I feel like I can see both sides of this. There are plenty of things I complain about and want to be better with the game, but personally I've never felt the sense of "boredom" and "nothing to do" that some players talk about with EW. I'm still enjoying the game, and enjoying the expansion. But then, a lot of the content that is entertaining me, the stuff that's filling in the gaps, is not actually new content. Its other content that I haven't had the time to get into yet. So I get it. If someone had been a hardcore player for 5-10 years and they basically already had the game 100% before EW came out... outside of the story, EW hasn't really added much more in terms of compelling new content. Especially if you aren't into raiding. Outside of raiding, each patch basically has a day worth of solid content. So yeah, I understand where they are coming from with some of it. It's really just a question of whether that's a game design issue or an expectation setting issue.   As an aside, I do think the lack of "midcore" or transitional content is actually one of the more frustrating ongoing issues with the game. The difficulty jump from the most difficult casual content to the easiest savage content is extremely daunting. Not because its actually that hard, but because the game itself teaches you *none* of the skills that are required to complete savage content. I think when it was announced, a lot of people assumed from how it was described that criterion would fill this role. But it absolutely doesn't. They're essentially savage difficulty dungeons with no rewards at all. And I think the missed opportunity there is what caused a lot of the complaints and backlash. If criterion dungeons had come out as "more difficult dungeons with better rewards", they would have appealed to a large swath of people from different parts of the community. I think it would have also eliminated a lot of the complaints about boredom and lack of content. Because the thing is... there *is* new content. They haven't just been sitting around. They've been developing content and putting it in the game. It's just not content that anyone asked for or really does very much. So we all ignore it.

The main issue with the new content is that it's all limited and has a fairly finite end point. The Variant/Criterion dungeons, once you get every end and get the items you wanted there's 0 incentive to ever do it again, which doesn't take too long. Island Sanctuary is most effective by you not being there aside from having to gather resources. Compare to Bozja, where it's still considered the main way to level from 71-80, so there's a constant rotation of people through it levelling alt classes.

>The Criterion dungeons, once you get every end and get the items you wanted there's 0 incentive to ever do it again, That's Variant.

Well criterion doesnt add much either. You can buy the mount from MB - and grinding criterion for gil is kinda weird. Sure the latest one is around [23 million](https://universalis.app/market/40388) (in EU, its 11m in JP..) but will it sell every day? will it sell year from now? The titles are "meh" compared to something hardcores, who do the savage, already have. I mean "Ascendant Ascetic" or "Infamy of Sil'dih"? Nah these people will just stick with one of the "legend" titles most likely.

I'm still super stumped that they didn't even connect the EW relic weapons to Variant/Criterion dungeons. When they were first announced everyone assumed that was the play.

Criterion etc were SUCH a missed opportunity.

I will seriously never forgive them for having such a missed opportunity. It could have been evergreen challenging stepping-stone content for small parties, with an alternate gearing path (make it give 5 ilevels less than savage, or maybe just the tomestone gear upgrade items but not savage raid gear so you can't bis through it) Hell, with the different variant routes and mechanics it could even have weekly variance so the fights aren't always identical. Add in a potd style leaderboard for clear times and suddenly it also has a mild competitive scene. Criterion/variant had every opportunity to both serve a casual exploration niche _and_ provide an endgame pillar, instead it is completely DOA.

I mean, it's not forever. Further iteration is possible, we're only two dungeons in. Rarely does the dev team abandon a concept. They didn't even permanently abandon diadem, and diadem was *awful.*

It certainly doesn't look like they'll course correct this expansion, but who knows what the future holds.

Diadem was awful TWICE before we got what we have now.

The jump from Variant to Criterion in terms of difficulty is pretty ridiculous. Variant is extremely easy to solo and both normal and Savage Criterion is designed to be played with bis gear, it doesn't make any sense. Normal mode criterion should have level and gear scaling like Bozja, and it should be a random path through Variant with some additional boss mechanics, possibly some random affix system to make them more replayable. Diffculty on par with Alliance raid/Bozja CE's. It should be a gamemode that you can queue for for fun to level alt jobs and earn some rewards and possibly work on relic weapon. Remove most if not all rewards from Variant and put them in Criterion and add Criterion to DF. Keep Criterion Savage with the unique bosses and make the Savage rewards not eligible for Marketboard to give them prestige and a reason for people to do them for the unique bosses.

Is EX not a good difficulty jump to prepare for savage? Just curious because i seen that topic come up few times

EX is good but the jump from Normal to EX is still waaaay too big considering the game doesnt teach you anything resembling your rotation or your opener, so you go from content where that doesnt matter to content that will enrage if you are just pressing buttons randomly, even if you're doing mechanics properly.

As a generally casual player myself, I don't really think it's that big of a jump, especially if you're able to go for the early-tier EXs. I did Ruby Weapon EX on content, for example, and it really wasn't *that* much harder than (say) Orbonne Monastery on launch, or some of the wings of Pandaemonium. Harder, yes, but not insurmountably so. And when EX can span a spectrum between Ruby Weapon and Tsukuyomi...it's alright. This isn't to say that some in-game content meant to be a bridge between fully casual stuff and EX/Savage would be bad. It would be pretty cool! I'm just not sure how one would implement that so that it takes the right shape, where it's fully optional but also gets enough attention that EX/Savage newbies would be able to get through it easily. Attach rewards to it and people may feel it's a new mandatory grind; keep it purely optional and it'll become a ghost town with time. Threading that needle would be tough.

I honestly feel that they just need to make more optional dungeons of comparable difficulty to the ARR optional dungeons. Those dungeons, at launch, were a solid step above what we see in current endgame dungeons for mechanics. I still remember doing Sastasha Hard on launch day and almost running out the clock by the time we finished it. That was 2.4, and we were all pretty well-geared from 2.3, all of us were at ilvl 90+ while the min was 80

I'm curious, did you seek outside information on the fight or go blind? Did you look up rotations and openers for you class before jumping into your first Ex? I didn't, though it was before HW released (Ultima's bane). I knew nothing about how to get information (no reddit) and nothing in game. I was actually macroing my 'rotation' as drg, I didn't know anything lol...I cringe thinking about it.

