Maybe we need a Cataclysm

[NessaWyvern]

We've already had more than one "Cataclysm".
The first one was the end of 1.0/start of 2.0

And the other is what happened to the first. We explore the aftermath of their Cataclysm.

[Stepjam]

If you mean like the change from 1.0 to 2.0, we'll never get that again. That was a big hail mary to save a floundering game that was costing the company a lot of money. It was like a Spirits Within level disaster for Squeenix, and it's kinda nuts that they didn't just cut their losses and shutter the project. But now the game is one of their most successful ongoing projects, so they have no financial reason to rebuild the game a second time. Sure, it would be nice to have a game not built on spaghetti code that could reach greater heights, but from a business perspective, there's zero reason to risk what they currently have as long as the game's numbers are continuing to climb. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush and all that.

If you mean like a WoW esque cataclysm, that likely won't happen either unless they are able to only destroy stuff just enough that the general landscape stays the same. Something like the mountain exploding next to Komra where they can instance it between players who are far enough in the raid to see it and those who aren't. It's visually different but doesn't affect what people can do movement wise. Since unlike WoW, XIV is sticking really hard to the idea that you play the story from start to finish instead of just jumping into whatever is current, they aren't going to do anything to the landscape that would make the early game not work. And they likely also aren't going to have two versions of every zone since that would split the playerbase between those who are at X point in the story and those who aren't, which would make certain areas suddenly a lot less populated.

That said, I wouldn't mind if they left the time bubble. NPCs at least can be changed without affecting instances too much.

[MintnHoney]

I don't know about a cataclysm, but I feel like FFXIV would benefit from a PSO2: New Genesis type of update.

[Iscah]

I don't see how the two things are linked.

You can redesign the game systems without altering the story setting.

You can alter the story setting without making any updates to the surrounding game systems.

You're asking specifically for one of these things when really you want the other.

[Payadopa]

It really shouldn't have to be pointed out that we are witness to only one of the cataclysmic events that lead to the rejoining of one of Hydaelyn's shards. These things don't happen like weather change patterns. The 6th calamity iirc was 1500 summers past. Even if I'm off, it was a long arse time ago.

Yeah. The writers' hands are really tied. I mean, it's not like it's a fantasy setting or anything... or that we go up against Zody who's part of the reason why we have shards?
But, that really shouldn't have to be pointed out.

On a more serious note, I don't really mind what the end up calling it if it were to happen, but I'm starting to like PSO's approach to it.

[Razard]

Yeah. The writers' hands are really tied. I mean, it's not like it's a fantasy setting or anything... or that we go up against Zody who's part of the reason why we have shards?
But, that really shouldn't have to be pointed out.

On a more serious note, I don't really mind what the end up calling it if it were to happen, but I'm starting to like PSO's approach to it.

So if Frodo spent the entirety of the Lord of the Rings Flying to Mount Doom on a cloud of magical rainbow farts before defeating Sauron with a super powerful multicoloured guff. Your reposnse to people saying how utterly ridiculous that scenario would be: It'S noT LiKE iT's A FaNTaSy sEtTinG OR anYthInG GuYz.

Sigh, you can't deal with all your imaginary problems with calamities.

[Stepjam]

Well we the players could theoretically wish for one for the sake of story possibilities.

Though I wouldn't want one to happen so soon considering we just averted one in 5.0

[tdb]

I am going to share a real controversial opinion here, but maybe it would be a good idea to have another cataclysm. There is nothing really wrong with the game and it doesn't need a restart but I feel that something like this could really energize the players and maybe give the development team a chance to work themselves out of some of the very rigid loops they have designed. For instance we have been running roulettes for tomestones to get new gear for 7 years now.

I'm not convinced we'd need a calamity to change those traditional gameplay loops. There isn't any in-world reason why we have to keep getting new kinds of tomestones. Heck, I don't know an in-world reason for why we get any kind of tomestones, why we get different amounts and types from different kinds of content, and what does Rowena even do with them. There's no in-world reason for us to befriend three beast tribes per expansion and for them to offer us three quests per day, no more and no less. Even character levels have to be largely meaningless in-world, or else Garlemald should send a Lv70 soldier from Ghimlyt Dark into the Eorzean cities and capture them from their Lv35 defenders. The game can easily be freshened up without a calamity.

Introducing another calamity would likely involve a reset akin to the 2.0 release, and to be honest, I probably wouldn't have the energy to start over in a new game. Especially not at the moment when I barely have enough time to keep up with the patches.

[RTX3080]

I am going to share a real controversial opinion here, but maybe it would be a good idea to have another cataclysm. There is nothing really wrong with the game and it doesn't need a restart but I feel that something like this could really energize the players and maybe give the development team a chance to work themselves out of some of the very rigid loops they have designed. For instance we have been running roulettes for tomestones to get new gear for 7 years now.

They just need to redesign ARR dungeons and raids to make them more interesting. Even with the ARR streamline it's still really borin

[TroySoFab]

With the way this expansion is ending, I think we are headed towards some kind of world altering event soon. Probably towards endwalker. While I don't think we necessarily need another 'calamity', the same story line can't go on forever. Another giant moon primal or evil towers doing evil tower things could be one way they transition out of this story line and into another.