Engaging Content is at an All-Time Low

[HyperiusUltima]

I say this after seeing the failure of Cosmic Exploration, Occult Crescent, and how much we're being drip-fed. We experienced it in Endwalker with how ridiculously easy dungeons and raids were to an extent outside Savage and Ultimate, and now we're back on the cycle yet again.

Let's be honest here: We're going to be waiting until 8.0 to even get fixes, and even then it's not going to change much aside from new bells and whistles, maybe a tiny carrot on a long stick that they're going to beat us with until we get our drop like the Yan in Treasure Maps.

Looking at the content of Dawntrail, I'm pretty sure others have said it plenty of times: The magic is gone after the first few runs of a dungeon. Dungeon content persists for new players, sure, but when it's constantly being re-run after re-run people just accept the grind it is. At the very least, they attempted to fix the problem that they created in Endwalker with dungeons being trivial on arrival and have at least had some success in it(The Strayborough Deadwalk is still one of the best dungeons to date in terms of "Expert" difficulty due to the first boss).

Other than that, it's been a mixed bag from beginning to end. We've yet to see 7.5 sure, but all in all I haven't really seen anything to be surprised about when it comes to encounters except few occasions.

Regardless, outside of that you've got your Trials and Raids. These are more or less what the meat and potatoes are, since you're literally thrown into the fire to do them on Normal - but am I wrong when I say that Extreme and Savage and Ultimate are the only engaging battle content to date if we're not including Exploration Forays?

Because it really feels like it's the only thing that gets people to think about what they're doing half the time and not just pressing one button(not Healers) to do things. That aside, our current Exploration Foray has failed to meet the mark that Bozja left - all because of a failed gameplay loop and horrid systems involved.

Forked Tower was supposed to be engaging content(and it still is, to an extent) for everyone to jump into similar to CLL and Dalriada, or even BA in this regard with the entry system, but it flopped hard before they fixed the problem with pre-mades. There's also the matter that people are heavily discouraged from entering Forked Tower because of its difficulty, even put on a scaler if we also consider how Chaotic went the first few weeks it was out.

The gameplay loop was too repetitive, and didn't give people time to breathe in-between outside of Forked Tower. This is what really made Eureka unique - NMs weren't popping constantly. People had to wait on timers, so they did other things and talked with people while they were waiting. When it comes to Occult Crescent, it's the complete opposite: FATEs spawned constantly, forcing a treadmill you're forced to keep up with even as a player just entering the content, and then missing it either because you lack the Riding Map or because FATE scaling is destroyed by people with Job Mastery nowadays. Relentless Grinds are certainly something for people with a hard grindset, but I don't think that's the case with a majority of XIV players.

This is why Occult Crescent is slowly being abandoned by people because not only are the loot tables a joke when it comes to chests, it rewards you with a majority of junk for your time unless you're doing Forked Tower. They'll grab the one thing they want and then leave - that's it and normally has been the case for a lot of things in XIV.

Now, while Battle Content isn't everything(it really is mostly everything in hindsight), you've got Crafting Content with Cosmic Exploration - where we revisit the Loporrits exploring stars. RABBITS - IN SPAAAAAAACE. It's not a foreign concept given Endwalker, but initially when we first got Cosmic Exploration it was actually kinda cool - though, again after the first few weeks people petered out because not only were your Gatherers starving for GP, Crafters had some recipes that were nigh insurmountable even with BiS, Food, and Pots in the form of EX+. That's still the case today when looking at it through a lens and taking a deeper dive all the way to Oizys.

Phaenna in particular fixed a couple things for Gatherers so they aren't always GP Starved, but it didn't innovate - it just continued with what was building on foreign planets. The only thing that we did unlock was just more colorful scenery, but that's it. That's the reward. Everything else was just the same slop from the Moon with different rewards involved.

