I can't find the fun in this game any more

[ForsakenRoe]

A developer could make the best game ever created in human existence, and we will still get tired of it and want something else, because that's human nature.

Patch 3.4 came out in the second half of 2016. You've been playing this game for over 7 years. You may have just reached the point where what you really need is just something different, either for a while or for good. Personally, when I see someone use the word "sickening" to describe a decision about a class in a video game, I think there's an unhealthy level of "investment" there and I get a little concerned. Take a breath. Try other things. Find something you enjoy.

People clamoured for Vanilla WoW to have official servers, and played private servers that recreated the experience of that time, for over 15 years. Every time a private server died due to admin team drama, or getting a C+D, or turning out to have shady donation skimming, whatever, the players would move onto a new 'fresh' server. Relevelling was not a concern for them, because they loved that version of the game THAT much. There are players who have not only played Vanilla WoW's levelling process over and over, but as the same class every time.

People asked for OSRS to be made after Jagex made the disastrous update 'Evolution of Combat'. That was 10 years ago too.

To have that amount of passion for something is to be commended, not belittled. If everyone who had passion for what the game was, and no longer has passion due to what it is, left the game as you recommend, you would create the circumstances for the start of the 'death-spiral of playerbase leaving' that causes MMOs to fade out and die. Also, telling someone to 'take a breath' when they're literally just expressing their opinion, quite calmly imo, is exceptionally patronizing

[Mithron]

Are you aware other video games exist? Go play them. Come back to XIV down the road if you desire. Why do you continue to play a game that you are no longer enjoying? I have been playing XIV since 1.0 and absolutely love the game to this day. The new Dawntrail announcements are extremely exciting. The expansion looks fantastic.

That's all I've been doing for the past two years since EW, yet I never needed to in HW -> SHB. I still played other games but kept current on XIV. Now I can't even do the basic casual content in XIV. The "if you desire" is the problem, the "desire" has left and the direction shift of the game caused it.

And no, the game is far different today than it was in HW. HW had much higher skill caps of each job and far more actual job variety with complexity. Now every job's the same yet the balance is the worst it's ever been with some jobs needing to be locked out of week 1 Savage, with what was it, a total of 3 WAR clears in week 1 worldwide? Don't even get me started on the two minute meta. The story was also infinitely better and less pandering to today's immoral social "standards" to fit a real world political agenda instead of just telling a good FF story.

I have no emotional investment with Viper or Pictomancer. Viper is meant to be some kind of spinoff from Zidane, which is okay but we have so many better options of jobs right now like Mystic Knight spellblade enspeller, or a Geomancer Earth/Wind/Water caster. Pictomancer would be the perfect fit for limited job content while we could've had an actual good emotionally investing real job instead to replace it. Instead we got Splattoon for the rest of FFXIV's future. The devs are just so out of their depth now and out of touch with their game and the actual playerbase.

It's sad to see it go after it rose so far.

[MistakeNot]

I have no emotional investment with Viper or Pictomancer.

And I have no emotional investment in Warrior or Black Mage, because they just don't interest me much.
What's your point?

[Tehmon]

Immoral social standards.

[Colt47]

I'll just say this flat out: The reason the game has become worse...

1) Pushing hard end-game content increases how much players compare themselves to each other and this can destroy the happiness they have, especially if people are unable to achieve the same goals as others regardless of how much effort they put in due to life circumstances and/or the choices made in designing the content.

2) Because the team is not addressing the problems that appeared during 6.2 and grew worse in 6.4 to now, it has resulted in a lot of people simply leaving the game due to not being happy with the state of it. And yes, they really didn't address the concerns people had, they basically ignored them and/or simply decided the problems aren't damaging to the game. This alienated the people who normally play the game through all the content patches. Heck, they said that they had no plans to change the direction of the game system going forward so that also doesn't help boost confidence in the next expansion.

[MistakeNot]

I'll just say this flat out: The reason the game has become worse...

1) Pushing hard end-game content increases how much players compare themselves to each other and this can destroy the happiness they have, especially if people are unable to achieve the same goals as others regardless of how much effort they put in due to life circumstances and/or the choices made in designing the content.

Lots of players cried loudly for harder content. Now you are saying they shouldn't get it?

But even so, I don't really see any increased push from the developers for hard end-game content. There was hard end-game content in HW. There is hard end-game content in EW. Nothing much has changed on that point.

2) Because the team is not addressing the problems that appeared during 6.2 and grew worse in 6.4 to now, it has resulted in a lot of people simply leaving the game due to not being happy with the state of it. And yes, they really didn't address the concerns people had, they basically ignored them and/or simply decided the problems aren't damaging to the game. This alienated the people who normally play the game through all the content patches. Heck, they said that they had no plans to change the direction of the game system going forward so that also doesn't help boost confidence in the next expansion.

