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

[Zabuza]

All video games should now be judged using the standards set by titles such as BG3 and Elden Ring and the developers thereof. If a development team can't or won't listen to player feedback, or if they can't or won't release a product in a complete state, without the need for microtransactions, then they should be ignored entirely by the community at large. Do not engage with them. Do not give them money. The gaming industry will have no choice but to pay attention if enough people stop enabling their garbage practices.

I emphatically agree. That's part of what I've been trying to get across when making this thread but I caught heavy fire for it for some reason. Controversial opinion apparently.

Okay... Well, I'm happy with FF14. So, I'll keep subbed.

I don't think anyone, including myself, was telling people who were happy with this game they had to unsub. I personally am unhappy with seeming lack of effort from the developers, as well as the predatory monetization that is occurring within the gaming space in general. I am merely saying that complaints alone don't sway AAA developers who are beholden to stakeholders. Stakeholders who only care about the bottom line and not about player enjoyment. The only way to speak to such people is with your wallet if you are unhappy.

[Jojoya]

All video games should now be judged using the standards set by titles such as BG3 and Elden Ring and the developers thereof.

And what about those players who don't enjoy those types of games and/or haven't played them?

I emphatically agree. That's part of what I've been trying to get across when making this thread but I caught heavy fire for it for some reason. Controversial opinion apparently.

Same question to you - what about players who don't enjoy those games and are looking for something different?

Not everyone enjoys the same thing. I'll probably enjoy BG3 (having played the original) but haven't played it yet and so have no way to use it as a base standard. Elden Ring I have not and will not play - I'm not into that combat style.

There is no single standard for every player to judge every game by. The correct standard for a player to use is "Is this a fun and satisfying experience for me?" The answer to that can change over time even if the game doesn't change.

Our likes and interests adjust as we grow older. We may go from the short attention span games as children to long, in depth game play with challenging combat as young adults with plenty of free time to games of shorter duration as family or career oriented individuals back to longer, more in depth game play that is considerate of those with less physical agility compared to their younger days of gaming when we're close to or have retired.

Stop complicating things. There's no need for a game to meet any other standard other than "I'm having fun".

If you're not having fun, find a new game to play that is fun to you.

[Zabuza]

And what about those players who don't enjoy those types of games and/or haven't played them?


Same question to you - what about players who don't enjoy those games and are looking for something different?

Not everyone enjoys the same thing. I'll probably enjoy BG3 (having played the original) but haven't played it yet and so have no way to use it as a base standard. Elden Ring I have not and will not play - I'm not into that combat style.

There is no single standard for every player to judge every game by. The correct standard for a player to use is "Is this a fun and satisfying experience for me?" The answer to that can change over time even if the game doesn't change.

Our likes and interests adjust as we grow older. We may go from the short attention span games as children to long, in depth game play with challenging combat as young adults with plenty of free time to games of shorter duration as family or career oriented individuals back to longer, more in depth game play that is considerate of those with less physical agility compared to their younger days of gaming when we're close to or have retired.

Stop complicating things. There's no need for a game to meet any other standard other than "I'm having fun".

If you're not having fun, find a new game to play that is fun to you.

I don't really understand your argument. Fun games have been on the decline thanks to the predatory practices I've been referring to.

Do you think a videogame is more or less fun when the full product is released with all of the features? Well companies have been milking additional money out of their players by pushing out half-finished titles before they're ready and then later releasing the remainder of the game in the DLC that players get charged for.
Do you think people have more or less fun when they have to spend real $ to buy items that should be built into the game? Take a look at mobile gaming and especially a certain major mobile release that came out this year and tell me players enjoy having to spend thousands of dollars to get fully geared.
Do you think people enjoy having to spend real $ on gacha mechanics where they have a 1% chance of actually getting the item they want, or do you think they would actually just be able to earn the item they want in-game?
Do you think people enjoy companies sometimes even going so far as deceiving them into buying things?
Do you think people enjoy games that completely hold their hand and offer no challenge whatsoever?

Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 are universally acclaimed because they were created for love of their product rather than maximum profit milking tactics that treat the player like a money pinata rather than a human being.

In FFXIV's case, the devs are making it braindead difficulty for everything outside of Savage difficulty and above. Alliance raid is typically CT which I bet everyone in the raid could auto-attack the whole raid and still win. Expert roulette and below you can probably win while watching Netflix on a second monitor. I can't imagine players having fun doing any of the combat in the MSQ when going through the game. Imagine fighting Thordan and cinematically and thematically, it's built up to be this epic moment. The fight looks cool, but you find out it's braindead easy and you'd have to try extremely hard to LOSE. What about that is epic?
They also tell players that ONLY purchases made to their cash shop go back into funding the game. Subscriptions get diverted into resources for other projects that players didn't ask for. On top of being told that, the number of dungeons per patch was cut down and also the time between patches was lengthened and SE's response was 'COVID guys please understand.'
On top of this, they didn't just divert our money to another project(FF16, that we KNOW of.) They also diverted resources from CBU3 that could've gone into making new ideas or further polishing FF14. There's no way you can tell me that Yoshi-P and Soken working on FF16 did not affect this game. It's literally impossible. Because of FF16, they were unable to give this game 100% of their focus. It may have even been second priority in their minds and their passion for it may have waned given FF16's looming release. Is that what people gave Yoshi-P their monthly sub fee and mogstation purchases for? For them to work on something else?

