Current Problem Parallels

[CapaxInfiniti]

As a longtime WoW vet, like really long time, there's honestly a lot of issues in Endwalker, and the response seriously parallels the reasons WoW declined like it did.

The housing debacle which managed to satisfy only a tiny percent of the population?
There should be outrage over it, and we should hold them to a higher standard.

Job imbalance? The same thing. The current pvp situations with the constant flux? Same thing.

This isn't to complain about them in particular, but to the overall response we're seeing.

As it currently stands, any kind of player unhappiness or wanting to ask the dev team to be held to a higher standard is met by the community with one of a few things:
"If you don't like it then quit"
"I'm happy so I don't care"
"You can't expect the devs to solve this problem"

These kind of responses are what slowly sent WoW into an uncontrolled death spiral.
As issues that needed addressing popped up, the community would take to the forums, and complain and try to get the game to reverse course.

It was met with fierce resistance every single time. Getting told to shut up, or to quit, or to find a new game, etc etc.

We are seeing the exact same thing currently happening right now on FFXIV.

EW has had some absolutely serious mis-steps. But by far and large the community has absolutely demanded that there be zero criticism ever because one time Yoshi-P cried on camera or something.

The fact that there is an entire army waiting to bludgeon even the most honest and valid of complaints and concerns is the telltale sign that FFXIV is entering into it's decline period. Much like WoW did. It's not going to magically be a bad game tomorrow like people think. It's going to be a very slow, very gradual process, where one bad mistake after the other is added. People will try to say something, because they love the game, only to be met by a community who will take every single opportunity to be hostile and will defend every single bad decision like a matter of personal honor.

What happens is a slow spiral of people starting to leave, feeling like they no longer have a voice in the game they love.

The mistakes made in Endwalker point to a strong shift in ethic when it comes to what the team is putting out. This is by far and beyond the most divisive of the expansions. People can point to SB but that was mostly due to story and pacing. EW suffers from a lot of bad decisions people complained about early, that still weren't addressed.

It's that level of hubris that brought WoW down.

[Saraide]

I think you raise some very valid points but I am not so sure about where you place the blame in this post. The "if you dont like it then quit" crowd is absolutely annoying but they arent actually the people in charge. The devs are in charge, it's on them to create the game and to look for feedback. To incorporate it into their vision of the game as it fits. If they lack vision and just go by what seems popular but doesnt really fit together, then we are already standing before a lost cause. On the bright side, there is still time for improvement. The game wont just die tomorrow.

[Avatre]

I think you raise some very valid points but I am not so sure about where you place the blame in this post. The "if you dont like it then quit" crowd is absolutely annoying but they arent actually the people in charge. The devs are in charge, it's on them to create the game and to look for feedback. To incorporate it into their vision of the game as it fits. If they lack vision and just go by what seems popular but doesnt really fit together, then we are already standing before a lost cause. On the bright side, there is still time for improvement. The game wont just die tomorrow.

I think that part that gets lost on a lot of the people who say "if you don't like it then quit" is the feedback. But at the same time, a lot of the feedback isn't really given as feedback...it's mostly demands and verbal abuse towards devs/anyone who has a different opinion.

I definitely agree there is room for improvement, and some decisions make me wonder why they were actually done. And, while it would be nice for a massive overhaul of the housing system which has been problematic since the start, I don't think some things will change anytime soon

[Kranel_San]

I'm starting to think this is MMO's lifecycle, though I hope we can prevent it from becoming another WoW.

[Rolder50]

I've commented elsewhere about this, but I'm getting very strong Wrath into Cataclysm vibes from Shadowbringers into Endwalker. That's when WoW went too hard into oversimplification and pandering to metrics and the game started to degrade into the mess it is now.

[JanVanding]

snip

It was never really about the "over-simplification" as someone who was there through the age of Welfare Epics I can tell you that is untrue.

It also stands to reason that while Cata was a bad expansion, MoP by comparison was not and in fact it was incredibly well received.

