Ok, lets do it, WHAT is wrong with this game?

[SamRF]

To be extremely fair. Every ff game is linear tho so SE isnt doing anything they don't do.

Does it have to be like that though? I don't really see much advantage. Not being too linear doesn't automatically mean it's harder or more complex, you can make a quest more immersive yet simple. Give the player some more immersion in the quest instead of literally having this 1 simple objective every time. I think the objectives will be much more interesting this way.

[HyoMinPark]

What is wrong with the game? I could be here all day listing out things I think is wrong. But I'll just stick with these:

The repetitive formula for patches and expansions that doesn't deviate in the slightest.
The lack of challenging content below Savage/Ultimate.
Savage becoming a shadow of its former self in terms of difficulty.
Same with the Extremes.
The seemingly lack of a willingness on part of the Devs to listen to anyone who isn't JP with regards to feedback.

Boring and pointless itemization.

In reality, it doesn't matter what you're wearing. Yes, there's some tiny amount of min-maxing you can do, but it isn't necessary and there isn't much room to do it because we don't even have much choice in gear. We have one or two sets of current gear and that's pretty much it.

They could completely get rid of gear and it would have minimal effect on gameplay.

Not entirely true. Optimization just doesn't matter outside of players chasing their numbers in high-end content, and in ultimate. It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of the game, which makes me sad. That being said, some gear builds and substats do affect some jobs quite a bit - take away 1,000 Crit from a BRD, and they aren't exactly happy. There are actually a couple of different BiS sets for several jobs out there, usually tuned to preference. BRD has 4 different ones in Sigmascape.

I wish stats mattered in more than just Savage/Ultimate content.

[ko_]

Does it have to be like that though? I don't really see much advantage. Not being too linear doesn't automatically mean it's harder or more complex, you can make a quest more immersive yet simple. Give the player some more immersion in the quest instead of literally having this 1 simple objective every time. I think the objectives will be much more interesting this way.

Oh ofcourse it doesn't have to be like that, not at all. :O But sadly they aren't at a point to change that design. And I don't see them changing it just cause wow does sadly. SE may have changed from when 1.0, but like sega they are still VERY stuck in their ways.

[hynaku]

I don't give care about harder content. All I care about will make game fun to play again and not boring. So far find most idea's Yoshi has brought to game been very boring and not fun. Think in improve a lot if they started listen to ones in forums on what they want. ffxiv 1.0 and Heavensward I have liked the best so far.

[Hypnotic13371337]

Just to clarify since you seemed to miss it, I said I played WoW for 12 years, not that I played it 12 years ago. And back when mounted combat was first added in WotLK, most players haaaaaaaaaated it. It took around four expansions of them tweaking it to get it to the point where it was even tolerable and the bulk of the playerbase would still rather do without it. That's not something I would like to see here.

Ahh, I gotcha. But as for the mechanic of the "Vehicle quests" in 14.... that last msq quest was like one o.o

[ElazulHP]

I feel like i'm doing the same content over and over again for little to no rewards. HoH is copy pasta from PoTD, Pagos is arguably a lesser version of Anemos with more tedious grind, not enough MSQ imo, I don't care about Savage, ect... I dunno perhaps its time I take another break. MH World just came out and looks pretty fun. It's a grindy game too, but its a fun grind because you're fighting giant monsters all the time. Something Pagos could learn from IMO. More NM's and less tedious carpal tunnel inducing trash pulls. Just my opinion.

[MageBlack]

Reward structure, uninspiring gear stats, iLev treadmill, Job customizability. These are all kinda interconnected and have led to disengagement among the Veteran players. Let me elaborate.

Reward structure:
This drives your content and is the very heart of why people play games in the first place. Whether the reward is narrative (BCoB), Exp (regular dungeons), Gear, Mounts, Achievements, Fun Gameplay, or Materials for Crafting, these are the reasons we do content. For someone at level cap there are really only two of those that stay relevant; Fun gameplay or Acheivments. Even so all this fades rather rapidly when it comes down to doing the one new piece of it over and over and over again.
-Narrative was taken out of the harder content and put in the normal modes so everyone can experience it, once experienced there is no need to really revisit.
-EXP is pointless once you are at cap, nowhere left to progress to until an expansion.
-Gear is only a motivator if you like the look of it since iLev is automatically outclassed by the next patch and you only need top of the line stats if you are in it for,
-Gameplay/achievements but once you get the achievement that motivator is gone and after a week of grinding the same instance gameplay becomes more of a chore than something to enjoy (OMG!!! Hells lid AGAIN?!??!?).
-Mounts are a one shot reward too, once attained you cant sell extras or trade them for anything.

