The reason why FFXIV is so boring and not fun to play anymore is because

[BunnyBrat]

The comment about people having anxiety didn't sit right with me. It's crazy the ableism in this community. Did someone tell you they had anxiety or is this just an assumption? Also, if a person isn't sure they can handle something then why not work with them instead of forcing them to go at your pace? Big pulls mainly affect the tank and healer so if either one of these people aren't ready, you're in for a wipe anyway. And what you'd thought would save you time, ends up costing you more time in the long run. Also people tend to at least try and if a wipe happens, they will take it slower. But it's weird that that is your gripe, as if you were never new to the game yourself.

[sindriiisgaming]

People keep complaining about the 2minute meta. But it was originally the players who wanted it. Making buffs go all wierdvand out of line isn't going to help with the combat feeling stale, but for sure what they could do is improve the 1 minute burst. I prefer gnb over rpr solely for this reason

[AnnRam]

FFXIV Absolutely has almost no end game content to keep you subbed.

I don't even care about gearing anymore if all the roulettes are synced down , going bis in to regular content don't even make a difference.

PVP doesn't even need gear, stats , builds or whatsoever, only need level 30.

Mount farming? Good luck because they are prohibited in all the cities even in DT once again, also why bother even traveling when you can spam TP.

Raiding? Definitely worth the time so you can have a shiny weapon for you to stand idle in Limsa.

[Gurgeh]

FFXIV Absolutely has almost no end game content to keep you subbed.

I don't even care about gearing anymore if all the roulettes are synced down , going bis in to regular content don't even make a difference.

PVP doesn't even need gear, stats , builds or whatsoever, only need level 30.

Mount farming? Good luck because they are prohibited in all the cities even in DT once again, also why bother even traveling when you can spam TP.

Raiding? Definitely worth the time so you can have a shiny weapon for you to stand idle in Limsa.

Agreed.
For the love of... why did you not add a a shiny ultimate weapon style weapon to Criterion normal, so draw people in.
Millions of players and you can't afford to subcontract out to some bargain Eastern European top class Graphical Artists for 16 weapons. You don't even have to go full Legendary animation. Just a bit of glow and sparkle would probably do.
It's not going to detract from relics when they come around.

In fact, I actually feel like gearing is punishment. because it just makes my casual game even more boring. I just an obliged to equip higher gear because it's what you do.

[FlopsyPrince]

Keep in mind that most of the players are the midcore crowd, so 1% players who grind their super duper raids that are 1% of content don't count!

#01 - Easy Encounters
You don't have to position the boss anymore. The boss will always move to the center of the arena. The boss will have a long, 10 second cast of a raidwide (it will never kill you). The hitbox is too big to cater to melee.

<snip>

This has been a complaint against every game I have ever played. Realize some of us don't want a second job or lots of failures while playing.

My challenge is that it takes so long to get to the end game, things are far too focused on the MSQ and it becomes a "walking simulator" with each expansion I get into.

I am in a very nice Free Company now and that is what would keep me in the game in reality.

[Shougun]

May make a post about it later for better examples (and this post may read a little harsh but its coming from a twinge of pain seeing something I've been with for so long feel like "I'm not that interested"), but the quick feeling of what is keeping me away at the moment is that the game feels shallow, and each update tends to make it shallower. When ARR was first started there was depth here and there, some depth was annoying and is probably good it was polished out, but for the time it had to cook it was fine; however, that short cooking time and each expansion afterwards leads to less and less 'depth'.

I think you might place homogenization in there, but to me it is more big picture.. I have poked it at a few angles in other posts but gameplay roleplay is one way I feel quickly describes it. FFXIV had okay gameplay roleplay and each time they update the game it almost, almost, always gets worse. Its not two steps forwards, one step back, but three steps back and maybe one step forward.

To make it a little less nebulous by examples:

- Jobs are more and more similar with less and less unique things (there are pattern differences but its like eating your ice cream with a fork or a spoon and calling it different)

- Zones are very superficial vehicles that move you to the next area, you almost never interact with anything to a unique level to that zone or thematically (like a cheesy example might be, on the moon you should have had your jump be different).

- Quest design is so consistently wrot you can taste the archetype structure

- IF interesting content is made it will be set off to the side in a way that is easy to forget / ignore (fear to make the core itself interesting)

- IF content is added there is a high chance it itself can be superficial (Island Sanctuary, why is it primarily a excel game? Why is there no mini-game to capture monsters? Why do buildings not matter? Etc).

Honestly I don't think its the amount of hardcore content, I don't think you need more. I don't think the game has to be harder, at least in most spaces (I have seen some examples that are not great- but this can be offset with time reward increasing). I don't think its really something that simply MORE CONTENT would solve either. I think its a systemic issue, not a quantity or difficulty slider issue.

If you changed one thing it wouldn't be 'fixed' because its a mindset, imo, that is the problem. The comparison I've used before that I like is they're designing a kitchen in stainless steel, where the floors, walls, tools, and everything else you can imagine is all stainless steel. FFXIV has had to a minor extent, but compounding each expansion forward, a sense of sensory deprivation.

This was normally clouded by fantastic art, music, and story, but through time, worsening of the stainless steel factory, and slippages in any of the first three, imo, the game falters.