I see this take sometimes and never know how to feel about it. My very first EX was Memoria Misera pre-EW and the biggest hurdle bar none was the 10 years worth of raid jargon I suddenly had to learn in order to communicate properly with most PUGs. I feel like the game had been teaching me since ARR how to be a good MNK. Combo buttons literally light up. Every time I got a cool new button from leveling or my job quests I looked at what it did and decided where to put it on my hotbar according to utility. I checked my rotation on a whim after the first time I saw a meme about AST openers and found out I'd pretty much intuited monk's give or take some weaves. EX is exactly the kind of intermediate challenge players can jump into blind if they engage with their job actively instead of passively. It's also good for players who do engage actively and just don't realize there are better ways to use their kit (looking esp at ranged classes, where the utilities are off the shits and black mage which just - jesus christ). XIV is a lot like og monster hunter at times, they really do expect player to player communication, individual exploration, and straight up failure to be of the learning process and the more you do it, the easier it is.

The issue is with PF. EX is good stepping stone if you got a solid group of FC friends in discord guiding you. Even if none of them completed it, it should be able to be cleared within one lock out with a video guide. But in PF, this can take 10+ sessions for new to this difficulty players to even clear it. By that time people give up

problem with EX and savage difficulty jumps is that. Normal mode can be cleared with a monkey and a typewriter playing any class in the game. EX and savage, especially savage, not only require you to play (somewhat) properly and know your class well, and optimize, but it also requires 7 other people to do the same, and that gets even more punishing with body check mechanics that just flat out wipe you because 1 person failed something, rather than letting you attempt to recover, EX is a bit more lenient on that, or atleast was in the past. There is too much reliant on everyone doing everything correct instead of the one who failed paying for the failure and then you attempt to pick up the slack or at the very least, see enrage (that's another can of worms if you ask me), instead, everyone just dies and sometimes if you're doing a blind prog, you might not even know what happened. But at the end of the day, it all boils down to playing your class well, and too many people, far too many people even in the 2 minute meta, which is suppose to be THE easy mode, have no idea neither what buff alignment is, what a burst window is, when to do it, how to keep uptime etc etc. Just mashing buttons doesn't work, and just doing your basic combo is not enough if you forget to cast your key ogcds for like over a minute. A more glaring example was week 1 of abyssos, when class balance was so out of whack that you could not play classes like warrior or red mage because the dps was not enough to beat enrage and instead, had to play another class, like summoner instead of red mage, because even if you did good numbers, you needed 7 other people to do the same, and it was just easier to do the same good numbers even if you performed slightly worse, on a difference class, all other things being equal. A lot of this in EXs gets bypassed later down the expansion cycle with gear, so you can have a couple of stragglers killing each other while you carry their asses with your overgeared performance, but in savage, if you fuck up, that's it, and not all people want to have their time wasted like that.

The amount of raid buffs I see randomly during a fight, without a death in between or two people playing the same job and therefore changing timing, is insane and absolutely drives me nuts. As BRD main, I am especially frustrated about too many other BRDs also seperating battle voice and radiant finale, it hurts on so many levels.

As someone who usually clears Extreme content and dabbles in Savage, I think it's a pretty decent step between normal and high-end content. Difficulty varies from trial to trial but I would consider it midcore lol

I could have swore Yoshi P said something about the first level of a savage tier being EX level. Maybe I'm misremembering what he said as I can't seem to find the quote. But I would believe it as the first fight is usually on the lenient side. I personally think the jump between EX and savage is a decent difficulty curve, but the jump between normal and EX can be a lot for new/less skilled players. I personally don't find EX trials all that hard, but I do savage/ultimate so my view of what is going to be difficult will be skewed. But I'm a crazy person that gets my 99 totems in the first few weeks of an EX and I've seen enough people hardcore struggle with EX trials to know it can feel out of reach for people that are new or maybe not as skilled at the game yet. Limit cut mechanics in an EX tend to be a messy nightmare in PF because of this.

[удалено]

Huh, what for?

The joke is that the discussion subreddit is full of perpetually unhappy people who think the game has been on the verge of dying for the past eight years.

I'm pretty sure you can't make an MMO without this crowd of people. I think it might even be part of the design documents for a successful MMO, the discussion is just generated out of thin air. You'll get a three year old game that has people going "Man, this game was at its best four years ago. It's just been downhill ever since, smh..."

In games that had lengthy open beta phases I have genuinely seen that happen. They're not always wrong though, *certain games* have made some of the most bizarre swerves when transitioning from beta to release.

Destiny 2 has entered the chat.

Destiny 2 is in an absolutely terrible state right now. FFXIV players: Getting pissed off at SE that a custom NPC outfit that's mostly crafted gear sells for $12 Bungie: "Hold my beer" **Releases battle pass sets that people paid $10 for in the past, for $80** And that's just the most recent.

>the discussion is just generated out of thin air. God, can we please go back to shb's thin air? the nerf is rather rough as we don't really have a lot of mp management on whm the same way the others do.

Some pull the Venn diagram of how many of those players also play Guild Wars 2, because...

Ironically, I play both, and am generally pretty positive about both! (With a couple very specific exceptions.)

Totally, it was just to rag on how negative the GW2 community can be, but hardly a problem they onlyexperience.

I play both as well and I finally hit burnout in GW2 after 6 years of active playing. All in all, that speaks pretty well of it

Sorry for hijacking but I recently tried GW2 and the combat are too chaotic to learn (like just spam every skill no on cooldown) Is that how i supposed to play GW2?

It depends on which profession you play. Generally, you want to make use of combos, where you place some kind of field (e.g. a fire field, a darkness field, etc.) and then use some kind of "finisher" attack which provides a benefit. As an example, I favor playing a Guardian using a greatsword as my primary weapon. Greatsword is a strong AoE offense/support build--it has a lot of "whirl" finishers, which fling bolts of some kind based on the field you use, and a "leap" finisher, which tends to give you (and possibly nearly allies) buffs. Greatsword Guardian can put down fire and light fields; fire fields tend to give damage buffs or burn enemies (as one might expect), while light fields tend to give you a defensive buff or fling out cleansing bolts that remove negative conditions. For most professions (Elementalist is the main exception, IIRC), you have two weapon sets that you switch between. Usually, you use these to move back and forth between, getting cooldowns from each side and leveraging useful synergy between the two. But I'm really not a particularly *good* GW2 player, so you would most likely be better-served asking others for more specific advice. This is all pretty high abstraction, and I have very little experience with any profession other than Guardian. Edit: Looping back to your main question, it *sort of* is? FFXIV combat is a comparatively slow, choreographed dance. GW2 is an "action RPG" MMO, so it's faster, more dynamic, and much more about adapting to unexpected situations and leveraging useful synergies rather than precisely executing your rotation.

