This has been nagging at me for a lil while now, but instead of complaining left right and center I wanted to quickly express my experience with FFXIV as a product over the years. The things I hated, the things I loved, and the things I wish to see in the future. I understand not everyone will agree with me, so maybe it’s time to see if my feelings belong here. Thanks ahead of time for become part of this conversation!
#ffxiv #dawntrail #gaming
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The thing with big changes is that there are always growing pains, getting worse before they get better. With how pandering the dev team has acted as of late, I’m worried that even if they start making changes, the people with 0 patience will start throwing another tantrum when things aren’t immediately perfect, which will in turn dissuade the devs from trying that ever again.
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.
The most community inspiring "content" I took part in while playing FFXIV was when a Dev spawned empire mobs inside the city of Ul'Dah for people to fight the night before the 1.0 servers were going down. The feeling of "the city is under attack!" Stuck with me and I've urned for that feeling again. The gravitas of coming together to stop something bad from happening that had real consequences. FFXIV now is a world without danger, surprise and real consequence. The first thing I would do is bring back 1.0's materia system where theres no "slots". It's like 100% for the first 80% for the second, etc… and if you fail a meld, you lose the piece. Consequences…
The story wasn't the best, but I did enjoy it until everyone picked it apart. Now I'm just upset and enjoying the game less because I could not move on on my own, everyone just keeps talking about how awful it is and wont let the subject die
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…
Squee Enix "panders" to the wrong part of the audience
I joined during ShB and absolutely became addicted to the game, but my enjoyment of it very rapidly decreased due to drama causing multiple of my FCs to break up to the point that it felt like it was too much work to try to find a new group of people to try to be part of. Also the writing declined sharply after ShB in my opinion so I also didn't enjoy the story as much in Endwalker.
15:22 Anyone remember farming Drakes for their relic back in the day? Better than endwalker relics.
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.
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.
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.
🕯🔥🌧🌈
Honestly im probably going to be unsubbed for the rest of Dawntrail… I just dont care anymore. WoW is more fun. I used to hate WoW. Its so weird how thats come full circle.
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
The mobile game has 0 to do with CBU3 outside or prividing assets and approving things. It's entirely made by and mostly contoled the company making it.
As a FFXIV player since the ARR 2.0 beta test, seeing how much the game changed overtime has been an experience.
At present, time and responsibilities keep me from wanting to fulfill the completionist in me so there will always be content for me to do, when I get to them eventually. I still enjoy MSQ and the other side stories here and there, to an extent, but the main gripe that gets me has definitely been the job changes.
Sure, there have been some positive changes that have kept me from trying out specific Jobs because I thought they seemed complicated to play, but the complications definitely made the Jobs interesting. I've played Summoner since day one and loved the absolute heck out of what they did with the Job. It wasn't the "original concept" of what a FF Summoner was, until now, but the challenges that came with it made the experience fun. Today, I still consider myself as a Summoner main, but when it comes to raiding, I decided to pick up the brush. Pictomancer's introduction, to me, made the game fun and challenging again. Took me a bit to understand how to play the Job properly, but it isn't as brain dead as what Summoner is today. I like to keep my hands busy and use my head to figure out the right times to use abilities, Pictomancer allows me to do that. There are times that I definitely miss the old days of DoT Summoner cause I definitely had fun playing that role in raids.
I want to continue playing this MMO for a long time but hope that the developers can recognize the baseless feedback versus the legitimate feedback from players who want to see the game live and thrive for the better – the bottom line, to not make the game TOO easy (hand holding) that it starts to feel boring.
I do think they need to do something to spice up the jobs. Even before Dawntrail released I said that they shouldn't just add ten levels on, but do something to add variety. Instead of adding more jobs. It doesn't even have to be particularly difficult.
And – though I will probably get flack for this – maybe we need to have a little less focus on pure damage output. I think that there should be more support for, well, support. I main RDM because I enjoy that feeling of being able to support the party in ways outside of pure damage. But I also think that 'taxing' support on jobs isn't a good idea. If you're already choosing to focus on support during game play, then there isn't any need to discourage people from that role by punishing them with lower DPS right from the start.
Back when I played Aion (before the greed took over and destroyed that game) there was a stone that you could slot in to change some of your skills. I played a 'control' sorcerer. It wasn't a popular choice, and certainly not the 'meta' of the time, but I took enormous satisfaction in being able to thin out waves of attackers by holding some of them in place while the rest were dealt with by the other DPS. That feeling is the same reason I play RDM now. It's not just 'kill the thing' but having to keep an eye on the situation and help out as needed.
