The state of the Game

[RoyLucaria]

Part 12:
What else is there? Well communication between the dev team and the players.
Sure the live-letters are nice and all. But it is not too much. We here in the west honestly have no clue how much feedback reaches the dev team. Why are there no surveys being done in each region? Do the Developers still play the game? Are there better ways to communicate?
That is something that should be improved. Japan also seems to be getting a lot of events as well. Na often gets the short end of the bargain and EU often feels completely forgotten. Oceania who?
I get it its a Japanese company mostly operating in japan. I am also against any kind of form of harassment for the devs and fully support a hard stance against that. But they need to face some harsh truths. I honestly would love to know how much FF14 roughly produces in income. How much of it is being put back into the game. Tons of people are speculating and people are loosing faith. We need the team to communicate with us. Dawntrail is not doing well. We know player base is shrinking. Many people abandon it while other games who were doing bad before it are now celebrating big comebacks. Taking the lessons FF14 failed to learn and adapting them for themselves. Taking Risks, Listening to players feedback. We need that as well.
I do not believe FF14 is a dying game. Heck MMO are like the hardest to kill games there are. A comeback is always possible and FF14 already proved that once with ARR. But yes Square needs to take risks again and make huge changes.
I also don't believe that anything mayor will change during Dawntrail anymore. That ship has sailed. What we all should be curious about is how the plans for the next expansion or possible new MMO are. If the next MMO would also play in FF14 universe and we can port our Mounts/achievements/weapons and outfits over I would be fine with it as well. An overhauled character creator would also be insane. But whatever the plan is. They need to figure it out soon. And communicate with us. Cause as it stands. People are worried. We have a lot of Doomsayers. Many people are leaving the game. There are fears that the developers are not listening. We need someone to take those fears from us. None of us want to invest into a game that might not be around for much longer or whose quality is dropping fast. All we need is a road-map.

[Mawlzy]

Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?

[RoyLucaria]

A lot, but now im sad i dont have a part 14....
Would have been kinda poetic this game being Final Fantasy 14 after all ._.

[Mawlzy]

Ah, sorry. Still going.

[BigCheez]

When you're comparing 2.2 content to 7.2 content, as well as there just being more content in 2.2, it's important to remember that this was all truly new content; including many entirely new features. While the list from 7.2 is exclusively formulaic approximations of content that we've already played through half a dozen times before.

They have legitimately just been re-releasing Stormblood every 2-3 years for a decade. How are we getting less content when they aren't even spending time developing new ideas?

[BigCheez]

Oh, god. He's still at it.

[ShadowyZero]

basically when you realize that this game is basically the SAME every time since its early inception you realize that they don't care to sustain you long term they really don't everything is basically just for the new players an the 5% of the population that wants strenuous difficult content to do. its pretty depressing an pathetic
casuals don't even get any new content anymore just new items and thats it they ignore their casual base like a fly on the ceiling they know its there an its buzzing at them loudly but they just plain don't care. but hey they sure can trap you with a predatory cash shop an predatory housing system though am i right?

-and to reveal your point on 2.0 they had a much larger staff number back then and they outsourced help as well to carry the game for a total of five years max and HW was their last chance to show the higher ups the game wasn't a lost cause or flop an it succeeded and thats why things went downhill staff was reduced, resources were cut thinner, an funds were kept to a bare minimal all because of "success" why fix whats not broken right? why innovate when the "formula" the special sauce on the menu has been tried and true?
course this isn't just on the business' stupid decisions though no not by a long shot look to your fellow players too who became nothing but soulless husks or bots who drovew out criticisms of the game an chased away anyone who didn't praise the game to all holy god almighty an their fandom cult faith lmao
honestly this is karma collecting its due people screamed for changed and it was chased out or outright ignored an now we have a terrible game as a result LOL and its much deserved. just a tragic shame and its too late now unless people boycott en-masse and refuse to pay their subscriptions to force SE into another desperate situation.

[All_Nonsense]

I think people who say "State of the game" are silly. Japan doesn't have states, they have prefectures

[Jeeqbit]

What I am trying to highlight is the simple fact we used to get way more content simply faster as well.

I'm not gonna write a list for you right now, but the content in 7.0 is the most we've ever got in any expansion, ever. People may not like to be told that, but it's a fact. Now, that content might only be consumed by them 1 time and they might not see it as repeatable, or the content may not interest them, but that does not mean they are producing less content.

You are correct we got content faster but they had less content to produce back then, so.

On the topic of Dungeons. I am bored by em. Dungeons are just not fun anymore.

Part of it is the lack of variety in expert roulette and having less regular dungeons. Level Cap roulette needs merging into Expert. Another part of it is part of the party dynamics and holy trinity being eroded, so we'll have to hope they improve this in 8.0. Another part of it is abandoning certain ideas they had for dungeons in ARR, HW and Shadowbringers.

Heck even Yoshida himself stated that he falls asleep in em.

It is his intention to be doing better with them in Dawntrail. Whether he is, I'll let you judge.

Another problem the game has is the empty and boring overworlds.

Rest assured, this comes up on the forums frequently.

The new player experience sucks.

It doesn't really. It would be nice to get a mount a bit earlier. It would be nice if all cutscenes were voiced. But other than that, the new player experience is great. Only having 2 attacks is helpful for a lot of players because they don't understand the game and more would be overwhelming to them, with rare exceptions when the person is an "MMO veteran". The only people who find the experience a problem is people that can't handle reading unvoiced text or who have a friend that is urging them to rush to endgame for the raids.

On the matter of old content. We have lots that has been abandoned over the years. Many old systems that could need an overhaul.

I agree that they ignore almost everything except the upcoming patch or expansion. Obviously they don't assign development resources to quality of life and polishing old systems much, to the point the friends list, linkshells, FC applications, bloated menus just persist for a decade.

We only get new A and S rank Hunts once per expansion and usually at x.2 they are already so weak that they get insanely boring. Why cant we drop new ones during an expansion?

As a hunter, it would be nice, but I can handle just new ones for each expansion I suppose.

Hunting 2000 S-Ranks just to get a mount takes way to long.

It really doesn't. You can do it in 1-3 months. It used to take longer, but now you can visit other worlds and data centers. This achievement helps people to keep doing the content. Without this, they'd be as ignored as FATEs were for most of the game's life, which had no purpose or community around them unlike hunts, and adding voucher mounts was a first step to giving you a reason to do them long-term.

[ShadowyZero]

I'm not gonna write a list for you right now, but the content in 7.0 is the most we've ever got in any expansion, ever. People may not like to be told that, but it's a fact. Now, that content might only be consumed by them 1 time and they might not see it as repeatable, or the content may not interest them, but that does not mean they are producing less content.

You are correct we got content faster but they had less content to produce back then, so.

but is it reeally content though when its all the same boring repetitious formula ad nauseam?
just because its a different coat of paint doesn't make it any less predictable or fun for that matter
maybe thats fine with you good for you but a game thats so easily predictable that i can list almost everything we'll be getting in the coming patches is not something worth "looking forward too" nor is it worth my fee in subscription or exciting for that matter.
i dont want a second job in life i play games to have fun an be surprised or thrilled not be a cog in the machine so take this nonsense out of here.
WE NEED more innovation period. they need to re-invent how gameplay functions in order for it stay relevant. not just keep re-hashing all the same boring stuff we've been doing FOR YEARS now.