In 12 years the game hasn't innovated

[Feronar]

I have noticed the FFXIV developers seem to be very "conservative" in their approach, which is great for stability and bug prevention (There is virtually none of the jankiness in FFXIV that I typically see in a new major content patch in WoW), but it does cause it to stagnate somewhat in terms of innovation.

[NightHour]

FFXIV has a "play it safe" mindset which is wrong.

They aren't #1 anymore, WoW is in a VERY good place and has taken back it's crown as king.

The 2021 days of WoW nearly killing itself are long gone.


Also JP Devs are too scared of backlash from players which further pushes the "play safe" mindset.


You know a game is stagnant when you can literally guess when a patch is coming out down to the exact date and what that patch will include long before any live letters.


They need to spice things up, take more risks and give us things we wouldn't expect.

I have noticed the FFXIV developers seem to be very "conservative" in their approach, which is great for stability and bug prevention (There is virtually none of the jankiness in FFXIV that I typically see in a new major content patch in WoW), but it does cause it to stagnate somewhat in terms of innovation.

"Bug Prevention"

We've had constant hotfix maintenances and emergency maintenances this expansion.

[Daralii]

I have noticed the FFXIV developers seem to be very "conservative" in their approach, which is great for stability and bug prevention (There is virtually none of the jankiness in FFXIV that I typically see in a new major content patch in WoW), but it does cause it to stagnate somewhat in terms of innovation.

Needing to do emergency maintenance because they accidentally removed South Horn was pretty bad.

[Connor]

On reflection it’s hard to say what the actual root of such a thing is.

Are they so scared of deviating from the standard formula because of, say player backlash, or funding, or pressure from higher ups, or some internal drama, etc etc? Is it just incompetence? (That feels harsh to say but like it’s a legitimate possibility). Poor planning or management?

Like theres so many reasons why they seem to be less and less inclined to ‘innovate’ (putting aside the literal semantics of the word lol), that it’s hard to even say ‘this is what they need to improve/approach differently’. All I know is, something needs to change lol

[NaoSen]

I don't think innovation and FF14 belong in the same sentence, there has been no innovation in dawntrail at all, just tweaks or spin-offs of existing features.

Occult Crescent - Spin-off of Eureka/Bozja
Cosmic Exploration - Spin-of of island sanctuary / ishgardian restoration
Chaotic Alliance Raid - Experimentation
Quantum Raid - Experimentation

Everything added has been a one-shot, OC was fun for a week, CE moon was cool to level up, other than that its only really for crafter relics or glams, chaotic alliance got plenty of positive feedback but there has been no sign of any more planned, quantum raid may as well have just been Q40 since players just max out and go for that.
They recoil from anything added and don't change it, time and time again rewards get challenged as either being non-existent or not worth the time yet they don't adjust loot tables but rather make entirely new content with it "Fixed this time".

If you don't like the FF of now then you may as well quit because its just going to be the same thing different spin off for the next 10 years.

[Connor]

Occult Crescent - Spin-off of Eureka/Bozja
Cosmic Exploration - Spin-of of island sanctuary / ishgardian restoration
Chaotic Alliance Raid - Experimentation
Quantum Raid - Experimentation

I mean they’re not ‘innovative’ but I still think these could have been actually good, like at least ‘innovative relative to FFXIV’ lol.

The biggest problem is that they don’t even do spin-offs properly. I mean, isn’t the whole point to take what you learned from the first one and use it to create something better? Isn’t that like the main benefit of an iterative process? Lol

Instead, devs just completely ignore what they learned in the previous content and go straight onto developing the next one as if the previous never happened.

Like, Island Sanctuary wasn’t considered particularly enjoyable because of how passive and repetitive a lot of it became. I enjoyed it personally but it’s definitely a valid criticism. Then we get to Cosmic Exploration…and people are still complaining about it being more about repetitive busywork (I.e ‘glorified crafting leves’).

Occult Crescent, I thought the content itself was fine (if not a bit boring with an overly predictable storyline) but the Phantom Jobs system feels much weaker than what Bozja had because practically every single one is built around ‘not getting in the way of your standard rotation’ lol. But wasn’t the fact that Bozja’s ability system (Lost Actions?) could actually change how you approached your standard rotation considered a good part of the content? I thought it was lol. Like the ones that turned healers into dps or dps into tanks etc.

[Mikey_R]

What is this thread if not feedback? This has to be bait at this point.

Yes, the topic is feedback/criticism, what it is not is constructive criticism.

I didn't like the hypocrisy in your post to the other user accusing them of not providing constructive contributions, (as you put it), so called you out on it.

Sorry I'm specific in my terms, but that is just how I am. Being specific in how things are described is important as to not mislead a conversation. I am happy to leave it at that though.

