Future direction of FFXIV

[Theodric]

Theodric, you use that term constantly. What exactly do you think this game has in common with a visual novel?

Constantly? I've only used it a handful of times as far as I'm aware!

As for why, well...there's the lengthy, unskippable cutscenes that revolve around watching G'raha eat a burger when there's supposed to be an apocalyptic threat looming in the background. To say nothing of an increase in the amount of weird, unwanted fawning over my character from the likes of Alisae - who is not only underage but is presented as having a crush on my character despite him already being eternally bonded to another player and very much not into women in the first place.

I much preferred the style of ARR and HW which had a healthy balance of consequences and wins/losses for both the protagonists and the antagonists with the story playing out in such a way as to not simply be a series of disjointed events, excessive attempts at producing 'feels' and so on.

All in all, I want more 'game' in my game. I think it's a real shame that the developers have ignored years of feedback in relation to PvE and PvP in favour of pandering to the same crowd who feel 'upset' at the idea of the Sage icon having holes in it. At the end of the day, this is meant to be a game rated for ages 16 and over (over here in the UK, at least). I'd simply like it to reflect that more blatantly.

[KageTokage]

I appreciate they've been trying to spice things up a bit in terms of the MSQ experience but they have a slight problem where they love to double down on whatever new quest types they introduce in a given expansion; the stealth quests being a particular annoyance to me. I like the follower quests for the extra dialogue they offer but they also really need to allow you to mount or use aetherytes while they're active.

[Azuri]

Theodric, you use that term constantly. What exactly do you think this game has in common with a visual novel?

If we were to take MSQ and compare the ratio of actual gameplay to reading through cutscenes, XIV would easily land in visual novel category. In other games fetch quests tell you to go to X and kill 10 boars. In XIV they simply ask you to watch a cutscene at X.

[IdowhatIwant]

Theodric, you use that term constantly. What exactly do you think this game has in common with a visual novel?

Well Endwalker was mostly cut scenes with very few duties and quests when compared to other expansions MSQ.

I get they were trying to wrap everything up in 6.0... but my lord the cut scenes. Go here watch a cutscene, walk with Graha watch a cutscene, follow the woman cutscene, go to the next zone cutscene before entering and after entering do a dugeon cutscene. I felt like I was watching a Marvel movie not playing an MMO.

[AziraSyuren]

Constantly? I've only used it a handful of times as far as I'm aware!

As for why, well...there's the lengthy, unskippable cutscenes that revolve around watching G'raha eat a burger when there's supposed to be an apocalyptic threat looming in the background. To say nothing of an increase in the amount of weird, unwanted fawning over my character from the likes of Alisae - who is not only underage but is presented as having a crush on my character despite him already being eternally bonded to another player and very much not into women in the first place.

I much preferred the style of ARR and HW which had a healthy balance of consequences and wins/losses for both the protagonists and the antagonists with the story playing out in such a way as to not simply be a series of disjointed events, excessive attempts at producing 'feels' and so on.

All in all, I want more 'game' in my game. I think it's a real shame that the developers have ignored years of feedback in relation to PvE and PvP in favour of pandering to the same crowd who feel 'upset' at the idea of the Sage icon having holes in it. At the end of the day, this is meant to be a game rated for ages 16 and over (over here in the UK, at least). I'd simply like it to reflect that more blatantly.

My (vain) hope is that ShB was just an outlier in terms PVE content. Even if all the game-within-a-game systems like Eureka, Bozja, and Diadem were pretty awful, I can at least respect them for adding variety. Nothing wrong with a little mindless grinding in between raid nights.

[Lyth]

If someone 'runs out of content' on an MMO, it just means that they've reached the upper limit of what they have the skill/time/patience to do. A completionist is never going to run out of things to do (and is a very dangerous trap to fall into). Naturally, if all that you are capable of doing in game is the MSQ, the game is going to feel like a visual novel. Pitching more content at MSQ dungeon difficulty isn't really going to make that feeling go away. You just need to find more challenging content that you're capable of doing.

MMOs always have to strike a balance between exclusivity and accessibility. Players want their achievements to be exclusive so that they can show them off and feel special. At the same time, if they get gated from things that they want, they lose interest. Players demand more content gates, and then complain when they themselves get gated due to a lack of skill/time/patience. More often than not, what they actually require is more content tailored to their individual skill levels rather than more difficulty itself. And that's pretty hard to gauge, because most people tend to overestimate their skill and overstate the difficulty that they're looking for.

Community and convenience are at odds with each other. Systems like DF allow you to quickly jump into content when you don't have that much time to spare but come at the expense of interpersonal interaction (hello/gg). On the other extreme, manually forming a group by shouting in a global chat channel circa 2004 makes you intrinsically more inclined to interact and subsequently team up again, because you've already had that first icebreaker. I see an increasing number of systems to try to address this both in game and on lodestone, but a side effect of this is that the community interactions tend to become more insular and fragmented across multiple groups and chat channels. Some people naturally have a harder time just jumping into a group of people that they haven't talked to before and interacting.

[Jandor]

I don't really mind that the MSQ had more 'stand at X and watch a cutscene' and less 'go to X and kill 10 whatevers' this time around.

The combat in this game is pretty reliant on your opponent for the fun factor, if you're not fighting a fully fledged boss fight it's generally pretty boring.

