My Current Feelings on Final Fantasy 14, a 15 Year Retrospective

[@bolladragon]

There's a level of detail oriented care that seems to have been left behind when the team was split between FFXIV and FFXVI.

[@Yokai_Yuri]

Nah that is an excuse.

[@theguiltyplayer9207]

The Day i got on and tried to plunge on my Dark Knight only to hear the 'nope' sound... i felt the Samurais pain.

[@Zyart]

Spineshatter Dive being reduced to what it was... Even as a casual Dragoon, I still can't understand why you'd remove a Jump from a Dragoon.

[@Curinteru]

@@Zyart As a main DRG, I'm telling you, Spineshatter Dive was the most clunky and uncomfortable skill to press. Thank the Twelve is gone.

[@Kekira]

​@@CurinteruAgreed

[@Dogan_TM]

Now imagine that but having the job actually being interesting beforehand and you get everyone who played it pre-Shadowbringers. Plunge was a cool animation, but gapclose spamming does not a job make.

[@xXJorge42069Xx]

@@Curinteru youre beyond saving and the reason the game is losing its identity, spineshatter was removed as "fluff skills" only for them to then make high jump and mirage dive fluff skills that do nothing, dragoon was taken out back and shot in DT.

[@xerravolos]

I think you hit the nail on the head when you called the surrounding atmosphere of the state of the game with the word "Confusion". Personally, I feel lost like a passenger on a ship who has lost communication with the captain and no longer know where the ship is going. I dont know whats going on or where we're going and i'm looking around desperately for the captain to take the wheel, but the deck is empty.

[@pimsutter]

I understand the feeling. But I do hope that things will get better. It not that ever in ff xiv was smooth sailing. It has its ups and downs. But I have faith that it will pull it self back up.

[@206Zelda]

A lot of us love the game; it's why we cry out angrily with The Question, and we have yet to receive The Answer that explains the state of the game. This game has to take a nasty plunge before it can get any better. We can only hope that this year, the year Square has blundered the most, is all it takes to correct the path and bring in the changes the veterans and new players have been asking for. If the core expectation is to 'move forward', then increase the difficulty and engagement of the common battles and cease simplifying the roles. If I could reintroduce a darker-role back into the MSQ for the personal WoL, it'd be nightmares of past struggles and complications that you were thrust into and how to adapt to a life of peace afterwards. Maybe even with whispers of Zenos in your ear about the 'monster' you were made into and that you can't magically snap your fingers and revert to a calm, peaceful adventurer. The WoL has to have some weakness, and I'd say that the major weakness would be finding use and purpose after being a wanton war-ending killing machine for Hydaelyn even if it was for the sake of the star. I'd even throw in extra text if you were introduced to Ego or picked up DRK prior to. And if that was too dark, it could also be the nightmare of being left behind by each and every Scion or friend you made because 'they can handle it now, they don't need you'. As heartwarming as it would be to embrace 'Azem' and be a carefree wanderlust, everyone struggles with not being needed because what they were best at is no longer necessary, and they have to find another means to make their mark or cope. The WoL shouldn't be perfect, and we haven't really had much time to reflect on imperfections since it was always a rush to get from one conflict to another and ultimately cut down whatever the problem was. Those are some ideas of reintroducing struggle into non-war scenarios.

[@kaihedgie1747]

So your solution...is to regress and go back rather than move forward and find new ideas

[@LunoviSolluma]

@@kaihedgie1747 I do like this idea from @206Zelda ! Imo, Dawntrail struggled with this specifically, you can't just keep going like the past never happened. The WoL saved the Star sooo many times and now they are just like "welp I just flew to the end of the universe, killed whatever ended the perfect society Hydaelyn mom came from - almost sacrificed myself in the making to protect all my Scion friends - went into the Thirteenth to stop yet another intent on ending the Star and now Imma go on a trip and be happy!" I get that the player character can't express too much, but there's almost no consequences of the hells they just went through! D: show that the WoL cares about what happened, nightmares, flashbacks, anything! The WoL helped so much, they deserve some help too after everything

[@SaltNip]

Personally I kinda like the idea of the WoL reassessing their role in the world now that they've mostly fixed a lot of the world's standout problems, and having PTSD-like moments just to show the impact of the past while trying to find a way to move forward. I'm not really fond of the idea of the WoL seriously grappling with the idea that they're a "monster" or a "weapon" or whatever just on the basis that we've already had that arc before. That was a significant part of their development across pretty much the whole DRK questline, it was resolved wonderfully. It feels like it would be a major character regression to bring that back, and kinda make that whole narrative meaningless.

[@KitaBFawkes]

​​@@SaltNip Especially with Samurai being the "forgiveness" arc afterwards. Dark Knight was you getting over being a weapon for shattering armies. Samurai was you being forgiven for the "sins" of that.

[@tatersalad76]

Heck the WoL was having nightmares of The White Raven back in 1.X

[@Miingno]

Thank you for your thoughts! As a fellow 1.0 veteran, I have experienced much the same in a similar fashion. But not _quite_ the same as I, sadly, am mostly _forced_ to play alone. I know it's my own fault for playing on NA while living in the EU. The time frames don't align. My free company is more or less absent since Shadowbringers, the servers on Crystal are empty since the ability to cross DC hop, queues take forever to fill and PF is a barren wasteland when I log in after the weekly reset. Again, at least at the times I am playing. For a while now, the game has nothing of an "M"mo aspect for me personally. Therefore, I did enjoy quite a few of the changes, to make it easier for solo play, as it allowed me to actually play certain contents of the games I was denied all these years due to not having enough people available. For example, finally I can clear some of the old savage raids solo, because my last raid static disbanded after T5 and I couldn't find another one ever since, despite searching very extensively (if anyone needs a Tank or Ranged Magical DPS, I'm available). Also, the homogenisation of the jobs finally allowed me to play multiple jobs. In years past, I only really was able to "master" one job. Now I can switch between five or six jobs pretty confidentially. Which helps, when there is only one single PF up for a duty and needs a specific role to be filled. So, I do see merits in the current way the jobs work for my specific circumstance. As for the 2 min burst window, that I cannot comment since I _sadly_ don't raid. For more casual content, it's not really necessary for all the buffs to align perfectly. However, I do agree with you, that the amount of new and lasting content is currently decreasing. Island sanctuary never got that second island they once "maybe" teased. Once all the paths in criterion dungeons are done, there's no need to really go back in there. The new chaos raid is a pain for someone like me with very limited connections to other players. I'm still stuck at phase 1 as I never had a group that survived it (I am usually the only one standing... tank privileges I know). Also, the additional week or two between patch cycles doesn't help to keep engagement with the main scenario story. I do want the developers to have their well earned rest obviously. But I sat through the entirety of the Dawntrail credits and it seemed to be much, longer than previous expansions. So either there is something big coming, or a lot of the names didn't have any right to be in there and only give off a wrong impression of scale for the team behind the game. Despite all my personal negativity however, I continue to play it and am trying my best to help and support people I encounter in and outside of the game. Be it in discords, be it in videos, be it with tools on my website. And I started to expand my work to give the amazing community-musicians a platform during my streams and soon also on my website as well. There is so much more I want to do _and show that I am here_ ... but it is also for me getting a bit hard now and then, after soon to be 15 years since starting this game and working on things for it. My own personal gut-feeling (and I do not have prove, it's just a hunch) tells me, that FFXIV gets a bit "abused" since Shadowbringers to make easy money and distribute it and the personal resources to other projects within SQEX. Maybe a focus back on the money-cow would be a wise idea. Sorry for the HUGE wall of text and thank you to anyone who has read it! 💙

[@AllGameNoLife]

I'm genuinely curious what you think about the direction the lore has taken as well. To me, XIV has lost a lot of the wonder and magic the world had in the beginning. The cyberpunk aesthetic feels almost entirely like a bid and play at the modding community which has added so many IMVU and modernization aesthetics to players. The Garlean Empire and Allagans had tech, but they still felt weird, strangely alien, and so out of touch from reality to as only fit in a Final Fantasy world. The Alexandrians, feel like just our rendition of a cyberpunk setting, rather than something that may exist within the world of XIV. And then there is also the "killing" of the Twelve, removing any sense of wonder and godly dieties in the setting. The scale gets lost, and the world feels so much smaller now than it did before. As we solve every solution so easily. Then there's the endings of storylines that teased so much, but was instead, explored at such a barebones surface level within the game's actual narrative. Long standing conflicts have been thrown aside, totally abandoned and forgotten thanks to the lectures of a few plucky teenagers who say ultimately "friendship is magic, let's all get along." I'm curious if you feel the same way about the game's narrative choices. It feels like it has grown progressively more juvenile; at least to me.

[@markup6394]

Much as I love the EW alli raid series, I have to agree. Especially considering the Twelve's origin. It was cool, but also such a disappointment: in Elpis, even the Ancients seemed to honor gods, hell, Lahabrea of all people tells his wife that meddling with souls is the domain of gods, not men. And now we find out, the Twelve are just... creations by Hydaelyn? Go away -.- I agree on the "juvenile" tone of DT... I have the impression, the devs wanted this expansion to be more lighthearted - and if Wuk Lamat's trial was all, I'd be fine with that: show us a new continent full of life and wonder, lets go on vacation! But of course, we couldnt have that. Instead we got yet another world-shattering catastrophy and some world merging. And both, the young-adult-novel-tone and omg-we're-all-going-to-die doesnt go well together. The most painful iteration of this were the DT job quests. Ngl, if this is how the game will look from now on...

[@ReyReyzzz]

I generally feel like there has been a shift in the aesthetic of the game towards a more modern look or even a futuristic look (solution 9, the loporrit area in the moon etc…) and it just really made me miss the rustic fantasy feeling that I got from Heavensward. God, even the outfit rewards these days are following some sort of gen z fashion trend to the point where it almost looks like tiktok fashion 💀 it has strayed so far away to the point that i have started to feel like battle jobs are genuinely starting to lose their individual flavours in terms of aesthetics. Give me some super weird, campy fantasy BLM set or something idk.

[@shimapanzer9930]

Agree

[@OfficialDjTalksick]

That’s what let me down about dawntrail heavily Here we had the chance to have really cool pre-Colombian inspired indigenous fashion and lore and fantasy (something that doesn’t really get represented in media) Nope ff9 reference and cyberpunk from wish

[@markup6394]

100% agree. Its one of the main reasons, I prefer to hang around in the old cities or level alts. It would just be nice to have some "normal" fantasy elements. Much as I love the game, the current direction into even more shard-hopping doesnt fill me with optimism... I would like some gear like the neo-ishgardian stuff - even if thats a bit steam-punky.

[@maythomas4591]

You can't have people constantly be parsing everybody, demanding high dps constantly, treating their healers like trash, rushing content, etc., and expect people not to want solo capable classes, and abilities on par with all the other classes. I love old mmo design but class identity of strengths and weaknesses fall apart in the modern super efficient e sports, meta obsessed, influencer said so, climate of gaming currently. The amount of time even with homogenized classes I see a Tank or Healer getting treated like crap, or a DPS getting complained at about their performance is crazy. It feels like we live in a world were everyone demands the best, and expects a meta to be followed, with 0 opportunities to teach or patience for a adventure itself. This doesn't apply to every player as I have met many nice and thoughtful teachers, but just as many do not have the patience for people to be liable because a party member chose a class/job that was difficult for them. Being a noob in a game was kind of expected and part of the adventure and fun, as people treated mmos like games and not something so serious. People complaining and getting mad at how people play is a problem. If you want creativity, job freedom, less hominization, etc. players need to treat the game as a game again, and have the patience to actually teach and not throw a fit if a party isnt at peak performance. Even if they made them less homogenized and gave job freedom, so many content creators would make a "use this best meta rotation!" video, and anyone who didn't follow it would get lambasted and harassed. It's legit such a crappy modern era of gaming now, everything's taken so seriously and mistakes are something people lose their mind at instead of accepting failure and trying again. The will to accept defeat, failure, and persevere is what made mmos such an adventure to begin with, but so many people just want a damn checklist and everyone to be the best meta and know everything and drown themselves in data on a game, again as I've said people just aren't playing games as games anymore.

[@RockR277]

It's kind of a crazy tone shift on both sides. Players are often less willing to deal with even the slightest drawbacks, but consequences for failures are also super low. I mean, this game never had corpse runs or anything like that.

