What is going on with Square Enix and the 14 team?

[PawPaw]

It's interesting to see the disconnect on the forums to what I see ingame and what Streamers reactions are ( especially old WoW Streamers ).

The streamers who have just recently in the past few months come to the game and have almost ten years of content and systems to catch up on? Yes, I'm sure it seems like an avalanche of things to do in their eyes. They also rely on people being happy with their reactions to the game for a living, so I don't really consider their opinions too much when thinking objectively about the game.

[Kolsykol]

The streamers who have just recently in the past few months come to the game and have almost ten years of content and systems to catch up on? Yes, I'm sure it seems like an avalanche of things to do in their eyes. They also rely on people being happy with their reactions to the game for a living, so I don't really consider their opinions too much when thinking objectively about the game.

I am talking about Streamers that are up to date with the game, not Streamers who just started out.
You can make the same argument about reactions with other games too including WoW do you think it wasn't a risk to move over to FFXIV considering how a lot of WoW players talk about the game and what they think of it?
I mean if that's what you're going to think then I dunno how you could ever be convinced otherwise.

Most people who watch WoW Streamers I also don't think want to listen to them rant about how awful the game is constantly but a lot of them still do it.
I dunno what an objective way of thinking would even entail either, it seems to me like some people are incredibly intent on hating the game and being angry about something and it's also influencing how they view and talk about the game too.

[KizuyaKatogami]

It's interesting to see the disconnect on the forums to what I see ingame and what Streamers reactions are ( especially old WoW Streamers ).

On the forums '' omg I can't believe this patch so little content worst ever '', ingame and Streamers '' wow there's so much content I am amazed I love all of this it's incredible ''.
I get the disappointment with Job changes/ lack of in some cases and the Hrothgar ears or housing stuff ( altho people who got ultra mad were also for the most part wrong about what even went wrong too... ).
But there's a pretty insane level of discrepancy between what I see on the forums and basically everywhere else.

I just dunno what it is, I have problems with some stuff too the SAM changes are still completely baffling to me.
But in the *grand* scheme of things it's minor issues especially compared to problems other MMO's are having.
PvP In FFXIV isn't exactly my jam either but based on what I've seen at least it has been overwhelmingly positively received and every time I go to the Wolves Den I can't load in everyone it's perpetually overflooded with people PvP:ing.

In the end of the day if you're not having fun with the game then maybe it's time for a break or rethink because some people here just seem miserable and like playing for them is a chore.
And people who play other MMO's have a lot of the same thoughts too or even worse, I think a lot of this is a grass is always greener type of situation.
I mean holy hell especially when it comes to balance in GW2 it's a complete nightmare and has made me quit so many times before, there's issues that have been around since day 1 of the game that goes totally ignored and even gets made worse at times.



I really feel like healing fluctuates wildly, I healed P3S last week on SGE for the first time healing in Savage and it felt easy.
Today I did it with WHM and it felt like a complete nightmare and we kept wiping because the SGE just didn't shield at all I literally got one shot by the fountain lol and it happened multiple times.
That wasn't the only issue tho I dunno wtf people were doing but there were people dropping a lot and very suddenly.

I don't rly have a problem with that if people are actually screwing up, but if people aren't then it often feels like you don't have much to do other than spam 1.
Not gonna lie tho, part of me is also scared to death of what it'd be like if healing was actually more difficult and involved.
Especially towards the end of P4S it often feels like we're moments from wiping constantly with A LOT of PF healers.

PvP wise, i’m actually incredibly irritated. It is very fun yes, however the amount of bugs there are is beyond ridiculous, and it isn’t even really the amount, but the severity of the bugs that just shows combined with the housing problems this patch just doesnt seem to have been tested at all. Bard is virtually unplayable currently because of a bug that renders you in permanent slow walking mode that persists even after death. The way i know they didnt even test this whatsoever is because its caused by YOUR MAIN DAMAGE ABILITY. They just had to use it once to find the bug and they couldnt even do that. Theres also the major bug of the crystal just moving on its own as well. Things like this shouldnt have made it past QA.

As for content, im not sure what was added this patch thats so much more content than say....4.1. 4.1 on release gave us beast tribes,hildibrand,shirogane housingwhich might i add, didnt have major problems like this housing addition does, a whole new pvp mode in rival wings, as well as primal weapons for the new jobs.

