Where is the "never before seen content"?

[SmokeyTheSequel]

I knew this years ago when it became obvious that theme park was going to be clone park X.0. Everyone is starting to wake up now and take off their rose tinted glasses and see that given their now 4 years in the making that we are on a hilly rollercoaster and that's all it will ever be. Couple turns here and there but no loopdeloops or corkscrews. Gotta play it safe... next expansion is going to be exactly what this one was... and the next. Please look forward to it!

[Ameela]

The reason 2.x seemed to have way more content than 4.x is because 2.x was mostly riding on the coattails of 1.0.
They were able to release 3 new trials, 3 new dungeons, a plethora of new side quests and QoL improvements because a big part of the content back then was stuff from 1.0 repurposed to fit in the new version of the game, while the other portion of content was either stuff that was already in development way before 2.0 had even been released or it was things using old assets so it wasn't exactly that much of a challenge to make.

Now that we're in patch 4.3 there's pretty much nothing left to "recycle", as it were, and all the content we're getting is 100% original and built from the ground up. This is especially noticeable in the dungeons, go back to the ARR dungeon list and look at how many of them are hard modes which are just reused assets from the original dungeon with new enemies and bosses, there was pretty much only one completely new dungeon per patch. Meanwhile SB so far has only had 1 hard mode dungeon (about to be 2 in 4.4) with every other dungeon being completely original and with much higher production values. I don't mean to undermine the developer's work however it's clear a lot more effort was put into Swallow's Compass than Snowcloak just in terms of design, for example.

[AncientCrystal]

YoshiP is a liar. I remember way back before 3.4 he said the raids back then had "never before seen" mechanic and it turned out it was just crap QTE where you just jump off the robot with a button push. Riiiiiiiiiight. YoshiP has a way of hyping up upcoming content, only for it to be generic crap.

[Eloah]

I'm curious, is WoW available in other regions, in other languages?

Not saying it's an excuse for anything but the money and resources SE has to use to translate does play a bit of a factor. But I don't play/never played WoW so I can't say anything. I do know some people who play and they said l, basically, every annoyance and grievance that is posted on this forum is mirrored on theirs. And admittedly, I have no frame of reference, this is my first MMO. Not a bad start though.

[Remedi]

I'm curious, is WoW available in other regions, in other languages?

Not saying it's an excuse for anything but the money and resources SE has to use to translate does play a bit of a factor. But I don't play/never played WoW so I can't say anything. I do know some people who play and they said l, basically, every annoyance and grievance that is posted on this forum is mirrored on theirs. And admittedly, I have no frame of reference, this is my first MMO. Not a bad start though.

Wow has much more languages than FF14, however there's to say that the text they need to translate is not on the same quantity, since FF14 has a much more elaborate story than wow with some sentences having different outcomes depending on what you did, the same doesn't really apply to wow


On topic: Dunno about other ppl but to me was enough when Ghostcrawler said that 5.4 on wow was going to have a super secret new feature that they haven't yet show and that raiders were asking for years only for it to be......pet tournament battle......................................
After that I've started not caring for this kind of statement, they are simply BS

[Ameela]

If I were to guess why people feel there's a content lull or that there's nothing to do is actually somewhat the fault of the devs adding more content than was necessary.
Tying the relic weapons to Eureka is what, in my opinion, is causing a portion of the playerbase to lose interest in the game. I'm not bashing it or anything, I like it well enough and I think giving it actually meaningful rewards was a good way to incentivise people to do the content, but as much as we complain about the ARR and HW relics being grindy, recycled content and taking too long, the devs kind of shot themselves in the foot by tying the SB relics to new content.

The ARR and HW relics could be completed by simply playing the game, pretty much anything you did would further your progress on them if only by a tiny bit, which meant that pretty much all kinds of players were able to complete the relics no matter what type of content they enjoyed and how they liked to approach it.
It essentially provided you with a reward for simply playing the game more, you could be doing whatever content you felt like and it would contribute towards a certain goal, that being the relic weapon. So whenever you thought "I don't really have anything in particular for me to do today" you could always just work on your relic.

