Engaging Content is at an All-Time Low

[HyperiusUltima]

Your mistake is thinking that the current design isn't completely intended. Look how quickly they respond to feedback like "add better events". They are listening. They're just not listening to you. If anything has gone unfixed at this point after years of feedback it's because they have zero intention of ever changing it. They are not interested in retaining gamers. They just want XIV to be a sterile safe adult daycare center where nothing interesting can ever happen.

The "intended experience" for Cosmic at the moment is really just it - Space. The biggest problem we have been running into since they constantly made large maps and is beginning to become a problem is that they are empty after a while. Remember what I said about how people are when they consume the content that's in front of them? That includes art and the world. While we do have the FATE system, it's not actually standing up on its own after 12 years - it's stagnating even with the Shared FATE system added since Shadowbringers, along with an incentive to keep farming Bicolors.

It needs something new - and in regards to Cosmic that something new really needs to be something that we're actively doing. Think about it! What if people could, I don't know, choose what project they want to do first? The Loporrits have been deciding all this for us, and while it's nice for some base things, it'd actually be more engaging if we as a community worked on said projects instead of "filling the bar" just to move to the next phase that they've preordained in their game design. Not to mention, having a choice also can provide impact on what can happen first. Build a Mech Hangar first for more mechs, or build more energy efficiency? It adds an extra layer - but it's not really expected at all out of this dev team to go the extra mile in Dawntrail unless we push them to do so, which really shouldn't be the case but is.

While all they can do is react to what feedback is saying, they're too busy already planning 8.0 in the background while current state of the game is unhealthy. However, I also think that the idea that they should retain their design philosophy for an expansion in terms of content is more ridiculous than it sounds. If anything, it mostly tells the player base "we're going to keep doing the same thing until we get to the next expansion where we can actually change things later instead of now, so please look forward to it".

[TheRealDesastr]

Personally, the game is pretty lackluster to me. I know some here are saying DT is the best ever but I honestly truly have to disagree. There's nothing...exciting. Not story wise, not reward wise. Crafting content aesthetically isn't pleasing to me at all. Fantasy seems just...ripped away. I dunno. Maybe the game just isn't for me anymore, but I enjoyed playing through HW, Stormblood had some fun parts. ShB was great on the story end of things, and EW was alright, I myself enjoyed it. I joined the game in Shadowbringers and really, really was engaged.

Not entirely sure what happened. But the excitement is just...gone. I'm not really wanting to move on yet (it takes a long while for me to just decide to leave and I have some hopefully not false hope it will get better), but with no sign of anything getting interesting and all of this drip feeding/no response to feedback at all, it's tiresome. It just makes me wonder if they even care, honestly.

[Kaurhz]

I'm just kind of stagnating after finishing Shadowbringers (which its self was ridiculously over-hyped) because apparently Endwalker was also "the worst expansion ever" until Dawntrail came along apparently.

I know this is somewhat strange to say, but they are honestly the worst expansions for different reasons...

Endwalker just outright gave very little content, on any measurable scale.

Dawntrail has given a decent volume of content, but to varying degrees, there's not much in the way of substance that we haven't already seen, and there's very little reason to actually care about the content in any meaningful capacity unless you aim to raid... Like OC is irrelevant to me, for the simple fact that as soon as I've completed the base content it offers nothing to me.. Courtesy of the fact that all of the relic steps are just one-time-steps before being tomestones.
So yeah, I personally think they are both the worst expansion, but for different, key reasons...

[Kaurhz]

I do sometimes feel like I joined FF14 "too late" because apparently mid/late-Endwalker was the worst possible time to start playing and its been downhill since then according to most. Everything was bad because its too easy, now everything's bad because its too hard, and everybody seems to hate everybody else based on their personal skill level.

But at the same time, I hear about all of these supposedly "great" things from the ARR through Shadowbringers era and I can't really say I would have enjoyed them (TP alone would have made me quit early), culminating in how Shadowbringers, the supposed peak of the game's lifetime was actually... kinda mid compared to ARR/HW/STB. Gameplay and even storywise, it was just a generally deflating experience not just in my confidence as a player when I'm getting constantly murked in normal content (even solo duties), but I felt like the most useless character even from a narrative point (which started in Stormblood actually, but Shadowbringers REALLY wanted to rub it in that I had no business being the protagonist anymore).

