How to Restore Confidence in FFXIV

[ForteNightshade]

The value of content creators, to me, is they often find a more fair and balanced perspective than the majority of the community and have a voice that SE is more likely to listen to. However, they are often veteran players as well and prone to the same veteran player bias that affects many of us on the forums. That bias causes a narrow view of the game that pertains only to the content they are interested in and to forget what it's like to be a new player.

To be fair, when discussing the lack of content and longevity in the game new players are somewhat irrelevant because their experiences will be biased in a different way, i.e., the game will feel as though it's exploding with content due to them having only just started playing. That's generally why veteran players, be they content creators or a forum/reddit poster will focus on current content releases. A major criticism of FFXIV spanning multiple expansions now has always been content longevity. If you're a veteran player, you typically will run out of things to do long before anything new releases no matter how many breaks you take. Of course, this does depend on individual player time and investment but unless you're playing 2-4 hours a week, there simply isn't enough to last.

It isn't that we forgot what it's like to be a new player but rather it isn't relevant to the discussion.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

Theodric: look at it this way: this small band of permanently angry and bitter malcontents in this forum dont represent more than a fraction of a fraction of one percent of ONE servers population..so in that aspect, there IS a huge majority that dont care for, dont share in and CERTAINLY dont listen to the constant whining we see here.

Oh I saw that little gif above..and yes, mate, hate to tell you this....you ARE in the minority. If you took this lot's attitude to heart, you'd think that the game is on its last legs, dying, owing to the "lack of vision" or the "inability to listen to feedback" and "people are leaving in droves". No.

Note here on Aveyond's "ideas"..has anyone else ever noticed the missing word from his screeds...the words "I could be wrong?" When someone isnt prepared to accept that they arent speaking ex cathedra, when they arent ready...or willing....to admit error, thats an indication one should be rightly skeptical of such "pronouncements". People put way too much faith into oracles.

I think I'm beginning to grow quite weary of you, and I just started here. So many of your accusations and insinuations detail character faults that you yourself exhibit, front and center. I haven't seen much of Aveyond's storied history, from what I've been told but I have seen you and a few others consistently appear to be no better. Why can none of you actually detail this majority you love to quote? Give examples? You can't just point to players playing the game, you have no clue at all what they're actually doing in game, what they enjoy in game, indeed if they even truly enjoy it at all. This dearth of majority claims is quite hypocritical in my own humble opinion, since it directly contrasts the constant insinuations of ex cathedra.

The ones showcasing sources and citing their claims are the critics from what I've witnessed, all the defense has is pointless and empty blather and bloviation. But if nothing else, at least certain other posters can claim to be polite about it all.

[ Source, proof and citation required ]

Honestly, no offence, but how the hell do you know whats going on across all datacentres?

Because posts to this effect show up on Reddit and Twitter with startlingly increasing frequency of late? Seriously, I don't even use social media and yet I've seen and heard of these occurrences.

[AwesomeJr44]

Why can none of you actually detail this majority you love to quote? Give examples?

Because their 'majority' is meant to be a convenient cudgel used to silence dissenters, and nothing more. That's why the only response I usually give to people like Striker who repeat that same tired line ad nauseam is to laugh at them. It's funny and sad at the same time, although it's been leaning towards the latter more and more as time goes on.

[BRVV]

Because their 'majority' is meant to be a convenient cudgel used to silence dissenters, and nothing more. That's why the only response I usually give to people like Striker who repeat that same tired line ad nauseam is to laugh at them. It's funny and sad at the same time, although it's been leaning towards the latter more and more as time goes on.

It's also a argumentum ad Populum

[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.

[BaconBits]

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.

Ultima Thule?

More like Ultima Mid frfr.

[Jojoya]

It isn't that we forgot what it's like to be a new player but rather it isn't relevant to the discussion.

I have to disagree that it's not relevant. New players are paying customers just the same as the veteran players. Even if the side content is optional, many new players feel like it's content they have to catch up on because it's there.

The playable part of content this expansion isn't in worse shape than last expansion quantity wise. There have been some changes (such as Deep Dungeon instead of exploration zone, getting Variant/Criterion while the normal trial series got merged into MSQ instead of a separate quest chain, etc.) but we're getting just as much playable content overall.

It sounds more like the quality of the content and/or the rewards making the content less interesting to repeat.

What made Eden more interesting to repeat than Pandaemonium has been?

What made the Sorrows of Werlyt trials more interesting to repeat than Storm's Crown/Mount Ordeals?

It's a lot more difficult to try to compare Bozja/Zadnor versus Eureka Orthos/Si'dihn Subteranne because they're different content types but what kept people going back into the former while they ignore the latter?

Was there other content they were doing in Shadowbringers to fill time that doesn't have an equivalent this expansion, and what was so appealing about it?

[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.