Zepla: Endwalker is the Worst FFXIV Expansion I have played

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]A MMO needs repeatable content to justify a continual sub.[...]

Preach.

EW offers very little content that incentivizes us properly to replay them. Everything are very 'one and done'. Istg I'd go ballistic if I hear "But you get 1 X materia for reclearing...!!" even if it's just a joke at this point -.-

[Jojoya]

...instead determine what actually instills those net-favorable feelings of agency, because you're probably not actually going to find an overall net increase in that control if going back to Stormblood (where most had very, very little control compared to now over the timing of their actions, even in absolute terms rather than per "obligatory" sync).

SE would need to talk to players to get a better idea of what they're looking for.

I think the SAM players have already been very vocal with Kaiten as an example. They liked being able to use it.

I don't check the role forums so I'm not certain what other job issues have been brought up.

Preach.

EW offers very little content that incentivizes us properly to replay them. Everything are very 'one and done'. Istg I'd go ballistic if I hear "But you get 1 X materia for reclearing...!!" even if it's just a joke at this point -.-

So you feel it's one and done.

Others have been repeating the content for whatever reasons they have.

What do you feel would be proper rewards so content isn't "once then done"? Clearly it's not gear. You have to repeat content to get all the gear you might want.

They can only produce so many minions, mounts, orchestrion rolls.

Gil? They could make gil rewards anything they want but then what would you do with the gil?

If there are other MMORPGs that you play, what makes the content in them repeatable to you?

[ForteNightshade]

I will admit that the 160 hours was off. That was the number I remember SE mentioning before EW released and so it's what I used.

I checked the time/date info on my screenshots from the start of Endwalker. If I assume I took 8 hours a day for sleep (which I probably didn't, I was enjoying myself too much), it took me about 75 hours to complete the 6.0 MSQ.

The 20 hours for the 6.x MSQ content is because I have watched the time while completing each portion and it's been roughly 4 hours each time. Believe it or not, there actually is more to the MSQ than cutscenes even if cutscenes are all you can remember.

Who says that is all I can remember? I simply used cut scenes to point out the massive overexaggeration because it's the least subjective measurement. Case in point, while it took you approximately four hours per 6.x patch to complete the MSQ, I finished them all in 2-3 hours. No skipping cut scenes or blowing through dungeons with overgeared friends. I just was faster going through the story. So I do believe there is "more than just cut scenes". Just nowhere near the amount you were insinuating, not even by half.

Regarding the rest of the content, simply criticising it doesn't mean I "chose not to do it." I never said it doesn't exist either. You're putting more words in my mouth. I merely pointed out the flaws of the content. Sure, it exists, so that technically goes to the point of "Here's the content in Endwalker". I'm saying it isn't good content for the reasons stated. Island Sanctuary "exists" is probably the nicest compliment you can give it because there certainly isn't any meat on that bone. You can quite literally mindlessly slap in Island Potions and you'll finish the content without any more than five minutes of effort a week. That's how shallow and underdeveloped the content is. I can't speak for everyone but I don't think it's unreasonable to have higher standards than "this exists."

[Rolder50]

Where are you getting this number? I can go on YouTube right now and watch the entire 6.0 series; literally every single cut scene, in less than 20 hours. I sincerely hope you're not trying to insinuating that the dungeon, trials and even side quests—the latter of which isn't part of the MSQ makes up... 140 hours of content.

I get making a slight exaggeration but this is absurd. The entire MSQ from ARR to EW combined isn't 160 hours of cut scenes.

I thought for a moment he meant 140 hours to GET TO 6.0 which I would have believed. But no for 6.0 alone its 23 hours of raw cutscene. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ker_63_update/

Now, it might be closer to 40 hours if you count time running around, doing dungeons, generally farting around.

[ForteNightshade]

Others have been repeating the content for whatever reasons they have.

That's the point of contention. People aren't repeating the content. Variant/Criterion, Orthos and even Island are essentially dead. Go try putting up a PF for any one of them. You'll be waiting forever and a day to get anywhere. Which is the fundamental problem. Let's look at Orthos. Deep Dungeon's whole purpose outside the content itself has been an efficient leveling alternative. Except this time around they either intentionally nerfed the EXP gains or simply didn't scale them properly because not only do they yield less than your highest available dungeon, it's actually better to go into Bozja. Ya know, content from the last expansion. That right there contributed to how incredibly fast Orthos died.

So how do we better incentivize it? Besides the obvious EXP gains, how about a little innovation? Why not put in some of the Lost Actions or hell, make it a Rogue-Like style with randomized mobs or quirky rooms and traps that can catch players off guard? Make it interesting instead of a lazy copy/paste. That would be a good start. Next, for the love of god, let Blue Mage do it. That job is screaming for this type of content. It's perfectly tailored to work with it yet they seemingly refuse to put in the work to make it function. If they're so afraid of the leaderboard or solo achievements being "ruined" (as if anyone cares to begin with), just add a separate BLU only version. Not only does this give Deep Dungeon added replayability but it helps Blue Mage which is dire need of content. Alas, they can't even be bothered give the "job" a mount. We'll just stuff that on the cash shop.