Oizys is a continuation of this downtrend, as when we initially started people were excited about the artifact digging since we already knew it was going to be the same old same old. The artifact digging I was hoping to at least have something tangible to hold onto and read, if not for the heck of it or even just a reward tied behind it - instead, it's our favorite trend that they've repackaged from Occult Crescent, it's not spinning the Wheel, it's Lootboxes.

Like seriously? How many times do we have to keep telling you this lesson? LOOTBOXES. ARE. BAD. Especially when you just stuff them with useless stuff that we're just going to sell for paltry gil because we have BETTER THINGS that are being sold in the Credits Store! It's just a slap in the face.

While the Crafting Relic is a grind in itself, my biggest problem is again, systems. Others have said it before, and it's that XIV cannot survive unless they shake this up. Engagement is at an all-time low in content because their systems keep failing to reward the player properly. Their long-form content is failing because of this. If you don't reward the player for their time, they're going to move onto something else and by the time they've exhausted the content(even battle content) they're going to stop playing and probably not come back.

Hell, I'll just come out and say it: The only content keeping XIV alive right now is Player-driven Content. Your RPers, your social events, your clubs? All of those things are driving engagement. It's the ONLY thing driving engagement with others in an MMO that has been disincentivizing actually making connections for content outside of raiding ever since they implemented Duty Support and making it a Single Player Game nearly.

We need the development team to actually give a damn about the content they're putting out because we can't just copy pasta the same systems over and over. That's how you grind out your player base and not make them want to do the new content - because the expectation is it's going to be some form of an old system that was good in the past, but doesn't work today.

Innovate. Break out of the formula and try something new. That's really all I can say as feedback to the dev team from this post outside of highlighting the failures from content and lack of engagement. You can say the same of Healer Engagement too, if you want to go that far and understand why there's a lack of Healers still.

Other than that, Please look forward to 8.0 as Yoshida would say.

[Kaurhz]

From my perspective...

Occult is boring because, as you say FATEs are always spawning, but there is only 1 that spawns at any given time, and then they only last 30 seconds at best.. Then you have CEs where only 1 spawns at any given time... They've stripped away near enough all forms of player agency with this... Can't decide which zone to farm, because it's so on-the-rails.

Cosmic is uhhh, it is glorified levequests, and because of this reason, it feels like the actual collaborative effort has been a lot lower with this versus with Ishgard... EX+ recipes are dull because the underlying ability suite is dull... I know people routinely (and rightly) complain about combat job simplification, but the amount crafters were hit with this is absurd, there used to be a lot of agency to combat RNG... With Cosmic it feels like they wanted to add an exploratory element to it... But it's just utterly redundant because you just find yourself using the glorified hoverboard to travel everywhere.

It just feels like they are trying to streamline the system as much as humanly possible to ensure that in any given activity, no player can miss out on anything, and with this they've lost a massive amount of engagement factor.

I know people say that relics should be most efficient inside of Occult, and frankly on surface level I would agree... But when you realize how much of Occult is just on-the-rails... It makes it incredibly boring... I went in there, did 1 CE for 5 Paste and gave up, because it just borderlines on Netflix activity, you could multiply the yield by 5 or 6 and I still would not touch it (and this is hilarious seeing as I farmed levelling roulettes).

They need to spend more time putting their foot down, and not being afraid to make certain content for specific audiences, rather than trying to funnel the complete player-base into a specific piece of content.

[Jeeqbit]

Personally, I'm finding Savage engaging, and the deep dungeon was extremely good and felt like how normal dungeons should be.

They have been saying the variant/criterion dungeons will be good so we'll have to see, because they intentionally have been trying to make a middleground difficulty for it.

LOOTBOXES. ARE. BAD. Especially when you just stuff them with useless stuff that we're just going to sell for paltry gil because we have BETTER THINGS that are being sold in the Credits Store!

Lootboxes are bad when:

• Exchanged for real life money (these are not).
• When the RNG chance is low enough that you could take an extremely long time - potentially years - to get it (this is the case sometimes, but usually you'll have it after a year).
• When you cannot obtain the rewards through a more consistent method, such as buying it off the market board, or with a currency somewhere (normally, you can, in this game).

