Do We Remember That a Game Is Meant to Be Fun?

[Kohashi]

Just…lol, to be honest. You really haven’t figured out that ‘trying to appeal to everyone’ is literally the root of the problem? Or one or them at least.

FF14 direction is super clear to me, and it's not appealing to everyone. Its segment is dedicated. Super casual, without the pressure of falling behind, and fairly easy to pick up roles/ classes, and a high ceiling of hyper optimization for most of them, the higher you go.

The way FF14 introduces complexity in the game is with the help of encounters. In 1.0, it was the other way around, but since they reworked it over the years is safe to say they moved away from that idea for the time being.

Or maybe the whole point about an invisible silent majority was to point out how silly it is to rely on such a thing? I don’t think I represent anyone else but me, and frankly whether others do/don’t agree is irrelevant to me; I’d be giving my opinion anyway.

And yet you somehow are trying to represent the silent majority.. oh come on now.. make it make sense please..

And I mean that’s good that ultimates are fun but like why can’t they put that same effort and creativity into other pieces of content? Like Cosmic Exploration or the barely utilised Occult Crescent

I dunno what creativity you are exactly expecting from them because every single time they try to do something.. a very vocal minority loses their shit. The game is the way it is BECAUSE of people like you... Everything that you are arguing is because some Andy crapped out in the forums with "game is dying", "game is no fun" game was better in vanilla", or " jumping in the game breaks my immersion"(yes it was an actual forum post, look it up) and somehow you think you are saving everyone when in fact you ain't saving anyone.

Let them cook, give them creative freedom, and vote with your wallet. That's all I'm gonna say.

[Kaurhz]

I wonder if the lack of interest in content nowadays is in any way related to the general player disconnect with the story and the direction they've taken it in.

I feel like Dawntrail rendered a lot of the lore, world-building and atmosphere of the past arc completely meaningless, and there are no concrete rules or boundaries governing the story anymore. The consequent lack of identity makes the game feel soulless, and without that sense of investment the often tedious reality of MMO grinding becomes more difficult to justify. Yoshi P said something about the demands of the market changing and making the game require less time to play, but I think you find the time for something you actually care about.

My lack of interest stems from the simple fact that... I ultimately know what I am getting before they even spoiler or announce it.. A deep dungeon is always going to be this... Exploratory content is always going to be that... Albeit with different aesthetics... So I oft' question 'why' bother? ... If it's not fundamentally going to offer me a different experience, then it doesn't really matter whether I do Bozja, or whether I do Occult Crescent (Especially when the latter has me feeling like it's on-the-rails.

It's inevitable.. But it's also egregious when you think about the systems, and what they could change or add to make it more interesting, or to at the very least give the content more longevity.

I think if people have a passion for something -- and if they care, then as you say they will find a way to make time for it... But I honestly feel that the comment comes more from the fact that there's some struggle to accept that the content just wasn't as big as they'd thought it'd be.. So rather than accept that, to try and rationalize it around the idea that everyone is just suddenly too busy, or that 'it's a new arc, so we expected it'.

[Kishin12345]

Yoshi P even said before DT got released that the game will shift into a different direction a lot of players wont like. Even for the Rising event, where Yoshi P shows up and talks to the WoL had some message like the game shifting or something. I dont remember the exact wording, but can probably get looked up on youtube or so.
For me the direction of the game has become pretty clear in the past few expansions. 2min meta, hyper balance, no risks, counter button bloat.

And literally isnt the DDR encounters what players asked for?
"The game is too easy, all mechs are so slow, target rings are too big, we want to fight for uptime etc"
So what now? They changed it. Small target rings, fight for uptime, fast mechanics, more stress. Of course only really in high end content and not "normal" content because they design from the top to bottom and not bottom to top. They make the hardest version of a fight and then water it down into an easier version. Jobs get balanced around savage and ultimate and not from the bottom up, because why would they? It would just be a mess then. They need to function flawlessly in the hardest content and if they dont it quickly gets addressed.

The difficulty of the game does not come from jobs, the difficulty is defined by the encounter. If you want interesting job gameplay for a leveling roulette then i doubt this is where the game is heading anytime soon.

The devs do know that players are very attached to their jobs which again is why no big changes can or will happen and jobs will be left mostly the way they are now, because even slight changes get huge backlash. The smn rework is one of the biggest risks they ever took and it taught them to not take any risks anymore.

[Xieldras]

The devs do know that players are very attached to their jobs which again is why no big changes can or will happen and jobs will be left mostly the way they are now, because even slight changes get huge backlash. The smn rework is one of the biggest risks they ever took and it taught them to not take any risks anymore.

We saw what they learned when they took risks changing BLM in 7.2 or destroying AST's RNG in 7.0. It was hated.

Plus it's not like they care about the backlash either way. Nothing gets reversed once it changes.

[Kohashi]

We saw what they learned when they took risks changing BLM in 7.2 or destroying AST's RNG in 7.0. It was hated.

Plus it's not like they care about the backlash either way. Nothing gets reversed once it changes.

I think taking away that awful RNG from AST was the best decision ever. You have no idea how awful it was in anything but crystal tower. As for BLM they lowered the complexity because the disparity between mage class ceiling was super huge. You had BLM triple transpose vs red mage, vs SMN.. like what? Not to mention, they went towards a much more fast paced encounter. You literally can no longer sit there and hardcast your flare now.

