Genuinely, What am I missing?

[Voryn]

Need to play the game and make your own opinions. Like when I got into this game (right before EW came out), if I ever went online I’d see how ARR is boring and ShB is really good, and funny enough it happened to be the opposite for me and I was baffled. And I liked Dawntrail a lot despite how people on the forums and reddit talk about it, although I do end up agreeing with some complaints about the game like how jobs are getting simpler, and the overworld design.

If you’re into Dark Souls at all, it might remind you of how fans of the series talk about Dark Souls 2: many will talk about it as if it’s one of the worst games in the world, while fans of it will say it’s the best in the series, and the people who think it’s “fine” don’t really talk about it online lol. In the end you find out whether you’ll like a game by actually playing it.

Taking strangers’ opinions too seriously about games that you’re interested in but haven’t played yet will lead to big disappointment when you’re not into something that’s allegedly amazing, and will make you pass on games that are “bad” that you’d otherwise have liked.

[Auro_Seldaris]

I'd just like to quickly add that while we don't all agree on the state of the game, I do appreciate that this thread in particular hasn't derailed into ragebaiting and trolling, aside from a couple of smarmy comments early on.

[Kaurhz]

Part of that is also the community though. Back in the day we didn't have tools like Teamcraft that could sim and custom build entire rotations for you to 100% your craft every time. You had to learn the interplay and push and pull between the various crafting states and maximize your resources to HQ your crafts. Yes we had more HQ mats and such, but the system overall hasn't changed much.

The community goes out of its way to simplify everything into a rote and direct way of doing things and then complains when SE takes that as feedback that we want things simplified.

Needless to say, you can't make everyone happy all the time.

OP, if you're having fun, simply keep playing and maybe consider joining an FC or one of the various XIV Discords for tips and tricks and community. The forums are where people come to yell at SE.

So whilst I agree with your conclusion that part of the issue is with the community, and that part of it they go out of their way to turn it into a rote and direct task, and that you cannot make everyone happy all the time, the rest I actually disagree with...

The fundamental principle of crafting has remained the same in that... You have a recipe, the goal is to get it to 100% on both progress and quality.. You still had tools like crafting optimizers, these always existed as far back as around 9-10 years ago, the biggest difference being that TC was the only one to get pinpoint correctness, and where it was centrally maintained, but the optimizers were largely github.io websites, and then you had Lokyst, and you had to rely on some people to fork it and make the adjustments early-patch (I am talking really early)... These were pretty actively maintained as well until Teamcraft took over. It was like a lightweight early version. But facilitated exactly the same stuff essentially as far as rotation building went. The only major difference is that as far as the solver function went, it would not generate a practical rotation.. It was only recently until things like Raphael where this was possible, which is a this expansion development.

Not only that but you had an ability suite like WWYW, which actually rewarded you for the effort you put into learning it, by being able to pull off absurd things. It was very uniquely skill-driven, on top of having abilities like Byregot's Miracle and Byregot's Brow, which if you mastered crafting would allow you to pull off a Double Byregot's.. Recipe scaling was a smidge better back then too, how well you managed your abilities, even on a macro level would allow you to do things like tea-less rotations, or being able to reuse, reclaim combo on rotations back in Stormblood. Then you had the position where even if you were low on stats, or if your favored less optimized on a step-level, but also had the highest rate of quality, or supported on the lowest stat, then you could go with rotations like Maker's Mark, and if you were willing to push the stacks to the limit then there was a lot of room for optimizing, or gaining additional quality... This was especially prominent in recipes like the original Ala Mhigan 2** DoH/L gear where you could pad out a significant number of steps to gain additional quality without necessarily having much CP loss or durability loss overall. - Small things like these, whilst they seem insignificant gave a lot more way into creating rotations, and how diverse they actually were. Things like this are utterly lost in modern crafting.. You may have never noticed these things, but people who wanted to stretch their gameplay, and push crafting as high as they could, absolutely would..Quality and Control worked differently back then too, and scaled much differently to how it does now, which facilitated such dynamic rotations and fairly long-form optimization. Like, you won't see rotations like this anymore, ever.


Due to the unique nature of crafting back then, versus now, you would actually find that many people were also finding optimized rotations even as far as several months into the patch cycle, similarly the case with meld builds. These days it is far more streamlined, partly because community, but largely because of the ability suite that actually supported crafting has been utterly gutted into oblivion.

Stormblood streamlined the recipe acquisition, but still had a lot of room for rotations, that's where things like WWYW became more practical, as that suite came with some CP nerf costs, e.g., to Trained Hand, and then you had a greater CP pool overall... Then if we look further back to the Heavensward expansion, this where it truly sealed the deal that you could be a crafter main, much like how a raider could be a raider and do only raiding, you could craft, and only craft, and still have plenty of fun without it necessarily seeming like an ordeal.