So the lootboxes are not really anywhere near as bad as in other games.

While the Crafting Relic is a grind in itself, my biggest problem is again, systems. Others have said it before, and it's that XIV cannot survive unless they shake this up. Engagement is at an all-time low in content

I agree that the systems are designed to be extremely shallow, and not engaging. The main reason is they don't have variability. Variability is generally achieved in an MMORPG by allowing other players to be involved in how the content goes. SE has removed other players from the equation in most cases, to protect casual players, making the game a lot more boring than it could be.

For example, in a raid, doing callouts or being a dorito makes it fun. But you don't have to do callouts in FFXIV because raids are scripted in such a way that they don't need anyone to coordinate things as the battle unfolds. They are much too streamlined for that. A raid leader isn't needed.

Making players have to ASK another person to craft something instead of buying it would be fun. Making crafters have to go and gather materials to craft said thing by slaying dangerous enemies would make it fun. But it's casualized to a point where you just buy it all on the market board for a few gil, if not from an NPC. Subsequently, most items have no significant gil value.

The concept of one player relying on another player to change how the content plays out is really how to make content work long-term. PvP is the easiest example of this that no MMO really gets wrong. No battle is the same because players make it different.

Oh, let's give an example of something they finally did right. Pilgrim's Traverse. In the higher floors, it's particularly common for 1-3 of your party members to wipe. Then YOU stand between succeess and failure. The stakes get high. You have to lock in. And of course the content isn't 100% the same every time due to RNG so you don't even know how the last floors will go at all, or what actions you'll have to handle it. There is little other content in the game with actual stakes and variability like this.

Anyway, I don't believe engagement is at an all-time low. Rather, as low as it has been since forever.

because their systems keep failing to reward the player properly.

They do and the people interested in those rewards chase them. Mounts, minions, etc. Completionists. Achievements. BiS. The people not interested in those rewards are the ones who don't engage... but just because you are not amongst those motivated by the rewards does not mean there are none.

Their long-form content is failing because of this. If you don't reward the player for their time, they're going to move onto something else and by the time they've exhausted the content(even battle content) they're going to stop playing and probably not come back.

I think the problem you're having here is that the rewards are one-and-done. It's not that there are no rewards, but that once you have the rewards, that's it, no reason to do it anymore. That's how themepark games work though and to an extent, it does feel good to reach a point where you can move on to the next piece of content because there is 13 years worth of content to get through, so I can't entirely fault this concept.

However, making it rewarding long-term in a more shallow way makes sense, such as getting something for helping a sprout clear, etc. Tomestones don't really feel enough anymore. Nevertheless, often said sprouts can find others that still need the content, so it works out.

The only content keeping XIV alive right now is Player-driven Content. Your RPers, your social events, your clubs? All of those things are driving engagement.

That's what I was getting at above. Player-driven content makes content engaging. RP is an example of something that happens in many MMOs in spite of a lack of support for it in many cases. At least they have done a bit to support it in terms of emotes, mounts, house decorations, glamours, bard music. But there are definitely other things they could do to support RP.

[torpy]

Idk about everyone else but dawntrail is the best the game's ever been imo. Cosmic Exploration is the best gathering/crafting content they've ever put out, it's fun and i feel like i have a lot of choice in how i spend my time, and the various reward structures are gamefied in fun ways that make it not feel like a monotonous grind. The Gold streak system on Oizys is pretty fun, lets you grind for certain resources really fast, but the A rank missions arent always gonna be the best source of specific data so I actually get a choice in which resources i wanna farm for between going for gold A ranks or going for the best sources of Data.

South Horn isn't as fun as Bozja but in a lot of individual ways it's just as good if not better, mainly in getting around the map and adding more stuff to do around the area like scouting for coffers or doing sightseeing.

