The slow decline of FFXIV, a summary.

[Lium]

Eh, I made it through the first five minutes of the video because I found her voice and style annoying.

I can only speak for myself when I say that my playtime in this game has decreased dramatically because I felt like the story ended with Endwalker. And even though I was right here on the day DT launched, and will continue to play it, I don't login nearly as much as I used to. I'm playing other stuff these days.

I will say that YouTubers are always going to have clickbait titles and takes because that's what gets clicks and views. I will also say that the forums of any MMO are the worst. Doesn't matter the game, the forums will always say it's in the worst state it has ever been in.

At the opposite end is Reddit, where the game can do no wrong, no matter what. That's just as bad in my opinion. The truth is somewhere in between.

I don't care as much about gameplay as many of you. I primarily play for the story and THAT'S MY CURRENT PROBLEM WITH THE GAME. I feel like my journey is over and from what I've seen in Dawntrail, the story hasn't really grabbed me yet. It has some interesting concepts, but nothing has made me feel like I need to jump in and figure out what's going on. I'm not all that invested.

One word of warning, though, for those of you who have been saying the game is too easy. Every time a developer has tried to make their game more challenging, at least in my experience, it has failed. Badly. What Lucy Pyre said in her video about SE dumbing down the game for money is 100% correct. If they suddenly make this game way more challenging you'll see what's left of the population here crater spectacularly.

Think about it. FFXIV has largely been marketed for its story, and up through Endwalker, it had great writing, memorable characters and a lot of depth. It's all about understanding your target audience. And for years, that audience has been here primarily for the story. Not raiding or PvP. Those things were there, but it was never the main focus of this game. It was a niche game for many years.

If they suddenly start making MSQ dungeons and trials very challenging, people will simply stop playing them and stop playing the game as well.

The only ones left playing will be those of you on this forum who will sound a lot like that guy from the Dead Ends dungeon who nuked all his enemies and cheered, but there was no one left to hear him.

[Mawlzy]

One word of warning, though, for those of you who have been saying the game is too easy. Every time a developer has tried to make their game more challenging, at least in my experience, it has failed. Badly. What Lucy Pyre said in her video about SE dumbing down the game for money is 100% correct. If they suddenly make this game way more challenging you'll see what's left of the population here crater spectacularly.

Think about it. FFXIV has largely been marketed for its story, and up through Endwalker, it had great writing, memorable characters and a lot of depth. It's all about understanding your target audience. And for years, that audience has been here primarily for the story. Not raiding or PvP. Those things were there, but it was never the main focus of this game. It was a niche game for many years.

If they suddenly start making MSQ dungeons and trials very challenging, people will simply stop playing them and stop playing the game as well.

The only ones left playing will be those of you on this forum who will sound a lot like that guy from the Dead Ends dungeon who nuked all his enemies and cheered, but there was no one left to hear him.

A critical point that is understood by the majority of the player base and a minority on these boards.

This puzzles me because, outside of the MSQ, there is plenty of challenging content.

[Gurgeh]

A critical point that is understood by the majority of the player base and a minority on these boards.

This puzzles me because, outside of the MSQ, there is plenty of challenging content.

But we disagree that that would happen.
They need to gently increase the difficulty in a way that educates people.

Don't make casual content much more difficult. Just a little.

Where normals and trials are in DT right now is 'perfect*. *Just knock 5 item levels of the sync cap to keep it interesting as people Op.*
DT Dungeon bosses are perfect. *Again, knock 5 item levels of the sync cap*. The stuff in-between bosses is awful in it's lack of suprise. Create something interesting and fun SQX. I never want to see a 2 mob 2 wall run again.

ShB Ex1 Dancing plague is THE missing content! 4 experienced people can help 4 people blind prog it *MINE*, in 1 hour. It can be done. That's what's missing.
We need 12 if 'those' per expansion. They need to have three mount rewards among them that you don't have to sweat more that 10-15 clears if each instance for.

The normals need to have 'exactly' the same reward structure as savage. There needs to be a really good mount al fit the 4th of every one. Frankly it should be a recolour of the savage mount. By all means make people clear 1,2,3 per week. By all means keep the drop rate the same.

Jobs need to be more interesting. Challenging to play properly. Doesn't mean it should matter if people don't for their MSQ. What that does to ultimate, casual doesn't give a F as long as there are 8 jobs which can clear ultimate. If you want to Meta it, go ahead.

[AvoSturmfaust]

But we disagree that that would happen.
They need to gently increase the difficulty in a way that educates people.

Don't make casual content much more difficult. Just a little.

Where normals and trials are in DT right now is 'perfect*. *Just knock 5 item levels of the sync cap to keep it interesting as people Op.*
DT Dungeon bosses are perfect. *Again, knock 5 item levels of the sync cap*. The stuff in-between bosses is awful in it's lack of suprise. Create something interesting and fun SQX. I never want to see a 2 mob 2 wall run again.

