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.

[DrWho2010]

sounds like someone needs a break from the game.

[ssunny2008]

sounds like someone needs a break from the game.

So obvious.... sorry that i expect more from SE than perma grind, copy & paste, trash dungeons and dumb downs with each new expansion. It has become a typical asia-grinder in a lot of ways already, but sadly the class gameplay isn´t that much enjoyable as it is in games like BDO or Tera and the loot is not a thing.

Pls don´t tell me that you´re overwhelmed by dungeons, fates or 5 minute events. I could atleast except it in raids with all those casuals out there.

[DrWho2010]

Newsflash, 95-99% of this game is for "casuals". only the top 5% do the "hard" stuff (i.e. savage/ultimates).

[ssunny2008]

Newsflash, 95-99% of this game is for "casuals". only the top 5% do the "hard" stuff (i.e. savage/ultimates).

Those 5% are a joke and has become the actual casual content. The 95% are a stupid grindfest, nothing else. And as we see in SHB, dungeons are loveless routes and the half expansion relies on fates.
I do play with a bunch of casuals and they´re tired of the permagrind or if a dungeon takes longer than 10mins in the daily-roulette too. They even dislike the way classes have been made easier.

Casual content IS NOT super braindead content. And imagine any casual can get better if the game would force more than two buttons aoe spam or 123 - repeat.
So pls Mr. Newsflash, if you haven´t anything constructive to say...

[DBriggs304]

We don't need equations to play our classes. Their are plenty of other games that offer that type of gameplay.

[Vencio]

This game is huge & much more than fighting, fate & raid,

Try pvp, gold saucer, collect glamours, whatever….what more could you possibly want?

Sounds like you’re burnt & decided to push through content without much satisfaction

[ssunny2008]

This game is huge & much more than fighting, fate & raid,

Try pvp, gold saucer, collect glamours, whatever….what more could you possibly want?

Sounds like you’re burnt & decided to push through content without much satisfaction

I´ve already written "next to housing, gold saucer etc." and this topic is obviously about fighting, dungeons, fates and raid content.

And well i´ve done it all. I´ve 4 houses, more Gil and MGP than i´ll ever need, i´ve finished tiers and got a bunch of mounts / pets, whatever. But i´m not a little glamgirl who needs 100 different customs and just saying, to farm those glam, you need to grind the content i´m dissappointed about. (Not that unsynced content brings any enjoyment anyway.)
The game got easier and easier over the time. The overall quality of the named content went downhill and in kind of lazyness we´re getting spammed with fates through different questlines or optional content. Those are facts noone can deny.

If you´re really satisfied to grind the same fates or dungeons all over again, if you really think that a "1 Fate event" is an event, then you either have no expectations to a game or you´ve never come to the enjoyment of games who did a better job.

Tbh, instead of claiming that i´m burnt or whatever, how about you guys? DO YOU ENJOY to repeat the same dungeons all over again? Or 1000h of Fategrind for 2 pets and 1 mount? 99 tokens or random drops in the same "no efford" EX primals?
From DrWho2010 i already know, that he just wants to finish dungeons in 1 minute or less. Of course it´s understandable since the content is a joke noone wants to repeat 100 times. Is this good content if ppl get this attitude? Just give me some answers, why all of this is so satisfying pls. I´m excited.

[Absimiliard]

About the only thing in this post I can even remotely agree with is the bit about relic weapons. Those truly are functionally useless. SE really needs to look at allowing us to get them in time for current content if we're willing to put in the work. For as involved as the process of getting them is, the inability to take advantage of them for progression is a real waste.

Now, on the subject of dungeons:
Most of us prefer them to be straightforward. We want to get in, do a few wall to wall pulls, and get out. We don't want to have to run around and explore some place that we know we're going to be in five billion times because of roulettes. I'd love a set of optional, savage+ difficulty dungeons on the side, though. Something that allows four skilled players to go in and earn savage-equivalent gear for succeeding.

To raids:
You can only add so much complexity before it becomes tiresome. Even still, the fights generally get a little more complex each expansion. For how few expansions the game has seen, they've found a lot of new mechanics to add. This is also one of the few games to have bosses actively overlap mechanics that are nearly incompatible with one another. FFXIV is already at the point where some dungeon bosses, and not even necessarily endgame ones, are more mechanically involved than some of WoW's mythic raid bosses. As for kiting? There have been fights in the past that required a tank, DPS, or healer to kite, and there will be again - there always is. Heck, you can find a fight where kiting is encouraged (though admittedly not required) as early as Cutter's Cry, and that awful place is an ARR dungeon.

To FATEs:
The reliance on FATEs does get old after a while, I will concede, but it does help to futureproof content. It also helps open special events up to lower level players, allowing them to engage more completely. Other MMOs tend to limit lower level player interactions with special holidays or events.

To classes:
Having options is by no means a bad thing, but there is such a thing as too many abilities. Most of what they've removed was already superfluous to begin with. Of course, there were some jobs that got nailed to the wall and completely lost their identity {*cough* DARK KNIGHT *cough*), but the majority seemed to come away in ways the majority found pleasing. ...And ultimately that is who SE must cater to: the majority. Not catering to the majority means not making money, which in turn means the game gets shelved and we all move on to play something else.

[Eloah]

Remember, a person is smart, but people are stupid.

What would you like SE to do differently? But keep in mind, when everything is taken at its base value, every game, EVERY GAME, just boils down to dodging and attacking. From the simplest platforms like Mario and Sonic to FPS's like Call of Duty and Borderlands. The main difference is in the delivery.

So how would you change the delivery?

Also remember that repetition of anything will become tedious, regardless of how "fun" it might seem at first. That's why minor changes help to freshen things up. In this case it could be a different party comp, or playing a different job, a completely different group, little things to spice things up.