21 thoughts on “10.000 HOURS FFXIV VETERAN QUITS: HERE'S WHY”
I am going to address your points each time I can from a very casual perspective. I have played up to the end of EW and have done a good chunk of raids and Alliance raids. I just want to provide a perspective that doesn't bash what you are saying.
Story & Progression I do agree that the start of the game is too slow. Unlocking the Soul Crystal and the major mechanics of a class should happen sooner in ARR. That is the point of the story that is seen as boring and gameplay needs to be more interesting to keep players through this rough segment. I do not think skipping ten years of content (the Zodiark and Hydalen arc as you call it) is a good idea for two major reasons. 1) the game has designed itself around progressing through the MSQ. The MSQ is designed to pretty much bring a class to the ax level of that patch by the end of the MSQ. It would be extremely difficult to design classes around this skip. You would risk overflooding the player with things to do immediately. 2) The story of the game is important. It is one of the major selling points of the game that I have seen every player(veteran and new) talk about it in high regard. It just that everyone can admit that ARR (and SB to a lesser extent) have a "generic and uninteresting plot". Skipping all of that will leave many players confused as to the context to the content they are playing. I understand you don't like the story, but I have to say that you are in the minority when it comes to the story.
New content: It sounds like you are more of an extreme player and not a casual player. One thing that I have noticed is that I like knowing the repetive cycle of content. As a casual player, new things to do would be fun, but I want the repetive content (the Raids, the Alliance raids, the MSQ, the extreme trails), to be of good quality first. FF14 is very casual friendly and I like it that way because it means I can take it at my own pace. I don't want FOMO content in the game because then it doesn't stay a game, it becomes more like a chore(something like Destiny or WoW comes to mind). I think its better for a game to cater a majority of its resources to its casual audience, then to their more hardcore fans. I agree that I would like more content from the developers, but to just call anything not new at this point boring or bad to me just signifies that you might be burnout of the game from playing over 10K hours
Crafters: I wasn't interested in crafting so I never did it. I will take your word for it. I am sorry that crafting is dead but to me, crafting wasn't much fun or interesting so I just didn't do it. Most of my friends don't even have crafters leveled so I just can't comment on it. Plus, what is the point of gil besides buying a house and repairing gear?
Steam reviews: Looking at the reviews of Dawntrail, it does seem to help your statement. A lot of discontent and some good criticism. But if you go to just the FF14 page and the reviews for the game in just the last 30 days, many reviews are positive and some with valid criticism. With that said I can't take the steam portion very seriously. Everyone has their opinions and I can respect that.
Overall, it seems like you are a more intensive gamer rather than a casual gamer. There is nothing wrong with that and I am sorry that you don't enjoy the game. it was pretty clear to me that the game was meant to cater to a casual audience so its understandable why you wouldn't enjoy the game at this point. In my time playing the game I haven't seen people who are stupid and don't know how to play their class so your rant toward the end made no sense. I see the inclusion of NPC for dungeons to be enjoyable when I want to get through the MSQ quickly and I don't want to wait for queue times. To be honest, the only valid criticism that I see from you is: better gameplay progression from early game is needed, mods need to be regulated better(I mean they are meant to be illegal), and it would be nice to have extra game modes besides the usual. I am surprised you didn't touch upon some other issues like the streamlining of classes (2 min dps meta) or how the physical range class doesn't have much of a place right now. Regardless, I just wanted to give you a different perspective that is respectful so you don't feel like everyone is disregarding what you are saying. Hope you have a nice day.
So I've played 14 since 1.0 launch, and 2.0 launch and have over 30k hours sunk into the game, I was one of about 32 max level crafters on the Besaid server in 1.0 at the end of it and made most of my current gil during the 2.0-3.0 timeframe but that was because the overall number of people maxing out crafters was limited and most of that was due to some very specific time gates/tedium in leveling those jobs. Some of the main pain points were darksteel/camphor logs as well as a specific timed botany node that gave about 2 threads per cycle so making gil through crafting was "easier" because of some very specific pain points that gatekept higher end crafting and that limited the number of max crafters to those who pushed past that tedium. Now more people have maxxed out their crafters and thus the overall price of crafted goods have dropped, add in the availability of server and DC travel and you suddenly have even more competition for pricing driving down costs.
