Concern on the current state of FFXIV, and future content

[Recruiter]

The problem with this game is that it seems to be developed on a shoestring budget. When ARR came out it was fine as they rushed to rebuild the game from scratch, but 4 years later the game still feels like its cutting corners and full of duct-taped holes that they'll fix by release. Everything that gets added just reeks of poverty and lack of funding. Here is a list of some things that demonstrate this.

• Janky animations. Your character turns to a statue when on a mount for example.
• Weak cutscenes. Compare this to 1.0 cutscenes, you'd be surprised.
• So many items going to the cash shop where they don't belong, such as /playdead. It belongs in the battle system. So is Sleipnir, and NPC equipment/Minions. It feels like they're hurting for money, its a bad look.
• No racial battle animations.
• No gender unique battle animations.
• 1.0 Equipment that lack belts that were part of the look in the model left forgotten.
• Terrible Dye system for 1.0/2.0 Gear.
• Tiny inventory space.
• Retainers are horrible and clunky.
• Not being able to mail to alts because it would cut into retainer sales.
• Several items with icons that don't match the item itself are still unfixed.
• No content or items for anything other than level cap or lv1 glamour gets added.
• Very little equipment diversity between races/genders.
• Excessive reliance on mounts and minions as rewards instead of equipment.
• Very basic equipment stats. To avoid balancing issues? Whats the reason?
• Weird equipment quirks like armor that flutters like fabric and capes with no physics.
• Clipping. So much clipping. Tails and hair clips through gear because SE decided modeling tail holes is too much effort.
• And my favorite, the severe loot drought. This connects to mounts and minions, as they've replaced equipment for a lot of content. Why don't hunt mobs drop unique gear? Why does DRK, AST, MCH, SAM, and RDM lack the lv50 and 60 relic stages? Why is dungeon loot getting reskinned from old sets and shared between dungeons instead of each one having a theme matching set?

Another issue to add to the "cheapness" is that the DEV team seems to not be in touch with the players wants and needs.

• Stats are terrible and doesn't allow for any build verity. This is fine until level 30 but at 70 and even endgame rewards? Have mercy!
• Refusal to let go or re-haul content players hate such as Hunts and Fates. Hunts keep getting dredged back up despite being hated.
• Pushing PVP despite it not being appealing to most players.
• Refusing to explore new content types even if tried and tested elsewhere. (I personally think Abyssea is fantastic. So much loot to get!)
• Small things we hate like the best dyes being cash shop or retainer venture rewards, no housing for most of us, FC workshop being wasted potential etc.

All these issues that makes it looks like this is a 50,000 player indie title with no funding, not a Final Fantasy game by one of the biggest publishers in the market.

[NovaLevossida]

It feels like they are creatively bankrupt and are not willing to take risks at all or are unwilling to abandon flawed ideas. We get the same stagnant content cycle (dungeons, trials, MSQ, and one type of raid) over and over. But then they have something like Diadem which failed, failed on the relaunch, and have still tried to force on us with a rework in Eureka. I don't feel that I'm getting more content or more "new" content (especially with how much Eureka resembles Diadem) for that dungeon that they cut. I got Diadem 1.0, 2.0, Lords of Verminion, Aquapolis, and PotD (both iterations) at the cost of a dungeon from ARR. They took away a dungeon every other patch cycle in 4.x and have just delivered less of everything and certainly nothing new (unless you consider Ultimate as a new type of content instead of just a higher difficulty trial). That's... not good.

[Genz]

Hopefully the honeymoon is over, 4 years late... ARR has never been really good, it just didn't have any big blatant problem, and was far better than 1.0, which doesn't mean much but allowed for a nice story around the game (Yoshida's presentation during GDC and the Noclip documentary fell into this trap : they don't explain much, it's just a big auto-congratulation around the rebuild of the game)

ARR was a success so they probably made the right choices in the short time they had to make it, but then it seems they thought what they created was good and kept adding new stuff of the same low quality, instead of backtracking a little and enhancing the quality of what already existed. And then they applied the same treatment to the new stuff, and now we have a lot of things that could be awesome but are just left to rot (chocobo races are the best-worst example of this)

And finally, when it gets really bad, they just sell a potion to skip it.

tl;dr : quality > quantity

[Vhailor]

Here's the thing though: As has been stated before, the forums only represent a handful of the playerbase. While everyone here may be practically rioting over how the game is going out of sheer disappointment, so many others continue to enjoy the game. There will always be those that like how the game is going and dislike how the game is going, and SE (or any other company for that matter) will never be able to satisfy everyone. People keep requesting "new" content be added to FF14, but what is new exactly? Something completely original? Something from other games? Something different the game doesn't have yet? Perhaps all of the above? SE tries at least one of these things, and it can be hit or miss to individuals, but only time will tell if more than half the playerbase considers it hit or miss. So long as the game's direction isn't overall a miss they will likely have no reason to change it, and stick to what they have planned in advance.

