speak with your wallet if you feel unheard

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

I just want to point out that "speaking with your wallet" is a big fallacy.

If you unsub, the only message you're sending is "I don't care anymore, do whatever you want". If you want things to change, giving feedback is more important than radio silence and hoping things will change eventually.

But if you really don't care anymore, then unsubbing is fine.

Speaking as a former game dev, voting with your wallet is in fact the best way to go.

If you give feedback yet still continue to give the company money, you're literally telling them "I may dislike what you do, but it doesn't matter since I'll be paying you no matter what you may try". Negative feedback is irrelevant when you have record-high profits on the current development path you're taking. If you continue to give them money despite their choices in game design, you give them the thumbs up to ignore you completely since your opinion doesn't matter; you'll be coughing up the money regardless.

Like, take FF14 itself for example. People want to complain and moan all they like about the direction the game is going, but from an industry perspective and from data I've personally witnesses at my time at Ubisoft, Square is exactly on track where they need to be. Why do you think games as a whole have become far more watered down and casualized as time goes on? Because they're literally the majority of gamers in this day and age. They're where the money is. Despite the endless complaints about SMN, it's one of the most popular and played jobs in the game, bar none.

Why do you think Battle passes, Microtransactions, Gacha, F2p, despite being widely hated systems, have continued to flourish? Because even though gamers want to complain all they want and give endless negative feedback, they still give them money for these things. (Spoiler alert: it ain't even the whales alone either. The game I had worked on at Ubisoft had a 72% purchase rate for the battle pass in it, in a game that had a million+ sales.) The only time feedback ever truly matters in the AAA industry is when their profits are hurting.

If you don't like where the game is heading, do both. Leave your feedback, and vote with your wallet by exiting stage left. If the people complaining are truly in the majority and not just the vocal minority Square can safely ignore and continue to get the exact same revenue stream with while continuing to optimize the game to better draw in the huge crowd of casual gamers that gives them the big $$$, then they'll be forced to look at the feedback when their profits are hurting.

That's like the only thing you ever say here rofl

Because they're right, especially when it comes to live service games. AAA studios do in face hire psychologists / experts on human behaviors in order to help them design game systems and reward structures that are designed to implant a deep desire to keep playing and to make it as hard as possible for the average player to quit due to mental attachment to the game and their character. That's why lots of AAA studios are comfortable ignoring their playerbase's feedback, when a majority of them will be merely all bark and no bite due to sunk cost, mental attachments, etc to their IP, brand, etc.

[xbahax92]

How am I supposed to leave feedback without playing the content myself. I know a lot of changes dont appeal to me at all, there are so many jobs with identity crisis and lame rotations. But canceling my preorder is the least thing, that would help making this game better. And I'd like to prevent FFXIV becoming even more casual by voicing my opinion in this hell.

[Malthir]

How am I supposed to leave feedback without playing the content myself. I know a lot of changes dont appeal to me at all, there are so many jobs with identity crisis and lame rotations. But canceling my preorder is the least thing, that would help making this game better. And I'd like to prevent FFXIV becoming even more casual by voicing my opinion in this hell.

The problem isn't the "Casual" it's actually the high end raiders, those that push for their shiny colour on a website don't want complexity in the jobs they want streamlined rotations that work well inside the 2m buffs. That's the reason why the classes are becoming more homogenised and most of the job identities are being gutted, the race to world first players are the ones to blame not the casual players, hell most of the casuals don't even know of the forums existence, how are they feeding back their dislikes?

There's far more to roleplaying that job stats and builds. That might have been a feature of many of the old TTRPGs but it wasn't a feature of all of them and has never been a feature of all CRPGs.

I can remember playing many RPGs over the years where stats never came into play. You were tossed into an adventure and set loose to find your way as is.

If it's a feature that you personally look for when choosing a game to play, I can understand your disappointment. But it is not true to say the game has no roleplaying elements.

No it's a core design of RPG's where you have the option to customise your characters usually in particular stat builds.
Take all the standard FF series bar that abomination called 16. Every single one allowed you to build your character customising the party whether it be actual stat and job options, or customisable additional effects being able to to adjust stats and additional effects is a core tenant of all RPG's. If you're playing a game that doesn't allow for this in any way shape or form, what you're actually playing is a Character Action Game, these have some customisation options but are generally incredibly limited as to what you actually control and reasonable are all fake choices as it doesn't really impact gameplay what so ever.

Tell me what RPG elements are actually in 14?
Stats are all pre determined by you class
Classes are completely locked in gear choice, ability set, stat set, additional effects, Everyone else plays the job exactly how you do because that's the only way you can play that job
Character Race has no functional impact other than visuals.
Starting city and Free company factions Zero inpact in game all options are the same as one another and cross shared on any story elements past level 35 so will likely get removed next expac when they try and streamline the terrible new player experience.

Character visual customisation (which is incredibly limited) is not an RPG element it's present in lots of game and not indicative of an RPG.
Customising an outfit also not a RPG element.

So what pray tell do they have that's RPG?

[AnnRam]

That's actually a great idea about how to deal when you are not happy with something.

Also don't forget to add -> Delete your character and tell the ISP to block Square sites from your router I'm pretty sure that's gonna hurt them.

[caffe_macchiato]

Final Fantasy XIV is mass-market sloppa designed to hold up a dying company. The only complexity is the brief one-second dopamine hit you get from dodging the orange circle. It has less depth than a first-person shooter. As someone who exclusively plays FFXIV and retro games, I am fine with minimalism. Making spreadsheets on The Balance Discord is not a video game, it's a chore that you do for social standing in your clique. Real people do not find 4x Transpose BLM fun and no one wants to type a missive with every rotation. Pressing buttons in order is not gameplay. Dodging circles is gameplay, especially when many players are bad at it (including me). Video games that encourage sensory overload either flame out (see every other MMO) or only benefit a small clique of minmaxers.