ShB Ex1 Dancing plague is THE missing content! 4 experienced people can help 4 people blind prog it *MINE*, in 1 hour. It can be done. That's what's missing.
We need 12 if 'those' per expansion. They need to have three mount rewards among them that you don't have to sweat more that 10-15 clears if each instance for.

The normals need to have 'exactly' the same reward structure as savage. There needs to be a really good mount al fit the 4th of every one. Frankly it should be a recolour of the savage mount. By all means make people clear 1,2,3 per week. By all means keep the drop rate the same.

Jobs need to be more interesting. Challenging to play properly. Doesn't mean it should matter if people don't for their MSQ. What that does to ultimate, casual doesn't give a F as long as there are 8 jobs which can clear ultimate. If you want to Meta it, go ahead.

No and No and even more No

Dancing Plaque was one of the easiest Ex Trials ever, seriously we dont need more of them clearly not and the current ex trials are really easy and i think for a "EX Trial" the Difficulty is more then perfect

Mount in Normal Raids? Rather not, if you want the Mount just do savage, if you cant do it, your own fault

Classes should be challenging yes but thats something which will never happen, lets be real for a second you could play your whole Rotation with 1 Button and i guarantee there are some people which still would be to sorry to say it so hard dumb to press the one button, before you can make the classes more challenging you need to get rid of these people

[Arohk]

Classes should be challenging yes but thats something which will never happen, lets be real for a second you could play your whole Rotation with 1 Button and i guarantee there are some people which still would be to sorry to say it so hard dumb to press the one button, before you can make the classes more challenging you need to get rid of these people

I just recently had a white mage in a lvl 50 dungeon who only spammed Cure III, when i told her that is not good and why she would only use that spell. she replied "It is my highest level healing i got, i am toxic for criticizing her"

[Gurgeh]

No and No and even more No
...

Hey?... Is that Yoshi-P come to spend more time in the forums now you've got more time on your hands? Ahh! I got you! You bin sussed Yoshi!

...Dancing Plaque was one of the easiest Ex Trials ever, seriously we dont need more of them clearly not and the current ex trials are really easy and i think for a "EX Trial" the Difficulty is more then perfect...

First of all, if you do content higher than extreme, ie savage, then you just don't get a say in anything below it. Extreme isn't even necessary to unlock savage.

Also you misunderstand.
- I want 12 of the current extreme difficulty. (not 7)
- And I want a further 12 instances per expansion of Dancing plague level difficulty.
- I expect at least 3 mounts per difficulty tier. MUST NOT BE RECLOURS OF EACH OTHER. I expect that without having to clear the same instance more than once every week, and on that basis to be guaranteed a mount within that patch period.
- Square Enix, as far as I'm concerned if you expect to put 'my' money in your pocket, I will then be 'ENTITLED' to the above. (what the rest of you do with your money is up to you)

...Classes should be challenging yes but thats something which will never happen, lets be real for a second you could play your whole Rotation with 1 Button and i guarantee there are some people which still would be to sorry to say it so hard dumb to press the one button, before you can make the classes more challenging you need to get rid of these people...

That really is Yoshi isn't it? Well your plan is working. You're getting rid of plenty of people!
I don't think I explained very well. For absolute normal content, then if the jobs get harder and dungeon boss difficulty stay where it is, they will still clear by not even bothering with 1,2,3. Casuals aren't the problem with job design. Its hardcore, who refuse to use a job if it makes harcore anything less than as easy as it possibly can be. Casuals don't even know they are playing badly. And will play the job anyway to level it, and go back to their favourite 1 DPS, or their favourite healer for those insta queues. 'facts'.

Well carry on though Yoshi (I mean "AvoSturmfaust!" ;-> ) everything is fine! Change nothing! You're certainly getting rid of those players.

Hey seriously Avo.I know your bating me. I also know you genuinely don't care. And if XIV dies, you'll move onto some other sweat challenge. It makes no difference to you. What's more you will get to enjoy being toxic in game too, which is what really completes the experience for you.

[AvoSturmfaust]

snip

First of all you should finally start to stop with splitting between "Hardcore and Casuals" i know many really many many Casuals who even raid are they now hardcore?

And no casuals are the issues for the easy job design and im not talking about the standard casual which even does extreme trials or huh even savage? IMAGINE WHICH BLASPHEMY CASUALS DOING SAVAGE HOW DARE THEY ARE, im talking about the hardcore casuals which are to dumb to even press 2 buttons in a raw and refuse to do content where you have to follow a set mechanics, people which even called dungeons like alexandria TOO HARD, so even with dungeons staying the way it is and improving the class difficultiy these kind of player couldnt even press 1-2-3 without a 10s delay between each skill, so pls even when i would love to see more challenging classes, with that kind of playerbase here its not possible

Hey you wanna know something funny? I even do Ultimates with my Main and still say "NO" to easy Extremes like the Dancing Plaque

[Valence]

First of all you should finally start to stop with splitting between "Hardcore and Casuals" i know many really many many Casuals who even raid are they now hardcore?

