Quote Originally Posted by Syln View Post
You know the worst part about all that ? If they incentivized more playing with other people "organically", content would be far less of an issue, but they chose to make the game solo oriented, even the group content feel like solo since you don't need to organize/communicate until you start doing extreme trial.

Now don't get me wrong, i'm a solo player enjoyer but that direction make new content a central part of the experience requiring decent and more importantly frequent updates, sadly they completely failed to deliver on that part thus resentment is growing and they can only blame themselves for it.
What would you suggest they do to create that "organic" opportunity?

Most of the MMORPGs since WoW's release have contained a fair amount of solo content. That's one of the things that made WoW so hugely appealing - players could progress their characters even if their friends weren't online to play. They weren't forced to socialize with random strangers who may or may not be pleasant to play with. It made player gatekeeping of content access less likely to happen.

What is it that makes some players avoid random group matchmaking and turn to solo content? Other players.

It doesn't make any difference how "organic" game developers make the group content experience if there will continue to be a segment of the player base being judgmental, hostile and just plain unpleasant to be around. Too many people already have to put up with that sort of thing all day long at work, the last thing they need is to deal with it in their games. Try to force the socialization with the negative element and the player population starts shrinking.

FATEs are a nice piece of organic content. Players are free to come and go as they please. When the only reason to do them is for XP, GC Seals and gemstones, parties are relaxed and friendly.

The moment SE tries to make FATEs more relevant for things like relic weapons, it gets ugly as everyone descends on the zones. Players using the OP BLU abilities to insta-complete FATEs and prevent others from getting credit. Players who mess around and reset mobs, causing the efforts of other players to be wasted.

It's a bit ironic that players are occasionally the reason players don't get the things they're asking for. What's the point of adding content that will inevitably end up ruined by those who can't "play nice"? Less of a headache to design content as solo content, while still leaving room to play with friends, than to design content to require socialization.

It takes time to develop new content. They could push out content faster but it would start getting really sloppy and would likely be filled with bugs. This is true of every MMORPG. Check the content release periods for the others over the years and see how much content was being produced and how long players had to wait to get it.

I know some people like to point at WoW right now but there are a couple of things to keep in mind: WoW has a bigger development team than FFXIV and the reason that Shadowlands ended up content starved was because they realized they had a dog of an expansion on their hands. They choose to put more of the development team to work on Dragonflight to make it a better game than to try to salvage Shadowlands. It seems to have worked but the pace of content releases will end up slowing back down for WoW again before much longer. Then WoW players will start having the same complaints that we hear about FFXIV.

The easy solution: learn to enjoy playing mutiple games. Don't look to a single game as your be all and end all. Play when new content is released, do what you're interested in then move to another game with new content while waiting for the next content release.

If you're going to keep asking for innovation and new types of content, don't be surprised when existing content gets shortchanged or left out as they move staff to work on the new stuff.

If you feel like you're not getting your money's worth, then stop buying. Go somewhere that is giving you a good value for your money. It does not make sense to be paying just so you can be angry and miserable.