-----

To get back on topic, are Phantom Jobs not new features? The red alerts in Cosmic Exploration? The way the crafter/gather tools are obtained? The differences in Deep Dungeons, technically, Variant dungeons are new features as they do have the branching paths which you don't find in other dungeons etc.

And this is criticism of you now, and feel free to disagree, but my impression of you is that you oversimplify things too much to the point where everything seems the same.

Going back to variant dungeons, they are different from regular dungeons. Every role has a list of additional actions they can take, the different paths are not necessarily clear in how to progress into them and the bosses change their attacks based on the paths you took. All of these are differences to regular dungeons, yet you brush them aside and just call them 'dungeons with some path options.' And I think this is where a lot of the disconnect happens. You have one view of things, but others are seeing something completely different and those others could be the devs. This could then lead to the devs thinking, but it has new features, they don't know what they are talking about, so is the feedback genuine?

To give another example, Occult Crescent and the other exploratory zones. You say they are just Fates and Hunt bosses, which is true for that part, but people seem content with it in the last 2 zones, so why change it? Maybe they should have kept the 1v1 bosses like they done in Bozja as it seemed to be popular? However, let us also not forget about the Phantom Jobs. Now, you haven't one way or another whether you like this system, but is is a new feature, so, shouldn't you give feedback on those? (Maybe you have else where, but I don't see anything in this topic).

Cosmic Exploration, yes, I agree, it is basically leves, but at the same time, what else could it be? I'm not a crafter/gatherer by any means, but you are essentially just gathering things, which is hitting a node or crafting things, which is using your crafting actions in a specific order. Yes, you have the collectables when gathering, but that is just following a flowchart based on your stats. Maybe they could have done something similar to Diadem, where, once you gather enough, you can shoot the cannon and get resources from mobs.

Now, the problem of your mindset is, you are never going to feel like the game has innovated or bought something new to the table as you will always just point at it and say, that is just X content from the past and ignore everything that is meant to make the experience feel different. Which is why, you of all people should be providing feedback to the devs about what you actually want to see. Is there some sort of basic system that is different enough from everything else that it would 'feel innovative?' Or are you just going to continually compare it to past content and find that one thing that makes it the same, ignore everything else, then claim lack of innovation?

[Tracewood]

I'd like a return to subjobs. It was unpopular at the time since the playerbase would overoptimize what jobs to take to raids and what ones to exclude. Though now they could make it like role actions you can weave in when needed for example, you could be a support tank (not to be confused with off tank), backup healer (no rez), extra DPS (healers can DPS again), or a true support (buffs/debuffs) role. Occult Crescent felt like a prototype for that kind of system.

Wouldn't mind a gear overhaul. Current system is too bottlenecked. Games like Destiny had power creep every patch like XIV has, yet you can play any content and gear up your light (item) level every week the more weeklies you clear.

[theunhappypotato]

I'd like a return to subjobs. It was unpopular at the time since the playerbase would overoptimize what jobs to take to raids and what ones to exclude. Though now they could make it like role actions you can weave in when needed for example, you could be a support tank (not to be confused with off tank), backup healer (no rez), extra DPS (healers can DPS again), or a true support (buffs/debuffs) role. Occult Crescent felt like a prototype for that kind of system.

Wouldn't mind a gear overhaul. Current system is too bottlenecked. Games like Destiny had power creep every patch like XIV has, yet you can play any content and gear up your light (item) level every week the more weeklies you clear.

with such a system peopel would struggle even more lmao

[NightHour]

I don't think innovation and FF14 belong in the same sentence, there has been no innovation in dawntrail at all, just tweaks or spin-offs of existing features.

Occult Crescent - Spin-off of Eureka/Bozja
Cosmic Exploration - Spin-of of island sanctuary / ishgardian restoration
Chaotic Alliance Raid - Experimentation
Quantum Raid - Experimentation

Everything added has been a one-shot, OC was fun for a week, CE moon was cool to level up, other than that its only really for crafter relics or glams, chaotic alliance got plenty of positive feedback but there has been no sign of any more planned, quantum raid may as well have just been Q40 since players just max out and go for that.
They recoil from anything added and don't change it, time and time again rewards get challenged as either being non-existent or not worth the time yet they don't adjust loot tables but rather make entirely new content with it "Fixed this time".

If you don't like the FF of now then you may as well quit because its just going to be the same thing different spin off for the next 10 years.

Quantum and Chaotic are imo good conceptually.



Chaotic had problems with difficulty, they said it was more like an Extreme Trial but it turned out more like a 1st/2nd turn Savage.


Quantum just lacked proper rewards and replayability, same as Criterion.