Future direction of FFXIV

[Vahlnir]

This thread reminds me of the WoW forums back in WotLK where people were constantly whining and complaining about the state of the game, asking for change etc. even though the game was peaking at a massive 12 million playerbase. Cataclysm arrived and change they got. Then everyone quit. Problem is that a lot of people don't know when to be content. There's always something to nag about that makes acting like it's the end of the world seem like a sensible reaction (even though the game is doing extremely well). Such is the danger of living in the echo-chamber of forums imbued with a constant negativity. Eventually it's all you see.

I absolutely do believe the game is fine, but could use some improvements in some areas. They need to adress healers and maybe also tanks. Doesn't seem like those roles have received the attention they deserve. Other than that? Fix the glamour system and make roulettes more interesting for max level characters.

FF XIV is currently in its golden years, though the game is not perfect. It also took a lot longer than WoW to get there. WoW's ended with the introduction of the Cataclysm expansion. It was arguably perfect before that. They struck a good balance in content design for anyone and everyone in Wrath of the Lich King. When they tried to lean too far in one direction by catering to their most hardcore...they saw a huge drop in players. Then in MoP they leaned too far in the opposite direction at first which upset a lot of people, causing some to leave. The Thunder King patch all but stemmed the bleeding, though it wasn't anything too serious even then. The long, LONG content drought at the end caused more players to leave but they were definitely going to come back. Personally I loved MoP from beginning to end but I understand the complaints that some people had. I just didn't agree. In WoD they swung that pendulum back the other way and lost more players yet again. Even more than before. Half the player base vanished in 6 months. It was around 10 million at the start of that expansion. When they tried to take flying away that did even more damage. Rough estimates put the player base at around...2 million or so I think before they stopped announcing those number to the public or even the shareholders. There's probably a reason for that. The Legion expansion that followed wasn't perfect, but they finally struck a good balance again by providing content for everyone. So naturally that meant that they needed to go back the other way and upset most everyone again in BfA. And then Shadowlands followed it up with them leaning on systems that just about everyone hated and ignoring any and all player feedback and all but cutting the "casual" player out of the mix entirely. As things currently stand if you do mythic+ or raid you are probably happy-ish right now. But even that crowd isn't entirely content with the state of things. Either way, a lot of people were fed up with the game and decided it was time to move on. So yeah, there's the WoW summary starting in 2011 until now. lol Cataclysm wasn't what caused the mass exodus from WoW we've been seeing for a while, but it was the beginning of the game's decline. Despite what complaints one might see on these forums, FF XIV is doing fine. But it's not perfect either and I think there are things they could be doing differently. Regardless I'm pretty happy with the game currently. Most everyone who is taking a break during the lull between patches will be back. They always come back. WoW, sadly, can't say the same anymore.

[Liam_Harper]

Honestly, I'm happy enough with this game to pay a sub. The story was good entertainment. The expansion was worth the price I paid. I'm having fun raiding.

That said, I don't feel the game is going in a direction I personally like. A lot of activities I used to enjoy are no longer fun. Classes are bland, combat still doesn't flow well, healers are a lost cause, Hunts became a chore, crafting is dead, bots are rampant, FC's are neglected. I don't feel a sense of loyalty or attachment to the game, I just don't feel there's a better MMO on the market right now. If there was, I probably wouldn't be here.

The game is good in a safe way, the developers are better than a lot of other developers, but I don't "love" the game and I'm not hooked. It's just my preferred way to burn spare time at the moment. I hate to admit it, but I think somewhere deep down there's that old WoW player in me that misses guild raid nights, the big mount and pet collections, the toy box, responsive combat, pet battles, tmog tabs, achievements and all the rest of it. Maybe I'm just waiting for a new game that brings that spirit back without the gamebreaking downsides and flaws.

This thread reminds me of the WoW forums back in WotLK where people were constantly whining and complaining about the state of the game, asking for change etc. even though the game was peaking at a massive 12 million playerbase. Cataclysm arrived and change they got. Then everyone quit. Problem is that a lot of people don't know when to be content.

This is false and entirely on the developer. Games are not a privilege or a special gift, they're a product that you pay money for, from a business, in a competitive market. If you, as a developer cannot determine which customer feedback is legitimate and which is detrimental to your product and decide to ruin it when it was doing well, then you're a bad developer. Frankly, it's pathetic of any developer to ruin a successful product and then blame the entirely inexperienced customer for it. You're meant to be a professional at game design, we aren't in charge of making your product, then handing you money for it.

Not to mention Blizzard was hardly notorious for listening to all their feedback and happily ignored most of it. They wrecked their game by themselves.

[Illmaeran]

somewhere deep down there's that old WoW player in me that misses guild raid nights.

That's me since the end of Vanilla. I love XIV, it's the best-for-me MMO I've ever played, but I can't say there aren't aspects of other games that I miss. Part of that's the lack of voice chat in games compared to the early 2000s; no guild or FC I've been in after that first two used voice comms very much and had an equivalent lack of group bond.

[KizuyaKatogami]

That's me since the end of Vanilla. I love XIV, it's the best-for-me MMO I've ever played, but I can't say there aren't aspects of other games that I miss. Part of that's the lack of voice chat in games compared to the early 2000s; no guild or FC I've been in after that first two used voice comms very much and had an equivalent lack of group bond.

Tbh i feel like thats something 14 has always been missing. I've just never felt that mmo group feel with this game. It feels like most everything is just get on discord and chat or get on discord vc to raid. I always liked just being out in the open world in an mmo, partying with people and getting to explore. Their latest stance on making the game more of a solo experience just denies any of this getting any growth or attention i suppose.

[Lauront]

Honestly, I'm happy enough with this game to pay a sub. The story was good entertainment. The expansion was worth the price I paid. I'm having fun raiding.

