What are the largest issues plaguing XIV currently?

[JohnSpawnVFX]

Yeah, we know exactly how long.
A night or two for a couple weeks.
4 hours a week for a couple weeks.
2 hours a week for a couple months.

Congrats, you have BIS by now.

Waiting 3-4 months.

WOO THATS CERTAINLY EXCITING.

And every other bit of content that only exists for gear or tomes is completely worthless.

As opposed to possibly farming the same content for X months and never getting the exact piece of gear you need?

Wow such excitement.

[NamidaTekika]

A few thoughts:

Crafting and Gathering is basically pointless due to the bot infestation on the MB. This is great for people buying as lower prices but really sucks for those of us that focus on crafting. It's impossible to compete with a bots that are running 24/7.

The housing system is absolute garbage. I get that they want a neighborhood feeling, but I don't even see my neighbors more than once a month as it is. Might as well just be completely instanced.

Agree on both of those. The bots are out of control gathering and market. Even ones that get reported never go away.

Housing I wish you could like, somehow force all the 'inactive' ones or something to their own district so it could feel like there are people around. (or put in a small rent system or something i dunno to clear out the forever inactives)

[sarehptar]

"Did you join a Free company?"
Yes, it was the only one I've been invited to and it had 10 players. 4 left over two days until finally I left as I was the only person logging in.

And that's really the only social interaction? That definitely settles my urge to not stick around.
Appreciate the replies though! <3

Most free companies out there have more than ten players, or even many small free companies will at least have enough active players online to have a conversation with. If you left the one free company, why not join another? There are always large FCs recruiting in the main city hubs like Ul'dah and Limsa. You can also search for free companies that are actively recruiting using the FC search in-game. Shop around and find the right group for you, then you'll have your desired social interaction.

To me, it sounds more like you might be having trouble finding social interaction in the game because you're not being super proactive about it. There are tons of people out there willing to play with new players and tons of FCs recruiting, but those players aren't going to automatically know you want their recruitment. In fact, over the years, FCs have definitely become quite discouraged from just sending random invites to players because no one wants to be spammed with constant invites. You'll need to reach out rather than just waiting around for a group to find you.

Same with dungeons. The general attitude in this game is that most people don't want advice or don't want the fights spoiled for them when they are new, so if you want advice in dungeons and fights, you'll have to be proactive and ask for it. People do talk in dungeons... if you talk to them first.

[LinXiaoMei]

This game, has the nicest community I've ever experienced and ironically it's the most toxic game I've played outside of League of Legends. People are willing and able to help, but are too afraid. There's tools to improve but get misused and has become the cause for elitism in harder content. It's a carebear community with a safety net in place but every single carebear here has a loaded gun and are ready to aim and fire all lined up like a firing squad. Got advice? Keep it to yourself. Oh, see minor mistakes and want to help someone fix it after asking politely if you could give them some advice? Angry karen in your face with "I know what I'm doing, you don't pay my sub". It's ridiculous.... absurd really. It's like being in customer service where you see someone lost and offer to help but they get angry due to either being insecure or overwhelmed or something.

If you guys are lost, confused or having trouble in this game and are too prideful, shy, or embarrassed to ask for help.. the best thing to do is drop the pride and ask. We who enjoy helping others improve and like answering questions don't bite (unless it's some elitist). I'm not going to say I'm the most patient person but I lay things out clear as day and if you don't get things right away I won't hold your hand the entire time but guide you halfway. Let people who want to HELP, help instead of screaming for HELP to Square Enix Support about someone telling you how to play the game when really they were just offering advice whether it be solicited/unsolicited.

Also got a word for those who do like to help... if they don't want your advice don't give it. The less words spoken; less mistakes are made and that's from personal experience in-real life and in game. Take those words to heart brothers and sisters of the internet!

I saw someone said there's not enough content for mid-core gamers and I whole heartedly agree with this. This game lacks content and incentive for you to do things.

edit: typo fixed

[Barraind]

As opposed to possibly farming the same content for X months and never getting the exact piece of gear you need?

Yes, I would absolutely love having a reason to log in and have meaningful character advancement/progression outside the one regular activity every 6-9 months and possibly one worthwhile ancillary activity in an expansion.

I'll take a system where I can get tokens for some items but feel like I -need- to log in and make certain raids to get specific drops with a low chance, or to work on incrementally upgrading my character from normal gear to early raid gear to token+ higher end raid gear to best in slot, every raid update, over going "All we have to do is kill every boss 4-8 times and we all have best in slot and now we can do it for alts I guess" any and every time you ask me.

If I say, oh... Ochiudo's Kote, Leaping Boots, Emperor's Hairpin, Byakko's Haidate, Sulfuras, Hand of Justice, Ashkandi, Talisman of Ephemeral Power... anyone who's played FFXI or WoW can probably look at that quick list and think, "ah, I remember that!" even if they haven't played that game in years.

Now let's look at... just about anything in FFXIV since the first tier. Heck, even the Relic weapons aren't particularly notable because they're just the same thing as every other weapon. The only distinct thing is how you acquire it, and not since Heavensward has even *that* been notable.

