Shadowbringers starting to feel like a budget expansion

[Lersayil]

Just because someone explains to you why they think the content was good or why they enjoyed it doesn't equate to the content being good enough. That's completely incoherent logic. If you can't understand something, the problem likely lies with you. There's no "gender locked" races because there wasn't a plan for the opposite gender. I'm tired of that long dead and beaten horse. Get over it. You didn't get what you were never promised. You have LITERALLY zero reason to have expected it, considering the leaks, past interviews, and all other evidence laid out on the table. As for dungeons, what if they have content they're working on that more than makes up for the dungeon issue? You wouldn't know because none of us are privy to that information. SE is a large company, but their funding has to go across several teams, not just XIV. It's like people forget they make other games. That they don't work on JUST Final Fantasy XIV. Much of their funding in recent years has likely been pushed towards Kingdom Hearts III, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and other projects. Stop this stupid "small indie company" argument or meme that you think is clever. It's not. Square Enix is a business, and in the end they will be run like a business. Businesses need money to survive so you can bet that's the first interest. All else is secondary. If you don't like the way it's going, then stop supporting them and consider a different game.

For someone throwing around the phrase "coherent logic", what you've written after is a bit jarring.

To break down your post:

• Gender lock is fine, because they said it will be gender locked.
  
• Lack of content is not a problem, because they could be working on something big even now! We don't know! We might get something interesting and lasting in 3 months, 1 year after ShB release!
  
• They are a company, they divert funds to other games, so its totally fine if we get the minimum valid amount reinvestment.
  
• If we have issues, we shouldn't complain, feedback is useless, if we want to influence the games direction, we should just unsub.

Sad thing is, that last one might just be true.

[Mizaye]

From the viewpoint of a relatively new player here, it sure looks like a massive circus here.

While it is very obvious that this thread has valid criticism and points from both sides of the playerbase, but the way everyone here acts is basically just a fight between "Virgin Shill" and "Chad Critic", there's quite an amount of such insults being thrown around as if nobody can converse in a civilized manner without being branded to be on the one side or the other, there's nothing wrong if you enjoy the current state of the game and nothing wrong if you feel like the game requires improvement.

In my opinion, Shadowbringers has been a great expansion and it honestly got me really hooked on FFXIV, I don't see it as a bad expansion compared to others. It's still early in it's life-cycle and there is definitely more than what you can currently see is where my expectations are currently at. I believe the way they decided to go with the Resistance relics is a step in a good direction compared to Eureka. I think it's healthier for newer players like myself to have a simple start at first, then the grind later which seems to be the way it will go. I saw that some posts say that Varis EX fight is down-right easy, but to this day the group I'm in still can't get through it. Do note that for you it may be easier but end-game content isn't exactly only tailored to long-time players and what might be easy for you, will be much harder for other people. I have my own disappointments with how Viera were handled, but if there are issues that are lying under the patches and decisions for why something couldn't have been met, doesn't mean that it's like this by design, the Devs are not out to get you or me or anyone else for that matter just out of spite. There's nothing wrong with trying out a new approach to certains things and that's what I feel most of you people are complaining about.

To me, it seems like all of you are currently thinking from the viewpoint of a long-time player, but I think you may need to view it from the viewpoint of a new player. I don't believe most of the new players that go into FFXIV really enjoy looking at the relic gear in ARR and HW and see all these steps and grind you have to take just to get a really good looking weapon. I don't believe most people like to look at Eureka and see that you have to painfully grind your way to get what you want off the bat. Although this is mainly my opinion of how I feel as a new player.

[Mizaye]

TL;DR: There is no "Virgin Shill" and "Chad Critic" side, if you are satisfied with the current state of the game, good on you, if you're not, you're always welcome and should feel encouraged to post criticism on whichever platform of your choice that is constructive and not an attack on the people behind the development of the game or the people playing it.

[dotsforlife]

The entire game has become a budget mmorpg in terms of quality, but par for the course in terms of milking it to the max. Every mmorpg worth its salt that lasts long enough ends up doing this. You get less for your money while having to pay the same for it. At this point FFXIV is in the "too big to fail" so let's just coast phase. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy it all the same but SE knows this playerbase will keep throwing money at it, no matter how half assed they continue it.

[jon041065]

I let my sub run out today and it's because of what has been stated in this thread and lack of a "battle mage" type job. No there isn't one in the game currently in my eyes. I had a feeling Shadowbringers would be light on "midcore" after limited blu was announced but I was convinced to come back and that Yoshi P was only really taking feedback on blu after the lvl 60 update. So I gave it a shot and enjoyed the expac for awhile but the problem (imo) of there being no really compelling content to do between raids and casual stuff was even more apparent this expac. Normally working on relics solves this issue to a degree but this patch was quite disappointing. Yes I know that Yoshi P said that the following steps will have more to do but he also said it would be a more casual process than in ARR and the other expacs.

[Taybat]

It honestly feels like we got 1/3 of two different races. Hopefully this gets fixed in 6.0

[Iscah]

The forums exists as an official and more reliable way for the dev team to receive feedback of the game. We are a small majority of the playerbase but our opinions here have power to change the course of the game. Word of mouth just like what you said in "From what I've heard" is very unreliable as feedback, because you're pretty much talking for someone else.

I think you're overestimating the "power level" of the forum. Having an official forum for fans to gather and discuss the game isn't necessarily an invitation for those fans to be the only ones whose opinions will be listened to - or that SE will have to do whatever the forum posters want if they repeat it enough.