Now in SB the relic is tied to Eureka, and Eureka is content that not everyone likes. It's also content you have to go out of your way to do. The SB relic is completely seperate from all the other content in the game, whenever you're doing other things you're not contributing towards your progress on the relic, and whenever you're progressing on the relic inside Eureka you're not really doing anything to help you outside aside from earning tomestones.
You can't get your relic by simply playing the game anymore, or rather, you can't get it by playing the game how you want to play. This means that people not interested in Eureka simply won't bother with the relic and people who are indifferent to it will just get whatever relics they're interested in and never go back.
So now the answer to "What should I do when I run out of content?" goes from "Just play the game and do whatever you want and you can work towards this goal" and becomes either "Go do this content you might not be interested in and has almost nothing to do with the rest of the game" or "Just play the game and get nothing for it", which much less people will find appealing.

It's not that there's less to do in SB in terms of actually meaningful content, it's just that they gimped what you used to be able to accomplish by playing the game long-term, so now there's less incentive to keep playing.

[Vstarstruck]

There's no MMO that can keep up with their players.

Oh really? given I played ffxi for 8 years, never felt a "copy and paste" feel (outside specific monsters and level grinding but that is minor as hell) ARR on its own was getting tiring of its formula (the tomestone thing) but at least back in ARR, each 24 man raid felt new and.. I really did not do coils then. I was new to the game as well so I might have a skewed view on it.

HW felt it was copy/pasting a lot of things from ARR, while introducing new ideas, the most successful one being palace of the dead. See this is why i called FFXI copy/paste monsters minor, because the endgame progressing kept changing while keeping older gear still relevant so you always had something to do. FFXI endgame did not feel like an endless tredmill of out dating stuff 2-3 months at a time, everything had meaning. you play a bit each day to get that leet gear then you move on the next one.

Now comes SB, this is literately xzibit now. "Yo dawg, I hurd u like HW, so we are giving you HW again so you can do HW while you do HW. I never, never, never seen any other game do this much copy/paste as far as structure.

This is what it is like going though SB's content:
https://youtu.be/La9nLBfH44c?t=8
1.0 = copy and pasting terrain
ARR+ copy and pasting full content.
Id rather have 1.0

Tying the relic weapons to Eureka is what, in my opinion, is causing a portion of the playerbase to lose interest in the game. I'm not bashing it or anything, I like it well enough and I think giving it actually meaningful rewards was a good way to incentivise people to do the content, but as much as we complain about the ARR and HW relics being grindy, recycled content and taking too long, the devs kind of shot themselves in the foot by tying the SB relics to new content.

The ARR and HW relics could be completed by simply playing the game, pretty much anything you did would further your progress on them if only by a tiny bit, which meant that pretty much all kinds of players were able to complete the relics no matter what type of content they enjoyed and how they liked to approach it.
It essentially provided you with a reward for simply playing the game more, you could be doing whatever content you felt like and it would contribute towards a certain goal, that being the relic weapon. So whenever you thought "I don't really have anything in particular for me to do today" you could always just work on your relic.

Now in SB the relic is tied to Eureka, and Eureka is content that not everyone likes. It's also content you have to go out of your way to do. The SB relic is completely seperate from all the other content in the game, whenever you're doing other things you're not contributing towards your progress on the relic, and whenever you're progressing on the relic inside Eureka you're not really doing anything to help you outside aside from earning tomestones.
You can't get your relic by simply playing the game anymore, or rather, you can't get it by playing the game how you want to play. This means that people not interested in Eureka simply won't bother with the relic and people who are indifferent to it will just get whatever relics they're interested in and never go back.
So now the answer to "What should I do when I run out of content?" goes from "Just play the game and do whatever you want and you can work towards this goal" and becomes either "Go do this content you might not be interested in and has almost nothing to do with the rest of the game" or "Just play the game and get nothing for it", which much less people will find appealing.

