What would it take for you to quit the game?

[Dzian]

I'm not entirely sure about "the formula gives money and is safe", considering that we had a pretty drastic reduction of the playerbase since HW was launched. I don't know the exact numbers but for what I remember during ARR it had nearly (if not slightly above) 1m players playing daily or something like that, but with HW its been drastically reduced to nearly half of that, if not more (or less).

Sure there's no official counter right now but considering how some servers are semi-empty and how SE had to resolve it with the Cross-Realm Party Finder (whiich wasn't even needed until now), this is a "hint" of what's the situation at the moment.
What's worse is that, they're making the expansion even less appealing by gating YET again the entire expansion with more story lock ( http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wi...cenario_Quests it's not updated, but I can count about 400 of them). To show how annoying and uneappealing this is to a new player I actually talked to some of my friends who play all sorts of MMORPG (SWTOR; WoW, Aion, BnS) and tried to lure them into the game because of Stormblood...and guess how many were interested as soon as I mentioned "Story lock"? Zero.

So we have another expansion with more story lock, a possible rehash of the same patching formula that EVERYONE is tired with, with probably the same exact type of content we had 3-4 years ago, maybe even less content with (as you said) 1 dungeon instead of 2, and most likely no innovation to the current content that is laying dead without any make over or rework (we have so many dungeons to do, but none of them are interesting or rewarding to re-run, except for the extra tome or exp).

For the exception of the hardcore playerbase, I don't see this ending on a bright note...but hey at least someone will be happy!

The funniest thing about this is that it’s a total contradiction to everything else in the game..
They've killed so much stuff for the sake of “accessibility”. Everything they do is built around this belief that ultra accessibility is good for the game. Yet it's actually proving to be detrimental.

Content is ridiculously easy because it’s designed to be "accessible"
Normal mode raids are easy because they're designed to be "accessible".
Catch up patches exist because they’re supposed to make current content "accessible" to players. And make it "accessible" to get into raiding....
Savage raiding is easier than ever to make it "accessible" to more players.

Then they wonder why players are bored and have nothing to do or nothing to aim for. (It’s all junk next patch anyways) or they wonder why there's such a big skill gap between players because everything is so ultra accessible players don't even need to try. Thus this ultra accessibility is actually having a detrimental affect on the game rather than a positive one.

They do all of these things for "accessibilitiy" though and then do a complete u turn and block the whole lot behind a long ass story of about 450-500 easy as hell but time consuming quests plus however many will be added in storm bloods main scenario. Yeah that makes total sense. And although it’s long the story is deliberately easy to make sure it's "accessible"

"Accessibility" has destroyed a lot of this game. It's incredibly bad when content is obsolete before the servers even come up on patch day. Like expert roulette that everyone is already 30-40 I levels over powered for before the servers even go live. but hey its "accessible"

And it's made gear and progression worthless because once next patch hits everything you've done in the last patch is useless. or the next patch will have more "accessible" alternatives that are much easier to get.

I could go into 4.0 having not cleared a single ex Primal or raid in 2.0 or 3.0 and I'd be exactly the same as someone who's cleared everything in 2.0 3.0 the day it came out.

"Accessibility" is also why content gets easier which in turn deteriorates it. Rather than players trying and rising to meet the content. They wait and the content drops to the players without any effort and that takes away a lot of the satisfaction and thus players don't find the game rewarding and thus the subscriber count is as low as it is

There's no longevity to anything because of "accessibility"

[Voltyblast]

The funniest thing about this is its a total contradiction to everything else in the game..

And what's even more funny is that there are quite the easy fixes for all of this. For example, loot should be scaled every patch so that old gear isn't totally wasted (think of Legion's dungeons) and in general the rewards should be scaled to high level so that even at 60-70 doing old quests is beneficial (SWTOR does this greatly as you can go to your old planets and do heroic quests, and get rewards scaled to your level). Also loot should have some sort of tier sets which makes them better regardless if BiS or not (and the saddest part is, we had that on levelling gear from the GC). There should be special effects, there should be timed runs (Again look at Legion and mythic+), there should be so much more and yet we get nothing.

