Lack of Mid range group/FC content, ruined gear progression and too much RNG grind

[Orson_Dara]

Frankly I'm done with this game until they come out with some better content. Raiding is fun but even with raiding once you get it down you spend 2-4 hrs out of the entire week then you have nothing else to do.

Generally since 2.2 and the advent for the Atma weapons most of the decisions that SE have made are short sighted and anti-community. Relic weapons originally were a realistic goal that everyone could strive to attain and did not require a large gil or time sink. Putting effort into making a super grindy solo quest was a mistake. The quest doesn't even encourage people to do content together.

Primals actually used to be part of progression now they are a speed bump in the story line. Heck the last 3 EX primals were almost completely ignored by the vast majority of players. Primals were the thing that separated this game from other MMOs. They were iconic fights and were central to progression. They should have been central to upgrading relics or had their own unique progression path. Instead of a solidly interesting upgrade path like relics had in 2.0 we got the most boring, grindy, RNG non-content.

The new relics don't have any requirement other than having a stupid amount of time on your hands. How is that not boring? This feels like a F2P system. It feels like you should be paying to get an Atma drop rate increase or myth bonuses. This is just lazy lazy lazy development putting in the least amount of work in to get the most time wasted by its' subscription base.

Relics aren't even that bad though. Fine, SE ruins relics for everyone, except the few hardcore and a handful people who are too dumb to realize that their relic will be outdated before it's finished. It really sucks but there was other fun content to do. Until they came out with Hunts.

Elite Marks should have been an expansion on the treasure hunt system to provide 1 - 4 - 8 - 24 man open world content. Instead they release the zerg fest that is Hunts. Not only being a broken system on so many levels, it also ends up trivializing all other content because of how easy it is to get rewarded. It destroyed anyone's desire to do anything except Hunts and all semblance of a group effort. Primals, Crystal Tower, Dungeons and even Coil to a certain extent have been marginalized in their usefulness. Hunts give the illusion that people are working together but really we aren't. It's just a huge leech fest with the most minimal level of effort and team work.

SE is probably looking at the Hunts as monumental success because everyone is doing them. The problem is most people aren't doing Hunts because they are fun. The main reason people are doing Hunts is because it's a ridiculously fast way to gear up. Unfortunately for SE that's going to hit a brick wall soon because people get bored of just gearing up. They actually need worthwhile content to stay subbed, otherwise, like myself will move on to other games.

It's really sad because this game was a story of redemption that was unheard in MMOs. I really wish they weren't making the same mistakes as they did in FFXI. Sadly they are confusing RNG and grind with content and greedy individual efforts with team work. Unfortunately they don't seem to be able to deliver quality experiences because of their promise to deliver content patches in a timely basis.

[kuikui]

I disagree with 99.9% of what you've said seeing it as more opinionated and it seems you just don't like what SE is offering. the gil sink for Novus I agree with. However, that is purely greed by players and has nothing to do with SE. Heck, it has nothing to do with RMT. Simply, players are trying to gouge materia prices for whatever sky rocket prices they can get a sale from. The one thing I feel SE did make a mistake at, was releasing so much content so quickly over the past year. I was just thinking of starting from scratch just because but after I reflect on so many hours and hours of doing just what was needed to "stay ahead of the curve," I quickly decided it wouldn't be worth it. Doing my Primals to advance was a pain in the ass. Not because they are hard, but simply because no one does them anymore and I spent 2-3 hours waiting for a DF group or roulette pop. Never again am I going through that crap.

[Orson_Dara]

I disagree with 99.9% of what you've said seeing it as more opinionated and it seems you just don't like what SE is offering. the gil sink for Novus I agree with. However, that is purely greed by players and has nothing to do with SE. Heck, it has nothing to do with RMT. Simply, players are trying to gouge materia prices for whatever sky rocket prices they can get a sale from. The one thing I feel SE did make a mistake at, was releasing so much content so quickly over the past year. I was just thinking of starting from scratch just because but after I reflect on so many hours and hours of doing just what was needed to "stay ahead of the curve," I quickly decided it wouldn't be worth it. Doing my Primals to advance was a pain in the ass. Not because they are hard, but simply because no one does them anymore and I spent 2-3 hours waiting for a DF group or roulette pop. Never again am I going through that crap.

Of course it's opinionated that's what you do on forums. Once I got WTFast so I could raid I loved most of what SE had to offer. Titan EX and Coil are probably some of funnest things I've done in an MMO. It's not just that content that I've done either. I've done pretty much everything else but SE is putting too much focus on Hunts and the Atma weapon (sorry, in my opinion.) That said it's not just me that has this opinion basically my entire free company is unsubbing until there's more content. This sadly means that a lot of them probably will never come back.

In my experience not many people actually are doing the new relics and even less said they have fun doing them. With Hunts the people who liked them or tolerated them are now ultimately done with them unless they want glamour gear. I'm full 110 gear on my left side with War and realistically I don't feel motivated to meld accessories so there's almost nothing for me to do except gear other jobs for content no one wants to do.

I honestly would want to know, do you actually think that the new relic system is better than the 2.0 one? At the very least wouldn't you think it could have been improved by having a team based progression path with the primals for FCs and other groups? There's no content for groups other than hunts (which don't need team work) and coil which is heavily locked out.

