FF14 is a disappointment

[Reimmi]

Hello, I just returned after a 4 year break from FF14.

I will get straight to the point.

My issues with FF14:



-Disconnecting 2+ times a day every day.

-MMORPG That is neither a MMO or RPG.
(It is a online visual novel.)

-Forums are not used for feedback.
(it is used as social media. The FF14 team doesn't even read and reply on these forums anymore. They used to once genuinely care.)

-Constant job changes/balancing
(Makes developers seem directionless and mismanaged, while constantly wasting development resources and time. It also wastes player time, everytime they have to change their hotbars and "relearn" the job.)

-Poor development planning via "stat squish"
(instead of implementing damage caps such as 99,999 or 999,9999, or even simply planning ahead.)

-Poor priority management.
(Doing constant job updates instead of improving new player sign up process, improving login times, improving "patch notes" layout for ease of reading, improving login screen to "save" player choices for title screen, improving the UI to add more options to turn off all the "forced" accessibility featuers, etc etc.)
(Or quite literally doing a graphics update instead of fixing the infrastructure or moving the servers back to Alaksa, or even doing anything to directly address the issues that have existed since moving the servers from Alaska to California.)

-Constantly deleting gameplay features without adding anything back.
(Such as stat point allotment, TP system, pre-battle buffs, slashing/piercing resistances, etc.)





...among so many other issues.


I literally only wanted to come back to play the game to "relax" between bosses on my Elden Ring Rune Level 1 playthrough, and I was not even able to do that.

(At least I finished my rune level 1 playthrough. I have no "reason" to play FF14 anymore now anyway.)

Regardless, this game is such a disappointment to me.

Only point i'm gonna hit on is damage caps
This would be a horrendous addition because jobs that have longer burst windows would be affected less, than one that has one huge hit for a skill getting needlessly reduced. E.g summoners and pictomancers versus black mages

[Kaurhz]

I agree with most of these points..

-MMORPG That is neither a MMO or RPG.
True, it's a quasi visual novel and mild content simulator with some online features.. Most of the actual MMO and RPG feature set have been long-abandoned systems, or have been content features sets that are a regression over their predecessor content.. e.g., Forked Tower is a regression over DRS.

-Forums are not used for feedback.
They haven't been used for a long time, mostly it's just the typical response to say that they appreciate the feedback, but will be closing the thread as "all that can be said has been said" effectively... Which isn't really looking at feedback, as much as it is a wrist slap.

-Poor development planning via "stat squish"
IMO, they need to do a true level/stat squish on everything.. Ultimately the previous stat squish really only bided a couple of expansions (if that), to do what I assume is make back-end changes... First signs of these issues started to appear way back in late HW, early SB. I think doing a damage cap, e.g., 999,999 is a sloppy solution though.

-Poor priority management.
Agreed, though I do think the game was starting to show its age, so I don't exactly blame them for doing a graphics update, but there are many systems and processes that do need to be looked at.. It's still miserable to navigate.

-Constantly deleting gameplay features without adding anything back.
Yes, the amount of features this game has lost is absolutely absurd.. Like, TP was absolutely a bad implementation, but I do think something could have replaced it, or I think it could have been reworked at the very least.. It's funny because there are some systems that they cling to, almost as if they are afraid of admitting past failure, e.g., the specialist system.

[Valence]

Forgive me for being the akshtually person in the room for 5s

And why is thrill of battle only 10s and has no mitigation on it at all? Defiance was 25%.

Too many devs are out of touch on a lot of things.

1) It was 25% total HP and healing received, not mitigation.
2) Tank defensive stances have been baked into the generic lvl1 Tank Mastery (20% mitigation)

[miraidensetsu]

Forums not used for feedback is a major issue. I did get almost all I wanted for Warrior with my War thread, however there's still room for improvement and im still unhappy that Ultimate is gated behind Savage.