As for skipping the story, well from 2.0 forwards the game has been story first at every point and skipping it absolutely can reduce the enjoyment of the game and the player investment into the game as a whole and is a rather solid story for an rpg and possibly the best mmo story so far. While you hit 10k hours played I think that shows that you got to experience quite a bit of content that was available outside of the story (so maybe it was worth while for that) but there's only so much content in any one game. I do wish we got more content from SE but I don't expect swift changes from a japanese owned company nor do I expect a massive change in trends for the overall development of XIV, it's going to have the consistent patch cycle with some experimental content here and there but that's about it. Though we did get deep dungeons in Hw/SB/ and EW, we got criterion dungeons in ew, a new difficulty of alliance raid as well in DT, got island exploration in EW as well. We've seen more additions to the golden saucer over time but in the end every sandbox mmo is limited by the time the game has been out and the duration of their patch cycles. WoW sufffers a similar issue with it having "tons" of content from previous expansions that outside of cosmetics and toys is pretty much irrelevant (while atleast XIV rewards you for queueing roulettes), I do think SE could do with brining back (hard) difficulty dungeons reusing the dungeon assets for a new side story and dungeon content to break up the limited content of expert/ lvl90 roulettes.
The one thing with XIV is it's a game you can sub for 2 months, drop for 4 months and resub for 2 months and still get your moneys worth experience wise. Yoshi-P Lead producer/director for XIV has answered Q&A questions about being burnt out or running out of content consistently with "Unsub and come back later if your feeling this way, have fun experiencing other games instead." I really do think people who play XIV and have come from other mmo's need to understand that XIV is not runescape/wow/new world/ESO where you have to maintain a constant sub and grind to continue to do relevant content and that taking breaks is fine, unsubbing for a year and trying other games is fine, going out and having fun doing other stuff is fine, that you don't need a constant nose to the grindwheel playstyle to enjoy the game is actually a good thing about XIV and not a negative. The content will be there when you come back.
I will agree the game is "falling off" but I think that's more attributable to XIV finishing a narrative arc with EW and people who started in 2.0 finally hitting a point where they feel comfortable dropping the game for a while and returning later or never again. As for the whole the game is too formulaic argument I'd agree but with the stipulation that formulaic doesn't have to mean bad, just that the expectations after ShB/EW seem to have only gotten larger while the team working on XIV hasn't grown significantly. Until SE actually invests in growing the team developing the game I don't think you'll see any shifts in the formula. As for the narrative being formulaic, well every story has a formula, that's just how storytelling works and EW/DT is definitely the building up of another story arc that won't see pay off for a while judging from current pacing.
how do you play 10k hours without every doing an ult or the story lol. I would have quit as well if I never got into ultis, grinding a fight for months to finally get the clear is one of the best feelings in gaming. Also don't need a static for it, every ult is pfable.
Oh look, another Final Fantasy XIV expansion. Because, clearly, there’s nothing more exciting than doing the same damn thing for the hundredth time. New zones to run through, more raids where half the community will still fail every mechanic even though they’ve been out for months. And, of course, the story is just so riveting—another ‘save the world’ plot with characters that nobody really cares about, because we’ve all seen them cry and talk about their feelings a million times. But hey, it’s not about quality, right? It’s about grinding your 27th job to level 100 while running the same recycled dungeons for the 200th time. And let’s not forget the mounts—because that’s totally what keeps the game interesting, right? Grinding for hours just to show off to the 6 people in your friend’s list who actually notice. Oh, and don’t forget: you can’t even mount up in Limsa, btw, but who cares? You’re in that godforsaken city all the time anyway, so it’s not like it matters. And let’s talk about those dungeons for a second: not a single run where a healer hasn’t died at least once, but sure, let’s pretend this is ‘challenging content’ instead of a poorly executed mess. But the best part? The community. Nothing says ‘fun’ like a bunch of elitists who’ll mock you for not knowing the perfect rotation, while acting like they don’t spend 90% of their day in a Discord server complaining about the game. Seriously, it’s amazing how people have convinced themselves this never-ending cycle is anything more than a glorified hamster wheel. 10/10 would waste another year of my life, though!
Can you like just quit without some grand goodbye, i wish people would just hop over to another game without having to annouce it theyre leaving their current game
The sheer amount of insubstantial backlash this video is getting is…disappointing. Y'all need to learn accept criticism of the things you enjoy and, if you disagree, come up with some actual points of conversation. Criticism is extremely valuable for improvement. If you mindlessly defend something's imperfections, it will not improve.
