How FFXIV Will Outlast Other Games

[@Reldan]

I love that clip of Preach being absolutely stunlocked when Amaurot is unveiled for the first time.

[@andrewg319]

Then 1 of his viewers flying by on the whale mount.

[@xxKYTHExx]

what sticks to my mind about how player focused this game is was when they stopped selling the game during the holidays because EW was so popular that servers are having a hard time keeping up with the number of log ins. they have a product selling like hot pancakes and they decided to fully stop selling it during probably the most lucrative time of the year (year end holiday season) so they can focus on improving the experience of the current player base. im willing to bet that many other companies if faced with such a situation will have their corporate greed take priority over taking care of their player base experience.

[@katy9291]

Very true! Its a decision i appreciate as a player. Unfortunately cooperate greed is a real problem in everything :( but it demands respect that they took a decision based in their players and not the money

[@Slysheen]

It shows confidence in their product too. Indicating they don't _need_ split decision buys and that the game is good enough that you'll come back after sales resume

[@MsMirthling]

about this same time they also closed the ffxiv store and then reopened it with a sale. I remember thinking wha wait? What is this positive vibe happening here? It was when there was so much hype, too. So much being sold and someone must have had the idea of how unhappy all those buyers would have been if all those items were on sale almost immediately after purchase.

[@terenceng5177]

For the longest time I've felt like I've out grown gaming. FFXIV is the first game that was able to re-ignite my gaming spirit. The story is best-in-class in every way.

[@Leife22]

Actually felt the same. Stopped gaming for literal years. Tried WoW again because of Covid, but didn't feel good to play and felt more like a chore. Tried FF and still playing to this day.

[@jpnmystic5208]

I havent being so heart touching and even cry for few sence for such long time playing a RPG.

[@matthewchapman7301]

I started playing May of last year, and it has been one hell of a ride. I feel like I managed to slip into this games timeline at it's peak and I feel incredibly fortunate to be here now. I'm hoping that Yoshi-p, Soken, Koji, Ishikawa, and the others all outlive me as well

[@michaelmulholland6679]

Great video, Matt! The FF Team’s approach feels like the MMO equivalent of working on and addressing technical debt. FF seems to take the attitude that content going into the game is a permanent fixture, whereas in Warcraft I think the Devs work from an assumption that the content will only meaningfully exist for 2 years. Thus as a team they have little incentive to go back and make any improvements to old content - using your analogy they have ceased to maintain a ship and have instead began constructing a bridge that is gradually sinking behind them.

[@specialnewb9821]

Laughs in 1.0 spaghetti code

[@DarkLotusAlpha]

@@specialnewb9821 The 1.0 spaghetti code doesn't exist as 1.0 was basically completely scrapped. The only 1.0 code that still exists is character, weapon, etc. data. So the spaghetti code that exists is from when they hastily rebuilt the game into 2.0, so that should be much easier to fix than if it had 1.0 as a technical foundation.

[@112Famine]

As long as they keep adding new deck levels to the top of the ship, the fact that it is sinking beneath them, what happens when the ship hits bottom? Do they add wheels?

[@foxdavion6865]

@@DarkLotusAlpha Well more than just that exists in the game, all the ARR zones, including the cities *mostly* use the OG 3D wireframes and textures; Except all of them were downgraded in resolution to perform better on the Playstation 3 as well as the developers making both major and minor adjustments to the original maps and the 3D models, but they are all essentially the same 3D models. 2.0 is a modded 1.0 running on a new game engine and it is mostly that which is the issue with all the spaghetti code; With that said, over the years a lot of that had been stripped out or redesigned, starting at the launch of Stormblood, when the original combat system was removed from the game, following with the TP and stances being removed in Shadowbringers. Basically the devs have spent the last 6 years slowly removing and reworking the old systems in place during ARR and HW in between working on new content and expansions. One of the only remnants left of old content is how Housing works, purely because the guy who coded all that left SE and as a result the devs simply have not had enough time yet to reverse engineer the code to update it. Their goal was to achieve the original over ambitious vision of the game, which they believe they have achieved with Endwalker; Even stating on a livestream when they announced it that with Endwalker the game will finally have all the cities that were promised the game would have in it at launch of 1.0, which was a ridiculous promise to make in the 2000s. The original plan was to have 8 cities and they were all going to be different starter cities for the different jobs and races. With there being the 3 city states of Limsa, Gridania and Ul'dah. With then also Ishgard, Sharlayan(now Old Sharlayan), Ala Mhego (yes it was originally going to be one of the player cities), Radz-at-Han and Kugane (The ruins of Sharlayan and the Ala Mhego Palace/City complex were going to be the original cities and their actual locations in 1.0). Yes, these were all planned back in 2006... when the game launched as 1.0, the only two cities which were finished were Gridania and Ul'dah (with Ul'dah being the only one fully fleshed out) and Limsa's 3D model was finished but barely populated with NPCs, it was cobbled together and rushed out with 1.0's release. With Ishgard shelved and it's surrounding zone released unfinished. Everything else was shelved.

[@madlinkers8595]

@@DarkLotusAlpha the spaghetti code is mostly gone yes but the engine itself is still having those old limitation they didnt disappear hopefully the 7.0 new rework on the enfine will fix those

[@lampdevil]

"Even when it was good it's pretty bad" is certainly a way to describe the Heavensward era! Things were JANKY back then. People praise HW for its story, rightly, but because Stormblood showed up and went "oh god no" and pounded the mechanics into a more suitable shape, the Heavensward experience has had a lot of the ouchy bits removed and therefore it a much nicer experience for those currently going through it! Heavensward-range crafting and gathering still totally blows, though. But that old veteran part of me kind of appreciates the pain of it....

[@lens_hunter]

Oh yeah, the hardcore Crafters still complain that they can't make money hand over fist like they used to. I think it's better now, a lot more approachable.

[@Frogstoney]

@@lens_hunter I mean I’ve made 80 mil since 6.2 dropped. Those crafters you refer to are just stuck in their old habits and refuse to rethink their strategies. Things change and if you can’t adapt you just get trampled and left behind.

[@lens_hunter]

@@Frogstoney Pretty much. I personally don't find Market Boarding sitting all that fun. I like making my own stuff and farming my own stuff.

[@paragon359]

"wheres your accuracy melds, we need to hit a7s? side with healer gear"

[@cynthiahembree3957]

You mean like bow mage. Honestly that sounded painful. I didn’t play in heavensward era but I’ve heard the stories

[@natebroadus8474]

I didn't know how I would feel about the changes--until I did the new Vault. The changes were subtle, but so satisfying for me, especially Alphi. My God, what a powerful change to an already powerful scene. That right there made me excited to see how else they might improve the experience for new sprouts. I wish I had come up with these new dungeons.

[@writer_man5318]

I'm seriously curious what they'll do with Gubbal because those bosses were not standard - a Demon Wall book, a monster that you have to push out of the middle, and one that has you run around with a certain amount of NPCs to prevent spawns. I wonder what can be kept and what will change.

[@guiltygamerxrd]

I recently told a free trial player that just started Heavensward that they're lucky they can experience the Heavensward story without the Heavensward gameplay. HW is seen as great to this day because it had an amazing MSQ that had much better pacing than ARR did. But a lot of people dropped the game at the time because the gameplay systems were just not fun for many people and the savage raids broke a lot of statics. Speaking of bowmage, I was a Bard main at the time so maybe I am a bit biased against 3.0 gameplay because "muh mobility." It makes me really happy to see the changes they're making to the older content. Stormblood gets crapped on for having a less interesting MSQ compared to the other expansions but it was the start of the game getting back on track gameplay wise.

