If you're unhappy with this game then unsub... forever.

[Tanis_Ebonhart]

No, people gravitate to meta jobs. WAR, DNC, and SMN are all meta for casual prog because of WAR's Holmgang for PF invuln strats, SMN for raise and the high mobility, and DNC+SAM is one of the easiest way to boost your rDPS. DRK is actually the most played tank in JP, along with SAM being the most played DPS. A lot of people don't actually like playing DRK though. These statistics don't show anything other than what's meta.

Nerf WAR's self-sustain and you'll see WAR becoming far less popular.

Also, a lot of people gravitate to jobs because of the visuals. How do you disentangle the % of players picking up a job because of the visuals vs. them picking it up because of the simplicity? A lot of players play DNC, WHM, and SMN purely because of the class fantasy, not because of the mechanics.

Summoner isn't top of the meta. It's played because it's simple and players want to be able to pick up a role quickly. As a lot of players play multiple jobs rather frequently, so don't want to have to spend a lot of time mastering it if it's not their main role.

[Koros]

Summoner isn't top of the meta. It's played because it's simple and players want to be able to pick up a role quickly. As a lot of players play multiple jobs rather frequently, so don't want to have to spend a lot of time mastering it if it's not their main role.

what would someone who has cleared zero relevant content know about the meta

[ChonkGoblinSuprem]

Endgame players aren’t most of us…. The vast majority of us aren’t there and most may never be there.

WHM is just the most popular because it is the basic healer job that anyone can pick up from level 1 without any complications or weirdness. You go from a starting character green icon Conjurer to green icon White Mage without having to do any research about it….

Scholar requires 30 levels of Arcanist first, which feels weird for a healer, even though Arcanists get Physik early on.

I can’t even get SGE yet and I in for a few solid weeks of playtime at this point!

Not everyone rushes to “Endgame” most of us are just playing the game…

[ZephyrMenodora]

Endgame players aren’t most of us…. The vast majority of us aren’t there and most may never be there.

WHM is just the most popular because it is the basic healer job that anyone can pick up from level 1 without any complications or weirdness. You go from a starting character green icon Conjurer to green icon White Mage without having to do any research about it….

Scholar requires 30 levels of Arcanist first, which feels weird for a healer, even though Arcanists get Physik early on.

I can’t even get SGE yet and I in for a few solid weeks of playtime at this point!

Not everyone rushes to “Endgame” most of us are just playing the game…

This is why context to these conversations is important. Like you said, only a small percentage of the playerbase really engages with endgame content. Yet most conversations tend to focus only on those that do.

[MonsutaMan]

I was actually considering unsubbing for the free-trial, but I have zero desire to get those BLU spells again or sitting through those missions.......

[ChonkGoblinSuprem]

The people that really fall into a game tend to be those who post on the forums, makes sense…

There has been an insular “hardcore” crowd of MMORPG gamers who use a similar playbook. They tend to write off any and all of lower level content as nothing but “the grind” to get to the “real game” of whatever it is that they get up to. Gatekeeping goes hand-in-hand with the grind. I’ve just been playing a bunch of different MMORPGs since Ultima Online (and count the old 90s Neverwinter Nights as at least a proto-MMORPG) and never once made it to “endgame” in one of them. It seems like that same group has been present in all of them…. and I’m not a fan.

[AlexiaD]

The people that really fall into a game tend to be those who post on the forums, makes sense…

There has been an insular “hardcore” crowd of MMORPG gamers who use a similar playbook. They tend to write off any and all of lower level content as nothing but “the grind” to get to the “real game” of whatever it is that they get up to. Gatekeeping goes hand-in-hand with the grind. I’ve just been playing a bunch of different MMORPGs since Ultima Online (and count the old 90s Neverwinter Nights as at least a proto-MMORPG) and never once made it to “endgame” in one of them. It seems like that same group has been present in all of them…. and I’m not a fan.

Literally anybody can do any content in FFXIV in crafted gear, what gatekeeping is there exactly ?

[Zeastria]

Ah wow, thats a New One.
Neither are really that hard, but I never heard of anyone having a harder time with Whm then Ast

The issue i had with WHM was keeping eye on my MP and playing optimal with the lillies ( during dpsing).
With AST you never have to look at your MP bar.. you literally have infinite MP.

[ChonkGoblinSuprem]

There isn’t as much of that in FF14 and the devs have done quite a bit of work to actively thwart that grind-gatekeeper mentality, which is a big part of why I’m still playing this game instead of others.

[Rufalus]

Ah my people, my peers. People expecting higher standards is refreshing after seeing Reddit gushing praise.

"XVI eikon battles are some of the best boss fights in gaming history."
We didn't do anything! The Phoenix stuff is a scripted light show. The Titan spectacle did bring a smile to my face on first sight but remember it's just a very basic on-rails battle. It's not ground-breaking game design.

In a videogame I'm always going to judge gameplay with much more weight than story and visual effects. In what ways does it move the art of game design forwards? Actually in some ways they regressed the genre. Cinematic clash!