[Galvuu]

Final Fantasy XIV is mass-market sloppa designed to hold up a dying company. The only complexity is the brief one-second dopamine hit you get from dodging the orange circle. It has less depth than a first-person shooter. As someone who exclusively plays FFXIV and retro games, I am fine with minimalism. Making spreadsheets on The Balance Discord is not a video game, it's a chore that you do for social standing in your clique. Real people do not find 4x Transpose BLM fun and no one wants to type a missive with every rotation. Pressing buttons in order is not gameplay. Dodging circles is gameplay, especially when many players are bad at it (including me). Video games that encourage sensory overload either flame out (see every other MMO) or only benefit a small clique of minmaxers.

I don't know why you keep posting stuff like this. Some people enjoy solving problems/coming up with a plan, and then executing it. They approach encounters like a puzzle they need to solve- part of the satisfaction is in cracking that puzzle, and the other half is in bringing that plan to fruition in combat. Many of the people who you keep deriding in your comments by "making spreadsheets for social standing" (what social standing? Playing an MMO is the quickest way to lose social credit in most circles) do it because they enjoy it. Because they like solving the puzzle, or execute a plan, or see big numbers. This kinda puzzle solving is similar to the magic of progging an Ultimate and figuring things out on your own. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Sure, a minority might do it for some twisted sense of pride or clout, but I very much doubt this is the majority.

Also, if "pressing buttons in order isn't gameplay", I guess a lot of rhythm games like Muse Dash or FnF and fighters like DBFZ aren't games then lol

[caffe_macchiato]

They approach encounters like a puzzle they need to solve

Bingo! And we agree. I support that kind of gameplay because it is simple and timeless. But that was not the criticism indicated in my post. Your job rotation should not be the main challenge. Pulling off gimmick rotations to get a higher number on a third-party tool shouldn't be the objective of FFXIV. And yet this forum is filled with threads griping (hopefully ironically) about the loss of non-standard rotations in BLM, SMN, MNK, and so on. Thus, this is a strawman.

Also, if "pressing buttons in order isn't gameplay", I guess a lot of rhythm games like Muse Dash or FnF and fighters like DBFZ aren't games then lol

Rhythm games have a much faster pace than FFXIV rotations because pushing buttons is the main challenge. They are not comparable.

Fighting games have spontaneity that does not exist in FFXIV rotations.

[Galvuu]

But that was not the criticism indicated in my post. Your job rotation should not be the main challenge. Pulling off gimmick rotations to get a higher number on a third-party tool shouldn't be the objective of FFXIV.

This is like, you know, your opinion. And there is no strawman- you simply make sweeping statements based on your subjective experience as fact while also blatantly deriding people who enjoy a different aspect of the game.
I'm stating that your assumptions regarding what people enjoy (and why) do not necessarily correspond to the truth (in fact, they probably don't).
You're stating right here that people only enjoy certain aspects of gameplay because of a parse. But this is unlikely to be true (and, as far as I'm concerned, it's not true at all, I just enjoy more reactive gameplay in general).

As for the latter comment, of course those genres have fundamental differences from XIV. But even in XIV, your rotation most definitely is gameplay. Your hyperbolic comment and apparent dismissal of it doesn't even make sense- do you think the game would be better if there were no rotation? Because apparently the rotation "isn't gameplay". Is the game better- or enjoyable to the same degree- if your rotation consistent of the same button press once a minute? Perhaps once every 3s? Evidently these scenarios are all different and require a different type of mechanical engagement from players. We can go down that line of thought to the other extreme of high apm, complicated and reactive rotations (which other mmos do better), or more reflex-based ones (like in GW).

In general, you project an image about a subset of the playerbase that finds enjoyment in a different type of gameplay experience within the confines of XIV that you do. I don't enjoy SMN because I feel it's incredibly dull, but there's nothing wrong with people that prefer a lower load on their job's kit. It'd be silly and downright impolite of me to insult them over this preference. And this game, with 20 jobs, has enough design space to accommodate all of these breadths of playstyles if the team puts in some effort and is so inclined. I'm not sure why you feel the need to make wild assumptions about people who enjoy flexible, more fluid gameplay in their rotations.

(There also might be some unintentional hilarity in your response because the "puzzle" I meant was figuring out how to maximize a job's output for a given fight, and not the figuring out of that fight's mechanics)

[Rekh]

You all arguing in circles. I'll make it easy for you, play 7.0 and quit right after you finished msq and whatever quests you like. That's gonna take less than a week or 2. After that it's best to quit until they improve the game; so you'll be voting with wallet while still purchasing the new glamours and walking around in them for a week or 2.

For me I know Guild Wars 2's gonna be my mmo by august; that game actually has plenty to do past "msq." Elden Ring's DLC is gonna get some serious work from me as well.

xiv isn't that special anymore; it used to be known as "hard working devs that cram 2-3 dungeons per patch every 3 months."
Now? It's excuse after excuse every 4 years.

PS. That lie that Shb/Ew dungeons have more quality than Realm Reborn or Heavensward dungeons is hilarious to me. ARR and HW dungeons stand up to anything they've created in endwalker. So much so that ARR rarely used "zone lines" to divide the dungeon, but that's all you see in ffxiv now, bunch of "zone lines" when they should've just let us run/sprint; like that "walk on water" part in Dohn Mheg.

[Limecat]

Think of it like Touhou. The fact that you're attacking is just window dressing, a button you hold down for the sake of holding a button down while you play the real game; dodging the pattern and holding a bomb(OGCD) in reserve.