As for Variant/Criterion. How about making a separate gearing system entirely dedicated for that content, thus giving it built in longevity through its own progression system? Bring in the the aforementioned Lost Actions, Essences or hell, really go for it and give set bonuses or unique abilities. If they really wanna go nuts, bring in some of the PvP stuff to really make the jobs shine. Your progression goes towards increasing your "Variant" gear... which can eventually be converted into the relic enhancement. And just like that, you've fixed Criterion's lack of reward structure and made the relic an actual commitment instead of a crappy welfare tome weapon. Personally, I'd scale Criterion down a little so it's more approachable, make Savage sort of in the middle of where it is now but with new mechanics instead of "hey, don't die" and make that "don't die" just an achievement. There's no reason to have a separate mode (Savage) that is literally the same thing but without rez when they aren't going to bother giving you more than a title.

Obviously, none of this is perfect nor do I claim it to be the end all solution. Just something off the top of my head that I feel could help alleviate these criticisms. The big issue Endwalker has is how incredibly safe the dev team insists on playing everything. There's no innovation, and any experimentation seems to be half-baked ideas they release in a "beta"-esque form that needs constant updates to be to sustainable. Nobody is really asking for Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley in FFXIV but maybe something where actually taking care of your animals and crops is a genuine activity and not a click, click, done. I dunno, maybe I'm asking too much to have to consider what food to feed my alligator and tiger instead of just stuffing them full of fruit (because that's why predators eat) or letting them starve with zero repercussions because I already have 700+ of every mat they give.

[Jojoya]

I merely pointed out the flaws of the content.

Okay. Considering the way you wrote the post, it sounded like you were taking issue with accuracy of everything in the list I made as opposed to changing the subject to discuss quality.

I thought for a moment he meant 140 hours to GET TO 6.0 which I would have believed. But no for 6.0 alone its 23 hours of raw cutscene. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ker_63_update/

Now, it might be closer to 40 hours if you count time running around, doing dungeons, generally farting around.

I was referring to the time spent to complete the 6.0 MSQ and not just the length of the cutscenes. Some players might take that 140-160 hours to complete it depending on queue wait times, how long it takes them to complete the solo duties, reading slower than others, etc.

So yes, time to complete includes traveling, waiting in queue for duties, getting interrupted by conversation with friends/FC, etc. The 160 hours that I remember SE mentioning does seem exaggerated in retrospect but certainly it took more than just the length of the cutscenes to complete the MSQ.

That's the point of contention. People aren't repeating the content. Variant/Criterion, Orthos and even Island are essentially dead. Go try putting up a PF for any one of them. You'll be waiting forever and a day to get anywhere.

Re: Island Sanctuary. I'm always running into other players heading to their island at the same time I'm going to mine. Then there's the pile of AFK players by the docks that got kicked out. If they got kicked out, they had also gone in to do something there.

As for the rest, PF isn't the only way to get a group for content. FC, Friends List, cwl, Discord, etc. - ways for players to find each other to make parties.

If no one was repeating the content, items that come from doing the content wouldn't continue to show up on the marketboard.

I'm not trying to claim that the number of players doing the content represents a majority of the player base or that the content is super popular. But enough players are repeating the content that SE is adding new versions in Dawntrail. They wouldn't waste the time and development resources on it if players were only doing the content once then ignoring it.

[Supersnow845]

So your argument basically boils down to “as long as there is some content to point to it doesn’t matter what said content is or how well it fills the gaps between the patches”

What a fantastic argument that is, hey guys today I learned that Bozja and IS are equivalent content in game value because @jojoya can sum them both up in a single point on a list that also lists the EW MSQ content taking 160 hours

“People” aren’t repeating EW content, they are dead

[Jojoya]

So your argument basically boils down to “as long as there is some content to point to it doesn’t matter what said content is or how well it fills the gaps between the patches”

What a fantastic argument that is, hey guys today I learned that Bozja and IS are equivalent content in game value because @jojoya can sum them both up in a single point on a list that also lists the EW MSQ content taking 160 hours

“People” aren’t repeating EW content, they are dead

Then we've got a game full of zombies.

Either way, SE is happy enough to spend money bringing this same content back for next expansion. You'll be able to keep paying for a total lack of content to do for another 2-3 years.

[ZephyrMenodora]

30 pages since we hit 100 of people caring an awful lot about trying to get Jojoya and Rentharis to change their minds.

[Shurrikhan]

I think the SAM players have already been very vocal with Kaiten as an example. They liked being able to use it.?

That has... nothing at all to do with the "2-minute meta", or any of the questions raised above. Nor does one have to go back to Stormblood to see Kaiten. They need only go to before 6.1.