And no casuals are the issues for the easy job design and im not talking about the standard casual which even does extreme trials or huh even savage? IMAGINE WHICH BLASPHEMY CASUALS DOING SAVAGE HOW DARE THEY ARE, im talking about the hardcore casuals which are to dumb to even press 2 buttons in a raw and refuse to do content where you have to follow a set mechanics, people which even called dungeons like alexandria TOO HARD, so even with dungeons staying the way it is and improving the class difficultiy these kind of player couldnt even press 1-2-3 without a 10s delay between each skill, so pls even when i would love to see more challenging classes, with that kind of playerbase here its not possible

Hey you wanna know something funny? I even do Ultimates with my Main and still say "NO" to easy Extremes like the Dancing Plaque

Oh we have a badass over here.
I've never seen a casual complain about the complexity of a job. I've seen them complain plenty about the difficulty of encounters though.
I think this should tell us something there.

Especially since casuals coasted by just fine when jobs were a lot harder to play at a decent level. I still remember ice mages and the likes. They cleared content just fine. They didn't complain about anything. The team sure complained about them but it's not exactly something that's disappeared today (cf your post).

I mostly agree about introducing more failure and raising the skill ceiling of the game overall, but I wanna point out that casuals didn't "went by just fine" during HW. HW was the period where, to my experience, the playerbase was at its most toxic because of the job design. Job design was convoluted, complex and satisfying to optimize maybe, but also unintuitive for most jobs, and a time where balance was at its most out of wack. It made it so casual players were scorned by midcore/regular players and some hardcore players for not mastering what they thought should be the baseline of job usage. It's one of the many reasons for the simplification that started in Stormblood (notably the cross-class skills system, remember that casuals were supposed to "know" they had to level up Thaumaturge for Swiftcast or Lancer for Invigorate).

And yes the game didn't exactly crater, but it was also maybe it's most dire moment since 1.0 too at the beginning of the expansion. Gordias remains the most ill-received raid tier in the game's history and almost killed its raiding scene, Diadem which was supposed to be the expansion's major feature failed catastrophically 3 times in a row. The game took a better turn in 3.2 but raiding remained unappealing not only because of the sheer difficulty of Midas, but also how gatekeepy the difficulty of both job design and encounter design made this side of the game (both in terms of investment required and community behavior towards "less skilled" players). Even the first release of Deep Dungeon 1-50 was poorly received. That's why we got the new raid design we still have now starting from 3.4.

So yes, I do agree about introducing more failure and raising the skill ceiling. I'd add also skills that are more interactive than "fancy animation + x potency". But HW was way dire for casuals than people seem to remember, if the main story didn't hit as much as it did, it would be treated worse than Dawntrail currently is.

I do not have that recollection from casual content. Hardcore players have always crapped on less skilled players, it's a universal constant no matter the game nor its complexity. They still do today. I've spent most of HW doing casual stuff (unlike later expansions), played a ton of roulettes and casual content, and I can safely say that casuals went by just fine. The big difference was the skill gap and skill expression showing, when today it just barely does in comparison. But obviously you'll get less skill expression gap if there is less depth and skill ceiling to jobs, when the floor hasn't changed that much except for support jobs that have become literally braindead.
HW job balance was all over the place but it mattered in savage, not in casual dungeons and whatnot.

I really don't see what Gordias/Midas savage or Diadem have to do with casuals vs complexity though? Savage is by definition not casual, and Diadem failed not because casuals couldn't cope with its difficulty (it was all but hard, and a lot less grindy than eureka), but for other reasons.

[ForsakenRoe]

The only ones left playing will be those of you on this forum who will sound a lot like that guy from the Dead Ends dungeon who nuked all his enemies and cheered, but there was no one left to hear him.

Ironic thing to bring up, because I'd say that the gradual removal of Job Complexity mirrors the final part of the Dead Ends dungeon.

'Farther still existed a star without strife...
...where none remembered life's trials—or its joys.
What its people had gained from ease, they lost to apathy.
So they created the kindest, most gentle of beasts.
Its steps were light, and its gift was as painless as it was beautiful.
Bathed in its golden glow, they all slept happily ever after...'

Now that we have the majority of our damage output tied to pressing a single button as a Healer (that is over 60% of our CPM), now that we have the WAR doing our job for us in EX roulettes via Bloodwhetting, now that we have so many OGCDs we literally don't need to press half of them to clear the dungeon - Now, we have the gameplay SE wanted: A gameplay without sources of player friction, a 'gameplay without strife'.