State of the Game prior to Liveletter

[aveyond-dreams]

As a player since 2013 day 1 of this game’s release I don’t think I’ve ever seen this game’s community in such a widespread state of disarray. With tomorrow’s live letter looming on the horizon, this is what I’m seeing:

-Samurai players are angry that Kaiten, an ability core to their class fantasy and gameplay loop was removed with no suitable replacement.

-Dragoon players are terrified that something similar will befall their job.

-Astrologian players are aware that some buttons need consolidating but are afraid that the wrong ones will be taken away and the job reduced further to the state of the other healers that they were driven away from.

-Disdain and disregard for healer gameplay, with previous healer testers apparently having been removed from the role due to becoming too good at it – coupled with the statement that upset healers should consider playing Ultimate.

-A three-way civil war between Summoner players that is unlikely to ever be resolved until the remaining pantheon and associated abilities are added along with a Necromancer/Time Mage job that encapsulates whatever could be salvaged of the previous iteration.

-The perpetual crisis revolving around Dark Knight.

-A severe and longstanding lack of midcore battle content to keep player interest.

-Concern that the initial step of the relic will be an overly simplified quest similar to Shadowbringers until the exploratory zone itself is released.

-Concern that Criterion dungeons will not offer the degree of challenging small group content expected of them.

-The apparent abandonment of Blue Mage, or pushing it down so far on the list of priorities that there is no definite timeline on its updates any longer.

-Mismanaged community expectations regarding Island Sanctuary, with widespread disappointment imminent from people who were led to believe it was the equivalent of instanced housing.

-The complete stagnation of the housing lottery on various servers, with people unwilling to move to new empty servers or making shell FCs to game and get ahead of the unlocking FC only wards to private buyers (with FC only wards themselves being an out-of-touch idea considering the overwhelming greater demand for private housing.)

-Various story concerns regarding the Endwalker MSQ and the future direction the plot will take, with fan expectations of a Heavensward style and scope expansion seemingly dashed with the Void being pushed instead of Meracydia or Ilsabard.

-The utter catastrophe regarding Hrothgar customization, which demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of player expectations of what they want to be able to do with their characters’ hairstyles and the ability to equip hats.

-The cessation of new hairstyles being added in order to catch up on the hairstyles for the limited races, aside from Online Store purchased ones.


How in the world did we end up like this?

[Saraide]

Yea those would all be good points for the live letter to address.

[DrWho2010]

yeah probably none of that stuff will be addressed in the live letter. they've already scripted it out.

[Raoabolic]

aside from Online Store purchased ones.

That would be the first sign of trouble, followed by real fun statements like "We are cutting dungeons down to one per patch to focus on polish!", which is then compounded by the game being swarmed by yes-men that will shoo any dirty criticism away from the devs.

Cue the music, Johnny!

[Kazelus]

For the moments, blue mage have only got contents around winter, so I guess we're gonna have news about them for 6.3 and not before.

[Wolwosh]

I'm pretty sure none of those issues will get adressed.
It will just be about how great the game is doing and how many people are playing bla bla bla.

[Krotoan]

-Mismanaged community expectations regarding Island Sanctuary, with widespread disappointment imminent from people who were led to believe it was the equivalent of instanced housing.

People weren't LED. People did this to themselves. The Devs repeatedly said not to oversell it and have in no way insinuated it's instanced housing.

[Shougun]

People weren't LED. People did this to themselves. The Devs repeatedly said not to oversell it and have in no way insinuated it's instanced housing.

I think they've had issues with managing expectations before, like Blue Mage, but they've been quite clear, I feel, with not overly selling Island Sanctuary as a panacea to all problems- things like on what they've been inspired by, even quite a few hints at what it might do, but also that it's not going to be a parity of what they were inspired by.

I do, personally, have very high hopes for the content in the long run (believing it might be an avenue for many housing features)-- but that's the long run lol. For example if not done already I think it would be a smart, and reasonable, idea to add pre-fab home-kin options. Like a inn rooms in game already provide, allow players to build something like that. Perhaps add a few tiers or customization options. When possible improve this with greater and greater customization until it's basically instanced housing (but I no way expect that will be a thing at release). Or add weather, skybox, lighting, and such control- like you can give yourself an island in the sky Elpis vibe, or a Amaurot state park, or Azim steppe at the lake experience.

Even if it never obtained instanced housing status I think I'd still like the idea of the content.. I also still think it could provide very strong housing-like vibe with never actually having very minute object placement (like adding pre-fab rooms / buildings). Though if it was Garrisons meets Wild Star in the end.. I'd be pretty freaking stoked lol.

I mean... I wish we knew more about the system lol... but I don't think "oh kupo nuts, I have no idea what to expect". Unlike say the unfortunate "designed for solo play" slide and then talking about making the job limited because they wanted it to have the OP experience (but then failed to deliver on OP, initially- its quite OP now, meanwhile you basically HAD to play multiplayer to have a semi-interesting experience). Personally I felt mislead, and also just really disliked the implementation (at release).. Given that I feel they listened to feedback and lined the job up more with their initial vision statement it's grown on me (though I still have hopes that certain things will be improved, like new spells is great-- but I hope they revamp some older spells and perhaps add more layers of interactivity to most things, as I quite like that in the job when it works and I really like the idea of it working even better- like a Hades, Diablo 3, etc, experience with kit building).

