The Perfect Response to "Take a Break"

[aveyond-dreams]

I mean, he might still be in that. He did say in another thread that he's in his early 20s and god, that explains so much. I look back on my late teens and early 20s and go "Man...I was such a cringe tryhard and an idiot." I mean...I'm still that second one, but hey, 33 years old and I'm at least not a cringe tryhard anymore! Just cringe!

My tastes have been pretty consistent. They were shaped by stories and games of substances and naturally I continue to seek and advocate for more in that vein. FFXIV was one of those games before they unceremoniously threw away everything in favor of what Endwalker turned out to be – an expansion that made me feel like I was being treated with gloves because people on twitter gave the impression that they didn’t want a story with proper consequences and required painfully frequent slice of life moments in order to “ease the tension” which I have never needed in any video game prior in my entire life. These players should have known what they were getting into in picking up a 16+ game, though Endwalker hardly resembles one at this point with stuff like the Fall Guys collaboration on the horizon.

This is not how you attract FF players to your game.

If I remember correctly, your patch schedule wasn't deemed 'insufficient', it was deemed infeasible and completely disregarding the health and well being of the developers. Which I remember that last part, because I wrote up and almost posted a very, very, very strongly worded, seven or eight paragraph response to it but ultimately didn't post it cause it wouldn't be worth it. Because I've been on the developer side of the fence, and in the games industry in general, for like 13 to 15 years. And I've been through things like hard crunch and the sheer disregard you had/have for the developers health and well being left me rather...livid, to put it gently.

You do realize that my schedule including relic zones releasing in the .25 patch was literally what we had back in Stormblood, yes? Seeing your join date I would think you would have remembered and played through that expansion. In any case however, your personal emotions are not relevant to FFXIV’s current circumstances.

For the past 3 years there has been no content of substance so yes, unfortunately now this large company with ample resources at their disposal is going to have to play catchup. It is not my job to “regard” much beyond the quality of the product I’m receiving.

If you produce work of insufficient quality then expect criticism in return. I apologize if this comes across as blunt, but I am not willing to change my tone when the current situation demands clear and unapologetic communication.

And if this happens continually, it is only natural for the player’s patience to eventually evaporate and drop any pretense or this community’s exclusive ideas like “say something positive along with every negative thing” that hasn’t been helpful in the slightest. The game should not be in the state it’s in right now and advocating against it’s improvements by attempts at stifling feedback, which is an unfortunately commonplace practice, will only harm the game in the long term.

That is not what I want to see happen. I want to see the quality of content improve along with rewards such as in the case of Variant/Criterion – it should not have taken streamers pointing out the obvious when these issues would have been apparent from the inception of that content to anyone who actively plays the game. Unfortunately when articles get written that characterize individuals as “former mmorpg players” you can understand why this is some cause for alarm amongst those of us who still held out hope for improvements.

Plus I think some people really forgot Covid was a real thing and greatly affected how many in the workforce value themselves and their time (part of the reason why the patch schedules we had before were extended by about a month). SE could've easily pulled a blizzard during the pandemic and went a year without updating the game, then what? Some people dont think in terms of reality.

What SE did was worse in my view, releasing no content with staying power for an entire expansion. A manufactured content drought.

[Carin-Eri]

In any case however, your personal emotions are not relevant to FFXIV’s current circumstances.

I stopped reading here, because honestly? You're just coming across as a bit of a hypocrite.

[Cilia]

This is not how you attract FF players to your game.

"Final Fantasy players" is a pretty broad umbrella. You are aware there are games in the franchise not set in Ivalice, and all of them (Ivalice included) have humorous moments to ease the tension, yes? Even the ultra-edgy Stranger of Paradise has some softer and lighthearted moments. It's called "good writing." Furthermore if the only customers the game was trying to attract were "Final Fantasy players" it would never have grown to the juggernaut it is.

In NA the game is rated T (16+, weirdly; why not just go with M, it's only a 2 year difference) but in EU it's rated PEGI-13, and so is meant to be acceptable for anyone 13+. (In JP it's CERO 15, just for the record.) That you personally don't enjoy the tension-cutting slice of life scenes is just a difference in taste, not a mark of the game's writing falling off a cliff.