Firstly materia wasn't obtainable through scrips, you actually had to farm this, which in the case of Heavensward largely relied on player self-sufficiency. You would craft 170 Carbonweave Gear, and using this you would grind items like Camphor, since it was cheap and easily mass produced. This would get you spiritbonding, which you would use to convert to Grade IV/V materia, and you would then use these materia on your gear, or you could make a fortune from these alone, since the materia price back that ranged from 100-500K..., it wasn't until the first custom delivery client where the prices and accessibility went down. So if you really wanted to push the boundary of crafting, which was oft' necessary for items like first tier of gear, since it was not something that could be mass produced. You actually had a weekly currency back then, and then this currency was tied to what we known back then as Concealed nodes or favor nodes, where you would get items used in recipes like Astral Birch Lumber.. It was a massive investment, but it actually rewarded you for it.

Then with things like Ironworks gear for the final DoH/L set of Heavensward it used Glass Fiber, this is your equivalent to Condensed Solution for Eeverseeker gear... Except back then it was not directly tradeable with Scrips... You were either getting it from places like Void Ark, or through grinding the i180 Scrip gear at the time, e.g., Landmaster scrip, or gear like Galleykeep (Getting these was also different since you had things called counterfoils back then which required crafting very particular recipes, rather than farming Rarefied Tacos de Carne Asada ad nauseum) .. It's worth mentioning that this was with desynthesis which worked completely different back then to how it does now, since your desynthesis rate was tied directly to your desynthesis level, and this wasn't just an obscure "May increase your chances at rare items" Then we eventually had the recipes to where they were consistently using Grand Company items, this encouraged players to actually run dungeons, farm GCs, or craft items, trade those in with GCs... Needless to say how you gathered for these recipes was entirely different on a patch-by-patch basis, since the 3* and 4* items generally threw away with Concealed node items, and favored Grand Company, so this meant the feel was different, and the approach was fresh... With modern crafting I don't even need to think about these, it's just the same streamlined rote task.. Farm some scrips, farm some folklore items, craft up, job done. Due to the nature back then it also made preparation a bit more encompassing, rather than how it is now with "just farm scrips lul and Level 99 requisite recipes"... Even ARR crafting, where the gear progression was actually fun to engage with and not just repetitive.

So ye, it ain't just... "Back then we didn't have the tools" (Because we did), nor is it just "100% your craft every time back then, because there were uncertainties", nor is it "The system ain't changed that much", because it has if you're willing to look past the fundamental logic of.. Progress bar, quality bar.. Fill it with abilities... Because the abilities were different back then.. You also had Patient Touch which added a gambling element with gigantic benefits if you were willing to take the risk. Especially important if you were down on a little RNG, and thenm you even had the name/brand of the elements mechanic which was absurdly powerful on 35 durability recipes.

Sure we still have experts, but these do not hold a candle, because the gathering for them is still woefully simplified, as is the supporting ability toolkit, and this is a fundamental issue.. They are trying to make everyone happy by putting these systems on top.. Whether it's expert crafting or whatever else.. A lot of that is undone by the abilities supporting that content. This is why I said if you haven't experienced the game back then, then you can probably enjoy it, but for a lot of people, this was so much engagement, and investment. I could sit there for hours just crafting Twinsilk in level 15/20 gear (and doing this was far more exciting than modern experts, just because of the element of control over the success of the recipe -- Even on 266CP), and it would be interesting and fun.. Because WWYW was interesting.. and fun.


Again, all things lost to the game.. All things that for many people made the game feel a lot more encompassing and engaging. I do also agree though, OP should keep doing what they are doing if they are having fun, and to make the decision for themselves if it fun.

[Lucretia_Eldritch]

Honestly if you are having fun as a new player then I wouldn't worry about all the other criticism. Most of it is related to DT story which will take a while to get to anyway, content having larger time gaps for release which won't affect you yet, and the job homogenization which is subjective to if you even care about that with your current job. DT story personally I didn't have issue with, wasn't amazing but wasn't the worst thing ever though I see why people would be upset about it. Only gripe I personally have is job design cause all the classes feel pretty stale and uninteresting, and we've reached a point where most established playstyles have been ripped from the game in favor of ease of use and balancing. But encounter design has semi been on the up and up minus a good handful of re-used fight patterns. But I don't think any of these problems will even affect you for a while, if at all so I wouldn't worry about it.

[Remarus]

- snip -

While I appreciate the deeper analysis, our tools were not as robust back then and simply not as well programmed because the community was smaller and we simply hadn't optimized the fun out of everything yet. If the crafting suite had not been touched at all from then to now, we'd still have Teamcraft calculating the most optimal rotation within a day of a new craft recipe landing. That's just the nature of modern MMOs.

[Kaurhz]

While I appreciate the deeper analysis, our tools were not as robust back then and simply not as well programmed because the community was smaller and we simply hadn't optimized the fun out of everything yet. If the crafting suite had not been touched at all from then to now, we'd still have Teamcraft calculating the most optimal rotation within a day of a new craft recipe landing. That's just the nature of modern MMOs.