Maybe there needs to be more of that. Flavour to the job classes that focusses on the unique things that they bring to the game, rather than trying to balance strictly on damage output.
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…
What I believe the main thing that led to this is the fact that when they create something that is not great, players complain with the voice so loud that you would believe whatever they've added just killed every part of FFXIV. Something goes sliglty wrong and people scream like they're being personally attacked with little to no explanation why they feel that way. But also not giving them positive feedback should things go their way.
Imagine you're handling a toddler. You left them alone for a short time and then you hear them crying, screeching. When you ask them why they just point to the nearest table. So you take away the table thinking it was reason why. But now the toddler is sulking because that table had a funny design they liked and the reason they were crying is something they saw on top of the table.
Im enjoying everything still i only log in to raid tho so I don't think this is not an opinion i can add on. I like the fights and i do them all the time dont care for most of the other content. I don't mind the job design either lol. Picto needs a nerf tho.
Feels like the talk of what jobs lost is the perfect set up for a point I made to my fc once, why not a skill tree that allows for different stuff, slight tweaks, different skills, etc I can see why not however not fully but I can see it
Maybe not a tree by standard, instead a skill board you can pick and choose upgrades in different ways for specific stuff like, salted earth getting an upgrade allowing manual placement anywhere, that can be toggled
Edit: dunno much, not a dev, just a fan speaking nonsense
I get what you're saying about "homogenization" of the jobs.
World of Warcraft has been doing that since Mists of Pandaria. You want to heal as a Paladin, then you have to do Holy Paladin. Retribution Paladin saw most of its useful healing spells taken away and the concept of the "emergency" or "back-up" healer was effectively removed from the game as this didn't just affect Paladin, but all classes that let you fill more than one role.
With that said, I still thing FF14 does a good job with it. I still feel their is enough difference between Summoner and Black Mage and Pictomancer and Red Mage, for example that they still feel different, at least to me. I don't play Black Mage because I don't like how it feels, but I do Summoner and Pictomancer and Red Mage because I do. I can see though, having tried some of the tanking and healing jobs and having tried a few physical DPS jobs where the homogenization is much more noticeable.
Sorry for the long babble. I still really like FF14. The story telling is way better than WOW and though Endwalker offered nothing really new and Dawn Trail is weak, so far, in the story telling, I still think they are both significantly better to WOW's weakest entries. Shadowlands was disliked by players and critics alike (I stopped playing for about 4 months as much because the story was so bad) and Warlords of Draenor was viewed as weak because of all the content that was cut, tough the story was not bad.
I really like and appreciate your videos. I smile when I see a new one. Keep up the great work. It is appreciated.
I think final fantasy should remove the mandatory monthly subscription, nothing justifies paying for the subscription right now, they should make it optional.
Another day, another video complaining about FFXIV
I started it on PS3, I just think we need a brand new MMO. It feels like it should move to mobile now. After you finish the content there is nothing to do… Why bother with reclears? The is no MMO anyway, the world is empty.
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)
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.
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.
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.
I came into Dark Knight near the end of Shadow Bringers's run. I was very sad about plung because it was just a fun flip I enjoyed being able to do. I was completely unaware of it's magical side and am now even more sad I missed it. I enjoy modern Dark Knight, but I bet I would have loved the old system twice as much.
I mostly agree with your thoughts, but I've never been a big fan of that "job homogenization" 'cause I simply don't see it. Could jobs have more personality? sure, but that's it, at least from my point of view (they also said they're planning on doing that next expansion, with DT being the combat encounters change expansion, with btw, most people are loving).
However, this problem has always existed and always will in every aspect of life. If things go well and people love it, do you really think there will be tons of posts in the forums saying how great something is? Obviously NOT. What do we have instead? thousands of crybabies asking for a more casual and easy content because they have to press more than one button. Again, what do you see on the forums? … case closed, buddy.
If you, PLAYERS, want things to be like before, or you enjoy the content, TELL THE DEVS, be more noisy than the crybabies' bullshit.
PS: Also, someone on the comment section said that Solution 9 and all that futuristic shit is out of lore and doesn't relate with anything 14 has built over the years and I wanted to say with respect to that that I HATED when Solution 9 was the new hub for combat things, ugh. It's disgusting, confusing and horrible, can we please do as if nothing Solution 9 related ever existed from 7.2 onwards? Thank you.
