So, I was playing some other MMOs that I haven't in awhile...

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

And I can see why FF14 is rising up. It doesn't waste my time.

Like take flying. I can unlock flying on zones before I even finish them (and they made it easier in older expansions) and being able to just teleport nearly anywhere you want without a timer is amazing. It gives me the freedom to go where I want whenever I want which in turn encourages me to do stuff that I normally wouldn't have since getting to those things isn't a huge time waster.

Crafting and Fielding is also not so bad to level in this after the ARR levels. Though I'll never be an Omnicrafter/fieldworker as that takes the dedication I lack. I salute them.

But it's just so crazy that so many MMOs out there don't seem to understand that players don't like time wasters nor seem to want to respect their players time. They just scratch their head at their dropping sub numbers and the worst MMOs are the ones that double down on the grind and time wasters as that's how they've always done things. They all also have horrid free trials that will never get new players into their games at this point as new players can cap the trials in like an hour.

As I get older and have less and less time due to Real life obligations and going to the gym I really do appreciate that I can log in to FF14 and accomplish something without spending a ton of time in game. That is very beneficial to me, especially on my work days as I work 12 hour shifts so have maybe an hour of me time after my obligations and the gym.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering... I had to put this character on pause and made a new one on a friends server (this character will never leave Balmung), so had to go back and unlock all the raids and stuff again... At least it's a lot faster nowadays since I did all the ARR and most of the HW stuff as f2p.

[VelKallor]

But it's just so crazy that so many MMOs out there don't seem to understand that players don't like time wasters nor seem to want to respect their players time.

Eventually they will wise up. Some will. Some never have and never will, their devs are too stupid or too pigheaded to see it.

As I get older and have less and less time due to Real life obligations and going to the gym I really do appreciate that I can log in to FF14 and accomplish something without spending a ton of time in game.

..which confirms my point about raiding...people dont work 9-5 anymore, time is at a premium and people cant..and wont... schedule their lives around a video game. The gaming population is ageing, and with it the priorities and necessities change, they HAVE to. MMO's that learn this have to accept one very basic rule:

Adapt..or perish

The demographics now include a SIGNIFICANT percentage of gamers over 65, both male and female. Times change, and industry will need to accept that, or lose people as their gaming playerbase says "I dont have time for this rubbish anymore"., They are happy to spend money, sure, but on games that meet THEIR expectations and their needs.

especially on my work days as I work 12 hour shifts so have maybe an hour of me time after my obligations and the gym.

One of the people I played with on OCE is a nurse, and their schedule is..chaotic at best.

They all also have horrid free trials that will never get new players into their games at this point as new players can cap the trials in like an hour.

WOW's free trial is what...level 15? Level 20? Not enough time to decide if they like it.

[seerstone]

i will never go back to WOW. sometimes i get struck with nostalgia and think about it but i never will.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

i will never go back to WOW. sometimes i get struck with nostalgia and think about it but i never will.

I, unfortunately, did for Dragonflight and... It's better but it's still just a grind to endgame Raiding/PvP (will never be balanced), and M+. Nothing outside that loop matters and it promotes such toxicity in their playerbase. They also feel expanding the free trial beyond level 20 is bad for the game (a game that has bleed millions of players - especially after losing the chinese audience) and it invites freeloaders. I was shocked by how negative they were towards the idea.

[Jeeqbit]

And I can see why FF14 is rising up. It doesn't waste my time.

That's right and there are several reasons for this actually.

• In 1.0, the original version of the game which failed, people attacked it for wasting their time (making them run everywhere when teleporting exists, but teleporting could only be used rarely).
• Yoshi-P, the new producer and director after 1.0 failed, had played other MMORPGs for years and understood the psychology and what people liked and didn't like.
• From the start, 2.0 was designed with ideas such as only killing 3 enemies for quests, which shows how they get these things.
• Over time, things were made more convenient in response to player feedback. For example, the job system inherited from 1.0 required you to level 2 classes first, so you had to play a class you didn't care about and then level other classes to get cross-class skills. This was all removed because it was a chore.
• In Stormblood, it seems like they began to notice how the majority of people are just casual players and don't have time for grindy content like Eureka, so it shifted even more to "you can do the new patch in a day" then work on goals. The developers can relate - they don't exactly have too much time because they are busy developing.

[RitsukoSonoda]

*snip*

1.0 wasn't attacked for "wasting time". The primary issue was a number of actual gameplay issues that were present even during the closed beta and open betas that were never addressed or fixed coupled with others that were added later as content was added. Games in general didn't really provide free fast travel teleport everywhere back then. Especially RPGs. Hell the amount of detail and the way the game was optimized in the 1.0 days literally ate the hardware they intended the game to run on so only people with high end PC's could get a smooth framerate out of the game.

Yoshi-P essentially decided to use WoW's formula of taking things from other MMO's to re-tune FFXIV as a lower risk method as opposed to the innovation route that 1.0 attempted. Yes, contrary to what many WoW fans believe, the entirety of WoW's design was nothing but a long list of things taken from other MMO's wrapped in a Warcraft Skin. A number of these changes were done to essentially poach players from WoW which was an entirely different audience than most eastern MMORPGs. They also did not want to poach the player bases of their other 2 existing MMO's FFXI and DQX.

The changes to jobs wasn't for convenience of players. It was more for convenience of the devs as homogenizing jobs within roles reduced things in need of consideration when attempting to balance content. Veteran RPG players didn't care about base job requirements to unlock advanced jobs or leveling jobs to get cross class skills. These were normal JRPG things typical of games with an interchangeable job system.

Patch cycles were always completable on patch day depending on what content released and your style of playing the game when online. Despite the small number of people on here complaining about Eureka it was still a popular activity which resulted in Bozja in Shadowbringers. We'll see if the upcoming Eureka content will refine it further. What wasn't intended to be completable in a day was the launch day of a new expansion. Longer gaps between patch cycles being more a result of reallocation of internal resources than being done to accommodate people's lack of time to play the game. However since ARR they've stuck to the philosophy that you shouldn't live on this game like it's your second life. They've always wanted you to be able to play other games or actually live life outside of a TV or computer screen.

[Jeeqbit]

1.0 wasn't attacked for "wasting time".

It was specifically attacked for needing to run everywhere (including to other city states) when we could just teleport if they let us, at least by journalists. That's another way of saying it was wasting our time.

That's why we can teleport as much as we want now. They listened to that specific feedback. Otherwise they'd have had no reason to change the teleport system and we would still be unable to use it frequently and have to wait days to recharge anima (imagine what hunt trains would be like).

Patch cycles were always completable on patch day depending on what content released and your style of playing the game when online.

Yes, it was always able to be done in about a day, my point was just a further interest in regard for casual players after the Eureka response where, despite it being amazing content, was attacked for things like "NMs take too long to spawn" by almost everyone at the time.

[AnnRam]

Video games in general are time waster.

[Renalt]

Video games in general are time waster.

If you enjoy it...it's time well spent if you ask me. I enjoy what I do and when I'm not having fun I put it down for a bit and do something else.

[ryouma17]

FF14 has always been the best MMO on the market sadly its taken some people 10 years to realize it