[@lostvayne9146]

the hottest hero shooter is marvel rivals currently. and it is unbalanced, and chaotic, thus creative and fun. balance is essentially optimizing the fun out of a game. That is the dirty little secret. You have your esports pro minority that obsess over it and everyone else having nostalgia of the past and how the game was better back then.

[@Mejandora]

I feel you. I play games to switch off after a stressful day at work, to relax and not to sprint through dungeons at record speed. I think this ‘gogogo’ mentality is the reason why many people now appreciate the solo options. Why many prefer to play dungeons with the Trust System than with other players. It takes more time but is far more relaxing. Years back people where more relaxed, more willing to explain stuff, gave sprouts the time to watch cutscenes and now? i stoped counting how often i watched tanks sprinted through dungeons like their in escape mode without any consideration for the sprout healer. It feels like people somehow see their other partymembers more like a burden they want to get rid of as fast as possible.

[@alenezi989a3]

This mentality is what made me quit, I used to have fun farming mounts I haven't done that since SHB.

[@ssjd2]

I don't get the point of over-balancing a game where every single player can play every single class on a single character. If one class is so much better/easier/more optimized than the other then just play that one.

[@xhephergaming]

Completely agree with most aspects of this video. However, we cannot defend Pictomancer in its current state. It literally trivializes FRU's DPS checks. It causes SMN/RDM/BLM mains to be excluded from the content because they aren't playing PCT. PCT has thousands of clears of FRU but SMN can't even get a few hundred. PCT doesn't need any fundamental changes, it's a perfectly designed class. It just needs its numbers tweaked. If PCT is allowed to be the strongest class when there's downtime in a fight, it cannot also be allowed to be the strongest class when there's no downtime. There has to be some give, and that's just not the case right now. It's not fair to every other caster.

[@this_epic_name]

Agree with this, but potentially only in part. If fights and jobs were designed in such a way that other casters had things they could bring to the table that PCT could not (that lent some meaningful advantage to the fight), I would be ok with PCT out-dps'ing others.

[@xhephergaming]

@this_epic_name They already do i.e. resurrections on SMN and RDM. However, when PCT trivializes the DPS check to the point where it can afford you to make mistakes and still meet the checks, it doesn't matter that SMN/RDM have resurrection. PCT already brings a lot to the table when you exclude its excessive damage. It brings an AoE shield, big AoE heals during burst, and a party buff. It does literally everything better than the other casters in ultimate content. The only real solution is to nerf PCT damage. It is literally hurting the game to have this level of imbalance.

[@hawgacrux]

@@xhephergaming I think not many are actually against a PCT nerf in numbers but what people (me included) are rallying against is the destruction of it's identity. Just look at comments asking for the motiv system to be changed to just another 08/15 skill or it's party buff being removed. That's the problem, asking for jobdestruction just for balancing sake and I think thats also what Synodic more or less means. People want more job identity but are already screaming when one job is better in some content and to be blunt and rude f*** Ultimate at some point and the balancing around it. It is clearable on every job. If people want the cutch named PCT then whatever? Number buffing and nerfing will always be there and isn't a problem. But PCT shouldn't be changed from the downtime caster (just make other jobs more special). Look at Chaotic where it doesn't shine that much but no one cries about ninja there for example.

[@xhephergaming]

@@hawgacrux I mean, I agree that they shouldn't change anything fundamentally about PCT. It's perfect as is. Like I said, I am only arguing that it is too strong for fights with downtime and it's leading to other caster jobs being sidelined. That's the only reason it deserves a numbers nerf. Not a class redesign.

[@hawgacrux]

@@xhephergaming Yeah I got that. just wanted to show that those arguments exist out there. A numbers nerf is fine and probably even correct. What some people out there want though is far too much imo.

[@knownofear1]

I would love for the devs to see this video. As a healer main since ARR, I've seen my kit be diminished over and over again. I'm a glarebot now. I have fallen asleep in dungeons because of how boring the gameplay is. When DT came around I was willing to put all the questionable story choices made down to "It's a new storyline, they're still trying to feel themselves out after Hydaelyn/Zodiark" but I can only give the benefit of the doubt for so long. I myself was a part of the Healer Strike simply because of how boring my class was, and how much I simply wasn't needed for content anymore. Doing the dungeons in Trusts didn't help when I realized the only reason I was healing so much was because the bots don't use mitigations or their full kit. I love this game. I love the stories I've built up around my character, this moon keeper white mage that just wants to go home to the shroud and her family while life and duty keeps sending her further and further into the unknown. But the world of XIV doesn't feel as big anymore. There are no more job quests that let you learn more about the world you're in. So many unfinished pieces of this world are being left unknown while the story shifts to add newer bright shiny things. I'm tired. I want to be excited again to read the next chapter and to learn about the world we're in. But these days, I don't know anymore...

[@ridleyroid9060]

I'll come in from the high end perspective that healing hasn't really improved at the high end too. I was excited seeing Valigarmanda EX, that EX has excellent healing requirements, the constant dot and the damage profiles during the phases really made me, a high end ultimate raider, sweat quiet a few times. Come the savage tier and the healing is basically the same as in Endwalker, with the exception of like one mechanic in M3S (fusefield).

[@this_epic_name]

@@ridleyroid9060 I'll 2nd this. Vali was hella fun as a healer. I actually needed to heal. I say bring on the fights that require a lot of GCD healing. :) (my co-healer agrees)

[@GothaBillsAndDeath]

I always speculated the radical changes in 14:30 to jobs to streamline everything was to accommodate JP users who wouldn't show up on a surface level search over NA/EU forums. This was due to there being a larger demographic of console users who don't view mmorpgs the same way as westerners do. They don't strictly adhere to the triarchy "tank, healer, dps" which is why a lot of classes nowadays feel like melee dps, melee dps but tankier, and ranged dps. Everything revolves around dps and solving personal puzzles rather than dynamic class roleplay you would see from contemporaries like WoW. There are huge cultural differences that effect game development. I'm not here to argue which game design philosophy is correct, it just seems to be the case based off translated posts on their image forums, twitter spaces, and social media, so take this with a huge grain of salt. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think SE views this as a problem with the exception of there being a poor reception to the story. The story for DT seems to be universally panned.

[@Nazuiko]

I also think the "sacred triangle" style of design is nonsense and doesnt fit for Final Fantasy, but the focus on DPS is because people just like doing damage. dark knight is a DPS tank, Gunbreaker is a DPS tank, Sage is a DPS healer... Thats not an accident, theres a reason tanks (and esp healers) are always missing in queues

[@antarath517]

There's a reason other mmos get a little more flexibility on balancing. It's because the jobs are harder, but you don't need to play them optimally to clear anything. In that sense, performing optimally is a boon rather than the reverse being a bane. To that end, a 5% performance deficit in ffxiv is utterly disqualifying. In WoW (outside of literally the top 1000 players), it's just another Tuesday.

[@xalzaixhungers2442]

They also do not allow the flexibility of multiple jobs like in ff, where you can even farm gear for another job while playing your main job, with the method of loot being tokens. The ff raids I played so far felt so methodical and boring, you basically had close to 100% uptime, and as a healer, watching at the top logs just spamming damage because played perfectly all mechanics are just dealt with through ogcds felt very disappointing in my first savage. Comparing this to wow, where you have 30 man raids, your contribution matters a lot less, and you are allowed so many more mistakes, by the end of the patch when people are up to gear you have parties of as low as 20 people getting 10 people additionally in their group to carry and basically do the fight as 20 people with the calculated damage output blizzard intended for 30 people, because, hey, maybe they wanna play the lowest classes that perform 10-15% below what the good classes can, but we can‘t ask them to swap classes (a curious distinction, since even money does not allow that in wow), so the fight gotta be not so tough on damage, but you get some interesting mechanics

[@winmoeaung86]

The thing I noticed the most is, I play less and less jobs with each expension aside from leveling them to 100.

[@this_epic_name]

I've only leveled one job to 100 (Sage). I have the other healers at 90, a DRK at 90, and ...some DPS other than Summoner at 90, too. I will say, though, that I did -- for the first time -- clear both EX trials over 100 times, not just for the mount, but for the fun.

[@winmoeaung86]

@@this_epic_name I am not a raider myself, so there's not much for me to do except leveling and grinding tombstones atm.

[@ASoBiDeaTHTRaP]

I felt like, post Stormblood, compelling character driven storytelling had become the main focus over (although not in lieu of) innovations in both gameplay and other content. “Formulaic,” is often the term I hear where recent content is discussed. To me, and apparently to many, Dawntrail’s story and characters (both new and returning) felt phoned in, therefore I can only hope that content is the main focus this time, to bring in some balance. Some believe that Dawntrail’s weak start is down to it being the build up to perhaps another 10-year story arc. I do not accept this. The standard had already been set. The same with content, We already know from experience that they can do better. We are paying for better. Over a decade of perfecting the craft that is FFXIV, we expect better. Or at least, I do.

[@tatersalad76]

Building off the older characters also feeling phoned in: I heard a really funny joke that the Scions actually just died in Endwalker and we're just walking around afterwards with their clones, and that's why none of them are really behaving the same way

[@ASoBiDeaTHTRaP]

So, perhaps like The Endless? Memories informing personality, with not much new to contribute. We went from feeling like the Scions were our “Ride or Die,” to them feeling like the Wandering Minstrel; an NPC who happens to just turn up in whatever new expansion city-state we’re in at the time.

[@IsacMH]

Something I've found infuriating since ShB is the amount of equipment and new gear we get per expansion as well. There's a lot more glamour gear nowadays, sure, but we get almost no armour and weapons that actually requires a level to put on until the crafted patch gear. In HW and StB there was a new set of weapons and equipment in every single leveling dungeon and since ShB we only get 2 new sets with reused stuff in the rest. And this isn't even getting into the appalling amount of time it took to make female Viera and male Hrothgar to even have a character creator worth looking at (and still no hats allowed). It's also infuriating how poor the weapon selection is in terms of Trial EX weapons are for the new jobs are even after all these years. With Samurai and Red Mage they even went and added the Ifrit EX weapons that are drastically weaker than the starting weapon you get from the coffer while Gunbreakers don't even get an Alexander weapon, no Four Lords weapons, nothing. I also despise the energy discs that Dancers get in all their weapon skills. What's the point in getting a fancy weapon if it's going to vanish every time you use it? Especially with Dancers who get these fun and cool patterns that would look incredible were they covered in all the fancy particles EX/Relic weapons have.

[@markup6394]

I dont mind the floating discs - but I abhor the lazyness concerning gear and the re-use of old gear.

[@sold0ut210]

Another thing that really bothers me with dancer and monk weapons is that they grow about 30% larger whenever you draw them as opposed to when they are on your hips. Very annoying, that.

[@nirau]

I felt lost after DT launch. This game was my "home game" so to speak, I loved pretty much everything about it (still do). But something changed. And it's not lack of content - I still haven't finished Eureka for example, it's something more illusive yet strong. I'm a story driven player, I love lore and your channel has been huge source of inspiration and fun. I don't feel like I want to live in Eorzea anymore, writing it makes me sad tbh. I will continue wishing only the best for this game and hope things will get better, but now there's not much to keep me interested. All new content is pretty much hardcore, and even casual stuff is not inspiring since everything (for me) is rooted in the story and lore, when those two is let's say lacking, I can't connect. I can't get emotional, I can't enjoy playing. My almost 4 years of playing was centered around story, I tried so much of the game content because story was good. And now here we are... Also latest patch only made it worse as I see the lack of QA, and it's makes me question a lot. Like how you could put untranslated line in role quest? How you could confuse wuk lines in msq? And so on, feels like quality is dropping, story not improving and game is getting more stale, stagnating more and more. Sorry for the rant. Hope we can see this game do better. It's a great one and it deserves better. We deserve better.