[@renycilfay9773]

The caster version of bard was worse for more reasons than just the mobility. It had way too many things to weave for the half-casting and even an optimized opener would still have GCD clipping. It felt awful to play even without boss mechanics involved.

[@hquest]

It was publicly known SqE had no idea what was going on when they finished ARR and during most of the HW. They did not know how to tie everything until SB. And they nailed the story with both SB and ShB expansions, so the EW was the culmination of this incredible tale. Then with the fact this game is always making use of the old areas, regardless of you being lvl5 or 90, they had all they need to review the loose ends of both ARR and HW so new players can finally understand (or at least are hinted towards) what is going on and where it goes from there. I’ve played 1.0, I’ve played ARR, HW and I’ve done NG+ before and after the patch, and I have to say, the latest edits gives this game a hell of a story from the opening cinematic until the current patch, and you are eager for more because it is sooooo good!

[@starseekernate7244]

It worked man. I started playing this year in June, and I just beat endwalker a few weeks ago. The story is so, so good man

[@oldmoney1022]

But, a few months ago was June. When did you start playing?

[@starseekernate7244]

@@oldmoney1022 that was a typo LOL I meant weeks ago

[@NuchiAsaki]

I am a new FFXIV player. I have been playing mostly with friends who have been playing since before all of the changes. Every time we do a dungeon or trial, my friends start talking about how much worse it used to be. I haven't really had any bad experiences so far other than the ARR finale which was more of a skill issue than a game issue. It's definitely the best new player experience I have had in a game.

[@kaleiohulee6693]

On a core design level FFXIV gets so much reuse of content from its job system. As a fairly casual player it's a mountain of relevant content without any strong FOMO because the game is so generous with its rewards. I may not have the coolest stuff, but i will always have cool stuff.

[@demonjin6876]

There was a big reason why Praetorium and Castrum were unskippable; in favor of new player experience. Those two formerly were easily skippable and fairly easy to breeze through. The issue? Sprouts being placed for their first time in these instances get left behind by players who Blitz through it. I even fairly remember two Sprouts long ago before the unskip system was implemented, they continued to view cutscene after cutscenes that were queued up due to the party just bum rushing the raid dungeon. It was awful cause one of the Sprouts I played with was still viewing cutscenes when Lahabrea was already finished. I knew they were there to see what the story is and they barely get to experience the raid dungeon they were told by the game to play through.

[@yaninaayalaherrera8956]

Yeah, i remember being absoutely confused when I was a sprout running Prae and Castrum fromt the first time. Everyone took off, I was trying to look at the cutscenes and everytime i came back I was standing alone somewhere being totally lost, looking at the minimap and trying to figure out where everyoen was, over and over. By the time the dungeon finished I had NO IDEA what had happenned. As much as I sometimes go "ugh" when I get those on MSQ roulette and even though sometimes I do miss the old absolute chaos it used to bE, I prefer the new ones 100000 times for the sake of the sprouts. I dont really want for sprouts to have to go through that ever again.

[@GetterRay]

This is why I really don't think that they'll add some kind of skip point in 7.0 for new players to jump into the new expansion. All the work they're putting in to make ARR and HW better shows that they want people to play through this, not skip to the end. And that's why FFXIV is so different in the MMO space. Everyone who has gone through the story has this amazing breadth of shared experience. A new start point in 7.0 would do tremendous damage to the community. People put up with story skipping sprouts just barely as it is, most people look at them with pity, but you can bet that pity will turn to outright hatred if it every became a majority of new players. The devs understand that and understand the strength of the game is its story, not its end game hamster wheel so going back to make old content more accessible is the right way to make the game better for new players. Now if they'd only make Coils mandatory already.

[@donimmortal7692]

They WILL add skip point to 7.0, that has been their stand and nothing has change. I doubt it will do "tremendous" damage to the "community" because the only place I see people with same mindset as your are KZbin comment and Twitch chat.

[@GetterRay]

@@donimmortal7692 Give me the source to their stance on adding a skip point to 7.0 because I guarantee you don't have one.

[@iceman3317]

@@donimmortal7692 I've never heard them wanting to do that. I am not sure where you got that idea. While I agree, I highly doubt it would damage the community, (The community isn't as good as people say btw) I just don't see it happening now that they are reworking everything, including graphics. Not only that, SE is making large amounts of money from people skipping the story.

[@donimmortal7692]

@@GetterRay True, I don't have one aside from the one inside my brain. Neither do I have the tenacity to go through all the interviews over the years just prove that I am right to you. Believes whatever you want, I guess.

[@donimmortal7692]

@@iceman3317 I think they have enough faith in their game that a lot people will go back and replay the old contents anyway. You can think of it like people who played retail WoW and still want a taste of classic. Also the community is great!! unless you been hanging out in the forum or other platform too much. People who doesn't participate in this kind of shit made up the majority of the community and they are great (or maybe because I played on JP datacenter ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

[@JBoehmGames]

I mean, after seeing where WoW has been and what they've been doing as the flagship of the MMO genre (until recently), I feel that the Ship of Theseus approach is kind of a no brainer that FFXIV has been mulling over for years and is only now really pushing forward with because they have the ability to do it. They thrive on being able to run old content whenever you want as if you were on level with it through their roulette system, so it makes complete sense to go back and touch up that old content so that when you wind up rolling Snowcloak or Thornmarch in Trial or Levelling roulette you don't just immediately roll your eyes and groan. This focus on going back and cleaning up the old content also makes more sense due to the fact that there are so many players flocking into FFXIV right now between the Endwalker patches, all of the memes promoting the game, the mass exodus from WoW and other MMOs. When you require new players to play through your story, and the earliest part of the game is ROUGH, it makes sense to go back and smooth out all the rough edges that you can so you can retain all those new players going through the rougher patch of the game's history, but with the added bonus of also pleasing the longtime players that roll Thousand Maws in Levelling roulette again. They're basically the antithesis of WoW in this regard. Instead of sweeping their past mistakes and not relevant content under the rug like WoW does and shoving you right into Shadowbringers as a new player, they instead take the old content to the workbench, replace the old screws and springs, mend the cracks and fill the spots, give it a fresh coat of paint and polish, and put it right back out front for you to see and enjoy. And considering that the game is so story driven by your attachment to things in the world of Eorzea, making those moments as smooth as possible is all the more important, and it's fantastic to see them embracing that

[@Maddog3060]

Thousand Maws rework is proof that the "fix old content" approach is the right one. I envy new players so much for not having to go through the old version.

[@DrakkarCalethiel]

@@Maddog3060 The old version sucked so damn hard. Always hated it when I got it in roulette. Now I don't mind it at all.

[@oldmoney1022]

@@DrakkarCalethiel What was so bad about it before?

[@DarkLotusAlpha]

@@oldmoney1022 Puddles on the ground that gave heavy and for some sections was unavoidable, had to go collect items to proceed after the bosses so you will always have to take at least one detour to grab 1, and the first two bosses were glorified adds.

[@tylorhobbs8920]

@@oldmoney1022 The infinite hallway of ooze that slowed down your run speed. Also, you had to collect some whatsits that required a bit of backtracking. Finally, yeah... the first two bosses really aren't bosses. Just beefier adds.

