What happened to the community

[Hallarem]

Case and point, the only thing we HAVE is what we can see at the moment and what we experience at the moment. Because the devs don't believe in direct communication about issues, or showing their plans, or telling us how they work. A CLEAR roadmap.
I don't honestly care what their culture is, their product is international and should abide by international standards of companies and critiques, unless they want to just rely on their japanese players. The whole "ooooh, there's no datamining and everything is a surprise" was charming at the start, but when this ship hit rock, I don't want to hear "Please look forward to more announcements in the future" instead of them talking to us CLEARLY on what they are planning and what their roadmap for 8.0 and forward is going to be.

It can't be THAT HARD to tell the Hrotgar and Viera players that "Your hats will be done by this and that time.. or this issue is too hard for us, and we cant promise hats for the unforeseen future" BUT THEY ARE AFRAID, much like how they are afraid of dissapointing even one single person by making this game even slightly harder, slightly more complex, slightly more nuanced. Its seen in quest design, dungeon design, leveling design, gearing design, and finally now STORY DESIGN.
So they stay SILENT. It's cowardly behavior, their design is stagnated, un-innovative and SCARED.



They are more interested in selling us camping tents and keyrings and other games in their liveletters.

[Shougun]

Case and point, the only thing we HAVE is what we can see at the moment and what we experience at the moment. Because the devs don't believe in direct communication about issues, or showing their plans, or telling us how they work. A CLEAR roadmap.
I don't honestly care what their culture is, their product is international and should abide by international standards of companies and critiques, unless they want to just rely on their japanese players. The whole "ooooh, there's no datamining and everything is a surprise" was charming at the start, but when this ship hit rock, I don't want to hear "Please look forward to more announcements in the future" instead of them talking to us CLEARLY on what they are planning and what their roadmap for 8.0 and forward is going to be.

It can't be THAT HARD to tell the Hrotgar and Viera players that "Your hats will be done by this and that time.. or this issue is too hard for us, and we cant promise hats for the unforeseen future" BUT THEY ARE AFRAID, much like how they are afraid of dissapointing even one single person by making this game even slightly harder, slightly more complex, slightly more nuanced. Its seen in quest design, dungeon design, leveling design, gearing design, and finally now STORY DESIGN.
So they stay SILENT. It's cowardly behavior, their design is stagnated, un-innovative and SCARED.

They are more interested in selling us camping tents and keyrings and other games in their liveletters.

For quite a while I was not interested in trying other MMOs outside of thinking what SE might be able to learn (which, I feel like.. unfortunately.. they hardly do), though I was never a WoW hater, yet.. giving WoW an honest try due to my feelings of issues here, and I have to say like .. I feel far more informed (and active feedback incorporated). I assume from what I've heard that this was not always the case, so I am not trying to describe a past I wasn't experiencing.

I know from the past that people have some very negative feelings about the devs (inside and outside of the game lol), but speaking specifically recently-- like there is a roadmap, there is PTR*, and quite a few obvious examples where they adjusted course fairly quickly (like in a month, on PTR) due to feedback (like MM Hunter getting their pet back if someone really wanted it).

*There are some potential issues with PTR, like from what I heard in the past with WoW was they had PTR for data testing but would absolutely ignore feedback lol. There other one is story is leaking ahead of playability, like I have an idea of what is going on in the story upcoming and it hasn't even come out yet hahaha. The huge pro however, is like... I know what's coming in the near future and so I can get that "news fix" relatively easily. Just check out what's happening in PTR, now I know whats coming up soon.

I also think its more interesting to follow WoW's news at the moment cause the features are fairly interesting. Like the DRIVE (new ground mount system, probably, imo). Hearing what is upcoming in FFXIV is an exercise in how you can rearrange the same pieces in different orders. To be fair I've heard the same about WoW lol, but at least 'presently' they seem to be more lively. I still wish FFXIV 'the best', capturing everyone and doing very well, but I find it more interesting at the moment to follow WoW cause I feel FFXIV news is going to be rare statements that don't line up with actuality and what is done is exactly the content you expected them to*. Sometimes after reading WoW news I go try to find FFXIV news and I'd say 3/4 the time I can't find anything new because it was just someone rehashing the last live letter (or if I'm 'lucky' I get to hope someone accurately translated something so I don't get hopeful for a mistaken translation).

*I don't want to say they never try new things but I think the issue with how they release new stuff (Islands, variants, etc), is that they're so conservative that it still feels too similar. Like in the Islands, outside of a menu diving graph it is a visual experience. I compare it to WoW garrison and I think.. "oh...".. very weird choices for gameplay feels..

On Hroth, as someone who really doesn't care to wear a hat, I still think its weird that they just haven't internally mandated that MSQ / Seasonal / Cashshop items at minimum MUST work out of the gate. Or like.. outsource that stuff. Personally I think most hats will look like hot garbage on the animal face, like Worgan does lol- I would be happier if they focused on seasonal, msq, cashshop and just tried to make them look "good" even if they're different sometimes (like a male female armor difference sometimes happens).

[DiaDeem]

[CuteBucket]

I don't know if people are actively any more toxic than they used to be, I can't really attest to that. I've had the occasional people being rude to me for the five years I've been playing, PF has always been annoying to deal with, etc. But I do agree that the community feels different now.

I can only speak for my personal circles of course, but Dawntrail soured our view of the game a lot. We were getting kind of tired and bored by late Endwalker, but we hanging on for new stuff coming next. Because while we all play new content and do raiding and stuff, we all came to the game initially for the story.

So when the story is so bad that none of us even want to talk about it anymore because there's nothing more to say, it really kills the vibes. We spend raid nights talking about just about anything besides FFXIV, when in previous years, our talk would be full of discussions about characters, lore, speculation, fandom in-jokes, details about our own WoLs and their personal stories, all that great nerdy stuff.

There's just...a feeling in the proverbial air when a majority of people don't want to be somewhere, but are forced to be (or at least feel forced to be) there. Like the feeling of being back in school and attending a "fun" school assembly. Like, okay, we got to skip class, which is cool I guess, to go listen to some guest speaker who's trying to keep us entertained, but they're really not doing a good job, and if you asked any of the kids if they actually wanted to be here watching this right now rather than somewhere else, at least 80% would say no.

Sorry if that's a weird analogy, maybe I'm just projecting, idk, but that's the kind of energy logging into FFXIV gives me right now. This kind of resigned "Yeah I guess I have to be here today, but at least this is fun...right?" energy. I feel like no one around me is having a truly terrible time, but neither is anyone having a good time, either. We're all just kind of...here. Like school. Like a job. Trying to make the best of it. Keep up the routine because it feels like the right thing to do. I try to always be a kind person to strangers in the game, but I'm also not surprised when that dull environment wears away at me and others and we lose our patience faster, get a little snippy easier, say something snide, etc.

Our environment plays a lot more of a role in our mood and choices than I think a lot of people want to admit, and right now, FFXIV is just not feeling like a good environment, and people are getting tired and acting out. In some ways, it's only natural. I hope, one day, it will feel more like it used to a couple years ago. I really love this game and want to see it turn itself around. I don't want it to feel like a chore. But as long as the game is actively annoying and upsetting a good deal of players, the vibes are gonna be kind of rancid around here.