Disappointed With XIV Direction

[LilaIronman]

Perhaps you are bored of FF14 model after 14 years, take a break unsub. I unsubbed twice since 2013.

But I don't find the need to come forum and inform the player base. This is not an airport.

There are still a lot of things for me to do: collecting glams, housing, 2000 S hunt for that tiger mount. PvP mounts. Island Sanctuary.

Guy is telling us his grief and whats going wrong and you tell him "who cares, shut up" bro you are the incarnation of why this community fails

[Kaecilius]

Literally everything is copy/pasted timelines and exact mathed out 'this is the best statistical dungeon layout so EVERY dungeon is the same design'.

At this point I'm BEGGING them to take another look at the old ARR dungeon design where you actually had to do things in the dungeons, and they were not just a long hallway. I understand that this might not be possible in the standard dungeons because of Roulettes, since you are expected to beeline for the next boss, but they have variant dungeons where they could get even more experimental with the branching labyrinthine paths and do interesting puzzles.

[Daralii]

At this point I'm BEGGING them to take another look at the old ARR dungeon design where you actually had to do things in the dungeons, and they were not just a long hallway. I understand that this might not be possible in the standard dungeons because of Roulettes, since you are expected to beeline for the next boss, but they have variant dungeons where they could get even more experimental with the branching labyrinthine paths and do interesting puzzles.

They'll look at them, but only to turn them into trash -> trash -> trash -> boss hallways for trusts.

[Kohashi]

To be fair, they talk about the forums a lot. When you watch development panels and Q&As they often say "I checked the forums and saw x, y or z". There was also that time not too long ago when Yoshi-P had to stop requiring people to read them if they couldn't handle it due to an increase in rudeness. Checking the forums is not just something the GMs tell people to get them off their back, it's frequently mentioned in interviews, live letters, etc. It seems strange to us, with how forums are very dated of a concept, but it's what they genuinely feel works for them. If we think of the forums as an "issue tracker" then they are looking at most likes is my guess.

So, I think they are genuine about the forum but obviously there could be additional things like tracking issues more concisely or regular surveys.

Which forums are they exactly looking at? Internal forums? JP forums? I don't personally recall anything they implemented based on most requested things in the forums. Even if they mention it, it doesn't mean anything. Useless, empty words, the same way Yoshi-P says the same PR script each time.

If they truly looked at the forums or had a team that gathered feedback we would have been miles away. While not every suggestion can be implemented in-game, some are good. From accessibility to User Experience, to new player friendliness, to job changes and the list goes on.

Someone who can organise a basic AI to read general answers to “on a scale of 1-10” questions and send out targeted surveys at an amount that is feasible for the company

Why don't you apply to S.E and program that basic A.I tool that can do all of those things, not to mention process the collected data to transform it into something meaningful for them.

People who can program specific solutions for companies are not cheap. Plus it requires scheduled maintenance, continuous development, and deployment.

As for "it's touted as the ultimate social MMO, yet to me, it feels more anti-social than ever. " The community is what players make it to be. it's not SE's job to hold anyone's hand or teach players how to socialize.

I've been in countless FCs with a lot of players online who never utter a word. A great deal of players are very socially awkward, shy, very passive, waiting to be handheld and directed.

[FudoMyoo]

Guy is telling us his grief and whats going wrong and you tell him "who cares, shut up" bro you are the incarnation of why this community fails

Nope, you are twisting my words, this forum fails when active players choose not to post here but most are residing in Reddit. I replied I dont need to inform the player base, I did not ask him to shut up and if I dont care, i wouldnt have post.

[Ath192]

Nope, you are twisting my words, this forum fails when active players choose not to post here but most are residing in Reddit. I replied I dont need to inform the player base, I did not ask him to shut up and if I dont care, i wouldnt have post.

Active players are posting here and you are being dismissive of their feedback saying they don't need to inform the playerbase. They are not even informing the playerbase, they are informing the developers why this happening. But nah, here you are being dismissive and completely obstructing a valuable exchange of information.

