Survey: What are your thoughts on the state of XIV?

[Maero]

Polls done, thanks for this.
Also vary surprised that so many think the gearing is fine how it is.

[RobbieH]

The current formula hasn't been working for some raiders since 2.x and they haven't changed anything at all, i'd even say they changed it to worst, Coil was fun, had nice glamours, Alexander is boring and has glamours that look like they were made.

I voted for this (not that anyone cares, not the point anyway)

"I don't really know why I'm logged in right now, this isn't fun"

I hope they change how it is, because there's so many flaws in the current formula it's not even fun, weekly RNG limits, ONE end game, recycled mechanics, bad glamours, no real benefit in getting end game gear from raids, it increases main stat, that's it, should have gear sets from raids.

All i know is that the amount of people who clear end game raids has reduced drastically, and is still going down.

Is it because it got harder or is it because raiders are leaving?

I tell you, raiders are leaving, and the reasons behind it are what people have been debating and asking for.

If they don't change the formula in one year we'll see how the game is doing.

I love this game and i don't have another one to play (GW2 just doesn't do it anymore, and WoW i haven't played since the start, i look t it as something very dated), i only log to do some boring hunts here and there, i wish there was more than one end game, including 4-man end game stuff (would help a lot in making statics), but no they just throw raiders more casual stuff, as if there's isn't enough already.

6 Months of the same end game is way too much.

[Kerii]

I think the data this poll shows is pretty interesting. So far, it does seem that people like the game how it is in general. There are obvious nitpicks, but they are things that are much more specific than a lot of forum and reddit posters might have believed. Things like "Make gear last longer, but don't break the status quo" really stand out to me. Also I think the raiding outlook is interesting too. People liked Coil, and people want a more tiered attitude towards raiding. There is probably a middle ground there that isn't redesigning their raiding formula from the ground up.

[Vespar]

Perhaps SE should run some FFXIV surveys, like they did when 1.0 bombed to get a better idea of what players think and want. and then take it from there.

Player polls tend to be biased in the way they are written too. And these polls were no exception, though they were still better than some of the other ones, Ive seen on here.

[Kerii]

Perhaps SE should run some FFXIV surveys, like they did when 1.0 bombed to get a better idea of what players think and want. and then take it from there.

Player polls tend to be biased in the way they are written too. And these polls were no exception, though they were still better than some of the other ones, Ive seen on here.

The "bias" was pointed out to the OP on reddit, and they acknowledged it. Just take it with a grain of salt like every "statistical" study. Unless the sample is in the thousands we're only looking at a slice of the community. Naturally, I agree that it would be better if SE did this themselves. xD

[Hyperia]

Poll answered!

I have high hopes for 4.0 as in my opinion, Alexander has ruined raiding in the 3.x series.

[Zari]

Poll answered!

I have high hopes for 4.0 as in my opinion, Alexander has ruined raiding in the 3.x series.

Idk
Gordias was pretty bad but Midas really stepped it up

[Jetstream_Fox]

Nothing will be addressed until 4.0 though which is a sad thing, it's leaving us entirely in the dark on what's being discussed.

Fundamentally speaking, this game can't exactly change. That is of course unless they get away from the trinity and instanced theme park design that they have gone with so far. I think a lot of the of issues with the game are stemming from this initial design choice, the flow of funds or lack of labor has been shortened for the development team, granted this might have been a temporary issue with the coming launch of 15.

If we draw comparisons to other MMOs we can clearly see where 14 has strength and weakness. For instance, games like ESO and Star Terk, have such a emphasis on open world content. Exploring is so fun to do within those games, not because it fits within the games lore, but because you always have sense of danger. The immersion is greatly done and you feel like you are in a living breathing world, that's both perilous and giving, allowing you to basically live the words of Hydaelyn "hear, feel, think." But in 14 we don't have this, nothing in all of Eorzea allows for this, making everything seem lifeless and dull, something no Final Fantasy game should ever feel.

14 follows the theme park rule for MMOs, as has Rift, WoW, and Lotro. But as we all know WoW was the real success, because of the varying degrees of things to do within that world. Any game that follows this is going to be exciting at first, well because it's new. 14 has proven this time and time again with every new patch, it brings people together to do content, but it also drives people apart because it doesn't offer what other theme park games have, substantial difficulty levels of content.

And expanding on what I said earlier about the trinity, this forces the devs to build things almost all the same. The arena has to be a certain size, the players need to follow predetermined class rules, and everything must become a dance or life and death. In the end, no matter what they implement, nothing from dungeons to raids will fundamentally change. They can throw a new gearing system into them yes, but you're still doing the same fights to get rewarded through this system.