[@GambeTama]

The fact that this video appeared in my rec feed next to the 5 hour psuedo-documentary "Destiny is Evolving Backwards" is quite funny. Anyway, cue the ramble! That aside, I think that FFXIV is definitely in a state of uncertainty and experimentation. Trying to figure out what content this game is capable of delivering, while also trying to adjust prior content to conform to the newest vision. It commonly comes up as a mess, but I'm always interested. As for job classes, I came in some time between 6.3 and 6.35, so my opinion will be based on that timeline. I like how classes like DRG were not the best for mob pulls, but could DEMOLISH a single target, or how SMN rewarded complexity with laughable amounts of damage, especially if you could time bane juggling in trash mobs. If classes were to change in any way, I would like for classes to slip more so back into having better output in certain scenarios, then create raid battles where those scenarios came up. An all single-target party will need to work waaaay harder to clear adds without a single caster, for example. In any case, whether or not my vision foe the game will come to light in any manner, I think what we as a player base would like more than anything would be some transparency or more direct outreach to the dev team regarding plans for the future. We know that the tram has decided what to do regarding the level 100 question, but nothing really regarding their thought process on something we won't see for another year and a half. I think there would be a lot less friction if we could just get an insight from the devs more frequently than a handful of times a year. Also, more chocobo companion stuff, because my boi deserves more love, dammit :P

[@Gat720Dua]

As a response to that last part: I would like to see some more done with retainers, you think after so much time customizing and leveling them up we could do more with them.

[@calumbeattie5337]

No one has come out and directly said "homogenise jobs"... but they did say "Living Dead is the worst tank invuln, why not make it work like the other ones?" and in Stormblood the healer forums were full of people saying "White Mage's Presence of Mind's 150 seconds cooldown means it never lines up with the 2 minute burst, it needs to have it's cooldown brought into line!". Whenever a job in any role has a noticable weakness compared to other jobs in that role (such as right now with WHM and damage mitigation) the response on the official forum is "buff that job and remove it's weakness!", not "Well, what strength can we give this job to make up for this weakness?". And as we saw with Living Dead, the devs listen to this feedback and erode the jobs shortcomings and playstyle quirks- and as a result the jobs identity goes missing along the way. What the devs should do is not listen to the official forums when they say stuff like this, double down on these jobs weaknesses- and give them cool strengths that make putting up with those weaknesses worth it (and ofcourse, these weaknesses can be offset by party composition- if (say) PLD is bad at mitigating magic damage, pair it up with DRK to make up for that- the party has 2 tank slots, use them!) PCT being busted in Ultimate raids (but not in things like Chaotic, savage or the alliance raid) is actually a good thing, because it's a product of that jobs playstyle (in relation to other casters) being uniquely suitable for a fight with lots of downtime. That is, PCT is broken in Ultimate raids because it has a bit of a unique identity. This is good! And the community's response to that has been a bunch of suggestions designed to remove this part of PCT's identity so it plays just like the other casters. The response we should have given is "Nice, now when this proper look at jobs happens, what are you going to do to MCH (and the other 19 jobs) to make it's playstyle feel unique and end up making it the best job in some fights?".

[@Dogan_TM]

Nothing about Pictomancer doing bullshit amounts of damage has anything to do with its "Job identity." It's a sign the devs didn't think about what they were doing before they shipped it out. Doubling down on Dark Knight's already completely irrelevant and borderline worthless "magic mitigation tank" status would've been infinitely worse than turning it into a poor man's WAR with stupidly high damage numbers tacked on. They need to recognize the only thing they left tanks with is unique playstyles and actually give Dark Knight an identity outside of spamming oGCDs and looking edgy. Making it borderline worthless in anything that deals physical damage wouldn't do anything for that and dragging down Paladin with it would just be adding insult to injury.

[@GotekSC]

You cannot have maximum job heterogeneousity, ship 2 more jobs each xpac, *and* a 8 player limit in raids at the same time. Played wow in every iteration of raid sizes, since 40 man, 25, 10 and then finally 20 man + the flexible 10-30 man difficulty modes. While wow does have orders of magnitude more class identity compared to xiv, even though it has 39 specs compared to ffxiv's 22 jobs, it only works optimally in larger raid sizes like 20 man, but problematic in 5 man M+ dungeons. The importance of balance is at least on par with identity, if not more important. And when you have classes that bring completely unique utility that can trivialize aspects of raid fights, it means as a raid leader you're telling people "sorry, can't bring you, wrong class". This issue is exasperated in smaller group sizes. 8 man raid limit commands a certain amount of job homogenisation if your stance is "bring the player, not the class". The alternative is more social friction and frustration.

[@Nazuiko]

@@GotekSC Ive met far too many people - Caster mains especially - who felt like they werent allowed to or no longer wished to bring their favorite job into content. Oh i had to stop playing Summoner because I lost my DoTs, i had to stop playing BLM because Picto overshadows it. No one wants to let casters play their favorite. Youre either Red mage or Picto or youre a burden. The reason we want to bring Picto more in line isnt because it stands out, and in fact Ive heard a lot of "let other jobs shine in a similar way", but its also destroyed the balance of the game in a very direct fashion. But its been more of the dev team's response to "Picto OP" than Picto itself that caused this problem. Instead of just cutting back some potencies, reducing a bit of utility on whats supposed to be a selfish DPS, making it less reliable or gaining TOO much from moments of downtime, they decided to buff 19 of the other jobs and rework Viper. All this did was make the bosses far less challenging than they were intended, since if you bring Picto they just melt and if you dont bring Picto theyre tuned for comps with much less damage than is actually present in the game. The solution isnt that hard, but theyre just straight up refusing to do it and instead making absolute sure the new jobs are Gacha character levels of overpowered despite the fact that theyre not making money from the jobs existing, they make it more from the content that the existence of Viper and Picto has essentially ruined.

[@CrosbyNu]

Don't bring LD into this. That invuln was awful. Thank goodness they haven't removed the additional 10 sec buffer on that thing. Makes the rotation so much better

[@LittleAngryOwl]

"Give us options" is the best statement and solution. I remember well what sort of uproar was caused by news about combo buttons. For more context, I'm a smol person with smol hands, and pressing F5 and 5 can be a struggle, depending on how often this bind participates in core rotation. I have mmo mouse, and all my active skills are mainly bound to F1-F4 and 1-4, and 5s are there only if nothing else can be done. And now it becomes even more interesting. Due to eyesight impairments, I have to keep my hotbars arranged in a specific way, so I can see everything clearly. So, button bloat is the real problem for me, because even if I have some free space, I either cannot reach the button comfortably, or I'll get confused if everything is piled up together in a chaotic way without any visible borders between buttons and hotbars. What's about the solution? If someone wants to play a piano - give them an option to unlink skills from combo buttons. If someone has the same problems as I do, give them an option to combine certain skills into one combo button. No one will ever know what system you're using unless you deliberately brag about it, as it actually happened back then on subreddit when people complained about "adding combo = removing complexity", because the ability to hit the buttons does not equal to skill expression when ppl like me and controller users exist. As for the "decline tendency"... Well, I just left a big corp myself a year or so ago, so I'm more than sure that something's going on behind the scenes. When our department lead changed, all the googley-moogleys has gone to shit. Not that "Grandma" was easy to deal with anyway, but she was way more competent than the younger guy we got. (Also, killing off their own gachas, updates to harassment policy... dunno how much of a tinfoil hat territory it is, but it feels like something is happening, and it worries me too)

[@XieronDraxin]

Small note: The mobile game is fully outsourced to another studio. The FFXIV team does not make it at all, only signs off on it. For me, I love your suggestions about community content and such. I do think that the game has gotten a bit stale. I also have faith that the devs will pull things back together. I'm excited for the things that they've said will be releasing in this patch cycle, but it is taking a long time for that content to get out. It's a bit of a long time to not have much to do but level. I've taken to playing very casually as a result. I think that in general they are reacting to the streamer boom. They saw a HUGE influx of players at a lower skill level due to being new and wanted to keep as many of them as possible. Ironically, this did the opposite. I have hope however that they will get back on their feet as they have in the past. As for the job changes, as a Monk main, I'm really enjoying where it is now and it's really fun, but I recognize that we're in a weird position where our job has been in a bad spot for a long time before now.

[@Zyart]

Which explains how good it looks, sadly.

[@Nazuiko]

That doesnt mean that Yoshi P wasnt spending a ton of his time overseeing the development of Mobile instead of Dawntrail. They even said themselves, that Yoshi P has been more hands off this expansion while he focused on CBU3's other projects - One of which is yet to be announced, which means he's still not overseeing the patches as much as he used to. And whoever is watching things in his absence isnt doing a very good job of it. Hell, this last micropatch - 7.16 - broke the EU data centers so that Light straight up couldnt connect to instances at all, it straight up crashes the game

[@markup6394]

The mobile game might be worked on by another studio... but I dont see how that might beneficial for our FF14. Like, where do funds come from? Or is SE not the owner? I would think so. At the moment, SE as a whole isnt doing well, and it shows: the last patch this week was a joke - but nobody laughed (escept PvPers ;) ). It just doesnt look good in the current environment if a mobile copy of your favorite game gets produced...

[@d0tsf0rlife]

SE suffers from 2 main issues, both of which isn't their first time running into. They've gotten lazy again and just rest on their laurels, and they don't take any risks. They need new direction and need to take risks again instead of catering to everyone's demands. We all know they won't though. They have very few successful IPs left that make good money and 14 basically keeps the company afloat at this point. After the massive failure that 1.0 was they'll never risk rocking the boat that is 14. Especially when it's funding their other projects. It's a sad reality but the peak of 14 has come and gone and it'll bleed out like WoW has done for years.

[@tropicalrubi_LOA]

Yeah, couldn't have said it better myself. I've moved on to a better MMO now, but I always think about the ARR and Heavensward days. I'm glad I got to experience them.

[@nord5802]

This hit me hard as someone who plays this game since the Heavensward release i never could put my finger on what fucks me up in the new 14 era now i know it might be the soul of 14 has died years ago in SHB.

[@Max44321]

People will always complain about balance. Classes shouldn't be perfectly balanced. Sure, they should waver around an even mean but each class should have something special going for it. People will get kicked for not playing the meta classes? That already happens and will always happen because that's how the elitists are. The gameplay would have so much more variety to lean into if CC actually did anything, and not last 6 seconds and then 4, and then 2, and then even a random mob becomes immune to stun, there's so many ways of crowd control as well, not just a stun! Immobilization, slow, resistance debuffs, Scholar almost has a debuff with its Chain Strategem but it's so short and has such a massive cooldown. Why don't we have a tanky DPS that can happily offtank when needed? Debuffers, give me debuffers! Lemme put a guaranteed miss debuff on that raid boss' tankbuster so the tank and healer can focus on attacking it instead. Support classes are way more than just boring healing. Make more varied tanks, tanks that heal themselves via clickies and massive passive regeneration, tanks that lean so much into damage they're almost a tanky DPS, but leaning into the tanky side. DPS which debuff the target's damage with each stacking attack, control classes that summon pets for distraction and damage while throwing out support on the team, there are so many interesting approaches to classes you can take.

[@ArchonLoaf]

Recently the official forums has been a madhouse since SE is so honed in on telling us that is where they collect feedback. Its not fun reading some of the topics on there because of the toxic behaviors of some players. I just hope if we have to use it, we can get our voices heard in a kind way that isn't so rude and brunt.

[@LittleAngryOwl]

Someone on reddit old me that it's ok to use in-game Feedback option, it's on the same tab as Report and other stuff. I'm yet to try it out myself (still writing my mentor system rework plan), and the character limit might also not work in your favor if you have a lot to say, but for lesser things like "I don't like this about that job, please consider changing it to xyz", it might work.

[@tatersalad76]

Yeah, I feel bad for the employees that comb through the forums and have to read "RAAAAAAAAAHHHHH I HATE WUK LAMAT AND I HATE HER VOICE ACTOR!!" every twenty posts. And this is coming from someone who described 7.0 MSQ as "I had a Wuk Lamat overdose" 😂 We really gotta get better as a community at offering solutions instead of just grievances

[@ArchonLoaf]

@ I guess its the "Leave a Suggestion" button on the Contact Us tab? I wasn't sure since the statement below it also suggested us to use the forums, and people on the forums do say "This is how you provide feedback." If that is the case, I would love to leave suggestions, even light and fluffy topics of ideas for SE to see without judgemental eyes from the community.

[@ArchonLoaf]

@ Hahaha yeah, I would hate to be a moderator for the forums, and I know the forums aren't the only place dealing with a toxic hivemind of people. Its all over the place and gaming spaces tend to hold a lot of these types of people. It makes the good eggs in this community look bad.

[@LittleAngryOwl]

@ Yes, this one! That was exactly my plan too, bc I want to steal, kinda, ideas for mentor system from one gacha game. Can you imagine the fire on forums if people see that? It's really good tho in a context of that game, but def will need a lot of rework for 14. And it's supposed to facilitate more interactions between mentors and their students even after they "graduate".

