Honestly, What's the verdict for you?

[AvoSturmfaust]

You're right - if you play the same game for many years, and a game that sticks to the same on-rails formula for all of those years, of course you'll hit a personal break point.

But then I wonder if they are just OK with veterans quitting because at some point the same-same-same formula gets the best of them.

Of course they are fine with it, after all there are 3 Reasons for it

1. Yoshi always said quit the game come back sooner
2. We still get new player thats something we cant forget
3. He knows that most people still stay subbed, why do you think do they keep with through all the years the same housingsystem? because they know people are emotional bounded to stuff like that and keep the sub rolling

[Daralii]

The problem is the writing has taken a total nosedive. DT is so juvenile and horribly written compared to the previous expansions. There is nothing keeping intrigued or entertained. In fact, I don't give a f--k what happens to anyone at this point.

Some people try to rationalize it with "Clearly all the 1.X and ARR boomers moved on after EW, so they pivoted to the Shounen Jump audience", but I don't see how people in their teens would put up with the long stretches of absolutely nothing happening in DT's MSQ.

[Raikai]

I believe that all 3 are planned like before. But they are definitely planned.

It's wild to me that they didn't consider evening out their release schedule. Assuming the 1st one comes 7.3(.5?), then all three of them are back to back until 7.5.

Their expansions lacks meaty content in the first half, the perfect timing for the V&C dungeons would be 7.1.5 / 7.3.5/ 7.5.5

[Rolder50]

you see its kinda always similiar with the difference in DT which adds now everything, so its really just maybe a issue on your side if you play the same game many many years it just starts to get boring and bland escpecially if you dont do all the content out there

but in the end its just a game and i dont wanna sound rude but your house, your fc etc thats just some ingame shit, sooner or later if the servers shut down in the future it will happen anyway i wouldnt bother with it if you are really unlucky right now

In my eyes, job design is also a huge factor here. Jobs are the lens through which you do literally everything, so if the job design is getting worse, then all the other content is going to feel worse as a direct result, even if the content hasn’t changed.

[OlafQuintessa]

The problem is the writing has taken a total nosedive. DT is so juvenile and horribly written compared to the previous expansions. There is nothing keeping intrigued or entertained. In fact, I don't give a f--k what happens to anyone at this point.

This is exactly it. Fine, there's all this stuff to do just like before but instead of inhabiting a world with rich characters and an engrossing story it's now hard to care about anyone or anything that's happening. The msq and the characters, as other people have said lots of times before, is the glue that holds everything together (ok I guess for some people it's job design, but there's a glue missing now nonetheless). When you don't have that the game just seems barren and falls apart. The new content would have to be really really good to make up for it, but it appears to be just.. average.

Honestly, I think what would make things better is an apology from Yoshi and an explanation: I want to retire so I'm trying to hand over to someone else, or, we only have half a team because we're working on FF 17, or whatever. Given a bit of honesty I think most people would be happy again and would be right behind the new developers. There's an enormous amount of passion and love for the game in this community - that's why it hurts to be told oh the games just not for you any more. Why not? We had a busy, growing, excited FC during Shadowbringers and Endwalker, but since then loads of people have left and not come back. What's so good about that?

As for where I'm at - I was so sick of DT I handed over my FC and took a few months break, then decided to start again on a new server for a fresh experience (third playthrough - last time was 5 years ago). Now I'm in love with ARR again and going slow in the run up to HW. I'm doing the ARR crafter relics from scratch, beast tribes, collecting TT cards, fishing, levelling etc. I've realised that endgame is the worst place to be unless you do savage and basically everything endgame is savage now (yes, to a casual, extremes, chaotic, savage are all the same thing). ARR has obviously been polished since it released and it's a great time - much better than DT! I really enjoy the feeling of building things up. So I guess I'm happy with ffxiv again, but not exactly for the reasons I should be.

[Kandraxx]

Of course they are fine with it, after all there are 3 Reasons for it

1. Yoshi always said quit the game come back sooner
2. We still get new player thats something we cant forget
3. He knows that most people still stay subbed, why do you think do they keep with through all the years the same housingsystem? because they know people are emotional bounded to stuff like that and keep the sub rolling

Except that 1 will only work if all you care for is the MSQ. The way things are now most group content will be dead or at least very hard to get into if you don’t ride the hype wave when things are fresh the first 4 weeks or so. And it will only get worse as more and more players who are playing for content (as opposed to a Barbie House sim) are quitting the game for good.

I have this weird gut feeling that this game will become the same as today's Guild Wars 2, where on the gameplay side there's nothing but tryhards left who play for 20hrs a day and on the other side "I play for glamours" town idlers and emote kings with almost nothing in between.

