FFXIV's reported falling population problem

[@KyrenXIV]

- Don't use untrained/amateur writers on the story-heavy game keeping your company alive. - Fix the netcode - Instanced player housing in addition to community housing - Start the relic grind by X.05 or X.1, let people have something to grind early - Modernize the UI and menus (e.g. what the mobile version devs are doing) - Modernize the character creator to include 300-500% more customization options. - Update/redesign the FATE system to be interesting - Modernized glamour system that doesn't rely on inventory slots and can be used outside inn rooms - Updated dye system to include a ton more colors, or introduce a palette system. - Let retainers be summoned like chocobo companions. - If something's wrong, don't take two years to turn the ship to gradually fix it. - Right now the biggest problem is just how streamlined and standardized everything is. You can predict almost exactly when a patch will come out and 90% of the features that will be included. You can look at previous fanfests and know exactly what they'll announce at the next ones in exactly what order. Jobs are all largely interchangable within their roles. Cutscenes still use the same tracks created in ARR, so you know exactly what type of scene you'll be getting as soon as it starts. And now even the MSQ is largely just trying to follow the same beats as previous expansions but with different window dressing. It's all just so predictable now that it's become boring. Played this game since beta, love it to death, hate seeing it trying to rest on its laurels and drip feed any content that might be considered "exciting."

[@kandiesky]

Yoshida doesn't like to take risks and it shows. He always chooses the safest path, even when it isn't truly safe (eg: using sidequest writers for the msq)

[@Sekai420]

It's so sad that this game was their golden child for like 6 years now and instead of investing more money to make it better and maintain that, they used the money on other projects to please investors. Now their golden child is resourceless because they used all the money on useless or terrible games and are facing a content problem. WE SHOULDN'T HAVE LONGER PATCH CYCLES, THEY SHOULD BE SHORTER (OR SAME LENGTH) AND WITH MORE CONTENT, WHETHER HORIZONTAL OR VERTICAL CONTENT. Don't forget to add that they should've made islands fully editable, added housing every patch equivalent to the firmaments housing (long term content for crafters/gatherers), and revamped the squadron system to be our companions for soloing dungeon content instead of shoehorned in characters where they shouldn't be (why did all of the scions end up on the island? they should've been cameos not permanent additions to the expansion, they should've introduced new long term characters). They should have also lowered the costs of cash shop. We pay subscription and SINGLE USE MOUNTS cost 20+ USD? WoW Cash Shop really was this games inspiration.

[@ruffyrafl2943]

'- If something's wrong, don't take two years to turn the ship to gradually fix it' lol, two years would be a blessing when i look at housing. Feels like every testing phase for a fix takes 2-4 years.

[@ratherbill]

"Modernize the character creator to include 300-500% more customization options." Holy crap I tried making a bunny girl last night with my gf. 3 of the 4 faces are absolute garbage. Customization is in desperate need of an overhaul.

[@RedHoodRubyRose]

If only SE would stop cutting FF14 budgets. SE can't stop just self sabotaging itself since 2023.

[@ats882]

Unfortunately, I don't think FF14 will get any better until Square stops draining it's earnings to make other games. FF14 really needs a new game engine to handle what's needed for a mmo. The engine can't handle dots, remember Odin in 2.0?, housing, inventory space issues. I can only hope for the best.

[@jakkandjing]

"Are you sure you don't want a new nft game?" -Square probably

[@BaithNa]

A new engine would mean they have to remake the entire game from scratch

[@XanafiedcatGaming]

@@BaithNa Square could do it if they really wanted to without remaking it from scratch. Nexon is currently in the process of replacing the game engine for the mmo Mabinogi and that is going to be a update and not a remake. FF14 has over a million players that pay a required sub while Mabinogi is a free to play gacha game that probably barely has 1k players in North America and maybe several thousand players in South Korea. Mabinogi uses a engine developed in the late 90's and has old code from 2003 and a makes far less money than FF14 does. If FF14 says they don't have the funds or resources to replace their game engine then Square obviously doesn't care about FF14 players much at all. They need to wake up and actually respect their players or it is gonna cost them in the long run.

[@hughmungus8701]

@@BaithNa That's their problem to figure out.

[@Xking2011]

@@XanafiedcatGaming It wont happen, the engine is going to stay and they are just going to continue with the schedule they are on till 10.0. YoshiP talked about this before and i don't think he wants to take a year or 2 to try and redo a whole game engine with expansions added on to have a " wake up and actually respect their players" when the game is already on its end to 10.0, because YoshiP said he will work on another game that's not FFMMO and something 100% different MMO/ Game. The man did his job so far and looks forward to the next FFMMO which he said he wont be apart of ( wants to take the Hironobu Sakaguchi route).

[@25xxfrostxx]

We used to have 3 and a half months between patches. Right before the Endwalker release, they announced they were increasing the patch cadence to 4 months, adding two weeks, because the whole team was being given an additional 2 weeks of vacation per year. Cool, they earned it. Then after Dawntrail, they snuck in another 2 weeks. So now we're at 4.5 months between patches. I don't raid so that means between 7.0 and 7.2 when we start seeing casual content, there is a 9 month dead zone. I log in periodically to check retainers and then log out. Dawntrail has a ton of promised content but it's all back loaded to the last half of the patch cycle. It's so odd to me that they're apparently planning to release cosmic exploration and Shade's Triangle in the same patch so anyone who crafts and does exploration content has to pick which one of them they get to miss out on the new content rush on. Something seems off with CBU3.

[@celuiquipeut6527]

I hate crafting 8n this game. And i also hate so much content is locked begind it.

[@ruka9700]

Try raiding 1 time

[@hughmungus8701]

@@ruka9700 Gross. No.

[@Sekai420]

@@celuiquipeut6527 they need to do a material squash and streamline the materials. I have 2 companions strictly dedicated to gatherer or crafting materials. 90% of the stuff is redundant too.

[@celuiquipeut6527]

@@Sekai420 Japanese love to work so much, theythink having a good time in a mmo is working more...

[@1337penguinman]

Story wise, Heavensward was one of the best expansions they've put out and it was basically a self contained story with basically no build up. During the EW patches it was all "wait for 7.0!" Now we've shifted to "wait for the patches" and even "wait for 8.0." I shouldn't have to wait 4 years for a game I pay a monthly sub for to actually be good.

[@Newbtuber]

dont really know why people expected 7.0 to be good. They were basically restarting from square 1 after finishing the main story arc. It was going to take a long time to rebuild into a climatic story again. I think if they just didnt make Wuk lamat so unlikeable, it would of been a decent expansion. People telling you to wait for 7.0 need to get head checked. Going into 7.0 they even said they were going to throw in a bunch of new stuff and see what stick. Regarding 8.0, too early to tell.

[@CptJack-ws8nz]

@@Newbtuber They could have at least tried to made it decent and not what Dawntrail became

[@Newbtuber]

@@CptJack-ws8nz Dont know what you expected honestly. The key driving part about FF14 has always been the main story. Now that we are restarting the story, it was probably going to be a slow weak start. You are basically seeing FF14 for what it is when the story doesnt shine. I dont understand what make you think "they didnt try." The patches so far has been pretty much normal to how every 4.1, 5.1 and 6.1 went. Only difference is that this time it was delay slightly longer by 1-2 weeks. If that was your argument, then sure that is fair. But what we are getting in each patch has been pretty much identical since shadowbringers.

[@kandiesky]

@@Newbtuber Nah bro. It could be really good, no need to build momentum. That's what Stormblood did wrong and they should've learned with it. Both Heavensward and Shadowbringers were ultra good from the start, without the need to do billions of fetch quests with no actual content besides Uzumaki Lamat, the Peace Ninja

[@Newbtuber]

@@kandiesky You are comparing the wrong thing. Dawn Trial is equal to ARR. It is the beginning of a completely new story arc. It needs to build a cast to go forward. The story arc they are building in this expansion is a setup for the next 5 expansion just like ARR set up everything till Endwalker. Comparing it to Shadowbringer and Heavensward to Dawntrial make little sense when they are both expansion that were in the Hydalyn and Zodiark storyline. You need to understand the different between an expansion story and the overall story. Your mindset of "not needing momentum" is exactly how WOW killed itself. Understand that when Endwalker ended, all the problem has been largely resolved. Only way to create new thing is introduce new character and problems to set up for new stuff in the future. That is what Dawntrial is.

[@yatorenegade9524]

Congratulations SE its hard to make people who put hundreds of hours into a game quit but you nailed it.

[@jeremywright9511]

Please look forward to it

[@kellevichy]

This is so dramatic lol

[@yatorenegade9524]

@@kellevichy im playing Genshin Impact rn. Look what Yoshi has done to me.

[@jacoblloyd4406]

I have more fun playing genshin and wuwa then shettrail

[@dale7326]

I play other games now, there are a lot of games that just released and they are very good

[@danielhovey1977]

-Update Grand Companies, gives us the rest of the Ranks, and gear/items suitable for LV90 at least if not LV100. -Add the other nations as Grand Companies, for example Ishgard. -Rework Squadrons, ever since trusts and Duty Support squadrons have become basically pointless. -Let matchmade parties in deep-dungeons have access to more than just thirty floors, fighting same three bosses on repeat gets boring quickly. -The FFXIV has trouble getting relics to just the right level of grind, with Endwalker being the worst offender so far. -All Jobs of a certain role basically play the same now. -Instanced player housing is long overdue. -Either make side quests actually rewarding to do, or remove most of them. It should not take 20 side quests to gain the same exp as one Tribal quest. -Let us skip MSD cutscenes again

[@squizzlygrirrel6227]

I agree with most apart from skipping MSD cutscenes it was a really disheartening experience to have the end of 2.0 ruined the 1st time you went in because you missed the dungeons because you watched the cutscenes or you missed the story because you were trying to keep up.

[@chelsthegameruiner8669]

Wait, we don't have the other GC ranks yet?

[@nestor-martinez]

I remember running around in this game looking for dynamic things to do and there was just nothing. Empty, lifeless maps.

[@WarMomPT]

Dawg I think this describes every MMO except Guild Wars 2

[@DrIcarus-l9r]

Yeah, I stopped midway memewalker when I realised it's an anime disguised as MMO with occasional players encounters

[@MapleLunii]

@@WarMomPT Pretty much. Even if I don't play it regularly, I still think GW2 has the best map exploration of any MMO to this day.

[@DrIcarus-l9r]

@@MapleLunii the ultimate MMO experience, I'm so done with games that force you to mindless solo every piece of content till endgame, then MAYBE you get to interact with people

[@F_Yale]

@@WarMomPT Hardly. WoW is, or was, incredibly immersive. Aion, too.

[@HonestPhil]

every element of ff9 felt shoehorned in . the way how they slapped the music in was so fucking cheap it just pissed me off more. ff9 is my favorite final fantasy game too and i didnt even expect too much from them.

[@idc2120]

This. Unearned key jangling.

[@coconutz11]

FF9 is not just my favorite FF but my favorite game of all time and I hated how it was shoehorned in. A complete 180 degree difference with the clever FF4/FF5/FF7 references in Heavensward.

[@mralexnui73]

Still don't understand why they chose this to be the FF9 expac. Alexandria in XIV feels so unnecessary and so far removed from all the electrope supersoldiers and cyberpunk utopian nonsense that occupies the 2nd half of the MSQ. If they wanted to incorporate a preexisting city, Zanarkand would have fit much better with the concept of Living Memory. Idk, to me it felt like them just checking off boxes as opposed to incorporating something because they thought it would fit.

[@Wishmaster787]

​@@idc2120They also shoehorned all the FF4 bosses into Endwalker post-msq.

[@Quester91]

Glad I'm not the only one feeling this way. I played ff9 when I was a kid back in 2001 on my ps1 when I was facing a very difficult time in my life, and I love that game to bits. 9 is an small yet integral part of me. The fact it was so shoehorned into ff14 it made me dislike the already disgustingly mediocre msq even more. After years of playing 14 I felt almost betrayed by all those references, music and themes that mean so much to me tacked on such a simplistic amateurish story like dawntrail.