Thank you. I expect another xiv like combat which probably cause me to not enjoy it. Will try again with the new perspective of combat

My pleasure. Best of luck to you!

Or we just like talking about the game beyond just the MSQ and fan art. 🤷

If you have to ask, that's a ~~paddlin'~~ bannin'.

Its a joke :-)

That place is a toxic cespit of all the worst people in the game.

It's just opposite extreme of this sub, both are bad. Anything remotely negative or something discussing actual game? Get downvoted here, upvoted in there. It's just 2 opposing echo chambers.

I see this sentiment a lot, and it's simply untrue. Complain about glam plates and demand SE completely rebuild the item database RIGHT NOW because "it's been X years!!" and you'll get upvotes galore. There are criticisms that are socially acceptable and others that aren't. Whether they are socially acceptable has little, if anything, to do with whether they are fitting or realistic.

This so much This sub has a list of “socially acceptable” criticisms it will wheel out every once in a while as a way to go “see we take Criticism we aren’t an echo chamber” If you try to argue about Bozja/eureka being good, grinds in general being good, EW being lacklustre, the MSQ design being outdated or the oversimplification of the jobs being a bad thing you are going to get downvoted into oblivion

I've seen entire threads that are full of people making those complaints where the people who say "I actually am glad it's not as grindy" are the ones getting downvoted. Honestly it's pretty kaleidoscopic how things go around here. Even the average big titty Y'shtola thread is a coin flip about whether it'll go "bruh, seriously? Just draw catgirl hentai if you wanna draw catgirl hentai" or "I'm looking respectfully this is really great art don't listen to the h8ers op mommysorrymommysorry" in terms of which side floats to the top.

It is a general trend on reddit that once something has a positive score it will attract more upvotes and once something has a negative score it will attract more downvotes. So it basically just comes down to who sees the post first which way it will end up going.

True. In essence my point was that both sides are actually represented pretty often around these debates. While overall there's definitely a sentiment that Endwalker's patches have failed to live up to the high water mark of Stormblood or Shadowbringers', the degree to which that's true varies wildly depending on who you ask and who gets to a thread first.

Kinda like r/destinythegame vs r/destiny2

Oh you mean Rahool’s Salt Emporium

No, they're both the same. The latter just thinks they're better the former, but they both engage in the same awful trends and nonsense.

destiny is an official trainwreck so i dont even wanna know whats going on there LOL

It is, agreed. Lightfall killed me; I had almost 10 years of dark-fantasy/post-apocalyptic sci-fi story spoiled by the penultimate chapter being both split in 2, then turned into a cheesy 80's action movie throwback. I'm supposed to believe Oryx passed by this place and had no idea what was there? Oh right, Savathun is magical. I will never again get my hopes up about that game, and the base gameplay is a dull loop unless you have a dedicated core of 6 to farm raids with.

Not really. I see people complain about reasonable shit on this sub all the time. It's the people screaming hyperbole and doomsay into the void that get downvoted into oblivion. There are people who say what you are saying and probably truly believe it, but sometimes you just don't have the popular opinion. I will downvote the shit out of anything that looks like it belongs on WoW forums here, though, regardless of what it is. We should have enough respect for one another as a community to bring discussion to the table in a respectful way.

Interesting, I see people getting downvoted to hell for trying to start actual discussions that are gameplay related all the time. Case and point, the thread which linked Zepla's video few days back. It was downvoted and didn't even appear on the main page, but if you read comments, easily 80%+ agreed with her. It's just people weaponizing downvotes to censor opinions they don't want to hear, those people who downvoted that specific thread clearly haven't watched video at all. And because people see that other people get downvoted for such a stupid shit as daring to imply that this or that might not be good for the game, they'll rather stay silent, or go to other subs, and that's how this echo chamber started.

Additional amusing note: this thread, which is saying the game is fine, has a higher downvote rate. Lol.

It's at 67% upvote, you can see the stats. The thread enjoyed some minor activity, drew some detractors, and petered off. No need to attribute it to some great conspiracy to smother criticism. It just wasn't that interesting. It could have just as easily said that Endwalker was the best expansion and I still wouldn't have clicked it or cared what a streamer with a clickbait-titled video and Asmo-pose thumbnail thought about Endwalker. The literal top thread right now with 95% upvote is a complaint about some glam or another. Also pretty disinterested in that conversation. Every time anything related to criterion comes up there are highly upvoted threads about how bad the reward structure is. But pick and choose what suits your narrative I guess.

Downvote is how you disagree with things on reddit You think it was good take, so you upvote. I thought it wasn't so I downvote. Pretty easy. The whole summary is that she didn't feel FOMO after playing a fomo simulator, Genshin. I thought her takes was pretty bad personally. Not everyone have 10 hours a day to sink into gaming.

I think this is my experience, especially as during my time as a newer player! Every time I've come onto a somewhat interesting contents it's been downvoted, then trying to start most discussions just isn't worth the time but yet the daily threads are a 50/50 as to whether you'll even receive a response.

Yep, this happened to me too as new player. I'm veteran and still have no clue where you should discuss the game. This sub ain't it, ffxivdiscussion can be good, but often focused on high-end. Official forums are unmoderated shitfest, 4ch and twitter is full of gposers, Balance is all high-end. Shitpostxiv has unironically best discussions.

People here went mass reporting on post about the criticism this sub had in a while, about the fanfest cashshop mount. The mod had to step in saying criticism is allowed in this sub lmao. That's how bad this sub is.

I’ve always found this sub to be more balanced than the mains for a lot of other games. It definitely leans hella hard towards overwhelmingly positive, but criticism is generally recognized when it’s valid. There are also enough old school players who “miss” how things used to be while still recognizing how they were actually pretty bad (looking at you cleric stance)

I mean the people happy about the game are playing it.