[yesnt]

Innovation doesnt work with the current FFXIV Community. I mean take a look at the Phantom Jobs its something new and people already complaining like shit, you know how new things in the world are innovated? with trial & error, experiements and fails but the FFXIV Community doesnt even give Square the Room for Fails and Experiments because the moment something is only 1% off like 99% is perfect 1% is bad, i guarantee you the people here will focus on the single 1% not the 99% which is good

To be honest, when they introduced phantom jobs in the live letter, I expected we'd actually get new jobs for this instance since it's called a job. The way it's worded made it sound like there was a bit of a bigger system behind this, but it's just additional actions. The actions are not terrible but seriously... you can not call this an innovation?

[Astronema]

1\10 they crapped the bed with dt. Fatal mortal wound.

[CCheshire]

As for where I'm at - I was so sick of DT I handed over my FC and took a few months break, then decided to start again on a new server for a fresh experience (third playthrough - last time was 5 years ago). Now I'm in love with ARR again and going slow in the run up to HW. I'm doing the ARR crafter relics from scratch, beast tribes, collecting TT cards, fishing, levelling etc. I've realised that endgame is the worst place to be unless you do savage and basically everything endgame is savage now (yes, to a casual, extremes, chaotic, savage are all the same thing). ARR has obviously been polished since it released and it's a great time - much better than DT! I really enjoy the feeling of building things up. So I guess I'm happy with ffxiv again, but not exactly for the reasons I should be.

Honestly, the idea of re-playing ARR all over again w/o all my paid and event items is too harsh for my imagination, so I've never focused on an alt. I do like hanging out in DT, knowing that I don't need to worry about leveling alt jobs or having to wait for new content like OC since I'm maxed and I don't need to worry about like struggling to farm old extreme mounts, which is my main goal atm.

Also, I started doing old DT Ex, and it's not too bad, really like I can't bring myself to do FT or Savage, but Extreme, I can do it as long as it's not Ex4.

Finally, eh, wouldn't all roads eventually lead back to DT, tho? I mean, even if it takes much longer, you're still going to have to do DT all over again if you unlock everything else too.

[Kranel_San]

I mean lets be real for a Second, the Content really didnt change much, maybe its on your side because you played that game quit long and see now how it really is.

Lets break it down a bit.

Heavensward :
3 Normal Raidtiers + Savage Raidtiers
Diadem
7 Ex Trials
3 Alli Raids
a few Dungeons
3 Beasttribes

Stormblood :
3 Normal Raidtiers + Savage Raidtiers
Doman Restoration
7 Ex Trials
3 Alli Raids
a few Dungeons
HoH
Ultimate
3 Beasttribes
Eureka + BA

ShB:
3 Normal Raidtiers + Savage Raidtiers
7 Ex Trials
3 Alli Raids
Bozja (Which incluces 2 Large Operation and 1 48 Raid + the Savage Version of it)
a few Dungeons
Ultimate
3 Beasttribes

EW:
3 Normal Raidtiers + Savage Raidtiers
7 Ex Trials
3 Alli Raids
a few Dungeons
Eureka Ortho
Ultimate
3 Beasttribes
Criterion
Island Sanctuary

DT: Currently at it


you see its kinda always similiar with the difference in DT which adds now everything, so its really just maybe a issue on your side if you play the same game many many years it just starts to get boring and bland escpecially if you dont do all the content out there

but in the end its just a game and i dont wanna sound rude but your house, your fc etc thats just some ingame shit, sooner or later if the servers shut down in the future it will happen anyway i wouldnt bother with it if you are really unlucky right now

You do know that your argument proves he's right? In comparison to other successful MMOs, this game follows an almost static formula, which is the issue.

• Deep dungeons are a re-skin of PotD.
• OC is just an open area with FATEs and Hunt bosses, without the usual ecosystem of exploration zones (See Eureka for reference, where it feels like a mini-MMO, or Bozja which actually gives you a feeling that you're fighting a war, but still has a trade system and around 100 lost actions)
• Dungeons: Actually this time they're much better than EW in terms of difficulty, which in itself is actually a good direction! Although they're a linear path nowadays. Wall to wall pulls that get pretty dull. Take a look at WoW for example, while yes they do have the usual linear dungeons. They also have other varieties of dungeons, like a tower defense dungeon, or a dungeon that let you decide which boss you want to face first. This feeling of refreshment is much needed. In fact, I'd welcome it if they even add optional secret dungeon bosses every now and then to encourage players for exploration, something I liked about ESO which is another MMO.

I could go on, but you get the idea. This game needs new blood, a refreshment. Flare things up! Make it exciting!