[@christopherbailey3547]

I like how when Zepla made a video with her concerns and criticisms people were flaming her , and here we have everything she was concerned about happening. It’s time for more people to be open to square about this game , they doing the same bare minimum formula and expect it’s gonna keep working .

[@anthonydelfino6171]

Zepla's critiques were honestly the most fair and level headed I think I've seen from anyone about the game

[@elgatochurro]

We're allowed to disagree and criticize others

[@aceandrews7778]

She's kinda been on a hating ff path atm, she was doing 7.1 literally complained about how it made no sense meanwhile her chat were literally telling her the characters just explained the thing she was complaining about and all she did was ignore and continue going off on stuff

[@arionell]

@@aceandrews7778 Except she was right.

[@aceandrews7778]

@arionell she wasn't if her chat turned on her for it

[@amichau]

It kills me that Wuk Lamat’s writing, and the music, was so grating. I have every reason to love them, and yet…

[@hippiechick73]

Yeah, I was excited to have a female broth character, but she seemed so foolish. After a lot of reflection, I thought that maybe she really wasn’t as foolish as she seems because she has that cat grin. Her face has a little more expressiveness than say, the coerl face, but it still generally has a cat smile and not the seriousness of other characters. I hope we can leave Wuk behind as we did Lyse.

[@amichau]

@ I genuinely think it’s because they make her unrealistically ignorant, like, how have you lived here your entire life and you don’t know the Hanu Hanu greeting? There are Hanu Hanu all over the city, and as the princess, she’s never met any of them?

[@VGPorage]

I feel that they have started to forget the lesson they learned from 1.0s failure. Don't take your playerbase for granted.

[@toniportal]

true, especialy you are a game of service

[@jaymercury651]

I don't trust SE to make any good decisions towards FF14's future or preservation.

[@DoppelgangerTH]

It wasn't them that made good decisions about the game in the first place. It was yoship. And I think they are forcing his hands now. By keeping him out.

[@jaymercury651]

@@DoppelgangerTH Ultimately they have a veto on what budget is allocated to the game, which was more what my point was about. They also got to decide if FF14 2.0 was worth a shot or not, so I'd argue they did make a good decision there.

[@Calios]

Yoshi P: How can we fix this? We lost half a million players! Kate: Add more Wuk Lamat scenes, everyone loves her! Yoshi P: BRILLIANT!

[@shyannur]

Was planning to come back and give Dawntrail a chance. Then i learn about Kate Cwynar involvement. Immediately log out from Mogstation afterward.

[@arionell]

@@shyannur You're aware that she was also involved with Endwalker, right?

[@1Mrstephen]

@@arionelllol who cares if she was evolved in EW…. She made a mistake with this xpac… and an even bigger mistake is the insanity of following her advice after the player base has spoken against what she wanted to do. The players are the ones that pay the bills. The ones that stay subbed… at this point allI stay subbed for is my dang house lol…

[@DarkDyllon]

@@arionell You are aware she generally worked under Koji Fox, but since he was busy with other projects he wasn't directly involved? it's like Kojima with MGS, sure he can write good stories, but he needs someone to hold him in check, otherwise he goes off the rails quite hard.

[@kellevichy]

Yoshi P literally tells people to go play other games lol

[@RobbinnDaHood]

My input on falling population is this: the game never feels like an RPG or an actual world. It’s full of BS fetch quests with nothing REALLY going on to keep you playing outside of endgame content. Yeah endgame is king in MMO’s, but at time that’s ALL FFXIV feels like: a queue simulator.

[@JMulls]

Yeah the lack of customization has it's pros but I think FF14 takes that too far into the extreme, prob will make a vid on it

[@RobbinnDaHood]

@ build diversity is certainly an issue (there is none). It feels so samey. That is my second biggest issue with the game. Even if they just let you swap some skills out for others to fulfill a different role that would go a long way.

[@Jepegish]

I had to sit in queue for a collective FOUR AND A HALF HOURS to finish the Pandaemonium raid. It's not looking good.

[@hayden6383]

Unfortunately this will never change, FF16 is a testament to Yoshi P's game design. So limited, zero build diversity, 1,2,3 on rails and never too difficult 😂

[@lidlpotato2047]

I understand that the game doesn't feel like an RPG, because you don't actually get to roleplay unless you specifically seek it out with other players, but I don't agree that the world doesn't feel real. I don't think I've ever played a game that consistently has such great world building and character writing as FFXIV. It stumbles here and there but overall it's outstanding. Obv only my opinion, but the world is what initially drew me into FFXIV and a big part of why I keep coming back to it.

[@dokdias]

It is not just these last 8 months. The quality has dropped after 6.0. Relic being acquired by tomes, variant dungeons lackluster rewards, no bozja/eureka-like content. So its actually 3 years of neglect from CBU3. Shameful

[@JathraDH]

I was most upset about the lack of crafting/gathering achievement weapons. It was the only expansion in the game (including ARR) that did not have those. So much got cut because of the FF16 tax.

[@ninponighthawk]

I personally enjoyed not having a huge over-world zone to not have to level through. Granted, I didn't like eureka nor bozja. But I played the hell out of the deep dungeon. And yeah the relic weapon was way too free. Wish they would of tied it to the deep dungeon. That and the crafter/gatherer relics were far to easy to get as well.

[@Dmckenzie6]

They got a lucky lottery ticket in the blizzard sexual harrassment / pandemic emigration, but I imagine those players are basically gone now.

[@steakdriven]

Their best bet is to ditch Wuk Lamat and shift towards Azem's story

[@anthonydelfino6171]

I think they want to seperate from the ancients stories and start into something new

[@pastaboy1338]

@@anthonydelfino6171 you're in for a rude awakening.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

@@pastaboy1338 I'm current on the story, if they choose to go with more of the ancients, I will sigh and go with it but I'm going off that the zodiark and hydelyn story arc is over, the ascians are finished, and they're setting up a new arc. if they decide to tie it back into the same origin, that's just lazy writing... but this is Dawntrail so...

[@UmbraWeiss]

If they don't change the writer, they can change to any story they want... It will be garbage.

[@Augustex986]

@@anthonydelfino6171 They already did. They tried tying it back to Azem at the tail-end of the MSQ. (Haven't done the patch, Idk if they mention it again).

[@almightypalevin8186]

I actually HATED the Alexandria part of the story! I wanted to be a cowboy in Shaolani! I wanted to explore the Wild Wild West and see what that was all about. Ride rronek. Ride the train to Yasulani to meet Cacihua and hang out with Namikka. But it was all RUINED by the Alexandria BS! 😡

[@arionell]

Nah. They were never going to give you the Cowboy story. It would've been way to traumatizing for this game's audience lmao. They weren't even using real bullets.

[@BritaLee]

i was also devastated by this! i had a cowboy glam ready and everything

[@darkmistress1980]

you can get a rronek mount in game. its from the "mount tokens" you get from gathering nodes for orange gather scripts.

[@TeemoTeemosson]

I'll pass on Namikkka.

[@deeplydepressedcat1642]

GOD SAME, Alexandria was ridiculous!

[@BaithNa]

Yeah, I think we all saw this coming and happening since the launch of Dawntrail. It was horribly recieved, some people still haven't finished the MSQ and we've all seen/felt the population drop over the last few months due to the lack of content and the terribly written MSQ. They need to drastically change their plans for the rest of the 7.X release cycle. Move the relic weapon, Beast Tamer and the exploration zone releases up in the patch cycle so more people have a reason to play beyond the 10% of raiders in the community. They also have to change the story so there's less Wuk and more interesting things going on. At this point, Wuk is just the face of Dawntrail's failures and they need to get rid of her before she becomes the face of Final Fantasy XIV's downfall. There are 4 months before the next patch and that might be the last chance to either get players back or lose them until 8.0. Only having 2 patches instead of the 3 that they used to has had a toll on the community too. The down time between patches is ridiculous for a subscription based game. Firing writers would also go a long way to bring some faith to the community but Japan is a dumb country built on loyalty so we're stuck with these crap writers smh.

[@celuiquipeut6527]

The women who wrote for ShB and the Dark Knight is a genius. She now manage. Ok she earned it. But sheisnt writing anymore. I wish she would not weite on what they are giving her but on what she want to write about. The new story is ass and Woke-Lamat is lame.

[@Sekai420]

@@celuiquipeut6527 All they had to do was give her pay increase while maintaining her role. She's clearly not managing well in this position and this game is too big for mess ups.

[@jpacampara21]

i want a new tank class

[@MikaMausArt]

@@Sekai420 Y'all are clearly misinformed about Ishikawa, she's not the lead writer anymore but more so a """"consultant"""" which is exactly the same role the previous writers before her who wrote HW had when they were *drum rolls*... working on FF16. Ishikawa being the star writer of the company now, she has definitely been moved to work as a lead and main writer for FF17 now, we'll just know in a few years.

[@Sekai420]

@@MikaMausArt which is bad for FFXIV… she was a fantastic asset and helped build some of the greatest moments of the expansions. Now, her being a consultant we’re seeing worse writing. There’s a direct correlation

[@Skrtskrt1236]

They can start by bringing back the gem that is Ishikawa, why they brought in a dude that was known for his sloppy boring writing confuses me. Ishikawa made people fall in love with the story and really brought it to its peak.

[@KuruSeed]

makes sense, there's better visual novels out there that don't require a monthly subscription

[@JAIGH83]

That’s one of the reasons I left. In the beginning I was playing a game but as time went on I was watching a visual novel with a few interactive bits now and then but the active bits were so easy or over so soon and back to a cutscene as to be pointless.

[@noahbuster4333]

Dawn Trial and Wuk Lamat is all you need to know. Fire those writers please

[@Nowyn]

Wuk Lamat was fundamentally horrible as a character. The fact that we have to revolve the story after the main expansion means that I skip that stuff. I never skipped MSQ until this expansion.

[@gregnicholas26]

And voice "actors"

[@merrilllee4878]

It isnt just the story that has problems.

[@ChannelRaznoff]

I've been playing since 1.0 beta. I unsubbed after 7.0 and returned for 7.1 just to see where they were going with the FFXI alliance raid and then unsubbed again right after finishing. I think after over 10 years of playing, it's just time for me to move on. The gameplay just doesn't do it for me anymore and the story had a nice wrap up in Endwalker. I'll just forget everything after 6.0 like I do with the games that came after Parasite Eve and Dragon Age in their series.

[@WolfCoder]

Honestly Endwalker rocked out so hard that's kind of a good place to move on at. If Dawntrail was the vacation epilogue it was advertised as people would stick around and watch their favorite characters have fun but that's probably all the potential it had.

[@kellevichy]

@@WolfCoder Dawntrail NEVER advertised itself like a vacation. It's your fault for being mad at something it never claimed to be. A vacation expansion would be boring as sin and would've been a disaster if we got that snoozefest.

[@WolfCoder]

@@kellevichy as opposed to the snoozefest we got now?

[@marcusbooth3510]

​@kellevichy ...waaaaaaaaaaat? ...... so... Yoshi... literally saying this is your summer vacation.... just isn't a thing then...

[@ChannelRaznoff]

@kellevichy honestly, it probably would have been better than the Disney Star Wars version of FFXIV we got. All the same story beats done worse with far less likable characters in the lead.

[@xpgainz]

They should do a Dawntrail reborn, with a new director. I love yoshi p but the man needs a break, he didnt deliver with FFXVI and neither with dawntrail, he is clearly overworked

[@BETAsin]

Nah, bro just has one kind of game in his bag of tricks, simple one track, with only surface level customization. Problem is current day audiences are demanding more than that.

[@BongSwansong]

Over worked or over rated?

