FF14 is a disappointment

[Valence]

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

Like even back in HW you could clear with anything. The differences in dps contribution weren't wide enough to have it in any different capacity, even though some jobs were more loved than others - exactly like today. It just happened that we didn't have that arbitrary division between second rate dps jobs and melees/casters like we have today that's artificially baked into the 1% party bonus. Instead differences were baked into the slashing/piercing debuff synergies. Different paradigm, but ultimately, as long as your party satisfied the base requirements for synergies to be filled, you were good to go, only difference being that you had more freedom in role composition, but less freedom in job composition since the two debuff providers (NIN/DRG) were meta and required in party - with WAR as a potential rep for NIN.

[Mikey_R]

Like even back in HW you could clear with anything. The differences in dps contribution weren't wide enough to have it in any different capacity, even though some jobs were more loved than others - exactly like today. It just happened that we didn't have that arbitrary division between second rate dps jobs and melees/casters like we have today that's artificially baked into the 1% party bonus. Instead differences were baked into the slashing/piercing debuff synergies. Different paradigm, but ultimately, as long as your party satisfied the base requirements for synergies to be filled, you were good to go, only difference being that you had more freedom in role composition, but less freedom in job composition since the two debuff providers (NIN/DRG) were meta and required in party - with WAR as a potential rep for NIN.

Being able to clear with anything and the numbers being balanced are 2 different things. If a hypothetical 'lowest damage possible' can still do enough damage to clear a DPS check, then the meta 'most damage possible' party is still easily going to clear.

And let's not beat around the bush, the differences in damage numbers were quite large. Warrior was doing close to DPS levels of damage, which the other 2 tanks couldn't get near, relatively speaking. With warrior also applying the slashing debuff in rotation, it meant Ninja didn't have to use Dancing Edge, so more Aeolian Edges, not to mention Trick Attack, considered the best raid debuff at the time. You then had Dragoon giving piercing, again, in rotation, which provided an extra 10% free damage to both Machinist and Bard. It wasn't worth replacing one for a caster if you wanted the most damage. Dark Knight done more damage than Paladin, so was the better choice, which leaves the healers. AST was a party buff machine, and now we are down to just 1 healer slot to fill. If we then consider their damage buffs, they mostly aligned together, which we know how powerful that is. This is ignoring everything else that made that party the uncontested best party. Arguably, Heavensward was not balanced at all, despite every party being able to clear everything.

[Mercury_Grey]

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.

I want ot point out that they do have a setting for skills to be either two skilsl in one or let you use the skill seperate. For exmaple: Fight or flight into Goring blade. You can have fight or flight change into goring blade, or hit the action cahnge setting under the skill to enable action change. Click that box and you can set Goring balde on your hotbar to use it as a seperate skill. TP being removed i loved that change if you got revived and didnt have someone or a way to recover TP quickly you was screwed on jobs that use TP so quickly. Graphic updates was a good change from all the feedback i heard and read atleast they are trying to improve the game for a longer life cycle. Its not really a visual novel because you can j ust skip cutscenes, get a job to max leve, grind for BiS gear and do harder content or be a crafter/gatherer and just vibe

[Valence]

Being able to clear with anything and the numbers being balanced are 2 different things. If a hypothetical 'lowest damage possible' can still do enough damage to clear a DPS check, then the meta 'most damage possible' party is still easily going to clear.

And let's not beat around the bush, the differences in damage numbers were quite large. Warrior was doing close to DPS levels of damage, which the other 2 tanks couldn't get near, relatively speaking. With warrior also applying the slashing debuff in rotation, it meant Ninja didn't have to use Dancing Edge, so more Aeolian Edges, not to mention Trick Attack, considered the best raid debuff at the time. You then had Dragoon giving piercing, again, in rotation, which provided an extra 10% free damage to both Machinist and Bard. It wasn't worth replacing one for a caster if you wanted the most damage. Dark Knight done more damage than Paladin, so was the better choice, which leaves the healers. AST was a party buff machine, and now we are down to just 1 healer slot to fill. If we then consider their damage buffs, they mostly aligned together, which we know how powerful that is. This is ignoring everything else that made that party the uncontested best party. Arguably, Heavensward was not balanced at all, despite every party being able to clear everything.

