The Lessons Not Learned.

[aveyond-dreams]

Patch day has arrived. It was an update that I didn’t expect to be quite content heavy, but even so the situation regarding what just released today has to be addressed. The game right now is light on content and for all the hype about Criterion/Variant Dungeons, they released with ill-fitting, extremely limited rewards that will soon leave players without a reason to return to the content for who knows how long. Not like we haven’t run into situations before just last expansion when a lack of rewards for content like CLL made it irrelevant within a span of 2 weeks. A pink mouse, a generic throne, and yet another modern glamset. I truly wonder what about the feedback of people being fed up with these clothes and wanting more fantasy all-class gear is too hard to address. If it even makes it through to the proper channels, but rather than face criticism it seems they’d rather pander to the less-mature subset of players that congregate on Twitter – from whom they can expect nothing but unconditional positivity.

For a blessing, the Manderville Weapons aren’t the dreaded joke weapons from the Weapon Design Contest but all it takes to get one is 1500 poetics? Seriously? Did they forget how much of a mistake it was when they did poetics for Shadowbringers relics as well? Forget “accessibility” – anyone who wants an easy weapon to get can buy one off the marketboard. They could’ve at least spiced things up by...oh wait, the Relic Zones were scrapped entirely this expansion instead of releasing in the .25 patch like back in Stormblood. Any fates with interesting mechanics won’t be seen until 7.X, if even that, with the only other options being overworld fates with basic aoes or Alliance Raids that haven’t aged well in terms of balancing. I cannot imagine what appeal these weapons would have for us veteran players who likely already own a good number of relics, let alone those of us unwilling to suffer through the torment of the Hildibrand quests – with even more of that sort of writing apparently being present in the Omicron beast tribe storyline. Seems like even the Pixies had a darker plot to their quests, and they involved a literal candyland.

We’ve been here before – it seriously feels like the Covid content drought all over again but instead of finishing off with something like Bozja all we got was one of many entirely forgettable modern glamsets and another relic step that made the same mistakes as 5.25’s. Anyone could see the mistakes that were made in the past when it came to all this stuff and instead of improving, they just doubled down and repeated them all over again. How on earth is this ok?

[Alyx-Greywind]

Just to add it takes 1,500 Astronomy, not Poetics.

[aveyond-dreams]

Just to add it takes 1,500 Astronomy, not Poetics.

Ah, my apologies. Even so the only options for that are roulettes and some of the easiest max level content this game has ever had.

[Tint]

Ah, my apologies. Even so the only options for that are roulettes and some of the easiest max level content this game has ever had.

I am more than fine with that. The relic never was about hard content, there are enough weapons you can get from extremes, savage and ultimate fights.

But... the relic was about grind.

It is simply not okay that I can just buy it with the tomestones I already had with me and be done.

I don't want a free weapon. I want something to do.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Ah, my apologies. Even so the only options for that are roulettes and some of the easiest max level content this game has ever had.

Well, you've stated you don't do any hard content, so if it was locked behind that I'm sure you'd still be complaining, just for a different reason.

[aveyond-dreams]

I don't want a free weapon. I want something to do.

Precisely this. Last time I checked this was an mmorpg, but Yoshi is intent on catering to people who are averse to key features of the genre.

[caffe_macchiato]

1) Many players have yet to do Hildibrand. This means they will have hours of cutscenes ahead of them. Some might not like this content, but Endwalker was 40 hours of cutscenes and two hours of raiding (not including queue times). People like this, so I’m sure they’ll like the relics too.

2) The devs have always said that this is a “stop-and-go” type of game. Yoshida tells us to unsubscribe when we’re bored. He and SE clearly don’t expect this game to hold our attention like World of Warcraft or other MMOs, and that’s fine. That game charges a sub too, and I don’t want to pay two at once. Just do as Yoshida says and sub a couple times a year. It’s a small game and most of it is reading. I like reading, but I read fast, so this game is over quickly for me. That’s just how FFXIV is, just like the other Final Fantasy games. Play it, finish it, and put it down. It’s not a “serious” MMO.

[Hanayumi]

Unfortunately too many players likely complained about relic grind, but in turn with easing up the grind theyve made the weapon beyond useless in most current content. Personally rather they bring back the grind if it ment getting back a weapon close to or on par with aug tome/raid weapons throughout the majority of the expansion and not just the final step.

[Avoidy]

I think a major problem is the gulf between normal difficulty content, and extreme/savage. Extreme difficulty is a sweet spot for many people. Harder than normal, but not the steep penalty for failure like savage. And yet, we only really get one of those EX trials every several months or whatever. Meanwhile, if you enjoy normal difficulty content, that's like 95% of the game, and if you enjoy savage+, there're 4 raids per tier and an ultimate for you to sink your teeth into. The midcore people get lost in the middle. I haven't done the new Criterion dungeons yet, so I can't say if it scratches that itch or not. A relic could tide people over who just want something to do, but the way it was implemented, you can be done with it in a single day. Maybe more if you're gearing multiple jobs, but yeah. And the dungeons you grind for tomes aren't exactly fun. The level 90 dungeons are really lackluster this time around; I don't even look forward to doing expert roulette anymore because troia's a boring dungeon with an add boss, and the other one is just old at this point.

Basically if you're the type of person who's bored by normal difficulty stuff but either can't get 8 people together for savage or you just aren't interested in the prog process of wiping for potentially weeks because of other people, you get 1 EX trial roughly every time a new tier comes out and that is it. And people sorta stop running it after the first week because of how the content rollouts work. For example, when Barb EX came out, a week later the new savage came out so everyone I knew stopped caring about barb EX and the PF quality plummeted. I might be off-base here but I think the game's making a mistake by not appealing to this middle of the road group. Maybe criterion dungeons will scratch that itch. idk. People have been asking for harder dungeons for years, but the way the devs phrased its implementation, it sounded like they wanted to just make even more shit for the savage raiding crowd, since it's tuned for savage bis. I genuinely wonder if there's even a place for mid-tier difficulty stuff in this game anymore.

[Stormpeaks]

And no one was surprised, this game just repeats the same mistakes over and over again lol, housing is also a good example of that.