[@olgol2442]

I feel like FFXIV is sleepwalking. Its not only that they are not experimenting anymore but rather they are not doing anything beyond the bare minimum. The content releases are coming slower than ever before, the lore feels shallower and less thought out, and even the job homogenization feels like a way to have to maintain fewer classes. An expansion is usually expected to bring something big and new to the game (MMO or otherwise). However, Endwalker and Dawntrail didn't really add much beyond more MSQ. There are new dungeons, raids, and trials, but that is simply more of what we are familiar with. Where are the new activities, new ways of interacting with old content, and experiments into how to push the limits of the game? Shadowbringers at least had Bozja which played around with a different way of using the open world (critical engagements as improved FATES), fun ways of changing how the classes played (lost actions), and 72 man content which was structured more like a WoW dungeon than the normal FFXIV style! I was really hoping that some of the experiments they tried there would be used elsewhere, but from all appearances square decided to quarantine it off and forget about the whole endeavor like Eureka before it. I was really hoping that they would take the positive reception towards the lost actions and give all classes more support skills, interesting skill reactions (like reflecting a tankbuster) or something, but instead we got nothing. Endwalker coasted by almost solely on the hype buildup from everything that had come before it, and when Dawntrail came out, there was nothing left. Do I think the game is doomed? No. But I do think that if something does not change by the next expansion then FFXIV will start bleeding players. The story focused players dislike Dawntrail's plot and world-building, the content focused players are milling about waiting for new content, and the hardcore scene is a dumpster fire (as usual). The only group that I would say is happy right now is the (E)RP scene, but they need the other group's presence to bring in new blood and drama to talk about. A solid half of my FC has stepped away from the game because they simply do not think the game is worth their time or money right now. The rest are running around the RP scene or trying to do the old EX and savage content at minimum ilevel because the content release cadence is so slow right now that they are bored of all the regular content that we gravitate towards. If the next expansion is more like Dawntrail than Shadowbringers, I think most of them will give up on the game entirely and go hop over to Guild Wars 2 or something. Heck, I'm only subbed because one of my friends started recently and I am helping her through the story. I am hoping that the FFXIV's leadership takes note of the poor reviews and restructures their development processes and pipelines, because I want the game to do well. I am still invested in the game and its world, but I just don't want to engage with it anymore.

[@d0kk542]

Yea, I feel like Dawntrail is the first MSQ I'm really procrastinating with. I'm spending more time doing things I should have done ages ago (like levelling my last DoH) and trying to fill fishing logs, but eventually I'll catch up and probably unsubscribe before finishing Dawntrail.

[@sold0ut210]

The RP scene isn't happy either. The real one, I mean. Servers are constantly locked down since Dawntrail, leading to FCs being unable to host events. The plot has been consistently impossible to participate in for normal characters since Shadowbringers, meaning your adventurer, smith or what-have-you has been sitting on their hands all throughout shadowbringers, throughout most of Endwalker, and now DT feels like too little, too late, too boring. The sci-fi plot elements ruin the lore and canon massively. Basic features like Say chat distance and player distance culling are completely broken and make large scale RPs nearly impossible. Making RP character alts is getting prohibitively time-intensive at this point (and I say that as someone with 8 characters). And the E side of the RP scene doesn't matter.

[@raisylvaine8398]

I think what I’d like to see is past jobs getting expanded upon to increase the number of roles that can be played. We know White Mages are capable of Golemancy, so why not give us a DPS alternative to White Mage, ala Summoner&Scholar? Why not have an actual healer Red Mage like Alisaie can do? Why not have a Tanky Samurai? It feels like trying to have most Jobs wield unique weapons steals what potential the weapons we already use have.

[@alenezi989a3]

@raisylvaine8398 this is a really interesting idea, to make jobs have this dual aspects to them that you can switch between, like a White mage that turns from healer to dps spell caster, or DPs turning into a tank. They did do tuff like this before, I remember tanking with my dragoon, and I still remember the WHT DPS/ healer stance. This could spice up the combat a little, and might reduce the burden of creating 2 new jobs every expansion.

[@Celis.C]

I started the game with Archer, because the utility gameplay and the fantasy of Bard really appealed to me. And I had a blast! Reaching level 30 to unlock Bard and level 50 to get its artifact gear were truly memorable milestones for me. Note that I started playing the game 2 months after Stormblood released, and I had a _blast_ all throughout. Then came Shadowbringers, and it was stripped bare of most utility buttons _and all the song buffs._ The latter was restored, but the job is now little more than a glorified Archer. At least I found solace in Astrologian. I'm a control freak and healing is the job that best suits my needs in that regard. Playing a Keeper of the _Moon_ Miqo'te, I _loved_ the gameplay and _fantasy_ that Nocturnal Sect brought. To this day, it remains a highly undervalued powerhouse in PuG groups, demonstrated by the fact that my worst duties in the game were when the party forced me to pick Diurnal Sect, and that's not due to my lack of healing knowledge. Since you've heard me mention a specific element of Astrologian, you can see where this is going. Me, playing a Keeper of the _MOON_ Miqo'te and loving the _NOCTURNAL_ Sect gameplay style was absolutely _thrilled_ when I heard we'd be going to the actual Moon. PEAK FANTASY right there! But then they also mentioned this other little thing... That they'd turn Astrologian into a 'Pure Healer', never elaborating further. Endwalker came, and I was GUTTED. AST is now, sadly, permanently benched until Nocturnal Sect's gameplay returns. Furthermore, I will never again be able to say _FINAL_ Fantasy without tongue-in-cheek. I got through Endwalker by playing my fourth alt (the first two being mules (Diablo 2 reference)). And out of sheer exasperation, I've started a _fifth_ alt that I'm playing as I watch this video, because I have nothing to do on my other two chars. I've had more fun NPC interactions throughout the MSQ leading up to joining the Scions than I did the _entirety of Dawntrail._ They just don't write random NPC's like they used to... But what I'd need to pick my mains back up is this: - A glamour _catalogue_ to coordinate (and then target) glam pieces - Be able to apply Glamour plates _anywhere in the world._ bar maybe duties - Have sufficient glamour plates for each unlockable job - A tackle Box (honestly a much needed QoL change) - New Job+. I want to be able to level my jobs again. I _enjoy_ leveling my jobs, but I can only do so once per character. - In combination with New Job+, I want the option to choose my own start level for each new job I can unlock. Viper can still require Level 80 to unlock, but let me start it at level 1, or 30, or 50,. or 60, or... We have the tech to scale item pieces with level, so make the starter weapons like that up to the 'intended' starting level. That solves the issue of weapons for 1-80 for a job like Viper; you'll only need the one. - Give housing the option to store the current decorations in a template. All placed items can then be stored in that and the residence completely cleared of them. This will allow the player to redecorate, then save that new layout in a second template. Lastly, allow the player to switch between templates at a whim. This will be great for those who have a residence, but only ever decorated it once (Gods know inventory management is a CHORE for redecorating), as well as allow quick seasonal changes to reflect the season, like Starlight. It will also open new options for 'venues'. The above are evergreen solutions that shouldn't take too much development time to implement and will forever remain relevant. Provided the engine isn't as cooked as we're led to believe... I love the game. I WANT to love the game. It's no stretch to say that it's the final bastion of the MMORPG genre, for no other MMO(RPG) offers a social scene as XIV does, which is the _core part_ of any MMO. Without it, the genre is dead to me.

[@charleyyzard]

One of the things I loved in earlier expansions was that older areas were never ignored in the MSQ. I felt my connection to the ARR areas deepen within HW and SB, now it just seems like it's tagged on to role quests to hit a quota.My favourite part of EW (weird magitek contrivances apart) was briefly going back and seeing the first.

[@xantho368]

What annoys me so much about the jobs of ffxiv, is that they've been dumbed down so much that they're simply boring and feel the same across the different combat categories. And that's not something that should happen in an mmo, the jobs/classes should be interesting and challenging in their own ways - each with their own sort of character that sets them apart from one another. The reason why RDM is my fav, it is simply unique and offers a slight bit of mechanical challenge to work through, yet jobs like MCH, DNC, SMN, etc are so watered down that they're almost useless and just flat out not fun to play. I have plenty of other grievances too, in regards to the story, pacing, how beloved characters are almost being rewritten, and how plot threads/locations are just straight up forgotten about. However the issues with the jobs and their homogenization are a glaring one.

[@25xxfrostxx]

I am so glad we've reached a point where the people who love this game are able to speak their minds on what they're unhappy with. The instant the credits started rolling on Dawntrail, I felt sad. I was sad that it would be around 3 years before they got another chance to get it right. I wasn't playing back in ancient times but I definitely see the problems with class design. They have enough jobs that they can absolutely spread out ability diversity and identity. Right now, I main Red Mage. Not all of us chase the highest damage numbers, I just love the job and it is one of the few with the most unique feel. I think their biggest impediment is fear. They are so terrified of upsetting one person, they create a "safe" option for everyone. They take no risks. Until they stop using formulaic templates for expansion story structure, dungeons, trials, job design, etc. things will continue to stagnate. I genuinely hope this is just a stumble and we get a bit of risk taking in the future.

[@this_epic_name]

21:46 that seems like a great idea. Something for which you need a reasonably large number of people to accomplish (take the median FC size perhaps and subtract a standard deviation). And you have to send people to different places, and completion is on a timer -- each group has to complete their task within a certain time (making it impossible to do it as a single party one place at a time).

[@johnnywhitehead7064]

The points on job homogenization were 100% what we've been trying to tell the XIV Dev Team for YEARS. Not only for Healers, but also for nearly every job we play once Endwalker solidified the 2m Meta. I actually miss the days where we could actually show skill expression with our abilities being 3m, 1m, 1:30 and it felt very natural to have differing cooldowns. As for the lore, I feel like the writing took a nosedive after 6.2 and there were some things in 6.0 which were out of practice like how they were rushing the story and trying to remain cohesive(which, honestly, the fact it chalked up to a "mistake" by Hermes in the end? It definitely felt weird even if it was trying to be emotional). My biggest gripe however is that XIV instead has become this gimmicky mess in terms of writing, and it's a sad state to see. While I've seen others write their characters in XIV, at the very least there are decisions that don't push that character into a corner or break their character just to agree with an orange cat(staring at you, Scions of the *NOT* Seventh Dawn...). It's also VERY jarring that a player's writing can outdo the current writing, which is frivolous at best and horrible at worst. A majority of players want to care about the story again instead of the slop that almost makes one think that ChatGPT wrote it, then got edited by a person to be cohesive - and honestly I'd be all for it if they can get their writing back on track because there is only ONE. CHANCE. They get one chance to fix this mess with 7.2 for MSQ; if they don't? Then this expansion will essentailly be the worst expansion to date - worse than Endwalker's 'deus ex Ysh'tola' by using her as the writer's mouthpiece.

[@tropicalrubi_LOA]

Day 1 veteran here. I quit after Endwalker and I have a huge list of things I want them to change. Class design/homogenization is pretty much my number one above all else.

[@TheTendouSouji87]

@@tropicalrubi_LOAthis is because of YoshiP. 1.0 only really failed because they couldn’t get it to play on ps3. Many of us on 11 were waiting for the port because the PC Specs were so damned high. YoshiP thinks casual gaming is where it’s at

[@ShermTank7272]

The players willed the job homogenization into existence. Complaints about job X or job Y not being strong enough or having cooldowns that didn't line up... the devs heard players saying that.

[@ulibarriL]

The #HEALERSTRIKE wasn't an actual strike. It was a cryout from the game's healer mains for the dev team to shake things up a bit. Despite the fact that it gained so much traction that it got global attention, it was met with mostly ridicule from content creators and nothing but silence from the dev team. Those two aforementioned factions are the exact reason why the game is in the state it's in. While I didn't necessarily agree with the healer strike, I understood what they were trying to do. I also understand what you're trying to do. Unfortunately, FFXIV is no longer the kind of game you initially subscribed to. It's built for a different audience now.

[@Lrbearclaw]

12:50 - No lie, seeing the NieR raids were what drew my attention TO FF14. I didn't give a damn about it before (even tried the game pre-Heavensward and bounced off super hard) but Automata is one of my favorite games and so any connection to it made me want to push through ARR to get to that point.

