of why. Meanwhile those that don't spend literally paragraphs explaining why, in detail, it's a bad story and bad expansion.

There are even literally two "I loved it!" directly in a row with basically no elaboration. And I found that in like, 2 minutes of searching on Reddit for "Dawntrail I liked it"

I'm literally not going to engage with you any further on this.

Ok that's fine.

I'll address the example anyway. For reference, here's what it's supposed to be an example of.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6676438

People have written "laser-focused, good-faith critique" of Dawntrail. There have been forum threads with lengthy posts discussing and dissecting the problems with DT's plot, characterization, world-building, job design, staleness and repetitiveness of content, etc. There have been many of these threads, all done in good faith and with reasonable attempts at discourse. Do you know what happens to those threads?

They get buried in an avalanche of simplistic "I LIKED IT!" or "YOU'RE JUST A HATER, A DOOMPOSTER, A TROLL."

The link you give...
- is a reddit post, not a thread in this forum
- of someone saying they liked DT, not criticizing it
- that gets normal responses from people, not buried in rabid positivity.

There are a few replies where people write 5 paragraphs criticizing DT, but others respond to them mostly normally.

There are a few people who post short comments praising DT, but there's no avalanche and no-one's being shouted down.

Overall, this is a bad example in every way. Since you've said you won't give any more examples, we'll end it there.

[Oizen]

Your join date suggests you joined 4 years ago. If you're that new to the game, I can totally understand your perspective.

Live Letters used to have a full half hour to an hour of reading the forums and responding back to the community. They were exciting and informational.

They started doing away with that around Stormblood. When we got into Shadowbringers/Endwalker, the videos became a lot more formulaic instead of interactive. The Q&A was replaced by a random development team member (who were usually very shy and didn't seem like they wanted to be on the video). Then they started doing away with that too. Now it's just a lot of filler.

When Zepla was talking about times when Live Letters were exciting, I'm pretty sure she meant back then. Now you can tell what they're going to cover before you even start watching them. The formula is so structured that you can scroll through the video and know exactly what to expect.

I've been here since Heavensward but I didnt join the forums til Shadowbringers, I just never could get into them even back then. Something about waiting til 6am for a non-translated slow as shit video slogging through whatever the game was getting never really kept my interest.
I'll give you they used to interact with the community a bit more, the last time I can even remember that happening during a LL was what? Very early endwalker had a Q&A on the forums, I think? And even then they picked the absolute safest and easiest questions to answer.

But I stand by the statement that I'd rather have a profesionally edited, officially translated video that covers the content in a reasonable time rather than the strange live stream marathons we get now. You know the bog standard for the game industry.

[Wilford111]

I find it funny that you don't include the MSQ in the 'the actual game'. I don't think that most people quit because of DT story. They quit because of the bad DT story and the lack of 'the actual game'.

The Dawntrail msq takes maybe 40 hours to complete (I don't know exact numbers) but everything after that is hundreds and hundreds of hours of content. Right now I have 11,000 hours on Steam alone and I still have many more to come (trying to get all the mounts in the game... 7 left!)

So yeah, the msq is a very minute part of the game as a whole.

[Kozh]

And it’s not something the devs can fix with the flick of a switch. Disillusionment, pessimism, and apathy are coercive. They’re demoralizing, not just for yourself, but for the entire community. It’s self-harming.

The public lynching of positive thinking—bringing others down for showing optimism, as if misery is the only appropriate response to critique that isn’t productive. It never will be.

Devs have shown time again and again that they don't bother with constructive criticism, nor do they give indicator that they acknowledge it. So don't be surprised when people go from still caring about the game to jaded/apathetic.

And for the love of god, stop playing victim, will you? FF14 community is notorious for shooting down any criticism and public lynching of those who dare to say anything negative. "GCBTW" meme exists for a reason, just saying.