[@Sobepome]

BACK IN MY DAY: Vitality was not the stat tanks scaled damage with, strength was generally the best (and sometimes you'd see people assign a couple odd points of dex to hit a crit breakpoint, although that was very very rare). Tanks would wear a mix of Vit/Str right side until they had the gear from the raid, and then you'd sub your vit pieces for all str for more damage because you didn't need the survivability anymore. You'd also get 60 stat points to allocate from leveling, and there was a book you spent grand company seals on to change them. For almost every class, you'd slam pick your Str/Dex/Int and move on with your life, but for a couple (healers and tanks, mainly) you'd want either full one stat for the damage or a split for the stat that gave you more health or more healing until you had good enough gear you could just go full damage. Tenacity didn't exist, it replaced parry in Stormblood. Parry was an awful stat, much worse than tenacity is now because it gave you no damage at all (you might be noticing a trend here of which stats were good: the ones that gave you damage). This is why Tenacity materia is called Battledance, they didn't change the name. Direct hit also didn't exist. Your gearing was just hitting spell speed breakpoints and then stacking crit until your eyes bled. I did not say skill speed because skill speed was actively terrible for a very simple reason: almost nobody was TP positive even in a single target rotation without using a TP restore ability of some kind, or being around someone who was (bard, machinist, ninja). Skill speed drained your TP faster, which gave you less uptime, which is also why monks were borderline unplayable in HW. You could make it work, for sure, but there were only so many raid spots and monks only buffed their own (blunt) damage, where dragoons could buff all piercing damage (other DRGs, BRD, and MCH) and ninjas could buff slashing damage (WAR, PLD, NIN) while also having trick attack to buff everyone's damage on top of it. They had managed to design a class with both no debuff synergy and anti-dps as the core mechanic of the class. Monk didn't have brotherhood either, they were a selfish DPS like black mage, except they'd run out of steam fairly quickly without assistance while black mages could blast infinitely. Ninjas also had the insane utility of Goad. Goad refilled someone's TP pool on a 180 second cooldown. Threat was actually sort of difficult in dungeons because of how TP worked, so if you weren't in a raid, you'd goad your warrior tank so they could spam overpowers and threat became trivial. You would not goad paladins because they did not have a physical aoe. They had Flash, which was a nondamaging yet high threat aoe that blinded enemies, so your best method of tanking was hitting flash a few times while gathering things up and then single target comboing whatever had the least threat on you. Yes, it was awful. If your ninja goaded another physical dps, there was a decent chance they would pull threat because the tank would be out of TP or MP (flash cost MP because paladins are casters, you see.) Healers had to deal with an ability called Cleric Stance, where you'd lose some huge percentage of healing power (my memory is it was -60% or -70%, but I am not sure of the exact number) but gain some amount of damage in exchange (I think it was 20% increased damage, but it has been a while). The key, though, was when you were swapping into it, as in becoming worse at healing, it would incur a several second cooldown. It was very possible to fat finger cleric stance and wipe the party because suddenly you were healing like a summoner spamming physick. Some healers got extremely mad when cleric stance became just a simple DPS cooldown with no downside in stormblood, but it also opened up healing quite a bit and was a popular change across the playerbase. Cleric stance was removed entirely in Shadowbringers. There's a reason people hold up Stormblood as being when the game became much more mechanically better. Heavensward was the first time they made savage raiding as a higher tier of difficulty, since binding coils were just a raid with one difficulty. The first tier of savage they made nearly strangled it in the crib, and it was specifically A3S, or pepsiman, that broke many a static. The design team apologized for this misstep and did much better on the rest of alexander, although it still has some kinda boring fights. Stormblood's Omega raid series is basically nonstop bangers all the way down, they certainly learned a lot.

[@Xilibrius]

I personally think the nidhog's fight is better since it's a diet version of the 3.3 trial to teach you some of the mechanics. additionally since there's only one price name ability the party is less likely to let someone die in a jail. I do wish estinien would drop down for the shield then dive out afterwards.

[@toodleselnoodos6738]

I think it was taken out because Estinien is a duty support now.

[@MortalWombatI]

@@toodleselnoodos6738 That is why, though I was hoping there would just be two versions of the event in the case of him being a Duty support. If he’s not there, then he jumps in and raises the eye to shield you, if he is, then he just runs over and you and the other NPCs huddle with him to survive. It could be done, and I’d honestly not be all that surprised if they do go back and change it to something like this eventually. Players seemed to really miss that little bit of interaction.

[@toodleselnoodos6738]

@@MortalWombatI With variant dungeons, very well could. We’ll just have to wait and see how variant dungeons.

[@aSmolGoth]

Veteran player of FFXIV here. MY goodness, the things I could tell you about XIV then and XIV now. 'Back in my day, you had to meld accuracy to hit anything! Summoners needed flanking thresholds because of their pets!' The first iteration of Twintania's twister. The first tier of The Coil of Bahamut having good clear rates through duty finder, but I'm on Aether and Gilga was "THE" raiding server. Heavensward crafting being a constant yikes-feast and praying to Byregot. I look at those memories fondly, but goodness am I glad they don't exist in the game still. From my understanding, Good King Moggle Mog was a trial that was kept from 1.0, when they knew the game was shutting down to be reworked and were given huge creative freedoms. This was also how we became blessed with Hildibrand. Ironically, even though player retention is probably lower than ever, I have a hunch that sub-based players are more likely to stay and create their own content to keep others entertained. They seem to be more invested in their communities.

[@sl5945]

I really hope a big overhaul to the collection and UI system is coming. I love the game, but it truly does have an awful experience when it comes to glam dressers / plates and vendor menus, and to an extent the map as well.

[@aaronlefebre5060]

I remember having to deal with the nightmare that was 1.0's alpha. Blew my rig up, and I couldn't get a replacement until 2.0 was in its betas. Pissed me off I missed out on Legacy status because of that. That being said, I did get into the phase 3 beta for 2.0, and my current main character can trace its existence all the way back to the phase 4 beta, where the prog you made in that phase would carry over to the main game. I still remember when doing Titan (Hard Mode) was the gateway to not only your relic, but to endgame as well. The capped tomestone set was *Darklight*, and the latency and lag was brutal.

[@CybersteelEx]

i remember i stopped at darklight as well, and mor dhana looked quite different back then as well

[@TheWillOfJ]

There is no reason to play an Alt in FFXIV... unless you're a roleplayer, which I am, and I can say that the early game experience gets smoother and smoother and more fun to redo! I have a character who's entering Heavensward soon and I'm eager to experience all the trust dungeons as I do the storyline!

[@jpnmystic5208]

Some of my guild members did alt because they would like to help the others on weekly reward limit contents.

[@TheWillOfJ]

@@jpnmystic5208 oh yeah! I totally forgot that use, which is weird because I have fellow static members who do the exact same...

[@RaydivatheWriter]

Something like FFXIV happens when someone who plays and actually cares about the game is in charge. It especially helps that he has a team that does the same and is willing to do what needs to be done to keep that game alive and growing. That's why so many FFXIV players 'worship' YoshiP.

[@iceman3317]

Only Americans. From what I've see, the team gets bashed to hell on the Japanese side of things to the point where Yoshi P had to step in and tell people to chill out.