(btw if you 'totally don't care' you wouldn't be commenting. that's something people do when they care)
skipped the story? 10k hours? you're built different. i liked the story a lot and loved raiding but haven't touched dawntrail yet. but yeah idk if i can relate to your experience friend
the msq wall for new players is a real thing, all of my friends watched the gameplay, the combat and they really got interested, and some really liked the game, but they end up giving up or quitting, either being a new player with less 50h or a veteran with 2 expansions of gameplay, only because of the quests, way too many quests to unlock content. even I started to get tired of this game, I don't like to skip cutscenes because if I do, I will lose the best part of it, the imersion is better when you are following the story as we do the dungeonstrials. but I feel more and more that I waste a lot of money of my sub on the quests, because since Shadowbringers, I feel that the story tries to clickbait to do some really serious stuff but is just a Shonen Anime and mostly predictable, only very few moments are really actually good, and since I'm spending a sub on those, it ends up me being more critical with my time spend there, and it ends up being a not so good experience.
only about 16 mins in, and ill have to come back to the video because im giga tired from my 3rd shift. but so far it just seems like FFXIV wasnt a game for you. which is insane to say to someone who has 10k hours in it, but i dont see why you wound up sticking with it for so long.
you might wanna try world of warcraft, it seems to be an answer to the complaints ive heard so far.
i genuinely dont understand the people who play FFXIV and dont engage with the story. its one of the games only redeeming qualities outside of genuinely cool RP (which i dont engage in, but it being there is just cool)
I'm 100% on board with separating dungeons/trials from the MSQ entirely – except when they are directly locked into the story. For example, the current MSQ duties should stay as-is because they were designed to literally be part of the MSQ back in ARR.
Beyond that, though.. nah. They can be separated.
For myself, I hate dungeons in FFXIV. And it's sad because dungeons are my favorite part of any MMO. I love dungeon-delving. Unfortunately, SE's rigid-linear-corridor-through-a-diorama-punctuated-by-undynamic-heavily-scripted-boss-platforms approach is is just uninspired and boring as hell. I'd gladly skip every dungeon in FFXIV entirely if it were possible. Their weird approach where over half the mechanics involve what the arena/platform is doing, instead of the boss itself, is just bizarre.
Personally, i would recommend ffxiv to any mmorpg player out there. Its really good in a few elements it does really well. There is a caveat with my recommendation though 😅 Max length of stay and play should be 2 years worth – the entire length of an expansion. Anything after that is a time sink because once all content has been done and explored, nothing new is coming. Or should i say, nothing you haven't done before. Spend some time, enjoy yourself, but also get out in a timely manner. Dont believe me? Wait till the next expansion drops and tell me whats different to what you did in the previous expansion? Appreciate the candid and honest views and video. I probably put in 5000 hours during Stormblood and left the game 1 month into Shadowbringers. It was fun, while it lasted.
I completely agree with most of your points in this video. Modding and cheats are the biggest reasons why I quit after 6k hours in the game. Why would I sweat my ass for something cool when Bobby with his space ship UAV UI can get it with basically no effort at all. I personally see no point in playing if players can do that with no consequences at all. Might be wrong, but I think the RPers are having the most fun in the game right now and the rest are kinda suffering in silence.
As a player that has played for 3 years i gotta say that this was a beautiful rant and i really liked the part about the MODDING, i have plenty of friends that all use fashion mods and LEWD ERP stuff and as a player that still haven´t touched modding, i try my hardest to make good glams with the vanilla stuff that we have and i might have bought a bit too many fantas and jet black dyes along the years but i have also got a lot of praise for the glams that i use, but goddamn the power of mods is overwhelming when you ask someone to show you what they can do with them, its really tempting but if i can make a modder check out my vanilla glam and be impressed then i see that as a WIN
(Also most of the ultimate legends just run around in pyjamas to us vanilla players and they look really lame, but they must be using fashion mods)
People hating on you for skipping story but you’re lucky, Dawntrail story has been awful so far, even role quests were more enjoyable. A new start point for new players is a good idea, alas the new story is so offputting.
Great video. Even as someone who is actively playing the game, I agree with so many of these points. I started in 2020, just before the Asmongold hype train, and the game used to be SO alive and so active. I loved how vocal everyone was. I loved talking to people. I loved people talking to me. Now most of the discussion you see is weirdly dressed people right at the aetheryte in a main city state. Emoting at each other over and over… I partied up with some folks to do FATE farming and tried to start a conversation twice. No response from the other people in my party. It was very sad since I think half of the fun of this game is the social aspect. I've joined and quit about 6 FCs just because NO ONE talks in the chat and none of the people even seem to know each other? And of course if I try to start my own then there's no one interested in joining. I dunno. I am still making my way through the story so I can't even attempt to engage with end game mechanics. I am pretty close to catching up, though. After 4 years of playing. edit: I am at 1472 hours. I have all my DoW classes above 50. I have all my DoH/DoL above 75. I like engaging in the side content a lot. That's partially why it has taken me so long.