[Theodric]

The biggest issue with streamers is that they primarily seek to make money off of whatever it is they are playing at the time. The vast majority will predictably put out a video with a thumbnail showing their shocked reaction to something complete with a title that reeks of bait. Some of them are better than others when it comes to providing feedback but it just isn't as authentic to me as someone who has no financial incentive to hold back when it comes to pointing out the perks or flaws of a game. Furthermore, a vocal portion of the FFXIV community is notorious for harassing streamers to react the 'right' way. Some received death threats for not praising the game at every turn. Others were insulted for liking or disliking the 'wrong' characters or accused of 'sUpPorTiNg GeNoCiDe' for sympathising with the Ascians.

So, yeah, I take anything streamers have to say with a hefty pinch of salt. Especially when it's of benefit to any business leaning on them to keep them appeased and with plenty of perks/free merchandise in exchange for positive promotion of the game/products being sold in relation to it.

End of Dragons? It's great. It actually got me to reinstall GW2 and play with my friends. There's just nothing to do in FFXIV right now and Endwalker having been such a big deal as an expansion invalidates the excuse of "well it's normal!". But should it be? Why is that okay? Why do I have to go to an entirely different game made by a different company to have a solid fill of an MMO and only come on FFXIV for the occasional fight and mostly just doing Second Life stuff? This is not what I signed up for all those years ago.

Also Yoshi's comment of "Take a break and play other games" doesn't hold on a sub-based game that punishes you if you have a house. Even GW2, incidentally, silently says this better because, well, no sub. You're always welcome back and only pay for the expansions you play.

Eugh, I feel like a shill, but this is what it's come to.

I might check it out at some point. I tried GW2 back when it first launched and enjoyed playing my Mesmer. He's off gathering dust somewhere but I didn't hate the game or anything - I just ended up falling in love with FFXIV back in the days of ARR and HW.

As someone lucky enough to own a house, that is definitely not in alignment with the advice to just go and play other games. I very much do, but I still need to log on every now and then in order to keep my house because if I lose it, I'm unlikely to get another. Especially not another mansion.As for combat related content, it did annoy me that the dungeon was the only bit of combat in the MSQ's this time around. The Scions have overstayed their welcome for me so I was looking forward to a genuine fresh start and life as an adventurer - but now we're right back to doing favours and errands for the Scions. Exploring a treasure vault and not seeing a single bit of treasure in the process is also pretty weird to me.

I'm easy to please. In many games I'll just pick a direction and run to see what's there - and if even half the effort put into the 'slice of life' elements was channelled into giving me reasons to interact with the game world in the same way as how other MMO's handle it then I'd be very happy.

[Hurlstone]

I think ESO should be considered competition, especially in regards to those who like to play for story. I can only speak for myself, but thats the main thing I look for when playing a game, even MMOs and its one of the reasons why I adore this game. It feels like a numbered Final Fantasy rather then a spin-off, and the actions of Yoshi-P/the devs seem to suggest that is its intent. The game welcomes players who want to invest in its lore. ESO is where I hug my hat for the years I stopped playing FFXIV many years ago. It has really good lore the large majority of its quest content can be done solo, and its similar helped by the fact its part of a large popular franchise (With the difference that its much more interconnected being a prequel. Whilst FFXIV has nods and story beats from past games its main focus its its own world and cast of characters.)

I suppose SWTOR could be added there too, but I have not played that in a long time and am unsure what the communities opinion is on its current story status.

[SieyaM]

Kind of late but someone earlier did mention healers becoming more support DPS, and I think if the dev team actually let go of the idea of a healer role and thought of them more this way then they might make some meaningful changes to the jobs. Right now their kit is loaded with an incredible amount of strong oGCD healing tools that don't interact with any other abilities in their kit, and the part of the kit they use the most is down to only 2 buttons. Maybe changing the paradigm from healing first they could think of it as a more general support first kind of role, where that might include other things.

[Kolsykol]

ESO, Swtor

ESO is its own beast imo, it's just so different than other MMO's.
It's unironically my favorite Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, it's a way better singleplayer open world game than both Skyrim and Oblivion.
But I view it more as a singleplayer game tbh.
Unfortunately I really hate the way the characters look and the weapon switching combat but I love the world.

In regards to SWTOR, the '' expansion '' was genuinely one of the most embarrassing launches ever and the story content is a complete joke.
The fact that they launched it even calling it an expansion is crazy, they hyped it up so much.
If you want to see a game that feels like it's on life support then SWTOR is probably a good example, it's pretty universally agreed upon that the state of the game is absolutely horrible.
Which is strange because it still has a ton of players ( cuz Star Wars ) but EA seems to have no real interest in doing anything with it.