Naturally there are perspective biases, so I am sure that changes a bit for some people, but occasionally I question the /true/ reasons listed as I will see people who kindly respond and further example themselves... and so I see "I need more hard content because X", and I think their actual problem was more like they got bored quickly of the content they did do.. or the rewards weren't interesting. Add another primal that took months to make and we got five days of play time, maybe, for that person, some of which they might not have even enjoy..... Having mutations, a increase in unpredictability, etc, could have more time to reward (dev time, to play enjoyment) ratio for that player then than just adding another primal.

There are many things I still think it does very well, the first three definitely being in that list (graphics, music, (art), story (... usually)), but I think they've lacked a sense of childish "what if I was a Dragoon guys?!? How fun would that be? You know what I would do if I was a dragoon!!?" roleplay that drives many games to do things that just feel 'right', and they lose that child more with each year, and are transitioning to operating the game itself like they did the island... its feeling like it's a business model, an excel sheet.

[Jeeqbit]

When ARR was first started there was depth here and there, some depth was annoying and is probably good it was polished out, but for the time it had to cook it was fine; however, that short cooking time and each expansion afterwards leads to less and less 'depth'.

To be completely honest, almost everything they removed was annoying jank and needed to be removed because it wasn't working or was flat out useless. I at least felt that way until Warrior and Samurai's cones got changed to circles, which is when the changes really began to go overboard.

The problem is just that they didn't replace it with things that did work, making the game feel simpler and more shallow.

[Shougun]

To be completely honest, almost everything they removed was annoying jank and needed to be removed because it wasn't working or was flat out useless. I at least felt that way until Warrior and Samurai's cones got changed to circles, which is when the changes really began to go overboard.

The problem is just that they didn't replace it with things that did work, making the game feel simpler and more shallow.

Definitely meant to infer that. For example the warrior pacification that forced warriors to either do nothing or pray on their healers to remove it, which turned into warriors just binding that skill to a macro that begged to be esuna'd on a countdown... That was kind of bleh. While this isn't always a good idea, I think many of these moments could be be examples of "think of the opposite" can sometimes be a fun way to solve a pain point.

For example, Dragoon's jumps have slowly become more and more like a regular spell, nothing interesting / special except the animation. Rather than do that, imo, they might have considered something like wind bristled scales passive which gives them an x% hp on use- in addition all, if not just most, jumps gain the ability to press the ability again to 'jump back' (able to choose to jump to a target, and leap back to casting position- optionally). Making Dragoons hyper mobile on abilities, which would be unique compared to other jobs which have different methods of mobility (or expression in general). The leap back itself could also trigger a small hp %, adding a further, minor, level of depth.

So instead of a skill that is normally making you floor tank, you might, like FF Tactics, jump to dodge damage (or in this case at least alleviate it). Honestly I might even suggest a jump that does literally dodge damage (like the PvP limit break skill dragoon has, where they leap into the air, can control where they land and can trigger the land, which, I just want to point out was a skill I had previously mentioned would be cool on dragoon... prior to it being in pvp... >.<;;... lol). I would say in general PvP does a bit of a better job representing jobs in a way I find interesting (though of course in PvE you should have a larger kit then 8 skills, if we are 'translating' PvP skills into PvE).

Taking that theory back into Warrior's pacification, rather than losing the ability to control your character.. @_@.. you might gain 'clouded rage' on enrage use, which simply holds the BUFF for that skill; however, if a healer removed clouded rage with esuna it becomes galvanized rage, which is slightly better AND will 'auto' esuna the next three debuffs. Perhaps later in Warrior's progression one of their target heal skills can be used on themselves for that benefit (or used on another at the cost of slight dps / utility to self). So now you have a bit of fun interplay, which isn't end of the world if healers didn't use and also doesn't totally feel like hot garbage as the player. Blue Mage self stun is also terrible and should absolutely be adjusted, still. Massively strong opinion on that, one I don't think anyone can convince me otherwise of. DO NOT SELF STUN in a multiplayer, single unit, controlled game. Full stop.

[Jeeqbit]

So instead of a skill that is normally making you floor tank, you might, like FF Tactics, jump to dodge damage (or in this case at least alleviate it). Honestly I might even suggest a jump that does literally dodge damage (like the PvP limit break skill dragoon has, where they leap into the air, can control where they land and can trigger the land, which, I just want to point out was a skill I had previously mentioned would be cool on dragoon... prior to it being in pvp... >.<;;... lol). I would say in general PvP does a bit of a better job representing jobs in a way I find interesting (though of course in PvE you should have a larger kit then 8 skills, if we are 'translating' PvP skills into PvE).

I always thought that Jump should just do what Hallowed Ground does. That would have solved a lot of the problem with it. Similar thing to what you're saying overall.

Now they made it not technically travel the distance and the animation super fast. I think it would have been better actually dodging it because if you play FF9, the jump ability causes missed attacks since the character literally isn't there to receive them, so it would be consistent with Final Fantasy games.

[Shougun]

I always thought that Jump should just do what Hallowed Ground does. That would have solved a lot of the problem with it. Similar thing to what you're saying overall.

Now they made it not technically travel the distance and the animation super fast. I think it would have been better actually dodging it because if you play FF9, the jump ability causes missed attacks since the character literally isn't there to receive them, so it would be consistent with Final Fantasy games.

Yeah that would have been cool, because then it would double as a feature while being 'different' and by god would a Dragoon feel different than another job if they can just 'lol nope' damage with a skilled timed ability. I can see these things becoming painful for strict balance in hyper hardcore content, but in a DF setting where you get what you get and honestly you can clear with half your party afk... so its fine in that scope. I have thoughts for the hyper strict side, but currently just talking about that 80% of the game content .