[@HadeaRin]

It depend on the condition. FF mmorpg isn't mainline FF old fans bash him to no end and how him being the 16 Producer (or was it Director?) gaslight them to crazy degree. Sakaguchi playing 14 decrease the volume for sure but it is still there. But it isn't like he didn't have devout follower in JP side either, they're just quiet at most time. They will usually appear in the comment section of PLL though, joking etc and making YoshiP look like a model from buying the clothes he wear during PLL if it is something unique. Seriously it was funny that in case FF14 get into Japan's trending it is usually 'it is WoL's fault'

[@Kristina.Larson]

The game is so much better now than when I started playing it, but it's be a gradual and iterative change over a long time. I know the horror that is TP, and how bards and machinists used to be a mandatory element in raids to refill combat classes' TP and MP when they died, or it would just cause a wipe from lack of DPS if you messed up a mechanic and died. That new players don't know the horror of use your TP to sprint to live only to be unable to attack or hold aggro after escaping certain death. I also knew monk builds (back when we could tailor our stats) that allowed you to dump all your TP (including self refresh skills) in about 40 seconds because they hit so fast, then have to beg the party ranged DPS to refill you. Heavensward introduced the brand spanking new Dark Knight as a tank, the only one capable of mitigating magic damage with most of it's defensive skills. Paladins weren't able to block magic until Stormblood, a whole expansion later. Back then we couldn't hold aggro because all we could do was flash our foes and hope this distracted them enough from the party, not even dealing damage! And you could not use a tank stance until your level 40 class quest was done, so that's a lot of dungeons where it's just not an option! Speaking of other game mechanics we lost (without anyone shedding a single tear), lets talk about how it was we got our job crystals. First off you have to level a second class to 15 before you could get your job stone at level 30, and this was not well explained anywhere in game! Second, to get all those nifty role skills you had to level other classes and then make the abilities you desired cross-class from them. If you wanted to be a competent healer, better make sure you take thaumaturge past level 40! Want to be an effective melee DPS? Gonna need to get your lancer up enough for Blood for Blood to get cross-classed over. It was a bit painful, and pushed everyone into doing all the classes because without that you could be missing crucial skills!

[@Er404ChannelNotFound]

While I love the changes they've made, and I hope they revisit the Bahamut raids in the future to add a new easier version of them available on raid roulette that lets new player experience it, it still feels like something was lost. A part of the appeal for me when playing a series is to get to experience how the devs evolved their development process and learned from prior installments and how they experiment with their tools, and I felt exactly that when playing through ARR and the expansions. There's value in preservation and even flaws make an experience unique compared to a sterile one. Given the options, it makes sense they went with ironing out those issues in ARR that's for sure, but I can't say I didn't enjoy it before.

[@ChaoZzBladex]

same i actually LOVED it so much going throught all expensions seeing everything impove and improve even more it was a plessure but i can assure you if they would let arr be the same as it was in the beggining over 50% of players wouldnt even come close to making it throught arr without quitting just out of boredom

[@HiIThinkImReal]

@@ChaoZzBladex This is exactly right. I’m far more confident when I recommend the game this year than I was previously-I no longer preface my praise with, “well, ARR is rough, but it gets better after level 50”. I can finally say, “the game is good, go play it.”

[@ChaoZzBladex]

@@HiIThinkImReal yeah and i would even go as far and say even tho heavensward really picked up the pace the dungeons were a mess gameplay wise they are giant and boring most the time thats just how i felt (exept for the lore) and its great to see them improve on that!

[@Xbob42]

It has been preserved in many many videos over the years. It was high time to update it. While you may have enjoyed it, many new players find it all incredibly off-putting. "It gets good after _ hours" is basically a red flag for many people to spend their time with something that is just good.

[@miau384]

Yeah, as the role in the story of the Bahamut story is pretty much a normal raid mode story, but the difficulty is savage, it's in a really awkward place. I'd love them to redo it too, or just create an easier normal raid version so you can only play the story at level. Maybe tune the writing of it a bit too, because some parts are ... rough

[@LordoftheDice]

I played during the last days of ARR right before Heavensward. I played Black Mage, because I liked casters and with TP hobbling melee, Black Mage was arguably more free what with their mana regen phase of their rotation. I played probably the first quarter of Heavensward and quit for very similar reasons. I wanted to play Dark Knight and tank, only to find out that tanking was frustrating as hell. So, I quit and only game back towards the end of Shadowbringers. I know a lot of people liked the challenge of Heavensward content, but I'll take what we have now any day. Even if there are some things that they could do to make things even better. Make healing and tanking a bit more interesting, for one.

[@Brofisticus]

I really liked the changes. Not just because bringing along NPCs into dungeons gives you more of an attachment, but players are exposed to standard mechanics (stack markers, etc) a bit earlier. Had these changes been around my first time through, I would have appreciated Alphinaud earlier in the story. I love this ship, may it sail eternal.

[@skylarsimes8]

It feels good having a dev team actually care about the long term health if the game. Also how ya been holding up man. Been a while since I've seen ya about (It's Ace :D)

[@Brofisticus]

@@skylarsimes8 Surviving the '20s, chief. One day at a time.

[@zeroblade9800]

I attributed managing your TP was also a way to identify with your skill at the job. Been monk main and sure enough burning through your stamina (TP) was appealing to me. Remember this was still when it had all positionals. There was a cross class ability to restore like 400 TP and one would have to basically use it the moment your TP dropped below 600 to maximize length. On long fights yeah it basically managing from running out of gas while keeping up time. As for the dungeon changes I didn't dive deep into what changed but I sure was confused and surprised with bunch of bosses. Was making me think if my memory starting to go bad cause nothing I was expecting happened lol

[@mrgerbik]

/p "goad please"

[@DawnAfternoon]

Much as I miss the charm of TPs Arrow on MNK is just silly lol

[@seboulol]

I experienced the old 2.x duties now solo battles (Rhitahtyn, Lahabrea and Vishap) and the fight are waaayyyy better this way with some big surprises. They really are doing a great job revamping the old content.

[@lens_hunter]

I've been playing since 2.0 open beta, and I have absolutely loved how this game has evolved. You can tell the devs play the game. They want it to be better, too.

[@ElPincheDruk]

I remember dropping into Totorak for a leveling roulette, as a veteran of 2.0, I still dread getting any ARR content. However, once I saw that the experience was roughly in out within about 10 mins, in contrast to the usual 15-20 of post SB stuff. I wasnt as annoyed by the end, just a bit sad that a such a flavorful, yet annoying dungeon was so insipid. At least it was braindead, quick and didnt tilt me nearly as it used to.

[@writer_man5318]

I just wish they changed the second boss. If they gave that bit some new flavor, it would improve Toto-Rak by a lot in my opinion.

[@Chibibushi]

not that it will happen anytime soon, but someday many years from now if they shut down the servers for ff14, they with all the single player options they are implementing, they could totally have ff14 preserved as a single player game, outside of people using private servers of course.

[@Winchester1979]

It wouldn't surprise me if the plan is straight up allowing offline play with solo modes for everything eventually.

[@xbree_]

The title pulled me in lol I hope the game last forever. I’m happy with the new changes to old content I’ve done. Will eventually go back and play new game plus to experience the changes. I agree. I’m glad they put time into the old content so new players will want to stick around. Anything to make ffxiv better is worth the time and effort.

[@Dracounguis]

I had avoided playing FFXIV because it was number 14. I figured it would just come and go like all the other numbered ones. And, at the time, I was happily playing WoW. Shadowbringers hype got me in 2019 and Shadowlands _sucking_ got me fully moved over in 2021. 😆

[@khinzaw77]

@@Dracounguis XI still has a dedicated community and that game predates WoW by over a year.

[@egxfreze5521]

@@Dracounguis U can be happy playing wow?

[@xbree_]

@@Dracounguis it’s fun to hear how everyone started playing. I can’t remember who I ended up starting but I heard about it and started playing in February 2020 when the world shut down. Whoever brought it up to me I’m glad they did. It’s been a great experience and I’ve made many friends from it.

