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

[Theodric]

I do think there's a decent amount of competition. It's not so much what we, as individuals, may play but rather what other people might be inclined to play. That's likely the same thought process for the development team and investors given their obsession with trying to 'poach' players from other games and appeal to completely new players altogether.

Guild Wars 2 recently launched a new expansion and although I'm not aware of how popular it is, I imagine it has enough people playing to justify further investment.

Elder Scrolls Online has been putting out content on a steady basis for almost as long as FFXIV. It's due to launch another expansion within a couple of months focused around Bretons. I'll be checking it out myself, since I play it occasionally and they're one of my favourite playable races in the setting.

Lost Ark recently launched in the West. I've been playing that occasionally as well. There's a lot of content and although it has some F2P elements that I dislike, it's still pretty generous with how it handles giving players free items and the like. I was surprised by how beautiful the game world, character models and music are.

The elephant in the room is World of Warcraft. A beloved IP mired in controversy with an uncanny ability to lean on fanservice in order to bounce back from even the gravest of scandals. I've long since washed my hands of the game, though there's still people who play it and a new expansion was revealed just today. Perhaps most importantly, there will be a relaunch of the game's most beloved expansion in the 'Classic' format. Wrath of the Lich King had roughly ten million active players back in the day - and if even 10% of them are inclined to check it out due to nostalgia? Well, I daresay that qualifies as 'competition'.

I'm pretty much at the point where I no longer take anything in FFXIV for granted, or just accept whatever is pushed out. I want to see the development team tap into the same passion and loyalty to their fans that they displayed during the transition from 1.0 to 2.0. Because the games I mentioned above are all MMO's and there's plenty of single player games/pseudo-MMO's I could bring up as well that are also competing for people's time and attention. Such as Elden Ring.

[BrokentoothMarch]

Snip

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.

[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.