Occult is awful, and I enjoyed both Eureka and Bozja greatly

[Astronema]

You have no gold, not because the drop rate of gold isn't high, but because you haven't done the content that drops gold.

If you do the content that drops gold you realize very quickly how much faster gold drops than silver relative to the amount you need to purchase items out of the shop.

1 hour of 8 man gold farming gives you the buying power equivalent of 6+ hours of silver farming.

Content like that is low class busywork like I had to do on anarchy online Farmering heckler rock golems for 200 levels

[DoubleJustice]

I think fate/CE farming is much more boring, and needs to be done for a significantly much longer time. Overworld shared fate grinding has much more variety than what is is present in OC that's just... Boss you've fought 10x already, boss you've fought 10 times already, Yay! boss you've only fought 8 times woohoo! Either way regardless of which grind you prefer, both are busy work.

I'm not telling you that you need to enjoy gold farming. Or even that you need to do it. Gold farming is still undeniably significantly more lucrative in terms of time spent>buying power gained. To say otherwise is just mathematically incorrect.

[KazuyaKurogane]

1. Go-go-go Gameplay taken to the max. The optimal gameplay that everyone has devolved into is sprinting to a FATE, killing it in 5 seconds, returning, immediately sprinting to the next FATE, killing it 5 seconds, returning, sprinting to another FATE, returning and then sprinting to the CE.
There is no chill downtime with the gameplay loop, and the unlimited return function seems to only encourage this. The gameplay map seems incredibly small, as you're only ever sprinting to the same couple of FATEs, instantly returning, and teleporting to the next FATE.

I 100% agree with this one..
Honestly I feel so much stressed out with FATE/CE sprinting..

Would be nicer if they let the group leader queue the whole group for a CE like they did in Bozja..
It gives people a bit more time to do other stuff and you don't have to rush everywhere.. I haven't even fully unlocked the map or found all notes because I always feel like I waste my time if I don't farm FATES/CE in OC..

Other than that if we talk about SE and their content releases..
It's just sad..
I took one month break from the game.. From the release of Cosmic Exploration till the Release of OC..
Being one of the people who enjoy crafting/gathering it's sad how few people are even doing Cosmic Exploration anymore..
It's not really engaging for those who are more of a casual crafter/gatherer..
Big Projects on the Moon are failing because there are only 4 people doing those (at least on my world) so after 40 minutes you barely reach 20 - 25% completion..

The normal "Fates" are doable only as a Pilot of a Mecha.. But if you wanna get the achievements you have to go in there as support.. Which isn't doable without at least one pilot..

All of that just kinda died after one month..


But to be completely honest.. SE didn't change anything since ARR in terms of "Endgame Content for Casuals"
You have your tomes which you have to grind to get better gear.. Then you get 3 Alliance Raids through Patch X.1 till X.5 to upgrade the tome gear..
And that's it.. I'm playing for 10 years now and it's the same..
It's only been enjoyable because of the design of the content and doing them with friends..

[KazuyaKurogane]

Same with max level dungeons.. Since the release of Shadowbringers we get fewer max lvl dungeons..
With each Expansion there are only 2 optional dungeons and the others are always MSQ related..

In ARR/HW/SB we had so many optional dungeons and it helped a lot to not get boring because you did the same 2 dungeons over and over again.. for at least 4 months until the older one of the two gets kicked out of expert roulette and you get one new dungeon into expert roulette..

The next thing is head gear for Viera/Hrotghar..
It's been almost 6 years since the release of ShB and the introduction of Viera/Hrothgar..
And yet only very few head gear items are available..
Well.. if they would struggle with head gear that was available before the release of ShB I would be kinda fine with it..
But they put new head gear into the game and even most of that is not visible..
And don't forget the cosmic gear they put in the Online Store..
Even for that it's not possible..

Honestly if SE doesn't change things with 8.0 they're gonna lose a lot of casual players..
Most of them are only online because of their friends and not because of the content..

[Mawlzy]

Other than that if we talk about SE and their content releases..
It's just sad..
I took one month break from the game.. From the release of Cosmic Exploration till the Release of OC..
Being one of the people who enjoy crafting/gathering it's sad how few people are even doing Cosmic Exploration anymore..
It's not really engaging for those who are more of a casual crafter/gatherer..
Big Projects on the Moon are failing because there are only 4 people doing those (at least on my world) so after 40 minutes you barely reach 20 - 25% completion..

The normal "Fates" are doable only as a Pilot of a Mecha.. But if you wanna get the achievements you have to go in there as support.. Which isn't doable without at least one pilot..

All of that just kinda died after one month..

I popped up to the moon to watch the development on the base on the replay video. There were 3 instances with 5,3,3 people respectively.

Apart from the content being dull, the closeness of the release of Cosmic Explo and Occult Crescent simply killed the former.

I'm struggling to understand how SE consistently fails to anticipate issues like this that are are completely predictable.

[KazuyaKurogane]

Yeah, most of the time in all 3 instances there are at prime times (which I don't know when they actually are) maybe around 20ish people inside..