And on top of that, for the sake of accessibility, they really should start thinking of making the story optional or else, as I said, only the hardcore fans will try it. YES, this is a Final Fantasy game, I know story is important (PFFF...sorry I almost had a burst of laugh there), however there will be one point where new players will be completely discouraged to even play the game, as they will have to suffer through the story for even unlocking the basic endgame (because enjoying the GAME is such a shameful thing!). I always make the reference to SWTOR here because it makes story optional (for the most part) and it's a story-heavy game (and IMHO, a much better story in general).

But if people prefer to have a game "bonafide Final Fantasy" rather than having more subscribers, then I guess I have nothing more to say.

Except "I hope it doesn't backfire"

[CodingSquirrel]

And what's even more funny is that there are quite the easy fixes for all of this. For example, loot should be scaled every patch so that old gear isn't totally wasted (think of Legion's dungeons) and in general the rewards should be scaled to high level so that even at 60-70 doing old quests is beneficial (SWTOR does this greatly as you can go to your old planets and do heroic quests, and get rewards scaled to your level). Also loot should have some sort of tier sets which makes them better regardless if BiS or not (and the saddest part is, we had that on levelling gear from the GC). There should be special effects, there should be timed runs (Again look at Legion and mythic+), there should be so much more and yet we get nothing.

Please no. Yes, SWTOR did this, and in doing so removed every single piece of gear that statically dropped from old content. (note: I stopped playing around/before this change took place so my information could have inaccuracies) So essentially they removed the loot table from every piece of content in the game. Instead you'd get gear boxes with generic leveling gear for your level. Goodbye all the nice gear you liked from dungeon X, or that dropped as random loot from enemy Y. I think they ended up going back and throwing some of it into a vendor to placate the people complaining.

And on top of that, for the sake of accessibility, they really should start thinking of making the story optional or else, as I said, only the hardcore fans will try it. YES, this is a Final Fantasy game, I know story is important (PFFF...sorry I almost had a burst of laugh there), however there will be one point where new players will be completely discouraged to even play the game, as they will have to suffer through the story for even unlocking the basic endgame (because enjoying the GAME is such a shameful thing!). I always make the reference to SWTOR here because it makes story optional (for the most part) and it's a story-heavy game (and IMHO, a much better story in general).

But if people prefer to have a game "bonafide Final Fantasy" rather than having more subscribers, then I guess I have nothing more to say.

Except "I hope it doesn't backfire"

I do support decoupling story from unlocking everything in the game. Let a person grind up and start running raids (for example) before doing the main story if they so choose. Then they can go back and do the story if and when they want to.

[Voltyblast]

Please no. Yes, SWTOR did this, and in doing so removed every single piece of gear that statically dropped from old content. (note: I stopped playing around/before this change took place so my information could have inaccuracies) So essentially they removed the loot table from every piece of content in the game. Instead you'd get gear boxes with generic leveling gear for your level. Goodbye all the nice gear you liked from dungeon X, or that dropped as random loot from enemy Y. I think they ended up going back and throwing some of it into a vendor to placate the people complaining..

Fair enough, but I still want to be rewarded for running all content rather than the endgame: everything that is not 260-270 is dead and useless, only good for those who are catching up and even said catching up is badly done (I'm struggling to gear up as dps because tome gear is 230, but dungeon loot is 245 and since alex is dead I can't even take the 250 ones! Sure my tank is high level but what about my dps? Am I to forget them?). I don't demand the same exact method that SWTOR did BUT I'd love a way to make every content viable no matter the item level we currently are and as of now. And while we're at it, they should rebalance synch by allowing everyone to use all of their skills: there's no skill in pushing 2 buttons instead of 3.

Sure SE does this "thanks" to WT but it's such a poor, POOR implementation that barely makes a difference and - worst of all - it's completely RNG. The Mentor system doesn't work for sure (heck speaking of help, for people like me who are stuck on nidhogg nobody even cares. Way to promote mentoring!) and since old dungeons have absolutely no reason to be done twice (no special achievements, no mount drops, no rare glamour, NOTHING) nobody ever does a run again unless it's roulette. The only piece of content that will remain valid throughout the years is EX primals: the mounts are a good incentive even years after they're dead and THAT'S how it should be.

But we all know nothing will change so we can only hope that "something" might happen....but I'll unsub until that moment happens if you don't mind!