Normally a business owner wants to know the reason he is losing business, so they benefit by reading this, and the leaving customer wants to feel heard in the hope they can come back if things change, so they benefit. But here you are, poisoning the well for everyone by telling them their information isn't necessary. I wish people like you had some introspection and realize you are the problem... But that's too much to ask.

[Jeeqbit]

it feels more anti-social than ever

I agree that finding social interaction in FFXIV is hard at first. It was for me when I started. But once you find the social spaces you realize it's massive.

• RP FCs, linkshells and CWLS. There are places listing RP events too.
• Venues (I separate these from RP, despite being connected, because some people enjoy these without necessarily being RPers).
• FCs that run events like map parties and extreme farms (but as you said these are a needle in a haystack). Like in any MMORPG, if everyone you see on the server is in that FC almost, it's probably the FC to be in for noise and activity. Often a good way to get an Eternal Bonding invite which are also community events.
• Hunt spawning and conducting communities are often small, close-knit and social on all worlds.
• Joining map parties in PF tends to be pretty social, since maps themselves are boring so you spend time just talking.
• Joining unsync farms is similarly social if the content is braindead to farm at that point, because all you have left is to talk while taking 2% damage.
• Really even content that requires focus in PF like Blue Mage clears or high-end raids can be social, depending on the party, because of talking while waiting for people to join, sometimes getting into discord and laughing together.
• Despite people's disdain for FATEs, completing Shared FATE ranks in PF is often social as well - being easy to fight them lends itself to just chatting with eachother between FATEs.
• Any large-scale content can feel social if people are chatting - Frontline, Field Operation shout chats, Alliance Raid chats, hunt train and S rank shout chats, occasionally city state shouts.
• To help people find social circles, SE created Fellowships. Despite the memes, people often advertise CWLS or discords for likeminded people in there - such as people who speak the same language, people from a certain region, people who want to do specific content (deep dungeons, MINE content, raids, etc), to advertise RP groups and events. Just got to scroll past the memes in there.
• A bit niche, but there is social interaction in Novice Networks too for those in there.
• Outside of the game, discord is massive for FFXIV. I'd say the easiest ways to find small FFXIV discord servers is to PUG raids or other content and you end up in small friend servers over time. Same if you join FCs - you end up in FC discord servers that way. But there are also hundreds of large FFXIV discord servers with social channels you can hang in.
• Another social area outside of the game is youtube and twitch. Lots of small and medium youtubers and twitch streamers grow from nothing if you look at the FFXIV categories or your homepage to see recommendations, and they create discords that grow over time and, often, people make friends in those. The FFXIV community team also stream sometimes or do PvP events.
• Though I don't use it myself, social media is also rather big outside of the game for FFXIV - reddit, ex-twitter, blogs, because people like to post their screenshots, art and crafts. The game is full of creative types so art and crafts are absolutely everywhere and etsy is full of people's FFXIV-inspired creations. Though it's not personally my thing it seems a very social space to me overall.

Party Finder is overrun with what can only be described as businesses masquerading as community activities

Only if you look at the Other category. I ignore that part of PF so I don't notice it.

Social platforms like Twitter/X and Reddit don't help either. Instead of fostering discussion, they're dominated by echo chambers where you're either fully aligned with the hive mind or silenced for fear of stepping out of line.

I suppose that can feel the case there, but fortunately it's not your only option.

Statics fall apart when content is cleared, leaving behind a trail of burned bridges.

I'm not gonna disagree that statics often fall apart. It's part of human social interaction, unfortunately. Even in real life you can burn bridges with people you worked with, get fired or fall out with friends and this is far more common when you do something that "relies on eachother" such as forming a band (I was in a few and fell out with all of them, despite being friends with them for years prior). It tests to the limit if you're really, emotionally, on the same page.

But when you find a team that doesn't fall out, it's great. Alternatively, it can be great in the time before it falls apart. If you all had a blast for a year, or a few years, before it went south, then at least you had a few years of joy?

story, once the game's crown jewel, is starting to falter

To me personally, it feels like what we've always got, it's just not my thing... this whole cyberpunk thing isn't really hitting for me. I do hope it'll move a bit back from the technology to traditional fantasy. The whole thing was great until Heritage Found where the technology just overdid it for me.