Hey i don t know why there are so many harsh comments, i played ff14 since HW, i never skipped the story until DT, it was boring and worse than the base game story, i stopped raiding in shadowbringers because the incentives were not good enough for me, the glamours were pretty generic and playing raids just to get 2 points of ilvl that will be irrelevant next patch wasn t good either, the eureka and bozja, mmm i dont like that content, grindy content feels bad with 14's combat being so slow compared to games such as bdo or lost ark that are designed to keep u entertained while killing stuff (flashy moves and cool skills), and about the chat, yes the chat is always dead, the only time i interacted with people was when i had the access to mentor or returning player chat, even in Bdo people don t stop talking and interacting, i always play the msq, lvl up jobs that i like to max lvl and then leave until next expansion but still i noticed how people don t want to learn or just tryhard everything, i wish i could express more but hope u can keep enjoying more games and wish u a great year i also want ff14 to give us REAL new content
I have according to Steam around 11k hours played, and started back in 2.0ish.
The big problem with FFXIV is stagnation. The devs are terrified of change. Whenever they try something new, and it goes poorly, they just give up.
Island Sanctuary is one example, and I still don't understand what the hell they were thinking with that. Imagine adding an island that you build into something more, and it's 100% solo content in an MMO, and completely divorced from all the crafting & gathering systems, while also having some of the worse menu management & capture RNG possible.
The writing has gone from alright, to decent to downright painful.
Combat has gone from being wild and unpredictable, to being so predictable that you can pinpoint exactly what moves a boss will at the exact right second. As tank or healer you react to predictable situations, to the point that you have a "buff/heal rotation" – and things only divert if someone makes a mistake in the dance.
Moreover the jobs are painfully streamlined, rotations are basically set in stone so you'll almost always do the exact same thing over and over with no room for improvisation.
Dungeons are uninspired boring wall-to-wall pulling followed by bosses that hit like wimps, so if you're playing a healer you'll only be able to avoid narcolepsy if you have a trash tank or dps that stands in bad. Alliance raids get stomped on so hard from week 1 that you skip boss mechanics, old content is so trivialised that new and older players are not engaging at all with what's happening nor learning to improve – because the game never forces them to improve. Trials go from alright to good to downright trash, and sometimes the extreme trial is somehow worse than the normal. Even Bozja and Eureka has been effected by the power creep, despite being one of the few places where the game still feels like an mmo (mostly Eureka). The overworld is just set pieces with non-threatening mobs, and there's no point killing any of them beyond quests. Fates either melt so fast that a caster can barely finish a cast before it is gone, or takes forever because you're alone but the fate adjusted itself to the 20+ people in the zone. Treasure maps are no better, where you'll just have a bad time if you join a treasure hunt as a black mage, as the mobs will just melt with a party of the recommended size. Hunts are just moving training dummies that sometimes deal damage before melting to the train of people.
All combat outside of end-game raiding is boring.
Crafting & gathering has gotten so easy, that the market is always oversaturated with people who are omni-everything.
The game asks so little of you nowadays that it is difficult to stay focused or motivated when trying to desperately engage with it.
I'm sure the subscriber numbers are healthy for the game, but that's only because they've managed to reach such a wide audience of people, that when the "old guard" players drop out, it's not noticeable yet. I haven't been subscribed since end of Endwalker, and I've yet to see anything in Dawntrail that would convince me despite my love for what the game used to be.
Maybe the next expansion they'll have learnt something and improved, but I doubt it.
You're not alone… 1.0 player and I'm also out. I have even left all of my xiv discords as it has destroyed it's own community as well. I thought I would be sad to see it to the end when servers shut down but nope! Not going to lie I will return for a bit when I get a new phys ranged but I'm sure I won't get corsair and it will only be a month sub for whatever trash ranged class I get.
Sadly, for me the only thing that is keeping me subbed to this game is the mods. The storyline peaked in SHB and been downhill ever since then lol. My devoted friend recently left XIV after beating DT cuz he saw literally nothing has changed with the game. 😂😂😂😂
I am going to address your points each time I can from a very casual perspective. I have played up to the end of EW and have done a good chunk of raids and Alliance raids. I just want to provide a perspective that doesn't bash what you are saying.
