Is no one happy?

[MintnHoney]

And people ripped Shadowbringers. And Stormblood. And Heavensward. And ARR.

Good.

Meanwhile people were also declaring perfection for those same expansion. It's been a broad sea of remarks, and there's nothing wrong with any of it.

The issue isn’t critique it’s proclaiming that the game is dying or is in a uniquely bad state when it isn’t. That’s the problem with “doomsaying.”

I'd say the issue is that we have people mistaking presented feedback with variable emotional quality as "doomsaying" because they take personal issue with the feedback, either in the quality in how it's presented, or because of who, specifically, presented the feedback, or because it doesn't match exactly how the reader feels. There's actually quite a bit of constructive feedback about issues that are brought up, and the potential for discussion is generally there, but the "doomsaying" and "whiteknighting" happens when someone goes into a thread with the idea of trying to police others thoughts and opinions, and not actually discuss the topic at hand.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

Honestly, I am quite happy in a general sense.

I have my complaints, such as jobs not being as fun anymore, and the drip-feed of content that they've stuck to since Heavensward being less than ideal. However, for the most part I'm just grateful to have experienced Endwalker. Faults and all. Even if I recognize that four expansions in, I do not care for the fact that they still opt to withhold any new combat content until 8-12 months into the cycle around X.2/3. I do not like that they still feel that PvE jobs should only be adjusted during patch drops and not with hotfixes, nor do I feel they have a good read on the pulse of the playerbase's satisfaction level.

There's a lot to be desired, but I am still happy with what we've gotten.

Going back to content—I do feel, however, that after 6.X's conclusion, before 7.0, they need to consider that leaving the first eight months of an expansion bereft of content is a bad idea. Relics, the trial series, deep dungeon, casual content, etc. should not be relegated for nearly a year after the expansion drops. Nor should they delay the introduction of extra sources of experience for the various disciplines so far out where there's no genuine benefit for those playing at/from launch to pursue them other than some tacked on token they conjured up to force them to be relevant. It's disrespectful of player's time and effort.

My issues don't stem from Endwalker, but rather the way they approach and handle the game and it's content-scheduling as a whole. I feel like that matters far more than the individual expansion launches, as that is what provides the most value for your subscription.

[OdinelStarrei]

Huh?

Yes. I am going to call that one petty and tiny. If you were stuck with one hair style then I would get it. You aren't.

I have no idea what you are talking about with the first bit. I am casual, after all. I also am still probably new enough to not care, at all, about reused gear and if something is undyable I either wear it as is, or find something else. Quite petty and also tiny I would say.

I would be lying if I said I had heard zero complaints of jobs being "dumbed down" in game. But Ive also heard plenty of people saying "oh yeah I like the new AST for Endwalker" or more recently, SAM lost an ability or something? IDK, but again enough people Ive talked to in game who either didnt know about this or did not care, that im gonna go ahead and slide this one over to tiny and petty too.

Who are you to straight up marginalize what people care about? As if your personal anecdotes are going to make the game more fun for me, or return the game back to how it was in HW/SB. Do you even understand that vast amounts of the good things about FFXIV are the direct result of people in the community voicing concerns and the developers ACTUALLY RESPONDING before things reach a breaking point that cause people to unsubscribe? How do you even think 2.0 happened?

This is the same garbage happened to WoW, a slow gradual slide into worse class design, a story that makes less sense, a complete disregard for sections of the playerbase, and people who say "NOTHING IS WRONG, YOU ARE TOXIC" it's literally the exact same thing.

You people need to realize that this "amazing, top tier" mmo was BUILT off the playerbase that was here before you WoW people came in and started fellating the dev team for treating people like basic human beings. We already had a problem with idolization and overcentralization around a single person compared to the hundreds it takes to make this game. Now that a developer isn't straight up urinating in your mouth, you're blind to the ACTUAL issues that a lot of us have been fighting against for half a decade for the sake of a better game, such as the latency, job design, or botting problems. The game is still good, but it CAN be better! I'm not going to settle when we've been in better, more fun spots in the past.