[@zaryalace7475]

He needs to put someone else in charge of 14. Clearly, his attention has been solely focused on 16 and the next game.

[@continuallyblessed44]

Agreed. After XVI it woke me up to the fact that he might have been a one hit wonder when he revitalized XIV. I had never been let down by a FF than I was with XVI (absolutely hate everything about that game) and now with Dawntrail being so bad I’m kind of over him as director of these games.

[@bulat9331]

I fear for any future FF title that has him as lead, imagine what he would do if he was in charge of Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster. All depth removed and 20 filler quests added before and after each mission if we're lucky though it might even retain it's strategy rpg genre.

[@rieyuki]

Crafting from mats on retainers would be a huge QoL improvement. WoW crafting lets you craft from mats in your bank. In FF14 there’s too many steps involved to search to see whether you own the mats, then using summoning bell to make the correct retainer to appear, then there’s too many window popups after that to retrieve the mat and exit retainers screen.

[@MysticLuka]

There's a lot of this kind of shit in FFXIV. Just excess numbers of steps for lots of really basic stuff. Like the fact that retainers act as storage and it takes like 4 menu options to GET TO THEIR STORAGE. It's so annoying after years of playing. I would MUCH MUCH rather jsut have an actual bank that expands if I pay for more retainers or something. Just one bank interface instead of multiple retainers.

[@ZelosSama]

​@@MysticLuka" are you sure you want to open this door? Are you sure you want to use X keys" ( in dungeons) Like nah bro , i wanna stay in this section of dungeon forever. Seriously who thought of that shit and why is it so hard to remove it.

[@eyrilonakestrysswyn3513]

Ever tried to look up, on console, the gathering location for an item you already have in your inventory? You first have to find "Search recipes using this material", then move to one in the list, then open the context menu for it, then select "Search for item by crafting method", then press X to go into the right-hand side of the crafting menu, then move UP from the Synthesize button where it puts your cursor by default, then move your cursor to the ingredient material corresponding to the material you started with in the first place, open it's context menu, and select "Search for Item by Gathering Method", and THEN it will open that item in the Gathering Log. It is barely faster than opening the Gathering Log manually and just searching for the material by typing its name in the search bar... and that's saying something when we have materials like dimythrite.

[@darkmistress1980]

things FFXIV could "borrow/steal" from WoW : the transmog system being account wide, mounts being account wide, having a bank tab for crafting/gathering mats and allowing newly desynthed items go into the tab that was just spoken of tbh i just wish this game was more alt friendly like WoW is. i could send mats and items to my alts when i was leveling stuff cause of it being my account. in FFXIV i have to friend some one and send mail, pass it through an FC mate or put it in the FC bank and withdrawl it.

[@luvpotion333]

I love this game dearly, been playing for almost 4 years, I was there for the release of Endwalker and Dawntrail. I've done extreme trials, savage raids, tried my portion of ultimate too, the new chaotic etc. I have leveled all my jobs to 90 and a few to 100, I was the type of player that liked having everything maxed out, but lately I can't bring myself to login to run dailies to finish leveling them all cause it feels just SO repetitive. I keep watching gameplays and reactions of previous expansions, cause Dawntrail didn't give me anything to latch onto, I really don't care about the current state of the story. It's very sad, this game has been such an integral part of my life, I really wish the story picks up again and new exciting stuff happens. Storywise, I think we could use more ancient and Azem content, it's what made the previous expansions so amazing, the culmination of moments that led to the construction of who Azem, and therefore the WoL, is

[@DoppelgangerTH]

One of us One of us Watch other streamers do the msq, then after they're done abandon that ship and emotionally leech off the next one!

[@hippiechick73]

@@luvpotion333 I think it would be fun to have a spin off game where you go through Azem’s story in the unsundered world. Ever since Amaurot I’ve wanted to see more of it.

[@luvpotion333]

@@hippiechick73 i think about that idea often too! imagine you get to relive your early days as azem, have adventures with emet and hyth, but then get to see the final days unfold in its entirety, that'd be a hell of a spin off

[@Zakurablade]

I think one of the biggest problems at the moment is the content. Why in the name of Cid did they add nothing but savage and extreme stuff one after the other,? Especially when that's the content that doesn't appeal to the majority of players. The 24man savage is a fun fight. But a headache to get 24 people to stick around and grind much less corporate. And when's the next real update March April? There's a big gap with nothing going on lol.

[@enpi-me]

@@Zakurablade When you look at how often other mmos are updated, i think we are good... As for high end duties such as savage/ex it is the bread and butter of any mmo. Compared to other side content like eureka, potd or the sanctuary mini game which are not as popular, and is considered by some players as wasted resources. Though usually the issue is not the content itself, but the rewards which are not good enough to be an incentive to run those content.

[@Zakurablade]

@enpi-me But we really are not good hence the player base dropping off. We would be better if they added something other then a 24 man savage. Like maybe a new creation dungeon or even a deep dungeon. As I said savage content doesn't appleal to the majority of players. And going 2 or more moths with nothing isn't the smartest of strategies. You bring up other mmos but other mmorpg games are generally not as good as ff14 for that same reason people want stuff to do. And a lot of them are free to play ff14 isn't.

[@DICEBOY22]

They need to switch the story writer and get someone who understands what players love from Heavensward and Shadowbringers.

[@puraasneira]

In my opinion, YoshiP lost his touch.. be it because of arrogance of complacency. He is literally doing the same thing as Ion did to WoW and ignoring us because he "knows what we want". In Shadowbringers, that speech that we should play other games sounded liberating, now that I know better, it's just offensive. I am paying a subscription, I don't want to play other games and You are no doing me any favors by allowing me to play your game. We are customers above all. Also, stop with the goddamn cake recipes. The game is literally a blueprint that they keep reapplying over and over again. - Dungeons are literally the same since SB - The Pelu Pelu quests are literally the same quests from the Arkasodara. (I would not be surprised if they had a template and just set the coordinates on the map) - DT story is exactly the same as ShB, but bad.. even the scene where thancred breaks reality on the final fight was copied. Not even going to talk about inconsistencies with EW. - The world is dead, you can walk for hours and nothing will attack you. - FATES are braindead boring. When I play GW2, I can literally spend hours just doing world content and it's fun while on XIV I can stay at limsa watching 5 multibox miqo'tes dancing..

[@bulat9331]

Not hating on your opinion but I find it funny that you have the exact opposite feelings to me about GW2. I've played on and off for maybe 11-12 years done everything except this latest expansions content several times over and I just, think it's the exact opposite over there. For the most part during the games life cycle they just update whenever there will be gulfs of almost a year (post IBS) where we just didn't get content, they would ignore fractals for several years, no dungeons since what 2012? they just released wing 8 (not sure how it is didn't buy jw) when they ignored raids in favour of strikes for many years, what even were DRM's? they left as soon as they came. Terrible story IBS was wasteful, LWS2 sucked and disappeared into thin air and they re-introduced it into the game worse than it was previously, LWS3 was pretty bad, LWS4 was alright actually. HoT was excellent, PoF was okay, EoD was decent. THE TUNNEL!? Post EoD omg buddy. One of the story updates being reading Gorrik's emails LORD. This game is an experimental wasteland where they until SoTO had no clue what they wanted to do. Now the current content framework is paying for the once free living world and masquerading that as an expansion as they retire their previous expansion model... Man I could go on. But my point when starting this rant was that I would have killed years ago for the recipe, for them to have actual structure to their cake instead of haphazardly throwing ingredients into the bowl and hoping whatever it is they are baking is edible. Also, I suppose how if you play something long enough you might end up despising it's flaws.

[@puraasneira]

@@bulat9331 No worries. I also don't think GW2 is perfect and I myself am more a XIV player than a GW2 player. Also, my comment on Guild Wars 2 is not at all based on the points that I pointed as bad for XIV, but I agree that it may have sounded like it. But, I would love if the open world content from XIV could be something closer to the GW2 content. Even WoW on their recent expansions have something closer to it... Tbf, if the world was something like bozja, it would be fun enough to me.

[@RedHoodRubyRose]

Biggest problem with DT for me, was how it broke every known lore from ARR to EW. No mention of final days, no mention of how they all survived. Also her line "Just believe harder" or "When you are happy everything is possible" is such a slap in the face. Like it's an insult to Haurchefant death, like he would survive if he just believed hard enough. Those writers and localizers don't deserve a single paycheck they received. And don't get me started on how our little Wukie Lamat believes everything cat be fixed with a smile.

[@UmbraWeiss]

Yup, that one I loved to... It's like they had some isolation barrier going on there and things didn't happen because they were in another dimension at that time😂

[@DarkDyllon]

@@UmbraWeiss with the final days it was already poorly executed in Endwalker to be fair. when we see it first in action in SHB it was a massive cataclysmic event, we even ran the dungeon of it. when we see it again in Elpys it's still horrible, but we only see a few bits and pieces. But then when it finally hits us in present day ... only a few zones are affected? when the final days are in full swing (for example in Radz at Han), if you go to Gridania, Lima, Ul'dah, Ishgard or any other zone, there's 0 things going on related to the final days. (do note that the time WE spend in Elpys was effectively in real time as well for our current time line, it's kinda like we "left" our timeline and then came back the same amount of time later, which also in DT just shits on it, since they first say "30 years has passed" in that 1 to 2 days before we invaded Alexandria, but as soon as WE enter, time returns to normal?) So that writing flaw wasn't even a DT thing, that was already an EW thing, the fact that the final days was so hyped up to be this massive cataclysmic event that would end the entire world as we know it and then it's contained to a few zones at best. I would be content with the explanation of "well, the other zones are less affected due to their aetherial stability (or something) but you can still see some effects of it, for example a red sky, I would be 100% happy with it, but the fact that the other major zones had 0 issues with the final days EXCEPT Radz At Han is just bad writing as well, even if in the story they say "they also felt the effects" ... I can go there whenever I please, while it's happening I can just teleport to Gridania and check for myself.

[@carl9283]

imagine wuk lamat going to the middle east and trying to force her way with a smile lmao thats how she feels

[@Radio4Ever]

I feel like the only one who paid attention to how the final days played out in ancient times. It didn't happen all at once across the whole world. Emet-Selch even says it's the "Final Days of Amaurot".

[@specialnewb9821]

I kept expecting some event that would rip apart that belief and force a maturation but it never happened.

[@KurisuHan]

As someone with 3k hours, DT really dropped the ball for me. I started as a giga casual MSQ andy with friends but then explored everything else the game had to offer. I have an FC, fully decorated house, all the glam I want, and have cleared 99% of the content in the game that I want to do. The only incentive I've had logging into DT is doing my weekly savage reclears to gear alt jobs and to do FRU which is a nightmare in PF. The battle content is really fun imo but the community being so sensitive and unwilling to receive criticism is what ruins the game for me. I come from competitive shooters so its like I have to walk on eggshells with the general playerbase for this game.

[@TuringTestFailer]

20k hours and I'll probably never alt-run the Dawntrail MSQ for a second+ time unless the first half becomes skippable, so my alts are basically dead now.

[@lindaa9005]

most people's "walking on eggshells" tends to equate to ' I can't be a dick"- I've never had issues communicating with parties, yet you will find people who will claim that they are terrified of communicating in chat due to fears of being reported 🙄

[@FaeAvalon]

Just cause you haven't experienced it, doesn't mean it's not a very real issue. Your ffxiv community in a nutshell for you right there ^

[@KurisuHan]

@@lindaa9005 have you been doing savage/ultimate content? No one even talks in casual content but when you’re sitting in an instance for 3 hours straight with randoms who are just straight up bad you can’t call them out on it. Its “reportable”

[@ministabber4927]

Zero V Wuk Lamat, dark and moody V childish trash! I can't even get myself to start the 7.1 MSQ. How did we go from epic writing to tasteless joke about tasteless ice cream ???