It's not that there's less to do in SB in terms of actually meaningful content, it's just that they gimped what you used to be able to accomplish by playing the game long-term, so now there's less incentive to keep playing.

That is part of the problem, a small part of the full picture, but yes it is a factor. To make matters worse is how long it was delayed. They gave an almost no content area that was delayed for pretty much no reason. This coupled with dev overhype cased a lot of problems on player moral for the future course of the game.

I will disagree with the idea of "adding more content than was necessary" however, the problem is also lack of content + copy/paste old expansion structures.

[JunseiKei]

I never insinuated otherwise. There shouldn't be one where a major patch releases then sits around for six weeks despite the content released being nowhere near long enough to maintain a general interest for that length of time. The whole reason why MMOs, FFXIV included, employ grinds are to combat boredom. Stormblood's relic grind has been relegated to one month before 4.4. Not only does it not exactly last long, the weapon itself is entirely meaningless for progression.

Why shouldn't it? It should be less because there's stuff players don't want to do? There's players that can play this game like a job and do "everything?" No 'grinds' are a result of something called artifical scarcity. It's to enlongate the time you invest into a game that incorporates it. The relics have always been meaningless for progression. Up until it's a few months before the next expansion. Then they become BiS. When it happened sooner than that, raiders complained their time spent in raids, learning the fights, was valued little as the relics became BiS 'too soon.'

Don't be obtuse. You know as well as I these abrupt staggered releases are an attempt to keep subscribed. I won't necessarily fault Yoshida for that though.

I'm not being obtuse. I was saying, in not quite so many words, I don't see how you can make this claim when patches are not even that frequent. So to say there is, apparently, new content enough to keep your subscription going, or lasts long enough to keep that subscription going, I don't understand the complaints being made about the contents' release or longevity. It's one or the other; it doesn't suddenly change just to suit a part of another argument.

And yet the general consensus is Heavenswards' story was largely superior. I will grant you side story quests have been somewhat better, but again, those are one and done.

Please pre-emptively provide links to your sources for such claims. Otherwise, I shall take this as a personal claim, perhaps along with concurring agreements with people you personally keep in touch with.

Still, this is opinion, changing from person to person. I doubt either of us are in a job that can sit back, unbiased and rate the expansions like a professional, basing on music score, battles, story, etc.

And those same "raid loggers" existed in Heavensward yet the active player numbers did not dip nearly as aggressively as they have in Stormblood. You're dismissing virtually ever potential slight against the game as "well that just happens." It didn't in Heavenswards. Perhaps that's a sign FFXIV should follow WoW's resurgence with Legion come the next expansion and not simply sit on all these complaints. Which is why feedback and criticism is crucial. Hand-waving everything aside results in a repeat of the same mistakes—ones that won't be as easily forgiven a second time. If Stormblood's numbers are suffering now and nothing changes; just a purple coat of purple atop red. Those same numbers could decline even further.

Ugh. I had to rewrite this response so many times because I started writing novels on just this section. Sorry for the following shorthand:

I'm just being realistic. You literally cannot please everyone all of the time. People will leave, sometimes for something not even the fault of the game. It's not being dismissive. I can't draw a comparison to WoW, never touched it, so I don't know what you're trying to get across to me with that. Feedback and criticism is crucial, agreed, but listening to all of it is folly and may incur unfavorable outcomes (example: want faster content cycle or just more stuff per content cycle; need more people to do this; money doesn't grow on trees and something like increase sub fee to cover costs - are players still happy? Probably not, but hey! Their demands were heeded, that's all that matters). Linking general active players to simply what the content cycles is dangerous and probably misleading (please follow my reasoning). I can't recall what games came out during the span of Heavensward (maybe getting into Warframe near the end of Heavensward? Holy shit The War Within). I know from the start of Stormblood, Resident Evil 7, Fate Grand Order, Granblue, Monster Hunter World, Super Mario Odyssey, Black Desert Online releasing Lahn and constant events, Warframe releasing a new story arch after 2 years (worth it) that have utterly obliterated mine and my raid members' times. Has nothing to do with XIV's patch cycle, we're just gamers being gamers.

