The State of Endwalker: A 2 year Recap.

[aveyond-dreams]

I may as well strike while the iron is hot and remind people that beyond just the content creators currently riding the trend of doing tell alls about their thoughts on the state of the game, that many of us here on the forums had our finger on the pulse earlier on. Therefore I have compiled a list of threads that I've made over the past 2 years that show that at least those of us on the ground and not surrounded by the sort of community that most content creators are that we knew something was wrong earlier on.

Unfortunately now we're at the end of this expansion and there really isn't much that can be done to rectify the situation until we're well into Dawntrails. Still, I felt this would be useful to share and I invite others to read and examine my thoughts and that of the people who kept telling us to just wait that things would improve only for us to be where we our now.

My sentiment at least remains the same. I want FFXIV to do better, because I've seen it do better. I don't post stuff like this because I dislike the game, I love FF and for the longest time this was my home game, but too many wrong turns have made it not so anymore. FFXIV needs to go back to the level of quality we enjoyed in the past, especially if another 10 years of this game are in the works. Part of that means listening to players when something feels off and not shouting people down or telling them to play other games or the many other excuses those of us who just want to play the best version of FFXIV have been made to endure all expansion.

Strong story, strong content. Do that and so many of the issues of Endwalker would be forgiven, but mine and a lot of people's faith is shaken. Everyone here can agree that CBU3 can produce excellence because we've all experienced it with the level of hype in the story during Shadowbringers and how fun and exciting Stormblood content was. It should not have taken content creators finally feeling what a lot of us regular players were feeling the whole time to get this discussion to be taken seriously. Anyway, have a read through some of the posts in this thread and share your thoughts.


State of the Game prior to Liveletter

Live Letter Hopes, Expectations, and Concerns

Hildibrand for relic? Really?

4.35 vs 6.35

Review of 6.3 Story Content

Relic News - 6.45

I want to play *This* game

That Which He Does Not Play

The Lessons Not Learned.

Why this Live Letter Matters

How to Restore Confidence in FFXIV

[Noumenon]

The only thing I have to say is this:

FF14 has been mediocre for a while now. It's only been camouflaged because of the good story. And the dam finally broke because the 6.x story is unadulterated, concentrated garbage.

Endwalker isn't much worse than ShB. It's only slightly worse than ShB. ShB was very bad too: it saw the dumbing down of healers and tanks, the gutting of numerous jobs (like MCH), and encounters start to get streamlined catering to the FFLogs crowd.

Both SB and ShB also saw uninspired copy-paste jobs for side content. Heaven-on-High is a copypaste of PotD, with the singular petty "innovation" of large room floors. 70% of Bozja is an ugly copypaste of Eureka, with the only redeeming factors being the actions (most of which was copied from Eureka anyways), the 3 raids and the duels (with almost no mechanic that is new to the game, outside of prisoner saving in CLL and LR memes in Dalriada).

Unfortunately EW is even worse. There is next to no redeeming quality to Variant dungeons or Island Sanctuary. Orthos does not even have petty "innovation" to boast of as a feature. And the raids are extremely, extremely dull. Euphrosyne's first boss is quite possibly duller and have fewer mechanics than Syrcus Tower's first boss. Yes, a Lv90 boss developed in 2023 is easier, has less depth, has fewer mechanics, and is far duller than a Lv50 boss developed in 2013.

You care a lot about the story, so I can see why EW is especially bad for you. Yet for people who are interested in gameplay, EW is just another dot on the long downward trend since HW.

Everyone here can agree that CBU3 can produce excellence

Perhaps they theoretically can, but it seems increasingly clear that their corporate philosophy does not accommodate for designing excellent games. The nickel-and-diming of FF14 is quite clear now. It is increasingly obvious that Yoshi P and CBU3 takes pride in cutting costs wherever they can and streamlining and funneling all their budget onto eye-catching sequences that can wow game journalists.

It is why FF16 has immense highs (at least, on a graphical level, since the gameplay during primal fights is as shallow as a drying pond in a desert) followed by PS2-tier cutscenes with wooden facial animations and insanely mundane quests such as fetching airship parts for Mid, and indie studio level presentation like many dialogues only being voiced for the first few words.

The entire CBU3 project is not one of video game development. It's one of marketing. Yoshi P is not an adept game producer. He's an adept marketer. FF14 and FF16 bend over backwards in their game design to fulfill marketing needs and to wow game journalists, while using the minimal budget possible.

CBU3 is not a game development team. It's a marketing team. That's why you have absolutely inane comments from the producer like SGE's icon triggering non-existent phobias so game journalists can praise how 'woke' CBU3 is.

[aveyond-dreams]

Your assessment of this situation is fair, I just can't believe that things ended up like this. If you had told me FFXIV would end up the way it did I probably wouldn't have bothered to start playing it in the first place. Now we don't have much of an mmo or even an rpg at all.

[Bonoki]

Both SB and ShB also saw uninspired copy-paste jobs for side content. Heaven-on-High is a copypaste of PotD, with the singular petty "innovation" of large room floors. 70% of Bozja is an ugly copypaste of Eureka, with the only redeeming factors being the actions (most of which was copied from Eureka anyways), the 3 raids and the duels (with almost no mechanic that is new to the game, outside of prisoner saving in CLL and LR memes in Dalriada).