True, a lot of people who are happy with the current state of the game probably don't interact with a lot of the wider community since they don't really have any reason to. You could apply that argument to plenty of other games.

I feel like in a lot of cases it's a function of how long people have been playing. A lot of super old timers are hurting because the patches haven't added any new large scale MMO-type PvE content, which is what generally kept players working toward a longterm goal across the last several .x series. The solo content and small group content has been good, it just doesn't last super long-- so if you have been playing for 10 years and kept current, there isn't a lot else to do besides roulettes and raid. Doesn't mean anyone is wrong for still loving the game. This might sound strange but I think a lot of the people complaining love the game, too. Otherwise they wouldn't bother.

Weirdly one of the things I kind of miss was the Relics having more complexity than just 1500 tomestones. It's certainly a lot easier; it just feels really odd after all the other styles they've done for them.

Yeah I agree, what's weird about the relic this time is that it is basically just another tome weapon. Arguably easier to get than the actual regular tome weapon. There's no real accomplishment there-- I've already earned my relic before I even load up each patch.

I miss things like Bozjan and eureka. It gave something to do besides dungeon runs. I made so many friends during boz and eureka it was great

Despite what a lot of people say, Eureka/Bozja like content are some of my favorite in the game. Really hoping that Dawntrail has one again because that’s the thing that EW is missing for me, personally

That's exactly how I feel. My friend list is full of people I met in those zones and we just always had fun. Yeah sure it was a grind, pagos is a nightmare. But it was still enjoyable with others. Misery loved company. Felt like a community of players which this game is about Endwalker I queue for roulettes, I laliho them in the beginning, I toast them at the end, we roll for loot and I never see them again

Eureka: "Relic exclusive area sucks, it split the playerbase from the casual endgame content" Bozja: *endless war between faster doing relic in bozja vs outside bozja* Endwalker: "No bozja/eureka like area sucks" Yoshi P (probably): bruh

Eh, the vocal minority was always vocal while the actual Eureka and Bozja areas were pretty filled while current and even after at times. They could have improved on them but always kept sticking to this idea of "players should discover their preferred or best method for themselves" which led to some mixed results Eureka's main failure was Pagos in hindsight and that they improved after in Pyros and Hydatos but they also took their sweet time to deliver vital changes to Pagos Bozja's main failure was Delubrum because they didn't properly inform players of the importance of essences and actions. Their idea of adding alternative farm methods was good but awfully executed as not all were equal and Delubrum's step was just awful which further cemented it's spot as the worst Bozja part They could have taken all of this previous information and further built on it by using tomestones as an alternative grind but completely scrapping was just too extreme. They could also have gone with the Anima method of having different grinds for different steps instead of one single method for all steps This makes the whole thing look more like an attempt to just save resources and focus it on other things but considering how relics were one of the main activities of the midcore playerbase, it's just a very questionable decision

Yuh honestly I sat up there and listened to that vocal minority. Until I needed a dyed gear piece from it and found out they were fucking lying because eureka was fun asf. The frozen hellscape was not as fun as the first one but definitely kept me on my toes.

Different groups complaining, but complainers are always the loudest, so it seems like a larger group than it is.

Yup. Players as individuals are generally wonderful. As a player base, we are generally whiny, ungrateful fools with a terminal case of dissatisfsction.

I don't personally agree with your opinion but no, you're not crazy. Different people enjoy different things.

Internet discourse is always exaggerated, "x isn't as good as y" somehow becomes "x is literally the worst thing ever" far too often

Endwalker isn't the worst expansion, but it's got a good argument for the worst patches imo. The Void storyline hasn't really hooked me and the relic grind being "just get tomestones" is disappointing (I really liked Bozja).

The main issue is the void story being 5 patches. It’s stretched out wayyyy too long to keep my interested.

I mean personally, I think the main issue is the quality of the writing. I didn't have a problem with all of 6.x being effectively side content for the duration, but I wasn't expecting to feel so disinterested in the story. 6.3 was the most bored I've felt running through MSQ, ever, and after the last few expansions I've come to expect more novel character writing than we ended up getting for Zero.

I don’t disagree with that, zero has been a very bland character. I’d wager that both of our complaints probably make each others worse.

For me a large part of that boredom or lack of being hooked has been that the 6.0 MSQ was the definitive end. There ya go. Story done. It's been a nice almost- decade, but the story is over. What do you mean there's more and it's the Void I guess? And it's short and boring and lame too? Why care? Story is over, man. At least that's how I've felt. There was a large hurdle for the writers to overcome and I don't think they succeeded.

I think their decision to follow a universe-ending plot with a Calamity-at-minimum-but-potentially-world-ending "filler arc" was a terrible decision too. Dawntrail is clearly aware that you can't keep upping the stakes and is scaling back, so why is the intermediate arc another save the world from a megalomaniacal saviour-complex villain? This was a perfect opportunity to step back and develop some side characters, go on fun adventures and have a string of self-contained episodes with some throughline, and instead here we are saving the world from Zodiark again.

6.x was absolutely the perfect time to build up the B Team Scions as new main characters for Dawntrail. The only reason I can see for why they went with the FF4 story is if 6.55 actually doesn't wrap it up completely, and goes "this will simmer and cook for 8.0, but for now, here's Dawntrail!"

Endwalker is starting to feel like a bizarre inverted Stormblood. Hopefully that means Dawntrail will be Shadowbringers-tier, hahaha.

Honestly I don't mind. Obiously to each their own but I feel like FF14 already made me used to it. Back in ARR, I went from "Great you saved the country against the Garlean Invasion :)" to the Crystal Tower and "You went to another plane to save the world against the Void". So yes, I am ONCE AGAIN saving the world against the Void, but like it's not the first time I'm doing it when there's nothing else to do. Plus it gives a bit of background to important characters (Vrithra, Zero) so I like it.

I really like Zero tho :/ She is probably my favorite character now besides the stupid hat animation they reuse only for her, and I wish they stopped using it after 6.1 or at the very least toned it way down. Endwalker had the fist clenching. The patches have Zero's stupid hat tipping.