Touching on stats, while I did suggest adding tp/mp/hp regen as stats as well as pierce and cleave damage. Earlier in this post, the stats are the way they are because again of the trinity. So outside of a rework, which SE has shown they can, nothing really can be added to the game without changing how it's played. Looking at the highly plausible next classes Samurai and Red Mage, in theory both of these classes actually break the trinity. As a RDM can theoretically be all 3 areas AND a SAM could be both a DPS and Tank. Though as it stands there are many questions with the stats in place how they are now, like why a BRD can't have PIE, why a NIN is DEX but MNK is STR. A more experimental system is needed within this game for players to actually see the difference in stats, we can't see ACC or DET. But without a proper stat building system, we can't put something over another stat without gimping ourselves. By that I mean if I put on PIE gear as a BRD I'm hurting myself in more categories than I should, where if this were a game with builds I could effectively design my BRD to work with all of the stats both main predetermined stats and sub stats.

So where is the game good you ask? It does a great job of taking elements from both theme park and sandbox MMOs and meshing them into one weird genre, I can't call this a sandbox or a theme park, it's really a hybrid of the two and the game offers a great way to start out, by that I mean it's not ESO where you wake up go through an area and fall from the sky and get thrown into the world to do whatever. The game helps you out and it's easy to pick up, but hard to master, there are great ways to go about your battle class leveling and crafting stars out easy enough and gradually gets insane. So the game does do a good job of giving the player tools to start playing and doesn't force you into something, yes I know dungeons are in the main story and you have to do them, but the game doesn't drop you into the dungeon and say have fun! The ability to switch a class is also very unique and great as it ensures a player that they don't have to start over 100% if they feel like their first class choice isn't for them in this game. So the state of the game starting out isn't so bad, it's further on that becomes a bit of a mess which is the purpose of this post and many others.

Changing one thing also needs to reflect something else, many agree that the raids in 3.0 were very tough and the system of gearing SE implemented made it feel like the idea of raiding was a chore. As well as the basic design of raiding needing 7 people on the same skill page all knowing their role in the trinity near perfectly. Add the fact we had no training options for these fights going between phases left and right is in it's own right a challenge and often at times in new raids leads to death. So, for one group of players, the fear of being overwhelmed reduces their respective insight and drive to do that content, for another group, we have people who don't think they can do this content because they don't have as much time, so they view these fights out of reach, then we have players who feel the reward for doing this content isn't worth all the emotions that come with raiding, and yes of course, those that feel it's way too hard for them. All of these issues seem to me sound like a multiple difficulty system needs to be put into place. But there we go, changing one thing, but now we have another issues. How do we give it rewards? What difficulty drops what? How many tiers? Easy mode, normal mode, hard mode, expert mode, Master Dante Must Die Legendary Chaos Ninja mode?

The state of the game is something that can't really be summed up easily, nor will it ever be, without actually knowing what Yoshi and the rest of the team want, we can't help them, and they can't help us, in order to fix or alter the game, we need to be able to directly speak with the devs, and that is something that is not nearly discussed enough.

[Shurrikhan]

<snip>

I'll try to be concise for once in response here. I will go into more depth if wanted.

1. Agreed that certain systems may need to break first (e.g. instanced theme park and/or universally mandatory trinities) in order to open up numerous more opportunities.

2. I'd like to know what you mean by "substantial difficulty levels of content". Looking at my time guild-raiding with my main and pug-raiding with my alts up to Mists, I can't honestly say that XIV feels that much harder content-wise than many a WoW fight, for instance. In many cases I preferred the aesthetics and mechanics of those WoW fights, finding them more unique, but that comes down to personal preference. Learning times between the two often felt similar when considering that XIV only releases a wing's worth of bosses at a time where WoW was releasing a raid, or four wings worth, if at a somewhat lesser frequency. What strikes me most is small differences in the community. I came from one of the smaller WoW servers, but it still felt much more populous and able to quickly throw together a PF raid, even a couple 25-mans simultaneously, than my current medium sized one, and just have fun—though usually progressing faster than more serious / nervous newer guild parties. Somehow, I haven't felt that much from XIV. I'm sure we could blame DF for some of this on the server-by-server basis, or even housing for the reduced value of shout chat, but to me a lot of that seems to come from the nature of the fights themselves, and how they're flowed into.

But if you mean the sheer number of different levels of difficulty, I'm in agreement. I feel like we could get a lot out of things in the range of challenge modes, achievements, or mythic dungeons, or even just a Diadem-like experience without the obvious oversights. Aquapolis and the Deep Dungeon, I hear, at least, are / should be a step in that direction. I have yet to try Aquapolis, but I can't say I'm sold on the idea going by Youtube footage, and look forward to the other's release.

3. There will always be certain constraints. I just hope that they stop seen as the tertiary elements such as combo systems, cross-class skills, and/or an arsenal of mitigation cooldowns, and bring it down to the simple question of "is this composition worthwhile?" where jobs within the same role, range, or line-up may differ somewhat individually, but always have a place in some similar, even if therefore adjusted, party. It can favor a trinity-based setup for a majority of content, but at least gives other options for part of it. I'd love to be able to skillfully no-tank or no-heal a heroic dungeon. But that doesn't mean I'm okay with a certain job, especially with untranslatable gear, being left on the sidelines for cutting-edge content, either. I want to start bringing out the differences, but, depending on the context, those can come out more flatly or numerically than one would think. Designing with that in mind requires both intentional and generally-constrained development for class viability in the "hard" or "fixed" content, while pushing the availablity of options both intentionally (Can a 4-DPS party, working perfectly, clear this? How do different compositions compare?) and generally (allowing CCs on most mobs or giving enough of a delay in certain attacks to make certain mobs kite-able, etc., maybe even eventual changes to enmity systems, who knows?) for lighter content as well.