[@maxspecs]

The Nier raids being a followup to Automata’s ending that’s actually canon to that game made it a great draw for fans of that series.

[@Lrbearclaw]

@@maxspecs EXACTLY! I wanted to know who this palette-swapped 2B was. So when I did the raids and saw the final boss of the second raid, I freaked out because I knew EXACTLY what that ball was. What drives me nuts is people who think that series is throwaway because they aren't familiar with Drakkengard/NieR. (Hell that whole situation just proves how powerful the WoL is.)

[@wrathshorts2894]

The sad thing is. I have seen this before. WOW had the same problem. Developers got lazy and tired of listening to complaints so made every class the same but with a different coat of paint. The game became boring and a monotonous grind. We lost cool abilities because noobs either couldn't use them properly or got destroyed in PVP by them. Back in the day, EVERY class had OP abilities. That was what made things balanced and made you feel like a bad@$$. But new players complained so much and corporate only thought of the bottom line instead of customer satisfaction. Developers got lazy and writers had no good ideas. On top of all that Blizzard NEVER learned. They just kept up with the status quo. Now the game is a shell of it's former self and I just left. I used to play the game for free. I used in game currency to not only pay for my sub, but also to pay for new expansions. It was awesome. But then they started abusing their players and removed everything fun from the game. So I became a part of the mass exodus to Eorzea. Yes, I am an Azeroth refugee. I found Eorzea welcoming, interesting, and most of all, FUN. The story was engaging, at least starting in late game ARR. Before that, the game is a snore. I discovered a mountain of side content. There was so much to do, I just abandoned WOW and let my whole YEAR of free sub time run out. I didn't even get the full version of FFXIV till two YEARS after I started playing because there was so much to do. Now I see the same thing happening all over again. Lazy story, jobs all identical, boring grinds. Make your voices heard or FFXIV will fall the same way. Yes the game will still exist like WOW still does. Yes it will still be a big money maker for it's company. But those who have seen better will know, the game, the world is missing something. Something vital. It's soul.

[@BlueTyphoon7]

I agree with most of your point, but just wanted to say: You can say Badass. it's okay.

[@ExiaLupus]

As someone who loved Eureka, one improvement I would make is to change the level requirements of Notorious Monsters. Rather than one monster for each level, I would split them into level brackets. The first five NMs would require level 1 and give XP that scales based on your current level. The next five NMs would require level 5 and also give scaling XP. This would help fix the horrible early levels where you don't have access to any NMs and have to rely almost exclusively on the challenge log.

[@Takyomi]

I really think the devs ought to bring back the postmoogle quests. Doin those in EW seriously opened my eyes to how sanitized the worldbuilding and character writing had become. The postmoogle quests feel very unique, and a lot of the stories really felt like what I wanted out of post EW; a nameless adventurer walking around the world helping folks out with their problems. I was often shocked by how gritty some of these quests were and how imperfect these people asking you for help were, but at the same time satisfyingly balancing their current dilemmas with hope for the future. It didn't feel like any of the stories had a perfect answer or solutions, which helped me think about their lessons more. I can't help but think how differently DT would have been written had it followed the same vision of those post moogle quests. DT seemed almost embarrassed that they had to include injustices, immoral acts, and failures of character in the story. The Pelu Pelu tribe quests encapsulates my issues with the sanitizing of the world. A slaving culture, repeatedly brushed under the rug. Child labor in extreme conditions, only a line of dialogue in a footnote in an optional quest line. Mass enslavement, torture and massacres treated as a little joke. I don't want all doom and gloom, but the way Tullyiolal and Tural seem to be nothing but sunshine and rainbows makes the world feel like a Disney ride; the animatronics smiling and waving to you the entire way.

[@samurailargo]

I'm in a similar position. I loved the game since 2.0 beta. Was a broke college student when 1.0 released, luckily dodged that bullet. With all my feelings with the game I could be here forever. So I'll make it short. Honestly I think they should for one expansion, not level jump, not add a new area but invest the extra time in current zones, and systems. An update to everyone we met in our journey would be nice, most NPCs we meet are hi and bye, it would be nice to see more from some of them. Especially after Endwalker, with populations of people being Thanos snapped into monsters. I'd like to know how they adapted to the new world. It could be an interesting MSQ. (And for 'yoshi -p' sakes will Curious Gorge interest in Dorgono ever be realized)

[@Io_world]

I agree with you. I’ve felt this way for such a long time

[@xiakouxu]

I think they really need to re-evaluate what an MMO looks like. They need to look at the current existing popular ones and see what it is that people like -- and the one I would recommend is Guild Wars 2. Field Operations should not be limited to something just like Eureka or Bozja -- if they want their maps to come to life and have more player interaction and give the majority of players something to do? Then they need to look at how GW2 handled their worlds and quests. As for jobs, I'm not really sure what the fixes would really be, but it should definitely allow for some player inspired creativity, simply because doing just a 2 minute rotation doesn't work for how they currently design MSQ quests, let alone the fates. Because their systems have become so rigid, the things they built around it have become boring or unfun to do. They also need to REALLY REALLY rethink their tomestone/currency system. Why do we have wolf marks and crystal trophies and still nothing to buy with them ?? Do we really need 3 different types of tomestones? etc etc -- I'm glad poetics existed since I was a player that started late in Stormblood and going into Shadowbringers, but as someone now who has most everything leveled up and can only occasionally participate in current savage tiers, it's upsetting how much that stuff just sits around doing nothing. The fact that they still haven't updated Gold Saucer also ticks me off, when its a perfect opportunity to add challenges to it that rewards players not just to get MGP, but also to learn how to do mechanics for harder fights, and maybe that way elevate the level in which majority of players can play and participate. I get that they wanted to make the game have a legacy by adding a trust system to all the MSQ dungeons, but they were also really rigid in their decision for that too. It's probably one of the reasons why they got stuck with the scions being your main trust folk and really hurt them as they were forced to add them into the story in Dawntrail. I think the alternative should have been the Barracks system that they also forgot about for your Grand Company. Hell. Even if you don't want to do that, why not add the ability to have people take their retainers into the mix? Let you run a dungeon with your retainers and be able to customize what they bring in if one is so wanting to run it single player? That way some may even have a want for buying more retainer slots besides for space. There's a myriad of things I think they can do, but all of them since Endwalker to me have been too safe. Something needs to change, and it needs to be fast. I remember when Yoshi P talked about comparing their identity to WoW, but they need to look again -- not just at WoW but the overall landscape of MMOs. I love the story, but you can't just have me chase and babysit a naive leader with no battle content like that, let alone ANY other type of gameplay besides textboxes and holding down the W key.

[@antarath517]

There's a very good reason GW2 capped levels and hasn't raised it (and why I think keeping the cap at 100 is a good idea). It's because it keeps every part of the world relevant. It keeps the world large by not segmenting it into pieces every expansion. However, it will steadily run into an issue where new continents dilute the player base and reduce open world interaction. There's not a single simple solution to this inevitable decay of the open-world, but it should be something every game *tries* to address.

[@anteprs7908]

Stop trying to force difficult content down in cadual content it what is KILLING DT THE LACK OF CASUAL CONTENT AND THE RUINING OF IT . CASUSL CONTENT NO MATTER WHAT MUST FIRST BE EASY AND RELAXING NOT STRESSFUL AND CHALLANGING IT WHY EUREKA AND BOZJA ARE MIDCORE NOT CASUAL CONTENT ,

[@xiakouxu]

@@antarath517 The systems in GW2 are definitely not perfect, and I agree with some of the things you are saying. But I think at the end of the day, the big takeaway is there is definitely room for creativity and engaging players.

[@xiakouxu]

@@anteprs7908 Take it easy my guy. My suggestion to make the overworld similar to eureka/bozja doesn't mean it has to take every aspect of it -- and nor should it have been taken that way. While I would disagree in saying Bozja/Eureka is midcore, wouldn't you want FATEs to matter a little more in your overworld than just providing bicolored gems? Wouldn't you want it to lead to some big battle like they kind of do already with things like Davaipedia to unlock a mount? What if it provided more stuff and maybe unlocked another type of 'casual' alliance raid? My hope in responding to you is really what then would you want? Because I feel like I touched up on a few things that I could think of my own, but to have a more prompt discussion it might be worth hearing you out. =)

[@anteprs7908]

@@xiakouxu "Wouldn't you want it to lead to some big battle like they kind of do already with things like Davaipedia to unlock a mount?" no becuase that not casual that difficult isnt easy . erueka and bozja are find as limited zone per expantion if they want to add better open world content they need to add chain quests + chain fate that tell a story or event on the map that arent hard and you dont need party fro mfinder to do they can add somebetter drops rewards too.

[@ForceG27]

FFXIV is cursed to be SE's cashcow sadly, funding... 'interesting' projects and putting the minimal amount of resources back into the game itself.

[@Illumas]

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure they are listening to, but at least in NA everyone I've talked to hates the direction the job changes have been heading in since ShB.

[@BlueTyphoon7]

It's always been pretty clear that SE listens primarily to the japanese audience, which does make sense. this is a japanese game by a japanese developer for a japanese speaking audience. But it's also sad because a very significant portion of the game's audience are not located in japan, and do not speak the language at all. and we feel unrepresented in comparison.

[@Myrtneough]

Imagine my disappointment coming back to XIV in EW after not being able to play since right before HW just for WHM having lost their aoe dot, cleric stance, high damage holy, fluid aura, and most of my spells are now balls of light instead of wind and earth magic. Add in the like dozen ogcd tools and it's an entirely different, and much less fun, experience.

[@tracyglasper5177]

I would love to see more content like Eureka and Bozja. A lot of the lore was cool, and I loved it! I also want to see something like Ishgard Restoration too! I want my crafting jobs to be used for something bigger. I started my own FC and I want to be able to do more things with them and maybe have more of an opportunity to grow that FC.

[@RavenicXIII]

Thanks for the vid Syn, I feel the same on the current state of FF14. RIP Kaiten

[@this_epic_name]

7:25 agree about Steps of Faith. I thought it was great. I was a bit of a latecomer (started playing in HW), so I didn't understand why people would abandon the duty if they happened to get it with me in roulette.

[@crazytim7alexina489]

Hello Synodic Scribe! I think you hit every important note on the head. Ive always thought it extremely strange that they remove job skills from jobs personally (i understand its for game balance to a fault but that shouldnt mean REMOVING skills completely) and the lack of multiplayer content to do with the friends we make along the way is very concerning. Like its an mmo but where is the mmo part at? ready to go full blues clues to find stuff to do with friends. A large fear of mine is now that the game is largely popular they have grown comfortable and like you said wont experiment with new ideas, better to play it safe than risk but it seems that comfort is starting to cause boiling under the surface from many content creators, makes you wonder how long til the lid flys off the pot. i dont know what the future has in store but this drought of content for the game is very very noticeable to everyone especially the midcore players who dont raid. i really like your videos! maybe a history of removed job actions is somewhere in the future? = )??

[@tatersalad76]

Small counter to Endwalker at face value looking like it had the same amount of dungeons as Shadowbringers: the Criterion Dungeons were basically "Build Your Own Adventure!" dungeons and felt really refreshing to run with friends

[@M0ssP1glet]

Eloquently tackled all of the points I experienced myself! I thought maybe it was just a case of "no longer the target audience" for me too, so it's comforting to know the feeling of something being "off" is a bit wider spread. I also noticed a general downturn in what I can only describe as "the vibe" in the community. I came back from a hiatus and was admittedly quite rusty and playing sub-optimally (which did not help the situation at all) but even outside of that a lot of folks just seemed generally negative if not outright angry. I un-subbed pretty soon after that, Wuk Lamat is still waiting for me at the pillars... Now I just get angry while watching testers showing off all the qol changes for the upcoming mobile version. XD Going to try it out anyway on account of being too poor for sub, but it doesn't frustrate me any less that a free to play title is getting all the tlc I've desperately wanted for the retail version.

