Are we expecting TO MUCH from 8.0?

[Gwenkatsu]

Honestly, I don't think the devs have the right idea. They seem to be trying to make it easier for players in the casual end to move into savage content, because most of those savage raiders do also participate in casual content. So, their idea is, "Oh, they need something to level up into!" When the reality is us casuals just do not give a crap about the grind and culture of high end raiding at all and want that theme park feel. In short, if we want to do high end raiding, it's already completely possible to just start right now.

This here. They could shower me with iLvl9000 equip on the next login, I still would not set foot into savage, chaotic, or whatever. This game mode "do your dance perfectly for the next 10 minutes, or start again from scratch" is no fun to me, no matter how easyly accessible they make it.
Give me a compelling story, nice places to be, and little things to do in between the chapters, and I'm happy. DT failed to deliver on all three fronts.

[Kaurhz]

Yeah, whether or not it’s ’dying’ it definitely feels like it’s affecting the long-term health of the game either way. To the point where everything is either ‘low effort conveyor belt content’ or ‘high effort body check heavy PF only content’ lol.

And yeah, there’s definitely a sense of irony to the fact that their desperation to cater to such extremes has resulted in them catering to neither of them properly.

It really does feel like ‘enjoyment’ isn’t high up on the dev’s list of priorities, compared to ‘balance’ ‘player retention’ ‘perpetuating subscription costs’ or whatever else lol.



And Forked Tower lol. But yeah, it does seems strange how heavily they’re trying to push the ‘casual to savage’ pipeline’ when as far as I’m aware it’s not something people ever asked for, ‘I want it to be easier to go from casual to savage’. Even though in reality the difference between casual content and savage has done nothing but widen because of the relative ease of ‘non-savage’ compared to ‘savage’ content. It’s no wonder so many people have issues with raiding and PF when every piece of content below that teaches you ‘you can put it in very little effort and will be rewarded’, which inevitably bleeds into savage as people approach it with the same mindset

I would definitely say it is affecting the long-term health of the game, and in a detrimental way IMO... Especially if you look at the game as just being more than current expansion.

They are trying too hard on the balancing and on the player retention, and just completely foregoing the enjoyment aspect as being completely tertiary.. Like, there is no universe where they did 1 FATE, and 1 CE at any given time on the map and thought "This is fun!"

I would have more faith, but I don't, simply because the takeaway was "This is a new arc", and "People must just be too busy".

Given everything this expansion, and since I suspect that 7.5 won't be much different -- After doing 8.0 story, I will honestly likely unsubscribe, and just play free trial for whenever I feel so inclined as to play the game.. I just don't view content now to be too distinctive from content released a few expansions ago, and for the most part I personally find Occult to be inferior over Bozja or Eureka,... and Cosmic to be inferior to Ishgard Restoration. (Both of which will be available from 7.5 if they follow trend).

[Hyperia]

The more I think about it, I really do not wan more jobs because thy can barely handle the existing jobs. I’d rather they skip new jobs entirely and focus on repairing the existing jobs.

[Aidorouge]

This here. They could shower me with iLvl9000 equip on the next login, I still would not set foot into savage, chaotic, or whatever. This game mode "do your dance perfectly for the next 10 minutes, or start again from scratch" is no fun to me, no matter how easyly accessible they make it.

Not just the accessibility, but the company kept as well. Dawntrail more than any other expansion showed us just how many people actually hate having to play with other people (and then those same people wonder why Square-Enix keeps adding more Trusts), especially in high-end content. The casual to hardcore pipeline or "bridge" as Square-Enix called it could never exist when most players barely tolerate each other in their PFs already, and then in the very same breath whine about how they can't find enough people to do the content with.

Square-Enix makes a lot of mistakes, but the playerbase its self doesn't do its self any favors either with the "cultures" we so adamantly enforce, up to and including labeling data centers in ways that Square-Enix never intended, causing even further friction and fractures for ourselves. I too could be given all the gear, materia, food, and potions necessary to run hardcore content, but I would never want to deal with hardcore players, they certainly don't want to do with me, and I don't think there's anything 8.0 can possibly do to fix US even if it manages to fix its self.

[Deejudanne]

The more I think about it, I really do not wan more jobs because thy can barely handle the existing jobs. I’d rather they skip new jobs entirely and focus on repairing the existing jobs.

would be nice to have an actual dot job again

[StriderShinryu]

Honestly, I don't think the devs have the right idea. They seem to be trying to make it easier for players in the casual end to move into savage content, because most of those savage raiders do also participate in casual content. So, their idea is, "Oh, they need something to level up into!" When the reality is us casuals just do not give a crap about the grind and culture of high end raiding at all and want that theme park feel. In short, if we want to do high end raiding, it's already completely possible to just start right now.

Yeah, that's largely my take as well. I do absolutely appreciate offering some sort of on ramp to allow more casual players to get into more hardcore content if they want to. No complaints or arguments there. BUT the devs (and a lot of the more hardcore players) seem to be of the opinion that everyone views hardcore content as the end goal; that EVERYONE really WANTS to be an Ultimate Raider in their hearts but just don't admit it or doesn't know how to get there. Well, either that or they just want to sit in Limsa all day as if there are only two options.

For me, I don't mind some pushback in content, be that dungeons, bosses, open world, etc.. I don't mind it being difficult or taking a few tries to complete. That's fine. I also don't mind if at least some of jobs are a little more complex to play and/or wrap your head around. Cool. But I just don't gave a crap about doing "hardcore" content. I'm not a terrible player by any means, and I probably could at least do some Savage if I wanted to, but I just don't. I don't have any interest in the grind or repeating the same fights for hours and hours just to "get it right." I'm more than happy spending hours on a Souls or Nioh fight to master it, but FF14 just isn't that sort of game for me. Regardless of what type of "on ramp" you're going to give me or what sort of carrot you're going to put at the end of the stick, I'm just not going to want to engage with it. I want the whole game to be more active, interesting and engaging.