[@DarkDyllon]

tbf, I didn't like Zero either, the fact we just so conviently meet the void send that was with Zenos was already a stretch, but then she also was this major player in the past? It might be because of the poorly paced story, since we go from "we discover a way to the 13th!" to "meeting Zero" to having to wait for her to wait up ... for 4 months. But also, het constant hat tipping at every small revelation was so fucking annoying. "you people help each other?" *tips hat* You guys have an abundance of aether? *tips hat*

[@Temptest09]

dont kid yourself both are ass lmfao. Anything compared to wuk lamat looks good, but lets not cap and say zero was "epic" when she was a boring ass character too.

[@octoleech]

If I didnt own a house I wouldnt be subscribed to the game right now. Why in the holy mother of god do they think that waiting a year into an expansion is an acceptable time to release the expansions content? I get not having it directly at launch, MSQ, class leveling and gearing and all that, but the relic grind needs to come out at x.05 or x.1 at the latest.

[@CivilChev]

You're part of the problem.

[@juviachan9963]

me too. wondering if 14 eur a month justifies a virtual house.

[@rexhurne]

@@juviachan9963 i think it's because it is so annoying to get a house, that people are afraid to lose/don't think rationally about it it. I was in that hostage situation for a bit too, but the thought i was spending 14 eu for nothing each month eventually made me just go through with it, and i don't miss the house at all now that i don't have it. You can't even do much with the house, it's all fluff (and you get a free apartment anyway)

[@1Mrstephen]

@@CivilChevno, you’re part of the problem. This person isn’t alone.

[@Kurainuz]

meanwhile in BDO and ESO you dont have to pay montly and you get acces to multiple instanced houses

[@chuploops9973]

The elephant in the room: we're BORED of this game and it's STALE.

[@julicen]

Wow really? Im shocked!! How could this ever happen?

[@lunyiea]

Such a huge surprise! Ò-O"

[@jambalolk]

SPEEN! LISTAN TO MEEE!

[@ciniapacifica8211]

I dunno Either... Maybe you can Ask Wuk Lamat..

[@Jepegish]

I have in fact noticed a decline in duty finder queue's and party finder lobbies. It's a little scary but I don't think it's as bad as the articles are making out. That said, I think I've spent over 8 hours in queue over the last week so maybe it really is that bad.

[@celuiquipeut6527]

Queue would last 5 min. 15 if it was old or unpopular content. So its really not good for the game.

[@DICEBOY22]

Honestly from what little I've seen of Wuk... she's not a right fit of a character... For Final Fantasy. If she were a main character written for a Shonen battle manga where the power scale weebs could constantly assess her feats and power level, I think she would've been better liked in her own thing. Something looms in the air and tells me it might be time for clean slate in FF17-18-Whatever whenever the next MMO one happens. Square needs to get thier financial shit together first.

[@Urbish]

Agree with many of the points here. I think there are myriad factors that have contributed to this situation: 1. Endwalker gave many people a jumping off point, they had reached the end of a journey and are happy to finish it there. 2. The story has been received very badly, you can cope about 'mixed' reviews but that is not the reception any studio wants, especially one that has received such acclaim. 3. Because of the above, the lid has been blown off a lot of simmering issues people have with the game that were previously ignored or dismissed. 4. The expansion lacks freshness, jobs are barely changed, boring and homogenised and there is a real lack of casual content. It feels like going through the motions. 5. COVID and the WoW exodus artificially inflated the playerbase and some level of decline was inevitable from such a high peak. I'm not as much of a doomer as others and I think its fair to say that some of these factors are not SE's fault, but undoubtedly the game is stagnating and needs a shakeup to keep people interested.

[@feralist]

prolly just me but I think one of the suckiest period FFXIV had was in HW lol, i had fun with bard and then they decided to introduce 'casting' mechanic to the physical range classes, like wtf lol, so glad it got revised and removed later on after the backlash in era HW had alot of problems when it came to raid statics too if i recall, back then they still had the piercing/slashing/blunt mechanics to consider for the physical classes, which eventually streamlined to just standardized burst/recovery phases that we have today all in all, ive had a really great time over the past decade with the first story arc. if anything i feel bad for the people who started joining at the peak of the game, especially those that started in EW and had to rush through everything that many other old players have experienced through over the years so many of these players seem lost and confused at the current state of the game, not being used to the 'oh new patch let's spend the next few weeks/months grinding out the new shit' and then just either goes into complete chill mode doing casual stuff or just play something else when the novelty of new content dies off

[@Urbish]

@@feralistThanks for sharing, I'm a fairly new player so it's helpful to get that perspective. I guess I would suggest there should be a middle ground between that sort of gameplay and the tedious filler/burst we now have

[@feralist]

​@@Urbish the concerns raised about the player count is valid, but if you're a long time player you'd understand the patch cycles and how they work - and players will just adjust to it also, I'd say Dawntrail is considered like a new 'ARR' arc, so just let the people behind the scenes take their time to worldbuild the grand plot for the next decade Shadowbringers felt like peak FFXIV for me because they took the plot from the ARR Alliance Raid, which back then was merely a side content that nobody cared about, and somehow managed to expand it full blown into a world catastrophy expansion - trust me, every old player was very impressed at the way SE handled this bit of expanding world content within its own world - unfortunately because of this, people started to theorycraft on what other side contents could be explored further for the future context of the game, thus raising unnecessary expectations even higher for SE So my advice is simple - just take the game and enjoy it at your own pace and let the developers work their creative magic. You can't expect the game to always peak at every moment, but over the years of going through all the highs and lows, I'd definitely say it was an experience worth journeying throughout the years.

[@antarath517]

@@feralist The issue with Dawntrail is that the biggest flaws with the story have very little to do with it being a new arc. The corporate blandness in the dialogue, railroading of the WoL's decisions, and oversaturation of Wuk Lamat were avoidable mistakes, not inevitabilities.

[@feralist]

@@antarath517 Yeah, but I'd still say give it time to flesh out. There was a period of time when were players trolling out "Pray Return to the Waking Sands" back during the in-era days of ARR too, but look at how the main plot fleshed out eventually for the next decade.

[@OizenX]

Its interesting to me that the FFXIV MSQ was basically the load bearing krusty poster that kept everything from falling over. People put up with so much because the world and characters felt alive to them, strip that away and honestly XIV as a game is largely mediocre.

[@TheAkashicTraveller]

The game had a lot of interesting, if janky, features. Instead of improving on them and building the game side they've just stripped out every single feature that madebthe game fun update by update.

[@Caladir]

You're spot on really. Now after the story didn't resonate with most people, they're more open to see the myriad of problems FFXIV has. And you can't ignore or excuse it with ''But story is amazing!'' What I find the most troubling and biggest issue with, is how Silent SE and Yoshi-p are. Remember when EW got pushed 1 week and we had reasoning? Blog posts about things? They were very open and vocal with community, but now, they must see what is brewing and how many people are unhappy, why ignore it and not say anything? It only makes things worse.

[@RED_Theory038]

​@@Caladirand it makes worse how it's an open secret that a lot of the money going into FF14 gets siphoned out to their other projects. Not saying none goes back, but it feels like not enough ever goes back to their golden egg laying goose.

[@ToxicCalamari]

@@Caladir And when they're not silent, they're delivering such gems like YoshiP telling us to be excited about seeing EVEN MORE Wuk Lamat in an interview. Theres been no real addressing the monumental fuck up DT has been when it should've been an easy slam dunk...

[@tinyblackmage]

@@OizenX YoshiP literally killed their golden goose by thinking he could feed it garbage while handing the eggs out to his other projects. Instead of fixing systems, they just dumb things down, total idiocy

[@Kurainuz]

Yoship lied for years while cutting contend and simplifying it "for the sake of the devs" while instead of geting rest the devs were put into 4 diferent proyects including 14 and 16. After that we have got a full expansion with almost no repeteable content, then comes the new expansion and after 8 months the only casual content is 4 trials, one aliance raid and one dungeon. No relic farm to do with friends or randoms, no exploration zone, there is no reason if you dont care about BiS or hard content to login for more than a few weeks. Oh and the "great thing prepared for gold saucer" ended up being a temporary colab with fall guys... While i agree that there should be no NEED to login to keep the pace of other people, in a paid live service i want reasons to pay the sub and play the game between patches, and the "go do old content that its empty and to wich is hard af to find people unless you go to dedicated discords" its not a great option The game kept square alive and its their main stable source of income, but with each expansion less and less money and work seems to en up in the game.

[@shaneh6707]

"go do old content that its empty and to wich is hard af to find people unless you go to dedicated discords" its not a great option AGREED. While Bozja and Eurkeka are pretty active to this day, what if you've already done them? Why should I have to go do 5+ year old content, with a level 70 or under kit, to enjoy the game? What if I want to use all my cool level 100 skills?

[@chesssean]

I dipped. Everything was so formulaic. I was a raider. PF was a cesspool. Often times I would understand a mechanic and yet, I couldn’t make any progress. I also was in a static, but often times drama would ensue. So much ego is in raiding it’s awful. The story was unbearable. I didn’t even finish it

[@TheRealXartaX]

The "community" is the worst part of FF14, and why I quit.

[@BiscuitsV2]

Yeah. Unfortunately, they kind of ensured that when they held the community's hand through Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Everyone expects to be spoonfed the content, and most of the playerbase doesn't even know what half their kit does or what most of the repeat mechanics do or look like. We spent 15 mins of savage lockout, at max level, to explain to a melee dps what positionals are. This whole game is a sad state rn.

[@Temptest09]

ill take a made up story or a person who didn't even try for $10 alan

[@epiccaliburist9431]

Feeling this so hard rn I started about 2 years ago and have put at least 4k hours in. Raiding was what got me into the game and I've done all the ults (Aside from DSR) and savages from anabesios onward. Getting a clear in FRU took me a month and half. It's a new ult or whatever and so it's to be expected, but my issue is the raiding community of 14. Absolute dumpster fire of a community. Toxic self fulfilling douche bags. Tomestone has ruined raiding, gone is moving ahead when you're ready because people will check and kick you frame 1 for not being "ready" while in reality it's the people piloting these parties who are the problem. People are nasty and just don't have any sense of comradery. You make more enemies pugging high end content than you do allies and it sucks honestly lol a teamwork game that no one wants to put the effort in to being a healthy community.tis sad

[@pocaiesc]

@@BiscuitsV2 I don't even raid but this is what made me quit people don't know their job, kit, or anything about group dynamics or even how to gear properly to not troll the group and if you try to kindly explain anything in chat chances are you will be called toxic, ignored, or actively griefed. Had to give up and quit.

[@IKIGAIofficial]

How do you get a massive influx of players, become the sole bread winner for square enix, then still need 4.5 months for patch updates where i get done with all the content in a week? Every big mmo has 1 or 2 things that it does way better than the others. For ff one of that was the story. Dawntrail story sucked. So they now lost that 1 thing that made it stand out. Making all the other problems way way worse now.

[@Elc22]

Because they are pulling all of the income from FF14 to fund their delusions. Remember Squenix funded the development of an NFT game...

[@CivilChev]

Massive influx of players happened during the pandemic and WoW Shadowlands but Squeenix thinks it's because they made the classes homogenized and the game too easy. Now they either need to continue to cater to this new audience or risk alienating them to return to good class design. Personally, I don't think FFXIV can be saved.

[@Sekai420]

@@CivilChev It's doable if they stop sucking off their investors and take a financial hit to either remake their engine or fix the spaghetti code to cure most of the QoL problems. After QoL they can fine tune the classes and make them better. I really think they should just swap to hybrid action like GW2 or fix their netcode and make the class abilities more dynamic to fix the issue.

