Is there a point in caring about the game?

[Kazuke_Miso]

They don't care, they are already in the process of transitioning out of this game. Their gacha games like the Saga ones are reeling in more cash in Japan than they know what to do with and the FF14 mobile game will likely kill it in China and elsewhere in Asia specifically.

This doesn't mean that the servers will be shut down anytime soon but it means that the game will go into sort of a low-effort maintenance mode just like Guild Wars 2, with scraps of content here and there and most importantly an elaborate cash shop laid out as a convenient trap for any ambitious, dopamine-pumped newcomers who might think the game is still in it's glory days.

No point in dealing with a bunch of disgruntled gaijin in their 40s when you can just sell chances to obtain virtual figurines $5 a pop.

They're probably pouring all their resources into FF9 remake or FF17 or something too

[Gunz_Zbestest]

Casual (in terms of raiding) players definitely had a great option in crafting if they didn't want to raid. It took so much time and was so rewarding. You could unironically be a crafter main in HW and maybe SB. It's a whole stream of content that they just gutted completely.

Not everyone wanted to raid and it's OK. I had fun just making Ironworks gear to sell back then because it was so rewarding for the effort you put in. And the system had so much depth that it feels like there is always something new to learn right around the corner.

Even if we reverted back to HW systems I think it's already too late. There are not just crafting simulators now but fully optimal crafting solvers that will find the minimum step rotation.

https://www.raphael-xiv.com/

With some little extra effort you could also easily alter the code to take into account conditions and use that to solve expert recipes for every proc you get.

The sense of discovery is just completely gone now from all the game's content, and it's not just SE's fault but also because the community has grown so reliant on third party tools. There is a counter to this and it's to produce innovative content that people don't know how to optimize yet. But that's probably something you can't expect from SE.

You're hitting a really good point as well. The game in it's infancy didn't even have a party finder yet and it caused people to spend time socially building a reliable party to clear a trial for a relic weapon that only a max level crafter could meld for you. In our tools for convenience, we've become more self reliant and maybe that's not such a good thing.

[kajv95]

I'm completely apathetic towards this live letter. I was almost excited, but waiting another 2 months until occult crescent and that being the *only* zone until 7.55... nah. Just... nah. Dunno why I'd bother logging in for that when I can just do it next year, if I haven't finally gotten rid of my houses and moved on completely by then.

A good friend of mine bought me a 60 day gametime card because he wanted me to go get the Inferno Jacket and such. So I did. But I find myself struggling to care.

I first posted on this forum nearly 6 years ago now. I mained Bard. That was when they introduced the Bard that didn't do *any* buffs to the world, and, you know, it was Shadowbringers. And although Shadowbringers had a good story, I never latched onto another job as hard as I did Stormblood's Bard. I dabbled, leveled *all* my jobs and eventually found my footing on the Red Mage I only casually played. Raided with it a bit, but it never felt right.

And with every job they added and reworked, we strayed further away from the jobs I enjoyed.

I skipped out on playing during most of Shadowbringers. I played during maybe... two patches of Endwalker. All the while still keeping up with the game hoping that it'd one day come back to life.

I found myself unreasonably excited for Dawntrail. I got caught up again. I made new friends on Light in the process of doing ex farms and such.

Then they decided to lock it down for release. Sure, understandable.
Then the lock was extended to a new permanent travel inhibition system. oh.

At this point, most of the people I know are barely logging in. Some have statics, but one just unceremoniously forgot to update their payment details and said "eh. fuck it." gone.
Then they deleted what made my Dragoon friend's job tick for him, ensuring he'd most likely never play again. gone.
Now they're deleting what makes Black Mage tick, ensuring my caster friend probably won't come back again either.

Logging in is difficult. There's nobody waiting on the other side, and no content I want to engage with. I don't have time to spend hours in pf, but I also don't want to be railroaded into the same 3 dungeons for months, the same 3 alliance raids I've seen since they made the roulette, the same event quest copied over and over...

Crafting is boring. PvE is boring. PvP just isn't my cup of tea. The social part isn't there unless I seek out the clubbing community and quite frankly I'm not a clubbing type of guy.

I was angry before. Saddened. Now... it's been so many years and so long, I've mostly moved on. I just don't care that much anymore.

I'll still keep up with developments, atleast until WoW's housing drops. And if that's even half as good as XIV's housing, then I think I have a new place to stay.

[User202503201232]

I'm completely apathetic towards this live letter.

I was angry before. Saddened. Now... it's been so many years and so long, I've mostly moved on. I just don't care that much anymore.

Honestly I feel you. I've been so apathetic to this game since EW, but right now I'm surprised to see so many people wishing to burn it down in the LuckyBancho thread. Right now it isn't even about the game anymore to me but about gaming in general, and it seems to me this hobby has been completely screwed over by business calculus and gone are the days when AAA games (barring very few) were always exciting and something people looked forward to.

