To SE and CBU3, we seriously need to talk about your Seasonal events

[Kranel_San]

I often don't write threads about topics people are already discussing, but I feel like I need to say my piece concerning this particular one. This is because I have already noticed this issue before and explicitly made my opinion clear in private and public on multiple Media, ranging from the in-game chat to the forums here and even Social media.

The state of FFXIV seasonal events and rewards can be described as nothing less than atrocious. If you play other MMOs like WoW, GW2, ESO, etc.. then you'll notice the events over there are focusing on the "Seasonal" aspect of the events, relying on yearly replayability where new & old players alike can obtain both new and old seasonal rewards through various methods. New additions to the event such as new activities are being added slowly throughout the years by the developers, with the purpose of enriching the event itself, giving experienced players more content to look forward to and to engage with. By the end of the event, the only thing they're going to feel they've missed is the event itself but not the reward, where players biggest and only concern is the return of the event again to obtain the rest of its rewards.

Meanwhile, the events in FFXIV are just a single or two time-limited quests with time-limited rewards that can be completed within five minutes and are made by the developers with the purpose of keeping players subscribed to the game and nothing else. There are barely any event engagement or memories to remember it by because there are barely anything to begin with. During the Halloween event, all I did during it was running around Gridania doing chores. During the Valentine's event, all I did during it was running around Gridania again doing more chores. All of these to obtain the event rewards before they're being sent to the cash shop.

In other MMOs, the developers focus on entertainment, event replayability, and event growth. In FFXIV, the developers focus on adding new additions to the cash shop both directly such as the recent Crescent moon mount, and indirectly such as the Gobbue reskin mount from the Little Ladies 2024 event. What's worse is the supposed event mount being a poor quality in comparison to the other mount, even when both are ultimately going to be in the cash shop together. You can clearly guess which mount the developers have taken their time to make, and which one might have been something that was sitting in their files as an unused asset for years before being decided to be used to have a reward for an event.

In a game that requires the player to monthly subscribe and buy expansions, it should give more attention to the game including its own seasonal events rather than slowly shifting its gaze on the players' pockets via the cash shop. The state of seasonal events has reached a point where many players are expecting nothing, but are still disappointed.

This is not how you run seasonal events. What should we have instead is;

1 - Recurring rewards (Mounts, glams, minions, orchesterion, and anything else)
2 - Recurring event activities such as the Halloween manor or the Moonfire jumping puzzle returning to the game every single year as part of the event itself
3 - New mini-games that are added to the event throughout the years, with some rewards requiring you to do the mini-games in order to obtain them
4 - Less focus on time-limited quests
5 - New event rewards with good quality that are not time-limited.

Right now, FFXIV's direction regarding seasonal events is not the norm, but rather the exception. While I know this is almost impossible to happen, I which the developers take events seriously like WoW does, where a single month in WoW has more events than an entire year in FFXIV.

https://imgur.com/a/cqZAHqx

(Apologize but I could not attach the image in the thread itself, and would appreciate if someone can lend me their support in this matter)

Keep in mind, All of these events in WoW didn't have any single event reward being taken to the cash shop, something Blizzard despite being known for its greed for players' pockets, has not done so because it's really, really a low move.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that we deserve better. FFXIV should get more love and attention instead of the cash shop additions left and right.

[Avoidy]

here's the image, probably
also I agree with you op.

[Kranel_San]

here's the image, probably
also I agree with you op.

Thanks pal!

Looking at this image makes me sad. I wish we had weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly events running that keep recurring again and again. Something to make me look forward to the next week rather than just "I can get more tomes now and do weekly activities, yay!"

[Avoidy]

Thanks pal!

Looking at this image makes me sad. I wish we had weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly events running that keep recurring again and again. Something to make me look forward to the next week rather than just "I can get more tomes now and do weekly activities, yay!"

Yeah I mean, especially with all the revenue this game brings in from subs/cash shop, the least they could do is roll out events that are actually decent. Even the moogle one, which is a step in the right direction for sure, doesn't update enough so it feels hella stagnant and if you don't like the rewards then there's never a reason to bother. We have so much side content just sitting there that they could easily do cool scheduled events like that pic themed around the gold saucer, or any of the minigames/side content, but nah.

[Stormfur]

Remember when we got a full costume, a minion, a wall decoration, a tabletop decoration, five different outdoor furnishings, a wallpaper and five different food items plus three different fireworks for just ONE event?

[LianaThorne]

I've seen more involved events out of indie scam gacha games lol.

14 really needs to figure out how to fit more into their monthly calendar as well...provide people more reasons to log in during the dead periods.

[Astrus]

I'll just cross-post this here

To me it's not that the events are bad so much as they're essentially FOMO content never to be seen again.
I think I might feel different about what content we get if all or at least most of it just made a return on the next year.
Not that the quest-based nature of the events would make a big difference for veteran players who did those quests but it would serve to make the seasonal holiday events seem bigger for new players and could open the door to more replayability in event content.
And I still hate that the only way to get past event rewards is buying them from the cash shop.

They went to the effort (however much that may be) of creating those quests and cutscenes. Just retiring them forever after having them in the game for two weeks seems like a bit of a waste of development resources.

I like the way GW2 does holidays, while there is new content every year it's not a massive amount of it, usually amounting to a short quest and a handful of new skins. Most of the content being replayable and coming back every year is what makes their festivals so interesting.

[SieyaM]

The events in XIV do feel a little bland. It would be nice if it felt like the event was happening in more than just one zone, even the other city states that aren't hosting it are just decorated in one area. If you never visited Gridania you could probably not even know there was an event going on.

[Crimen]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with this. The events have become more and more shallow. It was not always like this. They could absolutely learn something from looking at how other games handle them. If the excuse is that the upcoming expansion is taking away from resources everywhere, it likely means that the game has been suffering from poor resource management for a while now.

[Oizen]

The events feel like they exist solely to make future mogstation content.

Though I dont know who's going to buy the pink cheeto dusted goobbue mount.