FF14 players are content with the slop because they barely play other games

[Jojoya]

I keep seeing people complaining about how FFXIV is bad and how other MMOs are doing it better.

What MMOs are those?

I know it's not WoW. I've been playing WoW for the last 6 months. The "slop" there looks different but overall it's still slop.

My problem with FFXIV right now is story and environment aesthetics. The Dawntrail story has been poorly done and I'm not into the neon cyberpunk/streetgear look. The 7.2 MSQ still doesn't impress me even if it's an improvement over what we've seen so far this expansion. I can't generate enough interest anymore to make it worth paying a subscription.

The only advantage WoW has for me right now over FFXIV is that I don't have to pay to play (very easy to make gold to get a WoW token). Being on a limited income for a few more months before my financial situation gets straightened out, that makes a big difference for me. Otherwise both have their good parts and bad parts. I won't call WoW a game that does it better when it doesn't.

But if someone can list other MMORPGs that are better and what specifically makes them better, it could be I'll find a new MMORPG to play until FFXIV swings back to what it was like in the past when it comes to story/aesthetic (if it ever does).

If all people are doing is throwing out a mysterious other MMORPG as a reason for the devs to do better without having knowledge and experience of a specific better game, then we're all having our time wasted. The devs aren't going to be motivated by threats of players moving to another game that doesn't exist.

Good that you admit it. That's the one defining trait of MMO players in general. They don't know what they're missing out on.

In many ways, yes.

But the reason to play a MMO is primarily the social experience. Less than stellar game play doesn't have as much of an impact when your concern is having fun while playing with others.

If playing with others doesn't seem like fun under the current game systems, players have themselves to blame for prioritizing personal QoL at the individual level over the social experience, which will always lead to a need to compromise.

To me MMORPGs were at their best when players were restricted to playing with others on their home server. You would start seeing the same players around all the time. It paid to get to know some of the them, learn who were good people versus who were jerks, who were good players versus who were bad. There was more incentive to help other players because finding a reliable replacement for your raid group would be dependent on who was available on your server.

Now for the sake of convenience, other players are disposable assets not worth knowing or investing in. The connections we make are more business than personal in nature. If someone isn't already up to your gear/clear standards, you're going to ignore them instead of taking a chance and letting them prove themselves.

We've done it to ourselves. The major changes that game developers have made in their games over the years have been in response to player feedback and complaints.

Many say that players don't know what they want. I disagree. We know what we want. What most players don't know is how things need to work for us to get what we want. Clearly all these supposed QoL changes made over the years haven't done it when players are still so unhappy.