Playing an expansion as current content has been a lacklustre MMO experience

[Johners]

(1/2)

I've spent the better part of a month trying to formulate this into feedback and/or a discussion that isn't just dunking on XIV as a whole or the Endwalker expansion pack. I do have criticisms of some of the content they've added, which did lead to me posting this, but there's also a wider point on play style and the content cycle.

To provide a background, I started successfully playing Final Fantasy XIV back in April 2021 after getting bored and a bit burnt out in the Shadowlands expansion of WoW. I say successfully because two months prior in February, I tried and quit after about five minutes in Limsa Lominsa during the really on rails tutorial section where you can't do anything other than what the game says, even running slightly off the predetermined path.

After forcing myself through that experience on the second time of asking, I ended up really enjoying the game. So much so that in the following six months I went all the way through to the end of Shadowbringers and was really looking forward to Endwalker... and that's when the game slowly started taking a turn as an MMO.

I specify "as an MMO" because I'm aware there's the single player Final Fantasy part of the game and that’s what was recommended to me most. In hindsight, this is why I enjoyed XIV so much when I started and contains most of my memories of playing this game.

This is where my problem lies personally and I think there is a dilemma. I must say that I never got into doing savage raid content but I did try during the first tier of Endwalker. I was even raiding with "the boys" from WoW but it just didn't feel right and after a few nights, in which we got to about 50% and had some laughs between us, we never got a kill. Most of my friends did clear the tier however and I was happy to see they did.

I do want to enjoy this game as an MMO and beyond running around in Bozja, and more recently completing Eureka obtaining a full set of Fending armour plus the Paladin weapon including the Baldesion Arsenal steps, I have great memories formed already. However, these are my only MMO memories in XIV and everything else is just memorable story moments like I'd get in other single player games.

My subscription is active for a few months as I pre-paid for six months and I’m aware this may seem like buyer’s remorse. Some of that is down to me not liking the content such as Island Sanctuary which is just the Garrison from Warlords of Draenor, a poorly customisable space driven by a mission table but is separate from the main story so you can safely ignore. Beyond that there's been two Hildibrand quests, a couple of weeks of Beast Tribes and tomestone capping for gear that takes a little too long to obtain.

[Johners]

(2/2)

I think my enjoyment, or recent lack thereof, comes from the fact I could play entire expansions at once when I started. I could enjoy the funny man quests back-to-back. I could overlap beast tribes for the synergy that makes my MMO brain tingle. I could just use the last HQ crafted gear in ShB instead of getting tomestone gear despite there being an increased cap of 900 in place by then.

What I really dislike though is the lack of a "midcore", the content between Normal and Savage in terms of raiding as an example. We've got Unreal and Extremes but those are single digit numbers of fights each patch and you farm them for a mount before stopping. There's also Criterion which is a new system and while I've not touched it so far, it does seem interesting but unless they're going to add new dungeons to that with EVERY major patch (and maybe more rewards), I don’t really see why I’d play this now versus waiting for the last patch to binge all of Endwalker.

Relic weapons being a tomestone grind that was added two months into the tier when you could've near-completed obtaining a set of capped tome gear was disgraceful. It's bad enough playing that many weeks for one set of 620 gear, but to then go back in and repeat the farm for one or more relic weapons is just painful. Luckily I had enough tomes when they added the relics so that I could buy my items. I'm more disappointed that we're not getting Eureka or Bozja content for relics though, I really enjoyed playing both of those and would've liked a further iteration rather than abandonment.

I'm aware this post is quite long and ultimately crosses a lot of topics which relate to both personal preferences within a game and the content development choices that Square Enix make but there's an overlap between the two. Likewise, as a game that I need to spend a monthly fee to play, I think it's valid criticism.

Going forward I'm not really sure what to do though. I could give Savage another go, even if the party finder drops after the first few months of the tier. I could also try getting into other social/RP areas of the game). I could grind the really excessive make X of Y achievements. I'd glamour collect but there's no glamour catalogue.

My final option, which loops back to one of the reasons why I started this game in the first place, is ignoring FFXIV as an MMO and just playing as a single player Final Fantasy title... even though it's an MMO and the story is driven and designed around "MMO bullshit". But if I do that, I could also then open the can of worms around XIV being a bad "story game" even if that's another tangent of discussion entirely (before anyone bites on this, there's nuance between XIV being a good story for an MMO and being a bad single player story game due it being an always online tab target MMO... although the XIV story being remade FF7R style in Unreal Engine etc would be kinda cool though).