Writing this while 2/3rds of the way through but commenting alongside it
I'm sorry to hear that the game has been a miss for you. I started in ShB and been subbed since. I personally loved EW, and even DT but will say for EW the content was just strange. I appreciated the solo content stuff just bc I kept getting left behind from my friends groups. Criterion, Variant, and Island Sanctuary were really unique new types of content and though the Island is OKAY, but Crit/Variant were amazing imo. I 100% believe all of this is from a push from Square to appeal to the new players who came in late ShB/EW. Though no, over appealing to new players to make things easier can't be done too much incase of over correcting. That is bad and I think they toed the line a bit too much. With that, also likely having things be slowed down due to COVID and also moving some staff to XVI on top of each other.
Job Homogenization. I mean things aren't so clear cut the same that it doesn't feel like there is nothing unique per job. I think they should lean into what they said in interviews where 8.0 is gonna be the payoff of how they are balancing things now, but I think with how they are doing fights and the positive reception of it, they are gonna take that positive and take it into their job design. But again rn I don't think where things are is bad really! Homogenization removes negative interactions and makes things easier to balance, but ofc not everything and things like PCT are still wild. There is and will always be a meta yes, however its just that, most efficient team assembly or whatever its an acronym for. It isn't like previous stories of the raid scene where some jobs could not be played in PF for savage or even EXs were locked. We have people opting for PCT over RDM/SMN, but thats more "this is so good here" rather than "this is so bad everywhere". Again if they go anywhere with how they do jobs, I hope they lean more towards uniqueness, they simplified things and I think they still have a feeling that makes each unique, but it needs to be an effort to now improve that feeling.
I am an achievement hunter in game so when people ask "what is there to do in the game" I can list off so much and people are shocked how even the dumbest grinds (Like gathering a total of like, 8000 items per ARR main area) enjoyable. But people don't try out old relics and zone exploration, or deep dungeons, or BLU, ocean fishing, ishgard restoration, variant/criterion, island, ultimates, hunts, FATE farming, just making money, savage, mentor roulette, triple triad, pvp, lord of verminion, mount and minion collecting, even fukin CHOCOBO RACING. Even if its not as engaging and its such a grueling task compared to some things, it gives you so many goals. When I ask the people questioning how I have things to do in this game, I ask what they do. Raid maybe. Level jobs. Like okay. Sick. You only tried like 10% of the game to be quiet honest. Now go and give an honest effort for all these other things no matter how stupid they may be. I do always look at things in a positive light cause its a lot of energy being negative and saying the same things over and over again though it isn't something someone should always try to do. I don't force myself to enjoy myself doing stuff, and I don't try to make scenarios up in my head on how I think the dev team is perfect with how they handle the game. I just try to keep an open mind and keep in check how somethings in the game make me feel, and how and why it made me feel that way in a constructive, and not purely subjective way. If someone disagrees im interested in hearing why, because either I expand my views and lens on said topic, or I feel more confident with my opinion.
Anyways I yapped a long yap sorry, idk if I hit all the topics I wanted to respond with but I tried haha. If you do take a break don't feel bad about it though, burning out and forcing yourself to keep going doing the same things isn't gonna be good on yer mind
Personally, I went on break and effectively quit 14 back at the end of September. I realized while doing dailies that I just wasn't having fun anymore. All my favorite classes got fundamentally changed and content just started to feel samey at all levels. It just wasn't worth the subscription cost to me anymore.
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.
I agree with you. I’ve felt this way for such a long time
I've been playing since Stormblood and have 11k hours in the game, safe to say, it's a game I love, but with Dawntrails 1st savage tier I think what had been building since around 5.55 finally came to a boil: I no longer enjoy playing this game. Most of the content they do release that isn't just story based que complete and never do again like 24 mans or 8 man normals, is done via PF in which dealing with other players has always been tiring but the content is just not worth the hassle of it anymore tbh.
This savage tier truly wasn't terrible, but it was also immensely bland, full of filler stack/spread/partner protean in/out knockback mechanics the community has gaslit themselves into thinking is the only way that encounters have to be designed and that's it. I mean what else do you expect them to do…innovate? Sure, when one fight has a bit more fillery mechanics with some fun execution that's fine, M1S by itself being that would be fine, it's a neat little mostly execution based fight that has that platforms mechanic that is at least funny to see people mess up.