Altho that's with endgame in mind, if you just want to do the main story for the characters then it's still great.
But if you're a long term player it's pretty awful and the lack of content is on another level.

Snip

I just dunno what you want me to say to that, especially when a lot of them had every incentive in the world to hate on the game and actually went into it with a VERY negative attitude and an audience that already hated the game.
Ofc there's a lot of fakeness the same goes for Youtubers too, I think it's mostly some exaggerations tho and not necessarily fakeness.
Most of them also don't need to play FFXIV they could get into another game.
Every community has harassment issues too I think like with a lot of else about FFXIV it's mostly people blowing it out of proportion and it becomes something people tell each other and just a repeated thing people say and end up believing.
Ultimately tho I don't really care if one is slightly worse than the other, in Mikepreachwow's and Nobbels chats at least it's just a straight up meme that they're '' reacting wrong '' it's not taken seriously at all.
And usually when I see people go on about the '' toxicity of FFXIV players '' it's coming from people playing other games that aren't exactly the most wholesome person themselves.
It's also not like Twitch chat has a good reputation for being wholesome either.

In the end of the day you can write off reviewers like this too, and Streamers was just one example.
Most of their reactions really reflect what I see ingame too and not what I see on the forums and they had a much bigger financial incentive to stick with WoW.
I mean then why didn't they lie about WoW and say that they loved it?
It's not like they only in these past recent years began criticizing WoW, but why does your argument not apply there too?
That was a MUCH bigger risk potentially career ending and they did it anyway.
In fact some of them did it knowing that it'd probably cost them good will with Blizzard and it did but they did it anyway.

I mean I am sure there's going to be people who lost their house roll too who aren't exactly being the most '' unbiased '' opinion around too.
You can spin these types of arguments and ways of looking at it with basically anything, but my overall point was that the way people are raging on the forums isn't reflective of what I see basically anywhere else.

[HisShadowX]

Taking a break doesnt work when this has been going on and getting worse over 6 years. That moves into unsub territory

I know I posted about this seven years ago and people have been talking about this for years even before me.

At this point I think many people are warming to the idea of instanced housing. As Yoshi P said in the NoClip documentary about FFXIV 1.0 that it could not be saved it was built in a way it can be patched but never fixed. The entire housing system needs to be abolished and there needs to be a new system. They can keep the wards system as a legacy but instanced housing is a must. The forums and the player base have been vocal about this ever since the lottery failure.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...up-is-horrible

[Hurlstone]

ESO is its own beast imo, it's just so different than other MMO's.
It's unironically my favorite Elder Scrolls games since Morrowind, it's a way better singleplayer open world game than both Skyrim and Oblivion.
But I view it more as a singleplayer game tbh.
Unfortunately I really hate the way the characters look and the weapon switching combat but I love the world.

I agree actually about ESO being the best TESO game. Its the one which made me fall in love with that worlds lore, and there is so much to do and explore, even in just the base game. I consider ity one of my all-time favorite games actually. I think its a shame that so much of the content is split up into Chapter and DLC though. Honestly why I do not play unless I get a few months of ESO+. I like its character style personally, but its combat is by far the weakest feature. It tries to sell itself on being ‘play your own way!’ but inevitably falls into the same balancing issues every MMO class has. Honestly adding individual classes rather then having a system more akin to Skyrim ect. was a mistake.

In regards to SWTOR, the '' expansion '' was genuinely one of the most embarrassing launches ever and the story content is a complete joke.
The fact that they launched it even calling it an expansion is crazy, they hyped it up so much.
If you want to see a game that feels like it's on life support then SWTOR is probably a good example, it's pretty universally agreed upon that the state of the game is absolutely horrible.
Which is strange because it still has a ton of players ( cuz Star Wars ) but EA seems to have no real interest in doing anything with it.

Dang, that is a shame to hear. I loved SWTOR when it first came out, and if I had time I would likely still check it out, but it became clear after going F2P that it was aiming for things above its station. I am honestly shocked it was not shut down years ago.

[Thoosa]

I think the competition is:

Wow, eso, lost ark, new world, and up and coming blue protocol and ashes of creation.

If any of the above get better and/or the new releases provide good housing, crafting and glamour, then 14 might be forced to change their formula.