Why is the game going down every expasion?

[Jeeqbit]

I particularly like the "pipes" puzzles over in wow, there is nothing like that here. Instead we have the same "go emote at this npc three times" and that is apparently what the devs consider engaging.

I don't think SE regard the MSQ itself as content, but rather the precursor to content that provides the story setup for it. All their content is normally instanced - such as dungeons, trials, raids, etc. So if they were to have a puzzle involving pipes, they would probably put it as an actual mechanic in a boss fight.

They have done little bits of innovation with it, but it tends to be things such as NPCs following you, or you following them, aiming at something, the sort of features that were common in old single player games.

it feels like they don't have the green light to be more creative

I think that has to be it. The team is there and some of these things are blatantly obvious, but they haven't done anything about them for 10 years. The only explanation has to be that they can't do it without permission, and either they don't request permission or the permission is not granted.

On top of that, an otherwise simple task most likely has to be put through numerous different departments to handle each segment of the task - when a single person could just do it. Chat bubbles has got to be an example of an otherwise simple feature that already exists for NPCs and just needed a minor code adjustment, taking years to go through all their procedures and polish.

[ovIm]

Holy... there was nothing good about the 20 Gauge cost. You never used that skill outside of IR every 90s which removed the gauge cost.

I was actually counting the minutes until someone would say that lol.

20 Gauge OS was amazing design because it discouraged spamming it, the opportunity cost (DPS loss when not used to keep uptime) meant it was an actual situational utility skill more useful for its intended design (closing gaps) than an extra bland and boring damage button you try to keep for your burst window.
Whether it was used often in the fights back then or not is irrelevant, the skills design was much smarter then than it is now. That being said, good for you that it was not needed on your strats, I got my mileage out of it and it was fun to use when I had to because for some reason I did sometimes end up in Narnia and had to keep my GCD rolling.

(ETA - yes i know that you still get mileage out of the current iteration of the skill by using it to close gaps and keep the GCD rolling - thats not the point I am making here)

[YISUG]

i can't think of 1 live service game that kept growing as time goes on, they all at some point cater to the new audiance, which frustrates the old audiance, making things easy to get into as much as possible is a trend ALL games are obsessing over in recent years

[dspguy]

Balance is a necessity in this game (well, it is made a necessity by the playerbase).

As long as we have Extremes/Savages/Unreals/Ultimates with enrage timers, due to the nature of the three role pigeon-hole that we have, the difference between each DPS, each healer and each tank can't be that big. Take away the enrage timers, and they can drop the balance. And because balance is a necessity, we are forced to lose job identity.

[Souljacker]

I don't think SE regard the MSQ itself as content, but rather the precursor to content that provides the story setup for it. All their content is normally instanced - such as dungeons, trials, raids, etc. So if they were to have a puzzle involving pipes, they would probably put it as an actual mechanic in a boss fight.

They have done little bits of innovation with it, but it tends to be things such as NPCs following you, or you following them, aiming at something, the sort of features that were common in old single player games.

You probably don't know what I mean by "pipe puzzle" so I will explain - it's a small graphic that appears on the screen where you slide parts of the pipe system into place a square at a time until you complete the puzzle. Tetris with pipes. Where SE puts things like "Stand on the destination for 5+ seconds looking around" or "walk over and emote at three different NPCs", Blizzard is using that time to give you a cute and fun puzzle to solve.

Really, I am just disappointed with the lack of innovation - we have had the same emote, follow, and zoom\shoot quests since ARR. Nothing has ever changed. As for dungeons and trials - they definitely do NOT have any minigames worth it in those, either. Active Time Event is literally "roll your face across the keyboard" for ten seconds. It's so bad I can't believe they keep doubling and tripling down on using it. Instead of accepting that it's just not something that would ever work in an mmo, they keep putting it in content! It is so watered down from its original form it's practically a meme at this point. I rolled my eyes when the first solo fight at 92 had one of these at the end.