But when most of the savages just default to having 1 mechanic that is cool and fun and the rest is all bare bones filler nonsense with a fresh coat of paint, I am sorry, I am fatigued by this point. Even ultimates are moving in this direction with FRU and this is just criminal to me.
I get a feeling a certain square department is responsible for this… the department that collect player data opinion…
Post-ShB baby here (caught up in post-EW). I loved the story and the lore. I have the Encyclopedias Eorzea, I had a plan (somewhat inspired by this channel) to start a "tour guide" RP where I would lead people around different zones and show them lore and history and neat areas. I was a bit disappointed with the job system being shallow once I got into it (and I never got into it very heavily), but I still really enjoyed the game, save for the EW fights that I found really, REALLY boring. I was super excited to go into Dawntrail, I had my backpack ready and was hyped for a new chapter. Sure, post-EW was underwhelming on both story and gameplay levels (although I felt that Myths of the Realm was a good epilogue to EW storywise), but a small lull was fine, and I had a lot of stuff to catch up on.
So I started DT and… loathed it. The story is genuinely the most insulting in the history of the FF franchise. I could go into MANY details, but I don't think it would serve much purpose here. ARR wasn't a good story either, but it looks like a masterpiece in comparison. But how were the fights? Well, I really enjoyed them!… At first. The new mechanics were fun, the bosses actually did enough damage that I had to use my kit a little as scholar, it was cool stuff. The first boss of Origenics wiped my party of all-newbies seven or eight times before we took it down, IT WAS GREAT. But once we got good gear, fights were pretty well trivialized.
In post-game, the fights were pretty fun again! I got into Extreme and Savage as well, and… didn't enjoy it at all. And I realized that was down to a design philosophy: There were NO DYNAMIC ELEMENTS to anything in the fight. It was all rote memorization. Every attack is on a timer, in a preordained order. Sometimes you'll get Valigarmanda having a random chance of ice or wind phase, but those phases are STATIC. Once the phase is locked in, every attack will function in the exact same way every single time.
I enjoy the Dark Souls games and Bloodborne. I HATE Celeste and Shovel Knight. Both require lots of time and effort to learn, but there's a fundamental design difference: Every move you make in a Souls game dynamically changes how the boss reacts to you – if you roll left instead of rolling right or your roll is a quarter second different from what you had practiced, you have to adjust and watch what the boss is doing. In Celeste, you must memorize a jumping order and practice it until your reaction times are perfect. Those jumps will never, ever change.
And I realized that Savage – and all other content in FFXIV – has taken the Celeste route. You memorize where to stand, you memorize what abilities to use at certain times, and you parctice your reflexes until you're perfect. It's homework without anything unpredictable. Fighting stuff like the Coils of Bahamut on MINE, I know that we had bosses that had to be positioned by the tank (now they just warp to the middle for every mechanic, no positioning necessary), I know that there were neat ideas like "don't run through the boss's hitbox or you die." Some small things that make us THINK the slightest bit in the middle of the fight. I enjoy a lot of normal content because everybody has forgotten how each fight works, so you're making it up on the fly and people are getting nailed and there's a constant variation in how bad your party is. But in the hard mode content, everybody must be on a higher level, and there won't be that dynamic level of party skill – if one person fails, the whole team is probably going down, so EVERYBODY must be perfectly on target… and that's no fun if EVERY FIGHT is memorization that doesn't even need tanks moving the boss around the arena. Everything is Simon Says, and Simon will always say the same thing every time.
Now, let's talk jobs. All content prior to whatever is current is trivialized by gear being WAY too strong. Even if a new player is coming in with gear that is just good enough, the other members of the party will be overgeared and can carry the newbie. This means that new players don't even have to learn how their jobs work, because honestly, the newbie will be superfluous. I am a case in point: I DID NOT KNOW HOW ANY OF MY ABILITIES WORKED UNTIL ALZADAAL'S LEGACY. I was scholar. Lustrate and adloquium were enough to keep people alive through 99% of content in the game. I got shamed by my tank (he stopped and said that he needed to get his invuln back before the next mob – pretty hilarious shade tbh) and went onto Icy Veins and learned what scholar did. And I said "WOW, THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO MY JOB THAN I THOUGHT!" It was super cool. And then I really enjoyed the fights in DT… but the moment I got overgeared, it was ridiculously trivialized, because using all my abilities meant that I had a ridiculous wealth of options that were all so amazingly strong that nothing could ever take us out. We have at least THREE "nobody dies" buttons that all do pretty much the same thing: Dissipate, Seraph, and Seraphism. They boost our skills to make us super healers. In all normal content, they are interchangeable. In harder content, they're still pretty interchangeable. So long as we keep our MP up and don't stand in mechanics, we rarely have any cases where we have any sort of struggle. We supposedly had a fairy once, but now it's just a few OGCD buttons, it may as well not exist.
