Trying to understand the negative posts I keep seeing about the Dev Team

[Awful]

I've played the game since ARR (didn't join the forums till 2015 I've always lurked and read everything) and I really did love getting gear and your relic and raiding at that point it was so fresh, so fulfilling, I had a lot of fun bringing my real life friends into the game, starting our own FC and getting a medium house in the Goblet later on. There was content and things to keep you occupied while you either level or do endgame content and hell even helping your friends and FC mates with their relic weapons and what not, ARR was a good time.

I used to spend hours and hours in the game during ARR and HW just playing the game, doing endgame content, crafting, running dungeons and being blown away by the trials but now I'm just not interested as the friends I used to play XIV with left and there's just me and another guy playing and we both say to each other "why are we still subbed?". And I can't even give an answer why I'm still subbed I barely play I play maybe 2 hours a week where I used to play every single day for hours and hours on end the game has just reached that point, at least for me that I just can't justify how SE does content for XIV.

SB has been the most uninteresting expansion for myself I wish I tried Ultimate but my static broke up after reaching Godka but we were all burnt out from the same formula that plagues the game since it always does the same repeated formula with the same repeated 4 floors of bosses that never changes. I know this might offend some people but I miss raids where there's actual trash with mechanics where you have to CC them or silence them or drag them out of puddles that they drop on the floor, I miss gauntlet style boss encounters where adds come in waves and then the boss comes after and you gotta fight them. XIV offers nothing like this it's the same grab all adds > run down hallway > AoE > pop tank CDs > move on, it never changes there's nothing that makes me want to go back into the same dungeons because it's all the same, SE is too safe to introduce a Mythic+ dungeon system where I think it'd help since it'd create more content for people to enjoy.

My other main issue is SE creates all this content that doesn't interact with anything in the game such as Chocobo Races, Triple Triad, LoV, PvP, Eureka, Diadem, they all cater to such different themes and ideas that it detracts from the actual game, you'd never even know half of these existed but they're for such a minority of the playerbase that it makes me wonder why it was created. To go back on Eureka/Diadem I realize there are people who enjoy it but to echo what Hyomin said is that this was content that could last for weeks and weeks but you step in, whack a mob, level up, see a 5 second cut scene and you've honestly seen it all it's like "umm...this is the content?". I find Eureka to be the worst created content at least for me as it has no redeeming factors and is a grind within a grind that has no place being in this game as it wasn't intended for XIV and it's combat system as it becomes stale and boring within the first minute of fighting a mob where it's a spongey mob with a random AoE move every 25 seconds it's nothing new.

All in all the contents stale, this expansion has been lackluster, and the devs ignore the community which is no different than most MMO communities but whatever I'm pretty much done with defending this empty game which was a game I loved and want it to flourish. I think the only answer I can give as to why I'm subbed is to see what kind of previews we'll get for 5.0 and maybe just maybe something new will be done and it'll renew my love for this game that I used to put so much time into. I also wish they'd stop playing so safe they've been riding it since the revival of 1.0 and made ARR it's been 5 years SE you need to start shaking up the formula as it isn't working anymore and the playerbase is getting tired of it very quickly, especially FFXIV veterans.

Sorry for the long post I had to get this out here.

[Shurrikhan]

HyoMin pretty much said most of it but I what I think is the developers have gotten lazy and content in what they know works. This is because the times they have tried to innovate, it hasn't been well received.

Is this really the case, though? It's plain enough when something isn't well received by the majority of players, but, most of those widely criticized contents have not been particularly innovative. Diadem 1.0 fit squarely on the back of hunts, and carried little gameplay difference from N. Thanalan zerg parties. Diadem 2.0 merely further embraced its likeness to FATE grinds, innovating only in its Emergency Missions. Eureka doubled down almost only on components already complained of in Diadem; as those same mechanics were already tried and criticized in Diadem, they cannot suddenly be considered unique or innovative. Pagos then doubled down on the complaints of Eureka. Palace of the Dead was bare-bone. Heavens-on-High was mostly a palette-swapped Palace of the Dead. Aquapolis and Canals likewise provide more or less just more of the same.

Honestly, Lord of Vermillion and perhaps Raven Wings (though still following the same PvE > PvP even in PvP content principle as the most recent, and widely complained of, Frontlines maps) are the only content pieces that we've any evidence of them giving up on due to failure, rather than proceeding exactly without change.

[Hestzhyen]

I think the only answer I can give as to why I'm subbed is to see what kind of previews we'll get for 5.0 and maybe just maybe something new will be done and it'll renew my love for this game that I used to put so much time into. I also wish they'd stop playing so safe they've been riding it since the revival of 1.0 and made ARR it's been 5 years SE you need to start shaking up the formula as it isn't working anymore and the playerbase is getting tired of it very quickly, especially FFXIV veterans.

Same, plus I like having a house... though I'm the only one left and it's lonely now that there aren't FC mates or friends to drop by and visit.

Generally speaking I love this game. Wouldn't be playing for 4+ years now if I didn't. But there are decisions and attitudes from SE that drive me up the wall sometimes. Like the stubborn insistence on doubling down what people hated about Eureka (hint: old-school MMO mob grinds died for a good flippin reason), a huge dearth of midcore content, obviously not investing into big improvements to the game's infra and architecture... the list goes on. The repetitive content cycle isn't even the biggest sin any more though- it's the tone-deaf decisions and infuriating "but did you try hard enough to like it?" replies to player anger that are killing me.