Indeed, nor did I claim otherwise. That doesn't mean those estimations are entirely inaccurate or meaningless either. Considering complaints about lackluster content and little innovation are far more commonplace nowadays than two years prior, we can reasonably assume a decent portion of players aren't thrilled by some of the decisions made for Stormblood. It's not definitive, of course, but it shouldn't be ignored either.

Even innocent claims of 'a large portion of the community' can askews another's view on what may be a completely opposite in truth. Consider it a caution.

I chalk up more complaints to SE doing more 'risks' / fulfilling requests. I've seen just as much complaints about Eureka as I have about Ultimate. Heavensward, I do recall people complaining about Hildibrand, to stop with the quests. I'm glad SE kept making them; absolutely love the quests.

No, I mean that it dies within weeks. Outside of the Garo event and Stormblood's initial launch, PvP activity has been staggeringly low. So much so the devs were embarrassed on their own Live Stream with an hour long queue. Rival Wings completely dropped off within two weeks, and how struggles to see queues despite people actively advertising on reddit. There really is no way to argue PvP has not been a failure in numerous ways. Being a generalist MMO does not mean you want content so decidedly unpopular it sees little activity.

Well, that is embarrassing.

So you'd rather have no content for those that enjoy PvP. PvP additions are already fairly rare, with job balancing being the most frequently done things to the mode.

Virtually ever census conducted cites 3.1 as FFXIV's worst patch. Of course, it's largely subjective, but considering the overwhelming dislike of Diadem and LoV, Gordias Savage destroying the raid scene and the developers opting not to delay a patch like that again, it's not difficult to surmise 3.1 was not well received.

I didn't see this census, so you'd only know about it if you were told about it, right? Not that many go to Reddit, or wherever this census was hosted.

My point here is trying to be a vocal minority does not equate to anything other than a number of people being very loud about something they dislike. Even if it is as you say, not well received, that's OK, but I don't think either of us nor other players have access to an even remotely accurate way to gauge this and can only generalize it by what we are perceiving. It's not a dismissal or discredit, it's just something to consider and what I think anyone comes up with a "largely/major/most/" player/community/people thing gets said.

Did I really need to add in brackets (Normal and Savage). I am neither a business nor am I selling you a product. I'm speaking to someone acutely aware of the terms. So yes, that is needlessly nitpicky. Regardless, I do admit to having forgotten to list Ravana and Bismarck, though the overall point remains. Given how poorly the major content releases were received outside 3.0 proper, there remained very little to do for an extended point of time as 3.1 had been delayed longer than their usual schedule.

Yes, because while I and others may be aware of what has and hasn't been included, others will absolutely take conversations at face value and then spread misinformation. I'll keep to my being nitpickiness. (And Sephirot; he dropped right in 3.2).

~snip~

Didn't play XI; didn't have a computer good enough and was still on dial-up. Played other games that kept older armor relevant. I suppose that works for some games, but didn't XI also had gear that took literal years to farm? Now THAT sounds like an uphill climb as a fresh player. For how XIV is set up (IE: not a massive commitment to play and doesn't require constant upkeep), something like this really doesn't work. I get the appeal and why some people would want it. I'm glad XIV didn't adopt it. But hey, we're people on two opposing sides of what we enjoy.

I feel we're playing two different games here. Structure, you mean like content patches or things like in game environments? If you mean environments... yeah... you and I are playing two different games.... The video links to 1.0, uploaded in 2010. No idea what 1.0 even had in it at that point.