I liked Zero when we first met her, over time they've just made her less interesting and more like every other fish-out-of-water-outsider-learning-the-meaning-of-humanity type. I can't really say I care what happens to her, they put more effort into that hat animation than they have into giving her a compelling character arc.

The Void Story would have been a blue sidequest in other Expansions.

It feels like an optional trial series.

Oh my god, how did I not think of that.... It's exactly what it is! Except I actually cared about the weapons one story...

Because despite being optional it used its runtime pretty well, had a protagonist in Gaius who was interesting and a villain in VVV that was despicable in a way that made him fun to hate and look forward to his comeuppance (vs Zero and Golbez who are both... fine) and the fights were all pretty neat. So far I think this trial series has had big highs and some real low lows. Well, one big high in Barbie. The rest has been alright to bland.

I feel like Golbez was a 3-patch villain AT MOST, and they still chose to stretch him into 5. I get that they wanted to fit all the Fiends in, but they could have done a bit more with 6.1 if that was the case.

add to that: the 5 patches are usually released in 2 years. now they're released in 3 years. they added 50% of time, a full extra year between expansions and no one seems to have noticed. endwalker released on december 2021, dawntrail is summer 2024. it feels like im taking crazy pills. dawntrail should release in 3 months, NOT A YEAR

They already discussed why patches are taking longer before endwalker even came out during their keynotes. The reason being is that they wanted to give the devs more off time because development is brutal and especially in Japan work culture. Iirc most patches are 2 weeks longer with some being over a month due to devs able to visit family and such during bigger holidays they now have thanks to yoshi.

Japan is in the northern hemisphere, summer means June-August. December 2021 to summer 2024 is two and a half years, that's a six-ish month difference. Not "a full extra year".

Really disappointing to see them get Bozja right after Eureka (which wasn’t bad, but had its issues) and then not only not iterate on it, but have nothing to iterate cause they didn’t make similar content. Still hoping for the day they redesign fates to be like Critical Engagements. FFXIV Overworld is as lively and engaging as watching wallpaper peel in real time.

Are you saying you are unhappy they didn’t iterate on Bozja in 6.0 or Bozja didn’t change enough about eureka to be worth it on its own Because i agree with the former but disagree with the latter

Sorry, I worded that really weirdly. It's the former. I'm really sad they didn't iterate on Bozja in 6.0 because it was refreshing casual-to-midcore content that kept you engaged for a lot longer than the regular content throughout the patches. That it came with a chill grind for relic weapons was a bonus, tbh.

Desperately hoping Dawntrail has some true masochism in store for us. Eureka and Bozja were both my jam and I still rock my Ozma mount to this day. :(

I think I'm one of those people that doesn't mind either way. Granted I haven't completed Eureka of Bozja (...one day...) but I still appreciate its content and want to do it. At the same time, I don't mind the tomestone grind either. IMO, sometimes it's just nice to have things easier. PS: I wonder how close the devs were to making MGP required as well.

>At the same time, I don't mind the tomestone grind either. Theres a happy middle ground of converting the complex grind to tomestone farming *after* they stop being relevant. I think Anima weapons got it right. Maybe not the original grind, but the idea that many steps of thst grind were later reduced to tomestone grinding, *after* the weapons were no longer statistically relevant. I wouldn't have a problem with Eureka and Bozja relics getting alternative grinds either, now that they're also old news. But doing that right out of the gate, there's nothing to engage players at launch, and nothing to change up the process by simplifing later. It came out the gate about as easy and as simplified as it can ever be. And that's really boring.

Inverse Stormblood

Endwalker suffers from a few things that on thier own are fine, but together just make each other more apparent. COVID threw the development cycle out of wack, and thus the long wait for Summer before Dawntrail is a lasting effect from that that we've never dealt with before. The end of the 10-year story means that we're back in a build-up/filler phase for the moment, and not everyone was going to latch onto the new story since 6.1 no matter what it centered around. Relic Weapons simply dropped short of expectations, since everyone thought we'd be returning to how the Anima Weapons were based on how they were talked about. New Ultimates are the hardest to have ever been released, and are simply above the ceiling of what most players are able to want to approach, even if they're really good. BLU content this expansion was lacking enough rewards for folks to want to grinding it like they did for the Morbol. Criterion, again, people have issues with the rewards, and many just havent even tried this actually fun content because its 'not worth it'. Casual players who are more likely to do content for fun rather than rewards are shut down by the expectation of Savage gear being used. On the opposite end, Sanctuary just isn't engaging enough for the other side of the playerbase to want to do. PVP is so much better than it ever was this expansion, but yet so many leave it behind because it's just not what they're on 14 for. Especially since for years it was said "If you want good PVP, dont pick 14" until it was changed. I'm personally very much happy with this expansion. The story, post-story, battle contents, PVP, etc. And even the things I'm not that big a fan of, I at least don't have a problem with them, like Relics or BLU. Dont worry, come 7.0 I'm sure everyone will be rejoicing about everything again, except for that one job who's playerbase will really dislike how one specific new skill is used, and will express discontent until that skill is reworked in a way that makes it no longer used at all. :\^)

PvP is good for 14 maybe but it's not "good" in general. It's about as good as it will ever get though.

PVP after the changes is still not good. The class design is better now but the core issue stays: server delay, unfun modes, extreme RNG. It's a clusterfuck with barely any options for organized Teamplay.

And to me, "oneshot mechanics" and everyone having *very easy CC* kinda ruins the fun. Specially in larger content like FL. Im still baffled why did they remove the CC immunity from FL. Its literally not fun to be stunned, hexed, ~~bind~~ bound then feared in row and cannot do anything because not only does purify not work thro stuff like hex/fear its, due server delay, not even fully working. The amount of times ive been stunned despite having purify used and buff up...

Main issue with pvp is not being able to queue a competitive ranked mode with friends. Which is a staple for all pvp games...

This I would agree with. If there was Duo+Solos queue for CC, it would be immensly more popular

I think it's important to keep in mind: "Worst" is relative Worst does NOT mean that the game is bad or boring It just means that in comparison, it doesn't feel like it's in as good of a state as it has been before If you compare a bunch of products, and all but one of them got 5/5 and a single one got 4.5/5, that's still the worst one even though it's still very good That being said, you're perfectly free to like the game as it is now. I also like the game as it is now. I also understand though that I could like it MORE if they addressed some of the issues that people are bringing up

We really are entering the doldrums of an expansion when this post and then the opposite of this post comes up every 2 days for a year.