If you're not having fun, find a new game to play that is fun to you.

I'm trying. I really am. Thankfully, Baldur's Gate 3 just came out, but typically? The gaming landscape is mostly devoid of life and full of blood hungry sharks.

[Myrany]

Snip

What is fun for you may not be the same as what is fun for someone else.

I would guess that many people gauge fun on weather or not they are enjoying themselves while they play the game.

The business end of the game is an afterthought to them if they even think about it.

Yes some people do want something mindlessly easy which is why so many games have a creative mode setting (3 that come to mind Minecraft, 7DTD, NMS).

So no I really don't think the things you are most concerned about have a darn thing to do with which game many people choose. All they care about is if they are enjoying themselves.

[Zabuza]

What is fun for you may not be the same as what is fun for someone else.

I would guess that many people gauge fun on weather or not they are enjoying themselves while they play the game.

The business end of the game is an afterthought to them if they even think about it.

Yes some people do want something mindlessly easy which is why so many games have a creative mode setting (3 that come to mind Minecraft, 7DTD, NMS).

So no I really don't think the things you are most concerned about have a darn thing to do with which game many people choose. All they care about is if they are enjoying themselves.

If they enjoy themselves shoving cash into dev's pockets for half-finished, bug-ridden, difficulty-absent games then gaming is doomed. If they enjoy being taken advantage of and treated like money pinatas then we are lost. I am glad Baldur's Gate 3 exists, to show new gamers what a game could be. To show them they don't have to accept being taken advantage of.

[Myrany]

If they enjoy themselves shoving cash into dev's pockets for half-finished, bug-ridden, difficulty-absent games then gaming is doomed. If they enjoy being taken advantage of and treated like money pinatas then we are lost. I am glad Baldur's Gate 3 exists, to show new gamers what a game could be. To show them they don't have to accept being taken advantage of.

To your mind all those nasty things are true.

To their minds they are getting decent value for their money since they are enjoying themselves.

To my mind the game that just released something truly innovative in the MMORPG group right now is actually a very old one LOTRO. They allow you to pick your difficulty from the moment you roll your character. and the entire world scales to that. Everything from "mobs fall over if you breath on them" to..."I cant even finish a starting quest without a group." If they make this work this is game changing. Mind you that is not a game you would be interested in since it has a pretty aggressive cash shop. Still they came up with something that could be very important going forward in MMORPGs.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

I THRIVE on these corporate bootlickers.

Endwalker is lacking. BU3 is showing it's tired. SquareEnix as a company practices crunching. The product we are getting is not nearly what it should be considering how the company throws money at other projects. If anything the cash shop sells and sells, and the game gets cuts and cuts. Then again between forsaken and FFXVI not being the bang they anounced, probably we will see even more cuts in the future... Dawntrail will quickly become the retirement expansion instead of the vacation one.


But someone will white knight. A gatekeeper that will not the unfair, the uninformed, the uncultured haters and trolls in. Oh thank you ever brilliant knight in shining armor! Always remind us for the vigintillion time how yoshida saved the game and thus is not able of nothing bad ever!

[Absimiliard]

And what about those players who don't enjoy those types of games and/or haven't played them?

Not the games themselves, the development standards set by them. Both of them came out in a complete state and did not require microtransactions to support them. While they will obviously receive updates in the future (Elden Ring has seen many at this point), they have defied the common pitfalls of "games as a live service" in that they were of high quality upon release. Their respective development teams have delivered precisely what they said they would. In fact, I'd say the team behind BG3 went above and beyond.

In other words:
- Games that work right out of the gate, lacking severe bugs
- Games that feel complete, not requiring subsequent patches to fill in the gaps
- Games that are not driven by corporate greed, which is to say that either lack entirely or minimize the intrusiveness of microtransactions.
- Games wherein the developers do listen to player feedback and monitor various statistics to try and keep the game at the highest quality possible
- Games that maintain a high standard of gameplay without sacrificing other elements

[Jojoya]

I don't really understand your argument. Fun games have been on the decline thanks to the predatory practices I've been referring to.

Monetization has nothing to do with whether a game is fun. It influences what you're willing to pay.

There's a pretty big difference between the two.

I'm also not talking about whether a game is more fun or less fun. Either it's fun to me or it isn't. The base game may be perfectly fun by itself. Any later content releases might add fun or they may not be fun at all. I remember playing Oblivion and having a great time. Later the Shivering Isles DLC was released and I got that. It was disturbing content that I wish I hadn't purchased. Didn't change that the base game was still fun even if others felt it wasn't full featured because it didn't have the DLCs.

Not the games themselves, the development standards set by them. Both of them came out in a complete state and did not require microtransactions to support them. While they will obviously receive updates in the future (Elden Ring has seen many at this point), they have defied the common pitfalls of "games as a live service" in that they were of high quality upon release. Their respective development teams have delivered precisely what they said they would. In fact, I'd say the team behind BG3 went above and beyond.