[@Dracounguis]

@@egxfreze5521 at first it was fun but the last two expansions were nothing but irritating. If not for being part of a guild raiding group I probably would have quit sooner. Pretty much as soon as we killed Danathrius on heroic I was gone. 🏃💨

[@garouchieflol]

this is what i wanted for wow classic but going back to the same thing. Idk how people are hyped about the re-release of the same old content that had the same issues

[@GiorgosAigio96]

Nostalgia and people who were too young to play it back then, but regardless Classic doesnt feel Classic at all, they keep releasing old expansions one after the other and like then what? Midflight expansion on classic in 2028? Blizzard is out of touch with WoW as a franchise.

[@TheMeGuy1]

I'm torn because on one hand, giving the old content a facelift and making the experience as good and seamless for new players as possible is something that the game needed. On the other hand, I won't see as many noobs kill themselves in Syrcus Tower by running out of the group when they get the purple orbs on Xande and that makes me sad.

[@TheWillOfJ]

At least they can still die by not running to the pads in Phlegethon!

[@CaptainJoystick]

7:00 - My exact reaction when I realized you get free materia from your gear when spiritbond hits 100%. Took me till Endwalker postgame to realize this, my friends who played much longer were equally surprised.

[@whispa1978]

When I went through the new Aery dungeon for the first time, my jaw was on the ground the entire dungeon. The second boss fight had me floored with how good it was. Not just the mechanics, but also how good it looks. And the new Nidhogg fight.....my god!!! It feels like a proper introduction to what you will experience in the trial. It really made me have those same vibes I felt when I ran Heavensward for the first time......eons ago. Yoshi and the team really are hitting the mark with this expansion.

[@erockbaby3000]

Yeah I forgot they made changes to the aery & almost died to The second boss cause I was on auto pilot with it & it’s new attacks showed up. I actually did die to Nidhogg cause I was too busy noticing Esteinen disappeared at first then Nidhogg did his first major Aline AOE 🤣

[@Turamwdd]

Nidhogg was much better. Got to disagree about the other 2 bosses though. They nerfed the mechanics to make it trust friendly.

[@mrbeans2425]

Snow yeti is super easy but ur right most people don't have a clue what to do. Jusy had to freeze the spriggins same with Trex there is an order to it.

[@writer_man5318]

Let's be honest, it wasn't just people not knowing how to do Yeti but even when you do it was basically just the bomb mechanic that Copperbell had where only the tank really interacted with the boss while the rest waited for the add to spawn.

[@Eladdan]

I've been playing since 1.#, after Yoshida took over though, and I've done Good King Moggle Mog where the second half was literally the main tank kiting the moogles while we picked them off one by one before dogpiling the King. That said, my only complaints are the loss of damage mitigation on conjurer. Losing Stoneskin and Protect was painful... and a crime. But the changes have been appreciated, it's kept me playing with a controller even with some classes needing to be macro'd to pull it off.

[@MaximusGamesB]

I remember back in late HW told my vet friend i unlocked castrum meridianum and he got 3 friends to unsync it with me so i could experience the story. i can only imagine how bad doing it on DF mustve been as a brand new player without someone to tell them like i did...

[@FrankysABoysName]

You know I got the Aery the other day in a roulette. The changes really surprised me - and as a healer main, the Nidhogg changes are good for baby sprout healers. I understand people being sad about it lore wise etc, but the changes are going to prevent frustrating wipes. I also like that they incorporated mechanics from his trial.

[@patrickoverstreet2372]

I will gladly trade a few cutscenes and a few boss mechs for them to make the new player exp better every single patch. This game cannot survive without new players, period.

[@XMAlek]

And if you look at other videos you can see that new players are still coming to the game. As a mentor (yeah i know i failed :p), i see lots of sprouts. And there was a surge after last patch again.

[@ArmageddonEvil]

Blizzard's Ship of Theseus is replacing the people *in their* team. FFXIV's Ship of Theseus is fixing game mechanics in the game.

[@1ch1r1n]

I plan to replay the entire story with the graphics update with 7.0, before I play the expansion. It's going to suck avoiding spoilers but I'm excited to see the story in a new light. Literally!

[@cynthiahembree3957]

Lol you just read my mind. After the 6.x patches I’m going to go back and play through msq again start to finish. I haven’t decided to do that before 7.0 or not yet tho.

[@XMAXEL]

But what about the Praetorium lighting? Surely they couldn't be thinking of changing that.

[@WhiplashSL]

Just want to point out that Yoshi-P has come out on multiple occasions and said he is adamantly against crunch culture.

[@mel_arky]

Don't even get veterans thinking about having to meet accuracy stat caps for fights. I think Piety was also usable by Casters (not just a Healer stat for MP regen) since back then MP wasn't just 10k, the amount of MP you had was based on your Piety stat (as well as MP costs being different as it accounted for this). The old cross class action system (before it became Role Actions) where you had to level up other classes to get actions (Provoke, Rampart where both Gladiator, you needed to level gladiator if you wanted those skills as marauder/warrior). Heck back when DPS had to kind of manage their enmity(aggro/hate) a bit which gave us actions like Quelling Strikes (archer skill which reduced enmity for a period of time from your skills), Rogue/Ninja had Smoke Screen which was like a Quelling Strikes on a party member, heck they also had a skill to give all enmity they generated for a time to a target (usually put on the main tank before a pull). So many skills have been lost or changed, Cleric Stance (healer skill, which initially swapped your MND with INT stats since back then healer damage was based in INT and not MND, then it just changed to a small 5% damage buff for a time), Flaming Arrow (Archer skill which was just a placed DoT), Foe's Reqieum, (a brd song that drained your MP but boosted magic damage taken by enemies nearby, also Mage's Ballad was their MP regeneration song which reduced their damage whilst played, Army's Paeon used to be the TP regen equivalent, MCH's turrets were all different, (Rook autoturret was a single target, with a skill called "Promotion" which made changed it to a TP regeneration field, Bishop Autoturret which was a AoE turret (auto attacks to all nearby it), with promotion making it regen MP to nearby players, back when you had to place them but unless you moved far enough were always active and an alway active part of your damage), Fracture (MRD/WAR DoT), Touch of Death (MNK DoT which they had to also put on with Demolish). Bloodbath was initially a marauder skill and made them crazily overpowered in big pulls since they could just heal themself completely for a good 20s, until they took it from them and made it a melee role action. I could go on and on and on and on, there ha been so many changes over the 9+ years I've played. Heck looking back at my earliest screenshots I have of my HUD, the veryfew videos I've recorded of XIV (which I've set as private or unlisted, or just have on my Hard Drive). Revenant's Toll (Mor Dhona) and Idyllshire were pretty barebones too once, in accordance with the passage of time from 2.0-2.5 and 3.0-3.5, both areas grew and changed. Heck I remember when Revenants Toll was mostly just a few tents, an aetheryte and a ramp, during the story of the Doman refugees moving in, they basically built up the area throughout 2.x, and a little similar with the residents of Idyllshire, there used to not be a full loop, or a fountain, or access to the walls, even the middle building lacked a roof! Honestly I wish they updated and refined both areas a little more, granted Revenant's Toll is pretty much in a completed state. Granted they gave us that feeling with Doman Enclave in Stormblood (which was released in parts) and Ishgard Restoration in Shadowbringers (unless you where there you'll never get to do them Phase 1-4 restoration Fates, or see how it used to look in each Phase fully). I kind of wonder what Endwalker will do in this sense, if it will do a "change over time" thing again, I want to say a restoration of Garlemald post Endwalker would be amazing, granted they have to respect collision boundaries of objects, or move a lot of current objects and their collisions as they are now (as to not require multiple instances for players who aren't at the same point in MSQ, which would greatly affect hunts as well as other little things).

