SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[Avarghaladion]

I disagree with you on the production values. The point you seem to be focusing on is the voice acting though. Voice acting was one of the banes on development side of games like SWTOR. It was expensive and time consuming to get any new content out. Is the player base really willing to wait many extra months so you can hear more of Minfilia's voice? I know that I'm not. One of this game's strengths is it's short development cycle for patches.

Then they shouldn't continually half-ass it. Other titles that aren't AAA do full VA just fine. It isn't the obstacle you percieve it to be. F2P titles do it that release content on the same schedule. All things I already pointed out and that anyone can casually observe in a number of titles.

At any rate, no that wasn't my primary point on production value. At minimum, the game costs ~$140/yr per player and the bulk of the game's playtime is shamelessly padded. This may be par for the course in MMOs but the degree and manner to which it is padded in XIV is asinine and excessive. What we get for our money is a few new static mob move rotations to memorize, some reskins and pretty but hollow/stale backdrops, a single occasional good musical composition, and new experiments in tedium tolerance. Addtionaly, they employ RNG and lockouts of every nature known to gaming and especially tedious and repetitive grinds in excess of any game besides FFXI and legacy-style MMOs. Nothing ever changes and there is zero randomization of any kind. Games we paay less for offer much more and have more heart. There is profuction value here, but it's a skeletal look-but-don't-touch experience held together by intentionally addictive elements. It's only the framework of what we should expect from a modern AAA MMO.

This is hardly unique to FFXIV. You can buy carries in nearly any MMO, no matter horizontal or vertical progression. You can't force players to care, and trying just makes them unsub.

No kidding? A game is easy if you buy carries? Obviously irrelevant and not the point. The game's "hardest" content is virtually a Simon Says simulator devoid of any real personal challenge. The only difficulty that exists is completely artificial in that failure is rarely a result of a lack of gamer skill. A good player can perform their role flawlessly every single time, be God's gift to gaming in general, but it doesn't matter if even one person in the group makes even a single mistake in pretty much any coil turn pre-nerf. The fact that carries are even possible is indicative of the game's weakness in this department. It's easier for a group to clear something short a member than it is to clear with someone who makes even a single mistake. Aside from meeting DPS checks, a player who is mediocre at their job but adept at jumping through the team-jumprope hoops is more useful than the world's best gamer who hasn't memorized the rotations. How hard could it ever actually be when every boss does the exact same moves at the exact same times every single time you fight it? It's a joke.

There are still some zones that fresh geared characters can be quickly overwhelmed by LOS pulled mobs.

How? Unless they let themselves get petrified you can literally walk away from any open world fight as soon as it becomes evident you bit off more than you can chew. Sight mob are extremely easy to avoid thanks to narrow and short detection cones. Hearing mobs are completely avoidable by walking instead of running and have even smaller detection areas. If you fight a ranged mob you have to start walking earlier but the point stands. There is zero actual risk in any aspect of the open world.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Toxic doesn't mean "disagrees with me". This community has been one of the best ones I've been in in the MMOS I've played.

Ironic bad attitude aside, the game, official forums, and reddits all abound with people of the mind that "holy $$%^ this community is toxic," and it's almost entirely the result of the game's content being presented in the way it is.

- Instances are glorified standardized testing. Success is graded on how well you've memorized the fight. Toxicity arises when friendly but clueless players join without having watched a video or something, usually.

- Older players grinding tomes have to deal with people wanting to watch up to 40min of CS in some cases, new players watching CS have to deal with rude veterans harping on em or kicking em.

- The only non-casual/social "community" is in the form of statics which mostly renders FCs irrelevant.

- Content locks make both static and PF politics toxic. Skilled players flock to statics leaving PF pugs to wallow in mostly less-skilled players, leading to frustration and toxicity.

- Hunt trolls.

Pretty much every aspect of the design lends itself to toxicity and deters actual friendly cooperation and teamwork.

MMOs are a grind. All of them. Your complaint is that it's quick enough to not annoy people. How is that bad?

The grind is supposed to be entertaining. XIV's grind is uninspired and lazy. It's bad because they're intentionally pushing the limits of what they know people will tolerate with the express purpose of padding subscription times. It feels like making things fun isn't even relevant to them.

Again, voice acting is not the savior of the game. It will make things take longer to release and make it harder for new content with those characters to be made if you insist on everything being voice acted.

Again, strawman argument and ignores the meat of the issue. VA aside, the script is still unpolished. Plot has been touched on by in-depth in posts well before you made yours. Not going to revisit it.

No, this is a vertical progression game with a vertical progression grind. Not seeing any sign of a horizontal progression here.

Lrn2read. "Horizontal progression style grind." The vertical grind is stetched out as much as possible. Gear is earned with almost as much grind as one would expect of gear in a horizontal progression system but it's still totally bland vertical progression disposable trash with no real options to speak of. Players pay and play more for less.

You're complaining that the game is boring, and one of your favorite bits is autopilot fishing? Sorry, what?

Lrn2read x2. Pretty easy to comprehend. You can literally play other games or even respond to vapid counterarguments, such is the freedom granted by fishing. It was a bit of a satirical remark, but it's true. At least fishing doesn't try to disguise the fact that it's a shameless time sink and it rewards you an item that's markedly better than anything comparable... not like DoW/DoM gameplay where everything is pretty much on par.