[Dzian]

MMOs always have to strike a balance between exclusivity and accessibility. Players want their achievements to be exclusive so that they can show them off and feel special. At the same time, if they get gated from things that they want, they lose interest. Players demand more content gates, and then complain when they themselves get gated due to a lack of skill/time/patience. More often than not, what they actually require is more content tailored to their individual skill levels rather than more difficulty itself. And that's pretty hard to gauge, because most people tend to overestimate their skill and overstate the difficulty that they're looking for.

The thing is, Accessibility does not mean easy. What Accessibility means is giving players the means to try and participate in content if they so choose to.

Every piece of content in FFXIV is super accessible by design. Even Ultimates. Any gating of content is ultimately a result of community behaviour. Especially NA side.

Let's look at Savage Raids and Extreme Trials as an example.
They're designed to be accessible. There is even a Matchmaking tool to help players find groups called Raid Finder. This means a player could log in one evening decide to try that piece of content and all they have to do is jump into the Raid Finder menu and go... You really cannot make it much more accessible than that? No major time gatesn no major hurdles or barriers.

The problem however is the community and there inability to use the tools given to them properly.
What killed the NA raid finder off and stopped people using it was basicsally far too many idiots who had basically only just unlocked the fight and would then proceed to queue "Duty Completion Phase 3" instead of "Practice Phase 1" in the raid finder menu only to then get grouped with a bunch of players looking who are close to clearing and kick off and complain when every one abandons the duty because they cant even get to or beat the add phase.
The same people then further complain that noone uses the tools and now content is gated or innaccessible... It's the communities own fault.
On JP servers a lot people have even pugged ultimates in raid finder parties. Proof that the system works. It's the players who dont use it properly.

Exclusivity is also fine and a big motivator in MMOs but again this tends to depend on the reasons for said exclusivity.. FFXIVs problem often stems from the perceived value of things, Outside of any glamour value everything is trash. which then means jumping through hoops and over coming challeges to get it just doesnt feel worth it.

Compare it to mmos of old, Even its predeccor XI. where gear and items felt strong and valuable. a challenge to get. The Evokers ring for your newly 75 summoner for example took quite a lot of work and effort to get but the difference between that and the latest I590 ring in XIV is that the evokers felt a powerful piece of gear, that 590 ring is just a slot filler till the next patch.

Exclusivity isnt a bad thing either.. If they had never introduced the unsynced system for example super early mounts like ifrits pony would still be accessible to newer players, any exclusivity that existed would be a result of player laziness. they could go and get that mount, they just choose not to...

Then look at things like the white ravens fiasco a while back.. exclusive item which had significance and a story attached to it. and they went and basically just handed them out to everyone.. totally destroying everything they represented... and the thing is why did they need to.. it not like it was a super OP item that gave people who had it a big advantage or anythnig.. it was a trophy item little more.. so what if it was unattainable it didnt really matter..

What unsyncing and stuff does is destroy any sense of value or significane these rewards held.. You would see someone on ifrits pony... "Oh hey that guy beat that fight...." where as now you see someone on it.. "bleh they got it from moogle tomethingies".... it doesnt mean or signify anything..

Thats why so many people just dont even bother trying to do a lot of content.. The devs continue to make every raid tier easier and easier to try and pull more players in and the players are just like nah... not worth it.. unsync it later.... If they made the rewards powerfull or worth it then participation would be much higher but instead they continue to dumb everything down

Unsync also means that players end up bored because you can blast a year of content in an hour and then find yourself idling around becausetheres nothing to do...
FFXIVS paradox. the game has truck loads of content but at the same time has no content at all.

[Lyth]

Accessibility absolutely does translate to difficulty, be it skill or time investment. And you always have to design for how the end user actually behaves, not how you think that they should behave.

What muddies the waters is that this is a team based game, and people are usually more willing to point out the shortcomings of others than to accept their own. A lot of players feel like others are holding them back, even if that's not actually the case. Even if you use objective metrics of player skill like rating systems, they can struggle to separate out individual performance. And at the end of the day, the only reliable metric is whether you can complete the instance or not.

That's why players tend not to use matchmaking services for harder content that requires more of a time investment. You can't completely automate the selection process, as most disputes arise from a mismatch in expectations and commitment.

I think that exclusivity is a great motivating factor. It's fine for some achievements to depreciate over time, though, because there's always new stuff coming out. Does it really matter that somebody is able to unsync to obtain a Heavensward mount? You probably enjoyed it for a while when you got it and then forgot about it. And there are some things that will always be rare regardless of how far into the future we go, like the Necromancer achievement. If you're concerned about an achievement depreciating, then you need to be selective in what you invest your time in.

[Absurdity]

I think that exclusivity is a great motivating factor. It's fine for some achievements to depreciate over time, though, because there's always new stuff coming out. Does it really matter that somebody is able to unsync to obtain a Heavensward mount? You probably enjoyed it for a while when you got it and then forgot about it. And there are some things that will always be rare regardless of how far into the future we go, like the Necromancer achievement. If you're concerned about an achievement depreciating, then you need to be selective in what you invest your time in.

You're correct in the assumption that the people who had those mounts since Heavensward probably don't care if someone gets it now, they already had it for years and got their value out of it

I can see where Dzian is coming from though, it devalues the reward for everyone, even the new player, and consequently also makes the content even less attractive.

Why should people bother to do those old fights? The mount is essentially worthless for them as well outside of 100% collection purposes because everyone can just unsync the fight, kill the boss in 2 minutes and repeat that until it drops. On top of that you can probably get it from the Moogle event at some point, without having to ever engage in the content it originally drops from.

So now that original content is basically pointless because not only are the rewards unattractive but you can also get said rewards from doing something completely different.