I just wonder, what if people stop complaining about lack of content comparing to previous expansion on forums, like white knights want and just go directly into media, making reviews, video on YouTube, talking about it on Twitter. This way more people who don't even visit forums will see, that not everything is sunshines and rainbows in this game and it has some problems.This will hit popularity and reputation of the game alot more, than just sharing concerns on the forum.
Maybe this will be more efficient way talking with SE directly, not to the people who don't even want to play the game they paying for, but rather go to the forum trying to explain that less dungeons are better for everyone.

Am I understanding right that your plan to "improve" the game is to:

1. Complain about it on social media to damage its reputation and subscription numbers

2. Wait for Square Enix to fix the problems that the game is now known for having, while receiving less money

3. Hope that the damage previously done on social media can be undone - by SE spending more money promoting the improvements?

Were you planning to give them positive press at the end of this process or do you move onto the next thing you're not happy with, further grinding the game's "popularity and reputation" into the dirt in the name of allegedly making it better?

I'm not happy about the reduced number of dungeons either, but that sounds like an utterly counterproductive way of responding to it.

Also, ultimately, the overall number of dungeons is still going up. You say you've got multiple alts covering different classes - I do that, and it feels like there is never enough time to raise them all. I don't personally need more new content at this rate because I'm still bringing at least five characters through old content. I certainly don't need a relic grind to fill my game time, because I don't seem to have enough as it is.

Call me a white knight if you want. But the game as it is is highly enjoyable to me, even if it could be improved, and this relentless "what we have isn't good enough" is tiring. It could always be better somehow, and people are allowed to enjoy the game as it is.

And on being told to go do something else if you don't enjoy the game... I don't see the problem with saying that. Different games appeal to different people, so find one that you enjoy playing rather than sticking around one that you don't like, hoping that they'll change it to suit your preferences. There have been plenty of games I tried and then dropped because I didn't enjoy them.

[Jandroid]

It's really unfair to put in character races into this since their addition is likely the root cause of this feeling like a budget expansion. I don't think a lot of you guys know how much work is required to create a new playable race. The creation of a new playable race is something that actually alters the entire development pipeline as a WHOLE since they would have to recreate almost all existing character assets to make it work with the new playable character models AND they would now have to create even more character assets for every future updates. Rather than putting work into dungeons and raids, they now have to spend more resources in the recreation of old assets and the creation of new ones for all races. The creation of new races is something that encompasses the development of past, present, and future expansions.

The only solution I could think of to this is Square Enix hiring even more employees but that can also put to question the quality of work that will be put in future updates. It's also something that can potentially alter the team chemistry that was already established.

If they want to deliver a new race while AT THE SAME TIME releasing other content such as dungeons and raids then they're going to have to compromise on both ends and it's what we got in the end: incomplete races and less dungeons. I'm actually surprised that Yoshi-P decided to make this compromise just to please the fans who have been asking for these races.

[Soge01]

......

I'm a veteran player. Been playing 14 almost nonstop since beta launch of 2.0.

My biggest problem with the game is it doesn't have moderately challenging content; just easy and hardcore.

Because of this the game suffers greatly from the development team dumbing down job classes and content in order to appease the newer and casual crowd of players that show up with each expansion and wind up further alienating the mid and hard core players as a result.

And when hardcore players get their challenging EX and Ultimate content, the new/casual and midcore players tend to feel left out.

There needs to be a middle ground for midcore players to enjoy and for something both new/casual and hardcore players to also enjoy with each other without butting heads with one another because the content is either too easy or too hard.

That's why, even though I know 14's development team will never think or try it (because the game has survived for this long without it), they need to put midcore content in the game to help balance the scales between easy and hard content so the playerbase as a whole can feel more satisfied with their product.

Apologies if my explaination isn't the best. I tend not to be the best when it comes to explaining things though I hope this give you and anybody else an idea of what's hindering this game so badly. ^^;

[Mansion]

I guess I agree with the topic, I do feel Shadowbringers' content cycle wears off far quicker than my experience of Heavensward and Stormblood. But then, I played for roughly 4 years, so I'm forced to recognize the game has kept me busy for a long time and I can't really expect it to keep me fully in. Now I don't really have fun logging in daily, I just have my raid time three times a week and I'm good. But I guess there are new players who are currently enjoying what I enjoyed back then when I found so much content to be done, so it's fine for the overall state of the game.

I don't really mind less dungeons, even unfinished races honestly because I'm there for gameplay before anything, personally. But I do feel something's off in ShB in that respect too. I do think most jobs I play are not as interesting as they used to be. I do feel raids and trials are weirdly unbalanced towards the easy side. To the point where what I would enjoy has been significantly reduced (E8S is the most fun I've had on the game since 5.0, but any other savage / extreme has been lackluster for me). I'm quite annoyed seeing them continue putting cutscenes within fights to make them synthetically longer.

Now I won't deny 5.X has the best looking MSQ, dungeons, trials, raids. Everything is pretty, polished and all. But I just have that weird persistant feeling that most of the work seems to go on the appearance side, and then the gameplay is negatively impacted. That solo instance on the Relic questline is very pretty yeah... but I'll never do it again so why bother in the first place? The arrival in Anamnesis was cool the first time, and the second time it fell back in the same formula.
I don't think we are asking too much when we suggest a bit of change here and there.