It's what came after that killed WoW:

1. Extreme oversimplification. There's oversimplification (Welfare epics, cutting bloat) and there's what WoW did, they cut far too hard far too fast and left all the classes feeling like a hollow shell of their former selves, Devs finally admitted they overcooked it and started putting some things back.

2. Endless boring grind as a requirement to participate in endgame content. This right here, this has been an issue that recurs every expansion, it has pretty much killed the majority of the raiding scene over there with the exception of those that absolutely no life it.

3. Rehashing the same story beats. Garrosh was the last interesting villain. They have no idea how to make a compelling villain despite having a whole team of writers.

4. Stubborn refusal to admit they got it wrong. See YoshiPs quick statement about Job PvP balance after they got it wrong compared to Ions takes several months of doubling down before finally admitting it's wrong. There's an argument that the XIV devs are absolutely getting it wrong with housing and I'm absolutely on the side that they are getting that wrong with a few other irritants (overdrawn lockout phases, repeated content dropping too late in a patch cycle, etc) but they aren't in game system issues that affect every little thing you do, like they were in WoW

5. Being rude toward the paying customer. I can't name one instance where YoshiP has ever been rude toward the subscriber base, I can name dozens where Ion and the other WoW devs have been outright hostile toward theirs. They fostered a very abusive relationship toward their customers and that was always going to end badly for them.

6. Catering to a loud minority of the playerbase. Ion was right about one thing, they were making changes and putting in systems that people wanted. What he failed to say is it was for a very small minority of hardcore raiders that did not care what impact those changes had on the majority playerbase which at the time were Midcore casual. Yoshida does make changes.....but for the larger demographic of the playerbase, the hardcore raiders might not enjoy those changes, but they are the loud minority and we've already seen what changing a game on their whims does, so would rather not go down that road again.

7. Public exposure of toxic workplace culture. We all know this had an impact and will continue to do so for years to come, this was the straw that broke the camels back for many and most will never touch another Blizzard product again.

I could keep going, but that covers most I think.

[BrokentoothMarch]

5. Being rude toward the paying customer. I can't name one instance where YoshiP has ever been rude toward the subscriber base, I can name dozens where Ion and the other WoW devs have been outright hostile toward theirs. They fostered a very abusive relationship toward their customers and that was always going to end badly for them.

"Go play Ultimate". (To say nothing of the fatshaming and housing reaction and laughing at Hroth etc etc etc.)

That is all. Pay attention to LL's before you develop an opinion. Please and thank you.

OK, but they make changes based on said feedback, and a lot of people will come back here and complain about how that "wasn't what they meant"

Considering how they've been acting, they haven't been listening at all. A very clear message was sent across the world: Do not remove Kaiten.

Kaiten is permanently removed.

Again, why should I bother expressing my problems that will be ignored? Six years of healing being in the dumpster and on fire only to be told to screw off. And it's on me? I'm not gonna do Yoshi's only job. He does literally nothing else anyways, the man has to do SOMETHING.

[Misplaced_Marbles]

6. Catering to a loud minority of the playerbase. Ion was right about one thing, they were making changes and putting in systems that people wanted. What he failed to say is it was for a very small minority of hardcore raiders that did not care what impact those changes had on the majority playerbase which at the time were Midcore casual. Yoshida does make changes.....but for the larger demographic of the playerbase, the hardcore raiders might not enjoy those changes, but they are the loud minority and we've already seen what changing a game on their whims does, so would rather not go down that road again.

Considering the first thing they started cutting from were dungeon and the last thing they started cutting from were raids, I'd say it isn't that different.

[Wolwosh]

What I find weird and what worries me is that whenever something gets heavily critisized in 14 and they do listen the dev team often turn it into something even worse

[SenorPatty]

Maybr that's the destiny of all successful mmos: the glorious peak, then the slow decline due to complacency and disregard of long standing issues that contribute to said decline.