I don't check the role forums so I'm not certain what other job issues have been brought up.

For a pretty safe summary, there are generally two major bands of critiques for actions:

• "Action Bloat" - Skills which (A) are only used in a particular context and the skill on which they are used is virtually never used without them and which may (B) provide no additional value or weight to their surrounding skills or considerations¹ and/or are detrimental in themselves².
  
  Some may consider A already sufficient to be "Action Bloat", while virtually all consider A+B to qualify as "Action Bloat".³
  
  ¹ E.g., difference between Kaiten, which carries a larger purpose, and Power Surge, which did not since Jump was always up for it and there was nothing to margin for Power Surge.
  
  ² E.g., Cleric Stance, which simply alternated reductions in relevant kit rather than adding to said kit.
  
  ³ Some may even consider the likes of Panhaima and Liturgy of the Bells to fall into this category, since they tend to have such an obvious best use case and largely go to waste outside it.
  
  
  
• "Button Bloat" - (A) Taking more buttons than are necessary (or at all useful to have separate) to perform a particular action or bundled set of actions¹, and/or (B) providing a far less than normal increase to mechanical depth or available optimization per button.²
  
  ¹ E.g., Ikishoten and Ogi Namikiri (which can only be used after Ikishoten anyways) as separate buttons.
  ² E.g., Shoha I / Shoha II, Senei/Guren, Foul/Xenoglossy now that Foul is likewise instant-cast, etc....
  ...or arguably even Twin Snakes vs. True Strike (only 20 potency more, with a 30+ potency loss if it falls off from using True Strike one too many times), Rain of Death vs. Bloodletter (only 10% more damage if limited to single-target).
  
  The less frequent and less consequential the button choice, the more wasteful it tends to be seen to grant a skill an extra button for a "braindead" challenge like counting whether the enemy is singular or plural in number with zero other change in affordances/implications between skills.

More broadly, Jobs themselves tend to see criticism for...

1. Feeling too alike to the other jobs in their role, especially if/when players can easily mock-up similar levels of parity in outcome/outputs without relying on so much homogeneity in gameplay / component actions;
   
   
2. Leaving seemingly lucrative features underutilized, such as Kardia on SGE or formerly the sword on RDM, etc., etc., which often plays into the first; or
   
   
3. Feeling unnecessarily unresponsive or unrewarding relative to other jobs, which generally plays into the two points above.
   
   Initial opinions usually vary between simply removing the "clunk" or fleshing out the differences in kit so that the "clunk" would actually instead have unique affordances, though more detailed / hammered-out discussion usually trends towards the latter, so far as I've seen.

Some Specific Job Complaint Highlights:

• SAM - Kenki gauge underutilized (bring back Kaiten, 50-cost Senei/Guren, and/or more frequent Ikishoten) > Button Bloat (let Guren automatically become Senei against a single target, replace Shoha II with a trait granting fall-off AoE damage bonus to Shoha I, etc.)
  
  
• MNK - Anatman and Riddle of Wind still horribly underwhelming > Dragon Kick and Twin Snakes potency too high relative to average ppgcd and True Strike potency, respectively, allowing for degenerated rotations to be highly competitive.
  
  
• BRD - Too high a portion of filler/filler-proc casts >= Iron Jaws effectively makes Bard take up 3 buttons for a single action used only once per 45 seconds > Raging Strikes window feels relative inconsequential.
  
  
• PLD - Button bloat (Goring Blade, Fight or Flight, and Requiescat collectively feel like they should be at most 2 buttons), slightly too low of skill ceiling (as if one too many mechanics/considerations had been removed), and underutilization of Cover and Clemency, especially for how much they seem to be "taxed".
  
  
• SMN - Very little skill-gap, meaning that SMN's floor rivals Rangers and RDM's ceilings, making players sometimes feel pushed towards it despite not enjoying its gameplay >= Its having so little to optimize can leave fans of its aesthetic nonetheless turning to other jobs to feel decently engaged / little to nothing available for players who more enjoy engaging with intricacies of combat > Even with as few buttons as it has, it manages to be button-bloated since its buttons offer even fewer actual choices.
  
  
• GNB - Button bloat concerns (Sonic Thrust / Bow Shock) >= too little distinction (perhaps due to the Bloodfest changes) >= HoL... why dis? >= Double Down is perhaps too significant a QoL loss ?
  
  
• DRK - Not enough to do between bursts >= APM feels a little too densely allocated >= Dark Mind and Dark Passenger leave little use for those buttons in less mainstay content and the latter is acquired at too late a level >= Weirdly/needlessly low sustain in AoE situations.
  
  
• AST - APM is too densely allocated per 2 minutes > Cards feel underutilized/lackluster >= Astrodyne feels poorly built for the context of having effectively 3 charges of Draw (since Drawn Cards cool even before being Played now) > My Malefic finger is dying.
  
  
• DRG - Mostly just fear of being destroyed by the upcoming rework.

Will add more between runs.