Uninspiring Gear Stats/iLev Treadmill:
The only thing you get gear for is to raise that one main stat and the two sub stats that actually do anything for your role. It is usually calculated in the iLev so you are always looking at the highest iLev for what gear you need. There is no reason to actually use an older piece of gear for anything stat related. There is no gear with set bonuses (except the crappy GC gear), no bonus effect (like fire does extra damage, or stealth lasts 3 seconds longer, Haste, etc). Since its just the iLev we are looking for and the majority of content you dont need cutting edge gear, why put yourself through all the stress of raiding when you can wait till the next patch and then go in to the last patches content that is now made easier because of natural iLev progression. Its constantly going up so there is a small margin of gear that hits the sweet spot of being relevant and thats only for a short time.

Job customizability:
Yes, its nice to see a NIN or WHM or WAR in your party and automatically know what you are getting but there is no way to improve upon that Job's utility. If you are a WAR that typically off-tanks you arent able to improve on the DPS aspect of your job in any meaningful way. There is no useful skill selection (the Role skills are really sad), no Traits you can tinker and tweak to take away from one aspect of your role and enhance another aspect, and no gear that you can lust after that will help give you that edge beyond that iLev. Even Materia is just a small extension of the iLev.

What could help:
- Skill trees. Give us some way to enhance parts of our gameplay that will work better with our playstyle. Sure some people might gimp themselves or someone will come up with "the best and only" setup that should be used but at least we have the ability personalize our preferred role. What would be really cool is to have "Advanced Jobs" where its like the Arcanist\Summoner\Scholar and that would changed based on how our skill tree was tweaked so I could keep playing my preferred job but have the versatility to shift to another role if the need was there. (yes, I know they regret that splitting of the role but it was a really good idea they should revisit. MRD\WAR\VIK would be fun!)

- Subjob. Instead of skill trees, if thats too much, why not give us a proper subjob system. So many Final Fantasies have this in some form or another and they are a great way to customize your character, for better or worse. I remember FFT I had Knight/Ninja so I could have great skills but also dual wield. Was it the best? Dunno, but it was fun! I think with the ability to take from a limited pool of skills/traits from your subjob you can have a lot of interesting combinations like a WHM/BLM where you take the fire and ice skills so you can really do good dps in a fight or go WHM/SCH so you have the added healing bonus traits. I realize the balancing become much more difficult but you will have a much more engaged playerbase as a result.

- Interesting gear bonus. Something like the Haste Belt in FFXI where you get this belt and you are reluctant to get another one even though they are a much lower level than the rest of your gear but give you a great extra boost. Give me some kind of stat that reduces the cast time of a specific spell or adds a reset to an instant weapon skill if another skill crits or something that would make me want to keep using older gear or look at someone and go "wtf is that? I need to find that and farm it!"

- Gear that stays relevant. Do something along the lines of giving us the entire relic questline and its ultimate form at the start of an expansion. That way, if someone is so inclined, they can grind out this extremely good weapon that will stay with them throughout the whole expansion. Make it crazy time consuming to get so you have to be really determined to get it but if you did it would be one heck of an accomplishment.

- Materia. Why not use Materia in the same capacity it was used in FFVII where it adds skills and abilities, have linked slots to further enhance things, and get us hunting for that rare piece to give us the edge we are looking for. A lot of that stale stat treadmill could be addressed with interesting Materia, you dont even need to make special gear, just give us some crazy rare materia we will hunt for to adjust it ourselves.

- Make more stuff sellable on the Market boards. I think if we could sell more of this stuff on the Market boards then we would have more of a reason to revisit content and go for that same reward even after we have gotten it for ourselves. Really, once we get the thing we wanted from the content there is no motivation to go back to it again. Unless you want to help a friend but that only goes so far.

To wrap this all up I do want to say this new Rathalos fight has been a hell of a lot of fun. it breaks the "tank 'n spank" hum drum we have all been conditioned to expect. People have to keep moving, watch for physical tells, heal them-damn-selves, and actually be present, mentally, for the fight. The content itself could be really crappy and not something we are interested in but if the reward is worth it people will put of with a lot more than you would think. I dont care much for the Chocobo racing but I got a 9th generation choco just because I wanted the mask. There are things about dungeon design and content design I could delve into but for me, at its core, the rewards are what really needs to change. If I can get the exact same reward handed to me if i'm patient that i can get if it put in a ton of effort right away, why would I bother to put myself through that frustration then watch the patient guy walk up to the counter a few months later and pick it up hassle free. It cheapens the experience.

