Anyone else just feeling really disapointed this expansion?*vent*

[Atelier-Bagur]

I’m pretty confident either Golbez is actually Azdaja in puppet form (helmet is/ has her eye), or Golbez is working with her to essentially force peace on the 13th through tyranny.

Also pretty sure Zero will be Zeromus. If what we understand about the 13th is true, when a voidsent consumes another’s soul, they also mixing with them. We don’t know the details of Zero and Zenos’s agreement, but I’d bet she ate his soul and he’s gonna be back…again.

Not saying I hope that happens- I’d actually be disappointed if it turns out to be true… but from the information given, I see this coming a mile away. Personally I hope it’s just Golbez being a legit villain without need of some goofy twist.

Well to be fair Golbez being a puppet to Zeromus follows what happened in FFIV. However, I agree that whatever happens its not something that is that predictable with Zero being Zeromus just because of their name.

[Mat13295]

dude, The game's not even 10 years old.

Game was first released at the end of 2010. It's 11 years old. :nerd:

[hagare]

Game was first released at the end of 2010. It's 11 years old. :nerd:

are you genuinely saying 1.0 is the same game as ARR?
or did you just google ff14 release date without knowledge of the history of the game?

[Rufalus]

I was very invested in the game for ARR, HW, SB. Addicted actually. Started being disappointed by ShB, EW. It's still about as good as it was, but innovation and improvement is expected. It's been quite stagnant instead. Good for 2013 isn't so good for 2022.

Actually we're 10 months away from the 10th anniversary of ARR. Every system that was established in the first year is still going mostly unchanged. Boring gear and materia system. Farming those weekly tomestones. The 3-part raid series that alternates between normal raid and alliance raid patches, with bosses that are just memorizing a scripted sequence of moves. The basic dungeons of 'trash' pulls and 3 bosses. The FATEs that are either hand items to an npc or plain killing trash enemies, etc.

Yoshida is a good project manager in many ways because he brought stability and reliability of service, gave this game a good reputation. For me though as an FF fan long before XIV, it doesn't feel very FF any more if there isn't some wild experimentation in every major release. I want to go into each new expansion feeling a little bit lost at first, having to learn a new system to progress at certain points.

I feel like the era of maps full of sidequest icons should be over, and an innovative Square-Enix would have created a new way for players to discover lore and tasks by now, new kinds of interfaces, leading the industry in influential modern design. Old Squaresoft was a pioneer and FF represented that.

[Kazhar]

are you genuinely saying 1.0 is the same game as ARR?
or did you just google ff14 release date without knowledge of the history of the game?

You were the one being pedantic about another player being here for 10 years. Any 1.0 user could qualify, and with ARR only being able to exist because of those players by Yoshi-P own admission, yes, this is relevant.

[kaynide]

I was very invested in the game for ARR, HW, SB. Addicted actually. Started being disappointed by ShB, EW. It's still about as good as it was, but innovation and improvement is expected. It's been quite stagnant instead. Good for 2013 isn't so good for 2022.

Actually we're 10 months away from the 10th anniversary of ARR. Every system that was established in the first year is still going mostly unchanged. Boring gear and materia system. Farming those weekly tomestones. The 3-part raid series that alternates between normal raid and alliance raid patches, with bosses that are just memorizing a scripted sequence of moves. The basic dungeons of 'trash' pulls and 3 bosses. The FATEs that are either hand items to an npc or plain killing trash enemies, etc.

Yoshida is a good project manager in many ways because he brought stability and reliability of service, gave this game a good reputation. For me though as an FF fan long before XIV, it doesn't feel very FF any more if there isn't some wild experimentation in every major release. I want to go into each new expansion feeling a little bit lost at first, having to learn a new system to progress at certain points.

I feel like the era of maps full of sidequest icons should be over, and an innovative Square-Enix would have created a new way for players to discover lore and tasks by now, new kinds of interfaces, leading the industry in influential modern design. Old Squaresoft was a pioneer and FF represented that.