[@malicious0shadows]

Well said. I've only been playing from EW, but by the Twelve do I get bored as a healer main. I love astrologian, but hearing about how it used to play back in SB makes me incredibly jealous as those were way cooler than it was in EW and eons above what DT has got. And your friend's observation on how jobs are more unique in lower levels is something that hit hard as I'm currently progging UWU and FRU, and healing in UWU feels much more restricting but fun. In FRU, I don't feel like I'm cooperating with my co-healer, but rather, we're just doing each others job. I'm supposed to be a PH, why do I have all these mits and shields? If I get all this, why couldn't we just have kept the diurnal and nocturnal sect skills? Hello? I won't stop playing since I love hanging out with my friends in Eorzea and raiding, but it really sucks to think about all the things I missed out on and what the community has lost to the past. *Edit add: As a Japanese person, while you did butcher ”doryoku", the sentiment is what matters and its heartwarming to hear you give it a go. 誠意が籠ってて良かったです(*^^)v

[@NyocoNoco]

I've been playing FFXIV since Heavensward myself, but it was around Endwalker that I really started to question how I felt about the game. My friend group stopped playing around that time because of the current state of the game, and I remember being really upset with FFXIV for letting us down. I still stuck it out, but a constant feeling I ran into was "why bother? none of this matters anyway" which is kinda ironic given Endwalker's narrative themes. We even wrote up WoL OC lore and everything, but that eventually dried up as people moved onto doing that with games that were far more engaging than FFXIV in it's current state. Recently I unsubbed from FFXIV. I've done it a few times for financial reasons but this is the first time that I did it because I genuinely can't be bothered to log in anymore. I don't even dislike Dawntrail; I like the story despite community reception being mixed, fight design is better, job design is...still a joke but not every change is totally bad I guess. But none of that changes the fact that FFXIV is a shell of it's former self, and I no longer feel motivated to log in. Soo.. yeah, I definitely relate with the feeling Scribe, at least to some degree.

[@Caladir]

XIV sadly is just too... samey. Nothing is new or unique. New Dungeon? Yep it's corridor with 6 trash packs and 3 bosses. New Trail? Yep it's squere with Boss. New Raid? Yep it's circle with Boss. New Bozja/Eureka? Yep it's just reskinned Fate Grind/Atma farm. As someone who also playes since HW and I liked DT, the first part, I didn't enjoyed second, I just can't do the same things over and over again with different skin. And while jobs getting worse in my opinion. And for what exactly? Gear? that will be replaced and be worthless? Gear that gives me 1.5% more chance to crit as only that thing matters in this game? Yeah... once my sub is out, I'm out until 8.0 to see if they actually take anything into consideration.

[@hallo-mt5tx]

feels like they are trapped in their own design philosophy leaving no room for creativity, idk if its because they are terrified of taking risks or because its actually their desired end goal to make easily repeatable packages in every aspect of the game because it saves time and money i think a game loses its magic when it feels like it was created on an assembly line with no passion or creativity behind it

[@pllynyxq5896]

When looking at user voice, you need to also include those from CJK users. These servers also have very vocal user base and their perspectives on things might be totally different from NA/EU players.

[@ShermTank7272]

Regarding complaints of a content drought: what was it like to be current in 5.1 and 4.1? I feel like both 6.1 and 7.1 have players saying they were "starved for content", but since I joined during 5.3 I'm genuinely curious what the endgame experience was like during the past .1 patches.

[@MrHellgate82]

Couldn't agree more

[@Genericusername1004]

Summoner was my first job when I played 2.0 when it launched. I had avoided spoilers and was hoping for the complexity and epicness of FFXI summoner, was very disappointed. Fast forward to now and its basically a shadow of its former self.

[@shh532]

I think you hit on a bit of a scary point - nobody really knows, in a wider part outside of 'lack of content', why we have this disconnection from XIV now. I started to get the nagging feeling like you said around SHB even though I still massively enjoyed 6.0-.2, but 6.3 on and 7.0 really kicked my doubts into full gear. I realized I wasn't playing the game for the game but for the people.

[@danikame9481]

The lack of content and homogenization of what we do get is so tiring. They spread out a volume of content that should come out at the same time over MONTHS and then they stretch that content out as much as they can. What did we get in the latest 7.16? Three role quests? An insulting 5-1 demimateria trading option? How about the previous patch? Chaotic is great but too overtuned. Phase 2’s towers suck hard. It feels like it’s made to be frustrating to farm outside of a static so as to stretch out the time we’re playing. What else did we get with 7.15? A few Hildy quests? I’d love to have many reasons to log in at any given time. I think homogenization problems began with the removal of the cross class system in favor of role actions. Being a stone skin protect paladin was a lot of fun. Even if something isn’t “optimal,” who cares? Also, if I’m being honest, I am tired of “roles.” I played MCH from HS and finally put down the gun in Dawntrail. I would argue that no one on the dev team plays MCH but even then, why must it always be held back or balanced in relation to bard and dancer? Why can’t a MCH actually be selfish dps and do comparable damage to samurai or picto? There’s no real good reason other than they arbitrarily determined how much damage “ranged physical dps” should do. And all jobs suffer from this design problem. All melee, for example, have to be able to do the same things since it’s easier to balance roles and not all the jobs. To me that’s why every job within a role is essentially the same with a little more or less flash and one or two slightly different skills. We honestly have four jobs with each one having different skill glamour options. In a game where you can play all the jobs on one character, they’re afraid to make players actually change jobs sometimes. The explanation why it is the way it is because it’s “difficult” to balance all the jobs. I sympathize it may be difficult but then why do they keep adding jobs? Also, even if it is “difficult,” it’s kinda their job to figure it out?

[@grumpydinosaur2347]

FF14 is good in many aspects but majority of class designs is super booring, super same. there is barely difference between some classes. i love healers in wow, especially disc priest. healers here is just.... booring af

[@SplendifirusWordUp]

I will never forgive them for taking plunge away from me

[@TaiyoKid]

GIVE ME BACK TIME DILATION, DIURNAL SECT AND NOCTURNAL SECT!!! Jokes aside, I'm sorry that you are feeling like this and many of us have been feeling similarly too. Maybe one day the devs will listen to the majority of players intead of this enigmatic minority that wants a homogenized combat and formulaic story and content. Maybe one day...

[@LittleTas12]

FFXIV was amazing when I started, being a WoW refugee. I knew there was a bit of sci-fi ish elements but the THEME of FF14 has been diluted now with cash-shop items and now Solution 9 to the point where I can't really immerse myself into FF14's world anymore. It's just some shallow catering to a weird fashion crowd that doesn't like the Fantasy world that the game's heart is.

[@BranBal]

What are you talking about? Every Final Fantasy game has sci-fi blended with medieval.

[@ShermTank7272]

Azys Lla, Omega, Mare Lamentorum, Omicrons Also idk if you're just hanging out with the wrong crowd but I haven't seen any problems about the cash shop. Granted, I and everyone around me barely touches the thing, so maybe things are overpriced or overpopulated in the cash shop, but it doesn't really affect the game in the slightest. I've only seen like 10-20% of players around me with cash shop items (and most of those were past seasonal event items that were likely obtained from the event).

[@xalzaixhungers2442]

@@ShermTank7272 Azys La and Omega were treated like eldritch monsters, beings from ancient empires we could not comprehend and we stood there as hired swords for people who knew their stuff about aetherology. I think what solution 9 does differently is that it does not treat it with caution, but wants to engage players with it, wants to invoke wonders, wants the players to learn more about it and not be satisfied with the simple explanation like „It came from a different planet“. We walk the streets of solution 9 every day, and the world feels so alien because the world is so far apart from what we are used to that you don‘t feel „immersed“ in it because the intended feeling for stuff like Sphene is that we should be careful around them, and that is not a feeling a city hub should invoke in an mmo. As for the cash shop part, every other musical performance I see, or even just doing leap of faith at the gold saucer, I see those glowstick cheer emotes which you cannot get from the game, and you cannot even get something close to that, at most maybe firecrackers or stuff. So if you engage with any larger audience that does not know each personally already, you run into a lot of fun stuff they do with emotes, or show off a house with furniture you can no longer obtain ingame. For a veteran of roughly a decade of playing the game that stuff seems probably trivial, and a friend of mine who played the game just a bit longer also has so much more knowledge about outfits already because they looked out for them. But getting started in this game really can make you feel lagging behind your peers, and I think that is something that most veteran players simply cannot relate to.

[@sepphero9639]

​​@@xalzaixhungers2442 bro... the lightsticks (at least Yellow, Blue, Red) where past event rewards from little ladies day 2018. just like loads of the stuff in the cash shop (usually the stuff that is priced especially cheap compared to other articles of the same category) some of the mounts for example fenrir bike and lunar whale where also rewards people got for buying fan fest Tickets just as a metric amount of minions, which afterwards where made available for players that missed it or in case of fan fest, didn't get the ticket or not the ticket for the right region since minions where given out based on the region of fan fest (the ff4 and ff7 minions for example where fan Fest minions) Another big category of Stuff in the store, especially clothing sets, is former Chinese exclusives, for example the peacock and the corresponding attire and the oldest of the streetwear/sci fi stuff

[@BranBal]

I think op is a bot

[@GanonAutumn777]

I started in patch 4.2 in stormblood so i have around 6 years ish under my belt. And while i still love the game, i have many issues with it that accimulated over the years. Mostly relating to the rigid content release schedule that theyve been sticking with since arr and its no longer working imo.since shadowbringers, having the start of the expansion be a wasteland that only the high end raider log into still baffles me to this day and I say that as a raider myself who does a lot of savage and ultimate raids.Storywise, im not a fan of how Ishikawa speedran the Garlean empire storyline offscreen as the empire we've been fighting since 1.0 all crumbles behind the scenes in a single night and we dont even see it, we just arrive at the aftermath. There is so much that couldve been done with the conclusion to the war with garlemald and I feel it was handled sloppily as they rushed through it just so they can wrap up the saga in endwalker and move on to the new one rather than have a naturally progressing conclusion.

[@SailorYen89]

None of the ways they've tried to add "futuristic" stuff in DT feels on brand with what XIV is and it's design philosophy. It feels more like a way to sell "modern" clothes in the cash shop. I understand that FF's have futuristic bits in them, that's cool. Those titles are created with that in mind and it all melds together well. XIV was meant to have Galemald be the most futuristic part, and it worked perfectly. It was never too much, it all made sense in the lore, it was distant from how things were in Eorzea and was a cool contrast. Likewise, Allagans as an ancient more stylized technological race was great and they did a good job making it fit. Solution 9, regardless of being a different shard or whatever, feels so dumb. They'd rather cater to the anime crowd so they can sell modern outfits than keep things on brand for XIV. It's literally LED billboards with anime art on. In no way am I shitting on anyone if that's your jam. I'm glad XIV has stuff people enjoy. But in my opinion as someone who's played since literally the 1.0 beta, it feels like a lazy out of place addition. It feels more like a Persona game than FFXIV. Which again, i'm sure people are loving but isn't my jam at all. Combine that with barely changing content I'm just kind of sad at the state of it. I come from XI where you never knew what kind of content they'd add. Where content rare became irrelevant. Where there were so many unique bits of gear and ways to get it. That being said, I really enjoy WoW and don't mind the item level gear reskins. It's just that.. XIV is so predictable. You know right now exactly what will be added in next expansion for the most part. What each patch will have. And it'll still be a tomestone grind. Idk, just rambling at this point. I miss how it was, and I miss when it didn't feel stale. I truly love XIV, and I think it deserves to be better.

[@Mejandora]

I remember a time when people where upset about a car mount in FFXIV and how its not fitting into the world. now people like additions like Solution 9 and want more of it. eorzean werent able to understand allagan technology at all and now we got something that is far more advanced then allagan tech? It feels simply wrong. it feels a bit like another game inside the otherwise familiar game.

[@FuukaBazooka]

THANK GOODNESS I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT ABOUT THIS! I really thought I was alone about this forceful push for all these modern ideas in Eythris/Eorzea... I loved both Garlean and Allag's futuristic style. I eat up Allag content simply because it's such a interesting take of a future civilization without alluding to modern concepts. Perhaps it's also because I love Heavenward to a tee, but Final Fantasy can be futuristic and include modern elements. But at its core (and for XIV in particular), my interpretation of the style isn't exactly "21st century modern", and it has never set itself like that until now. (If anything, this sudden push for makes it feel like it should disregard all its established worldbuilding and just appeal to certain players because "that's what they want"). I do understand this push... but I don't like how it's been integrated... I didn't come to my medieval/high fantasy game for these 21st-century modern elements, because the fantasy elements were really cool and interesting you know! Bah...

