'I Think I've Fallen Out of Love with FFXIV'

[Red-thunder]

90%? that is a little hyperbolic, but you are correct.

by having already so many buttons just to do damage is the reason stuff like kaiten has no place to exist.

The samurai Core rotation requires already 6 buttons, if you reduced that to 3-4, you could free space for additional complexity.

It's just so hilarious that jobs in FF14 simultaneously suffer from button bloat and lack of complexity.

[Absurdity]

Not surprising though since they replaced every ability that required a modicum of management or tracking with generic "does damage" buttons. The amount of abilities stayed the same, the thought put into actually using them was just reduced to close to 0.

But getting back to the actual article, he's pretty much expressing exactly how I've increasingly felt about the game since Shadowbringers.
As much as it gets praised for it's story, that expansion is when all the gameplay rot started to really ramp up.

[Jeeqbit]

ah yes, good old "bring back kaiten" , another useless button that does nothing beside bloating the already bloated actian bars.

Ultimately, if that's the logic, then we could reduce the "bloat" down to 1 button like healers. The whole point is the "feel of powering up an attack" before using it, which is similarly what combos kind of are.

It's perfectly valid for there to be a combat system that has more of a focus on utility and where the damage buttons are bare minimum ie. knife slash, knife throw, kick stun, a medical kit, jump, sprint... just a few buttons that you actually need.

But this game having so many damage buttons, it's more about how they feel, their animation and their sound, and navigating the sheer number of them without pressing them wrong or in the wrong order - which obviously they've made easier to get right but it's still something you can mess up.

A proper fighting game may have takedowns, blocks and other moves, or football games may have tackles. But the feedback in this game doesn't work like that because a boss just stands there and doesn't acknowledge it, so your "takedowns, blocks and tackles" just get ignored by the boss and manifest as lower HP for the boss, buffs and debuffs.

[Wilford111]

And now, I sit here, having not touched the game since ‘Dawntrail,’ wondering what’s happened.

X.1 happened. This happens every expansions so no need to worry.

[Boblawblah]

Maybe I’m just a bitter elitist, waxing nostalgic for a game that’s outgrown my tastes. I can’t help it. Growing up with Ultima Online and Final Fantasy XI, two games with virtually no streamlining (back then, at least) and a penchant for making players earn every ounce of their progress, conditions me this way. I want that sense of achievement, but instead, I feel I’m standing in line for my inevitable turn to grab the bag of party favors.

Yea...I respect the writer's opinion, but I couldn't disagree more. The game they want is one I would hate. And that's fair, games change, some people will be happy with the change, some won't, in the end, all we can do is play what makes us happy.

[Kandraxx]

Hot take seeing that they basically needed to copy most of Vanilla WoW's system to even bring the game into a playable state (11>14).

[NegativeS]

Ah yes, a thread about a topic I somewhat agree with, time to post my opinion--



Actually, I think I have better things to do with my time.

[Absurdity]

Ah yes, a thread about a topic I somewhat agree with, time to post my opinion--

Actually, I think I have better things to do with my time.

Let's be honest, the highlander face and character name should've given it away, lol.
I honestly stopped caring whether or not a thread is by one of the 20 different alts if the point he's making is still completely valid.

[brinn12]

We got old, man. The game got old. It happens. I know it's a bummer, but people are acting like not loving FFXIV is the end of the world. It's just a video game, and it's not going anywhere. Just unsub for awhile -- or don't, even; stay subbed and keep your house or whatever is important to you -- and when you feel the urge to play again, it'll be right here waiting.

Tired of people acting like online games (not just MMOs, I see this same stuff with Monster Hunter, Diablo, PoE, etc.) need to keep them busy for full-time-job hours for multiple decades. Get literally any other hobby. You'll enjoy gaming so much more when it's not the only thing you do with your free time.

For people who think this way: Asking for literally any long-term grind in an MMO, beyond what we currently have in FFXIV, has been the norm since the genre was created.

The reality now is that most of the FFXIV playerbase has played through 1 alliance raid and 1 dungeon in over 8 months of new content. In other words, less than 2 hours of gameplay.

FFXIV is taking "have another hobby" to an extreme that most of the community never asked for. People are, in fact, doing just that — and as a result, the game is losing a record number of active players.

Even with other hobbies, FFXIV still feels like it's in a content drought.

[Azurarok]

But this game having so many damage buttons, it's more about how they feel, their animation and their sound, and navigating the sheer number of them without pressing them wrong or in the wrong order - which obviously they've made easier to get right but it's still something you can mess up.

A proper fighting game may have takedowns, blocks and other moves, or football games may have tackles. But the feedback in this game doesn't work like that because a boss just stands there and doesn't acknowledge it, so your "takedowns, blocks and tackles" just get ignored by the boss and manifest as lower HP for the boss, buffs and debuffs.

I've been trying to say this for a while. This game doesn't fully function like an action combat game and rotational complexity's half of what's supposed to make the gameplay interesting. If that's not what one wants there are other MMOs out there that offer it.

And that's kinda why removing all the skill interactions like they have been is a problem. When the most depth the new skills we got offer is "using skill A turns it into skill B" while simultaneously removing any deeper skill interactions and further converging every job to a burster, a lot of things that used to be more interesting do end up being bloat even to our eyes.