My problem with FF 14

[Espon]

When I played other MMOs, while the holiday events lasted longer, they also repeated every year with sometimes not even having new items to obtain. Now, I'm not saying FF14's events are good. If anything, they've gone downhill since ARR launched. I remember the old events having more than just a single reward and a piece of furniture and required you to do special FATEs or minigames to earn those rewards instead of just talking to a few NPCs and watching some forgettable cutscenes.

I think a lot of the simplifying and cutting things down is due to player feedback. Unfortunately, a lot of players wanted shorter events, easy levelling, and simplified dungeons so that's what we got now. This forum only represents an extremely small part of the playerbase, and those that are unhappy are the ones most likely to voice their opinions.

[Sotaris]

I think SE/Dev team thinks "if ain't broke don't fix it". There has been little innovation the past decade, minor here and there.
But I guess this applies to most live service games.

[Valence]

Consistency (such as same markers, etc) makes it smooth for new players to get through the MSQ. After the MSQ, many of them will break until the next patch or expansion and SE knows that. Obviously, it's always going to be a minority that want to play the game hardcore / do raids and social content and stuff like that.

The reason for 2 packs of trash always is because there used to be more, but it was deeply unsettling for everyone and still is in some ARR dungeons. You can literally pull like 10? 20? packs in Amdapor Keep! They die really fast now, but they can still potentially wipe everyone if all 4 people are not good players and well-geared and that was much worse in the past before battle system changes.

As a tank there is an anxiety of how many to pull and a pressure to pull them all because most parties want that. Yet doing so carries a huge risk. So SE started enforcing a wall every 2-3 packs and it's been smooth ever since. This makes it better for the whole party and reduces anxiety, but as a cost, it's less exciting.
It has a lot of benefits, including for chain productivity. The consistency of 3 bosses mixed with 2 sets of 2 packs of trash before them makes it consistent and smooth and easy for them to plan ahead. It makes it consistent for players, who know what to expect and know how long a dungeon will take. It reduces anxiety of "how much should I pull" that ARR dungeons still create.

Aren't we moving the goalposts here? I never said anything about opening wall to walls or even less to make dungeons more hardcore. The point was that it's an unchanging formula and that I don't see anything hinting at that it helps player retention. If anything once players aren't new anymore, some will fall into the lot that's happy about it because it's predictable fast food duties with no player interaction, and the rest will become bored very quickly.

There is many ways to change the formula and introduce new and interesting things without making the game hardcore. CLL had prisoners spread randomly across rooms. 8 man raids used to have some trash, gate bosses or more environment to go through than just an arena with a boss. We used to have actually different endgame dungeons (a lot with frankly mediocre experimental mechanics don't get me wrong), and yet it was 3 of them per major patch in ARR vs the 1 every major patch today.

Creativity has gone quite bankrupt for the sake of predictability and I quote "reducing player stress". Everything since ShB has been about reducing player stress.

[Jeeqbit]

Aren't we moving the goalposts here? I never said anything about opening wall to walls or even less to make dungeons more hardcore.

Sorry, I assumed that because that's one of the main things most people cite when saying dungeons are the same. "It's just 2 packs always".

There is many ways to change the formula and introduce new and interesting things without making the game hardcore. CLL had prisoners spread randomly across rooms. 8 man raids used to have some trash, gate bosses or more environment to go through than just an arena with a boss.

I agree that would be nice but dungeons are also just meant to be a way to tell the story and a nice visual spectacle. They could have stuff like saving prisoners since arguably there is that in Sastasha, but it would need to be really easy for the MSQ-only players.

Creativity has gone quite bankrupt for the sake of predictability and I quote "reducing player stress". Everything since ShB has been about reducing player stress.

True. They have been trying to go back somewhat though, because in the expert dungeons you have the maze mechanic, the dolls that do lots of AoE, the boss with dolls running around like crazy and the last boss in that dungeon is really more interesting than what they normally do.

They haven't parted with the 3 bosses and trash formula, but it is a start with going backwards to the older design philosophy you could see with bosses in Heavensward, I just wonder if they will actually keep it up because all the next expert roulette dungeons will be required for MSQ.

I've often wondered when doing Praetorium why they don't do the mount riding thing more. My assumption has always been that they want players to fight themselves as their chosen job, not all do it the same in a mount, but it would still shake dungeons up a bit to have mounts with unique attacks sometimes.

[Drimn]

1. Holiday events are the most boring events I seen in FF14. We wait a whole year just to get a 10min quest line... really???? In other mmos you get content that last for weeks and get more than 1 reward.. FF14 is the weakest

2. Leveling has gotten extremely boring in FF14.. All you do is Read for 2 hours and get to do a dungeon that last for 15 mins and back to reading for another 2+ hours.. Zones feel bland and boring. mobs dont pull a threat..

3. Dungeons, 2 packs, 1 boss and repeat.. how is this fun? Its the same thing over and over... WoW dungeons are fun because anything can happen and getting to the boss can be challenging



Fix those issues

I'd go one step further and say the game is just getting stale at this point. What big changes have we really seen to it since Shadowbringers? The game itself has become so formulaic. I just got done playing Endwalker, and after suffering through Dawntrail's story, the game is just Endwalker with a packet of taco seasoning dumped on it. Great. I get not wanting to take risks, but after a while not changing things becomes risky in and of itself.

