LuckyBancho Census 11/3

[Alestorm]

Largely die to no really amazing news about WoW. People hate the current expansion with a passion and a few tweaks have been made; but not enough to really fix it. There are a ton of comments I've read with players saying they will never level an alt through that content. If people only have a single character at max level they're more likely to just quit out of boredom. Classic will have a bit of a life, but an MMO with zero new content ever added will die off fairly quickly.

This time around was them boasting about the past and nothing to really show for the future.

[Noodle_Trinidad]

Largely die to no really amazing news about WoW. People hate the current expansion with a passion and a few tweaks have been made; but not enough to really fix it. There are a ton of comments I've read with players saying they will never level an alt through that content. If people only have a single character at max level they're more likely to just quit out of boredom. Classic will have a bit of a life, but an MMO with zero new content ever added will die off fairly quickly.

This time around was them boasting about the past and nothing to really show for the future.

Which is an issue that FFXIV itself has fallen into. Predictable patch cycles and content so abhorrent that any future additions to it are shaping up to be DoA given the initial response from the community. I don't see any WoW players joining this game staying long as they'll recognize the same tell tale signs of BFA and WoD going on here which really makes me think that some people really overestimated the WoWfugee migration from BFA.

I'm more concerned with this game's future and 5.0 now given the Finaland Interview has made it clear that Yoshida has not considered anything to shake up the "Farm Tomestones and Raid whose armor is irrelevant to next iLvl's crafted. Eureka in of itself has made this more prominent than ever since it absorbed the Relic into itself and made all past content irrelevant since you can no longer run them to get notable progression on your relic. The worst part of it all is the many issues that they said to have learned from 1.0's failure still rings true within this game.
"Developers allow past successes to foster a false sense of security."
The biggest issue with FFXIV right now is its predictable patch cycle and so far it seems Yoshi-P is really content on sticking the same patch formula given how well it worked in Heavensward. Rather than trying to keep us on our toes it has created a false sense of security.
"We're unable to keep up with changes in user needs."
This should be obvious to most: "Server Limitations, Please Understand". Almost every desired feature from the community is always sidestepped with limitations of sorts and rarely ever addressed since it's too difficult to do but as the Megaserver focused interview they have already made it clear they coded themselves into a corner and in the past 5 years have shown no attempt to remedy this issue.
"Things suffer from longer development periods."
Eureka, 17 months of Dev Time including the delays for something that was universally panned due to how hyped up it was.
"We're unable to incorporate new technologies."
Graphics, Server Upgrades, Promised API for PC Players that never come. Theres always an issue with any of these topics, especially graphics when you consider how big of a topic it became when the PS3 got dropped and the new Graphics Cards came out. Sidestepped due to financial worries and "We dont need it to be competitive"
"Every problem can be patched in a future update."
The best example of this at the moment? Mannequins, a feature touted for house customization and what do you get? Only one race because they still need time for the rest of the models. Or how about the Companion App that was released broken and buggy and slowly fixed thru patches?

I want this game to do great and use its potential to its fullest but at the way things are currently going with how feedback seems to be ignored or how there is no consideration for iteration of the Patch Formula I can not see this game surviving a Heavensward 3.0 expansion especially if it ties another Diadem-Esque style content to it.

[Liam_Harper]

"Developers allow past successes to foster a false sense of security."
The biggest issue with FFXIV right now is its predictable patch cycle and so far it seems Yoshi-P is really content on sticking the same patch formula given how well it worked in Heavensward. Rather than trying to keep us on our toes it has created a false sense of security.

This is true and it baffles me too.

Both Enix and Blizzard have seen failure. Enix with 1.0 and Blizzard with WoD. Both had to step up their game and they produced Legion and ARR, both solid successes. But then both companies have immediately relaxed with their success and started churning out the same old stuff that worked and disregarding feedback on the unpopular content. And Eureka and BFA are subsequently failures. They haven't learned anything.

It also surprises me that Enix has put in no investment towards success. The game isn't at its peak right now and I still get a small "server full" queue occasionally when logging in. The servers literally wouldn't be able to handle a popularity spike of a few hundred k subs. There's also nothing big planned, no revamps, no big projects to improve server capability in the future. It's like they don't expect to be successful, have no aims or goals to be and just plan to sit on the current sub count and try to maintain it.