[@tinyblackmage]

@@CivilChev fully agreed. Its a dying game that’s plays like a dance simulator on circle and square platform (every freakin boss fight)

[@KendaraDark]

- Having someone who biggest experience in writing it with children's stories in a game that most caters to 16+ (though most people I know that play it is like 20+). It made the story predictable and cringy at times. - I've always been okay with having alliance raids be from different games, but when one of their old games is just a huge part of the story, it turned off my interest. I've never played FF9, so none of it meant anything to me. - Too much focus on a single character/ plot point. Though I'm going to be honest, my BIGGEST problem with this expansion is that I felt like I got lied to. The trailer basically tricks you into thinking most of the story is about you and the Scions going on some adventures, and Wuk is in it for maybe ten seconds. Turns out, it should have been the other way around as we and our friend were basically in the game or ten seconds of every minute of content.

[@RaithRapture]

I've played the game since 1.0 and what started as a promising revival to what had great bones has become so simplified and overly basic that there's nothing in it that seems to hold the interest any longer. The story has stifled and yes, it's a "rebuilding" story- one where you're finding yourself again, except it's with all the people from the last story. They're not peppered in lightly here or there, sprinkled for flavor. No, you get slapped with them right away about as hard as a wet diaper to the face. And to further the point on the story, it's 2.0 all over again where literally more than half of it could've just been an email, rather than a full on meeting every time someone needed something. Wuk wants to talk about [insert inane thing here] that affected her childhood- bitch, put that on the pearl and let me leave you on read. I just don't care. Gameplay is so basic, so boring, so forgettable that it feels like the only reason I have to kill something is because it's in my way of getting to the next cutscene, which I then proceed to skip because it's BORING. And let's not even start on endgame. Everyone rushes to the level cap, bashes through whatever content is available, than AFK's in Ul'dah for the rest of their lives while bitching about being bored. Yeah. Being bored sucks but why are you rushing then? This is the same thing every time. Let's talk about that last point though- it's the same thing every time. Every. Damn. Time. Oh? More factions to grind rep with to get... mounts? Mounts that explore a locked in, closed off world? Yayyyyy... it's LITERALLY just to flex. Oh but wait! There are things to get for crafting there! Okay. Cool. Cool. Nothing in those beast tribes is so needed that it's going to affect anyone who *doesn't* have it. Now I don't expect miracles or the reinvention of the wheel, but for the love of Hydaelyn, give us something new! It's constant, CONSTANT, dungeon spamming to get gear to do the next dungeon to get gear, etc, etc. Don't get me wrong. I'm a glam junkie but it's so nauseating because it's been the same thing for TEN FUCKING YEARS. Despite the issues in WoW and Blizzard (which yeah, have been there forever. People need to stop acting like their bullshit is new) continue to try new things. They're not scared of trying something that might fail, and admit when they do. A few years ago they said that they had hamstrung themselves by streamlining talents. Did they wait for 2-3 years to fix it? Not at all. They started trying something new right away. And the latest xpac is a banger. I'm not huge on their dungeon design, but each one offers something different (or at least most do) in regards to a mechanic, and the delves are honestly a lot of fun and offer bite-sized content for the average adult player.

[@cabalemastro]

The best feature of FF 14 is its MSQ. What happens when the MSQ turns into shit ?

[@VincenzoMGREX]

I started playing XI during around 6.4 and it actually has stuff to do and feels rewarding and fresh.

[@cobbil]

As a casual, I feel invisible to the dev team. Every piece of content is an extreme or savage and I don't want to do that content.

[@merrilllee4878]

I have to disagree with you wholeheartedly. Literally, every piece of content is done for the casual gamer. The world setting, building, gameplay, job design, it's all for the casual gamer. By casual I mean brain dead easy you cannot fail.

[@cobbil]

@@merrilllee4878 So what casual content does Dawntrail have? Roulettes. I guess, but everyone is on that treadmill ... maps? Sure. And non-casuals have, at least, Extreme trials, Savage trials, Chaotic 24-man, and FRU.

[@notfromhereorthere8563]

For most hardcore players the content is eaten up in a few days so ff14 really hasn't improved the formula is the same gearing the same fates etc etc I honestly thought ff14 would die off along time ago but it's still here I think it will always be here now even with ppl dropping

[@merrilllee4878]

@cobbil u have deep dungeons, variant dungeons, heaven-on-high, island sanctuary, roulette, trials, alliance raids, fishing, blue mage, crafting, the MSQ, Bozja, hunts, The reason you feel invisible is because the content is boring, theres no challenge. It's a theme park, you know it's there but it's not enticing or fun to do them. The rewards suck too, which makes them less enticing.

[@cobbil]

@merrilllee4878 Note how my initial reply mentioned Dawntrail. Not Endwalker, not Shadowbringers, not Stormblood. An expansion like this needs to be able to stand on its own merits. Dawntrail does not deliver to its casual audience. We are invisible.

[@Massatsu]

I've played FFXIV since 1.0, came back for ARR and loved it. With Dawntrail for the first time in 10 years, I am just not having fun. The DT story is crap, Wuk Lamat was a giant pile of nonsense that makes absolutely no sense and contradicts herself on a regular basis. It's like the writers didn't pay attention to their own work. And then they didn't do anything to fix any of the other issues like lack of content diversity. And they hurt the jobs so much with DT it's embarrassing. They severely need to give jobs some serious meaning. Each job needs to FEEL different. They need to be just as good and just as viable as every other job. Warrior shouldn't feel like the end all be all tank that is head and shoulders above the rest of the tanks. They need to bring back the writers that people LIKE and not come up with some half baked nonsense story that was a complete 180 from what they promised us. DT was supposed to be our character's "vacation". With having to baby sit Wuk Lamat the whole time it sure didn't feel like one.

[@shaneh6707]

Not to mention that they touted the Rite of Succession as something that would "divide the Scions" and it ended up with.....Thancred dropping rocks on us once and then going back to being besties. I wasn't expecting to like, turn on the other Scions but at least an instanced battle or something. It feels like were misled on the premise of the entire thing, that it was supposed to be more grand than it was.

[@BiscuitsV2]

Mediocre story at its best, insulting at its worst. Combat is still stagnant and samey. Classes are still gutted, and they continue to gut them further. Precious dev time being wasted on limited classes that will hardly be touched by the players or the devs. Huge gaps between content drops. No compelling side content or rewards. Gathering and crafting sucks harder than ever. Housing still sucks. And the dev team seems to have their priorities mixed up. Really loved seeing posts about new cash shop emotes after being told I won't see any job improvements until a completely new expansion comes out, being promised a graphical update only for it to not be finished on release, and brand new Simon Says classes when players were already complaining that the jobs were simultaneously too simple and too bloated. But oh, let's show off the new shiny mobile version. I'm sure our core playerbase that's still waiting to see improvements on the game they've invested an ungodly amount of time and money into will love that. Gee. I wonder where all the players went 🤔 Also, I am so tired of the 'but it's a new beginning' argument. Writing a new story is not a excuse for them to write and plan poorly, which they did. We have had fresh beginnings in this game before, all of them handled with more grace. Almost every expansion in this game is a new beginning with familiar elements sprinkled in. Dawntrail just dropped the ball hard on telling its own story, and failed miserably at the sprinkling as well. Most of us weren't expecting Shadowbringers class writing. We were promised a vacation arc, and we didn't get that. Instead we got a very long, drawn out, escort quest. The worst sin is that it's boring. The number of times characters were narrating what was happening in the scene while it was still happening made me roll my eyes. I can count on one hand the number of MSQ combat encounters that weren't duty finder queues. It's like they kept forgetting that FFXIV is also a video game and not just a point and click talking simulator, and the player should maybe do stuff sometimes. And there is no novelty in this expansion. They will directly reference or show you something and then move on, and you're never allowed to interact with it again. I ran around for hours trying to find something, anything, that I could interact with. A vending machine, a coffee shop, a taco stand. Maybe I can buy another energy drink. Maybe the Arcade has some stores I can visit. Maybe I can watch some tournament matches. There's nothing to do. They didn't even *think* about the player being in the world at all. You are just there to escort orange cat to the end of the MSQ, and damn you if you don't like that.

[@ozmintheobserver]

You don't even get to finish the final boss of the MSQ, Woke Lmao steps in and kills it for you.

[@kellevichy]

The story has always been mid.

[@BiscuitsV2]

@@kellevichy As someone who loves The Bouncer, make no mistake, most of SE/SS's games have had dogshit writing. We all remember Mindjack. FFXIV still had some of their more coherent writing up until DT. But at least with previous expansions there was stuff to do and eye candy to look at to distract you from the characters being ballistically stupid for the sake of moving the plot along.

[@cinnabar_]

i love this comment so much😂 perfectly encapsulate what i want to rant about

[@pikapowow5958]

How about banning people who post sexual party finder posts and ban players who are only interested in "moon magic"

[@Corrderio]

Dare I ask what moon magic is?

[@VashimuXIV]

For me, I still love playing XIV and I am never going to quit because a person told me to do so, I would rather make that choice myself. But is everything all sunshine and rainbows? No of course not, it’s perfectly healthy to criticize the things you love, and to say there’s damage as a result of Dawntrail is an opinion I can believe, no matter what I personally believe. Because ultimately, subjective opinions are one thing, but a subscription based game is measured by wallets, and if people are leaving, then surely that must be raising alarms with the team that the flaws are potentially out weighing the positives. But I just find it exhausting to talk about things I don’t like, but I certainly don’t besmirch anyone who is disappointed. XIV is still a game that caters to my interests, my tastes, but I don’t want my view point to be the thing that the game is based on, and it deserves to be more enjoyable to as many people as possible. The other sad truth is that the devs aren’t our friends, because our relationship is purely a transactional one. And perhaps I am being naive with saying I am trusting in them despite the current friction the game is facing now, but I want to stay true to my beliefs while hearing what others think. I love you XIV, I always will, but I know you can be so much better.

[@janghyuk8636]

Yep I agree what you said. I'm a casual gamer. I never did any Savages/extremes/ultimates and I haven't even tried to do Chaos WoD, just not into those sort of things. I like things other than dungeons.

[@HayamiHana13-137]

@@janghyuk8636I don’t know, so far I haven’t seen anyone quitting ff and my friends list is full and it’s players everywhere as it was 2 years ago and even 5. New sprouts are coming in everyday and I as many others help them but also being social and doing the new raids. Dawn trail is not great but shit happens. Some do like it and others don’t. People on the internet is complaining meanwhile others in-game are enjoying it as always. Same goes for world of Warcraft . I’m a mentor on both wow and ff and there are not even half of the amount of newcommer on wow as there are on ff. Got barely anyone to help on WoW which sucks for me since I really like helping new players. Mostly why they can’t enter portals and such. 🥲

[@rexhurne]

Why would someone tell you to quit? In general letting people influence your opinion what you want to play is such a weird concept for me (i mostly play retrogames). I myself don't love the game anymore, and i just quit my subscription instead of criticizing. I don't think games should be necessarily should be enjoyable to as many people as possible. Games are more creative when they cater to specific audiences and go all in with what they want to do.

[@MapleLunii]

Your last sentence is how I feel tbh. I've been playing the game for over a decade, I know the game can be better and I think they need to stop resting on their laurels and take risks again. I accepted the dip in quality during the Endwalker post-patches because I knew they were changing so much behind the scenes with upgrading character and world fidelity, but now those changes have happened, we really need to see the quality return to where it was before.

[@nokidama]

I really miss the class variety of this game and even what combat used to be. I know people shit on stormblood a lot but it peaked in combat for me and every class felt unique, the raid tiers felt good, and we got two dungeons I think(?) per story patch. Nowadays the game feels boring to play and it’s ultra repetitive.

[@JMulls]

I still miss Stormblood Dark Knight, granted i was still super new to the game but there were elements to it's design that I found really fun, especially how Abyssal Drain worked

[@nokidama]

@ God, I do too. That was a fun class. I also just miss switching stances on Warrior/DRK since even though it was a small detail, it helped me not fall asleep.

[@CivilChev]

StormBlood was absolutely peak!