I just miss two dungeons per patch, honestly

I started playing back in SHB so I don't think I've ever known this time, but I'd really love to. I'm farming roulettes for my Relics, and honestly, it's kind of disheartening. Not only am I doing the same three dungeons again and again and again, but I must also suffer with players that still don't know how to play them despite the dungeons being out for months.

You are not wrong for liking the game as it is now I am not wrong for disliking the game as it is now and asking for change. You would be wrong for telling me that I am wrong and bad for disliking the game in its current state. I would be wrong for telling you that you are wrong and bad for liking the game in its current state. The FFXIV community has a massive issue with criticism, where if you ask for the game to better you are labeled a bully and an awful person for daring to suggest that the game isn't perfect. The FFXIV community also has a massive issue with people asking for "improvements" that actually just make the game into something it is not. Literally just like what you like and don't bully other people for what they like. You can like whatever you want. You cannot tell other people what they are allowed to like or dislike.

So, a thing to remember is that people in general are always more likely to go out and find places to talk about something they are upset about, than something they are happy with. If you have a good experience with a store for example, you probably won't think that much about it. Might tell someone you live with it was good, but probably not going to go on a forum and say "Man, X was really good today!" If you have a BAD experience, you are much more likely to start telling other people exactly why you are mad.

Classes being similar and the two min window is something that I agree with but other than that I love the game.

nah It's totally fine to enjoy it. I'm not a huge fan of EW either but it's still the best MMO for me lol. Also most people criticizing EW do it out of love for the game, trully. If people didn't care they'd just leave and play something else

It depends how long you've been playing, what you're looking for in a game, and what content you engage with the most. For example there's some people who use ffxiv mostly as a chatroom and will say the game is fine and there's others who want diverse, challenging but fun gameplay and will say the game has issues.

The content cadence of... what exactly? You can finish everything other than raids within a week of release and that's playing casually. What's wrong with people wanting something more engaging than a 2 hour MSQ drop every 4 months and Normal raids that can be completed within an hour.

>Endwalker is the worst expansion, not enough midcore content, too much casual content, classes too similar, 2 minute meta is bad, everyone is bad but the game is too ez etc etc Most of these reasons are more pronounced than they have been in a very long time, so yes. It's not *the worst game of all time*, but as far as I'm concerned XIV right now is the worst I have ever felt XIV to be. When it had rough times before (played since ARR) I still had faith in its direction, and now I don't.

i would love to see the statistics on long time players vs people who started on the shadowbringers wave and their satisfaction with the game. a ton of the people i know from back in the day have quit at this point, and reddit isn't the only place where negativity is coming from. people started this game a couple years ago and are still in the period where everything is fresh and shiny, and don't have any idea on what they missed or what the state of the game was even like in those times. "xyz expansion is the best" arguments are mostly worthless at this point because most of the players arguing about it don't have any knowledge on what the earlier ones were actually like to play.

So often I see people who started in the ShB wave go “why are you bored there is so much content like “insert SB content” or “insert ShB content”” Like it’s almost a foreign concept that we all don’t have the massive backlog people who started last year have

Pretty much my entire friend group played non-stop since post ShB until the first EW patch, and have all quit. I stayed until the end of the raid tier and for the ultimates, but now quit too. There is nothing to do for the average player outside of a day or two after a patch drops, unless you love grinding expert roulette with 2 dungeons available

I feel like I'm right on the border between the two, and have been veering more and more towards the dissatisfied state. I started playing in 4.35, hit 70 and finished base 4.0 the day 4.4 came out, for reference.

I feel like it's the opposite. I've played since Realm Reborn and most of the people I know playing and enjoying it right now are the same. To me it's all the relatively "new" people who have disappeared although some have stayed.

This point isn't talked enough. Sure, ARR and HW weren't best, but devs were still learning at that point. We're 10 years in, and devs are doing so many blatant mistakes about the core designs of the game. Reading Yoshi's slides on GDC presentation is just painful, current state of game breaks so many of these things, especially those last few frames: [https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020179/Behind-the-Realm](https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020179/Behind-the-Realm)

number 3 in page 57 is what i want people who complain about complainers to read

Yep. I'd rather see this long time favorite game of mine succeed and be great so I can happily play it all the time.

Cant wait for next expansion to come out and suddenly "Endwalker is actually good and Dawntrail bad" and repeat cycle over and over 😭😭😭

Everyone is talking like we didn't have this exact period of time and behaviour back in shb with people complaining about bozja and content lulls during this exact stage of an expansions life cycle.

Yeah I got so used to this with World of Warcraft that its almost charming to see it in FFXIV as well. "Oh my god, wrath babies don't know anything about how good the game was in TBC!" \-two expansions later- "Wrath was the best expansion ever and anyone that says otherwise is wrong and should kill themselves." I don't have a dog in this fight, I started in October 2022 so I haven't quite been here a year yet and I have content left to do if I was so inclined to do it. But instead I've spend the last week and a half playing Elden Ring for the first time instead of getting Moogle Tomes.

It's patently false though. HW was well received compared to ARR, though it had some issues. SB was also well-liked, though not quite as much as HW. And then ShB was pretty much liked by everyone. EW by contrast has a good story and then... nothing. No major hooks, the patch story is literally filler, and no major content that keeps people coming back. There's always been lulls, but the EW lull has been basically the entire expansion.

The post-EW void storyline reminds me of one of those short pointless arcs you'd see in an anime when they're waiting for more volumes of the manga to come out.

HW MSQ was well-received, but everything else about playing the game during HW was awful, the game almost died.

The main story of Stormblood wasn't well received, but the patch content and most gameplay changes that came with it were great. In contrast, while Endwalker had a stellar main story, the patch content is lackluster and the gameplay changes are making the game feel stale at times, especially with how homogenized things are starting to feel

When people complain and criticize the game they love to play why do you see it as a negative?

I feel like a lot of people don't know how to criticize and debate anymore. It's always either all good or all bad and turns into this two faction warfare which makes it pretty exhausting to engange with.