Sorry for such a rambling rant, I hope I wasnt too scattered with my thoughts and that some of this made sense. I don't expect SE to act on anything I have said and I also still like the game for what it is, all I'm saying is here are some things I feel are missed opportunities that could take this game to the next level. Sometimes its just nice to vent and get your thoughts out. Thank you for listening.

[Dedayius]

The seemingly lack of a willingness on part of the Devs to listen to anyone who isn't JP with regards to feedback.

This seriously seems like the best way to sum it up. Japan is very much about not rocking the boat and the continuing development of the game shows that.

They've taken little risks here and there. Introducing new mechanics. Changing up how things cycle. But it seems like it's 10% risk and 90% copy paste.

[KaldeaSahaline]

How can the general playerbase be below average skill? The general playerbase are the bulk of the player population. You have just said the average player is below average skill.

Also that's not something wrong with the game, that's something wrong with people. You find bad players who don't listen in every multiplayer game.

The general playerbase certainly feels below average overall MMORPG player skill. This is a subjective opinion based on playing well over 10 different MMORPGs for over 10+ years.

You can say that it's the players fault, but you'd be dismissing SE's complete and utter failure to actually help the playerbase to become better. They've nerfed content they shouldn't have, they waited entirely too long to build a hall of novice, and have yet to create a relevant end game level one.

Thank you. I wish I said this.

Why? Half of the stuff he said was nothing but juvenile exaggeration.

We wanted FATEs to be relevant again: Diadem; cue whining.
No - People wanted FATEs to be a viable leveling path compared to dungeons. It's not. People did not want FATEs to be relevant a la end game content.

We wanted the raid storylines to be accessible to everyone: Normal and Savage; cue whining because "MUH GATING".
I don't quite understand what this one is talking about. There are some issues that having a multiple difficulties causes, but gating, not sure that's even a relevant one.

We wanted harder raids: Midas; cue whining because "TOO HARD". Complaining about the raids being too hard: Omega; now it's "TOO EASY, WE'RE CLEARING ON DAY ONE!!"
Raids have consistently had a difficulty curve issue since day 1. It's just become more and more apparent over the years. It's not about being too hard/easy, it's about having stupid jumps, poor tuning, and simply not large enough sample sizes to create a well tuned curve.

Harder fight? Ultimate; whining because "TOO HARD! AND WHY DO I HAVE TO CLEAR SAVAGE FIRST?!?!?!"
Ultimate isn't obnoxious because it's hard. It's obnoxious because it was too long of an endurance test. I'd much rather have a ridiculously challenging 10 minute fight than a very challenging 20 minute fight. The raiding community at large is almost nearly unanimous in that feedback and agree that clearing savage is not an issue.

Don't want to level alt jobs? Role skills; "WHY DID THEY TAKE HALF OF MY CLASS SKILLS AND I ONLY HAVE 5 SLOTS!!"
Role class feedback is another example that's been pretty uniform in feedback. People didn't like leveling jobs they weren't interested in playing to acquire beneficial skills. Not to mention, leveling alts can be a very tedious experience due to lack of MSQ to increase pace. Removing job skills and moving to role slots was also pretty widely accepted to be awful.

Want whole new content and the XI players want open-world NMs? Eureka "BUT IT'S TOO BRAINLESS".
Eureka is brainless. Full stop. That's valid feedback, and feedback that's pretty mainstream. They could have easily ADDED content inside Eureka that wasn't mindless for people who like to be engaged, but instead they were comfortable leaving it as strictly derivative content. People liking it because it's "relaxing" and allows them to chat with friends shouldn't confuse professional developers.

Complaining about the Relic/Anima having too many steps? Eureka, again, just do the crystal farming, the relic was always supposed to be a grind weapon in contrast to the raid weapon.
Just because it was "always" supposed to be XYZ, doesn't mean the devs are right. They made 1.0. That was an unmitigated failure. They made Diadem and LoV, etc. etc. They're not beyond making bad decisions. I would LOVE for alternatives to acquire a relic weapon via harder/more engaging content. So would others.

