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

[azura84]

I think HyoMin nailed down a lot of things, but what frustrates people is that everyone knows this game could be so much more if they just thought things through better. That and their consistent battle to try and make two separate games in one, PVP and PVE.

Their few attempts to try something new with PVE have almost all been catastrophic failures, first with Daidem, then the boring Palace of the Dead, Aquapolis, Lost Canals, Eureka, and Heavens on High all have relatable functionality to what the developers did in XI. This is where I myself become most frustrated because it seems like this team lead by yoshi-p is going out of their way to not look at what XI did right.

1.) Daidem/Eureka are basically something akin to what Abyssea/Dynamis were but they failed because two major reasons: they didn't even attempt a branching and continuing quest tree for equipment which they could have done but they just chose not to and secondly they didn't make any more zones at all for it, they simply abandoned it to gatherers and free company leaders to feed on.

2.)PalaceOTD/HeavenOH- these are the weakest most boring versions of Nyzul/Salvage they could have ever done, zero attempt at alternate objectives or problem solving, just smash smash smash.

3.)Hunts/FATEs- these would be more enjoyable if they provided any kind of difficulty or reward, hunts do slightly but "epic" fates providing only aesthetic rewards have made their beautiful open world a wasteland of disappointment.

The only thing they've done in the past year that I thought was an improvement upon gameplay was Treasure Maps + Aqua/Canals, these actually push players to play with their fellow members in their FC's and LS's instead of relying upon a matchmaking system. Sadly though even this falls by the wayside for most because they don't offer any sort of tangible gear for playing with, just more aesthetic equipment and housing items.

As for the balance issue, I think the biggest problem is that the game has devolved so much that there is no utility and nothing else beyond a single number, damage. Stripping away the diversity of elemental and physical weaknesses that mobs have and providing little use for any need of enmity control, this game has become about damage and that makes people upset when you make it all about 1 number and "my job doesn't do as much as his". Personally I don't care about this balance problem because I know for a fact they make everything (even the savage/extreme content) easy enough for a good group of monks to destroy. (Try playing Thief for 10 years, then we'll talk) They may not do it as fast as a group of BLMs or SMNs but what does that matter if you're able to complete it just with 2-5mins more fighting in and playing what you enjoy. It would be another thing entirely if it was impossible to play with those jobs though, but that isn't the case.

The issue most of us from XI have with XIV is that this is such a better game by design, it's so much prettier cleaner and more flushed out mechanically, but the devs are making it weaker and weaker every year by not seeing any changes through, by playing it safe so as not to invoke a second Dalamud. What the devs don't seem to realize is there just isn't that much competition right now in the MMO arena and when something comes out that does challenge them, they're going to be hurting for that acclaimed 10 million sub crown. I dont want that to happen, I like XIV and I want it to do better! =(