The Relic is easily the best ever. The raids are fantastic, Pilgrim's Traverse is probably my favorite Deep Dungeon, Story's been great, the environments, especially in Cosmic, have been the most gorgeous the team's ever put out.

Idk about everyone else, but this is the most fun the game's ever been for me.

[Reginald_Cain]

Idk about everyone else but dawntrail is the best the game's ever been imo. Cosmic Exploration is the best gathering/crafting content they've ever put out, it's fun and i feel like i have a lot of choice in how i spend my time, and the various reward structures are gamefied in fun ways that make it not feel like a monotonous grind. The Gold streak system on Oizys is pretty fun, lets you grind for certain resources really fast, but the A rank missions arent always gonna be the best source of specific data so I actually get a choice in which resources i wanna farm for between going for gold A ranks or going for the best sources of Data.

South Horn isn't as fun as Bozja but in a lot of individual ways it's just as good if not better, mainly in getting around the map and adding more stuff to do around the area like scouting for coffers or doing sightseeing.

The Relic is easily the best ever. The raids are fantastic, Pilgrim's Traverse is probably my favorite Deep Dungeon, Story's been great, the environments, especially in Cosmic, have been the most gorgeous the team's ever put out.

Idk about everyone else, but this is the most fun the game's ever been for me.

I'm also really happy with a lot in dawntrail. Im more upset about long standing issues like machinist aoe kit being ignored for 3 expansions.

[Stormfur]

I loved Pilgrim's Traverse -- the DDOS attacks soured me on going back in for a bit but I heard they gave some more leeway to that if you get disconnected. Things like that make the process a whole lot more palatable.

Cosmic does have beautiful environments but, and I say this for all of Dawntrail as a whole... there's just no reason to care anymore. Like the planet exploration could've been really something, with great lore, unique items, more involvement (think Diadem! People STILL do that and that was two expansions ago!) and you could actually sell most of the stuff you got on there, so you could make some gil with it too.

[DarkOmegaGod]

Your mistake is thinking that the current design isn't completely intended. Look how quickly they respond to feedback like "add better events". They are listening. They're just not listening to you. If anything has gone unfixed at this point after years of feedback it's because they have zero intention of ever changing it. They are not interested in retaining gamers. They just want XIV to be a sterile safe adult daycare center where nothing interesting can ever happen.

[TheRealDesastr]

Personally, the game is pretty lackluster to me. I know some here are saying DT is the best ever but I honestly truly have to disagree. There's nothing...exciting. Not story wise, not reward wise. Crafting content aesthetically isn't pleasing to me at all. Fantasy seems just...ripped away. I dunno. Maybe the game just isn't for me anymore, but I enjoyed playing through HW, Stormblood had some fun parts. ShB was great on the story end of things, and EW was alright, I myself enjoyed it. I joined the game in Shadowbringers and really, really was engaged.

Not entirely sure what happened. But the excitement is just...gone. I'm not really wanting to move on yet (it takes a long while for me to just decide to leave and I have some hopefully not false hope it will get better), but with no sign of anything getting interesting and all of this drip feeding/no response to feedback at all, it's tiresome. It just makes me wonder if they even care, honestly.

[Aidorouge]

I've been running out of things to stay engaged and I haven't even reached Dawntrail yet, and by all accounts, it doesn't seem like I'm missing out.

I'm just kind of stagnating after finishing Shadowbringers (which its self was ridiculously over-hyped) because apparently Endwalker was also "the worst expansion ever" until Dawntrail came along apparently.

[ZephyrMenodora]

I had a ton of fun with Pilgrim's Traverse for a while farming all the initial....whatever we were farming for the first step.

I just wish the gimmick was more fun than the phantom classes. A lot of them don't really make the zone more exciting. I found the special buffs/skills way more fun in Eureka and Bozja.

Aside from oracle - as a healer I love the thrill of reducing my HP by a ton but then being able to heal myself right away.

I'm not super motivated to level up all the different phantom jobs (especially the ones that seem extra boring) so it ran its course for me a lot faster than the earlier relic zones.