Story & Progression
I do agree that the start of the game is too slow. Unlocking the Soul Crystal and the major mechanics of a class should happen sooner in ARR. That is the point of the story that is seen as boring and gameplay needs to be more interesting to keep players through this rough segment. I do not think skipping ten years of content (the Zodiark and Hydalen arc as you call it) is a good idea for two major reasons. 1) the game has designed itself around progressing through the MSQ. The MSQ is designed to pretty much bring a class to the ax level of that patch by the end of the MSQ. It would be extremely difficult to design classes around this skip. You would risk overflooding the player with things to do immediately. 2) The story of the game is important. It is one of the major selling points of the game that I have seen every player(veteran and new) talk about it in high regard. It just that everyone can admit that ARR (and SB to a lesser extent) have a "generic and uninteresting plot". Skipping all of that will leave many players confused as to the context to the content they are playing. I understand you don't like the story, but I have to say that you are in the minority when it comes to the story.
New content:
It sounds like you are more of an extreme player and not a casual player. One thing that I have noticed is that I like knowing the repetive cycle of content. As a casual player, new things to do would be fun, but I want the repetive content (the Raids, the Alliance raids, the MSQ, the extreme trails), to be of good quality first. FF14 is very casual friendly and I like it that way because it means I can take it at my own pace. I don't want FOMO content in the game because then it doesn't stay a game, it becomes more like a chore(something like Destiny or WoW comes to mind). I think its better for a game to cater a majority of its resources to its casual audience, then to their more hardcore fans. I agree that I would like more content from the developers, but to just call anything not new at this point boring or bad to me just signifies that you might be burnout of the game from playing over 10K hours
Crafters:
I wasn't interested in crafting so I never did it. I will take your word for it. I am sorry that crafting is dead but to me, crafting wasn't much fun or interesting so I just didn't do it. Most of my friends don't even have crafters leveled so I just can't comment on it. Plus, what is the point of gil besides buying a house and repairing gear?
Steam reviews:
Looking at the reviews of Dawntrail, it does seem to help your statement. A lot of discontent and some good criticism. But if you go to just the FF14 page and the reviews for the game in just the last 30 days, many reviews are positive and some with valid criticism. With that said I can't take the steam portion very seriously. Everyone has their opinions and I can respect that.
Overall, it seems like you are a more intensive gamer rather than a casual gamer. There is nothing wrong with that and I am sorry that you don't enjoy the game. it was pretty clear to me that the game was meant to cater to a casual audience so its understandable why you wouldn't enjoy the game at this point. In my time playing the game I haven't seen people who are stupid and don't know how to play their class so your rant toward the end made no sense. I see the inclusion of NPC for dungeons to be enjoyable when I want to get through the MSQ quickly and I don't want to wait for queue times.
To be honest, the only valid criticism that I see from you is: better gameplay progression from early game is needed, mods need to be regulated better(I mean they are meant to be illegal), and it would be nice to have extra game modes besides the usual. I am surprised you didn't touch upon some other issues like the streamlining of classes (2 min dps meta) or how the physical range class doesn't have much of a place right now.
Regardless, I just wanted to give you a different perspective that is respectful so you don't feel like everyone is disregarding what you are saying. Hope you have a nice day.
So I've played 14 since 1.0 launch, and 2.0 launch and have over 30k hours sunk into the game, I was one of about 32 max level crafters on the Besaid server in 1.0 at the end of it and made most of my current gil during the 2.0-3.0 timeframe but that was because the overall number of people maxing out crafters was limited and most of that was due to some very specific time gates/tedium in leveling those jobs. Some of the main pain points were darksteel/camphor logs as well as a specific timed botany node that gave about 2 threads per cycle so making gil through crafting was "easier" because of some very specific pain points that gatekept higher end crafting and that limited the number of max crafters to those who pushed past that tedium. Now more people have maxxed out their crafters and thus the overall price of crafted goods have dropped, add in the availability of server and DC travel and you suddenly have even more competition for pricing driving down costs.
