Why it's okay for FFXIV to be flawed

[Nebelheim]

Dunno why were singling out them when half of this forum thinks their ideas are gifts from God.

I don't really think most of the forums likes there ideas only a small handful at most does. People are just pointing out that he keeps coming back after multiple "I'm quitting" threads. There post really aren't gifts from god and his post in the past have been filled with misogyny and various other bad takes. More people might have agreed with him in the past but as time went on I think people got more annoyed with there fanfics and threads.

[Payadopa]

The game was way better before they started to "streamline" everything or make it so easy you don't need to stay awake anymore. A game holding your attention isn't this impossible goal. No amount of taking a break can fix how boring the battle system has gotten.

[AnimaJan]

Well, it's okay to take a break and I play other games but like, I want to play FFXIV and FFXIV doesn't allow me to play.

"I bought my sub, please, can I have content?"
"Sure, here it is."
"Thanks... But this is only one week of content or even less."
"Yes, go play other games."
"But I bought my sub, and well, I like this game, I want to play it and I'd like to see some big flaws it has fixed. And I have to sub to not lose my house."
"GO PLAY OTHER GAMES, DON'T PLAY THE GAME IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT."

Not much to do lately if you are an endgame player, which are not so uncommon as people say. Even if we complain about the game, we love this game and want to see it at its best. Some people don't seem to understand that.

[Nokuushi]

I don't raid. I mostly hop on to do roulettes, weekly stuff etc and do some stuff with FC friends, this game isn't even for me. The jobs became so bad, it's not fun to play them. That's my main issue with this game, Combat design and job design.

[Cilia]

The "problem" is where we are from a Doylist perspective.

Whether you like it or hate it, 6.0 wrapped the story arc started back in 1.0 and they needed time to get things set in place moving forward. As such 6.x was destined to be a filler arc, and I agree it could have been better and there are glaring flaws in its storytelling, even if I still liked elements (Golbez and the Archfiends); but at the end of the day it's just filler and shouldn't be seen as "the direction the game's story is going" because its only purpose is to kill time (and maybe provide setup for 8.0+?). 2.x was the same way, the bits not setting up 3.0, at any rate. The ancillary stories (Pandaemonium / Myths) were hit and miss; Panda was pretty good, but Myths barely had a story at all.

The population dip right now is just a matter of course; player count always falls off at the tail end of the expansion when all the content's been released and people have cleared what they want to. Furthermore the population surge was the result of a lot of external factors and not entirely due to the game's quality (WoW quality sinking like a stone, mass exodus from ActiBlizz properties due to the controversies surrounding them, and COVID-19 all contributing to Shadowbringers' overwhelming success). SE is also in a financial kerfuffle after Yosuke Matsuda's unwise business moves and Yoshi-P has said before that corporate doesn't provide CBU3 with the proper funding to grow the game, so the drop in content quantity (we used to get 3 dungeons per patch, now it's just 1...) is kind of expected. There is a wider variety of content (Variant / Criterion, Deep Dungeon, and Ocean Fishing were all added in 6.x) intended to appeal to a wider audience, but that just means people who don't enjoy that content get bored faster.

In short, there are legitimate reasons the game is in the state it is, and players invariably get bored later in the patch cycle (which isn't helped by it now being 4 months). I agree it could be - should be - better, but have confidence the devs are working things out in the background and not just sitting on their hands because it prints money. Dawntrail is not going to kill the game because a fraction of the playerbase refuses to enjoy the fun and lighthearted adventure story it's shaping up to be (and what's so wrong with G'raha happily biting into a taco?).

If I had to offer something helpful, I'd say while communication between them for continuity is necessary each expansion should have only one lead writer.

[Hallarem]

I get your point here, but if people don't complain there won't be a change. People are just afraid that the game won't evolve, they want the game to be better they are not whinging because of the sake of complaining. Criticism is for improvement, criticism is not an attack tool against the devs, they WANT people to suggest new things to them. And I think the good ol' "Go play other games and have fun" argument flows out the window when you have an FC house and personal house under demolition threat so you need to keep paying the sub.
In essence, if the devs suddenly say they don't want to improve the game at all, then that's that. But they DO want to improve the game judging by their actions and the feedback, so there is nothing wrong in giving them more suggestions or signaling discontent with things that people don't like. A plan for the 10 next years doesn't sound like "Yeh, we don't care, we wanna stay mid, play what you want." The game gives a possibility for freedom and lack of FOMO, it's great for that, but let's not pretend that housing demolition isn't there to fight against this in it's core, but content wise you are right. The game lacks a lot of QoL and needs to be oompfed up to that "next 10 years" state. Simple facts if this MMO wants to compete, and SE wants to compete, it's a company that wants money after all, that's what all companies do. Let's just hope the money garnered from this game goes to actually developing this game, because it is the best MMO out there overall, while some MMO's do stuff better in other aspects. My opinion only naturally.

[Bonoki]

Someone tried to tell me the other day that it's not the game that's the problem but rather the conservative gamer. No not conservative as in right wing politics but conservative as in, the 15 year MMO vet whoms life revolves around the glory days of their nostalgia. They tried to tell me that the game is doing better than ever, it's just "video game boomers" who can't accept that times have changed and that they are the ones weighing the game down.

I know a load of bull.

[WeebPolice]

text

Of course, citizen. It's ok for FFXIV to be flawed and it's also ok for players to make fun of those flaws. It is only fair that way.




The strongest spirits will always triumph.

[Colt47]

Snip

The problem with this expansion is that they are burning out every player with the time limited rewards and savage / ultimate focus. There isn't even time in most peoples schedules to DO anything that isn't on a time limit or a timer. Savage becomes a serious problem for people to clear if they end up not clearing in the first couple of weeks just because of ultimate, PVP rewards for each season have to be acquired while the season is still on patch, so people have to log in and do the same thing constantly. Island Sanctuary is basically the Warlords of Draenor phone game where someone could literally log in on a phone app at work and just click some buttons to keep it going, but they have to log into the actual game on a PC to do it. The Relic series is disconnected from any type of secondary currency and uses the same tomestones people would normally use for easy money to fund their savage runs (buying those tomestone crafting mats and selling them is actually how a lot of people get their tinctures).

The mental process the average player has now is "I got to go get this done as fast as possible so I can actually enjoy the rest of the game before the next release". Shadowbringers had none of that from what I remember. The most I remembered doing was coming in to do my daily Bozja grind and then sometimes doing savage.

[TaleraRistain]

The mental process the average player has now is "I got to go get this done as fast as possible so I can actually enjoy the rest of the game before the next release". Shadowbringers had none of that from what I remember. The most I remembered doing was coming in to do my daily Bozja grind and then sometimes doing savage.

ShB definitely had FOMO issues. I remember all the threads around this forum when people couldn't get past CLL because for a lot of people it was a one and done and so it wasn't staying populated.