If 5.0 doesn't look good I will probably join everyone else who got sick of SE treading water. Genuinely do love the game but things I dislike are piling up without being addressed.

[Derio]

I dont have that many complaints. I think SB as a whole has been very very bad in terms of content in general. One of the biggest problem I have is Eureka being tied to the relic. Bad content is bad content period.

At this point, I am sick of SB and have put all my faith in the devs to do better with the next expansion. Perhaps why this Fanfest is more hyped than anything.

[Vahlnir]

I dont have that many complaints. I think SB as a whole has been very very bad in terms of content in general. One of the biggest problem I have is Eureka being tied to the relic. Bad content is bad content period.

At this point, I am sick of SB and have put all my faith in the devs to do better with the next expansion. Perhaps why this Fanfest is more hyped than anything.

All they'd have to do is give me a gunblade and they'd have my sub forever. But yeah, I agree for the most part. SB hasn't been all bad but it could certainly be better. If Eureka wasn't brought into the picture at all I think it would be having a more positive reception.

[RareItems]

FFXIV is not that bad, at least it's not a disaster like Black Desert Online xD.

[Awful]

FFXIV is not that bad, at least it's not a disaster like Black Desert Online xD.

That's like comparing a dumpster fire (Black Desert Online) to a burning school house (FFXIV) one is burning hot garbage the other is a disaster that can be avoided.

[Kirsten_Rev]

Personally, HyoMin summed up the details nicely. Boiling it down for me, though, I simply don't trust SE anymore. This is a company that has spent years systematically demonstrating that many of the lessons they supposedly learned from XIV 1.0 were not, in fact, learned. Consider the following statements:

"Developers stubbornly adhere to outdated policies."
"Developers allow past successes to foster a false sense of security."
"We're unable to keep up with changes in user needs."
"Things suffer from longer development periods."
"We're unable to incorporate new technologies."
"Every problem can be patched in a future update."

To me, those statements all ring true about FFXIV now, in 2018. Want to know where they came from? Copy-pasted from the 2014 Game Developers Conference when Yoshi-P was discussing the failure of FFXIV 1.x, and the root causes of its downfall. They've definitely come full circle. Sure, there is less of an unhealthy obsession with graphics quality now. It's also clear that the team is more aware of modern MMOs than when XIV first launched. But these criticisms that Yoshi-P accurately leveled at 1.x largely still apply now, and it feels like each passing update cements the issues even more firmly in place.

So, yeah. I don't trust the development team, nor Yoshi-P. I don't think he nor they have demonstrated an ability to learn from past mistakes, and I think it's long since harmed the quality of FFXIV. That doesn't mean I'm looking to quit, nor does it mean it's a bad game, but the promise of ARR, the foundation laid, has very much been squandered at this point, in my mind. SE will need to produce more than just the occasional 'oh that's nice' moments to earn my trust back. They'll need a sustained run of successful innovation and responsive development.

I'll conclude my post with a parting phrase that was also gleaned from the 2014 GDC. It's worth keeping in mind at this stage of XIV's life.

"Great success can lead to great failure."

[Enla]

So, yeah. I don't trust the development team, nor Yoshi-P. I don't think he nor they have demonstrated an ability to learn from past mistakes, and I think it's long since harmed the quality of FFXIV. That doesn't mean I'm looking to quit, nor does it mean it's a bad game, but the promise of ARR, the foundation laid, has very much been squandered at this point, in my mind. SE will need to produce more than just the occasional 'oh that's nice' moments to earn my trust back. They'll need a sustained run of successful innovation and responsive development.

Honestly I'm not entirely sure it will be possible without shake ups in management within both the XIV team /and/ at the top of Square Enix's corporate structure. Because a look at how SE has been running their other properties shows that many of these issues aren't merely quarantined to XIV.

[Gemina]

OP, I have a similar mindset as you. For the most part, instead of griping about the things I don't like about the game, I tend to appreciate the things I love about it and embrace them. However, I know I am also in the minority because I am one of those players who does not adapt well to change. While a lot of people gripe that SB is just a carbon copy of the previous expansions, I am perfectly ok with that. But I also understand that I haven't been around as long either.

While there are things I continuously praise about the game, there are also things that cause me a great amount of concern. The recent All Saints Wake is a good example. I refused to do it because in short, I already did it. Last year, and the year prior to that. A new minion that I will never summon, and home décor I will never use is not incentive at all. While it is just an event, the amount of laziness that was put into it is indicative of what the devs are currently putting into the game, effort-wise. The event, is a smaller scale version of what is going on with the game as a whole, and I believe this is the biggest gripe from the playerbase.

The playerbase is still paying the same amount of money for a sub, but is not getting the same amount of attention, effort, and HEART from the dev team that their hard earned dollar once paid for. When looking at things from this perspective, I get pissed off just thinking about it. And that is why I cast a bubble around myself and just find the things that make me happy. I am probably the last person that should be responding to this thread.