I'm already not renewed for March, and this also marks the first time I've unsubbed while NOT having houses to deal with so I don't have to show back up every 45 days anymore. So much of my time has been hearing about a great game and community and then struggling for years to actually find it, where even moving data centers didn't help and I feel so worn down.

I would say this very much depends on what kind of player you are, really, and how you struggle with the content... Like, mechanically for me these latter expansions (Endwalker/Dawntrail) are much easier... But I tend to find them a little more tedious just for the simple fact of visual bloat more than anything.... If I joined after Shadowbringers I probably would be a worse player than I am now, just because ARR/HW gave me an appreciation for smaller things (Which the game doesn't do enough of)

You are probably way too harsh on yourself to be honest.. A lot of players struggle, and to be honest if you aren't passionate about the combat side of things then you won't get as good as what you can be.. That's just natural.. Wouldn't really let it get to you, when there's a lot this game does wrong, e.g., accessibility (actual accessibility and not ease of access)

Many people will tell you the community used to be worse, but IMO the experience was quite contrary... People used to be very inclusive, and honestly even though the game was smaller then than it is now (probably), it feels much smaller now because everyone is so insular and don't really go beyond their immediate clique... I met tonnes of friends doing the OG Diadem (supposedly worst content in the game btw).. Many of them I am still close friends with to this day (But most have quit).... It's difficult to say it has such a great community now, just for the simple fact that the community is so insular.

Edit: The above is why the content feels so flat.. For the most part you aren't really doing anything with anyone... You're just in the same space. So it feels very hollow. You may see hundreds of players, but like Valence said it's just background noise these days.... Maybe it's the natural progression of things.. But a lot of design decisions have pushed people away from the game, and into external spaces like Discord.

[ZephyrMenodora]

I had a ton of fun with Pilgrim's Traverse for a while farming all the initial....whatever we were farming for the first step.

I just wish the gimmick was more fun than the phantom classes. A lot of them don't really make the zone more exciting. I found the special buffs/skills way more fun in Eureka and Bozja.

Aside from oracle - as a healer I love the thrill of reducing my HP by a ton but then being able to heal myself right away.

I'm not super motivated to level up all the different phantom jobs (especially the ones that seem extra boring) so it ran its course for me a lot faster than the earlier relic zones.

[Supersnow845]

I feel like cosmic isn’t a flaw of content, it’s a flaw of the fact that there is only so much you can do with crafting

When you take a step back and look at cosmic, what it does and what it doesn’t do, what Phaenna fixed, little things that aussies changed it’s obvious they are taking feedback seriously and implementing it, the problem is simply there is only so much you can do with the games crafting system especially with Raphael.

Conversations I’ve had with people who already liked crafters before this basically all agree, cosmic is fantastic, it’s just crafter mains or people who really like second screening macros like they are playing RuneScape just aren’t a very large portion of the playerbase and with the absolutely catastrophic failure of OC people feel pushed into cosmic when it just isnt broad content

Square isn’t helping this by making it so cosmic gets updated every patch while OC rots and pilgrims; while good; is never getting updated again

Cosmic’s only real “failure” is too much time being dedicated to too few people

[Valence]

I don't get why they planned 4 full blown maps for cosmic. Because the story asked for a progression? We've been doing the same exact thing every time. There is nothing new (beyond dronebits lol). Nothing specific to each map to make them more unique and bring them onto themselves. Even the phase progressions are all the same and build the exact same modules over and over and over (cosmoliner, hydro and energy stations, mech hangars, etc).

If that was the extent of what was planned in terms of gameplay content, two maps at best would have sufficed. Ardorum would have just been a small map instance serving as base camp we could have probably set up in one or two phase progs or just a solo instance like the train station before Doomtrain. Phaenna could have been scrapped, Oizys would have been where we would actually have started following the story, stumbled on alien artifacts. And then the second map would have been the 4th one that has yet to come for a good finale.

But they needed more steps for their doh/dol relics, yet didn't want to assume responsibility for what it actually demanded in terms of investment.

[Derio]

I dont think Cosmic is a fail. However Cosmic and Occult just show that when two large scale open areas are created, both suffer from design perspectives. Occult is a bad version of Bozja and Cosmic while it is mostly fine is just a copy of Ishgard restoration but without the promise of new housing at the end.