That said, I don't feel the game is going in a direction I personally like. A lot of activities I used to enjoy are no longer fun. Classes are bland, combat still doesn't flow well, healers are a lost cause, Hunts became a chore, crafting is dead, bots are rampant, FC's are neglected. I don't feel a sense of loyalty or attachment to the game, I just don't feel there's a better MMO on the market right now. If there was, I probably wouldn't be here.

The game is good in a safe way, the developers are better than a lot of other developers, but I don't "love" the game and I'm not hooked. It's just my preferred way to burn spare time at the moment. I hate to admit it, but I think somewhere deep down there's that old WoW player in me that misses guild raid nights, the big mount and pet collections, the toy box, responsive combat, pet battles, tmog tabs, achievements and all the rest of it. Maybe I'm just waiting for a new game that brings that spirit back without the gamebreaking downsides and flaws.

This is exactly how I feel about it. I've been playing the game because the story was fairly good in SHB and I also enjoyed HW and SB, with the PVE being decent, but I did not enjoy EW's story conclusion, so that just leaves the PVE aspects. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt for now to see what comes in the future but the game would benefit from some competition. But there were still aspects I loved about WoW, like its racial lore and class design and some of the stuff you mention, which I don't really get out of this game... equally WoW is too much of a mess to return to it. So I bide my time waiting for another MMO while just using this to burn spare time.

[SyphinAes]

This thread reminds me of the WoW forums back in WotLK where people were constantly whining and complaining about the state of the game, asking for change etc. even though the game was peaking at a massive 12 million playerbase. Cataclysm arrived and change they got. Then everyone quit. Problem is that a lot of people don't know when to be content. There's always something to nag about that makes acting like it's the end of the world seem like a sensible reaction (even though the game is doing extremely well). Such is the danger of living in the echo-chamber of forums imbued with a constant negativity. Eventually it's all you see.

I absolutely do believe the game is fine, but could use some improvements in some areas. They need to adress healers and maybe also tanks. Doesn't seem like those roles have received the attention they deserve. Other than that? Fix the glamour system and make roulettes more interesting for max level characters.

Aside from that, I thoroughly enjoyed the EW MSQ - especially my time in Elpis. I've yet to meet a single person in-game who didn't like it.

YES. As a WoW refugee the shit in this thread is making me cringe so hard. "Let's take what's working like gangbusters and ruin it just because."

[Vahlnir]

YES. As a WoW refugee the shit in this thread is making me cringe so hard. "Let's take what's working like gangbusters and ruin it just because."

Pretty much. Not saying the game is perfect, but it is consistently what it is and it never tries to be anything but, for better or worse. Usually for the better. WoW has tried to reinvent the wheel every expansion for years now, and instead of taking the good they've done and using it later...they take the worst possible aspects of every bit of content they create and somehow make it worse with a "new" iteration. Heck, even their pet battle system isn't any fun anymore and it hasn't been for a while now. Complicated and grindy just for the sake of being complicated and grindy. That's...WoW content design in a nutshell.

[KageTokage]

I feel like this "The game is great, but it could still be better" is the prevailing "negative" mentality that's going around, not "This game sucks and I'm leaving if they don't fix/improve this".

[Nekokaori]

I feel like this "The game is great, but it could still be better" is the prevailing "negative" mentality that's going around, not "This game sucks and I'm leaving if they don't fix/improve this".

id say the game is.. "Decent" getting attached to something having fun with something though which is how i game, when i play a class or job i look for one with things I enjoy, but on here as ast after stormblood showed me and anger me to the point i broke a controller, is they don't see what we are having fun with honestly they will strip it down, make it brain dead just to please people who lets be honest if they cant read a skill set they have no place in playing period..

its a decent game to kill time with thats about all anymore I use to feel good upon leveling up and learning how to correctly play what i was given.

In fact heres a story, I played when arr was new when steps of faith was hard when the demon wall in the dungeon summoned bees it was hard it made you feel something rather u failed or scudded it felt good to accomplish a clear and go on, as does many of the new alliance raids when they come out, so did mastering a job finally not just playing it but really knowing how to use it.

now i feel nothing playing this game at all, i feel like im just there to pop in and pop out and nothing else matters legitly. It doesn't feel good playing anymore and if im being honest, I play more out of an addiction to final fantasy than the game being worth a fuck. I love the nekos and playing a cutesie lalafell that feels good because its a way to express my irl self without judgement (well mostly) .. but if im being honest in 2 years when i go through a move to be closer to friends, I may never touch this game again because it just feels terriable to play.

Idc if ast does max damage or how hard some end game static is, it really doesn't fucking matter if I can't enjoy the job i play. I really enjoyed ast when unlocked on day one, when i played it through stormblood it felt amazing knowing that bole goes to the tank, arrows are either better casters or yourself dependng on situation, balance was great so was every other card in ur toolkit and when you learned that you felt good, now it doesnt feel like anything but a chore "pop this do this use this" yawn and sleep through things wow big bad had one move that was hard oh well we will clear it either way

[Raoabolic]

I feel like this "The game is great, but it could still be better" is the prevailing "negative" mentality that's going around, not "This game sucks and I'm leaving if they don't fix/improve this".

This is pretty much the sentiment most people have that have stuck with this game for a long while. It's far from a bad game but when you see a game you enjoy get class hominization, a cash shop, and less content per patch you will start to wonder why you are slowing down when your game is gaining traction in the "Gamer™" community. That, and Zenos really felt like the canary in the coal mine as far as story goes. EW's ending really didn't help considering the whole build up felt like a loud plop in an empty room. Again, at least Footfalls and Radz-at-han's daytime theme were really good. That trombone slide in Radz-at-han's daytime theme is sick!