[@No-RE-q1w]

​​@@JMulls I miss Heavensward Dark Knight. It was the most challenging iteration of the job and also the most fun. Back before Shirk was added to the game, keeping aggro on that class was genuinely hard, but it always felt so rewarding. The MP management was very satisfying too.

[@fuzzwobble]

Remember that Square themselves admitted that they make up most of the story expansion-to-expansion, not even really having a purpose for Ascian lore before the end of Stormblood. The argument about the story having a good wind-up for ShB/EW is foolish because they actually DIDN'T.

[@juviachan9963]

I fell in love with FF14 cause of Story. I leveled my first char together with my friend and we rushed throu ARR and coming from another MMORPG, we were cutscene/story skipper. Then I started an alt (which has become my main) and I didn't rush and watched cutscenes, digested the story and it felt good especially Heavensward and the stories of the new classes (DK mainly). Since then, I leveled each expansion without skipping and enjoyed it so far. Then came mid Endwalker. The whole arc about Zeros and Golbez felt so rushed. But at the same time I was hoping for the voidfilled star the become our next destination. But then came Wuk. I didn't feel overly excited about that character, but I genuinly liked her. But boy that changed quickly. She was so shoved into my face, I was so tired of that goofy persona, that I was reliefed, when I finally alone with Erenville in Shaolani only to find out, we were chasing an item, that belonged to Wuk. And bam, that cat was back again. Since that happened, first time in years, I skipped cutscenes, skipped reading quest dialogs, just wanted to get over with everything. I was hoping with her not so appealing character to the playerbase, we get rid of her in 7.1. But wow, I was wrong. The story around her brother was also so utterly dumb, it felt like "Dora the Explorer". The problem is because the story left me unsatisfied, the blind eye I turned towards content, playstyle, qol not improving and my bunny still *NOT BEING ABLE TO WEAR HATS AFTER SO MANY YEARS*, made me very angry. There are so many things which could easily improved even without investing much time: - Market board. Why on earth do I need to buy a stack of 99 of an item, when I need only one - Storage managment. I cannot meld materia from storage from chocobo or retainer, or craft from their storage. Why do I need to click through so many menues, until I have the bags of my chocobo or retainer shown. - Why do i get dismounted, when I talk to an NPC? - Why do I need explicitly dismount to engange in battle? - Why can't I join a group, when I talk to an NPC? - Why can't I still not show hats on my Viera? After soooo many years? Why does it seem, that mooders could do it? - Why are horns of Aura still baked to face I choose? - Why can't change my appearance within the race and gender at the barber? - Why are there so little choises for appearance at all anyway? Everyone looks pratcitally the same. - ...those examples are just what comes to my mind when thinking over QOL. There are so many more. There is nothing to do for casuals. (Was Savage and Ex Raider. But beginning of Endwalker I got sick and because I felt always very tired after chemo sessions, savage raiding hence sitting concetrated for 4 hours straight, wasn't an option for me anymore.) How do I define casuals. Doing enganging content either solo or soloqueue. Means content without the need to use PF and need of overly "coordinated" mechanism to complete. I find body checks in encounters especially lazy mechanism (even when I was a raider in a static). BTW. why on earth do the numbers in mechanics need to be DOTS? And if they need to be DOTS why not like a DICE? Even the new Beast Tribes quests are just talk to the quest giver, then fly over the map to another guy, talk to him, return and your alt job gets about 2 Mille exp. That is no engaging content. I don't think WoW ist best MMO, but there is sure more to do. Worldquests, which consist of Pet battles, climbing, photograhping, dragonflying, flying through loops, kill quests, World Bosses. Delves. Riddles (like the Mounts eg. Hateforged, Pets eg. Baa'l). Achiveve Hunting. World exploration (there are so many hidden easter eggs.) The world in FF14 feels genuinely empty. No critter, some sprinkle of npcs, no easter eggs to explore. This I felt especially apparent also in FF15. (Very empty world. To be honest, I never made it out of the first zone, because it felt so stale). Another missed opportunity which sours DT, that this new continent is not featuring new beast tribes. Recolored Wanu Wanus and Renamed Goblins. Seriously? And why does it feel so cliched? Shaolani like some wildwest Texas with Native Americans errrrr. Bunnies, Pelupelu like Peru. And the whole story and character development like Naruto and Naruto Shippuden mixed, mingled and rushed. So here I am, nothing to do, not even feeling to level the alt jobs, because the dailies (3 quests), are so terribly boring. Where is the legendary weapon to grind? Bring it, when it is still relative, not when it is xx ilevel below the current tome weapon. Where is the beastmaster class you teased us? Where is some content? I believe even raiders are done with their stuff already and feeling the content drought. I am still subed, because I do a weekly alliance raid with 2 friends of mine and the nice mid house in mist, which had cost me 17 mil gil and was lucky to won in the lottery. But the longer I am left unsatisfied and have nothing to do in this game, the longer I am asking myself, if a virtual house is worth 14 EUR sub.

[@Dieci-9]

The story itself may not be the biggest problem FF14 has but it's definitely the biggest cause for players leaving and players refusing to give the game a chance. Most people don't do hardcore content and play this game for the story and casual stuff which the game lacks. The story usually acts as a way to get them engaged and stay with the game while looking forward content to come but DT completely threw that out of the window. Similarly, the MSQ acts also as a lure for new players that think they'll play something amazing. Now? They see the negativity and divisiveness around DT, the toxic positivity of a chunk of the players who seemingly can't allow meaningful discussions without twisting words or taking criticism the worst way possible and, overall, that DT is what they'll come to a stop at and they just won't play. The devs really needed to nail the start of this new arc...they could've done something big and compelling from the start or they could've gone the slow burn route which was what I was hoping for. I thought they'd let us have a small pack of minor adventures while they set up characters, locations and details to be used in future expansions down the line for big payoffs! Boy - was I sorely mistaken! They fatally fumbled this critical expansion and as such, if you care about the story, YOU WILL HAVE TO ENDURE DAWNTRAIL. Unless they retcon it, unless if they change it drastically, this will be a boulder in the way of playwrs' enjoyment and, after going through 5 expansions, almost nobody wants that. The beginning didn't need to be stellar but it had to be good but, unfortunately, it was a damn horrible beginning that may very well be the first ring of the death knell for FF14.

[@Mejandora]

I thought similar. I thought DT would be a low-stake adventure like ARR was. An expansion to introduce new characters, worldbuilding, thats sends us to some sort of indiana jones like treasure hunt to search for the golden city, some friendly competition between the scions, some third party that trys to intervene... Low-stakes but still entertaining. But DT was none of that. the first half was just a guided tour through the world with with the bare minimum of lore or worldbuilding, without any stakes, without any depth, without anything to care about and without anything to do or get invested in. The second half we went from 0 to world ending doom (again!) in a handful of quests. no buildup, no nothing. It made me so angry and annoyed that i nearly quit. Overall DT feels like two different expansions cramped into one because the team didnt believe in themselves to pull off a low-stake expansion, so they just squeezed that world ending threat into the expansion last minute. In the end neither the first half nor the second half was satisfying for anybody.

[@Dieci-9]

@@Mejandora Yeah, and, I don't know if they did it because they thought they needed to hook the players with the nth reality-ending scenario BUT it really feels as if two teams of writers wrote each half and then tried to mash them together causing the horrible pacing and issues with how some characters, like Gulool Ja Ja, seemingly behave almost like completely different people starting at and right after the Yak T'el quests. Either that, or as you said, they really slapped the whole Sphene arc at the last minute. Either way, it feels like there is a huge issue with the writing of the expansion and, in the case of the last second decision, of mismanagement since they should've clearly worked more on the writing and blending the two arcs, QA for checking if it was boding well or if it was wiser to scrap the idea and pushing it forward without further delaying the launch if it turns out they really needed more time.

[@Mejandora]

@@Dieci-9 Yeah we got a lot of new writers but one of them wrote the storyarc of the 4 lords in SB or the Sorrow of Werlyt storyarc. These werent bad storyarcs at all. And yeah, someone should have recognised the pacing issues or the missing characterization of important characters. You simply cannot care about characters or their actions if you know nothing about them. For example Zoraal Ja. We never get any deeper information about him or his motives or his personal issues during the MSQ. He is more or less a blank slate until his final end. Thats a wasted opportunity. Then, not only Gulool Ja Ja was different at the end. None of the scions really feel like the ones we know. Everyone just acted out of character. If you have a lot of new writer or unexperienced writer than you'll need a strong supervision. Someone who tells them what will work and what not. Give them guidelines to work with, point out contradictions with established lore but that didnt happened. Its like the supervisor didnt cared at all.

[@Dieci-9]

@@Mejandora Exactly. The worst part is that you can see things that would be interesting in a vacumm. The execution being as bad as it is makes it all the more frustrating.

[@nerooblivion]

i want relics back on x.15 bare minimum. we used to get tons of content every patch, 2 dungeons, a new raid be it 24 or 8 man, plenty of story and side stuff, as well as relic gave peoole stuff to work on in that deadzone, every three months. we've tacked on an extra month for less content to show for it. chaotics cool, very interesting, but it rolls back into the "if you're not into savage, you're probably not doing it" area. honestly im hitting the "if it wasnt for the boys, i wouldnt get on" area of how i feel about a game i enjoy a lot

[@anthonydelfino6171]

I 100% agree about relics. It feels like relics got delayed unintentionally in Stormblood and then the devs realized they could get away with starting it late and just kept that going forward for the next two expansions. I also think that they really need to go back to quest based steps like they did for ARR and Heavensward and not have it be connected to an exploratory zone like Stormblood and Shadowbringers. It really created a problem where you couldn't build up a weapon without ignoring other content. I couldn't be in queue for expert roulette, for example, while I was in Eureka. It was parasitic game design that really isolated people out from content to basically be doing fate farming with a fresh coat of paint

[@No-RE-q1w]

They should make at least the first few steps of relic as it used to be back in Heavensward. Make it a serious grind that gets people to run old content again. I don't know why they've completely forewent the old way since it was an effective means to keep duty roulette dungeons constantly alive, but it sucks needing to wait one whole year before a weapon to grind can even be worked on. These past 4 expansions, the game almost completely dies in terms of content and it's because relic weapons aren't accessible until halfway through the xpac's lifecycle, which sucks for those that just want to play XIV when they have nothing else to do.

[@Hitsugix]

Actually, even as a savage and ultimate raider, the moment I heard my static leader say that we are not going to raid the chaotic alliance as a static, that thing died for me. I am not going to sit in party finder for this for days, malding over players and people who ragequit. No, thank you. Party finder is already horrible with only 8 people.

[@rodimus580]

“Ackchyually”

[@spbrk]

The game has been bad for a long time - since at least 6.2. Then the MSQ got bad on top of it. There's nothing to do that doesn't involve playing in a hyper coordinated hardcore group or spending a part-time job amount of time in PF.

[@Jepegish]

@@spbrk I mean heck, idk how it is for you but on the European Chaos DC I can barely even fill a single party to even BEGIN progging any form of content much less clear it. It’s always been a bit unreliable but at this point, it’s not even an option anymore.

[@hortehighwind8651]

@@Jepegishlots of Chaos people are using PF on Light.

[@siyrean]

6.2 was Barbie, one of the best trials in a long time and it was the best part of the pandamonium story. 6.3 is when it all went to shit - alliance raids undertuned to hell, the final realization that relic WERE just going to be tome hand ins, Zero learning the meaning of friendship only to relearn the meaning of friendship in 6.4 oh and again in 6.5

[@DarkDyllon]

@@Jepegish yeah, I started this character on Cerberus due to it being on the same server as Ashe10, found it cool. In Endwalker I finally made the jump to Light (Zodiark to be specific) and now I got my retainers, an FC with submarines etc, whenever I was raiding I was already DC traveling to Light anyway, might as well permanently go there, not like I got many friends on Chaos that I can't talk to on discord.