[RedLolly]

This here. They could shower me with iLvl9000 equip on the next login, I still would not set foot into savage, chaotic, or whatever. This game mode "do your dance perfectly for the next 10 minutes, or start again from scratch" is no fun to me, no matter how easyly accessible they make it.
Give me a compelling story, nice places to be, and little things to do in between the chapters, and I'm happy. DT failed to deliver on all three fronts.

This is my exact same opinion.

I've tried to savage raid in the past. It was with FC buddies, but coordinating a section of time where all 8 of us could spend 3 hours or more in the same fight is not fun or satisfying. Personally it was mentally exhausting even with really cool and friendly people. I tried during first coil, second part of Eden, and again during Anabaiseos. Same experience all three times. Went with great people, still hated it.

I'll watch the crap out of Ultimates. And I enjoy watching raid comps with teams like NEST by Drak and Whoops and MrHappy's team. But playing it. My brain CANNOT. I have tried!

[Hyperia]

This is my exact same opinion.

I've tried to savage raid in the past. It was with FC buddies, but coordinating a section of time where all 8 of us could spend 3 hours or more in the same fight is not fun or satisfying. Personally it was mentally exhausting even with really cool and friendly people. I tried during first coil, second part of Eden, and again during Anabaiseos. Same experience all three times. Went with great people, still hated it.

I'll watch the crap out of Ultimates. And I enjoy watching raid comps with teams like NEST by Drak and Whoops and MrHappy's team. But playing it. My brain CANNOT. I have tried!

After the birth of my child 2 years ago, I had to stop Savage hard core raiding. I enjoyed the content and playing with friends in the static, but I do not have the time to commit to it for the foreseeable future.

Once I stopped Savage raiding, it was quite the eye opener for me on the lack of content for me to do.

* OC ended up being nearly DOA
-----* Yes, I did it but mostly for the relic and story but stopped there
-----* I looked at the entry requirements for forked tower and found out quickly it was Savage difficulty, then I noped out fast, once again, time commitment and way too much drama
* Relics are a bit better this expansion but still finished them quickly
-----* We don't talk about EW relics; I don't consider them real relics as they were tombstone weapons
* Dungeons, my old go to content, have been reduced in number to 1 a patch and tied to the MSQ, and thus, that means there too easy and very boring
-----* Seriously, the Expert dungeon is not expert in any way shape or form... since there tied to the MSQ, there easier than many solo instances
-----* Hard mode dungeons such as Braflox, no wall, pull to the boss was way harder, not to mention so much more fun before they added walls
-----* 1 new dungeon every 5 months and another dungeon that has lasted for 10 months makes Expert a disaster in my opinion
* Chaotic ... sigh... loved the idea but the difficulty was just plain messed up, instant kills, wipes, drama, 0 clears, gave up and not going back
* Criterion and Variant dungeons are great in concept but the rewards made them one and done
* Extreme trials lose a lot of their meaning when you don't need them for raid gear
-----* The 99-totem pity system is really terrible, I'd try Extremes again if they had a more realistic 25 clears and you get your mount, but no way 99, see the time commitment thing again
* Moon crafting - I tried to use the moon to level my crafters and gathers but I have bad gear and the exp given from the quests were horrible for the ones I could finish so I gave up and have not gone back
* PvP is something I have to be in the mood to do, and then I have to have a reward that I *really* want, as such, I have not done it in 7.0
* Weekly raids (normal modes and current 24s) are something I do for the glams and then stop once I have what I want, and if the glams are bad, I'll do it once for the story and thats it
* Gold saucer is something I have done on and off since 2.0 and I am essentially done with it
* Leveling up alts - Something I used to do, get them all to max level but the moon that post EW patches and the DT expansion kinda killed my desire to level anything other than my WHM
* Quantum - No reason to do it, no rewards and nobody did it except on max level and grinding tokens to do it made it not worth it
* Allied Societies were interesting but once again were too easy and quick to hold any long-term attention. Many could be done in less than 3 minutes and the loot tables were lackluster

The one redeeming content they had this go around was the new deep dungeon. With its multiple checkpoints, large reward pool and queue system, it was enjoyable until I played it out. I'd go back and do it for leveling alt jobs, but nobody does it anymore, so I was glad I focused on it when it came out.

SE needs to add a new queue system for all of this content they have created and make roulettes for it. Dungeon finder, Raid finder, Party finder, other finders, queues that are location based only... yea, they need to totally rework this system. One menu, one interface, all of the content, have good rewards for doing them each day.

I hope the new variant dungeon they are releasing in the future will be enjoyable and replayable. If they do not do a new party matching system in 8.0, I fear that this will also become forgotten content.

Lastly, what I want in 8.0 is more glamour items and less focus on ilevel as that does not cause people to go back to old dungeons / raids / etc. Savage raids would give gear with better item level and more tokens to get glamour but if you grind normal levels or other content, you can get those tokens too. Raiders just get it faster. If there is a cute outfit, I'll grind until I get it, easy as that but... *do not* lock it behind content that is Savage, Extreme or Ultimate. Focus on the time commitment aspect and not on gate keeping it behind hard content.

[JadeCurtiss]

If you think 8.0 is going to magically fix every issue the game has, then yes. They will most likely try and shake things up however.