Why this Live Letter Matters

[Atelier-Bagur]

A post from one of the subreddits:

You know, its real telling when a random reddit post can word all of this criticism and make it so sound, unlike you who just takes the piss out of things, disguising as critiques.

Im still in the belief that the content we have is fine in EW and if we're going to judg their design decisions, the fact that they're breaking away from the usual content formula set with Heavensward is telling that they're still taking risks; Island Sanctuary is getting better with each patch, Variant dungeons is a fun idea and the execution of mixing in extra lore with lite dungeon crawling feels good to do. The problem isnt the content. The problem is that these systems arent used to keep the current patch mildly busy.

However I'm also in the mindset that the content provided in previous expansions like grinds and exploratory zones WERE NOT GOOD. If you take away the padding with the boring grinds, you'd finish the content just as quickly as what we've gotten in EW. I think people really need to accept that long repeatable grinds isnt "fun". What we need is variable forms of content that contribute to progression. The Shb relic were doing this nicely in some steps but also went overboard with padding out repeatable raid and dungeon spams for the grinds which isnt necessarily "fun" to do.

This is a thing that FFXIV sadly never did properly (emphasis on properly), nor do I think they'll ever do. Like the reddit poster said, they stick to a working formula and it works. Which is why the philosophy "play other games" is such a hard pill to swallow to some folk who want to make FFXIV be their sole game. Nobody benefits from playing a single game in the long-term. I do get the frustration though, since I also have my own personal gripes with this game and some of the wasted potential, but its also a thing to see from perspective that what works in FFXIV, it works extremely well and the game for the most part sticks to the design choices that work for the general community, while continually improving on said choices.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

The problem isnt the content. The problem is that these systems arent used to keep the current patch mildly busy.
However I'm also in the mindset that the content provided in previous expansions like grinds and exploratory zones WERE NOT GOOD. If you take away the padding with the boring grinds, you'd finish the content just as quickly as what we've gotten in EW. I think people really need to accept that long repeatable grinds isnt "fun". What we need is variable forms of content that contribute to progression. The Shb relic were doing this nicely in some steps but also went overboard with padding out repeatable raid and dungeon spams for the grinds which isnt necessarily "fun" to do.
This is a thing that FFXIV sadly never did properly (emphasis on properly), nor do I think they'll ever do. Like the reddit poster said, they stick to a working formula and it works. Which is why the philosophy "play other games" is such a hard pill to swallow to some folk who want to make FFXIV be their sole game. Nobody benefits from playing a single game in the long-term.

its telling from the conversations I see of people playing WoW that it's just not enough retention for them to stick with the game for long.
So many of these players rather play a recreation of a decade old version of this video game rather than the amount of content presented in this expansion because its too much. There's a reason back in SB and ShB that the majority of players disliked the exploratory zones because of the boring grinds. Why advocate to bring back these systems without doing something better for them? The grinds in classic WoW were fun because the simple journey to doing its questing, exploration and dungeon content was varied and meaningful so the grind wasnt boring, unlike the simple yet stale journey of Eureka and Bozja of just spamming the same style of activity in boring limiting zones for progression.
Anyway I think what would be good for FFXIV with this example is to seek a middle ground with having varied systems for progression that arent just...roulettes and raids, but dont overdo it like WoW where long term players get sick of the grinds.

I really wish these Forums could be filled with More Intelligence like this here.