[VelKallor]

I'd glamour collect but there's no glamour catalogue.

Yes, there is.

and here

[Skivvy]

Yes, there is.

and here

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume they mean a glamour log/wardrobe like in WoW/GW2. Something that saves the skins of the pieces you collect so you don't have to actually keep the physical item.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd glamour collect but there's no glamour catalogue.

Yes, there is.

and here

Those are merely a combination of pinterest and a database. I suspect you know full well what's being referred to by "glamour catalog", given the earlier contexts.

If not:

• Glamours instantly made usable account-wide upon looting.
• No limits on how many glamours you can get/hold.
• No need for consumable items to equip or remove glamours.
• Can observe and try on all glamours, collected and yet to be collected, from anywhere in the world and at any time just via a basic menu pane alike to Actions and Traits -- with zero need to visit an inn, let alone a specific interactable therein.
• Emperor's New ----- items / hidden slots are automatically available options.
• Can see in-game where every glamour can be acquired, including even from which bosses, quests, events, etc.

[VelKallor]

Glamours instantly made usable account-wide upon looting.

..that cant be dyed with WOW's system

Can see in-game where every glamour can be acquired, including even from which bosses, quests, events, etc.

Do you have ANY idea how big that database would be?

[Amenara]

..that cant be dyed with WOW's system

GW2 has a lot of those points with a better dye system than FF14...

[Shurrikhan]

Those are merely a combination of pinterest and a database. I suspect you know full well what's being referred to by "glamour catalog", given the earlier contexts.

If not:

• Glamours instantly made usable account-wide upon looting.
• No limits on how many glamours you can get/hold.
• No need for consumable items to equip or remove glamours.
• Can observe and try on all glamours, collected and yet to be collected, from anywhere in the world and at any time just via a basic menu pane alike to Actions and Traits -- with zero need to visit an inn, let alone a specific interactable therein.
• Emperor's New ----- items / hidden slots are automatically available options.
• Can see in-game where every glamour can be acquired, including even from which bosses, quests, events, etc.

..that cant be dyed with WOW's system

Nothing about the advantages above precludes dyeing items. An MMO can have both.

Note that not every XIV item is dyable, either, if only to get us to go out and farm recolors of those past items or to splurge on the-exact-same-skin-but-now-dyable. The restriction is separate and arbitrary.

Do you have ANY idea how big that database would be?

Smaller than WoW's in-game appearances collection pane, which manages it without any perceptible costs.

[caffe_macchiato]

What I really dislike though is the lack of a "midcore", the content between Normal and Savage in terms of raiding as an example.

Many people deeply cherish this aspect of FFXIV. “Midcore” content keeps people locked in to the game, like in WoW (our least favorite MMO). Normal mode is a snooze after the first week, and savage only requires an hour a week for reclears. There’s not much in-game to progress with…

And that’s a GOOD thing. It lets us play other games. We have a ton of games coming out this season, and the last thing we want to play is FFXIV. Let’s face it, this game is a bit like FFXIII. The story is good, boss battles and music are fancy, but once you’re done? You put it down. The ability to play other games is a major draw to FFXIV. We pay $13/month for the ability to play any other game that we want. WoW forces you to play. You pay $15/month to be taken away from your other games, from your friends on Discord, from everything else that you care about.

Yoshida is a family man and he understands the value of our time. With the “drought” (I call it a life-enhancement period), we can explore new hobbies, have time for the spouse and kids, and play other video games. If anything, I hope 6.3 gets pushed back so we have more time to do things that we actually enjoy.

What you're taking as an issue, to the developers it's an intended feature, and to other players it's actually a good thing. For example just in this year alone, I was able to finish Trail of Cold Steel 4, Tale of Arise, Xenoblade 3, Star Ocean Divine Force and a bunch of other game along side playing FF14.

Spot on! Without FFXIV, how will I ever have the time to play other games?

[LittleImp]

The ability to play other games is a major draw to FFXIV. We pay $13/month for the ability to play any other game that we want. WoW forces you to play. You pay $15/month to be taken away from your other games, from your friends on Discord, from everything else that you care about.

I honestly cannot tell if this is meant to be a joke or not, which really says a lot about this games community lol.