The state of the Game

[RoyLucaria]

Part 5:
On the matter of old content. We have lots that has been abandoned over the years. Many old systems that could need an overhaul. Friend-list takes ages to load, as does the market board. You open it to fast and it just tells you to try again. Free Company's also haven't gotten an update in years. They barely even matter anymore. EXP is gained in insane numbers so the Free Company exp boost doesn't matter. You either have super large Free Company's with 100+ people or Free Company's that are less than 20 peops which are just friend groups. All Free Company related content has also been abandoned. Free Company Gardens don't matter anymore. Airships and Submarines are also just there to occasionally give out new housing designs and some other meaningless stuff. A lot of people run 1 person Free Companys just so they have more crafting options with the workshop and Gardens. Chocobo Companion also has had max level 20 for ages now. And to get it even past 10 you need the onions from Garden. Housing in total is a mess. No one likes the system. They could easily push it to an instanced unique area, after all they did the same thing with Island Sanctuary but they just refuse. Just delete all housing wards at this point and rather make different scenes for where private and free company housing could be. Barely anyone cares about their neighbors. I am actually spending a lot of time at my Free Company and Private House yet almost never see anyone. It is just not important. Grand Company has also been abandoned. It made sense when we didn't get an update in Shadowbringer as that expansion barely took place in Eorzea. Endwalker could have updated it again but we got nothing. We even had content build into it where we worked together with the Grand Companies to fight against some monsters in the role quests. Yet nothing.
Getting married in the game in the game also sucks. Its an overly complicated system that takes a while to do and its still the same old cut-scene and area from when it was introduced. The only update they ever did was add some colors and change the rewards slightly at some point. They had a great option to introduce something new in Shadowbringer with Titanias castle. Would have been a great location. Yet nothing. Its just a trial location. Treasure Hunting also follows the same formula for ages. Sure its fun doing it for a while. But just Doors or Wheel of Fortune with the same kinds of mobs since Shadowbringer is also getting boring. Everything just follows its formula to the death now and its getting stale. Has been for a while. Fates are another thing that existed for ages now and it too has never received an update. FF14 Mobile also made some changes too it. But that's a topic I will come back to later.

[RoyLucaria]

Part 6:
Now to get back to the topic of Hunts and Fates.
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? Doesn't have to be at every patch but like 7.2 and 7.4 would be good times. Especially if we consider having more and smaller maps again they would have chances to fill those with high difficulty as they could drop some new maps for when the story needs em in later patches. The same with the big Special fates. We only get 2 per expansion and tons of people already clear em during x.0
Just do something with em.
Hunts are also weird longtime content cause I honestly believe the devs way overshot here. Hunting 2000 S-Ranks just to get a mount takes way to long. Even 500 would be many. People can easily miss em. Even more so if they don't use Hunting Discords. The 3000 A ranks are not even the problem cause we have way more A ranks than we have S ranks. The curve just doesn't make sense. If you truly want this some people spend at least half a year only scouring Hunting Discords just so they don't miss any S ranks. That is also just bad game design.... The Bi-colored gemstone hunts where you need over 3000 fates to get black wings or the Sugar glider mount also fall into this. That is not a grind thats just mindless repetition. Thus not many people even attempt to do it.
And I think that is sad.

Another topic would be Seasonal Events.
I fully get and understand that the developers intend for them to be accessible for all players.
But we use the same Lay-outs, Fireworks and snow animations in Limsa/Gridania and Uldah for years.... The towns also dont change anymore as most of the story happens in other places now.
We are tired of those. Dont the other towns have their own celebrations? Why cant they get fancy stuff? Why cant we do some events for everyone and extra stuff for long time players?
I also think the writing on these has suffered a lot... 2 or 3 years ago I thought an Intern wrote the story... It might have also been AI. It was that bad. Please be creative again. Make some new fests. Let other places celebrate things as well. For example an in game fest in Shadowbringers area celebrating the night would be dope. They dont have to mimic real life Celebrations and they don't have to be yearly. But please do something for em and with them. All seasonal event rewards end up in cash-shop later for cheap anyway so even if new players miss em they can get the stuff later.