"problems"

What problems are you talking about? I am sure there were all sorts of complaints back then, as there has always been and probably always will be, but it is most unclear which ones you refer to.

[Swordsman]

I loved this game from when I started in 3.4 to Endwalker, and Endwalker killed it for me. I can barely be bothered to finish the MSQ for months after the patch's release, and have no more desire to do even extreme trials or 24 man raids, much less savage. Dawntrail looks even worse than Endwalker. The new jobs are not interesting or emotionally investing at all. It's sickening how they make BLU a limited job but Pictomancer a DPS. I love Relm from FF6, but BLU is the staple FF job.

I hate to see how much this game peaked in Heavensward and Shadowbringers only to plummet so far down with no recovery in sight.

Before you redditors cry about negativity, I loved this game. I have every right to criticize it, and do so because I want to see it be good again instead of bad as it currently is. I want to love FF14, but currently I only do for what it was, not what it became. The direction has shifted entirely in the wrong way.

I get what you mean. EW kinda killed the game for many players, and we can only hope that DT returns the game back to some semblance of its former glory.

[Striker44]

To have that amount of passion for something is to be commended, not belittled. If everyone who had passion for what the game was, and no longer has passion due to what it is, left the game as you recommend, you would create the circumstances for the start of the 'death-spiral of playerbase leaving' that causes MMOs to fade out and die. Also, telling someone to 'take a breath' when they're literally just expressing their opinion, quite calmly imo, is exceptionally patronizing

Who said I was belittling it? Nostalgia has a pull for long-time players, but doesn't draw new players in. If everyone who had passion for what the game was left...the game would still be fine, because it's brought in far more new people (and that's also assuming people who had passion for what the game "was" can't still have passion for what it is now - speaking of patronizing...). But if the game focused only on retaining veteran players and did nothing to appeal to new players - that's when it would either die out or at least cease to be meaningfully profitable, since over time a population will always slowly bleed out. What keeps something going strong is maintaining an influx of new customers.

Nostalgia has a strong pull. Heck, it does on me in some ways. I have BG3 on my wish list, a massively critically acclaimed game. What single-player game am I playing right now? Custom player-made maps for Warcraft II from 1995. Why? Because it's familiar and I enjoy it. I get the appeal of nostalgia. It doesn't mean, however, that it's still a sensible development decision today. The next generation of gamers is focused on mobile games, MOBA's, etc.. Warcraft II is awesome for me, but I also understand making a new version of it likely wouldn't sell sufficiently well today, and I don't go telling Blizzard they're making all the wrong decisions because they're not making a Warcaft IV as an RTS-game.

And there is a point where having so much "passion" for something can be unhealthy. Again, there's nothing patronizing at all with suggesting someone take a breather, especially when they're using words like "sickening", "plummeting," etc.. You know what is condescending? Telling people the game they might enjoy is incredibly bad because you personally happen to think so.

Now every job's the same yet the balance is the worst it's ever been with some jobs needing to be locked out of week 1 Savage

I still don't get this "every job's the same" claim. Similar? Yes. The same? Not even close. If it was, I wouldn't have a favorite Tank (PLD) or Healer (SCH) while finding other ones (DRK or AST) unappealing. That happens because there are still very clear distinctions between them that make each unique in some way. It's even more apparent with DPS. Oh, and jobs being sufficiently unbalanced that some get "locked out" by the playerbase has been happening since MMO's came into existence. It's not nearly as drastic as it was before. (Ironically, isn't pointing out that some jobs get locked out actually acknowledging that the jobs are in fact different? O.O)

It's sad to see it go after it rose so far.

Note: From an objective standpoint (i.e. size of the active playerbase), the game is still steadily rising.

[CNitsah]

"problems"

What problems are you talking about? I am sure there were all sorts of complaints back then, as there has always been and probably always will be, but it is most unclear which ones you refer to.

The lack of proper long term/farming content. ARR had relics, HW had that with diadem and relics, SB with Eureka, ShB with relics inside or outside Bozja/Zadnor and Ishgarian reconstruction. EW has zero content with shelf life, which made most mmo players that mostly shut up in the past. The content that we constantly get told "It's not what FFXIV is supposed to be about", but that was still there since the game launched.

Now, they seem to have finally tackle that problem, but some would say waiting for the next expansion and not find a way to do something (maybe not a full zone, but something that would have given Fates Interest and occupy people that wanted to play more) the past year and a half was a dealbreaker). FFXIV had the back to ignore that, because of its aura, ) all it provided in the past, its backlog content and the fact that despite lacking replayability, the content released is still good, but if any other mmo did that, it would be a shitstorm. 2 year (by the time DT will release) to tackle that type of misdirection is freaking long.

[Bad_Luck]

I don't agree at all, Endwalker was amazing and Dawntrail looks great. Bye.