You don't need to be casual, or hardcore, a veteran or a new player to grasp this. If you can't even empathize, at a bare minimum, sympathize with those of us who feel like the game we have loved for six or more years is constantly being eroded away, or those of us that mourn the complete deletion of entire jobs styles and systems that we were really attached to, or for those of us that fight and expect more from our game that "better than WoW lmao" than then you really do belong in the Reddit echo chamber. At least we try to get things changed for the better in this trash heap of a forum.

[Novae]

I stopped taking this game seriously after LL69 and Yoshida's obsession towards new/ non mmo players, and 6.1 MSQ. And you know what? I feel so much better now. I just log in, do my reclears, unreal, a bit of gathering, some roulettes then I log off.
So yes, for what it is now, I'm happy. I haven't played for the last week because of sinusitis and surprisingly, I didn't miss the game that much. If it wasn't for my friend, I wouldn't have logged yesterday for the reset. But I did and it was a fun evening nevertheless. I still like the game, still like doing battle content but I don't care enough anymore to complain about stuff I can't change, or is agains't devs vision.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

I want to apologize if I seem dismissive of anyone's concerns. It is never okay for anyone to say "the things you have issues with do not matter." And if I have come off that way, im sorry. They obviously matter to you and if they matter to you then they probably matter to someone else too.

That said, I do think a lot of people who frequent these forums could benefit from some perspective. Maybe take a step back from the game, gaming in general, and have a look and see just how good we have it here over all. I don't think even the staunchest Yoshi sycophant would say the game is 100% perfect with zero room for improvement.

My only point is that it seems that some people let their enjoyment of the game be ruined or be driven to extreme emotion over cosmetics or 1 or 2 jobs not performing quite perfectly, when so many games have it so much worse. It really just wreaks of first world mmo problems.

[Azuri]

My only point is that it seems that some people let their enjoyment of the game be ruined or be driven to extreme emotion over cosmetics or 1 or 2 jobs not performing quite perfectly, when so many games have it so much worse. It really just wreaks of first world mmo problems.

This is a FINAL FANTASY XIV™ Official Forums. We are voicing criticims aimed at FINAL FANTASY XIV™. I literally don't care who fucked whom in Blizzard's office. This has nothing to do with FINAL FANTASY XIV™ and carries no relevance on validity of criticsm of FINAL FANTASY XIV™.

[BrokentoothMarch]

I want to apologize if I seem dismissive of anyone's concerns. It is never okay for anyone to say "the things you have issues with do not matter." And if I have come off that way, im sorry. They obviously matter to you and if they matter to you then they probably matter to someone else too.

That said, I do think a lot of people who frequent these forums could benefit from some perspective. Maybe take a step back from the game, gaming in general, and have a look and see just how good we have it here over all. I don't think even the staunchest Yoshi sycophant would say the game is 100% perfect with zero room for improvement.

My only point is that it seems that some people let their enjoyment of the game be ruined or be driven to extreme emotion over cosmetics or 1 or 2 jobs not performing quite perfectly, when so many games have it so much worse. It really just wreaks of first world mmo problems.

I don't care what those other games are doing. I'm not playing those other games. I'm playing XIV and XIV is having problems right now.

EDIT: Guess I'm just echoing Azuri, but probably because it's a damn good point.

[Payotz]

My only point is that it seems that some people let their enjoyment of the game be ruined or be driven to extreme emotion over cosmetics or 1 or 2 jobs not performing quite perfectly, when so many games have it so much worse. It really just wreaks of first world mmo problems.

Buddy I've literally been playing other games just because 14's getting worse and worse ever since ShB, and let me tell you, those other games do a LOT of things better than 14, yes including WoW, the game that everyone in this community has a hate boner:

WoW job design is better than FF14. The specs are still unique. Blood DK plays totally different from Brewmaster. Disc Priest plays totally different from Holy, and fucking BEASTMASTER (yes WoW has a BST) plays different from Survival Hunter.