[RoyLucaria]

Part 7:
Now what else is there to cover, well this is a topic I am kinda dreading talking about but I think we need to do it. The Story. Honestly I dont even wanna go into too much depth about it, some people hate it others love it. Im off the opinion that FF14 has a lot of interesting Story lines but that it often suffers due to pacing and its formula. I also believe Dawntrail suffered extra hard because the devs made a lot of promises before it even released and many things just.... kinda feel like they were not true. Dawntrail being a “Beach Vacation” being one of em. The Scions and the WoL being on different sides another one. All we got from that was Thancred and Urianger “blocking” a way in a Dungeon so we had to take a different Route. Gameplay wise it affected nothing. It had no real Impact on the story or anything else really. I also hate the fact that our WoL could be replaced by a cardboard cut-out. Our char is insanely stiff and does nothing in cutscenes. We are a being that fought world ending disasters. Who have seen everything from betrayals to assassin schemes. Yet neither we the WoL nor Alisaie or Alphinaud realized Wuk-Lamat would be kidnapped. That is just bad writing. The villain didnt even use any distraction for us. They just had someone send for Wuk-Lamat alone and she went while we waited. The writing couldn't have been worse for that.
It is also not a thing of liking or disliking Wuk-Lamat that is a problem. What is a problem is how many lines they gave her and how often she had to repeat things. Someone actually did a word count and Wuk Lamat in 7.1 already had as many words and lines as Alisaie and Graha Tia.
She managed that in basically an expansion release and 2 patches. ( she was alreaedy in 6.5 )
That is just too much. And most of it happened due to bad writing and pacing. The scions also had been pushed back a lot. Remember how in Shadowbringers pretty much each scion had their own group and cause they joined because it fit their beliefs and was something they could get behind? Urianger and the pixies. Alisaie and the sick people and caretakers. Exarch and Crystarium. Thancred and Ryne. Alphinaud and Eulmore. And in the end it all got together. And despite all that we had a huge supporting cast for each of them

[RoyLucaria]

Part 8:
The WoL was there and was still important but many other characters also had their time in the light. Dawntrail compared to that was : We need to push Wuk-Lamat. Even the scions who were for another candidate soon changed their tune and were pushing Wuk-Lamat. Only Estenien didn't cause he was the only char who was written true to himself. He wanted to fight, if there was nothing to fight for, he went away. Everyone else just felt like a caricature of themselves. We don't have the scions of the seventh dawn. We just have “The Scion” and its a hive-mind. I also miss the time when FF14 Storytelling wasn't so direct and so much in the face. A Gaming world is most fun if we can discover things. Talk to NPC to get more lore. But we don't get that anymore. FF14 has become afraid to let people discover the world. They need to make sure every player has exactly the same experience. We don't need to think. We don't need to come to our own conclusion. Its all spelled out and if not, we sure have Alphinaud or someone else have a 10 minute monologue saying everything we need to know. The way they tell the story also makes it super predictable when duty s will happen. It happens always at the same time in the story and I think this leaves the developers inflexible so that they have to stretch certain segments and fill em with useless bloat. They also pretty much removed all Solo duty's from the game. It is just the same boring Quest Design of go from NPC a to NPC B to NPC c. Talk 3 random NPC or find 3 Random things where you have to wait for 2 seconds. Maybe write a word or line in a text field. Go back to final NPC and Quest done. Now you have 10 minute more cutscene and bloated dialogue where if you are lucky its voiced. The WoL being a useless observer in all of it. If you are lucky you see a Purple ring and get to fight 1-3 Mobs. They really need to find ways to make it way more interesting and stop following their own formula so strictly.
But that's enough of story and pacing. We will never all agree on it. And as I said before, I like the ideas and concepts they have. I just don't like how they execute em and drop plot-lines left and right to start new ones.