[@FuukaBazooka]

@@Mejandora xD The car mount was from the XV collaboration... but I understand where people were coming from. It's a little out of place. I think it's more about striking a balance than changing the direction. Cars and modern outfits in doses (and implemented seamlessly) don't create a disconnect. Pushing for a new direction and making a focus on all these new elements at once create this overarching idea that the game is "becoming too modern". At least... that's how I see it.

[@Mejandora]

@ I know^^ I just recalled that event to show how much everything changed. Stuff that led to rised eyebrows back then are now accepted without second thoughts. More modern elements wouldnt be the problem if they are sprinkled here and there but its the main focus now. the new technology is the main focus now. you are in disco elysium solution 9 with blinking led signs everywhere, then you leave and mount your chocobo. its a break of immersion. more then allagan or garlemald ever was.

[@ikeaira8701]

@@TheWickedWizardOfOz1 Maybe checking out a Windower guide will help as most of the UI customization done in XI is through plugins & addons but that's mostly for like a XIV-like Party List, XIV-like controller setup(I personally stick with the vanilla controller setup as it's good enough for what the game offers), Minimap, etc. That should get you on the right track, should lol

[@bobaneko]

If there something i always wanted the team to do was the following 1 team attack abilities in dungeons i feel like making an ability pair with a job would revive more like the spirit of final fantasy into the game, to further explain that spirit which i also brought to some people like when the black mage cast foul the particles that leaves the darknight absorb it so it can unleash even more stronger combos with it, enchance the weapons attack or any sort of team attack that can be work in pair.since you brought shadowbringer i was hoping in the developing team to do something with the land cause story wise with the content of eden, I think it fair that we should travel the world of novdrant in it entirety , i wanted them to create or do like a system that allow us to create another warrior of light that explore that world after what we did cause i feel like it is a giant waste to create another world with it own lore despite been a reflection and just leave it i want to see it growth and finally. When they announce new game plus as a system I was wishing for the team to make what if scenario a scenario i always talk to my friend's was one that involve the wol going through the story as a garlean soldier and winning the war in favor of garlemald and further explore there. My love to the game was because it fill me with potential that they can do it felted like an investment

[@Deuzen_FIN]

Oh, that chuckle at Titan HM takes me back to a rockier time.

[@maxspecs]

I still have nightmares about getting snapshotted by earth tremors.

[@AJKLeyna]

I was so depressed when SMN lost its dots status. The entire job changed so dramatically it wasnt even the same job anymore. Now its only option for unique gameplay is what pet to pop out first. And the only thing Ive wanted on my other favorite job Bard, is a way to spread its dots... But at this rate, it may lose those entirely >.>

[@liftea7304]

Fully agree on your takes regarding job design! I know people love to weaponize the term "toxic positivity" nowadays but I feel like people not pointing out what they like about the old job design is the reason why jobs turned into what they currently are. All the complaints about strengths and weaknesses of jobs drowned the feedback of people who liked the uniqueness. AST purely got changed because of raiders for example...

[@ridleyroid9060]

Ayo why am I catching strays when I fking wept when I saw what they did to astro in this expac and I am a high end raider. I started playing AST in 4.55 and to me that is still the most fun version of the job, even if I think 5.2 was also really fun, and 5.3 was the least jank.

[@SuperSnivMatt]

I thought AST was changed because of more lax and casual players That's the point. It isn't just one group and objectively yeah AST needed changes. Its most fun parts way back when could break the balance of things both in fun, and unfun ways. It also just was so much RNG layering and options to do with said cards that it turned people away. Something that affects both casual and non-casual players. Also, the APM??? is insane on AST. Yes its good to be engaging, but for EW AST at least, you had to draw target someone use it draw again use it on someone else pull lord/lady pop divi while healing and keeping damage up. And do mechanics. So the three things for "casual" players that were happening is 1. They were overwhelmed, 2. They did learn to function with the high APM and short OGCDs etc, or 3. Play the class but not use what makes it unique. And then again this is all players, Astrodyne was a shit button, drawing cards and having too much bad luck can mess with your preformance, etc. Its powerful, but was objectively a mess and I think rn its in its best place for all players

[@hawgacrux]

I'll be completely blunt. As long as Yoshida listens so much to the high end raiding streamers (just look who is invited to media tours) or puts so much focus on high end raiding over other content we will never see significant improvements to job identity. The only thing that seems to matter for the job design devs is ultimate and savage and that's where the jobs are designed around. Remember "Assassinate" only working when the enemy HP was low? Will never return nowadays because everything has to have a place in the rotation in the modern design. Fun playthings like Manashift or Goat? They will never return.

[@markup6394]

What do you mean? Its specifically those raiders who wish for more job identity.

[@hawgacrux]

@@markup6394 The entire reason we have two minute meta now is because raiders were complaining of having a hard time with aligning buffs in high end fights. I still remember the BRD songs complains back before Stb or the whining about AST and it's random card system or NIN trick attack window in the past. Same as why we have DRK in it's state right now. Raiders wanted it to have the same things as WAR or at least close to it. Just look at responses from raiders to the PCT problem and you will see that they are the ones complaining about it's motive system and want to change it dungeons be damned because "dungeons don't matter" instead of simple numbers adjustements. A part of high end Raiders don't want job identity but balance first and foremost. Just look at responses from Happy towards a melee healer or PCT or his dismissing of BLM mains unhappy with the DT changes. Heck if those people had their way we wouldn't even have a crit stat now because of it's fluctuations. Sincerely a former raider...

[@markup6394]

@ So just because you're a former raider, you know everything? Btw, I'm a former raider, too - and everyone, raider or no, that I talk to wants more diversity and hates or dislikes the 2min meta.

[@hawgacrux]

@@markup6394 Never implied I know everything. Don’t know why you are so antagonistic. I gave you examples. You can dislike them however you like it doesn’t change the fact that the high end raiding scene was the one complaining about those things because balance was more important to them. The jobs right now as well as the 2 min meta ARE designed around high end content and only that. Nice of your friends. But that doesn’t make your statement that „specifically those raiders“ want more job identity more true because it is not specifically them but the overall playerbase. And it is people like the high end raiding content creators who still push for more of the same just for balancing sake. Who do you think will be the first to complain if we get choices or branches in job design? The everyday dungeon and at most Ex player who doesn‘t care if his ice spell isn’t the most damaging one? Or the high end raiders who will complain for everyone to follow the job guides and cries for DRK not doing as much damage as WAR with a skill?

[@Felix0770]

15:22 Anyone remember farming Drakes for their relic back in the day? Better than endwalker relics.

[@Max44321]

I might just be the only one around who likes the EW relics. Finally got a chance to actually get a relic, and even get a whole collection at that with time, would never happen with any of the other grind-focused ones...they're so nice for a casual approach but nobody seems to either want casual players to have nice things, or wants relics to be something only for the elite for some reason.

[@captainmurphy4948]

@@Max44321 Lol I'm the same. Then again I never got the appeal of Bozja and Eureka either. May have been because I only joined in Shadowbringers (and at like 5.3 of Shadowbringers) but the areas were empty and boring, with mobs that were damage sponges. And ARR and HW relics? No way I'm going to waste my time on them.

[@alenezi989a3]

The homogenaization of jobs is what made the game just not fun for me, balancing everything around the Ultimate raid meta so no job gets left out is a terrible idea, not everyone is interested in Ultimate, and if you are then follow the meta, jobs feel so similar they no longer feel unique, especially the Healers like good god what the hell did they do there? I remember at the release of Endwalker they dared give SCH an ability to make everyone run, and it felt special. Then they immediately nerfed it down, like how dare you feel special when everyone else is shapless gray slop. I have stopped playing the game midway through EW patches and I still see no signs of improvements, at least I got to experience the ending of a 10 year story which was good.

[@tatersalad76]

I was so devastated when they gutted Experience after DSR dropped. The community laughed at it for so long and just when they realized how good it was, they cut the sprint in half

[@burtwonk]

Nicely put as always professor. The game is in a rough place right now and the devs have run out of excuses. They have no been able to keep up with FFXIV and develop other titles and they have racked up a debt in terms of innovating. The graphics update should have come later, but it was a windfall from the production of FF16. Even that game proved that they have no ideas when it comes to systems and progression.

[@InsiniTyGhost]

I agree, the game has stagnated. The Gameplay is a second thought and i have learned to not enjoy things i used to love, being both Roleplay and Raiding; if you are currious i play most jobs but my "Mains" are Dark Knight and Red Mage. I lost the enjoyment for raiding due to the coummunity, i wont blame the game for that one but the game feels like its only designing content for raiding and everything else is an afterthought, my Love for MMOs is deep, it runs in me since i was a child but, with the simplication of jobs, the move to 3rd party platforms for coummunition, i feel like MMOs have just changed with the times and im a lonely player, i lost all the sense of the coummnity i have loved since Stormblood and the gameplay i enjoyed since that Era too. i hope things change for the better but since i have no reason to log in anymore i think im done, im done with DT, didint even beat the raid teir either beacuse my group imploded from the inside and due to burn out i might just sit out of DT untill things look brighter.

[@Eiiiko]

an FC accessible only "VC" style dungeon would be fantastic, would help promote communities/fc's too

[@ikeaira8701]

Like OSRS, FFXIV is getting to that age where I feel a poll system is needed for what to add to the game moving forward. That way at least there's a valid & true vote by the community on the direction of content to be added to the game, and roughly when it will be added via a priority system based on depth of content, etc.

[@Gunthersby]

FFXIV revived my ability to enjoy MMOs after griefers on Runescape killed it when I was young. It has a big place in my heart and my list of issues are long enough for me to complain for days only because I like it enough to want it to be better. If next expansion is still this quality, I think I'll quit. For now I just want to see what Beastmaster is like

[@greghuntley8945]

Thanks for making This video, it put in a lot of perspective and wasn't just rage bait and had what I consider some pretty good ideas. I can't remember where I read it or who I've heard it from, but I agree with their comment of "FFXIV needs more mid tier content". Also I think having a bit of diversity in jobs will really make them more interesting. They still have quite a bit of content road mapped out that I'm excited for, so I'm still holding out hope.

[@besame5504]

12 rs here, casual player and am not finding enough content to suit me now. How many hunt trains do I have to run to get gear???? Not sure if I will buy another xpac, this one may of been my last.

[@Geekezf]

The problem of FFXIV is..very specific, i don't even know where to start.. For exemple..the duty roulettes and the jobs. I legit fell asleep during some duty roulette, specially those of ARR. There's so little to do no matter wich job, it's PLAIN BORING. Even as a tank..you just do a one hit button with sometimes a mitigation. When you're a fresh player it's okay. When you play that game for 6 years, it's a pain in the a*s to do the tome stones.. They all play the same with just alternate names and different attack vfx. They're all slow (best you can do is 1.70 sec per skill).. i love that game..but its going on a path..a strange one

[@edwardnowakowski5990]

I agree with most of your points, except one The bahamut wasn’t just a “random bahamut”, it was based on Amano’s first concept design of bahamut. That’s like saying elidibus transformed into a random knight in SOS, and not amano’s artwork of FF1’s warrior of light. Yeah, it did feel unrelated to the muscle cats, but as someone who adores amano’s concept art, it still felt like a cool reward (plus, I feel like the natural progression of the pumas would basically have been a behemoth reskin, a bigger, more muscular cat)

[@Nazuiko]

... no, its FF4's Bahamut, because Endwalker decided to throw out any build up or setting that lead up to it to suck off FF4 for 2.5 years straight. Seriously, I do not understand why Endwalker was so blatantly making the entire game just FF4 Online. Trial series moved into MSQ so you can fight six FF4 bosses Final dungeon is the last dungeon in FF4... thats interrupted a third of the way through for an Amaurot clone set in FF4's main city The whole plot is focused around the moon because FF4 The boss theme is replaced with FF4 music They took what shouldve been side content like the FF7 based Sorrows of Werlyt series and made a major chunk of the MSQ and four of the five patches, all FF4 content. And then they made the reward for completing all the trials and getting their mounts YET ANOTHER FF4 REFERENCE Like oh my god. Who. The hell. CARES???? I would hate it just as much but I could see if it were FF7 getting so much obsessive attention and fanfare, but FF4 is a footnote by comparison

[@maxspecs]

@@Nazuiko You’re welcome to your opinions, FF4 is a classic. I welcome the references.

[@ByrnEtch]

@@Nazuiko The game is just a big love letter, theme park MMO to the franchise.