In other words:
- Games that work right out of the gate, lacking severe bugs
- Games that feel complete, not requiring subsequent patches to fill in the gaps
- Games that are not driven by corporate greed, which is to say that either lack entirely or minimize the intrusiveness of microtransactions.
- Games wherein the developers do listen to player feedback and monitor various statistics to try and keep the game at the highest quality possible
- Games that maintain a high standard of gameplay without sacrificing other elements

I can agree about bugs to a some degree. Games should be free of bugs that are reasonably expected to be caught in their testing environment. They may not be able to catch all bugs when players are using a PC. They may not catch all bugs in a Massively Multiplayer environment because it's not feasible to set up that many clients in a testing environment. Still those bugs should be few in number and quickly fixed. Some developers are bad about that.

MMORPGs will never feel complete because they're a model that relies on long term content editions. You can't use that as a standard for a MMORPG.

I agree that microtransactions shouldn't be intrusive into the game. Thank you YoshiP for putting your foot down and keeping the cash shop separate from FFXIV other than Dreamstore that has to be intentionally enabled in a specific location. I hate the games where you log in and the first thing you see is a cash shop window. As for corporate greed, most games are made to make money. You're not going to get rid of that outside of the tiny indie developers working on a passion project that have other sources of income. Everyone has bills that need to be paid.

I agree about listening to feedback but with the warning that listening doesn't mean doing what that feedback asks. Not everyone agrees with every suggested change. Not implementing the change or getting a personal response doesn't mean they didn't listen.

That last is subjective and so can't be applied to a specific standard. An element that might feel necessary to you may be a useless distraction to another. Sometimes what players want isn't technologically feasible for all player clients the game is intended to be played on. Most game developers aren't going to focus on creating games that only 2% of the player community can play because only they own or can afford the necessary hardware and a good 90% of that 2% may have no interest in the game genre.

Part of why Baldur's Gate 3 has turned out so well is that it's been a playable game for almost 3 years and had been in development 4 years prior to that. Their kickstarter supporters have had access to the game since 2020 to give them feedback prior to the initial release. It's difficult for a company to have a product in development for that amount of time unless they get the financial backing before release of the game. Such backing is a risk since you don't know the game will ever be released. It's worked out in the case of BG3 but how many other games have gone the same route and either failed to end up released or are still in development testing after a decade?

Are you willing to risk some of your money to help a game meet your release standards when there's no guarantee that release will ever happen?\

To my mind the game that just released something truly innovative in the MMORPG group right now is actually a very old one LOTRO. They allow you to pick your difficulty from the moment you roll your character. and the entire world scales to that. Everything from "mobs fall over if you breath on them" to..."I cant even finish a starting quest without a group." If they make this work this is game changing. Mind you that is not a game you would be interested in since it has a pretty aggressive cash shop. Still they came up with something that could be very important going forward in MMORPGs.

How does that work out when you've got 2 players attacking the same creature and one player is set to Very Easy and the other is set to Nightmare (or whatever the difficulty modes are named)?

It sounds a bit like WoW's scale to player level system which didn't work out particularly well (at least in my opinion). The net effect was lower level players frequently ended up more powerful than the higher level players depending on what gear was equipped (think Crystal Tower types of power difference).

Or are most open world zones in LotRO so empty that the chances of encountering another player are small? I remember giving it a try back around 2015 and was turned off by the predatory paywalls. Even then I was encountering fewer players in the open world than I do here. I have no clue how good (or bad) it is now.

I THRIVE on these corporate bootlickers.

Endwalker is lacking. BU3 is showing it's tired. SquareEnix as a company practices crunching. The product we are getting is not nearly what it should be considering how the company throws money at other projects. If anything the cash shop sells and sells, and the game gets cuts and cuts. Then again between forsaken and FFXVI not being the bang they anounced, probably we will see even more cuts in the future... Dawntrail will quickly become the retirement expansion instead of the vacation one.


But someone will white knight. A gatekeeper that will not the unfair, the uninformed, the uncultured haters and trolls in. Oh thank you ever brilliant knight in shining armor! Always remind us for the vigintillion time how yoshida saved the game and thus is not able of nothing bad ever!

Yet here you are paying a subscription. Thank you for your support!

People who never experienced the fall of dalamud arguing that 2.0 shields yoshi p from criticism to people who were here for the fall of dalamud who want the modern game to improve will never not be funny to me

The absolute lack of any sort of acknowledgment that the 2 year backlog of content you have because you started in 2022 and therefore the game had so much content to a person who was drip fed this content on patch is just hilarious

I truly think that the WOW exodus happening in ShB and EW being ShB 2.0 is the worst accidental coincidence this game ever experienced because there is just too many people who never experienced SB and so think this half baked melting pot of nothing e thot simulator is all the game has ever been

What happened a decade ago really doesn't matter.

The game has changed since then.

The development team has changed since then.

The player base has changed since then.

What does matter? Are you having fun is what matters.

Your choice to keep paying for the game even though you're not having fun anymore.

[AwesomeJr44]

Anyone else remember when Yoshi P himself said this?



What different times...