[Jynx]

Hell there is hardly any endgame FC content, the game pretty much focuses on 8 man groups being forced to leave others behind because of lockouts.

[Fendred]

Hell there is hardly any endgame FC content, the game pretty much focuses on 8 man groups being forced to leave others behind because of lockouts.

The FC I'm a part of is one of the most prominent on Balmung, but most of us just treat it like a glorified chat log at the moment. No reason to do dungeons with anyone because of duty finder being cheap and easy. No reason to group up for crystal tower because duty finder is cheap and easy. No reason to do atma together because 90% of the server knows its a waste of time. No reason to do Second Binding Coil because all the people who are capable of doing that have groups already or are derelict stragglers like myself (essentially no way to get excess players into the raid... could use variable group sizes). I log in for beast men dailies and grind some vanity. That's about it.

Plus if you are on a server with locked character creation you have no hope of seeing any new waves of gamers that could serve as future raid members.

[Volsung]

Hell there is hardly any endgame FC content, the game pretty much focuses on 8 man groups being forced to leave others behind because of lockouts.

The FC I'm a part of is one of the most prominent on Balmung, but most of us just treat it like a glorified chat log at the moment. No reason to do dungeons with anyone because of duty finder being cheap and easy. No reason to group up for crystal tower because duty finder is cheap and easy. No reason to do atma together because 90% of the server knows its a waste of time. No reason to do Second Binding Coil because all the people who are capable of doing that have groups already or are derelict stragglers like myself (essentially no way to get excess players into the raid... could use variable group sizes). I log in for beast men dailies and grind some vanity. That's about it.

Plus if you are on a server with locked character creation you have no hope of seeing any new waves of gamers that could serve as future raid members.

Some of these are pretty good issues, I would love content that I could take a variable group
say 6-16 of my FC members to and actually get stuff done for people.

I would have loved a hunt board, your gatherers can gather items for, your crafters then turn
into the hunt board, then you, along with other FC mates, pull off quests and special event marks
that only your group can claim/fight.

[Sadana]

The FC I'm a part of is one of the most prominent on Balmung, but most of us just treat it like a glorified chat log at the moment. No reason to do dungeons with anyone because of duty finder being cheap and easy. No reason to group up for crystal tower because duty finder is cheap and easy. No reason to do atma together because 90% of the server knows its a waste of time. No reason to do Second Binding Coil because all the people who are capable of doing that have groups already or are derelict stragglers like myself (essentially no way to get excess players into the raid... could use variable group sizes). I log in for beast men dailies and grind some vanity. That's about it.

Plus if you are on a server with locked character creation you have no hope of seeing any new waves of gamers that could serve as future raid members.

This comment made me pause. I'm guessing cause I'm in the weird situation of being a mostly NA FC on a JP server (long story with some very stubborn people), we actually DO band together for dungeons and what have you as much as we can. We kind of have to to get the DF queue to move at all. We've partied up for atma when everyone was working on that, treasure hunts, and mob hunts (and this last actually worked out well for us before the 'fix' because we hunted when most of the server was asleep.) Is my experience really THAT unusual?

I could hope for some more true variety in the dungeons we get. Tam Tara and Hullbreaker are fun, but are still variations on the hallway theme.

[Rubieus]

1Frankly I'm done with this game until they come out with some better content.
2 Atma weapons
3 Primals
4The new relics
5few hardcore and a handful people who are too dumb to realize that their relic will be outdated before it's finished.
6 Elite Marks should have been an expansion on the treasure hunt system
7They actually need worthwhile content to stay subbed, otherwise, like myself will move on to other games.
8 Unfortunately they don't seem to be able to deliver quality experiences because of their promise to deliver content patches in a timely basis.

1: I wish you the best of luck in your new adventure.
2: Tedious Grind for an outdated weapon. Like Fishing or any other class leveling, you choose if you want to do it. Not all content is created equal.
3: I see your point of view and I expected to see more primals relating closer to progression than separate entities.
4: Again, not for the faint of heart. It is a massive time sink, but I completed it in less than 75 days (literally the longest it should take anyone to get) I did my own SB and did Alexandrite Maps 2-3 times a week.
5: I respected your opinion up until this point. Insulting people because they want to complete content that you deem unworthy is unattractive. Not to mention wrong. I have cleared T9 several times, still no H.A Spear. which means my Novus is still BiS and will be until I get H.A. and by then no doubt the next Relic upgrade will be out and behold! my Novus will be better than H.A.
6: This I whole-heartedly agree on. I have no idea what made them give out so many rewards. Perhaps this was their way of evening out the odds. Casual players can now go do raids with non-casuals as their gear req is met. who knows.
7: I didn't want to be the person to tell you this, but I feel during these past six replies, that we have become closer.. So I will tell you a secret. Nobody cares. There I said it..
8 You have made some very valid points and I hope SE reciprocates your feelings. However, please try and continue conducting your matters without having to resort to insulting others.

[Zephyranthes]

SE cannot satisfy everybody. If they did what you asked for, another group will make a "I quit" post. Unfortunately, you're part of the group that doesn't like the direction FF14 is going to.

[Volcano]

As zeph said.. SE can't make everyone happy, good luck finding that game that you want.

It's not for everyone. but these type of posts pop up often when someone is not personally happy with how FFXIV is going. and trust me in the end, the person complaining. is forgotten about while everyone who does enjoy the game continues to do so.

Rants are rants.