Disappointed With XIV Direction

[Quuoooote]

I don't want to come off as completely doomer about it, but it seems clear to me that XIV is effectively entering its maintenance mode. People seem to be expecting some sort of signpost or announcement, maybe even an expansion with heavily reduced content to mark the beginning of a hypothetical maintenance era, but the reality is that easing the players into it like boiling frogs is better for business.

A forward-thinking development team wouldn't be going back to ARR to future-proof their game with Duty Support, so that players looking to experience the story can still progress through the game even when queues are dead. Or expending so many resources to freshen up all the old visuals for new players, with minimal benefit for existing players that are metaphorically bleeding out at endgame. Granted, I do not think these changes and additions to the game are bad in a vacuum, but it does give us insight into SE's priorities when existing, long-time players are practically begging for more content and the development time and energy goes to ten-year old, optional dungeons instead so that NPCs can run them. The development team is clearly more interested in chasing churn rates, and my tinfoil hat tells me that may also play a role in job design being so smoothed-out. It's much easier to keep the new players invested when they have zero pain points in their gameplay; the older players will just suck it up and take it. Not to mention the fact that simplified rotations make it much easier to maintain jobs/balance with minimal effort on the development team's part.

As an aside, I hope people in general are able to move past this "casual vs. hardcore" dichotomy to recognize that content is being stretched thin for everyone, and infighting over who has it better is reductive. At this point in the game's lifespan Savage tiers are nearly a full year apart. The new Ultimate is releasing five whole months after the Savage tier. Raiding content innately has more longevity than casual content and has an advantage in that sense, but the cadence of content still leaves an unacceptable amount of dead time. We need field content, we need relics (with actual grind attached), we need something that can tide over the entire general playerbase if we're all going to be stuck in the same boat waiting for months until the next patch.

[Jeeqbit]

I don't want to come off as completely doomer about it, but it seems clear to me that XIV is effectively entering its maintenance mode.

FF11 has long been in a maintenance mode where the only thing they do is bonus exp events and it's nothing like FF11. If you actually think it is then you're not looking at all the work that goes into the new content and rewards - the models, the textures, the voice acting, the dialogue, the localization, the animations, the mechanics, etc. It's fine to not be happy with the content and rewards we are getting and to want it to be different, but there not being content that "you like" is not the same as maintenance mode.

A forward-thinking development team wouldn't be going back to ARR to future-proof their game with Duty Support, so that players looking to experience the story can still progress through the game even when queues are dead.

Yes they would. Forward-thinking companies want to improve the onboarding experience, which this achieves. They explained they are doing it because their surveys say a lot of people play single-player FFs but then avoid the MMORPGs. By doing this, they can sell the single player option to them and they will probably end up socializing anyway. It's a tactic that draws in anxious people or those who don't want to be social, into the social environment, expanding the market potential. This is pretty obvious, but Yoshi-P has also mentioned it recently and how it's drawn single player FF players into the social environment.

It's worth pointing out, they did ignore a lot of this for years before even revisiting ARR. And that's because they didn't have a wide backlog of content for existing players. But given you can queue for a roulette and get any of the around 100 dungeons now, it was time to revisit the new player experience a bit.

Or expending so many resources to freshen up all the old visuals for new players

Again, to improve the onboarding experience. I manage and have managed numerous things and every single time, I constantly try to improve the onboarding experience for new users and visitors. This is basic.

It's much easier to keep the new players invested when they have zero pain points in their gameplay; the older players will just suck it up and take it. Not to mention the fact that simplified rotations make it much easier to maintain jobs/balance with minimal effort on the development team's part.

That is all an issue, I agree, and giving older players things with more depth as an option does seem like something they need to look at.

[Quuoooote]

Forward-thinking companies want to improve the onboarding experience, which this achieves. They explained they are doing it because their surveys say a lot of people play single-player FFs but then avoid the MMORPGs. By doing this, they can sell the single player option to them and they will probably end up socializing anyway. It's a tactic that draws in anxious people or those who don't want to be social, into the social environment, expanding the market potential. This is pretty obvious, but Yoshi-P has also mentioned it recently and how it's drawn single player FF players into the social environment.

Sure. I totally agree with you and think this is a great idea — in a vacuum, like I already said. But when it feels like it comes at the expense of content for more dedicated players, that's where it becomes a problem. Ideally, XIV would be receiving love on both ends of the spectrum to appease both new and veteran player demographics, but that isn't happening. If SE lacks the manpower to cover both, then I would really prefer they produce content for their core audience instead. And for the record, I really loved the new Alliance raid; I did not mean to imply otherwise with my previous post. But regardless of how good it is, and how much love and care and effort went into the animations, and voice acting, and mechanics... if we're being honest here, there's no world where Jeuno + a single dungeon can possibly satisfy the core playerbase for the next five months. For anyone disinterested/unable to participate in the new Ultimate or Chaotic content, this is quite literally all of the new dedicated battle content there is to participate in. I appreciate all of the effort that went into adjusting and improving cosmetics, the glamour dresser, etc. this patch, but I am still disappointed in the amount of tangible content we're receiving this patch along with the general direction of the game.

[Fuyuqi]

As an aside, I hope people in general are able to move past this "casual vs. hardcore" dichotomy to recognize that content is being stretched thin for everyone, and infighting over who has it better is reductive.

I completely agree with your last paragraph. As a raider it's a bit funny seeing people on the forums and on SNS talking about how the game is losing appeal to casual audiences and is choosing to appeal to the 5% of hardcore players. I think a lot of things they've added are wonderful and there are many moves towards the right direction but slow updates and drip feeding content make the game difficult to enjoy.

People knew PCT was too strong even before the tier came out, but the devs completely ignored it until it was too late, and chose not to make any meaningful balance changes before the release of FRU. If it's balanced to be a decently challenging DPS check with a PCT, it'll be torture for a party without one. If it's balanced to be a decent DPS check without a PCT, it's going to be shredded in a party with one.

On top of this, the data center travel restrictions have made raiding on NA servers awful for anyone not on Aether. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that the player numbers have died down since the release of DT, is there any reason why Aether is still locked down? Parties are nearly nonexistent on other DCs, and it seems like the only way you can get on the server is to log in at completely ungodly hours. It's great that they fixed the login issues at launch, but if they're not going to have any timely response to lower player numbers and leave this frustrating system in place when there's no more need for it, I'd rather just deal with the long queues for a couple weeks after launch rather than have to wait on the dev team to remove restrictions months after release.

Also this is old news, but weekly loot lockouts and how long it takes for a tier to be unlocked are ridiculous. Raiders who love savage WANT to raid. They want to help their friends and do the fights on repeat but can't because they'll ruin the loot drops. By the time the tier is unlocked, hardcore players are already bored because they've been doing the same fights for what, 5 months? The game actively restricts your ability to play the game to the extent that you want until it's so old that nobody even cares to do it anymore. You are actively discouraged from playing the game when you want to play it, and only allowed to play to your hearts content long after everyone's already lost interest. Tome caps are also a pain. These things have been around since the beginning of the game, but with the extended gaps between patches now, and with the lack of meaningful, active, and repeatable content, these restrictions are more frustrating than ever.