[Jojoya]

It feels like a team that has been working on the same title for many years and is struggling to take risks. There’s a noticeable lack of new ideas, creativity, and innovation. Please listen to your players, listen to the feedback, and don’t be afraid to bring in new voices and bold ideas.

Taking risks is more likely to kill a game than refresh it.

Existing players theoretically enjoy a long running game because it's been designed around XYZ. Developers listen to a handful of discontended players and change the style to ABC. Suddenly 70% of existing players disappear because they don't enjoy ABC.

Someone hears a friend talking about how the game they've played offers XYZ and so they make a decision to try out the game based on it being XYZ. But they're not experiencing XYZ. They're getting ABC and that's not what they wanted. They quit within 2 months of starting the game.

There's another player that loves ABC in a different game but they're already invested in that game and have no interest in trying out the game that has changed from XYZ to ABC.

Soon the game only has enough active players left to operate maintenance servers and it dies out, attracting no new players who want ABC because they can choose to play the other game that has been doing ABC for years and still has a large player base.

There has been new content and other changes added to FFXIV over the years even if you don't think so. Sounds like a lot of that new stuff hasn't been to your liking.

The game isn't going to drastically change for the sake of the handful of players that are getting bored with the content when there are hundreds of thousands of other players that are still enjoying it. The type of changes you're looking for generally don't happen except when a game gets released and the developers are trying to tune it to match what the attracted audience wants.

I would say the issue is that you've been playing for too many years and you've stayed too long past the time you should have moved onto other games to get a different experience. Broaden your horizons.

We know what happened when Coca-Cola replaced Coke with New Coke in 1985. We know what happened when Blizzard messed too much with WoW design. Both companies had to bring back their original product to entice formerly loyal customers back to those brands.

It would be no different for FFXIV now that we're a decade past 2.0. Most of those here are enjoying the game for what it offers. Those wanting an innovative new game style have gone seeking it from new games.

[Xieldras]

I think taking away that awful RNG from AST was the best decision ever. You have no idea how awful it was in anything but crystal tower. As for BLM they lowered the complexity because the disparity between mage class ceiling was super huge. You had BLM triple transpose vs red mage, vs SMN.. like what? Not to mention, they went towards a much more fast paced encounter. You literally can no longer sit there and hardcast your flare now.

God forbid the fortune-teller-flavored job has RNG in it. I enjoyed it and now it's gone because those that hated the RNG couldn't stick to the other 3 Healer jobs.

[Connor]

FF14 direction is super clear to me, and it's not appealing to everyone. Its segment is dedicated. Super casual, without the pressure of falling behind, and fairly easy to pick up roles/ classes, and a high ceiling of hyper optimization for most of them, the higher you go.

The way FF14 introduces complexity in the game is with the help of encounters. In 1.0, it was the other way around, but since they reworked it over the years is safe to say they moved away from that idea for the time being.

‘Its segment is dedicated’….uhhh, to what? If it’s dedicated to super casuals why is everything balanced around and contingent upon savage? If it’s dedicated to super raiders why are a vast majority of jobs designed around people who literally have never played them before at max level?

And yet you somehow are trying to represent the silent majority.. oh come on now.. make it make sense please..

“I don’t represent anyone other than me”
“You’re trying to represent the silent majority!!!!!” Make that make sense lol

I dunno what creativity you are exactly expecting from them because every single time they try to do something.. a very vocal minority loses their shit. The game is the way it is BECAUSE of people like you... Everything that you are arguing is because some Andy crapped out in the forums with "game is dying", "game is no fun" game was better in vanilla", or " jumping in the game breaks my immersion"(yes it was an actual forum post, look it up) and somehow you think you are saving everyone when in fact you ain't saving anyone.

Let them cook, give them creative freedom, and vote with your wallet. That's all I'm gonna say.

‘Give them creative freedom’…that’s what you call current game design? The result of creative freedom lol? Not a sterile canvas of 24 different flavours of dps made wholly so for the purposes of savage balancing? You say let them cook but they haven’t even turned the damn oven on.

[Kohashi]

God forbid the fortune-teller-flavored job has RNG in it. I enjoyed it and now it's gone because those that hated the RNG couldn't stick to the other 3 Healer jobs.

It was removed because it was unreliable and ineffective. I get it, it was probably fun for you to see which card you pulled, but classes should be effective in all types of content, not just super casual, where you feel happy just rolling your cards.

AST was and still is a buffer. Will I pull arrow 3 times in a row, or will I get the proper cards to get the maximum buff? AST was the first healer I ever mained, and those cards and RNG still give me shivers thinking about them.

[Kishin12345]

We saw what they learned when they took risks changing BLM in 7.2 or destroying AST's RNG in 7.0. It was hated.

Plus it's not like they care about the backlash either way. Nothing gets reversed once it changes.

But blm is so much better now? Theres a blm in every duty. I made it my main job after picto got nerfed too much. Before not many played blm and the changes really were mostly hated by blm veterans. The job is now opened to a bigger audience. I've never considered the timers part of blm identity anyway. No blm in any other ff game had to manage timers and blm still plays the same as before.
Blm always was the mage with hard hitting spells and it still is but now the devs can be more creative with fight design because they dont have to design around blm timers anymore.
So i dont think removing blm timers was a risky move at all.
Astro RNG was more annoying than helpful, too. So not mad about that either. Fishing for the balance didnt really provide depth.