It was trivially easy for me to offer a reasonable rebuttal for nearly every comment made by that poster, so by agreeing with them, you're only solidifying that you think that juvenile analysis is in any way shape or form valuable.

To be extremely fair. Every ff game is linear tho so SE isnt doing anything they don't do.

You kind of already covered this with the other poster, but that's not a good thing lol and only further substantiates the OP and demonstrates that they lack the ability to change/pivot/innovate.

That being said, some gear builds and substats do affect some jobs quite a bit - take away 1,000 Crit from a BRD, and they aren't exactly happy. There are actually a couple of different BiS sets for several jobs out there, usually tuned to preference. BRD has 4 different ones in Sigmascape.

I wish stats mattered in more than just Savage/Ultimate content.

Sure taking that crit from a BRD sucks because less procs, but at the end of the day, it's a binary decision. Crit is always better than everything else for a BRD. There's never a decision that says if you have X or need Y, then Z becomes more valuable. That means that in effect, you could quite literally get rid of gear and bake that crit gain effect into any other system and gameplay would be identical.

That's why gear/itemization in this game is an issue.

Oh ofcourse it doesn't have to be like that, not at all. :O But sadly they aren't at a point to change that design. And I don't see them changing it just cause wow does sadly. SE may have changed from when 1.0, but like sega they are still VERY stuck in their ways.

If I was a professional developer I'd HATE to be lumped in with SEGA lol. I loved SEGA as much as anyone, but how far have they fallen...

[Kaonis]

There's probably 2 major issues, one we clearly know and one we can only speculate on.

First, the clearest issue is the fact this game is built on the remains of 1.0. Both in regards to the underlying engine/code running the game and a lot of the design of the early 2.0 game retaining poorly fleshed out systems from 1.0 (i.e. classes, cross class abilities, leves). Given how fast a turn around they had from 1.0 to 2.0 they did a good job with what they had, but fundamentally the game needs a better engine designed for the game they want it to be, not a retrofit of an engine from a different game altogether.

Most discussions on the topic of how to fix or improve the game essentially boil down to them needing to just make a new engine from the ground up. Which of course by that point means they may as well just make a new game if they are putting forth that much effort.

Of course that's not to say all the blame can be left on the engine. There's clearly either a lack of resources to develop more imaginative content or lack of creativity to design it.

Diadem I think is a good example of this. It was referred to as exploratory missions, with the theme behind it being airships and exploration, yet it missed the mark on both those points. It had static monster spawns and only had the airship drop you off. On the most basic level to reach the goal of being an airship exploration content they could have made it that each island had randomized spawns. More so than that they could modulate it so each island could have an encounter module leaded onto it, something like a sky pirate encounter, dinosaur island, gathering node island, an island filled with traps and treasure, etc. With each encounter having a little variety in it in type/numbers of things spawned. That would give meaning to exploring as each island would be different each time you entered. As for airships, they simply could have made it so that to get from island to island you have to ride your airship. Even if all it is is players standing on the airship then telling an NPC to go to X island. It would be a start and could even open up allowing players to mount cannons while on the airship and have encounters with large flying enemies or other airships.

While I'm no programmer and more importantly I don't have the technical knowledge of their engines limitations (and neither does anyone outside the devs), I think those ideas are not a stretch to design and should reasonably work in the confines of how this game operates.

This is basically what I consider the second major issue; inability to implement creative content within their system, whether by a lack of creativity on their part or through a lack of resources to properly implement something more engaging. This point is more speculative as I've seen debates over whether the devs are creatively bankrupt or just lacking in the manpower to actually implement something actually new. Whether the formula exists because the devs feel safe with it or because its the only thing allowing them to churn out repainted content to keep the sub money coming in.

I have no idea on what reason it may be, I just know the end result is the game hasn't felt fresh in years. I hardly look forward to new patches and find myself on the game less and less outside raid nights. 4.3 has also been a bland patch and stretched way too thin, probably to maintain subs.

All things considered I get the feeling that they may never work on fixing fundamental flaws of this game. Because it would take too much to overhaul the entire engine and core of the game. Also, it's been 2 expansions and some 5 years without innovation and sticking to the formula and they can maintain enough subs and supplement lost sub income with the very over-reaching cash shop, so the higher ups know there's not much need to keep things fresh. I get the feeling after the SE survey we'll probably hear about the next FF MMO in about 2-4 years, while this game stays on autopilot to be low cost to maximize profit.