Jobs? They're being gutted and oversimplified, stripping away the depth and complexity that once made them engaging to master. This isn't just a gameplay issue; it's an identity crisis.

I don't particularly disagree with their identity crisis and uniqueness issue. My hope is they'll address this in 8.0 as promised with the ideas they mentioned such as skill trees.

Take Extreme Primal mounts, for example: why should I bother grinding them now when I know that by 8.0, the drop rates will increase, unsync will make it trivial, and patience will reward me more than effort ever could?

You're right and many people choose to wait and unsync, but here is why I do it when it's current: for the experience and the memories. Once the content is old, the mechanics have no punch and it's not the same. I want to be able to say to sprouts "in my day, it was like X" and after 10 years, I can and do exactly that.

[iVolke]

But I don't find the need to come forum and inform the player base. This is not an airport.

There are still a lot of things for me to do: collecting glams, housing, 2000 S hunt for that tiger mount. PvP mounts. Island Sanctuary.

No, but this is a forum meant for discussing the game and providing feedback. What a pompous reply.

Then you give really lame examples for content. 2000 S ranks, Island sanctuary, housing. A ridiculous achievement that you can't even grind for whenever you want, an area where all you do is run around and press X/left click on things with no meaningful interaction, and a system that we've already been utilizing for over a decade.

You're basically just saying "stfu dissenter" in a roundabout way.

[Jeeqbit]

Which forums are they exactly looking at? Internal forums? JP forums? I don't personally recall anything they implemented based on most requested things in the forums. Even if they mention it, it doesn't mean anything. Useless, empty words, the same way Yoshi-P says the same PR script each time.

They did mention they would listen more on the lodestone before the expansion and then in the raft of subsequent interviews from the media tour, they suddenly acknowledged lots of things that had been discussed on these forums for years (and I actually read/watched the hundred or so interviews that happened).

Also:

• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...04#post6622904
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...81#post6621981
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...97#post6382897
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...00#post5777900
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...98#post5450398
• https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...66#post6198766

You will notice a trend with these. They are posts that got lots of attention and replies. But it nevertheless shows they got read. They also had developers pouring through all the posts related to character appearance before releasing the improved version of the benchmark.

[Ephremjlm]

I feel a similar sentiment that most others do in this thread and idk I don't plan on renewing my sub until 7.2 after it runs out (idk maybe ill stick around for starlight). But truthfully, I think right now they are biding time. For what? The exploratory zones. Here's to hoping they nail it and don't crap something out to "appease" the crowd (us) who complained last time.

And I feel like it shouldn't need to be said but idk how people still crap on older MMO's when they solved these issues. The short of it is that they were paced the way they were because 1. yeah they wanted that sub money, but 2. because they knew constant development for live service was an issue. If you don't want your players getting bored then they NEED things to do that THEY like. It blows my consumer and business mind that this game feels like it PUNISHES paying customers who WANT to continue paying for their service, and even worse telling them to unsub. It's dumb. Let the players decide what they want to do, you aren't their mom.

And furthermore this specific issue is compounded by the fact that FFXIV isn't catered to MMO audiences, but general gaming audiences. It's not a bad thing per say, but as a long time MMO enjoyer, sorry I played FFXI, OSRS, Diablo, etc. and "galm" isn't my end game, nor do I care about island sanctuary, the gold saucer, the insane amount of random story fetch quests, and honestly i'm about over one off instanced raiding where most of the time we AFK in a hub city like a mobile game. Not to say having variety is bad, but the other stuff wasn't made for me. And the same can probably said from someone who came from Habbo Hotel who loves the housing and glam system but plays battle content ultra casually. Neither of these are bad but now SE has dug themselves into a hole where they need to produce enough NEW content for EVERY kind of player, or they will be frustrated, and likely leave because they feel like their needs aren't being met (because they aren't).

We'll see what happens but SE, this team, and Yoshi P specifically really need to start taking these things more seriously. FFXIV is NOT World of Warcraft, and it is NOT OSRS, and there are plenty of new MMO's on the horizon that will likely make this game look outdated, and if SE isn't prepared their money well will run dangerously low, or worse dry.