[ForteNightshade]

Frankly you could probably just take advantage of the free login periods to do the MSQ, try out the exploratory zone, and do the raids. Unless you do Savage/Ultimate I'm not sure there is enough content to last more than a couple free login periods anyways!

The irony is you could have waited until 7.2 drops to purchase Dawntrail, which is currently on sale, and still had enough time to catch up on everything from 7.0 to Crescent's release in 7.25. Excluding raids, of course. That's how shallow the casual content has been. And yet if you look at Xeno or Zepla's video or comb through XIV's subreddit, you'll still found people staunchly defending this game. Heck, I've been arguing with someone today who insisted it's impossible to have finished all the casual content in Dawntrail specifically by now. Which is downright laughable, especially when they added "even if you played for 10 hours a day."

It's remarkable the lengths people will go to defend this game.

[SWATomega]

So this is my thought process and this is a layered over several things on top of each other. Lets start where we came from, Endwalker. That was to be the conclusion of the original 1.0 story, ARR for most people. It was to be a climactic conclusion to this 10+ year journey. After EW we got the 5 part mini story of Zero and the 13th while we for the next expansion. What we have is a fragile emotional anchor that was freed, we had our character's main journey end and we as players were looking to the next journey the next big boss.

That is an issue the problem is most if not all story hooks were resolved or finished, Dawntrail doesn't have anything to attach to continue on plot-wise, and the ends are all tied up. So a new story and foundation needs to be made to keep us the players entertained and interested. This is where Dawntrail gets shaky and it isn't 100% the writing's fault, it can also be the mental state of players at the moment and time. We had the anticipation that Dawntrail would be better than Endwalker and some even said Shadowbringers. So we got a buildup to disaster, where we got the game slowing down to build the start for the next ten years, writing that doesn't live up to expectations, and we got players who wanted something better than Endwalker/ Shadowbringers

So we got the Dawntrail reception, which is lackluster to the community that spoke up and it has a mental cascade effect when people begin to agree. So we start to latch on to things that is bad about the game or don't like, we as humans are attached to negative things a lot more than positive ones. The small issues become big issues, and repeated complaints become being ignored. We then try to shift the blame, and the one in the crossfire is Yoshi-p, who is the face of FFXIV, so we have people take their anger on him. Some even targeting voice actors with hate and negativity, or even characters that are probably not that bad are now big issues.

As of now, the community that uses these forums it does feel they are on a warpath, believing the game is unfixable and wanting to nitpick everything. We have those who are "quitting" the game or unsubing but are still active on the forums. And we got those who just string up things to cause heat or fire in the community. I will say there are some good criticisms but we also get baited posts to cause fire and problems. The Black mage changes are the newest topic to latch on to, but im not a black mage player so I don't have the passion compared to others. all I will say is, i will wait to see how it fully plays out in 7.2 and post-patch. It might just be a temporary thing till 8.0, I don't know.

I have played this game since 2.0 I have seen this game go through the good, bad, and ugly. When players are angry, it is because they care and are passionate about the game. They will nitpick, and point out things that are grinding their gears because they want change.

[Astronema]

The game feels like my old MMO anarchy online as it approached maintenance mode and basically a coma death. Still alive but zzzzzzz.

[Catwho]

The irony is you could have waited until 7.2 drops to purchase Dawntrail, which is currently on sale, and still had enough time to catch up on everything from 7.0 to Crescent's release in 7.25. Excluding raids, of course. That's how shallow the casual content has been. And yet if you look at Xeno or Zepla's video or comb through XIV's subreddit, you'll still found people staunchly defending this game. Heck, I've been arguing with someone today who insisted it's impossible to have finished all the casual content in Dawntrail specifically by now. Which is downright laughable, especially when they added "even if you played for 10 hours a day."

It's remarkable the lengths people will go to defend this game.

10 hours a day could probably have done it, but there is a lot of 7.0 specific stuff I still didn't accomplish, because I took my time and got all my classes to level 100 first.

Ugh, I really need to go back and finish those FATES..... the bicolor gem grind is real.

[User202503201232]

The game feels like my old MMO anarchy online as it approached maintenance mode and basically a coma death. Still alive but zzzzzzz.

When they basically just sent all the senior devs off to other projects and staff this game with junior devs. That's pretty much what it is. A glorified maintenance mode.

The purpose of FF14 isn't to deliver a great game. It's to train the junior devs at Square Enix so they can then move on to projects SE cares more about.

[User202503201232]

That is an issue the problem is most if not all story hooks were resolved or finished, Dawntrail doesn't have anything to attach to continue on plot-wise, and the ends are all tied up. So a new story and foundation needs to be made to keep us the players entertained and interested.

The biggest hook they rushed to resolve was Garlemald. That is the biggest travesty. It retroactively made Bozja completely pointless and also made ARR-SB feel like it didn't amount to much.

And the souljacking idea? Used for a cool instance and just suddenly forgotten.

They're probably doing the same to Mhach next