Destiny is literally moving away from their dumbed down system of "3 skill trees" opting for more customizability and build crafting. Bungie has been adding more and more depth to the game ever since Beyond Light. They've even changed their encounter formula from literally "sit in the Well and shoot at the boss while he stands still" to literally "yeah this boss actually will kill you while you shoot at him, so don't sit in the well."

Fuck, even V-Rising showed how good the housing decoration system can be if people didn't have to rely on glitches and bullshit to do anything.

Yeah ofc those games have their own weaknesses, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about what FF14 can learn from other games, what the devs can implement into this game.

And before you say "OH MY GOD THIS IS FF14 NOT WOW OH MY GOD REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". Bud, did you know how your god actually managed to save FF14 from the disaster that is 1.X?

They literally took the good things from other video games, and used that to improve on the weaknesses of FF14.

wElL pAyO, wHy dOnT yOu sToP pLaYiNg FF iF yOu cAnT aPpReCiAtE yOsHiP's gReAt mInd? fF14 bEsT gAmE bTw bEsT mMo UWU.

Cause I still love this game, and I want this game to be the best it was, the best it HAD BEEN. I WANT this game to be better, so I offer solid criticism from my PoV.

The moment the players don't give a fuck about the game anymore is the moment the game dies. If it can happen to WoW, the game where everyone thought it wouldn't fail, then it can happen to FF14, the game where clearly people think won't fail.

You're free to disagree with the criticism, just offer valid counterpoints on why you disagree. That's fine and totally welcome!

But if you're trying to silence criticism by saying "oH mY gOd tOuCh gRaSs! FF14 BEST GAME UWU UWU UWU UWU UWU!!!!", then you don't really have anything to contribute to the discussion, and respectfully, shut the fuck up.

That said, I do think a lot of people who frequent these forums could benefit from some perspective. Maybe take a step back from the game, gaming in general, and have a look and see just how good we have it here over all. I don't think even the staunchest Yoshi sycophant would say the game is 100% perfect with zero room for improvement.

If you really have this mindset of just being satisfied with mediocrity in life, then more power to you! By all means, enjoy the game! Don't let what other people say ruin your enjoyment of the thing you like.
We're not screaming at you to stop playing and enjoying it. In fact, we encourage it!

Me personally? I want the best in life, and that includes the hobbies I immerse myself in, including gaming, including FF14. You don't get to tell us that our criticism isn't valid just because you consider the Big Mac as the best burger you ever had, but the moment you discover that that Big Mac can be improved with extra cheese or something, then feel free to come back here and offer your criticism. You're more than welcome to! Or don't, that's fine too.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I want to apologize if I seem dismissive of anyone's concerns. It is never okay for anyone to say "the things you have issues with do not matter." And if I have come off that way, im sorry. They obviously matter to you and if they matter to you then they probably matter to someone else too.

That said, I do think a lot of people who frequent these forums could benefit from some perspective. Maybe take a step back from the game, gaming in general, and have a look and see just how good we have it here over all. I don't think even the staunchest Yoshi sycophant would say the game is 100% perfect with zero room for improvement.

My only point is that it seems that some people let their enjoyment of the game be ruined or be driven to extreme emotion over cosmetics or 1 or 2 jobs not performing quite perfectly, when so many games have it so much worse. It really just wreaks of first world mmo problems.

An entire role being gutted and ignored for years. An entire race being ignored for years. Less content, less music, less gear while the game continues to make more money. This isn’t first world mmo problems. This is the beginning of the ff14 decline.

[Iscah]

I have never seen a game forum that was positive. Games at their heights are complained about endlessly, games in the grave are picked at and mocked, it’s never a bright and happy place. I’ll never forget seeing the web of complaints that existed for WoW back in the day when it was at what most considered its peak.

We've had different forum experiences then. Perhaps game genre, perhaps the difference between official and non-dev-connected forums – although the one official forum I spent some time on (Insomniac, before they shut it down in favour of a chaotic Discord) seemed decent, from what I can remember. The devs were actually somewhat active there, though always said they outright couldn't take suggestions from players for legal reasons.

Most forums I've been in either revolved around lore discussions or providing game help to people.