And yet we still struggle with the big project because not all of these 20ish people are even participating..

Thinking back to Ishgard Restoration, there were always a lot of people..
It even has the same stuff to do (except the crafter/gatherer relic, that was not related to Ishgard Restoration itself) the only difference is that we don't have to grind the mats for the crafts..
But I guess some had different goals..
I mean.. You had the contest for most points on each crafter and you could get one or two special titles if you're doing well..
But to get into the top 10 and stay there, you really had to craft almost 24/7 until the period was done..

Now, you can get your hologram and your name on a leaderboard and stay there for two weeks..
Don't know if there is any other special price you can get..

Guess I'm just getting to old for that game and my high time in ffxiv ended with maybe ShB..
But I don't wanna quit either.. I'm playing for 10 years and it's hard to see how the game evolves right now..
And yet I can't stop playing (maybe being not so active anymore and turning more into a solo player) because I'm too curious with the MSQ..

I enjoyed most of the DT MSQ, yeah it isn't perfect and it took a while until it catched me..
But I think that's also a problem with how SE reveals stuff for the next Expansion..

Showing Artworks of Solution 9 and any stuff you see after MSQ lvl 95 is too much..
I rather see less and get taken by surprise than seeing artworks for everything before it's even there..

[Fawkes]

Thinking back to Ishgard Restoration, there were always a lot of people..
It even has the same stuff to do (except the crafter/gatherer relic, that was not related to Ishgard Restoration itself) the only difference is that we don't have to grind the mats for the crafts..
But I guess some had different goals..
I mean.. You had the contest for most points on each crafter and you could get one or two special titles if you're doing well..
But to get into the top 10 and stay there, you really had to craft almost 24/7 until the period was done..

I think they made too many moon upgrades or made them take way too long. Content-wise it's like the first little area of the Firmament near the door, they added more stages as the patches progressed, but the Moon feels like a standalone thing because of how long it has taken to complete. It's really only the first of four zones.

[KazuyaKurogane]

I think they made too many moon upgrades or made them take way too long. Content-wise it's like the first little area of the Firmament near the door, they added more stages as the patches progressed, but the Moon feels like a standalone thing because of how long it has taken to complete. It's really only the first of four zones.

Yes, that too..
I thought after a month on break they would be done..
No, we're not done yet and I don't even know how many steps are left..

Also the wait times between projects is too long..
Idk how long you actually have to wait but the "planing" phase between projects is at least a week..
You can see how much they try to stretch the content till the next patch releases so the whole thing starts again..
Just on a different planet..

[Infindox]

Yes, that too..
I thought after a month on break they would be done..
No, we're not done yet and I don't even know how many steps are left..

Also the wait times between projects is too long..
Idk how long you actually have to wait but the "planing" phase between projects is at least a week..
You can see how much they try to stretch the content till the next patch releases so the whole thing starts again..
Just on a different planet..

Not sure what step you are on on your server, but it seems the "hoppolis" base upgrade is last, since Cactuar is labeled as finished with the moon. (This step is after the cave area and the transport system for it)
I think the clip for the projects was fine at the beginning, but then the time between each kept getting bigger and bigger.

[noumen0nn]

Just reiterating what others have said, so that hopefully our feedback is taken seriously. The pacing of south horn is exhausting and feels terrible. Stop to check one of the merchants? You've missed a fate. Take 30 seconds to go grab that chest you spotted? You've missed a fate. Talk in shout chat for 10 seconds before teleporting to the next aetheryte? You've missed a fate. Go exploring for any reason, chests, bunnies, pots? You've missed several fates and probably a CE.

If you are trying to farm silver or level phantom jobs (that aren't cannoneer), every single action that you take that ISN'T camping the aetheryte, rushing the fate and immediately /returning feels awful, because you know you're losing a chunk of potential progress. It feels like the only time to breathe is while waiting for a CE to finish counting down. Having multiple fates active at once, spawning them through mob kills, etc. like Bozja would solve this. I want to run around the map, not camp aetherytes and run in straight lines for hours.

Speaking of CEs, the rate at which they spawn is asinine. I have done some of these CEs more times in the first few weeks of south horn, than I did certain CEs in Bozja over the entirety of my time in there. And as encounters, they are way too simple to be fun when you're repeating them at this rate. Please, give us like 10 minutes between them, tie them to fates, and let us queue in from anywhere so that we aren't punished for daring to explore the map for a minute before heading over.

Phantom job mastery needs to be entirely redesigned. I LOVED phantom monk and had a great time with it until I maxed it, and now I don't get to play it again until I've finished leveling the rest of the substantially-less-fun jobs. How this complaint was not anticipated, I can only imagine.

I burned out of OC by the end of the first week, and I'm only doing it again at all because I'm getting dragged to a friend's Forked Tower run next weekend. I'm not going to hold out for substantial changes in the next update, but please carefully consider everyone's feedback for the second zone. Dawntrail needed a win, and this wasn't it.