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

[Midareyukki]

Spoiler alert: FFXIV is still the #1 MMO in the world. These are not the Final Days of the game. But thanks for the laugh! I honestly needed it today. Not sarcasm.

Yeees, and that is exactly why we should hold them to no standard, not point out when they screw up and lavish them with praise despite having the most notoriously buggy patch they've released in years.

Because they're the #1, they'll forever hold that title.

/s

It doesn't have to be the Final Days to note that quality has been getting worse, you know?

[EaraGrace]

I do feel the need to point out my experience with the perception that 14 has "peaked."

Stormblood: "Eureka is a disaster and a waste of time, the Four Lords story ended with a wet fart, the MSQ is only good when we go to Othard, Shirogane housing is a nightmare, oh great another Deep Dungeon that nobody is going to do, raids are just the bosses now (borrrrinnnggg) and my favorite class has been ruined (give me back Cleric Stance Square ):<). Its all downhill from here."

Shadowbringers: "The voice acting took a nosedive, only one dungeon per patch is lazy and terrible, Bozja is just another failed Eureka with a story that gets wrapped up in text logs, the second Ultimate was delayed, Light Rampant blows, Viera and Hrothgar are undercooked (wheres male viera????), no new healer, the Nier story is incomprehensible and has no rewards, pvp sucks, classes are getting designed for casuals and time travel??? really??? Past expansions were better."

And my personal favorite:

1.0: "A jump button!!!!! you've ruined the game!"

Now this isn't to disparage or disagree with any of the complaints (except the jump button one), but I do think people should keep the past in mind when making the claim the game has reached its zenith. People said Cataclysm was going to cause WoW to die, and they were right!

10 years later.

[CrownySuccubus]

I do feel the need to point out my experience with the perception that 14 has "peaked."

Stormblood: "Eureka is a disaster and a waste of time, the Four Lords story ended with a wet fart, the MSQ is only good when we go to Othard, Shirogane housing is a nightmare, oh great another Deep Dungeon that nobody is going to do, raids are just the bosses now (borrrrinnnggg) and my favorite class has been ruined (give me back Cleric Stance Square ):<). Its all downhill from here."

Shadowbringers: "The voice acting took a nosedive, only one dungeon per patch is lazy and terrible, Bozja is just another failed Eureka with a story that gets wrapped up in text logs, the second Ultimate was delayed, Light Rampant blows, Viera and Hrothgar are undercooked (wheres male viera????), no new healer, the Nier story is incomprehensible and has no rewards, pvp sucks, classes are getting designed for casuals and time travel??? really??? Past expansions were better."

And my personal favorite:

1.0: "A jump button!!!!! you've ruined the game!"

Now this isn't to disparage or disagree with any of the complaints (except the jump button one), but I do think people should keep the past in mind when making the claim the game has reached its zenith. People said Cataclysm was going to cause WoW to die, and they were right!

10 years later.

Like I said elsewhere, if you repeat "The End is Nigh" enough times, and ignore all the times you were wrong, then eventually you can brag about how right you were.

[EaraGrace]

Like I said elsewhere, if you repeat "The End is Nigh" enough times, and ignore all the times you were wrong, then eventually you can brag about how right you were.

Exactly.

Works 100% of the time...

1% of the time.

[KariTheFox]

There's an idea in the historiography of the Roman Empire, that the date you give for, and the reasons behind the collapse of the Roman Empire, have more to do with your own biases and priorities than the actual historical fact.

I feel like World of Warcraft is our Roman Empire in this discussion.

[LittleImp]

I do feel the need to point out my experience with the perception that 14 has "peaked."

I think the assessment that 14 has 'peaked' comes more from the fact that the explosive growth before and at EW launch can be partially attributed to external factors that are very unlikely to be repeated, and 14 subsequently struggling to retain that new audience.

[EaraGrace]

There's an idea in the historiography of the Roman Empire, that the date you give for, and the reasons behind the collapse of the Roman Empire, have more to do with your own biases and priorities than the actual historical fact.

I feel like World of Warcraft is our Roman Empire in this discussion.

“LFR has been a disaster and only benefits casuals. Also Everquest delenda est.”

[AziraSyuren]

I do feel the need to point out my experience with the perception that 14 has "peaked."

Stormblood: "Eureka is a disaster and a waste of time, the Four Lords story ended with a wet fart, the MSQ is only good when we go to Othard, Shirogane housing is a nightmare, oh great another Deep Dungeon that nobody is going to do, raids are just the bosses now (borrrrinnnggg) and my favorite class has been ruined (give me back Cleric Stance Square ):<). Its all downhill from here."

Shadowbringers: "The voice acting took a nosedive, only one dungeon per patch is lazy and terrible, Bozja is just another failed Eureka with a story that gets wrapped up in text logs, the second Ultimate was delayed, Light Rampant blows, Viera and Hrothgar are undercooked (wheres male viera????), no new healer, the Nier story is incomprehensible and has no rewards, pvp sucks, classes are getting designed for casuals and time travel??? really??? Past expansions were better."

And my personal favorite:

1.0: "A jump button!!!!! you've ruined the game!"

Now this isn't to disparage or disagree with any of the complaints (except the jump button one), but I do think people should keep the past in mind when making the claim the game has reached its zenith. People said Cataclysm was going to cause WoW to die, and they were right!

10 years later.

I don't personally think Endwalker is going to cause FF14 to die and I think anyone who does is either spewing bullshit or venting. I just think we're at or near that zenith, and any future growth of active player count is either not going to happen or occur extremely slowly.

Nothing is going to kill FF14 aside from time. We probably still have a good 5-8 years before the game actually feels like it's winding down, and if FF11 is any indication, it'll still be up for a very long time.

But a peak is a peak.

[Haventale]

According to the devs themselves, they always wanted to make a more "bestial" race. You can see this in the early designs for Au Ra, which were a lot more draconic.

For some reason, they decided to go in a much more human route, and the Au Ra women in particular were made much, much cuter.

I will forever be infuriated that we never got the female Au Ra design that they showed in the old concept art. Instead of amazing tall and stong looking female characters, we got what we have now. SE have been absolute cowards with their female player characters. Male Viera is the only thing they’ve done that made me genuinely surprised.

The reason I’m still female Au Ra is because in my opinion, they are still the most non-human/beastial looking race. I’m just sitting here hoping desperately that they don’t chicken out with female Hrothgar, and we get something that we actually want. If female Hrothgar actually give off similar vibes to that old female Au Ra concept art, I will accept the loss of hats and being locked into one hairstyle, because I am that desperate.

[IdowhatIwant]

About half of steam’s lost ark player count is berserker bots. You see them running around the game everywhere with spam names.

Steam is just the NA player base. Korea / Russia make a majority of it's player base which has been higher than FFXIV for sometime.

But yeah FF lacks content over all. There isn't anything there to keep you playing outside of raid patches.