[@AlleluiaElizabeth]

Bloodbath used to be a MRD skill. Still miss it. D: Rev’s Toll is complete but for it’s lack of an airship landing. Also I wonder if Ishgard Resto is gonna have a phase 2 the covers the damage in Foundation. The quest line leads out into changes there.

[@silvinity4939]

Ah yes, I remember smoke screening the tank and diverting all my enmity to the other dps or the healer as a HW NIN, good times.

[@BM03]

@@AlleluiaElizabeth They took that skill that made you parry everything in front and get crit hits from the butt and turned it into 25s cooldown Bloodbath! What's to miss??

[@jibrilles]

I really enjoy your videos about FFXIV. Keep them coming :) !

[@farsound]

played in 1.0, never got to endgame, but played on and off until heavensward, where monks broke me entirely, could not get past dravania because level 53 mobs was impossible to solo without potion, a chocobo, and some luck. Only returned near the end of stormblood and have been playing semi-regularly since. End of shadowbringer to current state of endwalker, have been the longest streak of playtime ive gotten in the game. and i must say, im really glad for the changes that was made from stormblood and onwards, because i would never have lasted if a lot of the old stuff was still around.

[@Sammysnows]

YoshiP even said during the player backlash of housing about threatening the staff. he ask the player to stop doing that since the staff is trying to figure out how to fix the housing, currently the housing still a mess but thanks to Island i actually don't care getting a house.

[@jpnmystic5208]

YoshiP also said ppl should relax and slowplaying the island, but guess what, bike mount? Max lvl it in few days

[@Kalibby22]

the best feature that i think they introduced is the fact that you can solo stuff when you don't always have friends to do runs with. i love the edition of npcs. in theory at least, cuz i am not currently subbed. but recently i did play for 6 months when my friend wanted to try it out. before that i haven't played since like 2014. its in the plan to resub at some point when im more financially stable

[@alibutterfly82]

I feel like, the vast majority of the time, Yoshi has a great handle on what to prioritize for attention, when working on the game. Well... at least, I assume it's Yoshi driving the workflow for the team. The progressive changes they've been making to the early game seem like a direct counterpoint to the statement that people make of "If you can just force yourself to go through ARR, it gets REALLY great after that." Having to FORCE yourself through early game is not something a whole lot of people are willing to do these days, so it is only to their benefit to improve those segments so that that argument STOPS being made. As someone who has been continuously subbed to this game with no breaks, since ARR open beta... I love the evolution and the fact that they keep finding ways to make even older content fresh and relevant.

[@Maria_Erias]

I think this comes from a team that actively plays and enjoys their own game. Yoshi-P has said in several interviews that if a team doesn't play their own game, they won't understand the player experience and know what needs to be worked on and improved. This is blindingly obvious, but it's also super obvious that other teams - notably WoW's - don't seem to play the game they're developing. Combine a lack of engagement with your own game and a complete disregard for player feedback, and you wind up with an arrogant, out-of-teach development team that churns out content that most players hate. On the other hand, if you are an active player of your own game - and engage with it fully, not just one or two aspects of it like raids or PvP - and you listen to what your player base is telling you, you can really focus on what's important to the player experience on a very broad range.

[@alibutterfly82]

@@Maria_Erias Agreed entirely! How can you seek to improve your product from a consumer perspective if you either don't know or don't care what that perspective even is? I really respect the care with which the XIV team treats their product.

[@_aPaladin]

nah, I remember all the old days way back into 1.0, in the credits you can see my name as Blue Blue, Back then the old days were rough but memorable. I think people forget that. The changes are good, it's kind of sad that people will never be able to see how the game has evolved. It's been fun the see the evolution of FF14. ARR was rough, but hey during that time in gaming it was different, different enough for me to sell my WOW account and play FF14. Moved on from WOW and never looked back. FF14 has a special place in my heart, because I was a select few who lived through that time, and that's an experience no one can take away.

[@Lotrpottergirl1]

I think its neat to point out that the update of old content is always a pleasant sprinkle of something different for vet players who dont play old content as often.

[@Monacobiscuit]

Not sure how many noticed it, but during the Flashback of memories you get at the start of Shadowbringers trailer - The last shot of flashback is from the Trailer of 1.0, a character that doesn't exist in the current game. :D

[@ViewTube_Emperor_of_Mankind]

I checked my old secondary account and Blizzard is so afraid of showing their old content and the level 1 experience that they just gave that account free access to the newest expansion AND a free character boost.. and it was not subscribed for at least 4 years or more.

[@forestgirlasha]

As vetern player I really like that reworked old dungeon teach new players mechanics that you will/possibly see in the future. Was just talking about this with friend that I did the beta with.

[@Maria_Erias]

I really love the reworked MSQ roulette fights. Livia especially, but Nero and Gaius are also super good. It's great to see complex mechanics coming out in early boss battles to give new players a taste of what's to come later on, while at the same time not being too punishing about them.

[@writer_man5318]

@@Maria_Erias As someone that went through these new experiences with an alt, the only one that's really problematic still is the Haukke eye mechanic because there's nothing really there to tell your character to turn around. I feel like there needs to be a tutorial for that mechanic. Like have the butler say something like, "When I looked into my lady's eyes, I was entranced but every time I turned away it was like the spell was broken." And then have a pop-up tutorial explain the eye mechanic. Because most people pull their camera out and can't see other player characters or NPCs turn around.

[@Maria_Erias]

@@writer_man5318 I agree. I would actually love to see a continuation of the Hall of the Novice tutorials that kicks in at like level 20 or 25 that teaches you common boss mechanics, like the different markers and things like the eye mechanic or forced movement effects.

[@zack2025]

I main PLD to this day because of TP, our AOE move Flash used MP, so it wasn't such a struggle with TP management

[@SoSakashii]

Matt: I wish I were a new player. Meanwhile me having a 3rd alt ready to do a full duty support playthrough all over again.

[@millennialnerds2106]

So I played the game first time around 6 years ago and I left because I just didn’t feel it working. Now I restarted two weeks ago and this game is amazing. I’m loving it. I’m level 58 now and now I can’t put it down.

[@robertboyle6001]

The comedian Steven Wright has a Ship of Theseus kind of joke that goes something like this: The other day I came home and noticed that everything had been replaced by an exact duplicate. I said to my roommate, "Hey! Have you noticed that everything in here has been replaced by an exact duplicate?" He said, "Who the hell are you?"

[@XMAXEL]

One thing that I don't miss from ARR is grinding the DD (Dark Devices) Fate chain for those last few levels to 50 as a Summoner. Bards had a fire ring ground AOE that they could place down to tag the mobs but Summoner didn't get theirs (Shadow Flare) until lvl 50. So it was close to impossible to be able to tag anything with only Miasma 2 since the Bards could tag them as soon as they spawn.

[@XMAXEL]

It's a good thing that YoshiP and team are primals, so as long as we believe in them they will never die.

[@steeldrac]

‘I remember when as a Bard I was able to raise everybody and save the day with a LB3’ 😂 FFXIV is full of memories.

[@ntrong32]

My first time through paretorium, I had no idea what was going on. I skipped all the cutscenes because I didn't want to be a dead weight to the team. The new ARR endgame dungeons/trials are so much better now. I wish I had this experience when I first played. One day I'll make a new character and experience those solo instance trials. Or new story plus

[@writer_man5318]

Oh man, the new trials are awesome. I did them through an alt when they released. Cape Westwind makes Rhit a badass and Lahabrea gets a real "oh shit moment". The new Steps of Faith is great for the scale of it with all of the NPCs that join in.