I do know XIV 1.0 and XI had the same teams.

[Vstarstruck]

Didn't play XI; didn't have a computer good enough and was still on dial-up. Played other games that kept older armor relevant. I suppose that works for some games, but didn't XI also had gear that took literal years to farm? Now THAT sounds like an uphill climb as a fresh player. For how XIV is set up (IE: not a massive commitment to play and doesn't require constant upkeep), something like this really doesn't work. I get the appeal and why some people would want it. I'm glad XIV didn't adopt it. But hey, we're people on two opposing sides of what we enjoy.

I feel we're playing two different games here. Structure, you mean like content patches or things like in game environments? If you mean environments... yeah... you and I are playing two different games.... The video links to 1.0, uploaded in 2010. No idea what 1.0 even had in it at that point.

I do know XIV 1.0 and XI had the same teams.

No, that was in regards to specific type of special weapons that was meant to be super hard to obtain, they where meant more as trophies. A skilled and knowledge user with a second best or 3rd best could outperform them (like PLD shield regarded as "best" a gear change happy user could hit the caps it bought, it had to be buffed to have more of a reason to obtain because of that. Basically a PLD shield allowed you be "lazy" more then improving your performance to great degree) and in a lot of caster classes they where complete junk as far as performance, WHM, SMN, BLM, RDM (endgame group content it was useless) so on, brd was another highly ranked one. (Oh I should explain brd was a pure buffer job, highly demanded, so much so they had strats around dropping and inviting 3 brds to be rotated in and out parties to "zerg rush" hard content, cor also played a part in this. relic horn allowed +2 buff to all songs, this was big early level 75 as no instruments buffed ballad back then. it became to loss its usefulness as more and more stuff was released, again equip changes making it obsolete. Later upgrades made it useful again, I do not think a +4 ballad instrument exists. Also the new abyssa relics from my understanding was more preferred letting a brd put up 3 songs (fully upgraded allows 2 more songs over base, totaling 4)

Also I know grinds, I do not mind grinds, clearly, I actually earned one of those weapons in question. Those things where so infrequently earned back in the day, the user base made a database of sorts of who owned what, I think something of the likes of 120-150 players across all servers had one before FFXI entered easy mode. What I hate is a repeated treadmill of reskined content.

But that is before abyssa, now you can get them solo in a shortish amount of time ( wouldn't know exactly, I am not apart of new FFXI)

1.0 vid was only there to show the copy/paste the terrain they did, that is how the structure of progress feels to me now for ARR+, copy and paste, over and over, nothing new.

One thing i want to add to this, I first played ffxi on (at the time) outdated computer, on a modem. You would get lag jitter ofc, it was not perfect but honestly? it reacted to lag MUCH better then this game does.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Why shouldn't it? It should be less because there's stuff players don't want to do? There's players that can play this game like a job and do "everything?" No 'grinds' are a result of something called artifical scarcity. It's to enlongate the time you invest into a game that incorporates it. The relics have always been meaningless for progression. Up until it's a few months before the next expansion. Then they become BiS. When it happened sooner than that, raiders complained their time spent in raids, learning the fights, was valued little as the relics became BiS 'too soon.'

And that very enlogated grind hasn't existed in Stormblood, which is likely a factor in the complaints. The relics have never been so meaningless they're literally irrelevant before even being released. Previously, they at least served as a potential stepping stone in lieu of a tome weapon, especially for alt jobs. Come 4.36, they have a month, less if they're i365 instead of i370. In regards to the patch, you shouldn't have scarcely little to do for weeks after a major patch. Unless you were progging Ultimate, 4.3 offered nothing with any sort of longevity because the devs opted to shift HoH's release to six weeks thereafter.

I'm not being obtuse. I was saying, in not quite so many words, I don't see how you can make this claim when patches are not even that frequent. So to say there is, apparently, new content enough to keep your subscription going, or lasts long enough to keep that subscription going, I don't understand the complaints being made about the contents' release or longevity. It's one or the other; it doesn't suddenly change just to suit a part of another argument.