[lolnotacat]

I'd go one step further and say the game is just getting stale at this point. What big changes have we really seen to it since Shadowbringers? The game itself has become so formulaic. I just got done playing Endwalker, and after suffering through Dawntrail's story, the game is just Endwalker with a packet of taco seasoning dumped on it. Great. I get not wanting to take risks, but after a while not changing things becomes risky in and of itself.

I'm kinda wondering if it's a severe misallocation of funding/talent. We're pretty confident that talent is being taken away from XIV and put on other projects. But I'm wondering how much of it is funding being put into the wrong projects. Looking at DT (minus graphics update, but I'll get to that) from a purely technical/cost view, at least from an outsider's perspective who has done PM work for games, that corners were cut in a lot of places. Sure, Living Memory was pretty...for about 45 minutes and so was the lower half of Yak'tel, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who like Solution 9, but there wasn't a whole lot that really stood out. Compare that to ShB and EW where the majority of zones were interesting and creative. Even the amount of voiced cutscenes seemed to be reduced (which isn't a bad thing since it was all Wuk anyways), or the amount of cutscenes which used novel camera angles or emotes. Everything felt stock, plain, safe, and boring.

This makes me wonder if a lot of the budget for the story, cutscenes, zone design, job design, etc.... was siphoned away so it could be put into the graphics update, temporary server capacity for launch, hiring unionized American VAs, etc... and the XIV team expected to just be able to get by using the same formula they have been for years?

[Valence]

I dont know, I find DT's areas the best we've had so far in terms of mood and flavor. But maybe that's the environment artist in me talking. Plot wise... may be a different story and we're not exactly going back in time exploring the wonderland of the Ancients, although the world building was A+ for me in this expansion, probably its biggest redeeming feature.

I actually didn't find living memory pleasing at all, it was very disagreeable visually to me.

Either way, I don't think there is a budget issue on creative resources, visual, sound, music, etc. But on the side of programming and game design, I'm really, really wondering what the hell they're doing. Viera/Hrotgar hats? Glamour slots? Job design? Encounter design? And so on.

Sorry, I assumed that because that's one of the main things most people cite when saying dungeons are the same. "It's just 2 packs always".
I agree that would be nice but dungeons are also just meant to be a way to tell the story and a nice visual spectacle. They could have stuff like saving prisoners since arguably there is that in Sastasha, but it would need to be really easy for the MSQ-only players.
True. They have been trying to go back somewhat though, because in the expert dungeons you have the maze mechanic, the dolls that do lots of AoE, the boss with dolls running around like crazy and the last boss in that dungeon is really more interesting than what they normally do.

They haven't parted with the 3 bosses and trash formula, but it is a start with going backwards to the older design philosophy you could see with bosses in Heavensward, I just wonder if they will actually keep it up because all the next expert roulette dungeons will be required for MSQ.

I've often wondered when doing Praetorium why they don't do the mount riding thing more. My assumption has always been that they want players to fight themselves as their chosen job, not all do it the same in a mount, but it would still shake dungeons up a bit to have mounts with unique attacks sometimes.

It could be one pack, two packs, or even ten, what matters is their damage output and combined level of threat. Hell it could even start with a single mob and slowly fill the room with more and more until a specific objective is achieved or you die of mob snusnu (something they almost did in Alzadhal actually...). Remember the first boss of Dusk Vigil? You used to need to get rid of the adds, it was a matter of party resources and healing past a point. Now we just bruteforce through it like all old content because we have lost most of the battle system on the way... They've started adding back some adds timidly in DT leveling dungeons during bosses but they die in 2 hits. Like... come on, really?

It could be one more boss like in brayflox, or maybe one less, or maybe there is no fucking boss, as long as the rest is fresh and fun idk. Not like we don't have enough bosses in the game already... everything is turning into bosses those days, even solo instances.

[Miguel85NYC]

I'd go one step further and say the game is just getting stale at this point. What big changes have we really seen to it since Shadowbringers? The game itself has become so formulaic. I just got done playing Endwalker, and after suffering through Dawntrail's story, the game is just Endwalker with a packet of taco seasoning dumped on it. Great. I get not wanting to take risks, but after a while not changing things becomes risky in and of itself.

I completely agree, the game needs to evolve already

[KillaKilala]

I’ve invited more than 10 friends to this game, and they all quit because of the same things

[CVXIV]

Do the bosses have randomized mechanics in WoW? I'm curious what you mean by anything can happen because I've never played it before. I think it'd be fun and would have players look at the enemy cast bar more which is useful in a lot of fights without AoE telegraphs

I do like a lot of the old ARR dungeons, since quite a lot of them had unique mechanics or other things to watch out for other than the boss

The first example I can think of is Aurum Vale and the mechanic to eat fruit to get rid of debuffs. It's especially handy if anyone gets hit by bad breath during the last boss
Playing more with the environment would be fun