I’m with you here; I love the game despite strong dislike for certain aspects…and as much as I know it would be bad business sense short term, I wish the devs would spend an entire expansion’s worth of effort just on a massive TLC update. If that means training new staff now/through 7.0, so be it.

They need to:
1) just gut systems that aren’t working or rework them. Eg. Materia used to be a sort of horizontal progression/allow for niche builds (remember +VIT on healers to clear Titan ex?). Now there really isn’t a lot of variety/choice towards BiS materia..so why have it at all.

2) build a proper physics engine. Fix the jumping puzzles. Guildwars 2 shows a lot of what can be done with this.

3) ground textures from afar are pretty bad… even EW zones from the air are pretty much pea soup.

4) General improvements to zones; nothing groundbreaking, but the zones in HW are rather bleak, especially the “flying” ones. Giant flying pinecones don’t exactly spice it up.

5) cleanup shops/shopping menus. Why do we need to click -> armor -> enter a menu with tabs on the top for weapons, accessories, etc when all that is listed is armor.. perhaps make shops either just show all their stock 1 click, or a menu like the newer Rowena shops do. Also concise naming “Glorious Gewgaws” or whatever doesn’t tell me what’s sold.

Probably more, but plain usability and user friendliness is a thing they need to work out.

[Deveryn]

I’m with you here; I love the game despite strong dislike for certain aspects…and as much as I know it would be bad business sense short term, I wish the devs would spend an entire expansion’s worth of effort just on a massive TLC update. If that means training new staff now/through 7.0, so be it.

They need to:
1) just gut systems that aren’t working or rework them. Eg. Materia used to be a sort of horizontal progression/allow for niche builds (remember +VIT on healers to clear Titan ex?). Now there really isn’t a lot of variety/choice towards BiS materia..so why have it at all.

2) build a proper physics engine. Fix the jumping puzzles. Guildwars 2 shows a lot of what can be done with this.

3) ground textures from afar are pretty bad… even EW zones from the air are pretty much pea soup.

4) General improvements to zones; nothing groundbreaking, but the zones in HW are rather bleak, especially the “flying” ones. Giant flying pinecones don’t exactly spice it up.

5) cleanup shops/shopping menus. Why do we need to click -> armor -> enter a menu with tabs on the top for weapons, accessories, etc when all that is listed is armor.. perhaps make shops either just show all their stock 1 click, or a menu like the newer Rowena shops do. Also concise naming “Glorious Gewgaws” or whatever doesn’t tell me what’s sold.

Probably more, but plain usability and user friendliness is a thing they need to work out.

Yoshida noted in a recent interview that they actually have some new staff on board.

They're working on some of these items, but it can't just happen on its own and fill the space of a year or two. They have to keep putting out the content.

5) have you suggested this anywhere else?

[Lustre]

Look at all the usual suspects acting as unpaid PR damage control lmao. I share the sentiment OP. Not particularly interested in MSQ much after EW, I think the only content I enjoy is Frontlines, and even that has massive problems. Finding it harder and harder to find reasons to log in, which I dont like, but it is what it is.

[VelKallor]

let's not forget distribution still haven't recovered 100%

..and with the current situation, it aint getting any better.

[Liam_Harper]

Look at all the usual suspects acting as unpaid PR damage control lmao. I share the sentiment OP. Not particularly interested in MSQ much after EW, I think the only content I enjoy is Frontlines, and even that has massive problems. Finding it harder and harder to find reasons to log in, which I dont like, but it is what it is.

The sad thing is that it's not even damage control, it causes damage. When it comes to unhappy customers, 9 out of 10 decide the game isn't for them and silently leave and a small number care enough to actually complain and offer feedback. By stifling that feedback, the community pushes away the few complainers and also ensures the silent leavers never have a reason to return either.

It happened a lot in WoW. Their community positivity brigade was convinced everything was fine and for a good while it was on the surface. Then their playerbase halved and it was still "fine, it's an old game dude, this is normal, MMO's aren't as popular, game is great", then it halved again while they stopped publishing numbers and now they're barely at a quarter of their original. But it's still "fine".