Where is the "never before seen content"?

[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.