Well, healers got nothing they wanted for them. All 4 jobs were ignored. They even made a strike for those changes, but Yoshi-P just avoided every question about it. And healers continue being largely ignored till this day.

Phys Ranged also got nothing they wanted.

SMN also got nothing they wanted.

Not even SAM got Kaiten back.

So, can we say that WAR is the privileged job out there?

[Deejudanne]

played during that whole strike and i didnt notice the strike itself meanwhile forums were on fire, interesting how that works

[Hyperia]

Well, healers got nothing they wanted for them. All 4 jobs were ignored. They even made a strike for those changes, but Yoshi-P just avoided every question about it. And healers continue being largely ignored till this day.

We are unneeded and unwanted in modern content, it wouldn’t surprise me if healers were “reworked” into something else entirely as they won’t remove jobs.

[Connor]

I wanted to address the points with my own thoughts but I mostly agree. Because clearly everyone wants to know what I think.

-Disconnecting 2+ times a day every day.
I’ve been extremely lucky that I’m on an EU server/data center/whatever so I haven’t been as affected by these issues. But I can imagine how frustrating it would be to be plagued with such a pernicious issue. It’s not like you can just ‘not do [certain] content’ and avoid it.

-MMORPG That is neither a MMO or RPG.
I’m not sure about visual novel, but it definitely has extremely few RPG mechanics at this point. Frankly I have to wonder what it is Yoshi-P has against RPG mechanics so much, based on this and 16 he must absolutely despise them lol. His idea of an RPG is literally ‘remove every mechanic and make it a cheap movie’

-Forums are not used for feedback.
And when they are, they misunderstand the issue and give the most uninformed and dismissive response possible (I.E healers aren’t fun, their response is ‘go play ultimates’ lol

-Constant job changes/balancing
To be fair (this one and only time) this is as much on the community as much as the devs and I won’t back down on that belief. It’s not just that the devs have some unnatural obsession with balance (though that definitely seems to be a part of it) but they’re also aware that literally any perceived imbalance will cause a tidal wave of complaints. I mean technically the game is more balanced and equalized between jobs than it ever has been before - it just isn’t fun (and arguably not even really balanced outside of numerical values)

-Poor development planning via "stat squish"
I mean based on everything we’ve seen it seems they literally do not plan anything further than the ‘expansion to next expansion’ pipeline. Poor indie dev Square Enix doesn’t have the resources or manpower to consider such things, after all (/sarcasm)


-Poor priority management.
Piss poor management in general tbh. It seems like literally nobody in the team actually communicates in any way, either between teams or within them lol.


-Constantly deleting gameplay features without adding anything back.
God this is the fucking worst, I want my Bard songs back lol. Literally nobody asked for them to become 3 glorified dps stances, let me restore resources that are now almost defunct (MP) or literally do not exist anymore (I mean they could make Paeon give HP regen instead of TP though just sayin’).
Likewise, while I enjoy (or, could enjoy lol) the current Summoner, it seems pretty unforgivable that the ‘old summoner’ was just straight up deleted with absolutely no replacement whatsoever. Like, screw the people who enjoyed that I guess? Lol, thanks Yoshi. An entirely playstyle just up in smoke lol

[Valence]

I mean technically the game is more balanced and equalized between jobs than it ever has been before

Is it though

[Connor]

Is it though

I think numerically it mostly is from my knowledge. Like the actual % difference between jobs technically makes them ‘balanced within expected parameters’. That’s just how I understood it though so could be wrong.

In terms of literally any other measure (i.e what they offer, overall advantages of the class/role, etc), absolutely not lol. It’s definitely a superficial kind of ‘balance’; or like an ‘illusionary’ one I guess. Looks balanced, but falls apart under the most minute scrutiny

[Astronis]

-MMORPG That is neither a MMO or RPG.
(It is a online visual novel.)

All else aside...it's an MMOJRPG, absolutely in-line with most Final Fantasies in the JRPG regard. Very different beast than a CRPG or a TTRPG.