[ddwarbird]

Every dungeon is now "Avoid stuff on floor" and "Instant Death Galore" this expansion and Square Enix asked themselves why they lost so many players. I personally don't have any motivation to do any dungeon grinding for Dawntrail because the dungeons feel cheap, not fun and challenging but cheap a lot of the time, especially for classes that have no inherent or limited mobility skills like Astrologian and White Mage. The glaring hallway dungeon design is something that became really obvious in Dawntrail and it even bled over into Final Fantasy XVI because that seemed to be all that team of Square Enix was capable of doing. I think a lot of people are tired of being built up as the "Warrior of Light" and then getting one-shot by some cheap boss mechanic every dungeon/raid.

I am sure it is enjoyable if you can ping-pong around the arena as a Viper or Reaper.

The OP is a Warrior too and don't Warrior's essentially make healers obsolete with their self-healing. I think Square Enix needs to restore the trinity to give all three roles a place again because having a Warrior do all 3 roles themselves is a bit depressing.

[SkankyRoe]

The glaring hallway dungeon design is something that became really obvious in Dawntrail and it even bled over into Final Fantasy XVI because that seemed to be all that team of Square Enix was capable of doing.

Blame FFX for introducing the hallway design. Also I'll take Dawntrail's hallway dungeons over XIII's hallway everythings.

[ddwarbird]

I think FFXIII was way way worse for that, but I do take your point, FFX had the same problem but that game was turn based so I can forgive it's flaws, plus it served the story, being a pilgrimage from one area to another. There is no need for dungeons in FFXIV to be so linear, some branching paths to the same bosses with different content/mobs in them would not go a miss. Maybe something like "Northern Crater" from FFVII where you can pick one of three pathways to get down to the same boss. However FFXIV does seem to be "Hallway everything", especially when you start to notice how segmented and instanced the world map is, it begins to feel very limited.

I think that is why a lot of players left, once the story tanked, people were less willing to forgive the games flaws and linear design.

Final Fantasy in general has had a major identity crisis since 10, with the latest mainline entry playing more like Devil May Cry then an actual RPG.

[Gurgeh]

My guess:
- the game is now a comfy chair for a huge portion of it's player base. We think we want change, but in truth all of us want large parts of the game to stay the same. Where we do want change... we all disagree with each other. (E.g. I want the link between crafting and marketboards and entry to playable content, totally severed. Thats not a popular wish.)
- XIV is important to Square as a revenue. Bean counters want predictability, the only tool in their box is the budget. Predictability and change dint go together.
- many XIV Devs I suspect are just bored. They've given us their best but it's just long past how long you can expect someone to dig deep, give it every ounce of their passion, and stay late at the office. It's just human nature. And the players and Square won't let them shake things up.
- new devs, aren't 'passionate' about working on someone else's game. They want to 'create' their own game.
(I count writers among what I call the dev team)


The only solution I see is Blizzard WoW scale boost in dev investment in the game. Square need to recognise that the only fix on the table is one that keeps a lot of people with totally conflicting desires - happy. That needs complex solutions. That needs expensive solutions.
For illustrative purposes, I'd say CB3 needs to double their dev budget. And Square needs to accept that whatever profit is left over from XIV after that, is all they are gonna get. It's time for other parts of Square Enix to get good at making great games, that people want to buy at the prices they are asking. Instead they enable investment in great teams like Ouka studios to be squandered, and the marketing of their games to be forgotten. And that's just the stuff they are getting right.

[Exmo]

You probably don't know what I mean by "pipe puzzle" so I will explain - it's a small graphic that appears on the screen where you slide parts of the pipe system into place a square at a time until you complete the puzzle. Tetris with pipes. Where SE puts things like "Stand on the destination for 5+ seconds looking around" or "walk over and emote at three different NPCs", Blizzard is using that time to give you a cute and fun puzzle to solve.

Really, I am just disappointed with the lack of innovation - we have had the same emote, follow, and zoom\shoot quests since ARR. Nothing has ever changed. As for dungeons and trials - they definitely do NOT have any minigames worth it in those, either. Active Time Event is literally "roll your face across the keyboard" for ten seconds. It's so bad I can't believe they keep doubling and tripling down on using it. Instead of accepting that it's just not something that would ever work in an mmo, they keep putting it in content! It is so watered down from its original form it's practically a meme at this point. I rolled my eyes when the first solo fight at 92 had one of these at the end.

I have to laugh at the implication that a pipe puzzle is innovative. It wasn't even innovative when Bioshock did it 20 years ago.