[Kolsykol]

'' -Mismanaged community expectations regarding Island Sanctuary, with widespread disappointment imminent from people who were led to believe it was the equivalent of instanced housing. ''

I don't really agree with this at all, they've barely said anything about it it's the players that are hyping it up and building up what they want with speculation.
It's the same with Criterion dungeons too, the devs haven't rly said anything about them except that they're a thing and people I think have built up expectations themselves that will probably not be lived up to.
It's better to just go on what they say and not take speculation too seriously and not base ones expectations based on nothing.
I don't think it's rly their fault that people in the community does this and I don't think they should have to treat us like children and come out and try to micro-manage it.
I rly don't think the devs should have to constantly walk on egg shells.

I am definitely a bit worried about DRG tho, if they're gonna change anything I hope it's in regards to their dmg buffs, 3 buffs does feel like too much imo and Dragon Sight while yes it's more unique it's also annoying to use.
I hope that they're either merging some buffs like Dragon Sight and Battle Litany/ Lance Charge or that they make it like a Dance Partner buff.
That you just put it on someone and then when you use it that target gets tethered, I don't think having to target swap for it is a good thing especially not when DRG Is already so busy with ogcd's.
I don't think they should touch the base rotation of DRG at all tho, DRG plays very well atm.
However I think something that definitely is possible is that they'll try and make it so that delaying Life of the Dragon isn't a thing anymore because it's '' too big brain '' for casuals or something...

I am expecting Kaiten to return too, but it's going to make the skills crit instead as people have suggested before.
I don't think the next expansion will revolve around the Void tho, the Void is just tied to the Ascians and I think it's a plot point they want to tie up before 7.0.
I think 7.0 will be like a clean slate of sorts and something totally new and have nothing to do with the Void.

A lot of this per usual tho is pointlessly loaded, I dunno why we have to do this every time the tone for the discussions just become set in stone from the get go and unnecessarily hyperbolic.
We can talk about this without having to make the devs sound evil or like everything is a catastrophy.
If you've really been around since 2013 you should remember that people have been talking like this since ARR and they're not universally agreed on issues.
Just because you have loud people on the forum about the MSQ doesn't mean that it's some widespread opinion that they need to adress.

That would be the first sign of trouble, followed by real fun statements like "We are cutting dungeons down to one per patch to focus on polish!", which is then compounded by the game being swarmed by yes-men that will shoo any dirty criticism away from the devs.

Cue the music, Johnny!

I don't think that '' Criterion dungeon '' is going to be or have anything to do with the new MSQ dungeon, so that would entail more than one.
Depending on what it actually is ofc.

I rly don't think any substantial amount of people are against criticism a lot of the criticism is quite commonly accepted and espoused.
The constant whining and hyperbole gets annoying and just makes it harder to even communicate it to the devs tho.
There's a difference between actual constructive and genuine criticism and negative feedback and just blatant whining and negative circlejerking.

How you deliver the feedback is actually quite important.

[Kazelus]

'' -Mismanaged community expectations regarding Island Sanctuary, with widespread disappointment imminent from people who were led to believe it was the equivalent of instanced housing. ''

I don't really agree with this at all, they've barely said anything about it it's the players that are hyping it up and building up what they want with speculation.
It's the same with Criterion dungeons too, the devs haven't rly said anything about them except that they're a thing and people I think have built up expectations themselves that will probably not be lived up to.
It's better to just go on what they say and not take speculation too seriously and not base ones expectations based on nothing.
I don't think it's rly their fault that people in the community does this and I don't think they should have to treat us like children and come out and try to micro-manage it.
I rly don't think the devs should have to constantly walk on egg shells.

The problem is that, they have not been clear on what it's supposed to be and for the island, people jumped on instanced because housing is a probleme in this game, for criterion, it's the lack of difficult content in light party that made people expects it to be a more challenging dungeon.
If they not meet the expectations after announcing content that "looks like" a solution to some problem the player have in the game, then perhaps, they should have be more clear when making the announcement about what it's supposed to be...
I don't expect housing in island but more a sorts of garden with your minions so nothing really big...
And Criterion will be dungeon that will adjust their difficulty based on the number of players inside, and will be similar that actual dungeon in difficulty or easier...

I don't think the next expansion will revolve around the Void tho, the Void is just tied to the Ascians and I think it's a plot point they want to tie up before 7.0.
I think 7.0 will be like a clean slate of sorts and something totally new and have nothing to do with the Void.

I believe the void will be MSQ for next patch but will go into the new trials story during it. I believe next expansion will either be centered around meracydia and the rest of Ilsabard. Eventually, we may travel to another reflect to bring a new story.