Yes? I don't think I ever claimed that the game has been balanced even once in its entire history? That was actually kind of my point?

[Roehann]

My biggest gripe is that SE never seems to learn from any mistakes they make...

Forked Tower is an example... I love field ops, and for the most part like playing in the South Horn. Yes there are things they could tweak to make it better, but it's fun and playable and great to do solo or with friends so it works... but then you come to the end, The Forked Tower and it's like they tried everything they could to make it worse than anything they had done before. No casual content because of a lack of money, but there's money for all the new mobile gacha games?

I love this game, but at times feel like they just want to see how far they can push us with some stupid changes, followed by everyone at SE apologizes without any real changes.. At times I feel like they take us for granted and that isn't the way for a gaming company to act in 2026 when there are so many more options.

I know they are human and will make mistakes, we all do, but I would like to see more REAL change and REAL commitment to changes that are needed instead of the empty apologizes.

[Deejudanne]

My biggest gripe is that SE never seems to learn from any mistakes they make...

Forked Tower is an example... I love field ops, and for the most part like playing in the South Horn. Yes there are things they could tweak to make it better, but it's fun and playable and great to do solo or with friends so it works... but then you come to the end, The Forked Tower and it's like they tried everything they could to make it worse than anything they had done before. No casual content because of a lack of money, but there's money for all the new mobile gacha games?

I love this game, but at times feel like they just want to see how far they can push us with some stupid changes, followed by everyone at SE apologizes without any real changes.. At times I feel like they take us for granted and that isn't the way for a gaming company to act in 2026 when there are so many more options.

I know they are human and will make mistakes, we all do, but I would like to see more REAL change and REAL commitment to changes that are needed instead of the empty apologizes.

so a realm reborn werent them learning from their mistakes?

[Connor]

so a realm reborn werent them learning from their mistakes?

More like learning from their past mistakes then immediately creating a whole bunch of entirely new ones lol

[Mikey_R]

Yes? I don't think I ever claimed that the game has been balanced even once in its entire history? That was actually kind of my point?

But that isn't what you said. The initial claim was that numbers are the most balanced they have ever been. Your response to that was, but every job could clear everything and the damage differences weren't enough for it to be otherwise.

Your response to the claim had nothing to do with the claim itself, which is what I pointed out.

[Sunhwapark]

Hmm, while I don't miss the slashing/piercing/yolo debuff nonsense, I do miss the pace of fights in HW/Stormblood, it was a bit slower and gave room for enmity to exist as a party managed thing rather than whatever the heck it is today.

[Valence]

But that isn't what you said. The initial claim was that numbers are the most balanced they have ever been. Your response to that was, but every job could clear everything and the damage differences weren't enough for it to be otherwise.

Your response to the claim had nothing to do with the claim itself, which is what I pointed out.

That's exactly what I said. I compared both the state of pve balance back then and today, and I do think that while everything can clear as back then, jobs/roles are imbalanced in a similar manner, and that no, I don't believe the game is more balanced than it used to be.

You can disagree on the numbers, frankly, I don't even know what expansion and what patch you're even referring to in your previous reply (it sounds like HW with the piercing debuff numbers), and you're already making gigantic fallacies by associating the debuff damage gain to DRG alone when it was shared by the jobs benefiting from it as well - if anything you're the one not answering to my claims here, since I specifically covered the debuff synergy issue and the couple of jobs that remained meta because of it (NIN DRG). The same way you bring up that casters could be overshadowed by double rphys, it's the exact same today except this happens within sub roles between different jobs instead (cf MCH for most of SHB, EW and DT for example, but it's happened regularly with other jobs as well, cf the infamous tank imbalanced during 6.1 DSR and 6.2 that climaxed in the P8S fiasco).