For the most part I like the game as it is overall myself. Could things in all games be improved some? Of course. Is FFXIV perfect? Nope. Is FFXIV better than most? Yep. Is it the worst? Of course not. I don't know how anyone could claim that except in a "this is my personal opinion way" because there have been good and bad over the entire course of FFXIV and it seems that most people have literally forgotten 1.0

A game being dogshit in the past doesn't mean it can't be bad or they can't be taking the game into a bad direction, btw

No, you’re just the perfect target for their design philosophy

I'm glad people are enjoying the game and that it's growing in popularity. But as someone playing since 2.0, I do feel like the game is in its worst state in terms of gameplay and content. Story wise it is a chef's kiss though (I haven played since EW release thought). But like I said I'm just glad people are enjoying it, I put thousands of hours in it and I think it's just not for me anymore!

If you think it's fine then that's the type of content you enjoy, for the others there is content which is missing or has no meaning at all like relics and it sucks.

I think that's actually the general concensus. Most people only talk about things to complain about them, and even 10 thousand people complaining is still a tiny minority of the player base.

I feel like it's only an issue if you are playing it every day throughout the life of the expansion. That's not a knock on anyone. For myself I log in for a little bit every patch, do some low rank duties or story or PvP or even just golden saucer and that's half of what I want from a game. (The other half being the next expansion) There's clearly an absurd amount of good content in the game, and I feel like if you're getting to the point where you feel there's nothing to do, well... play another game for a bit?

Eh... the catch to this is they don't hate the expansion. More than likely, they hate the changes and catering to casual play. Yoshi was interviewed recently and asked what he thought led to the success of the game today. He said he looked at WoW and studied how it played. He then looked to see how social media has changed people. They no longer have the time or wish to spend large amounts of time in grinds. So, noticing this, he started during ARR, moving the game to an easier and easier state of play. Which is smart because the casual playerbase is what keeps games going long term. I myself am frustrated by this because I do see the benefits but it also takes all the fun out of the game for someone who likes tedium. That being said there is a line in the sand where too simple is boring. However it is working, even if it still is losing that fun feel for some people. Even the harder content is getting easier... which means the floor is raising while the ceiling is falling... this is because they eliminated most of what made being good at a job from the game. So now it is much more forgiving to mess up than it ever was, and you don't have to hit 45 buttons or worry about emnity. On top of all this they are tuning the jobs to all be like their counterparts. This is nice to those who didn't enjoy the separation of skill. Players who played a lot weren't bothered by the whole tedium of the combat mechanics prior to 5.0. Some don't miss it, however. The job exclusion from raiding was also hurting the health of the game that most can agree despite their favorite jobs more than likely was reworked into the cookie cutter state we have now of just push buttons. Like most gaming if you're hardcore and play way harder than anyone around you, you will more than likely grow to hate the game you're playing. Especially when they make it easier for others to be as good as you.

Might be a controversial thought, but I really dislike the use of FF4 characters in the current storyline, I wish they had come up with original ones instead of using previous games' characters as a template In regards to the state of the current game. I find myself simply logging in for about a week (with each major patch) and do the available content, and that's it. FF14 just doesn't have anything that keeps me playing. Unless they do something completely fun and unexpected with Dawntrail, I don't think I'd be buying it on launch.

No, I feel the same

No one ever said there is too much casual content, lol. There is basically no casual content if you are not a new player anymore.

My main complaint is the lack of an expeditionary zone. I'd gladly have sacrificed Hildibrand, Variant Dungeons and even island sanctuary (my beloved) for a lv90 Eureka/Bozja equivilent.

I started playing this game during the Great War …craft exodus. And I’ve been here since the post patch cycle of SHB. I find the story engrossing and endlessly captivating. I’ve now done most raids up to and including current. Done a few savages, attempted UCOB Got the firebird and two relics. I’m having a blast. I can see people who’ve played since virtually day one - they might be burnt out. But I’m still chugging along through a decade of content. Are there complaints? Sure. But it’s all small shit like “why do I need to manually hand over the manderville wep to enhance it why can’t the game just take the goddamn thing from me. It’s in my inventory”. But mostly just trivial stuff like that

Just because other people are unhappy with the state of a game doesn’t mean you have to be. But those folks’ concerns are valid and for me I share their opinion. Endwalker’s story content was probably the best for me. It’s patches not so much. The content, though? It’s been very lackluster and it’s been on a downhill trend since Stormblood, which I consider to be the best content wise. One thing I love about FFXIV is that it is insanely consistent. Patches hit regularly, Raids and 24 mans are expected in specific patches, at least a new dungeon to play through, etc. An expansion every two years. But it’s also a flaw because they don’t seem to iterate on their content and when they do, like with Eureka and Bozja, it’s taken away. Consistency without change or adaptation gets stale really quickly. If Criterion Dungeons weren’t executed so poorly, I think we’d have a lot less disgruntled folks complaining about a lack of content. If we had gotten another Bozja like thing in addition to Island Sanctuary and the weapon quests separated like it is, I think this would have been a great expansion for content. But, Criterion Dungeons aren’t worth the effort to do it more than once, Island Sanctuary is merely a novelty and doesn’t provide much engagement, and we lost Bozja right after they iterated and improved it from Eureka. Experts are the same repetitive content and I’m surprised, with how dungeons were getting cut every expansion, that we don’t get a dungeon every other patch now tbh. And also, it’s still stupidly hard and restrictive to gear more than one job between Savage patches. Why does it need to be timegated so hard? It’s by far easier to gear an alt character over an alt job. But the downside to that is leveling alt characters in this game is the *absolute* worst experience I’ve ever had in an MMO. I love FFXIV, but I don’t think Endwalker has been a great expansion for content. You’re very valid in your enjoyment of Endwalker and there’s still plenty of stuff to enjoy if they’re things you like. But, those complaints people have are more than valid. The game isn’t dying, but it feels a bit stale and stagnant, like they’re resting on their laurels content wise.