[TwistedTea]

Considering how bad Blazzcon is going, weay get another influx of people soon.

I hope SE is closely watching the reaction to Blizzcon and Diablo: Immortal. A lot of the anger, seems to be coming from the fact that Diablo fans are expecting DI to be yet another mobile cash grab burdened with mircotransactions.

Over the years gaming companies and SE have been ramping up on incorporating mobile/microtransaction elements into their PC/Console offerings on the assumption that mobile gaming is the future of gaming/more profitable.

partly due to how game companies love to cater to their share holders instead of the players, you know the people actually buying their games. Seems like 99% of game companies today only know how to treat their players as recurring monetized incomes then actual human being who desire entertainment.

This.

However, the fault partly lies with players themselves. Companies only understand when you vote with your wallet or with your character's feet. Like how people complain about Eureka/the Mog Station but still go on to grind out Eureka for relics/rewards or purchase stuff from the Mog Station.

[Brill_]

Not surprised. We're at the beginning of a huge content drought. Aside from Eureka, the remaining content to be released before 5.0 will take less than 15 hours to do. There's probably a lot of people walled behind pagos that are not going to bother with finishing eureka. 5.0 will be too predictable, so I have doubts that fanfest hype will bring people back.

For 5.0 we'll get:
- increase level cap by 10
- 5 leveling dungeons unlocked at odd number levels
- 3 expert dungeons
- 3 primals
- job ability pruning
- normal mode raid
- savage raid
- weekly tome grind

I'm not saying it won't be fun, but it's so predictable, there's nothing to get hyped about. The only surprise left for 5.0 is what the new jobs will be.

For me, when I get bored with XIV, I go back to XI, so SE gets my money either way.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Not surprised. We're at the beginning of a huge content drought. Aside from Eureka, the remaining content to be released before 5.0 will take less than 15 hours to do. There's probably a lot of people walled behind pagos that are not going to bother with finishing eureka. 5.0 will be too predictable, so I have doubts that fanfest hype will bring people back.

For 5.0 we'll get:
- increase level cap by 10
- 5 leveling dungeons unlocked at odd number levels
- 3 expert dungeons
- 3 primals
- job ability pruning
- normal mode raid
- savage raid
- weekly tome grind

I'm not saying it won't be fun, but it's so predictable, there's nothing to get hyped about. The only surprise left for 5.0 is what the new jobs will be.

For me, when I get bored with XIV, I go back to XI, so SE gets my money either way.

It's actually worse! We only get two Primals with the expansion.

Regardless, this post highlights my precise issue with FFXIV of late. While I appreciate some degree of predictability, especially for a game otherwise billed as a more casual focused product, I shouldn't be able to predict an entire expansion two years before it even releases yet I can safely call nearly everything 5.0 onward to 5.5 will release because it's literally never changed since ARR. That isn't predictability for comfort sake, it's predictability out of sheer laziness and/or lack of innovation. I doubt anyone wants a massive overhaul but even if they did something to shake things up a little, it would go a long way. Unfortunately, FFXIV has largely been about attracting new players not retaining old ones.

[Solarra]

I'm not surprised by the figures.
Eureka was supposed to be a major part of this expansion but it revolves around a style of game play that the majority of players find unpalatable. Even worse, it feels as though the devs have gone out of their way to stop players playing this content any other way than 'as intended', stopping the train and making helping people outside your party detrimental to your progress.
Heaven on High is a reskinned Palace of the Dead only without any real story and an extremely limited number of floors that can be tacked with a random party.
Submarines that can be built in the FC Workshop offer less than airships did in HW since there is no exploration tied to them, and they have many items on the loot-table from HW (worthless rubbish basically).
Free Companies without housing are still completely locked out of FC Crafting.

Even content like Custom Deliveries seems a bit thinner than we were promised.

They also said that the NPC would start to wear the things we craft for them yet this has just turned into another squadron glamour option...
...(I have the same problem with the rebuilding of the doman enclave too. The concept sounds great, but the end product in the game is kinda boring, since you only go there and give them some leftovers.)

Add into the mix an unfinished glamour system, an unfinished mobile app, limited storage for gear and items, limited housing(still!) and playable content following the exact same pattern as previous expansions (only less of it because of Eureka) and I can see why players might be discontented.