First, those complaints are not mutually exclusive. Content can both be delayed and lack longevity. Regardless, my point is these staggered releases feel more like a blatant attempt to incentivize people to remain subbed. They weren't a thing until recently, which is what has contributed to very hollowed releases.

Please pre-emptively provide links to your sources for such claims. Otherwise, I shall take this as a personal claim, perhaps along with concurring agreements with people you personally keep in touch with.

Still, this is opinion, changing from person to person. I doubt either of us are in a job that can sit back, unbiased and rate the expansions like a professional, basing on music score, battles, story, etc.

There's a thread on the front page discussing this very subject. Virtually every response criticises Stormblood's story; citing Heavenswards superior.

And I never argued it wasn't subjective. You claimed the story has only improved. Apparently, that opinion isn't shared.

I'm just being realistic. You literally cannot please everyone all of the time. People will leave, sometimes for something not even the fault of the game. It's not being dismissive. I can't draw a comparison to WoW, never touched it, so I don't know what you're trying to get across to me with that. Feedback and criticism is crucial, agreed, but listening to all of it is folly and may incur unfavorable outcomes (example: want faster content cycle or just more stuff per content cycle; need more people to do this; money doesn't grow on trees and something like increase sub fee to cover costs - are players still happy? Probably not, but hey! Their demands were heeded, that's all that matters). Linking general active players to simply what the content cycles is dangerous and probably misleading (please follow my reasoning). I can't recall what games came out during the span of Heavensward (maybe getting into Warframe near the end of Heavensward? Holy shit The War Within). I know from the start of Stormblood, Resident Evil 7, Fate Grand Order, Granblue, Monster Hunter World, Super Mario Odyssey, Black Desert Online releasing Lahn and constant events, Warframe releasing a new story arch after 2 years (worth it) that have utterly obliterated mine and my raid members' times. Has nothing to do with XIV's patch cycle, we're just gamers being gamers.

Heavenswards competed with Call of Duty: Black Ops, Fall out 4, The Witcher 3 DLC, Metal Gear: The Phantom Pain and Star Wars: Battlefront. Suffice it to say, this excuse isn't going to fly.

Regardless, I am not attributing people's departure entirely to Stomblood's, but it's disingenuous not to notice a trend, especially when the frequency of complaints have been higher. My comparison with WoW is the new expansion will only pull more players away from FFXIV considering patches before an expansion release are notorious for being lengthily droughts. That isn't a good sign for the game going into 5.0, though we'll see if the devs manage to come up with something since Ultimate has been put on hiatus. It's far from unrealistic to criticise a game when it lacks new content. Stormblood has largely relied on a copy/paste formula, which does contribute to those aforementioned complaints. While no one should expect to be entertained indefinitely, they shouldn't expect to have whole patches with virtually nothing to offer them unless they happen to enjoy a very niche activity.

Well, that is embarrassing.

So you'd rather have no content for those that enjoy PvP. PvP additions are already fairly rare, with job balancing being the most frequently done things to the mode.

I would rather they either find something that finally works or focus elsewhere. They keep prattling on about E-Sports when they can't even get consistent queues; and haven't for three years. There comes a point where you need to accept people just aren't interested. The updates may be infrequent, but they do divert significant resources away from other things. I sincerely doubt Rival Wings didn't necessity substantial amount of work—for a mode that saw two weeks worth of activity, approximately.

Yes, because while I and others may be aware of what has and hasn't been included, others will absolutely take conversations at face value and then spread misinformation. I'll keep to my being nitpickiness. (And Sephirot; he dropped right in 3.2).

I said between 3.0 and 3.2, thus Sephirot wouldn't factor into that equation since he released during 3.2. Put simply, the rough patch for Heavensward was 3.1 due to how poorly received LoV and Diadem were.