I cannot disagree more, and I think this perspective is actually quite toxic.

Firstly, it effectively excuses SE from the piss-poor job they've done QA'ing content. Diadem, Diadem 2.0, Diadem 3. - err, Eureka* - all of them were painfully bad upon release, boring enough that SE clearly didn't test them in a realistic setting. This should have been obvious after Hunts and both Diadem versions flopped so badly right out of the gate, and they've made no effort to fix it. That's an issue of SE simply being satisfied with poorly-tested content, which is not something the player base should be allowed to forgive.

Secondly, the goal of new content cycle isn't to please more players than it pisses off. It's not a binary scale. Most people should like it; most of the rest should tolerate it even if it's not their favourite thing to do; only a small minority should be outright disappointed.

Finally, it excuses SE for what amounts to a tremendously risky approach to FFXIV. You're essentially saying that SE should ignore all available evidence, despite its dire predictions. That there's no need to change what they're doing, because nothing truly awful has happened yet. All of this, despite the fact that the problem is one that arguably cannot be fixed after it has become obvious; that the only real solution is a proactive solution. I'm sure if SE is interested in nothing more than short-term profits, this will work out fine, but there's a solid chance they're strangling their flagship MMO in the long run, and tarnishing the Final Fantasy brand in the process.

I very much struggle to see how all of this adds up to a reasonable course of action on SE's part, one the player base should just accept quietly.

[Vahlnir]

-snip-

Pretty much this, and also why I'm trying to be vocal about this. (moreso than in the past about things)

There's no excuse for this. None. No good one, at least. I've been playing since 2.0 launch, and I think this is the first time I've genuinely felt let down to the point I'm not sure I'd renew my sub if I cancel it. Waiting to see what they do or don't do before I make a decision.

It took them about a year and a half to get it right, and they made some cheap XI knock off that fails to capture even how XI felt and somehow made it worse than Diadem. I didn't think that was even possible. If I wasn't so irritated about the whole thing I'd be impressed.

[Remedi]

They took away a dungeon every other patch cycle in 4.x and have just delivered less of everything and certainly nothing new (unless you consider Ultimate as a new type of content instead of just a higher difficulty trial). That's... not good.

Count the dungeons they could have done an hard mode of (remove cutters, aurum vale, dzemael and toto-rak because they said they wouldn't do it in advance) and you'll get the reason why they've done that

[Penthea]

...so um, I don't hate Eureka. At all. The only thing I dislike is the poor phasing out of mobs and party members.

I really think people are jumping the gun by being all doom and gloom when they obviously had not enough time to see most of it yet.

[Vahlnir]

...so um, I don't hate Eureka. At all. The only thing I dislike is the poor phasing out of mobs and party members.

I really think people are jumping the gun by being all doom and gloom when they obviously had not enough time to see most of it yet.

Spent most of yesterday in the place...I saw enough. I even left and came back to it multiple times because I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Ended up in an exp party for a better part of the night and did have a bit of fun (they were awesome, if any of you read the forums thank you for being so great) but in the end, I have come to the conclusion that I should always keep my expectations low so I'm not disappointed. And I am, very much so. I should have known better.

But hey, there's a burnt Hildebrand costume on the mogstation now...awesome, right? /s

[Conando]

If you check the reddit for FF XIV you already see what the endgame of this is. Grind Anemos crystals for the armor from NMs, and grind Pazuzu Feathers from the one ultimate level 20+ NM monster for the Weapon. It's not anything exciting, that's for sure. Especially when you wouldn't be able to see Pazuzu half the time.

[Vahlnir]

If you check the reddit for FF XIV you already see what the endgame of this is. Grind Anemos crystals for the armor from NMs, and grind Pazuzu Feathers from the one ultimate level 20+ NM monster for the Weapon. It's not anything exciting, that's for sure. Especially when you wouldn't be able to see Pazuzu half the time.

So basically, the grind actually somehow gets worse? I'm...not surprised.