[@Spardeh]

there was one thing back in the day that used to anoy the shit out of me was not auto dismounting when talking to NPC's you had to manually right click the mount buff lol.

[@nickputney605]

I love when we get Matt videos which now seems to be just about most FFXIV videos!

[@j_corb]

So glad to see someone talking about this! It's honestly amazing to me how poorly WoW handles the idea of "new players". So much content is rendered obsolete, by EVERY single metric. One of the things I think FFXIV does well is making sure the actual WORLD actually feels relevant, often like it's a living place. Instances where you go back to a previous location, speaking to a familiar NPC, things like that. Meanwhile, WoW has Dalaran as a capital city in two fucking places at once. There's no sense of it being a congruent experience, even with the whole "time-skip" they're doing in Dragonflight, it means that Dragonflight is COMPLETELY disconnected from the rest of the game. Hell, Lakeshire was apparently overrun by Scourge during Shadowlands, but there's nary a mention of it when you actually go there. It's so funny to see what was once considered one of the premiere video-game Developers handling their own game like it's amateur hour. No doubt a byproduct of expanding too much, too quickly, as they're clearly super inefficient when it comes to adding any kind of content to the game. But there's also clearly no "vision" for WoW anymore, either, they're just kind of winging-it.

[@Tazrael]

I'm sad that people arrive at Idylshire and it's already been completely rebuilt, but that's been a thing since Heavensward itself. So your opening comments are even more true than you stated.

[@TheMooseFromTheRoom]

To be honest, it would be nice if they added a "vote to skip cutscene" option to Praetorium/MSQ now, or just that if there is a new player (which you get a notification about anyway), then you can't skip them. Most people have run it lots and lots of times and just do it for xp or tomestones, and don't really wanna be stuck watching cutscenes

[@DixxyV]

It'll come around to the same problem they originally got in early days. If someone vote to not skip, they'll quit the party and queue again. Or even worse, vote kick a person who doesn't skip.

[@roslin8060]

So what you're saying is, it's a good thing I held off on playing further after finishing ARR several months ago. It had nothing to do with these changes, but now I'm kinda glad I did. :D

[@AnimePrincessist]

2.45 minutes in and Matt is talking about Estinien, cut to ffxiv add where it starts with the estinien bit from the endwalker trailer. I had a good laugh over the perfect coincidence

[@emerelle3535]

I started on PLD when FFXIV came to PS4 and I played until first patch of Heavensward or something like that before WoW took my attention back. I know what you mean with tanking. For me especially AOE was a nightmare, having only that lighting-ability. Tbh. that's also the reason why I didn't play FFXIV vor years and when I finally decided to to so (so I could watch Asmongold without getting the story spoiled), I was surprised how different it was. xD

[@BoredAndBrowsing]

To be honest, I didnt really like FFXIV before. I played it when it was reworked into ARR, and stopped like 3 or 4 months later, and then occasionally tried to go back over the years after I got bored of everything else, but would quit after a few hours. But I started again a few months ago, and I have played almost every day since and played through Heavansward so far, now going into Shadowbringers I think. It's fun, in a different sense than other mmo, where you have to progress your story to unlock content, and the story seems impactful enough. I like the gameplay for the most part, it's not difficult and there are some server timing issues but generally the gameplay is simple. The class or jobs variety is plenty and you can change around without making alts, you never really get bored unless you just dont like the game. And everyone is nice, very social, and I've yet to see any toxicity, although I'm sure it exists but I've yet to see any myself. The game is memorable, in fact the players can be memorable as well, I always see this male character player in Limsa Lominsa dancing in the same spot with a pair of spotted underwear with a top hat, or the bards who play songs by the main city aether hubs.

[@Loguemaster123]

i have been playing since end of stormblood i remember when cape west wind was the hardest trial in the game

[@UltrEgoVegeta]

As former ffxi player who tried ffxiv early on. Now that I've given it a second go I'm hooked. It plays much better now.

[@HikariOfHime]

I started playing FFXIV right before the last tier of Alexander dropped. I loved it. Some things were shitty but still felt better and more at home than any other mmorpg ive tried. It only got better and better. I've leveled some alts till the max level of the then latest expansion just to revisit the story and get more and more lore out of it. I catched something new every time. When the new servers opened up this year, it was once again time to level an alt. especially since ive had a longer break and forgot some stuff. ooooh boy! what an experience. i can completely relate to the things you said. the dungeons are so much better. thats the main point for me. some were a huge pain without veterans knowing what to do. the snowball yeti was on top of the list for sure. I cant wait to see what the game holds for us in the future. Mentioning the mortality of the producuders and staff, especially having sokens cancer story in mind, got me to tears. i dont even wanna think about it. i hope the day will be far in the future.

[@orionwright7790]

Dont know if a video on this channel has been done this way before , but I look forward to more.

[@tnabrams64]

Now they just need to rework the last boss of Haukke Manor HM. Please, SE. I'm so tired of wiping to it every time I get it in a roulette

[@RobertGomezN7]

Here from ARR 1.0. The team has done so SO MUCH for this game. It has gotten me through a lot and continues to do so. Should SquareEnix had it suck with their stance as FF11, I could not even pick it up.

[@littywitty5867]

Im a new player to ffxiv. I started in July and finished Heavensward the week before 6.2 came out. I luckily had the foresight to watch guides online to help me get through the HW dungeons, but I imagine my experience would’ve been a lot worse going in blind just because I would’ve been dealing with mechanics that I had no prior experience addressing. Even so, I feel a little special being one of the last people to experience these old fights firsthand and am excited to see the changes for myself.

[@EvilPikachu]

I tried playing the original FF14 on PC and almost died of fail. Tried again when it released on PS3 as ARR, couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do or why I should care. I gave it one last chance just before the launch of Shadowbringers on PS4 because what was the complete edition at the time was dirt cheap. And it FINALLY clicked. Became an obsession for years. I'm less active at the moment since I recently acquired Elden Ring and it's kinda killing my entire life, but I'll be back for the next patch, eagerly awaiting even a whisper of a sniff of a hint of a possibility of the next expansion.

[@thebrave9971]

I started playing in 5.4, the patch after they started to change things for people back in ARR, when they changed up the quest line for ARR and Post ARR, and removed a crap ton of quests, and I don't regret pushing through old ARR and HW to get to where I'm at in the game today

[@kampferpl7759]

I started playing FF14 from 5.2, just before they trim down ARR. So I had the "full" ARR experience. After I finish 6.2 I hope I can find time to start again.

[@danielaxc2900]

Content creators simping for WoW, Ashes, Lost Ark, etc. : "I sleep" Matt (rightfully) simping for FFXIV: "Real shit?"

[@RaysofLight98]

I’d like to add a necessary survival tip I learned: drink all the clean water you have. All of it. Your body doesn’t use water like it uses food.

[@sweetcynic8830]

I went back to WOW recently after a long break post heroic Nathria clear to level a couple alliance characters to 60 and, let me tell you, it's a mess. All of this wasted content. The leveling experience was disjointed and uninteresting. All of those crazy articles about Wild Star back in the day, a focus on development of the end game, and in hindsight this seems to be one of the biggest misunderstandings of how to make an long lasting MMO. Further, it feels like even WOW to this day still suffers from this brain rot. There's a better way to do it. Back to FFXIV and not looking back.