Early Diadem is extremely forgettable, but Eureka is technically a copy paste of the original Diadem 3.X reimagined and given relic quests. Diadem from Heavenwards failed twice and was even restricted from entry for a time until Ishgard Restoration revamped it. I don't blame people for forgetting how easily overlooked it was, but it was arguably the first field content in the game. (and really field content has always been over glorified FATEs in a special instance if we want to talk about copy and pastes) ...

[Lauront]

FF14 has been mediocre for a while now. It's only been camouflaged because of the good story. And the dam finally broke because the 6.x story is unadulterated, concentrated garbage.

Pretty much this, although for me I'd include 6.0 itself in that. Agree with what you say about the gameplay aspects of it. It peaked in SB gameplay-wise for me, although I liked some of the SHB side-content as filler content, like Bozja. Mainly as a result of Matsuno's involvement and for DR and Dalriada. Eureka was more pleasant for the zone design, as Bozja just felt dreary, especially with this game's washed out aesthetics. Agreed on HoH, I never quite liked it as much as PoTD. As much as both had room to improve I'd still take them over an absence of a zone. It's also a pity that they didn't hit the mark with the V/C dungeons. They're not ditching them but it remains to be seen if they'll figure out what they got wrong with those.

The one thing I enjoyed in EW was the CC revamp but even that's held back by the game's antiquated engine, and the fact that you can't queue with a friend even in the non-competitive mode. Still, it's about as enjoyable as PVP has been in this game. Gameplay-wise I've always preferred WoW to it, certainly for its class design (mage and warlock are still two of my fave MMO casters) and the amount of distinctive flavour they put into each race, but it had a pretty bad track record with its two expansions prior, which pushed me away from it coupled with other legacy issues, which it is now finally learning from. I kind of see XIV going on this same trajectory, although we'll see if it's a wake up call or if they're just content slowly cruising along with managed decline, which may mean XIV becomes less of a cushion for them to rely on when their other projects bomb or, less dramatically, under-perform expectations.

[FenyxRising]

Your assessment of this situation is fair, I just can't believe that things ended up like this. If you had told me FFXIV would end up the way it did I probably wouldn't have bothered to start playing it in the first place. Now we don't have much of an mmo or even an rpg at all.

Why did it end up like this ? Look no further than Reddit. Where the moderators literally asked people to stop reporting very mild criticism. Or look at Twitter and Twitch where people sent death threats to streamers who said Savage should have more fights !

It ended up like this because Yoshi P realized the playerbase will do their positive PR for them and dogpile on any negative PR for them. You can even see that on the forums !

[aveyond-dreams]

Too many wrong turns and too many people who stifled criticism at the time that it could have been acted upon in a timely manner so that we would have seen a positive change for the better this expansion. But alas.

Dawntrails will be anything but a new dawn for this game if this continues. Only an extension to this already protracted night.

[CStrife912]

If it does continue then at least we wont have people like yourselves constantly telling us how bad the game is....oh...that will continue to happen regardless so carry on I suppose. Its funny how some people are banned and it tells you forum guidelines post to be negative towards a community and members are in there yet so many cross that threshold easily yet nothing is done. So while reddit might overtune the debate.... it's better to overtune then do nothing at all I think. I will probably play a load of stuff till around January and then blitz the 6.3-6.5 stacked content and then go into 7.0 and see whats what there and if it doesn't tickle my fancy then I will just leave and drop in at an expansion by expansion basis and if its worse then that...then nothing beyond that.

[LittleImp]

Why did it end up like this ? Look no further than Reddit. Where the moderators literally asked people to stop reporting very mild criticism. Or look at Twitter and Twitch where people sent death threats to streamers who said Savage should have more fights !

I had an interaction a few years back on the subreddit where I posted something mildly critical of a new feature in the comments of a post, and a random dude had a total meltdown and just started repeatedly insulting me. I reported his comments, and the mods decided to delete my original comment instead of policing the guy openly calling me names.

[Lauront]

I had an interaction a few years back on the subreddit where I posted something mildly critical of a new feature in the comments of a post, and a random dude had a total meltdown and just started repeatedly insulting me. I reported his comments, and the mods decided to delete my original comment instead of policing the guy openly calling me names.

Not uncommon there. The worst of it on XIV discussion was something similar, with a very snarky troll there posting what would be considered to be low quality bait on any other site, being openly defended by a mod even as they flagrantly violated the subreddit's rules, only for another to step in to say they haphazardly enforce the same rules that the mod was refusing to enforce as and when they feel like it, essentially, to justify the other mod's behaviour. The same troll was only banned much later. A friend of mine there had some weirdo repeatedly sending them obscene imagery via DMs after making a post that must've rubbed this person the wrong way, and flagging them for whatever their safeguarding service is (the one that messages you to 'reach out' if you need help.) It's frankly pathetic, immature behaviour.

Though at least the block feature there is somewhat effective, if not for the ease of making a new account.