4. While I do think this game is basically a theme park MMO, with scarcely any sandbox elements at all, and I feel that it often under-challenges and under-instructs the player in terms of combat classes, while allowing little synergy or innovation between DoL and DoH classes and the combat side of the game. Progression in general feels weirdly dislocated precisely because of how little different DoW/DoM classes intersect outside of certain cross-class skills, and, again, that (to me) lackluster approach to DoH and DoL. (Granted, I've only taken either to 50, so take my disappointment with a grain of salt; I am however serious about the untapped potential for connecting these things, although that's quite the pipedream to get into.)

5. I feel like a flexible and manually challenge-additive system would be a good start. Work on the undermechanics, the reusable system first. Reap the benefits later. I can throw out a few spitball suggestions if you want.

6. My fear with trying to be more directly connected to the devs, and I understand just how elitist this may sound, is that not only might the opinions being heard not be representative—they might not even be thought out. I want more discussion with the devs, but I have no issue with the idea of "doing their work for them" first, because when we refuse to delve into that, we may well complain about symptoms whose removal only worsen the disease that caused them. I feel like aside from the CMs seeming to focus their interactions on just a narrow band of (typically UI/QoL/lore) concerns, we have almost a direct enough means to voice our concerns. What I don't feel we have are truly hashed out suggestions in most cases.

[Jetstream_Fox]

snip

Out of sleepiness I'm only going to go into detail with number 2 and hopefully come back to the other points.

I feel the game needs both more levels of difficulty and now difficult fights. Why I think this? It actually has nothing to do with MMO games, it is something I have learned through other genres of games. For one being the fighting game, you can start out on easy and work your way to the top difficulty the game offers and you can feel and see just how much of a better player you have/need to become at that level. As with this, you have total control on how you actually progress yourself in a battle. You can go into practice and fine tune what you need to learn until you feel you can complete the game at whatever level. Now the next is shooters, every difficulty the AI gets stronger, gets more responsive and typically more health, accuracy and aim. You have to be very responsive and knowledgeable to beat most shooters on their hardest difficulty and without trying new tactics for different situations you'll likely find yourself dead.

Now how does this relate to 14? The game attempts to mimic different difficulties with leveling, hard and expert roulette, but let's be honest here, there really isn't much of difficulty increase with these steps outside of more health and a bit more damage, the mob still reacts the same, similar to a shooter going from easy to normal. Then we have primals, which are currently only two different difficulties (Garuda, Titan and Ifrit story excluded) again they tried to mimick the mentioned genres but in this case with primals they're more the fighting game genre. Between hard and expert the primals do different attacks and even have brand new phases, in many fighters going to hard mode typically gets you AI rushing you down, blocking and combing you with 2 or 3 main combos, but then in extreme mode the same fighter is getting full moveset, parry counters and throws. So far we see two different ways difficulty is handled within 14 and between primals and dungeons, the only time any difficulty is shown is on extreme primals.

So let's look at raids we have 24 and 8 player. The 24 player is the weakest between the two, yet they require more people and the 8 player is the harder. So why is it, so many people seem to lose ground going from extreme to 24 player content to 8 player? There isn't any fights that are difficult enough for us to grow and see the need for our skills, more so, when to use what. It's like playing Street Fighter and going for easy to hard, you're going to get punished or playing Halo on easy then jumping to legendary and getting obliterated by a group of needler grunts. Raids don't help build up players, they assume we are already at the best level of knowledge. That we know what to do because we cleared everything else, but that's not the case, and it's due to the lack of actual meaningful fights that required us to learn more about our classes and when to utilize our skills.


If I had to put all the battle content on a ladder I'm thinking this would be it dungeons -> primal hard -> 24 player -> primal expert -> 8 player. We just climb up the ladder with no real meaning, it's once you hit X item level go ahead! Which is the equivalent of Street Fighter saying "Hey you learned Hadoken? Go fight on hard!" Or Gears of War saying "Hey you learned to active reload? Go to insane!" There isn't enough difficulty levels or fights for players to learn in this game, so you can never really trust who you are with, you get players who don't know where they fit in on that ladder, players who belong at the top, and ones that need to take a step back and relook at things.

I know it may sound meticulous but just look at the Weeping City thread, people thought that was too hard because Ozma, I simply thought it was badly designed and the hardest fight was Forgall simply because of the amount of mechanics he has vs Ozma Look at the Father on savage, it crushed people left and right. Even the primals have had such crazy difficulty. The game is basically screaming for redesigned or more refined difficulty throughout each area of battle content.