[Wired-Lain]

I dont think this game's LLs were ever good. They're very slow, very long winded and I generally find the optimal way to watch them is at 20x speed or just reading clip notes after the fact.
I dont care to watch Yoshida hold up Printer Paper of random armor sets and I'd prefer a 5 minute edited video with actual subtitles rather than a 6 hour slog thats tryinng to spread 5 minutes of content over 6 hours.

I feel this way about fanfests too, they're not worth watching.

Yeah, I think we all just gave them leeway because the game was in a good place and the humble approach to dropping news was sort of charming and personable. Now it just feels like a shoddy waste of time, even though nothing has changed about the LLs themselves.

[ElysiumDragon]

These aren't exactly baseless concerns though, really.. If the general population is dropping and if the number of overall returner players is lowering, then yeah, there's a concern. Sure, we can dance around the "ThE NuMbErS ArEnT ThAt BaD" all day long, but the general decline in population is nothing to scoff at, especially when the reason for it you can pretty easily ascribe to their current formulas.

A lot of players have had their wishes, and content type ignored for well over 4 years, and they should very little enthusiasm in actually curbing this issue, or putting the necessary investment or changes to the core content pipeline to mitigate that issue.

Based on their current trajectory, we will get the final iteration of Occult Crescent in, what? 7.55 with a new area and new Phantom Jobs, then in 8.25, we will get whatever content type or new iteration of Exploratory. This will still be an 18 month gap between the major content types for the general player base.

If you don't think these issues are tied pretty exclusively to the steadily declining player base, or if you don't think it will continue to decline expansion-by-expansion, then I really don't know what to tell you. The numbers are OK, but the trajectory of where it is heading is not good. If the content pipeline trajectory continues on the path, then so will the dwindling population as a result.

Again, these aren't really baseless concerns.. Obviously they are not as extensive as some believe, but the trend is heading that way. Sure we'll see a small population explosion when the expansion launches, but it will also go right down again, and then it's a question of how low if we're already heading to Stormblood numbers. Then you also need to consider this is probably the first expansion in a very long time where they've visibly annoyed casual folk and story-enjoyers.

As for the PLL, the content and structure is exactly the same, but the passion isn't there.... The way I would consider it, is that it's like taking certain courses on LinkedIn, or general corporate training materials (e.g., manual training) where the overall tone is so monotonal that it's so hard to actually watch with passion to learn.. Then when you compare it to some on-demand optional instructional training resources where the passion is very visible.

It's very easy to spot passion, even in text form.. and much easier in video, and this just ain't it tbh.

Notice how I'm not typically criticising the substance of the complaints in and of themself, but the motivations of those making them? I can say the game's not in a great spot, but also not go full "WOKE LMAO, FFXIV LITERALLY DYING, 4 HOUR VIDEO ESSAY ON WHY EVERYTHING SUCKS AND THE DEVS SHOULD ALL BE FIRED, HERE'S MY HOUR LONG RANT ON WHY THE GAME'S TERRIBAD NOW, AND IT'S ALL THE CASUALS FAULT".

Seriously, why is every other thread on Dawntrail basically the above?

[Veritas-Ancora]

Notice how I'm not typically criticising the substance of the complaints in and of themself, but the motivations of those making them? I can say the game's not in a great spot, but also not go full "WOKE LMAO, FFXIV LITERALLY DYING, 4 HOUR VIDEO ESSAY ON WHY EVERYTHING SUCKS AND THE DEVS SHOULD ALL BE FIRED, HERE'S MY HOUR LONG RANT ON WHY THE GAME'S TERRIBAD NOW, AND IT'S ALL THE CASUALS FAULT".

Seriously, why is every other thread on Dawntrail basically the above?

I'm personally tired of everybody saying the game is "woke" -- what does that even mean? Diversity in the characters? Real-life symbolism? The whole concept of "woke" immediately dings off 100 intelligence points from an argument.

I think you can constructively address the game's faults without using deadbrain catchphrases.

[User202503201232]

Notice how I'm not typically criticising the substance of the complaints in and of themself, but the motivations of those making them?

For once they admit to it!

Tone policing is real and alive folks.