[RoyLucaria]

Part 9:
What else is there? The technical aspect of the game. A Realm Reborn released 2013.
We are still getting excuses how they cant do things and are held back by the Spaghetti code that was 1.0. The simple answer is, I am tired of hearing about that. Its been over 10 years. It is something that should have been resolved years ago. Graphic update, Duty Support with Trusts all way less important. Why do we have so many complicated systems for Storage? Every shitty F2P MMO lets you buy additional Storage space. FF14 only increased it when they removed Belts.
And then made it more complex by adding it behind other things like Retainers and Chocobo Saddlebag. Or in Armoires that can only be accessed from certain locations. Just simplify it all for heavens sake. Glamour is also a disaster of a system. Just make a system where when we unlock something it gets noted down and we can always just click on it and make it look like that item. There are so many solutions in other games already. It is also criminal how frail some systems are like the friend-list or the market board. One click too fast and it cant load anything.
The net-code is a disaster as well. FF14 Mobile runs so much better its insane. And yes I get it that game was build up with new tech. But FF14 should honestly have had a Dev-team that worked behind the scenes outside of the patch cycle to fix all these problems on an isolated server and only after serious testing have put it on the live servers. Yes that costs money, yes that takes time. But it could have been done. Square Enix is not a broke or small company. Still using the excuse that the game is old and they cant help it does not fly anymore. Fix your game. The sooner you do, the less problems you have in the future. Other option is to make the decision to stop supporting FF14 and working on FF14-2. Build it from the ground up. Remove all the problems we have in the game now. Maybe include actual 360 hit detection ( getting sniped out of the sky when you fly over a zone and under you outside the loading zone was an S rank AOE will always be funny... but come on....) Could also lead to many new battle ideas. But the game desperately needs updating. Many Systems just need a full overhaul.

[NightHour]

As someone who is still subscribed, My gripes with the game right now are as follows




1. Patch cycle length

19-20 weeks for what we get during a patch is too long.

I'd rather the graphics changes are done with an expansion launch compared to slowing down patch releases.

Patches in my opinion should be 15-16 weeks max.




2. Formulaic release schedule for patches

Oh it's a .3 patch, it's time for your next installment of the 24 man that takes an hour tops.

Every expansion we receive the same content every single patch.

There's no "surprise" or "mystery" to patches.



3. Content releasing unfinished, unpolished or not tested fully

This is something that's come to light specifically with the Occult Crescent and Forked Tower.

The amount of hotfix patches and hotfix maintenances we've had just for this 7.25 patch to address OC/FT issues is insane.



4. Content Longevity - referring to Criterion and Chaotic in particular

Criterion and Chaotic are great pieces of content, challenging and fun to do BUT they just lack any real replayability after a couple of clears once you've collected the mediocre rewards they offer.

Criterion should release on the same patch as a Savage Raid tier and should also offer a token on completion that allows you to buy 1 tomestone upgrade material once per week.

Tome weapon upgrades could require say 2-3 of these tokens to not skew the world races too much.

This only applies to Criterion and Criterion Savage - Does NOT apply to the easy mode Variant version.




5. Silly mechanics like the buff cap

It's not fun having a raid buff "miss" or your anti-knockback "dodge" because you're at the buff cap.

There's way more buffs now a days, 30 buff cap is not enough, it needs to be doubled.




6. Outdated mechanics like Ranged Tax

It's 2025, Ranged Tax is an outdated mechanic that has no place in modern day FFXIV.


WoW used to have a "Hybrid Tax" in 2009 which taxed jobs that could perform multiple roles but we can't do that on here.

WoW got rid of the "Hybrid Tax" in Wrath of the Lich King.



In modern day FFXIV - The reasons for a ranged tax existing are moot - Melee do not need to fight for uptime anywhere near as much as they used to, most mechanics now a days can be resolved at Max melee range.