[@Maria_Erias]

I think WoW was fine until Wrath, because vanilla didn't really have an overarching story to it, and because you still had to play through BC to level up to get to Northrend. Couple this with the fact that it still took a very long time to level, and this made sure that new players coming in got to experience everything on their journey up from level 1 to 80. Then Cataclysm came and revamped Azeroth and got rid of that, and now it becomes jarring because new players are starting out in a modern story, then having to go back in time to BC and Wrath before coming back to the modern story. It only got worse and worse after that until it reached the point where, to paraphrase Morty from Rick and Morty, "Nothing happens on purpose. Nothing you do matters. Come grind Torghast." This is what happens when you pass the development of an MMO off to a team that doesn't care about preserving the integrity of what they've inherited.

[@hkoizumi3134]

This may be a hot take but I believe playing FF14 from the beginning of launch in 2013 was the best experience you could have. I say this because the old system with 2.0 content worked relatively well. The challenges we had in dungeons and trials were catered to the old system. We saw all the mechanics the way it was intended like using cannons in Castrum. Or the jumping mechanics in crystal tower. I wouldn't want to trade that experience for anything else.

[@MrLyramion]

I played 1.0 and it was so bad I was only able to get myself back towards the end of Heavensward. Stormblood I didn't love tbh. Shadowbringers made this my forever game - it got a "soul" with that Expansion for me.

[@MrGnuh]

@@MrLyramion 1.0 managed to immerse me into that world unlike anything else ever. i would attentively listen to the wood wailer telling me about how the lamps in gridania only glow because the elementals choose to reside in them - thus making the lamps glow. i would kill NOTHING but the for the quest assigned mobs because the padjal told me that i mustn't invite the fury of the woods by causing imbalance. i am not a role player. and yet. this world and its people charmed me beyond belief. yeah i would get the shxt kicked out of me, bravely dying my way up to 50 doing levequests as a thm because nothing told me that there is a job system. i would die to the horrible gameplay and quit. but sure enough, i always logged back in the very next day and was looking forward to spend some more time in eorzea :3 the love and care of its makers could always be felt. and that's why i stayed for all these years and will continue to do so.

[@KLGChaos]

I remember in 2.0 when you couldn't queue for dungeons with your chocobo out. Made FATE farming a nightmare. XD

[@lyconxero457]

I've lived through all the FFXIV eras and it's quite the thing to look back now at how much the game has changed. The thing I want to encourage players to do is that when you're voicing your displeasure over certain aspects of the game currently (like job balance, for example) to please do so courteously and respectfully so that the feedback is actually useful and not just you yelling at devs to "fix the game." I also try to include things like this that they're doing to improve the game and make it very apparent that I see all the work they're putting into extending this game's life for the long run and I appreciate it.

[@syncswim]

I think YoshiP and co just realized that if the minimum churn rate on subscribers is only going to increase over time no matter what you do then anything that helps maximize the amount of new players coming in at the top of the funnel should be their #1 priority outside of releasing new expansions. Churn at the bottom of the funnel is less concerning because you've already extracted a certain amount of lifetime value from those subs and they're more likely to come back next expansion versus top-funnel churn, which is new players ditching because the new player experience is painful.

[@jimothywright1621]

You had me panicked at the beginning saying we couldn’t play Heavensward or ARR ever again. Though I came away from this video with a much better feeling and actually plan to go and see some of these changes for myself.

[@rennierzamora3582]

So far I'm loving "most" of the changes. Good job Business Unit 3!

[@beebee8217]

Im so happy they are introducing things like stacks, towers and tankbusters in arr. no long will we have sprouts in nidhogg running away with a stack marker.

[@HarleyGuioGuitar]

FFXIV's constant revamping to make the new player experience has something I've noticed slowly, through having friends who hop in having less-and-less of a sluggish time getting through it. It's gotten to the point where I can go "Huh, maybe it's not actually that bad now".

[@WineRedEchos]

I started in 2.0. revenants toll was 2 tents and a campfire basically. tanks turning tank stance off to do more damage was a huge dick move. your whm would brag about solo healing while your sch just dps'd. titan hard was the hardest fight in the game. good memories. awful times lol.

[@nathanlang9036]

we may have had some rough stuff back in heavensward, but at least I could make titan tank for me

[@AoiKaze2000]

I started around the time of Leviathan in ARR. Having recently NG+'d ARR (not the post patch content yet).... the new additions to ARR are so much better than what was there before, and honestly while I would like to have a few of the older dungeons for nostalgia purposes... the new end is just so much better and far more in line with the rest of the game.

[@Eucep]

Me: Just first done these instances post 6.2, never done before. Me now: They were recently changed? Didn't notice a thing, still flows good.

[@chrisyang8961]

Might be an unpopular opinion but I've never really had a problem with old systems, they were just there. It's like every time you play a new game, you have to learn how things work in that particular game anyway. So i wouldn't say the systems were bad per se, just a different take and requiring a different management style. Just because it was different from what people expected or were used to, did not make it bad, imo. I never even had problems with TP, only ever running out of TP on monk but there were ways to get it back, including the badgering the bard lol. It was harder to manage MP on the dark knight when it first came out than to manage TP was my overall experience, although YMMV. I always felt it was just a matter of adapting to the system rather than just labelling as bad just because you weren't used to it. Some of it might not make sense (just like the first time i ran a Steam Tank into a line of sword wielding infantry in Total War, thinking it will survive), but hey it's just the way the system works. And I feel like, even though most people seem to enjoy the summoner changes, i kinda outright hate it because there isn't as much challenge or skill involved as trying to maintain my 2.5min rotation, not to mention having a carby as arcanist is kinda extraneous now because it doesn't do anything (it used to attack as well previously, and yes i know you use it to summon the different iterations of ruby, topaz, etc to do a 1 time attack but that can just be as easily done with a 1 time summon as well, just cut out the carby despawn animation). Also, to me, the new ultima weapon trial arena just feels kinda empty, with only 4 players at any one time and no environment objects (the new floor looks meh), so i kinda miss the sheer chaos of 8 people running around trying to avoid aoes, which i felt contributed to the epicness of a boss fight. TBH, i hated running the msq dungeons because they took so long after the devs forced the unskippable cutscenes but the actual fighting was more fun with more people around, even if they were cheesed because there was the social aspect of making jokes or chatting as we creamed every enemy in the dungeons. TBF, yes i understand the rationale behind the unskippable cutscenes and why it was changed again in the end, and that it's probably true that it will make a better experience for new players but doesn't mean that the previous dungeon design didn't have SOME positives, at least for me.

[@jaylunoc6541]

i really appreciate CBU3's approach to like... "maintaining the old rides" rather than just ripping old content out to make room for the new stuff. i say as i make direct and malicious eye contact with bungie inc

[@theredknight1757]

I love this approach. For the longest time I have, and know others have, said to prospective new players "The game is *amazing*, just stick with it until Heavensward! A Realm Reborn is meh, and the first few patches after are terrible, but if you stick with it things get better leading up to HW, HW is amazing and things take off from there!". It was absolutely true, but that doesn't leave the best impression. And I know a decent number of people that simply couldn't make it to HW. It was smart of Squeenix to extend the free trial to HW, and later up to Stormblood. But going back, patching up and reworking old content was a stroke of genius. One of the biggest ones was taking the Trust system from Shadowbringers and retroactively adding it to ARR and now part of HW. I a so happy I can run the new dungeons the first time at my own pace, without other players either rushing through, or the pressure of knowing I am slowing them down by my ignorance of the dungeon. Taking key story beats like the fight against one of the Empire's elite, the final, final boss of AR and the final Trial before HW and making them instead solo duties strikes the same chords, letting players experience the epic storybeats at their own pace. Just, full credit to Yoshi-P for not just ignoring the newbie experience.