The Content Cycle needs to break.

[Unnoh]

At this point I simply believe that they just don't care.
I feel like they have taken the player gratitude, optimism and loyalty as granted and that made them lazy, to the point of putting an inexperienced writer to work on the MSQ...
Shadowbringers was THE hit and since then, they are trying to mold every single aspect of the game into blueprints so they can minimize develop time and just block build the game. (DT is literally ShB made bad)

Dungeons for example, since they made the current blueprint, every single one was and will follow it, because the producer doesn't want the player to take longer to finish it.
This movement of making the game less and less complex and more and more standard is killing it, killing class design, killing quests design and killing enjoyment..

And the "Go play another game" speech is disgusting! Why should I? I bought a game and I pay a monthly subscription to play it, it's no favor at all to make content for the playerbase, it's what is expected.

And commenting on WoW, it had 2 terrible expansions because of a leader who tried to put systems into everything, but even a it's worse, they did not stop trying new things. SE needs to leran a bit more from them...

It's absolutely not going to break or to change until leadership changes.
That's all there is to it. You can say otherwise all you want, but the problem lies with leadership.

When the leadership is completely out of ideas and has nowhere to bring the game, thinks characters like Wuk Lamat are great, and sees nothing wrong with the direction things are going, it's time to change leaders.

XIV was saved because leadership copied wow, and turned this game into something better than wow.
This time they have nothing to copy, and are just actively making the game worse.

It's time for a new head. Period.

This is sadly true... be it arrogance or compancency, Yoshi P is losing his touch for this game =[

[Jeeqbit]

Except back then, patches were shorter, so waiting time was not as awful.
Patch cadence has increased, so Square Enix needs to bring long lived content earlier.

Shorter by a month. People were saying there was nothing to do back then as well. It's always been a sentiment that has existed; it's just increased as more people completed their personal backlog of content.

In a live service game, wanting to keep people excited for whats to come, engaged for the patch duration, and interested enough to want to come back later is critical for the health of said live service game.

Is honestly true of just regular game franchises as well. If there is a poorly received sequel it can be pretty bad for the next game in the series and potentially doom the rest of the series, or set it on a course where it runs into the ground.

[genuine_stranger]

It's absolutely not going to break or to change until leadership changes.
That's all there is to it. You can say otherwise all you want, but the problem lies with leadership.

When the leadership is completely out of ideas and has nowhere to bring the game, thinks characters like Wuk Lamat are great, and sees nothing wrong with the direction things are going, it's time to change leaders.

XIV was saved because leadership copied wow, and turned this game into something better than wow.
This time they have nothing to copy, and are just actively making the game worse.

It's time for a new head. Period.

I think FFXIV is going through the same thing the entire entertainment industry, and specifically the gaming industry, is facing right now: simplifying everything and dictating what people should enjoy.

Most of the major studios don’t engage with their fanbase at eye level anymore. Instead, they sit on their high horses, sniffing each other’s farts and convincing themselves it smells like roses.

This is also why so many big-budget games struggle to turn a profit or even break even. The trust these companies once built is eroding as they focus on pandering to the lowest common denominator. "Don’t make anything offensive, don’t stress the player out, keep it cozy and safe, no complexity allowed." The list goes on.

They’re trying to sell their games to the Twitter crowd - people who, ironically, aren’t even that interested in video games beyond pushing their "message."

Bless the indie scene, though. Sure, there’s a ton of garbage, but every now and then, you find a gem that shines brighter than anything from the big studios.

Anyway, Square’s entire company ethos would need to change. Swapping out leadership would just give us new faces, but the underlying problems would stay the same.

[HyperiusUltima]

Shorter by a month. People were saying there was nothing to do back then as well. It's always been a sentiment that has existed; it's just increased as more people completed their personal backlog of content.

I mean yes, but the quality was a lot better back then than it is now. Writing quality, as well as just dungeon quality. The one thing I will note is that dungeon quality has gotten a lot better from EW, and has gone back to Stormblood levels. One of the things that I find about the backlog is that the backlog was a lot bigger in Stormblood with how much content they threw up - and some of it was time-gated(Doman Enclave). We also had more than one dungeon being added back then that was actually interesting.

Another thing to note is that there's been an increase of focus on graphics with the Dawntrail update and gaming in general - I'd like to remind people that while graphics are works of art, and I appreciate the art and design team for this, there needs to be a greater focus at a base level than trying to make everything pretty up front.

[Heavenchild]

Meanwhile repeating always the same stuff (leveling, gearing, same patch formula, and so on) got so boring that I don't care to complete stuff anymore. It's just too much of the same in semi different colors.

I mean..., it's obvious that you can't repeat the same thing so long and hold people in an exited state. There is nothing exciting anymore. And to be honest, the new chaotic is also again just a trial styled arena with boss, isn't it? I am so tiered of this.

It's always the same, with a different name. Trial, ex trial, unreal trial, raid, savage raid, ultimate, chaotic..., even alliance raid und dungeons, just arena with kill boss(+some trash mobs).

The old dungeons had some little things to do. But all is gone for the Trusts. I didn't get why there aren't 2 versions of that dungeons. One that works with Trusts and one for actual players with some interaction.

Long story short. Game became really boring. Sadly.

[Raraka]

Bless the indie scene, though. Sure, there’s a ton of garbage, but every now and then, you find a gem that shines brighter than anything from the big studios.

Speaking of, try Atlyss if you havent given it a chance yet, a single dev nailed the combat and moment to moment gameplay

When they tried to hire other people and they were pushing against his design choises, they just fired them all and continued as a solo dev

Behold, now the game is Overwhelmingly positive in steam, because they didnt let others influence their vision of a fun game

[Rinoa_353]

Yoshi-P needs to focus only on FFXIV, being pulled away for FFXVI has affected the quality of this game. SE needs to stop taking so much money out of this game for their other projects and invest that money instead into this game.

[ovIm]

Shorter by a month. People were saying there was nothing to do back then as well. It's always been a sentiment that has existed; it's just increased as more people completed their personal backlog of content.

"oh yeah it has always been like this, there is no reason to change it."
Or maybe, just maybe, it has always actually sucked and Square Enix is unable or unwilling to change it, so the criticism will come one way or the other.

[EusisLandale]

- Outdated Reward Systems(Alliance Raid, Dungeons)

One of the simplest things they could do for non leveling dungeons, they absolutely refuse to; Just add weapons, even if they're just recolors of old crap.
Getting two, maybe three, raid weapons is fairly simple, but beyond that it's just becomes an absolutely soul numbing job in and of itself. Having quick access to some fourth rate weapon that doesn't require weeks, nearly months, of grinding or massive gil sinks would do wonders to just casually trying out a job outside of what you'd usually play.

[Kisshu]

Agreed.
I'm getting my crystal ball out... It's going to be a glorified trial for 24-man, that after the first couple of weeks is going to get relegated to the deepest and darkest pits of Discord to even function for the majority of people.

The fact that they spend a long time to tell us all about how the reward structure works, like all-first timers giving a bonus and also bonuses at certain times. Or that it can technically be cleared by 12 people. They know this content will be dead, perhaps even before years end. They've tried to load it up to entice people to keep running it for the bonuses and funnel people into the bonus hours.
My own prediction is that this will end up like Orthos or Criterion, extremely low population.