Can we finally get real content / gameplay?

[ssunny2008]

I really like this game, it has a lot stuff in its world, great graphics and a good storyline. But gameplay and content - wise it´s getting worse and worse. It feels like the devs just want to give us fast content over quality ones.

The world

While the world in ARR is well thought and more filled with life, it´s going downhill with the expansions. We´ve 6 big terrains to explore, but there isn´t much to explore.
All we do is a questline and running from one wind-ether to another. Yes some maps still look beautiful, but that´s it. They´re pretty empty and loveless designed. We just move through them and might come back for tons of stupid FATE-grind or Hunts.

EDIT: Some kind of groupquests aren´t a thing too. Which is pretty sad since it´s a MMORPG.


Dungeons

The probably biggest thing i´m dissapointed about are dungeons. While even here the early ARR dungeons still has multiple pathes, some little ideas or secret rooms, all of them are "no efford - content".
You just pull your 2 packs of adds 2 times, then you beat a boss and repeat this 2 times. The only way to wipe is with a newcomer heal who don´t know what his buttons do.

Shadowbringers at this time put a nail on them for me once again. All the Loot has become totally worthless unless you want to farm that specific BIS gear for ultimates. But it´s no fun or challenging.
Bosses has become even more simplified and thanks to a bunch of reworks (especially tanks) you can run them down halfblind lefthanded.

Dungeons are a core-aspect of any MMORPG, but i can´t see any enjoyment here. The quality in their design doesn´t exist and some hardcore endgame dungeons to get our gear for the first raids aren´t a thing.

Other games do it a way better. There are some normal dungeons with better gear than your current level is. They´ve hardcore dungeons with pets or mounts for those who beat the challenge. Even random chests are still useful.
I do even know some where crafter jobs can open secret pathes or activate NPC´s who help you. Or you´ve a sidequests in the dungeon with a bonusboss in the end, maybe even different bosses per run, based on the players decisions.
Such stuff brings way more enjoyment than the named "pull as much adds as you can, beat the boss, repeat" - cycle.


Raids

Raids should be a challenge, but they´re no challenge anymore. It´s all about stack/spread mechanics or to avoid an aoe. CC and silence, which are sadly the last existend tools, have become super rare.

The only real challenge we´ve is, that ALL of the 8 players have to play mechanics clear or it´s a wipe. It isn´t a great design when 7 players always rely on that 8. player to move to a marker or something.
Yes we´re a group, but the game should challenge the players in a good way to find solutions or strategies against all the issues the current party has. But this is not really possible when the whole challenge is to remind where you´ve to move at mechanic X. As we all know it goes even so far, that Raidbots are well presented in FF14 especially in ultimate.

The game could need a better design here and more possibilities on all the classes. Give us something to do, bosses we can grow at. 2 or even more bosses at once, tanks / dps who need to kite and no instawipe because someone failed when the rest of the party is able to handle it with timed cooldowns or smart decisions.



FATES

They has become the hate of my life. They´ve never be fun and were never challenging.

Now we´re at the point, where fates represent like 50% of the content of the game.

EVENT? = Wow, let´s do one fate.
RELICS? = Here let´s do a like 100 fates.
SHADOWBRINGERS? = Here let´s do like 1000 fates.
BOZJA / EUREKA? = Do 10 000 fates and hope to be lucky?!

Yes, i got it. You devs want to bring life to old content. But next to a bunch of dungeons or alliance raids, you just spam fates in any serious questline. I don´t get how anyone out there can find some enjoyment in this braindead grind. Especially Relic weapons and events should be more like this.
I remember the summer event where you´d to climb up the tower. Yes, copy and paste from gold saucer in some way, but still more than a fate.


Events

As i´ve written above, Fates, Fates and more Fates. Even here other games do a better job with daily PvE / PvP Areas, instanced Raidbosses normal or savage and a bunch of Pets to drop, Housing stuff to farm, whatever.
FF14 has like 10 Events per year with a quests where you´ve to move from A to B or you just have to clear a dumb Fate. Then you get 1! thing for your efford. Might be easy loot, but it´s not enjoyable and yes i blame you devs for calling it an event.


Relic Weapons

Yes of course, they should be hard to earn. But what you´ve to do there is not hard content. It´s a fed timesink to grind old or new content. 30 times Delub? 34 alliance Raids? 100 Fates? In the end i can´t even feel the glory to get my weapons, i´m just glad that this kind of low budget content is finally over and i´ll never look back.

But sad to say, that they´re pretty much useless. They have their use when the current content is finally over and raids already become plagued with huge buffs for the last ppl out there. You can´t even make use on them in any further content because we just get new relic weapons. Wow....


Classes

Yes, even those are part of the content. We´ve a bunch of them, but they get dumb´d down in a lot of ways. Variation or customization in the subclasses are no thing. We lose more and more abilities / utilities until the last guy on earth is able to play them.
This is a serious issue when we talk about gameplay enjoyment and it´s obviously a major fact why we´re not getting serious dungeons and raids anymore. It wouldn´t be possible to play more than spread / stack every 30s with the lack of tools and possibilities we´ve on the classes.

Oh and don´t forget that class-quests got cutted with Shadowbringers and we all got that "too hard, press easy" button, if we fail. It´s not like a player should grow in games and not that the game should become easier if someone fails.




Yes, yes and yes... i´ve obviously become really dissappointed about the way the game goes. I can´t believe that , away from the graphics, story, housing, glam, gold saucer or the upcoming island, anyone can really enjoy the "fighting" - content we have. Even if someone is that big casual, i´m sure this guy wants to throw is PC / PS4 / PS5 out of the window when you´ve to repeat some content 100 times to finally get this relic weapon or mount or whatever.

And if we´ve a look at the expansions, it´s every time the same. 6 big maps, a handful of dungeons, 12 raidbosses, 2-3 wild tribes, eureka / eureka 2.0 ähhh bozja, old content grind in form of a relic quests.
All what change are the environment and story in some way. Nothing real new, nothing exciting... everything just becomes easier and classes getting cutted. It´s really a shame, this game could be so much more and even was more in the past.
Let´s be excited about Endwalker now. The end of AST and the next step of the healer dumb downs, combined with 6 new beautiful maps, 1 million fates, some roads with 3 bosses every couple of meters ähhh dungeons , eureka 3.0 grind now with new glam and estinien without his long haircut... oh and animal crossing for those who can´t buy a switch.