Melee aren't just a bring damage class anymore, some but not all bring utility and raid buffs.

DRG brings a crit raid buff,
MNK brings damage buff, raidwide heal and a healing amp.
RPR brings a slightly weaker damage buff and an AOE regen.
Ninja brings a damage buff.

All Melee also bring Feint which is a damage reduction debuff.


In WoW - A good ranged DPS can easily stomp a bad melee and a good melee can easily stomp a bad ranged.


In XIV - A good ranged who isn't a PCT or BLM automatically loses to the bad melee.

[RoyLucaria]

Part 10:
Cant even attend a wedding when your from another Home world hence why people need to make Alts for that. The friend-list is also an even bigger disaster if you consider friends from other Home worlds as well... I know its scary to work on those systems cause they could break everything. But ignoring em wont make it better. People who also dont live right next to a data-center also have trouble with snapshot and getting hit by attacks they swear they weren't in. Mobile also fixed those issues. And yes I will always compare FF14 with FF14 Mobile now. They themselves opened that box. Lets us not forget that Mobile apparently has cut out many Dungeons. Changed some things around like making Mount available at lvl 7. Teleporting you to NPC who you need to talk with after a quest or spawning in a mount that carries you to em. You can also teleport to all City Aetherytes from anywhere without needing to go to one if you are in the area. FF14 Mobile had tons of QoL changes and I can just say go to FF14 Mobile Reddit cause someone there made a huge list of changes between the 2 versions. It is worth a read and I am not even a fan of Reddit.

[RoyLucaria]

Part 11:
Another big Issue I have is difficulty and how split the community is. Sometimes I feel like there's only Casuals and Hardcore players and no in-between. The natural progression of a game is to slowly increase the difficulty. A game should expect its player to be familiar with its mechanics. With his Options. FF14 somehow seemed to have missed that memo. We are 5 Expansions deep and here we are still arguing with people in Dungeons who only use half their move-set. Completely ignore that they have mitigation, self heals or even Tank Stance. And if you say something your toxic and “you don't pay my sub” Why should I as a player not expect that someone with 5 expansions worth of content can play his class in a decent manner? And no I don't wanna hear excuses like oh maybe the person has a handicap or something that makes him play worse. I do not expect em to play on Savage or Ultimate Raider levels of precision. But a basic understanding of their Jobs should be there. Also for the love of god pls make the change that people at lvl 30 are forced to always wear their Job stone. I don't wanna queu into a dungeon and have someone run around as Gladiator or Rogue because they forgot to equip their Job stone. But yeah the devs definitely need to make new ways of bringing beginners and casuals closer to extreme and savage level. Again FF14 Mobile lets you run dungeons in a “Hard version” where mobs do not highlight their AoE attacks anymore just as they do in higher levels of deep dungeons or savage raids. Gotta learn to read attack names. The games tutorial and explanations also need an overhaul. Often stuff only gets explained after you unlock it....

[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.

[RoyLucaria]

Part 13:
So yeah. Here I am before you. There are probably way more topics I could talk about but I just cant think of em at the moment. But I truly believe that at its core FF14 has a lot of potential for greatness. They just need to nurture it and bring it out. And I want the developers and Square Enix to believe in that as well. I want the game to succeed. I have invested more than 10 years into it.
But I can also see it from the outside. I am not playing much ( not at all almost) because I suffered a stroke last year. My right arm was completely useless for a couple of months cause I lost all movement and feeling in it. I am fighting back to get back into raiding. That is why I also think a lot of excuses when someone plays bad are overstated. I cant play for long but when I play I can perform. Even if I barely have any feeling in my arm/hand. We also have 2025 and there are tons of controllers, input devices and organizations that try to come up with solutions. I also hope the FF14 devs will invest more into handicapped support for FF14 as well. But yeah, at the end of the day. This is the game I love. And I know the developers have more to give. There is so much potential. Please dont waste it. That is all i am asking.

Peace out!