[@Lemongh3]

​@@Jepegish thats not even so much a player number issue. Everyone transfers to light for PF. Probably because of lpdu. The only time chaos pf is populated is when its region locked. I believe its the other way around for pvp but im not sure.

[@Aptonoth]

Every mmo on earth seems to be actively trying to kill itself by messing with the formula too much and appealing to a loud hyper niche.

[@BloodVixen]

Let's not forget that this was their opportunity to try something new, and give us a fresh start with a fresh story. Yeah, more of the same. I got you.

[@Corrderio]

That's what really irks me. DT was a great opportunity to start back from square 1 after a 10 year long story with our character no longer being the Warrior of Light/People's Hero/etc. Just a simple adventurer that's in the right place at the right time. Instead, we were babysitting someone's self insert.

[@dumbitc11]

i'm honestly so sad about how things are going. i renewed my sub this month to try the new alliance raid, tribal quests, etc. and I'm just so underwhelmed.

[@Locodeus]

I didn't finish the MSQ. Team's probably phoning it in now since they're replacing any missing PC players with mobile players soon.

[@XanafiedcatGaming]

Bad Dawn Fail story aside Square has been neglecting a lot of the small problems FF14 has had and over the years the list of problems has just kept growing. They really need to make some good quality of life updates for the game and address some of these concerns. Square keeps wasting all the money from FF14 on other projects. They have the money to fix all these issues but they are hoping they can just keep ignoring while expecting their players to continue to tolerate these issues. Most players have been overlooking them so far cause the raids and story are usually worth it. If their next story expansion is another flop it could kill the game, time for Square to wake up and do their jobs.

[@Spartan1312]

1) Fire the Writers in charge on DT 2) Make us the central character again.... this experiment with Wuk Lamat is a utter failure. 3) Delete Wuk Lamat... Like Rome did to Carthage scrub the earth of this character, I have never had a character forced on me so much that I hated so completely to the point that the best parts of the story were the parts WITHOUT HER forced on us or even present... I have never wished for a character to die more before now. 4) Increase content cadence to no more than 2 months and double the amount for the entire expansion. This is a joke at this point, when they cut the content cadence back before it turns out they were distracted making a game called FF16... I have no doubts they are doing the same with another un-named title. If they can split focus so much they do not respect FF14 or your time. 5) Rebalance classes and be WILLING to nerf classes that need nerfed. This whole wait a full patch cycle to correct a OP class is as terrible as the solution to buff everyone BUT the OP class. This fools nobody, as this is just a nerf by omitting the OP class from getting the buff and has the terrible downside of adding yet more power creep to a MMO with next to no difficulty with anything below savage content.

[@pastaboy1338]

still couldn't believe they decided to do all the numbers and buff everyone else instead of nerfing picto, which requires 10 times less work.

[@zaryalace7475]

WOL not being central character isn't the issue. Heavensward, we were more of a side character. The main issue is just bad writing.

[@Spartan1312]

@@zaryalace7475 We were still the central character even then, it just had way better supporting characters. The entire point of us being the central character is to avoid having a terrible tag along or alternate POV character to interact with. It was so bad that NPC's were CALLING Wuk Lamat just to get in touch with us, yet we have a linkshell they could have just direct called.

[@No-RE-q1w]

​@@pastaboy1338 Equally perplexing is this basically negated the stat squish from a few years back. It's like they don't even know what they're doing and are just haphazardly making random decisions with zero thought put into them.

[@miros05]

@@pastaboy1338 Because nerfing isn't a good answer either it just creaters another problem , just look at wow balacing

[@Varichan]

The state of ffxiv for me rn is, that i am considering just having my house demolished the next time the warning comes around and not returning until the next expansion. All four, the base story, the normal raid story, patch story and alliance raid story put me to sleep. Literally everything i play the game for is a dud this expansion

[@sofies392]

if youre a non raider playing this game the experience is even worse. I LOVE the alliance raids, was so excited for chaotic, then they said it was closer to savage difficulty and it killed all excitement I had for it and didn't even bother. They should've optimized it closer to EX level of difficulty as hardcore raiders already have savage and ultimates while casuals have..... nothing.

[@Valmitic]

For the 1st time. I've cancelled my sub and dismantled my house in FFXIV.

[@MurakamiTenshi]

This game has been coming apart at the seams for years. It's the bad class balance and mishandling of jobs. It's the boring "2 packs and a boss arena" formula. It's the shitshow MSQ for DT. It's the dead pvp scene. It's the lack of content to keep people playing. SE refuses to deviate from the same old formulae and now it's being exposed

[@MurakamiTenshi]

You don't know how badly I miss doing BCOB....

[@hughmungus8701]

"the boring "2 packs and a boss arena" formula" Can't entirely blame CS3 for this one, the community did it to themselves by whining about any dungeon that took more than ten minutes and two brain cells to complete. Then again, it is their fault for following the MMO trend of making the rewards the point of the content and not the enjoyment of the content itself.

[@JathraDH]

How is the class balance bad? It is probably the single most balanced MMO ever to exist in terms of classes. Or are you saying that is the problem and you want half the classes in the game at any point in time to be literally unplayable?

[@arionell]

This game is everything BUT unbalanced. If anything its way to balanced to a point that every class plays the same.

[@antarath517]

@@JathraDH There's an acceptable amount of imbalance that's acceptable in a diverse and asymmetric roster. But ffxiv has an almost unilateral selection of very similar classes that don't break the mold, so there's very little room for any imbalances. That's why people are complaining about imbalance. Because it should be really fucking easy to balance a bunch of classes that do the same thing

[@antarath517]

A lot of people really underestimate how impactful the story is to long-term player retention. Even after the story is entirely done, your character's established personality lingers with you. There is a coherence between player and character that got disturbed by Dawntrail's story, where your character was forced to do things outside of what you would do. This dissonance broke the "magic" and made a lot of players feel like they were piloting a mech suit. And once players feel like they're piloting a mech suit, your mechanics have to do a lot more of the heavy lifting than before.

[@Magiya93]

Hydaelen/zodiark story could have gone on for at least two more expansions instead of the rushed conclusion that we got, only to slam headfirst into yawntrail. More than that though I’ve had very little to do in game besides just the daily/weekly tedium for well over a year and I just kinda burned out. I log in like once a month now to make sure I don’t lose my house

[@jibrilles]

Yes, I was sooo not done with all the Ancients and Ascian stuff. There's so much more there to explore, Garlemald too.

[@FuyuYuki92]

Yeah, for many, the enthusiasm for the story has bled into every other aspect of the game. For me, too. I still log in almost daily because I'm an omnicrafter. I raid very casually and have cleared the Chaotic Raid but quite frankly, it was a miserable experience. The fact that you have to rely on 23 other people to get the mechanics right at savage difficulty is insane. I have since joined multiple groups to help with the clear, only to find that they were prog parties in disguise. Battle content in Dawntrail has been good, but yes, also more of the same for the most part. What I play for, like many others, is the story. I like to have my creative corner, give my WoL a backstory and all that, and that's where my enjoyment comes from. I want it to improve again.

[@miyavi1709]

I'm still a sprout myself and am currently at the end of Stormblood. Accordingly, I can't say much about many things - especially the endgame. One point in your video really appealed to me, however, and that is that Dawntrail, as the new beginning of the next big FF14 chapter, doesn't have to be bad just because it's the beginning. I think the mindset really comes from the fact that ARR wasn't particularly good compared to the other expansions, and that's why people just assume that beginnings have to be boring. As someone who writes as a hobby, I can say that the beginning is usually what should hook the reader. You try to create something with the first sentences, the first chapter, that the reader wants more of so they then buy the book. Stories usually suffer from a soggy middle, not a boring beginning. Sure, there has to be a lot of world building or something similar, but in principle a beginning can't just be exciting and entertaining, it SHOULD be. I should be excited about where the journey is going, not hope that the beginning will be over quickly and that I will finally get to the good part.

[@thecrowonyourshoulder]

The only thing that is going for me in FFXIV is achievement hunting. I went hard on it in post Endwalker, and I still continue it to this day in Dawntrail. I thought I was gonna be too busy to keep going when Dawntrail arrived, so I was planning on stopping the achievement grind all together. Nowadays I feel the only reason I would do that is if I plan to leave the game long term. Therefore, I am still on this treadmill until April it sounds like.

[@Skadus1114]

I was doing that. I quit the game two months ago, so my character is probably still in the top 150 global. And it's just not worth it. Getting 20k hoards? Killing 1k S ranks for an expansion? I felt so empty after doing that. The devs don't know how to design better achievements. I was just feeding my OCD, sadly, and I'm glad I quit.

[@merrilllee4878]

The game needs a huge overhaul. The character creation has been the same, its dated. There's no individuality in job design, the world is boring and bland, theres no excitement of exploration, no sense of adventure, no danger Dungeons design is boring, everyone falls asleep doing them. The difficulty of the game is at an all time low.

[@JoeNeutrino]

Dawntrail killed my interest in the game and it looks like I'm not the only one.

[@AntonyYTube]

There's just nothing new or exciting to do, and it's been that way since Shadowbringers. 5 years of stagnation and repetitive content and content cycles. You'll never be surprised, you'll never be lost, you'll never make a wrong decision, you'll never be confused about anything. And now the saving grace of the "game," the story, sucks too.

[@CivilChev]

The only way things will get better is if you vote with your wallet. For the rest of DT deactivate your sub and stop buying money from Mogstation. Too many players would rather endlessly complain about a game they continue to pay to play than enjoy something else while giving developers the opportunity to change the game for the better.

[@tony8076]

That's exactly what I'm doing. It took me a lot of sorting through conflicting feelings but I ended my sub and am riding out the remainder of my game time with a few friends that are still playing.

[@CivilChev]

@tony8076 See if they would be willing to play other games with you. What got me to stop playing MMOs is having a group of friends with a diverse game library.

[@alexthebasilisk]

Releasing essentially nothing but high end content for half a year might have something to do with it. The .1 MSQ was like 3 hours of content, Hildibrand quests were like 30 mins, and the alliance raid is half an hour a week max. There is quite literally nothing to do in terms of new content for the casual player.

[@nerobiblios4086]

Idk, maybe making content for the actual larger majority of casual players might help. CAR is just not it, and a vast majority of people have literally nothing to do right now, not eventhe 1st step of the relic is here yet.

[@kip_c]

Maybe the fact that the MMO's world does not feel massive whatsoever is the problem

[@PunkFiddler]

They murdered Arcanist. Instead of fixing the problem with pet ghosting, which drastically improved to be fair, they removed the pet management. Players like me who were drawn to the game for the said pet mechanics are let down. And to make matters worse, they've made Beastmaster, a limited job. That was my last straw. So i quit.

[@juviachan9963]

I wonder when they will show us Beastmaster. A patch before new expansion?

[@UmbraWeiss]

This is the standard in Ff14 for the last 10years... People just didn't care... And now it's too late.They always resolved a lot of problems by removing things entirely because it was a bit complicated to implement it or fix it.... They even on a quest for 3-4years now to remove dots and status effects from the game, because if they can somehow can do it without people crying about it, they will have more time to laze around thinking about the next thing that needs removed so their work can be easier.

[@PunkFiddler]

@@UmbraWeiss I'll go a little tangent with my topic to respond to yours... so Kaiten was a problem?

[@YouLoseAgain812]

This raid tier was the easiest and most annoying thing to clear with people in PF than any of the other expansions for me. It really made me want to just quit. Tomestone didn't really help either with the amount of sweats checking it while in PF.

[@freshskittles92]

i put like 3500 hours in xiv between 2021 and the release of DT. soon as I finished msq I stopped logging in except for a handful of occasions for not very long. i am probably done until the next expansion tbh.

