How to Restore Confidence in FFXIV

[CelestiCer]

Because their 'majority' is meant to be a convenient cudgel used to silence dissenters, and nothing more.

Agreed.

The " Majority " argument point is an overused strawman to silence posters. It in no way magically " Erases " all the bad/negative/flawed aspects or player-experience. Bending-over-backwards to appeal to the harshest to please players is not what they should do, but there's no benefit from ignoring nor silencing valid critique that they could use as feedback. XIV can definitely improve and it's sad to know that plenty aspects can! without a lot of effort or major changes and it for the longest time is not happening...

Aside from Quality-of-Life changes that should be the norm? it's the direction of the game that doesn't spark confidence in plenty. What has been the general complaints of the forum posters about Endwalker? excl. the troll posts

• Negatively received or lack of positive Job Design changes
• The egregious 2-minute meta
• Story with Scions about to die? Syke! again not really
• Ultimate's with a taboo Ban action
• Omega Protocol Ultimate with bugs and glitches upon release
• Housing wards poorly distributed between private vs FC upon release
• What Island Sanctuary coulda been but isn't, lacking a ton
• Still no idea why the Housing interface is so terrible
• The announcement of next patch taking longer
• Copy Pasted rewards yet again during events like Moogle tomes
• Relic story is a literal joke compared to Zadnor in content amount
• The third party tool QOL implementations after banning players who use them
• Probably something about Hrothgar/Vierra hats

And plenty of other things to be noted, there's a good reason why players have no confidence with the direction of the game because in many aspects the changes or aspects that came along with Endwalker feels " Lazy " for how much a big company like Square can pull off, but won't.

Personally? 6.08 was the patch with all the confidence in the world for me that they are on the right track with big improvements and changes to come. Instead? we get 6.1 holy crap and yeah... from there on out? Zero Confidence. As much as anyone can complain? the attachment players have gotten with their characters/communities/friends and the game? is probably all there is to it. Endwalker for many is just " diet-fun " at best because it can be so much better, but Square willingly chooses to make it worse then it should be.

[Jeeqbit]

Most of what you said makes sense to complain about, but...

Story with Scions about to die? Syke! again not really

This is just a lack of understanding of what SE was trying to do. You were going to a land of despair and they wanted you to feel despair. The problem is you were feeling happy and confident. In order to change that, they had to kill the scions. Once you had made progress through the area, in order to make you feel hope and like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, they had to introduce the possibility they would come back.

Omega Protocol Ultimate with bugs and glitches upon release

Bugs and glitches exist. You would struggle to find actively developed applications that don't actively have to receive bug fixes.

Copy Pasted rewards yet again during events like Moogle tomes

You should understand that the Moogle tome rewards are all things that exist in the game already and are intended for newer players to catch up their mounts, minion and other rewards to veteran players who already have them, in exchange for helping to queue for duties.

[BRVV]

This is just a lack of understanding of what SE was trying to do. You were going to a land of despair and they wanted you to feel despair. The problem is you were feeling happy and confident. In order to change that, they had to kill the scions. Once you had made progress through the area, in order to make you feel hope and like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, they had to introduce the possibility they would come back.

GREAT "idea" of SE. Do you even realize the consequence? Like the obvious one? Cat girl has already fake died in ShB. Zenos somehow isn't interested in killing any of our friends when we are away. No he HELPS us because after an entire expansion he realizes that he wants to fight us. After always wanting to fight us... but back to the scions. Them fake-dieing so much means any tension about their safety is gone. We could see them getting toasted, have a full on funeral and i would sigh and ask: "Ok game, how long until they're back?"

[Jeeqbit]

GREAT "idea" of SE. Do you even realize the consequence? Like the obvious one? Cat girl has already fake died in ShB. Zenos somehow isn't interested in killing any of our friends when we are away. No he HELPS us because after an entire expansion he realizes that he wants to fight us. After always wanting to fight us... but back to the scions. Them fake-dieing so much means any tension about their safety is gone. We could see them getting toasted, have a full on funeral and i would sigh and ask: "Ok game, how long until they're back?"

Yes, I was thinking "how long until they're back?" as well but I couldn't be 100% certain. It was also the end of the story arc and it seemed possible they would end them as well. It planted enough doubt in my mind to be worried they wouldn't return, and Y'shtola saying we could get them back convinced me we would probably get at least some of them back. It made me feel actual despair because if they all died in one go and we've almost explored every story arc the game had left, then what is left for the future of the game?

It made me feel despair of the overall future of the game, so they succeeded at making me feel that way. In fact bringing the scions back wasn't entirely enough to get rid of that despair. So apparently they delayed Endwalker to add in Emet's lines about places we haven't been yet.

[BRVV]

It made me feel despair of the overall future of the game, so they succeeded at making me feel that way. In fact bringing the scions back wasn't entirely enough to get rid of that despair. So apparently they delayed Endwalker to add in Emet's lines about places we haven't been yet.

I'm not worried about that at all with the current writers. Endsinger was clearly made up during EW and then shoehorned in. We can get basically anything like this. Just give us something new and have us use the echo (remember that?) or if you forgot it time travel to trick it into "always" being in the story.

7.0 prediction: The endsinger wasn't ACTUALLY gonna destroy the whole universe! But discount Thanos will be! He collected the McGuffin Burgers from the new zones! He was the evil entity that corrupted the Endsinger! #TiedBackToTheOriginal

[CelestiCer]

Most of what you said makes sense to complain about, but...

This is just a lack of understanding of what SE was trying to do. You were going to a land of despair and they wanted you to feel despair. The problem is you were feeling happy and confident. In order to change that, they had to kill the scions. Once you had made progress through the area, in order to make you feel hope and like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, they had to introduce the possibility they would come back.

Wished you'd have quoted what I said before that as well " What has been the general complaints of the forum posters about Endwalker? excl. the troll posts " to give it some context since I sifted through posts to just compile a quick list on what I saw general posters complaining about.

I'm not misunderstanding anything either? Endwalker story felt underwhelming to me personally and liking a story is very subjective.

• Scions going through plot armor again is becoming old
• Garlemald being another ruined City feels underwhelming
• I liked nothing about how Fandaniel was written
• Disliked how Zodiark story-wise was a incomplete pushover
• Body-swapping? really felt like there's a plot-hole here

Unironically, " The Final Days " a calamity feels less intense then " Zadnor " to me. Oh to which also everyone important survived the Final days cause big surprise there. To much " Plot Armor " sprinkled all over the place for me to enjoy Endwalker's story aside from realizing that I was beating up " In-game Twitter " with the " power-of-friendship " no less...

What we like and do not like about Endwalker varies per player and is subjective. Clearly there's a big portion of players that do not like Endwalker, otherwise it wouldn't be getting so much negativity vs say the previous expansion Shadowbringers.

The thread is about " confidence " and there's very little in how Endwalker was handled beyond just the story? that gives me confidence going forward. If you're unfazed on how XIV goes forward? well done you. The only " Despair " I experienced from Endwalker were the Job Changes. And just so we're clear? personal opinion, it's subjective. We don't want more misunderstandings I hope, mhm.