Had the first Nightbane, Dawn, Signet of Might, and Artisans Prize on my server. Have one of 2 or 3? Shield of Spiked Energy that ever existed mounted on the wall in my house. Took almost 3 full expansions to upgrade my leg slot (only because you couldnt kill Tunat until Omens hit, and he was the only place to get the 2 focus effects on the same slot).

Such a better system than everyone gets a token and wheeee coffers.

Though those devs wanted you to play their game and not play their game AND their competitors games at the same time.

I never had more than 2 MMO's installed at any given time until 14, where now I'm logged in to two or more at any given time, because thats how youre supposed to play 14.

[ZattanaWen]

Agree on both of those. The bots are out of control gathering and market. Even ones that get reported never go away.

The worst part is that they're so obvious. If someone would just log in and look, they would see this, because they don't even try to conceal it.

There's one super-obvious one on Lamia who sells all the end-game gear (and really anything else remotely pricey), and it takes a minute to figure out what they're up to. I'm sure it's the same on all servers. I haven't researched the other servers yet, but I'm going to, because if I can find even one where it's not this bad I'm out of here, my medium house be damned.

They're in a FC of 9 "players". No house, obviously. Generic name. One of them is all 80's in crafting, 1's in gathering, and 72 in ONE battle class (basically as high as you need to get to unlock everything you need to bot-craft), the other 8 "players" are leveled in ONE random battle class to 19 or 20 (i.e. to unlock market board/retainers). The crafter bot is online 24/7 in their apartment, and exactly one other "player" is ever online at the same time as that's how they rotate to undercut on the MB, because that's all those accounts exist for.

So we're talking 90 retainers among them, that's 1800 items they can sell on the MB, and they just cycle through the bot accounts to constantly undercut everything. And they will undercut no matter how low you go, even if it's to below-profitable amounts.

So you literally can't sell anything remotely valuable unless you just sit at the market board, catch the moment you're undercut, undercut in kind, and hope your item sells before they rotate that retainer's account back in to undercut you again.

I'm talking all the Neo-Ish gear, all the Aesthete gear, every glam weapon you can name (Moonlit, Shinryu, Sophie, etc.), Ironworks Crafting/Gathering gear, you name it.

I just wish we could talk about this stuff more explicitly so we could spread awareness and ask people not to buy from this account. I gotta believe most other crafters on the server know about this account.

[Sated]

Biggest issues I'm facing daily, in order of importance to me:

Gender-exclusive glamours - Hate it. Both the way items change appearance based on who is wearing them, and the inability to equip them at all. It's extremely disappointing

Inventory space/management - There've been improvements but there's still just not enough space for glamours and storage for crafting is tight. A more permanent solution for glam (like WoW's transmog wardrobe) would be ideal

Button bloat - Some jobs just have more abilities than are necessary, or that could easily be combined into one button for the sake of keybind space so that new ones could be added. Others feel similar enough that it doesn't make sense to have both

Would also like to see better methods of cross-realm communication. An increase on the CWLS member limit. And fellowships would be more useful if they were integrated with CWLS or FCs, but as stand-alone they're basically a throw-away recruitment tool.

[M0rrigan]

Something else that came to mind was alternate classes gearing. For a game that lets you have everything in a single character, having weekly restriction on gear seems silly. What I mean is, while having a weekly loot restriction is good for gameplay longevity, the way it is implemented here is really dragging. It should be 1 piece of loot per week, per job, not per character. If you enjoy playing different classes the game gives you the middle finger on end-game unless you're lucky enough those classes share loot type.

[Vickii]

I have 2 main issues, some people probably going to disagree on second one.

First one is gear. It’s pointless having all this gear if we’re all going to end up with Shire/Scaevan etc in the long run. Why not make a really viable choice between getting gear sets from a particular dungeon, a raid, tokens, quests, beast tribes, hunts etc. In general the rewards for all this content feel a bit pointless when you do a few roulettes and get tokens for something far superior.

Second one is the way dungeons are run by tanks. Not sure there’s much can be done and I know a lot of people just want to get the dungeon over with quickly, but I’m seeing terrible tanks pulling every mob because that’s how it’s done. As a healer, if I can’t even draw a card or cast a dot without the tank dying then it’s just stressful and not fun.

[MicahZerrshia]

If I say, oh... Ochiudo's Kote, Leaping Boots, Emperor's Hairpin, Byakko's Haidate, Sulfuras, Hand of Justice, Ashkandi, Talisman of Ephemeral Power... anyone who's played FFXI or WoW can probably look at that quick list and think, "ah, I remember that!" even if they haven't played that game in years.

Not only that, but when you got those pieces of gear you were excited and felt you accomplished something. I remember the sheer joy of getting the Leaping Boots and Emperor's Hairpin.

How many times do you think people got out of their chairs and did a little happy dance or felt a feeling of accomplishment and pride when they got the deepshadow or yorha coat or aiming? How many people will still be talking about it 10 years later... You wanted to strut around town wearing them and your guildmates would even be happy for you, just as you were for them when they got a good drop.

I, personally have not felt these things in XIV since I got the Bahamut weapons or finished my relic in ARR. Honestly when 3.0 dropped and they both were worthless I felt more disappointment than I ever had before in an mmo.