The job has LOADS of buttons, but many of them are interchangeable and I can press them in just about any order. My super abilities are most interchangeable. My job fantasy (a general commanding troops and moving them about the battlefield… also there's a pet!) is so far removed from the actual work of "put up shields before that next attack hits" that I just scratch my head in confusion. (I'd love more wild movement abilities like Expedient – give us targeted rescue casts to move people around the arena fast AND MAKE FIGHTS THAT ACTUALLY REWARD THIS PLAY.) I don't feel like a scholar, I just feel like a pre-emptive white mage.
And although all of this came to a head in DT, I don't think it would have bothered me nearly as much if the story was strong. But it's a disaster. Tural is so simplistic and childlike that I even lost my desire to explore Eorzea and share my love of this world. (It doesn't help that travel in this game is so utterly dull. There are no dangerous monsters, mounts can just outrun everything even if monsters were dangerous, it is all SO BORING.) It is the anvil that broke the camel's back – there were already too many straws, but the story just destroyed any anticipation I had for doing ANYTHING at all.
And I'm heartbroken. I love FFXIV. Deeply. But I'm just… tired. I look at this expansion and I don't even have the energy to hate it. If I hated it, I'd have some passion that would maybe make me come back if I heard that the new stuff in upcoming patches is good. But instead of hatred, I feel crushing disappointment. I just don't see how I can care again. I'll still come back for 8.0. I may come back earlier if friends really bug me. But I've stopped caring about a world that used to be special to me. I don't have the long history of playing since 1.0 or 2.0 – I'm a relatively new player – but this game was special, not so long ago.
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.
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.
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.
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I think more customizable jobs would go a long way. Keep the numbers the same, but if someone wants a 1 2 3 rotation, they should be able to do one. If someone wants a 1 1 1 rotation, they should be able to do that too. Dont reward 1 2 3s with more dps, just make it purely based on what you prefer from a feel standpoint. If you want to press a button to crit, you can. If you dont, you don't need to. Let SAMs use kaiten, but don't punish those that don't use it, you know? Maybe use roles as a baseline. All jobs in that role do equal rdps/healing/mitigation, but each job does it much differently than each other. Buffs, debuffs, dots, etc. It's a "have your cake and eat it too" sure but right now you have people wanting simplicity, people wanting complexity, and people wanting single percentage balance yelling at each other and the devs being slammed whenever they choose one or the other.
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?".
I started playing during covid before endwalker released so I've gotten like 4 years down at this point. I've just started playing other things now. I gone back to single players games and only really logged on for raid groups and FC stuff and even some of that I've gone to less and less because when i get that party invite and I stare at all 21 of these jobs, there's just nothing thats enticing me to play it. ive had more fun this expansion dying to random mobs in 11 than i have playing this game. MSQ just made me disengage from the side content entirely, i mostly did things like jobs quests after msq but because the actual threads for the story that i wanted to see in dawntrail were so undercooked or neglected, i've lost a lot of interest in the world around those quests.
If i were to be as cynical as possible, I'd say that this game is currently surviving on comfortable apathy. Most people will get thrown some glamour or some potency changes or maybe some skill shuffling and they'll be happy but eventually even those people are going to get bored and stop caring and when they stop caring, they'll stop subbing.
FF14 will forever be a masterpiece dear to my heart.
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…
Former Dark Knight main here: I ended up dropping it towards the tail end of ShB because of how bland and slow it felt. I missed the more chaotic systems I had learned in StB when I started playing. And you're right that this has just worsened across the board. There's not a single class I feel interested in playing, and that has the biggest killer of my interest in FF14. I can live through a poorly planned and written story (I remember StB on release, I remember everyone crying the game was dead before ShB) as long as there's fun things to DO. And right now, there's really not.
FFXIV is cursed to be SE's cashcow sadly, funding… 'interesting' projects and putting the minimal amount of resources back into the game itself.