As for skipping the story, well from 2.0 forwards the game has been story first at every point and skipping it absolutely can reduce the enjoyment of the game and the player investment into the game as a whole and is a rather solid story for an rpg and possibly the best mmo story so far. While you hit 10k hours played I think that shows that you got to experience quite a bit of content that was available outside of the story (so maybe it was worth while for that) but there's only so much content in any one game. I do wish we got more content from SE but I don't expect swift changes from a japanese owned company nor do I expect a massive change in trends for the overall development of XIV, it's going to have the consistent patch cycle with some experimental content here and there but that's about it. Though we did get deep dungeons in Hw/SB/ and EW, we got criterion dungeons in ew, a new difficulty of alliance raid as well in DT, got island exploration in EW as well. We've seen more additions to the golden saucer over time but in the end every sandbox mmo is limited by the time the game has been out and the duration of their patch cycles. WoW sufffers a similar issue with it having "tons" of content from previous expansions that outside of cosmetics and toys is pretty much irrelevant (while atleast XIV rewards you for queueing roulettes), I do think SE could do with brining back (hard) difficulty dungeons reusing the dungeon assets for a new side story and dungeon content to break up the limited content of expert/ lvl90 roulettes.
The one thing with XIV is it's a game you can sub for 2 months, drop for 4 months and resub for 2 months and still get your moneys worth experience wise. Yoshi-P Lead producer/director for XIV has answered Q&A questions about being burnt out or running out of content consistently with "Unsub and come back later if your feeling this way, have fun experiencing other games instead." I really do think people who play XIV and have come from other mmo's need to understand that XIV is not runescape/wow/new world/ESO where you have to maintain a constant sub and grind to continue to do relevant content and that taking breaks is fine, unsubbing for a year and trying other games is fine, going out and having fun doing other stuff is fine, that you don't need a constant nose to the grindwheel playstyle to enjoy the game is actually a good thing about XIV and not a negative. The content will be there when you come back.
I will agree the game is "falling off" but I think that's more attributable to XIV finishing a narrative arc with EW and people who started in 2.0 finally hitting a point where they feel comfortable dropping the game for a while and returning later or never again. As for the whole the game is too formulaic argument I'd agree but with the stipulation that formulaic doesn't have to mean bad, just that the expectations after ShB/EW seem to have only gotten larger while the team working on XIV hasn't grown significantly. Until SE actually invests in growing the team developing the game I don't think you'll see any shifts in the formula. As for the narrative being formulaic, well every story has a formula, that's just how storytelling works and EW/DT is definitely the building up of another story arc that won't see pay off for a while judging from current pacing.
how do you play 10k hours without every doing an ult or the story lol. I would have quit as well if I never got into ultis, grinding a fight for months to finally get the clear is one of the best feelings in gaming. Also don't need a static for it, every ult is pfable.
Oh look, another Final Fantasy XIV expansion. Because, clearly, there’s nothing more exciting than doing the same damn thing for the hundredth time. New zones to run through, more raids where half the community will still fail every mechanic even though they’ve been out for months. And, of course, the story is just so riveting—another ‘save the world’ plot with characters that nobody really cares about, because we’ve all seen them cry and talk about their feelings a million times. But hey, it’s not about quality, right? It’s about grinding your 27th job to level 100 while running the same recycled dungeons for the 200th time. And let’s not forget the mounts—because that’s totally what keeps the game interesting, right? Grinding for hours just to show off to the 6 people in your friend’s list who actually notice. Oh, and don’t forget: you can’t even mount up in Limsa, btw, but who cares? You’re in that godforsaken city all the time anyway, so it’s not like it matters. And let’s talk about those dungeons for a second: not a single run where a healer hasn’t died at least once, but sure, let’s pretend this is ‘challenging content’ instead of a poorly executed mess. But the best part? The community. Nothing says ‘fun’ like a bunch of elitists who’ll mock you for not knowing the perfect rotation, while acting like they don’t spend 90% of their day in a Discord server complaining about the game. Seriously, it’s amazing how people have convinced themselves this never-ending cycle is anything more than a glorified hamster wheel. 10/10 would waste another year of my life, though!
Can you like just quit without some grand goodbye, i wish people would just hop over to another game without having to annouce it theyre leaving their current game
The sheer amount of insubstantial backlash this video is getting is…disappointing. Y'all need to learn accept criticism of the things you enjoy and, if you disagree, come up with some actual points of conversation. Criticism is extremely valuable for improvement. If you mindlessly defend something's imperfections, it will not improve.