They were not as robust, that I agree with, but functionally for rotation building they really weren't that different aside from true pinpoint accuracy (largely on progress), but generally across the board you would very rarely find yourself in a position where something broke in-game but didn't break in sim.. People were pushing out rotations within the day on tools such as Lokyst, even when the community was much smaller, when the tools weren't as well programmed, and often required people forking it. The community may also be much larger now, but the number of people actively sharing resources hasn't really changed a great deal (since a larger set of the playerbase is more than happy just using someone else's solution, only major difference is where you might find them, e.g., centralized hub on TC, versus Google Doc, YouTube Video or Forums), especially since Stormblood era, and nor has the underlying skill of the people producing them.. Further, Teamcraft wasn't really building the rotation for you, you were still creating the rotation yourself, it was only until Raph where it fully build it for you (Which is a very very new development). People were still doing the "Let's optimize the fun out of this" mentality even back in Stormblood (Players would go to very significant lengths - Much more than they do now, I would argue). The whole tealess/foodless spec/non-spec, rotation specific gear, reuse/reclaim combo rotations are testament to this fact.

We can argue around this point for a millenia, but the abilities back then lent themselves to a more engaging experience, even if you were optimizing the fun out of it.

Besides, much of this also ignores the simple fact that the ability suite back then was far more engaging than it is now, which matters significantly for content such as experts, where it isn't necessarily optimizing the fun out of it, but testing yourself.. Hence why I made this comment:

Sure we still have experts, but these do not hold a candle, because the gathering for them is still woefully simplified, as is the supporting ability toolkit, and this is a fundamental issue.. They are trying to make everyone happy by putting these systems on top.. Whether it's expert crafting or whatever else.. A lot of that is undone by the abilities supporting that content.

I can tell you simply that the developers have streamlined this specific content far more than what the players have optimized the fun out of the content.

Besides, with all due respect (and I mean it genuinely), when did you start playing anyway? (Like crafting-wise)

[Fawkes]

I like to log on here some mornings at work once and a while to see if I can find any fun tips or strats as I'm exploring through the world of Eorzea. Yet, every time I log on here (or to a lesser extent try to watch anything about the game on YouTube) I see nothing but disdain and very vocal harsh criticisms. I can't see any of it reflected in my own experience. A lot of the criticisms I see appears to be:
boring repetitive content, not enough content, the devs playing it too safe, wuk lamat(?), reminiscing of the glory days, "we need another reboot," (inadvertently comparing the current state of the game to XiV 1.0?), not enough reciprocation from developers, "live letters" being too stale, not feeling heard, current raids aren't rewarding enough, YoshiP actively killing the game, being scared of WoW, unanswered questions, and many others.

Is this all I have to look forward to? Should I just stop playing the game after Shadowbringers? After the peak of Shadowbringers the quality just drops off a cliff? Should I not waste my time and quit now to avoid heartbreak? Maybe I will understand with time? I'm not sure.

Mostly people come here to complain, because they think the devs will see it if it's on an official website. But there's never any response or acknowledgement so everything ends up getting overblown in an echo chamber.

I think it would be pretty hard to stop at Shadowbringers. Endwalker is the big climax and it is not significantly worse than Shadowbringers. Also if you're enjoying the battle content there's still that.

[CVXIV]

Things in general are a lot more fun when you're not constantly surrounded by negativity
If you want to come to the forums for tips and advice, I don't think you'll find any here, at least not in general discussion
If you're having fun, great, keep going and come to your own conclusions about how you feel regarding the game

[Illianaro]

I'd just like to quickly add that while we don't all agree on the state of the game, I do appreciate that this thread in particular hasn't derailed into ragebaiting and trolling, aside from a couple of smarmy comments early on.

I second this sentiment. It’s honestly refreshing and I get this feeling like, for the most part, despite some of the different sides to the discourse, people seem united in not wanting to unduly affect a new player’s experience to try to sway them into feeling one way or another about: the state of the game, or; about community members with differing opinions.

It brings me back to when I first started, back in 2.4 (a lifetime ago; I was a different person then, still living with my parents, and now I’m married and have three kids). Even back then it was easy to be overwhelmed by floods of opinions and information, and to get lost in the mire of community sentiment. But it helped me to have FC mates who reminded me to keep a level head and just experience the game without getting too swamped in the debates.

[Kozh]

People use the forum to complaints because:
A) yoship himself told us in the past to use forum to air our complaints so that the devs can listen to it (lol)
B) anywhere else, you have white knight mods with power tripping issue who can and will silence you for speaking up. Not to mention the GCBTW themselves. Reddit will downvote you to hell, while discord will dogpile you.

Anyway, enjoy the game while you can. I used to be like you 4 years ago, so I can understand your reaction. If you can keep enjoying the game, that's good! If you don't (in the future), well, I'm sorry you have to go through that as well.