Disappointed With XIV Direction

[Rueby]

I resonate with this as someone who has done everything there is to do in the game and watched my friend circle dwindle away. I log in and I alt tab and watch youtube until my queue pops, rush the dungeon and go out to do it again.

PVP isn't enjoyable because it's just a treadmill for Series Level, 3 years now and they didn't add anything worthwhile to spend trophy crystals on. It's just a FOMO series, they could've added the old series stuff for people to buy, at least there'd be something for the new people to do (and I say this as someone who had done every single series on multiple chars since the first...)

There's nothing...open world is dead...
Dungeons are linear tubes (and in DT now eyestrain is added to the mix)
My DC's PF is dead and I've stopped doing extremes/unreal because of it

Mix it with subpar MSQ, weird graphical changes and design choices...and honestly DT is the worst expansion for me for eyestrain alone.

I keep hoping they won't ruin it further but they keep inventing ways to make things worse and doing changes no one asked for or want.

Before DT I was enjoying Eureka alot...I hated bozja on the other hand due to the lack of community feel and I was trapped on my own in a zone with no one to help me...

[Luluya]

As for PvP when you consider that Astragalos and Borderland Ruins have been 'temporarily' disabled for years, we have lost more PvP content than we've gained.

Even the 7.1 patch did nothing to remedy this, not to mention we don't have any new rewards to purchase with trophy crystals and wolf marks.

[Jeeqbit]

Everything seemed fine until Endwalker, but then a big shift happened.
Yoshi P. and almost the whole Team only had Final Fantasy 16 in mind and spent most of their time working on it.
Final Fantasy 14 fell by the wayside.

There's just one problem with all that. They started working on FF16 during Heavensward patches. So they have been working on it the whole time and moving staff over; you just didn't notice. I will also point out that FF16 is done with (and has been for ages beside minor stuff like porting it and small addons), yet the content cycle has not changed much. The actual truth is it has nothing to do with FF16. It's just their decision-making.

The time between patches got longer, the Content got less and less, the MSQ got worse and worse.

The first point is objectively true. The second point is objectively untrue. The third point is ultimately an opinion but seems to be shared by many.

We're now at 7.1, where there are a total of 7 Quests in the MSQ, 1 Dungeon, 1 bit of a new Raid with 4 Quests.

Exactly the same as 6.1, 5.1 and 4.1.

This Raid, is like the Raid before just a Fan service.

Ivalice was fan service. Nier was fan service. The Twelve is sort of fan service, but arguably just clarifying lore like the ARR and HW alliance raids. FF11 is fan service. They make them fan service quite a lot overall.

Most players and even I can't understand where this came from, because there was absolutely no backstory and both Raid's don't fit into this world at all.

Just like Omega and Nier. They're explaining it by saying it's from the other shards. We're on the brink of visiting other shards often (13th, 1st, 9th), so it sort of makes sense to do it now.

I suspect their reason for doing it now is because the people who remember FF11 will likely be retiring at some point and they have to do it now or never is my guess. Doing this also means they upgrade a lot of assets from FF11 which (maybe?) could be ported to FF11 to give it a bit of an upgrade, giving the work a dual purpose. That remains to be seen, but it could be their logic.

a Chaos Raid with 1 Layout, 1 Boss and we've already had this boss twice before.
Then there's 1 Trial with a Boss that we've only had a short time before. Not to mention Byakko, who isn't new either. Oh yes, and because it's so nice to bring back everything old, Ryne and Gaia can't be missed.

It's fine that you don't like their formula, but this has always been their formula and isn't a "recent" Endwalker change like you are painting it as. Of the things you listed there, we didn't used to have a Chaos Raid or Unreal. If you go back to Heavensward we didn't even have Ultimate.

This super modern doesn't fit into any of the Areas in our World. We only have one tiny Area where some of this Modern Glamour fits and that is Solution 9.

I agree this whole theme isn't really hitting for me personally. They tried something and it just didn't land too well in a fantasy game.

As for PvP when you consider that Astragalos and Borderland Ruins have been 'temporarily' disabled for years, we have lost more PvP content than we've gained.

The entirety of Rival Wings didn't used to exist and Onsal Hakair didn't used to exist, so we still have a net gain. I think they are just building on Crystalline Conflict at the moment. We have been getting regular new maps for Crystalline Conflict since Endwalker release. Maybe at some point they will shift that focus to the other gameplay modes.

[Rehayem]

The entirety of Rival Wings didn't used to exist and Onsal Hakair didn't used to exist, so we still have a net gain. I think they are just building on Crystalline Conflict at the moment. We have been getting regular new maps for Crystalline Conflict since Endwalker release. Maybe at some point they will shift that focus to the other gameplay modes.

Unfortunately, their "attempt" at fixing PvP has made it currently worse due to animation lock and delays. It's as high as 2 seconds on some skills and CC happens at the end of said animation (i.e: Gravity 2 on AST). Sometimes some things shouldn't be fixed if they aren't broken. They wanted to fix WAR's Primal Rend stun happening before the animation finished, but in return they made everything else laggy, delayed and less snappy. PvP this patch got no new goodies except Series 7 nor a way to spend Trophies on anything.

[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.

[FudoMyoo]

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.

I know of some one with 2 characters with the tiger mount. He did 4000 S rank. You can't do it doesnt mean other players can't.

If I wanted to use STFU, I will give it in your face. Stop spamming the forum how you dislike this expansion, just quit and let the money talk to SE.

Give this forum back to the fans that are still playing.

[Supersnow845]

I know of some one with 2 characters with the tiger mount. He did 4000 S rank. You can't do it doesnt mean other players can't.

If I wanted to use STFU, I will give it in your face. Stop spamming the forum how you dislike this expansion, just quit and let the money talk to SE.

Give this forum back to the fans that are still playing.

If you want the forums to be a happy go lucky circlejerk maybe petition square enix to stop sending people into this void of dead feedback for literally any problem with the game that isn’t RMT via their own in game systems