[@Smarfton]

The model is stale and the code is ancient. The story of Dawntrail is mediocre and because of that it's exposing all the problems, namely with the non existent content outside of raids, which is a thing, but it can't be the ONLY thing to be carry months upon months of a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME with a MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION. And even if you do the endgame here, that's what, a month? Raid tiers last 6-7 months! Zero evergreen content, no midcore content, world zones devoid of anything to do beyond the same FATES over and over, terrible rewards, robotic gameplay in raiding, tired job design devoid of uniqueness. The whole thing needs a full rework and 8.0 is WAY too long to see changes.

[@lyndina8492]

As a "casual" and roleplayer in ff14...there isnt any reason to run your sub right now. You got nothing to do, even patch content is just...go there, read, click some people, done for the next 6 months. Started with wow about 2 months ago and in the first 2 hours i had more to do then the whole of Dawntrail.

[@shakeweller]

Try GW2, Im having a blast rn especially because of the relevant open world

[@lyndina8492]

@@shakeweller Played Gw2 before i started in FF14. Was a good game, sadly i cant get into it anymore. Also...german roleplay community is dead there.

[@merrilllee4878]

It isnt that there's nothing to do, casual players have by far the most things to do in the game. Majority of the content in the game is casual. The reason why it's boring is because the world they built is for the story, aside that it's empty. There's no exploration, no danger, no excitement.

[@hakimatsonwatoson]

IMO the implementation of Chaotic was dumb, they should have gone the route of 1.0 and released from normal all the way to chaotic. and put a clear count on the lower difficulties before progressing. that would have greatly help to combat the toxicity this new raid is experiencing. As for Content like EX Ultimates and the like you should be able to practice individual phases of an encounter ether with trust or a PF at least 1 major patch after their initial release. this should alleviate some of the anxiety most people have towards approaching these types of content.

[@KumaBearOso]

When WoW went down a similar path in BfA, it took a mass exodus of players for the executives, board of directors, and shareholders to wake up and realize "If we don't make a good game, people will leave". That's how we got the critical successes that were Dragonflight and War Within. Here's hoping XIV does down a similar path.

[@PeterPa.]

Oh, but XIV is led by a Japanese company... We have been telling them for ages. People are surprised now, but this comes from looong looong ago. Doomsayers they called us.

[@WolfCoder]

It already did back then, they nuked the first version for being a huge disappointment. I'm hoping they don't have this "we fixed it we don't have to fix it again" mentality and are willing to be drastic once more.

[@rhael42]

@@PeterPa. I'm there with ya. I was trying to say these things since late Stormblood. I finally decided to cut my losses and move on the night they gutted Viper. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll ever truly be able to identify the reasons for falling playercounts, as there's a large delay between changes being made and players finally getting fed up enough to unsub.

[@arionell]

In what world Dragonflight was a "critical successes" ? Sales didn't convert for a reason.

[@WarMomPT]

I like how you just skipped over the 'let's all go to the Afterlife and pull more Warcraft 3 characters out of cold storage, again' expac.

[@Brofisticus]

Yup, nailed it! The gameplay was never a draw for me. The snapshot mechanics and latency issues were always too annoying. It was all about the story. Now that DT fell flat on it's face and doesn't appear to be regaining it's feet, guess its time to end my sub.

[@PapaDD]

It's a gross simplification but it really boils down to SE needing to take some kind of risks. MSQ asside DT just feels like the exact same game as EW just with a new coat of paint.

[@merrilllee4878]

It needs a huge overhaul

[@TardyEngineer]

tbh the issue stems from the people thinking dawntrail should have been better then endwalker when it was meant to be a vacation arc and a situational rollback to an ARR state of being and a build up into what comes next. You can't open a seqeal book in a series and expect chapter one to come out guns blazing with a new greater threat unless you ended the first ook on a mid crisis cliffhanger.

[@olololo4807]

man even ARR was a better beginning then the DT disney story.

[@Rageflowers]

I'm a casual player and I'm running out of old content to do. Crafters maxed out, multiple jobs maxed. I don't do Savage or harder difficulty things because I just don't feel like committing to it for now. I enjoy how cool the hard raids look and all but I really want more of those alternate gameplay features. That's what keeps me interested as I actually feel like I have other casual things to do rather than GRIND.

[@orangemc9358]

The current state of the game has me replaying ARR on a new character just to feel some joy again... and I'm starting to think I might just refugee myself BACK to WoW. DT is worse than ARR, and not just on the surface level. It's a very long rant, but, at least ARR set up the foundation and did the ground work for one of the best stories ever. A necessary evil, that they worked hard to streamline later. DT did none of this, despite being in a similar position (and even then, it still had large swathes of the pre-existing story to bank on... AND IT DIDN'T). And then you bring in the horrible patch/content cadence, thew subpar story, the pacing issues, the newest MSQ quests (seriously, wtf was that???)... It's hard to like where the game is currently. The one thing I LOVE about DT was the dungeons, trials, and extremes. Progging story dungeons with randos was incredibly fun, as was the first 2 extremes.

[@RecklessCV]

I've been leveling a warlock on hardcore classic, very nostalgic for me and its offering what I desire in an mmorpg right now. A open world with class identity. Classic isn't particular difficult but it's chill but if you lose focus situstions will snowball into disaster. I appreciate the corpse runs and minor punishments for dying (outside of hc) as it gives me a reason to keep on fighting. Mob/fight design is very different between the games as well. XIV focus on the puzzles and dodging as the mechanics, while job design takes a backseat. It was fine and fun until it recently and now its hurting the game due to stagnation. WoW mechanically is focused on your class, and spells/buffs which affects how you interact with the world. I have no interest to play retail, at this point it's WoW 2, a completely different game that shares more similiarities to XIV than the original release of WoW

[@ShxpxRok]

Invest more than 5% of the funds you get from XIV back into XIV that will fix a lot of the issues. Square is self sabotaging it seems. - Add more dungeons continue making new mechanics an expert roulette should have 4 dungeons you can run into. - Delete extreme trials from mentor roulette. - Improve the UI improve areas if you can fly over a solid surface you should be able to land on it. give us stuff to do in old areas not fates but new dungeons and trials. - All dps should be over powered and broken if peps know how to play them. sry Idc about the balance of savage or ultimate we should all be as good a pictomancer if not stronger. The patches need to happen faster 2 months apart at the least waiting 3 - 5 months between patches is going to kill 14. - Make the gearing system easier get rid of weekly limits on savage raids so novice players can get the help of vets. uncap the tomes and add instanced housing, get rid of the housing demolition system... you tell people to quit but if they own a house they have to keep subbing it's stupid. - I know Square is a jp company and they are very stuck in their ways (against mods, not communicating with non jp) but XIV is a global game if you neglect the global audience the jp audience alone will not bring you the profits that you are hoping for, and if you are not going to stop modders and plug in users then why keep telling them no? it's stupid. (XIV had best community a few years ago but XIV as it is with end game raids and gear lock outs and limited ways of getting said gear and the limited best in slots makes the community more toxic and less helpful..) - If yoshi P can't take risks with the game someone else should be at the helm I like Yoshida but he is not my friend I want what my money is going towards to be good, no excuses only solutions. They're a business but they are making goofy moves with their cash cow.

[@Sals-Clips]

The thing that stuck out to me with the Dawntrail expansion was all the new content they said we were going to get as Dawntrail will be the biggest expansion they have created. But the problem in my opinion is that the patch cycles add the same type of content as all the other expansions They need to mix it up. Also this game can use a new engine. This games interface is very clunky and annoying. Ff14 feels like a 2005 game with the way the menus are and work.

[@hippiechick73]

I really, really love the FFXIV story, but I’m not really great at the combat, so I will likely never be an endgame raider, and those additions just don’t interest me at all. I never want to try savage things synched because I don’t want to get yelled at by raid pros.

[@faranar]

FF14 should have ended with Endwalker. They need to make a new game

[@merrilllee4878]

mmorpgs don't end..

[@faranar]

@@merrilllee4878 they should

[@adtsiriusstarr112]

I applied eorzea citizenship mid hw. Was playing like crazy till mid sb. Maintaining aggro as tank was challengin to me at that time. Then took hiatus and relogin mid ew. Was playing like crazy till now. Aggro is already made easier, but all tanks now kinda similar pattern in regular contents. Considering to take another break..

[@steven.j.mepham]

I think the issue lies in two places. Stagnant content structure and lack of a unified approach. MSQ DT exemplifies the same mistake that SB and EW had but with a greater negative impact on quality. The scope is too wide to encompas the story they want to tell and the story is too illthought out to actually work. The first half of dawntrail should have been an adventure exploring these wild regions weve only heard of and engaging in a contest against the scions, instead we got a checklist and an overbearing flat character that the writers thought was "cool" enough to take all the spotlight. The second issue is the twisting of narritive to add "cool" factor or refernces solution 9 exemplifies this. It is a ff9 reference, the quests leading up to discovering it are SHB call backs the dungoes after is a SHB callback. The problem is its rused its scope is too wide and the refernces while cool add nothing else. If they had spent the whole of dt on the firsr half and the following on the solution 9 and alexandria stuff it would have worked better. If we look at HSW or SB the key thing about them is that the objective neccetaes the journey but in an intersting way. In SB were tralling the east largely to find support aginst Garlemald for Ala Mhigo, but also to track down Hien. In HSW we want to end the dragonsong war by going to find Hreasvelgr. In shb we go to each region in search of a lightwarden to kill, it is a checklist but the narrative around it is done is such a way that it doesnt feel like one. DT we go to areas to get special rocks to open doors. We meet each culture and learn about it and get said rock. The entire story is summarised down to the order at the very start of the story. SHB was also the start of a trend with EW and DT in that the final dungeon is exploring history and is usually narrated by the end boss. It ends with the trial straight after. In the area before there is a lot of loss and sadness. This is the lynchpin of SQEX's problem, they tread the same path previously done with little regard to shaking it up. The patch cycle is reduced, the story is reduced. Once we had 3 dungeons a trial quest line, MSq and either Nomal 4 fight raid or alliance raid and then something else. Now we are getting 1 dungeon, 1 msq and either of the raids. The problem is it is reduced and remained the same. In 7.1 we got ultimate and chaotic Alliance and Extreme all of which cater to a subset of the playerbase. Why was chaotic added in this patch? Why not one of the more casual focused things? I think the answer is in the patch cycle they have set for themselves since heavensward. The devs are inflexible and so the expansions always feel stale with each iteration. Beast tribe quests can be done within 2 weeks rather than the month slog they were in ARR. Everything is easier, quicker and flatter a washed out version of what previously had been in place. You can see this with, Jobs, Raids, Beast tribes, trials, crafting, story. At the bottom of it all is a desire to not disrupt a carefully stacked deck of cards too much, but by doing so, all they can do is produce ever more watered down pale imitations hidden by a vaneer of nostalgia references or a pretty skin. Not all of it is a bad thing, but as a combination it is terrible. P.s - Sorry for the length, didnt mean to write an essay in response!

[@diligafifunouno641]

Go to Limsa there’s sproutlings every where myself included.

[@MrCarlWax]

Anecdotal evidence vs statistical evidence

[@paupascualramirez9979]

I'm gonna yap hard about this: -Improve the character creator, allow the free ingame character edit to change more parameters on your character and allow all hairs on hrothgar, separate of the face -Give all hats to hrothgar and viera, and don't go the lazy route of hiding ears and tails, it's lame, even on miqo'te and au ra. That's part of their identity, don't destroy it -Free glamour pieces from role, job or gender restrictions -Rework the PF so high end doesn't house so many different types of content in one single place -Give at least one plate for each job ingame (23 fighting jobs when beastmaster drops and 11 hand/land), though if you follow point 3 I don't find it as necessary -Make the armorie record every piece of gear you get as unlocked glam -make more items and colelctions account whide, like mounts. Minions, glams, achievements, personal banking (or the chocobo saddlebag) -Don't hurt the story with "please look forward to it" or "we're setting up futue plot threads so don't worry about it for now"