[@Mr_Dandy_Lion]

The thing that pisses me off in general, but especially as a tank, is the fact that stat weighting doesn't actually matter and there's no true choice in playstyle when it comes to how we build our stats. I play Paladin. I want to be so tanky through tenacity that I do not need a healer. I want my healers to be freed up to focus on keeping the party alive because my build and skill allows me to keep myself alive at the cost of NOT pumping. I HATE that the FF14 culture is crit/direct hit/determination EVERY CLASS. Only your dps matters. Pump harder! investing into Tenacity or Piety? A WASTE. I don't feel like the game has room for individualism. Everyone plays the same class and it's just about pressing your buttons optimally. I have no drive to chase iLvL anymore in these games. Give me some sort of buildcraft PLEASE.

[@Geekezf]

full Speed atk/cast speed is still fun, i don't care if it's not optimized.

[@xapapetsugaming2311]

Zepla made a statement that stuck with me. She said her fun with the game was directly tied to how good the story was. I can see how many people would feel the same, especially someone like yourself who loves the lore. I personally started having less fun in endwalker patch content due to the lack of content but also due to not enjoying the story, i looked past the story for dawntrail to try to enjoy the game which is currently working, but I know some people wont be able to do that. I've got big hopes that the game will make major changes in 8.0 but only time can tell.

[@zatoseyes]

The removal of skills like Plunge and Spineshatter dive was indeed the last straw for me. After talking to people who argued for the removal it became abundantly clear they don't want me playing the game anymore.

[@Heartless-Sage]

I've not played for several months now. I miss bits but I think about re-subscribing and in my head I ask what I would do, and I have no answer. I enjoyed Eureka, I enjoyed the MSQ and class stories, Role quests are much more hit and miss, like Paladin quest hit or miss. I always struggled making lasting connections with other people, in games and IRL so I have no true friends I am missing. I've got every combat class to at least 90 most 100. I was always a healer main and I do feel useless in most content. I found doing bunny fates in Eureka more fun then the Dawntrail MSQ but I always enjoyed the atmosphere in Eureka when there are lots of people on, working together or when I as a healer could actually feel like a hero and rez someone in need. I enjoy doing Deep Dungeons but I am one of the few and though I tried I am not good enough to solo them. Playing them and getting to know the random players we formed a party together with was fun for me, I often got asked why I brought a healer to a deep dungeon when the usual class trio wasn't needed, I always got to heal damage, statuses and deaths in those runs XD Loved it. Dawntrail dungeons where improved by being a bit more demanding at least for the first few runs. Thematically I loved White Mage and Conjurer. Starting out essentially as a Druid was awesome, then becoming a still nature based White Mage. Honestly I felt losing the elemental spells for the pure light variants while true to older FF games WHMs was something that weakened XIVs, it felt like the lore just got tossed aside and never addressed the change. Scholar I always loved for having a book and being the strategist class, they healed through preparation and planning, and became the strongest healer because of that. The fairy was ok but I always preffered carbuncle despite not loving Summoner much so was happy I could glam them. Love Tonberrys too, heck I have a Tonberry tattoo. Miss those guys and their storyline, how many more of them could we have saved? Alas I need to go take down the world's dumbest "super Villain" group instead. I wonder if those two are officially dating yet and if they are still in contact with our Tonberry healer friend? Sage I love so many aspects of, I am a big fan of classical history, ancient Greece, the old Philosophers, heck while my usual handle is Heartless Sage I often switch it to Akardos Sophos which is ancient Greek for Heartless Sage when I need a more RP name. The speed of Sage, its style as very almost a doctor, I feel like a healer as a Sage a real medical practitioner, and the ancient Greek themed names and abilities are really on point for me. Alas beyond the intro quests how much has Sage been fleshed out? As a piece of lore I feel what is potentially my favourite class doesn't really have a place in the world, and thats with one of our main NPC characters actually being one! I was never the biggest tank player, though I've got all of them levelled, Gunbreaker always felt fun, Paladin felt "right" as in its combat style always made sense to me, you have a shield you block and defend others with a shield. Warrior... Come on, unga bunga, yeah its too easy to play sometimes but if you want your barbarian fix it works. DPS? I like casters, not so much Summoner I am not one for pet classes though I am very fond of Carbuncle, even got the plushie. Black Mage is always interesting as you have the challenge of playing it in different content, but for me... Red Mage. I adore the style, the gameplay, the adaptability. For a while I played an Elezen named for Count Ganelon as if I were a descendent carrying on the Red Mage and swordsman traditions of the count. I like Rapiers as a weapon, I like the rose aesthetic of so many abilities, I love the swashbuckler style and aristocratic cut of the job clothes. If it were not for my love of being a healer just winning out, I would be a Red Mage main all the way and even then it is a close thing. I want so much to just jump back into Eorzea and be happy in my home away from home, meet others have a laugh, if I were better at it make some really meaningful connections with others, but right now I think about the game and I feel just sad and not motivated, I'd log in, set up an interesting glam choice, and walk around, I wouldn't feel an urge to do a dungeon, I'd try jumping in to Eureka but my timing would be bad and no one would be around, I'd end up feeling depressed and empty, with nothing to do even though there is still stuff I've not completed. Does any of this make sense? I don't know.

[@seancatacombs]

1) Creative Studio 3 is a very quantitative, data-driven team, mostly by way of Yoshi-P's leadership. While it's been a big driver of XIV's success, it could also be why the game is starting to feel creatively stunted. I really have the feeling the internal team is looking at numbers that suggest every time they flatten jobs and simplify content, new subs and monthly active users go up. And at this point that growth curve probably still outpaces the attrition rate of veteran players, likely by a lot. Nothing is likely to change until player attrition outpaces player growth. 2) Part of what makes XIV so profitable for SE is not just its revenue (the money it makes from subs) but b/c it's also extremely cheap to develop compared to other flagship SE properties. I doubt SE's board and leadership are very willing to throw too much more money and staff at CS3 and decrease that ROI except if it's directly tied to new servers (new subs). I wouldn't be surprised if money and talent has been shifted away from XIV, actually.

[@ultraman498]

I don't doubt that's the devs internal strategy but obviously it's come to bite them in the ass as all it took was a single bad MSQ to tank player retention numbers. Clearly the current direction of the content isn't what was keeping players around. Counting on new players to constantly replace the old guard is beyond shortsighted. The game asks a LOT of new players and up until this point it's fallen on the community to convince them it's worth the investment. Now when new people come in all they see is a bunch of unhappy veterans with nothing but gripes and most will decide it's just not worth the effort.

[@SnowTheMelody]

are we going to talk about how dragoon went from jumpy boy and several weaves to quite literal 3 buttons?

[@ChannelRaznoff]

I watch a lot of Josh Stryfe Hayes videos, and one thing he harpes on is world cohesion. I completely agree with his take on the matter. I feel like there is no longer any focus on building a cohesive world. While there were other things in the game that felt out of place, the Fall Guys collab was kind of the turning point for me. The mounts and glamour from the event feel so out of place. Once I saw Solution 9 on the live stream, I knew all of the world's cohesion was out of the window. It's now just a big theme park fantasy skin for Second Life.

[@MaydaTiger]

This is probably one of the most sane and balanced criticisms I've heard from a content creator instead of the "Wuk bad" or woke crap I keep seeing Thank you for taking the time to make his and voice your opinion

[@johnny2288]

I played the original final fantasy 14 I'm a legacy account I had only played a realm reborn I had quit the game before heaven's Ward I recently came back 3 months ago and I must say I do like the game now opposed to then and I'm glad that I didn't play the game through all those expansions. It's interesting to see how the game is evolved over the years they haven't quite got some jobs where they should be but they are moving them in the right direction at least from my perspective I enjoy the game now that I've been back

[@starscorpia4005]

i also feel liek they no longer have an excuse for lackluster updates and content in shb covid was the reason and during EW it was ff16....but now they have no valid reason for the longer patches and less content

[@Dastreus]

As per the "we got feedback for these decisions" I believe it was once addressed as to "where?" and the answer was that a "majority of players don't use the forums", so it was other sources like in game "make a suggestion" type of thing or even more likely, beta/alpha testers. I should add some things. If they didn't release 2 new classes/jobs per expac, people would complain hard but if they did it at the reasoning of expanding on what we got, most would probably be fine. I know I would. Some homoegenization I am ok with, but yeah ok it's gotten a bit much. Like the tanks are basically all the same, except Dark Knight is just worse than the others. The healers still feel unique enough, but my god they at least need 1 or 2 damage abilities added. Half the reason Sage is my main healer is they get more frequent damage options that isn't just your main filler spell and dot. I can't say much for melee, but phys ranged and caster still feel unique enough, however SMN and SCH have been gutted quite a lot over the years.

[@Lyn685]

I wouldn't feel too dramatic about how the game is going right now. If the game has something to offer, I'll play it, and if it doesn't, I won't. XIV is always one good patch away from being good again, so I probably won't ever completely give up on it.

[@HitchhikingHatbox]

While I fully disagree on the Nier content, I love how nuanced this video is on the whole! thanks for bringing some of these feelings to light. I genuinely love the community for people like you who seem to have such a strong passion for xiv

[@victoriawhitehead8714]

12 year veteran myself. I agree with almost everything, but the Endwalker bit. But I've seen mixed reviews on that. The game feels less like a labor of love and more like a corporate money maker. There isn't much uniqueness from it and it almost feels like they found their formula and now they don't see anything wrong with it. I miss when the Devs felt like they were a part of the community and would listen to it's playerbase. But now, it feels like they don't listen at all and the game just feels like someone's inner thoughts. I miss earlier days soooo much because the game felt so different and *warm*. Now, with this expansion, I may find myself finally letting it go. I was so disappointed in the story and how it felt like it could have been a genuine email. It was poorly paced, written, and much more. This was probably the second expansion where I felt the dev team was super out of touch with the community -- which sucks. I stayed with this game, never unsubscribing, because of the community. Now, it feels like there is no community and the devs are on their own island. And it just feels like we're being using to fund other poorly made projects outside of FFXIV. Honestly, that's the part that enrages me. At least put some funds back into your game. Otherwise, without a proper investment, the game will fail. Excellent video. You nailed the way I was feeling down perfectly.

[@Elquinjena]

I feel your pain on DRK. My main is Bard but when I took up the Dark Sword and traveled down the Dark Knight path back during Heavensward/Stormblood I put in the time to Learn how to play a DRK as well as my bard. I wont say I was the greatest but I did my best. I left toward the end Stormblood due to grinding gear burn out. Always needed higher level gear to progress the MSQ-which is not a bad thing..the bad thing is locking that away the chance of winning rolls for pieces to get said gear

[@markup6394]

22:00 --- Imagine sinding out guildmates for missions the same way the submarine is used. Getting the same or similar rewards. I agree, it would be interesting to know where these "community voices" come from that demand these or those changes...

[@JustJohn816]

I completely agree! I think I'm in a wierd camp cuz I don't like... HATE how the game plays now, but I agree with everybody who says that there are fundamental flaws in it. I can't believe that even a new job, Viper, was released as unique (sorta) and then instantly reigned in. I think I'm hopeful that the game will be better eventually, and wanna boost everyone pushing for thay change as much as I can, so go you Scribe! I totally agree

[@jameraxiv]

I really miss ARR/HW healing. I’ve quit the game because I find it so boring now. I hope they bring it back someday.

[@alenezi989a3]

Their fomulaic approach literally carried out to FF16 design as a game, the extremely mindlessly easy gameplay, the pointless 1 gil rewards or crafting material, the boring side quests that at this point I don't know what purpose do they serve? Like illusion of content instead of actual content and here's the kicker they give the exact same pointless "rewards" in both games. It's just weird. FF16 really accentuated the flaws of FF14, things I didn't mind in an mmo but hated in a single player game, and after finishing ff16 and going back to ff14 I found that I literally can't stand the way the characters talk. I don't know what ff16 did to me I just can't stand how the characters say so much without actually saying anything FF14.

[@legendairyproducts5042]

Your video basically echos the same feelings I have with the game. DT has been out for half a year and besides raiding and ranked pvp I haven't felt a reason to log on and interact with other players. It's a shame to since there is content on the horizon that could satisfy the itch but it feels so far away that it makes me feel underwhelmed. It's a shame because this game definitely deserves more care from what they have historically accomplished.