Xenosys Vex explains how to save the game

[dspguy]

People are complaining that game is too formulaic when that is all the game has EVER been.

Since the dawn of Eorzea, we run old content over and over again. They reskin content (story mode, hard mode, extreme mode). We run roulettes for exp/tomes that is content from 2013-2023. We all know that new level X0 crafted gear will be the same iLvl as story mode raid, and tomestone gear will be 10 above that and augmented tomes/raid gear is another 10 above that. We all know that 24-man raid gear will be same iLvl as the tomestone gear. We all know we'll need to clear whatever tier normal raid 7 times for the weapon upgrade. We all know that body/legs tomestone gear costs 825, other left-side 495, accessories 375.

We all know that the new raid tier will be 4 bosses with the last one likely have 2 phases. We all know that the 24-man raid will be 4 bosses with 2 trash pulls between. We all know that about twice per expansion to expect a new MGP mount. We all know that the extreme trial bosses will drop mounts and if you collect all of them, you get a special mount...

We all know that we'll get from 90-100 running MSQ with almost no other exp needed in-between. We all know to hold onto 4000 hunt marks right before an odd number patch since we can buy the items we need for augmented gear.

All of this has been the case since ARR. And it was the case in HW... then SB... then ShB... then EW. I mean, it has been like this for 10 years. And SE made a boatload of money all the way.

Why would anyone expect the formula for success that they've followed so far to be changed?

[Aword3213]

Wow you really are on some mega copium.

And you're on giga copium thinking this game would somehow get any better with your banal criticisms. Spoiler alert. It would not

Doomsayers has been claiming FFXIV is dying for years, yet they are still here, thinking their doom posts would somehow help CBU3 improve this game in anyway. It would not

What drives them to post? The slightest and faintest hope that someone from SE would some day happen to read the forum and by chance decide to foward your feedback among other 10000+ similar posts to the game director Yoshi-P, even when it's been made known that SE never listen to any feedback

Prime example of copium overdose if I ever seen one

[Kyrj]

You know what would really help the game? Is if SE would stop locking new side content behind a massive MSQ wall. Why is it that they learned this lesson for new jobs but not things like say Eureka Orthos? We had a massive influx of new players which is good, that means that they'll be able to start grinding out things like Bozja, Zadnor, Eureka, PotD, HoH, EO, and so on......once they finish the MSQ which takes a lot of time for most of those to even be available and some of them require more than just MSQ (Bozja needing a whole raid and side story). The problem is as we're waiting for newer players to get to that point of say Eureka Orthos, you have players who are already at that point, leaving the game because it takes 75 mintues to even get into EO. And I get it, a lot of these things have a big overarching story attached to them but at some point the MSQ starts to hurt the game more and more.

[Troxbark]

You know what would really help the game? Is if SE would stop locking new side content behind a massive MSQ wall. Why is it that they learned this lesson for new jobs but not things like say Eureka Orthos? We had a massive influx of new players which is good, that means that they'll be able to start grinding out things like Bozja, Zadnor, Eureka, PotD, HoH, EO, and so on......once they finish the MSQ which takes a lot of time for most of those to even be available and some of them require more than just MSQ (Bozja needing a whole raid and side story). The problem is as we're waiting for newer players to get to that point of say Eureka Orthos, you have players who are already at that point, leaving the game because it takes 75 mintues to even get into EO. And I get it, a lot of these things have a big overarching story attached to them but at some point the MSQ starts to hurt the game more and more.

Problem is almost all of that side content is basically hidden unless you know it exists to actively unlock it.

[Wilford111]

I don't really respect Xeno's opinion because all he cares about is raiding and getting bis asap and basically nothing else.

[Troxbark]

He always suggest that alliance raids should drop raid equivalent or bis gear that late into the game... It's such a stupid idea, alliance raids should not drop raid equivalent gear because 1.) it's a complete steam roll and you can literally just afk through it and 2.) It kills the savage tier for late raiders.

Stop saying it's "catch up gear", there's nothing people need to catch up on, what content in this game does a regular player need such gear for? Marketboard gear is still more than enough to BREEZE through all but savage content and yes, it's stupid. If you want alliance raids to drop BIS equivalent then the difficulty needs to be upped to something other than a snoozefest and ideally, there needs to be more content that requires some form of competence and that's never going to happen.

I think EX is the perfect difficulty to throw some better gear or loot into or at least tune other bosses to, it's harder content but still easily clear-able for casual players without the need for end-game gear.

[Aword3213]

Problem is almost all of that side content is basically hidden unless you know it exists to actively unlock it.

I lose track of it sometimes. I have to go through the patch notes just to find where those side contents are.

[Amenara]

I don't really respect Xeno's opinion because all he cares about is raiding and getting bis asap and basically nothing else.