(btw if you 'totally don't care' you wouldn't be commenting. that's something people do when they care)
skipped the story? 10k hours? you're built different. i liked the story a lot and loved raiding but haven't touched dawntrail yet. but yeah idk if i can relate to your experience friend
the msq wall for new players is a real thing, all of my friends watched the gameplay, the combat and they really got interested, and some really liked the game, but they end up giving up or quitting, either being a new player with less 50h or a veteran with 2 expansions of gameplay, only because of the quests, way too many quests to unlock content.
even I started to get tired of this game, I don't like to skip cutscenes because if I do, I will lose the best part of it, the imersion is better when you are following the story as we do the dungeonstrials.
but I feel more and more that I waste a lot of money of my sub on the quests, because since Shadowbringers, I feel that the story tries to clickbait to do some really serious stuff but is just a Shonen Anime and mostly predictable, only very few moments are really actually good, and since I'm spending a sub on those, it ends up me being more critical with my time spend there, and it ends up being a not so good experience.
only about 16 mins in, and ill have to come back to the video because im giga tired from my 3rd shift. but so far it just seems like FFXIV wasnt a game for you. which is insane to say to someone who has 10k hours in it, but i dont see why you wound up sticking with it for so long.
you might wanna try world of warcraft, it seems to be an answer to the complaints ive heard so far.
i genuinely dont understand the people who play FFXIV and dont engage with the story. its one of the games only redeeming qualities outside of genuinely cool RP (which i dont engage in, but it being there is just cool)
I'm 100% on board with separating dungeons/trials from the MSQ entirely – except when they are directly locked into the story. For example, the current MSQ duties should stay as-is because they were designed to literally be part of the MSQ back in ARR.
Beyond that, though.. nah. They can be separated.
For myself, I hate dungeons in FFXIV. And it's sad because dungeons are my favorite part of any MMO. I love dungeon-delving. Unfortunately, SE's rigid-linear-corridor-through-a-diorama-punctuated-by-undynamic-heavily-scripted-boss-platforms approach is is just uninspired and boring as hell. I'd gladly skip every dungeon in FFXIV entirely if it were possible. Their weird approach where over half the mechanics involve what the arena/platform is doing, instead of the boss itself, is just bizarre.
Personally, i would recommend ffxiv to any mmorpg player out there. Its really good in a few elements it does really well. There is a caveat with my recommendation though 😅
Max length of stay and play should be 2 years worth – the entire length of an expansion.
Anything after that is a time sink because once all content has been done and explored, nothing new is coming. Or should i say, nothing you haven't done before.
Spend some time, enjoy yourself, but also get out in a timely manner.
Dont believe me? Wait till the next expansion drops and tell me whats different to what you did in the previous expansion?
Appreciate the candid and honest views and video. I probably put in 5000 hours during Stormblood and left the game 1 month into Shadowbringers. It was fun, while it lasted.
good choice, have fun, i hope the spark / game quality returns
“I like to play MMORPGs but I skipped the story” ok so go play fornite or cod lol wtf hahahaha no reason to listen anymore freaking hilarious.
I completely agree with most of your points in this video. Modding and cheats are the biggest reasons why I quit after 6k hours in the game. Why would I sweat my ass for something cool when Bobby with his space ship UAV UI can get it with basically no effort at all. I personally see no point in playing if players can do that with no consequences at all. Might be wrong, but I think the RPers are having the most fun in the game right now and the rest are kinda suffering in silence.
As a player that has played for 3 years i gotta say that this was a beautiful rant and i really liked the part about the MODDING, i have plenty of friends that all use fashion mods and LEWD ERP stuff and as a player that still haven´t touched modding, i try my hardest to make good glams with the vanilla stuff that we have and i might have bought a bit too many fantas and jet black dyes along the years but i have also got a lot of praise for the glams that i use, but goddamn the power of mods is overwhelming when you ask someone to show you what they can do with them, its really tempting but if i can make a modder check out my vanilla glam and be impressed then i see that as a WIN
(Also most of the ultimate legends just run around in pyjamas to us vanilla players and they look really lame, but they must be using fashion mods)
People hating on you for skipping story but you’re lucky, Dawntrail story has been awful so far, even role quests were more enjoyable. A new start point for new players is a good idea, alas the new story is so offputting.
Great video. Even as someone who is actively playing the game, I agree with so many of these points. I started in 2020, just before the Asmongold hype train, and the game used to be SO alive and so active. I loved how vocal everyone was. I loved talking to people. I loved people talking to me. Now most of the discussion you see is weirdly dressed people right at the aetheryte in a main city state. Emoting at each other over and over… I partied up with some folks to do FATE farming and tried to start a conversation twice. No response from the other people in my party. It was very sad since I think half of the fun of this game is the social aspect. I've joined and quit about 6 FCs just because NO ONE talks in the chat and none of the people even seem to know each other? And of course if I try to start my own then there's no one interested in joining.