In any case however, your personal emotions are not relevant to FFXIV’s current circumstances.

For the past 3 years there has been no content of substance so yes, unfortunately now this large company with ample resources at their disposal is going to have to play catchup.

Comedy gold. Anyway...

There's been plenty of content of substance, it's just not to your taste.

SE is in financial disarray due to Yosuke Matsuda's ruinous business moves, and SE has chronically underfunded this game anyway.

However, I have good news for you, kiddo! A TTRPG version of the game was announced a few weeks back, meaning so long as you get a few friends together you can play through your story rewrites. It'll be on tabletop, and if you're GMing there's no guarantee your players will follow your story threads how you want them to (unless you decide to railroad and that's not cool at all), but playing through the game with your bespoke desires indulged is not so farfetched now!

[Midare]

I stopped reading here, because honestly? You're just coming across as a bit of a hypocrite.

Admittedly, it's always been quite clear that he thinks he's always right and everyone who disagrees is wrong, so if anything, that behavior it's consistent with his character.

[Stormpeaks]

snip

your personal emotions are not relevant to FFXIV’s current circumstances.

Neither are yours buddy.

This is not how you attract FF players to your game.

Let me correct that one for you bud

You dont speak for the community.

I'll rephrase it just for you.

This is not how you attract Aveyond-dreams to your game.

And you know what ? So be it. You are a narcissist.

The game doesnt need your edgy teenager made up story that you keep writing on the forums.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Its funny how not too long ago, everyone started to have a sort of respect for aveyond after he made his quit declaration and didnt come back to the forums after 6.3 (or was it 6.4) where people actually started to take him seriously during this content lul.

But now that he broken his own quit moment to come back and nag at the forum posters with "I told ya so" posts about the state of post-EW just proves how low standards he actually has for any kind of integrity. It's all hypocritical.

And the thing is, I knew he was gonna come back and do this, or at least I expected him to during 7.0, not within the same patch lul that he has been criticizing for the current game being at

[ZephyrMenodora]

Its funny how not too long ago, everyone started to have a sort of respect for aveyond after he made his quit declaration and didnt come back to the forums after 6.3 (or was it 6.4) where people actually started to take him seriously during this content lul.

But now that he broken his own quit moment to come back and nag at the forum posters with "I told ya so" posts about the state of post-EW just proves how low standards he actually has for any kind of integrity. It's all hypocritical.

And the thing is, I knew he was gonna come back and do this, or at least I expected him to during 7.0, not within the same patch lul that he has been criticizing for the current game being at

I fully expected him to return due to how much attention seeking he does here. I also had no change in opinion while he was gone as I literally don’t think about him unless his posts are constantly on the top of the page.

[aveyond-dreams]

I really don't have anything to say right now besides that I really struggle with the concept that the commonplace fantasy elements I embrace are viewed as too dark for a game that embraced them in the past back in Heavensward/Shadowbringers. If nothing else Endwalker gave me ample time to spend in games that invoke the same the spirit FFXIV used to before it lost its way.

In any case I'm not sympathetic towards the state of things in this game seeing as how obvious the solutions to dilemmas surrounding Endwalker content and reward structure, in addition to it's writing faults, could have been resolved at their inception rather than attempting to make amends this late. The game needs more work and less vacation time/visiting international game festivals if it's going to stand a chance at improving, and I stand by that.

I can't imagine what it must be like in SE's offices having seen the WoW boost in population only for Endwalker to completely lose it and continue seeing falling trends that show little sign of stopping. The last thing I would do in such a situation is be ok with increasing patch length cycles and making content that just does not make any attempt to entice the player or compete for their time.

[aveyond-dreams]

How else will we prove we're the best community though if we don't continue trying to snuff out anyone without a popular opinion?

I think it's important for a healthy gaming community to be able to openly and critically discuss aspects of the game so that it continues to improve. I think the lack of this has had not had a positive effect on FFXIV, as the situation demonstrates.

[Theodric]

Yeah, it's just a matter of either taking the approach of agreeing to disagree or just making use of the ignore function. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.

In an ideal world we'd have community representatives present here and more moderation but that isn't the case and repeated attempts to request such have fallen on deaf ears.

So it's up to us, as posters, to curate a pleasant experience.