I mean, for the longest time he was pugging ultimates and savage fights after he had BiS to play it on different classes but to also help out pug groups on PF. I mean, if we are being honest outside of doing the MSQ, events with your community or high end content FF14 is pretty boring to stream and pretty boring to watch.

He always suggest that alliance raids should drop raid equivalent or bis gear that late into the game... It's such a stupid idea, alliance raids should not drop raid equivalent gear because 1.) it's a complete steam roll and you can literally just afk through it and 2.) It kills the savage tier for late raiders.

Stop saying it's "catch up gear", there's nothing people need to catch up on, what content in this game does a regular player need such gear for? Marketboard gear is still more than enough to BREEZE through all but savage content and yes, it's stupid. If you want alliance raids to drop BIS equivalent then the difficulty needs to be upped to something other than a snoozefest and ideally, there needs to be more content that requires some form of competence and that's never going to happen.

I think EX is the perfect difficulty to throw some better gear or loot into or at least tune other bosses to, it's harder content but still easily clear-able for casual players without the need for end-game gear.

I think the argument is that by that point having an additional piece of gear a week from alliance raid will only help people trying to still clear savage as it will help them get the gear they need to clear savage. The drops from alliance raid are super redundant when they come out since we can upgrade the crafted gear at the same point with no limit and it is the same ilvl as the alliance raid so it is immediately glam only gear with a weekly loot lockout even for casual players. Also he never said Alliance raid needs to be BiS gear, just that he wants it to be another source of gear so it is enticing to high end players as a way to help gear alt jobs as well as help out those still progging as another gear source and make it so casual players can get stronger as well.

As for EX, I am all on board with them dropping accessories again and I think the trial that comes out the patch after the raid tier should be an alternate source of BiS to give everyone a reason to do it other than spamming for 99 tokens to get the mount.

[Absurdity]

To me, the 1st step before thinking about anything else is the unmaking of the 2min meta as it is today.

THEN job uniqueness and complexity, innovative encounters, etc, can be thought of.

There's little that can be done for mid/hardcore content when everything needs to gravitate around 2min burst alignment only. No wonder why Bozja's fights and Lost Actions felt more interesting, because you were tooling around with a lot of things that were not a strict 2min burst window.

Also my biggest gripe. No amount of new innovative content is going to keep me interested when what I'm actually doing in said content is spam 1-2-3, build gauge, spend gauge at 50+ and do the exact same burst every 60 seconds, repeating the exact same motions at the exact same time like I'm working on a factory conveyjor belt.

- In this video he claim Stormblood is the best expansion (which I ironinically agree). But do you know that in the last cutsceens in Endwalker, Xenos didn't know Shinriyu and Zenos merged in Sb? What does that tell you about his opinion?

What it tells me is that the story is the lowest on his priority list, and after Endwalker I'm pretty much in the same boat.

I gave Shadowbringers lack of content and already awful job design a pass because I was interested in the story, which I really shouldn't have done in hindsight.
But Endwalker has the same stale content offerings, even worse job and combat design but now the story was also a frustrating mess of pointless filler, internal inconsistencies and disappointing conclusions.

And I'm done giving it a pass because "it's a story-driven game". Sorry but I'm playing and paying for an mmorpg, if I want the focus to be on nothing but story I'll just play a walking simulator.
Or I'll play one of the single-player RPGs out there that offer me not only agency in how the story unfolds but also agency in how combat plays out.

[GoatOfWar]

People are complaining that game is too formulaic when that is all the game has EVER been.

Since the dawn of Eorzea, we run old content over and over again. They reskin content (story mode, hard mode, extreme mode). We run roulettes for exp/tomes that is content from 2013-2023. We all know that new level X0 crafted gear will be the same iLvl as story mode raid, and tomestone gear will be 10 above that and augmented tomes/raid gear is another 10 above that. We all know that 24-man raid gear will be same iLvl as the tomestone gear. We all know we'll need to clear whatever tier normal raid 7 times for the weapon upgrade. We all know that body/legs tomestone gear costs 825, other left-side 495, accessories 375.

We all know that the new raid tier will be 4 bosses with the last one likely have 2 phases. We all know that the 24-man raid will be 4 bosses with 2 trash pulls between. We all know that about twice per expansion to expect a new MGP mount. We all know that the extreme trial bosses will drop mounts and if you collect all of them, you get a special mount...

We all know that we'll get from 90-100 running MSQ with almost no other exp needed in-between. We all know to hold onto 4000 hunt marks right before an odd number patch since we can buy the items we need for augmented gear.

All of this has been the case since ARR. And it was the case in HW... then SB... then ShB... then EW. I mean, it has been like this for 10 years. And SE made a boatload of money all the way.

Why would anyone expect the formula for success that they've followed so far to be changed?

The world would be a much, much worse place than it is today if we just accepted the status quo.
''Ah you know, it's always been like that.'' Is not a good outlook on life. That mindset kills innovation and improvement.