I dunno. I am still making my way through the story so I can't even attempt to engage with end game mechanics. I am pretty close to catching up, though. After 4 years of playing.
edit: I am at 1472 hours. I have all my DoW classes above 50. I have all my DoH/DoL above 75. I like engaging in the side content a lot. That's partially why it has taken me so long.
Hey i don t know why there are so many harsh comments, i played ff14 since HW, i never skipped the story until DT, it was boring and worse than the base game story, i stopped raiding in shadowbringers because the incentives were not good enough for me, the glamours were pretty generic and playing raids just to get 2 points of ilvl that will be irrelevant next patch wasn t good either, the eureka and bozja, mmm i dont like that content, grindy content feels bad with 14's combat being so slow compared to games such as bdo or lost ark that are designed to keep u entertained while killing stuff (flashy moves and cool skills), and about the chat, yes the chat is always dead, the only time i interacted with people was when i had the access to mentor or returning player chat, even in Bdo people don t stop talking and interacting, i always play the msq, lvl up jobs that i like to max lvl and then leave until next expansion but still i noticed how people don t want to learn or just tryhard everything, i wish i could express more but hope u can keep enjoying more games and wish u a great year i also want ff14 to give us REAL new content
I have according to Steam around 11k hours played, and started back in 2.0ish.
The big problem with FFXIV is stagnation. The devs are terrified of change. Whenever they try something new, and it goes poorly, they just give up.
Island Sanctuary is one example, and I still don't understand what the hell they were thinking with that. Imagine adding an island that you build into something more, and it's 100% solo content in an MMO, and completely divorced from all the crafting & gathering systems, while also having some of the worse menu management & capture RNG possible.
The writing has gone from alright, to decent to downright painful.
Combat has gone from being wild and unpredictable, to being so predictable that you can pinpoint exactly what moves a boss will at the exact right second. As tank or healer you react to predictable situations, to the point that you have a "buff/heal rotation" – and things only divert if someone makes a mistake in the dance.
Moreover the jobs are painfully streamlined, rotations are basically set in stone so you'll almost always do the exact same thing over and over with no room for improvisation.
Dungeons are uninspired boring wall-to-wall pulling followed by bosses that hit like wimps, so if you're playing a healer you'll only be able to avoid narcolepsy if you have a trash tank or dps that stands in bad.
Alliance raids get stomped on so hard from week 1 that you skip boss mechanics, old content is so trivialised that new and older players are not engaging at all with what's happening nor learning to improve – because the game never forces them to improve.
Trials go from alright to good to downright trash, and sometimes the extreme trial is somehow worse than the normal.
Even Bozja and Eureka has been effected by the power creep, despite being one of the few places where the game still feels like an mmo (mostly Eureka).
The overworld is just set pieces with non-threatening mobs, and there's no point killing any of them beyond quests.
Fates either melt so fast that a caster can barely finish a cast before it is gone, or takes forever because you're alone but the fate adjusted itself to the 20+ people in the zone.
Treasure maps are no better, where you'll just have a bad time if you join a treasure hunt as a black mage, as the mobs will just melt with a party of the recommended size.
Hunts are just moving training dummies that sometimes deal damage before melting to the train of people.
All combat outside of end-game raiding is boring.
Crafting & gathering has gotten so easy, that the market is always oversaturated with people who are omni-everything.
The game asks so little of you nowadays that it is difficult to stay focused or motivated when trying to desperately engage with it.
I'm sure the subscriber numbers are healthy for the game, but that's only because they've managed to reach such a wide audience of people, that when the "old guard" players drop out, it's not noticeable yet. I haven't been subscribed since end of Endwalker, and I've yet to see anything in Dawntrail that would convince me despite my love for what the game used to be.
Maybe the next expansion they'll have learnt something and improved, but I doubt it.
You're not alone… 1.0 player and I'm also out. I have even left all of my xiv discords as it has destroyed it's own community as well. I thought I would be sad to see it to the end when servers shut down but nope! Not going to lie I will return for a bit when I get a new phys ranged but I'm sure I won't get corsair and it will only be a month sub for whatever trash ranged class I get.
Sadly, for me the only thing that is keeping me subbed to this game is the mods. The storyline peaked in SHB and been downhill ever since then lol. My devoted friend recently left XIV after beating DT cuz he saw literally nothing has changed with the game. 😂😂😂😂