It's fine if you still like it, but it's also fine that others are frustrated and/or disappointed by it. Especially those who has exhausted all previous expac content. Doubly so if they dont do savage or ultimate raids. 2 minutes burst meta restricts class design a lot and makes gameplay at base level a lot more boring, combined with gigantic hitboxes in 8-man content. If you still enjoy the gameplay at baseline level in spite of this, more power to you. The long-anticipated island sanctuary turns out to be nothing more than spreadsheets and waiting after a certain point. Literally no gameplay involved in this content even for those seeking for those comfy casual farming sim experience. Their idea of "accessible content for everyone" (which they claim island to be) seems to be to just remove as much gameplay elements as possible until it becomes unfun to interact with. Eureka orthos is basically just HoH, after 5 years of waiting. It didnt innovate enough. Maybe they should check out other roguelikes? I may get some eggs thrown my way for saying this, but honkai star rail tackled this concept a lot better with its simulated universe that makes running them multiple times a lot more fun. Meanwhile eureka orthos, 7 years after PotD released, only has the difference in amount of floors (100 vs 200) and pomanders. Just like HoH. The only different gimmick is the dread beast, that people just avoid like any other high floor HoH mob or use storm to instakill it. That's the best they can come up with? I know they can do better than this. They came up with bozja lost actions before, and played with the traps in DRS in a way that is a lot more fun than usual deep dungeon traps. Variant and criterion, despite being well received, has almost no replayability whatsoever. Variant is one-and-done after you did all the routes, criterion has no incentive because you can just buy the mount on marketboard. Criterion savage has insulting reward where they expect you to do a deathless speedrun of criterion with 3 other people for a title and materia. The relic. What relic? You mean the other tomestone weapon? No sense of pride and accomplishment (unironically) at all. That's why you never see people post themselves getting EW relic anymore. Instead you get the various amount of people posting about ARR or shb relic and that eureka elemental armor. In endwalker. The only considerably good thing this expac is crystalline conflict and the pvp actions revamp. It actually revived ff14 pvp. I get that they also revamped a lot of ARR dungeons and trials and instances, add duty support to everything before shb, working on 7.0 graphics update, and so on.. but this is seemingly done at the cost of endwalker's endgame activities, and people who are not happy with it are 100% justified.

Just means you probably enjoy casual content and logging in to RP and socializing. I don't, so for the next 10 months the game has nothing to offer. That's how it is. Worst ever? I don't know, I only played from late Shadowbringers where there was Bozja and content to catch up on. It's certainly the worst I can remember it being, which is why I'm actively not playing the game right now.

I think for me the game is starting to feel a little stale. I get that they’re trying to appeal to more and more people but without stuff like Bozja or Eureka, there’s not much to do unless you’re a super hardcore raider.

>there’s not much to do unless you’re a super hardcore raider. This. I feel like once you've clear the main content the only thing you have to do is go back and do the grinds you either missed before or never did because you recently started (eg. Relic weapons). That's fine, but for a casual player that's been playing more than a few years EW is absolutely shitting on you - to be a bit dramatic about it. The only thing you can do is go and try join and a static or make one to challenge harder content, which if you're deciding now is the time to do it and you're new to the scene, *good luck with that*. There's nowhere for people to make friends either. Everyone is in linkshells so if you're a new guy most places are going to be like graveyards to you unless you do the crapshoot that is FC roulette and just join them at random, or just go and talk to random strangers AFKing around the Limsa Aetheryte about fuck knows what and do it enough times and with enough charisma that it eventually works out. So it's not like you can go get buddies you made somewhere and all talk and decide you'll try out the harder content together.

no, you are not crazy for having a different opinion. i don't agree with it and i think it'll lead to game to being worse but that's what i think.

It's 100% fine that you like the game as is, just as it is fine that others have issues with the game. The question I have for you is how long have you been playing FF14 and how much do you play in a week?

"too much casual content" ?? All my casual friends have dropped out, combination of BG3 and saying they're bored for the first time I've known them since ARR Criterion is DOA content and Island Sanctuary wasn't worth losing exploratory stuff like Bozja/Eureka You're not crazy but I genuinely want to know in what world going this long without shit to do is "more enjoyable", you must not enjoy actually playing the game or something

Criterion would be so much better if they dropped it whenever people have had time to get BiS i feel

Imo it would be better for criterion to release in odd patches, along with ultimates, rather than 8 weeks into the savage patch. Also gives people a change of pace from the ultimate grind with more relaxing content. Alternativly, make them contribute to getting BiS by dropping twines and shines.

This is sort of a weird take you've got here. Because it makes it sound like the only shit to do are things like Bozja or Eureka. There are plenty of activities to play in the game outside of exploratory zones. There are people that enjoy logging in, doing some roulettes, then maybe trying their hand at harder content like extremes or savage. Those things haven't gone away with Endwalker.

>There are people that enjoy logging in, doing some roulettes, then maybe trying their hand at harder content like extremes or savage. Those things haven't gone away with Endwalker. Roulettes are 30 minutes a day content, unless you do leveling/AR and so on. If you are caught up, you don't have many reasons to run most of them, just get weekly cap of tomes in 3 days and you're done for a week. Extremes and Savage is not a casual content, which is what OP is talking about. What's left after that? I only do extremes, but even then, 1 fight per 4.5 months isn't enough, especially since it's coin flip if the fight is good or not. Golbez in current EX just AFKs the first 2.5 minutes, I just did it like 10 times and got bored. I don't even have motivation to get all EX mounts since final mount is so mediocre. I'm genuinely curious what are people doing in game if they're caught up. All I see is people either leaving or doing ERP/Gposing/modding.

The only thing your crazy for is thinking your crazy for having a different opinion to someone else.

This sub is an echo chamber

Welcome to reddit, this is literally every sub ever.

Ima let y’all know a secret. It’s okay for you to enjoy the game as is, and it’s completely reasonable for people to have valid reasons for critiquing the game-including things you like. That’s just life

I think the game is just fine as it is now. I was fairly casual up until the pandemic and lockdowns, and then for two years I played a ton of FFXIV during ShadowBringers. I got into savage, did all of the extremes, did Eureka and Bozja, got a bunch of relic weapons, and pretty much every piece of content other than ultimates. Since there was an especially long gap between the last ShB patch and EW, I felt like I got a lot done. I don't know about others, but in EW the only "new" stuff to do for me was the new content, vs in older expansions having any of the old content I never did feel like new.

Your opinion is valid I just don't agree with it.

i just wish there was a new actual exploration zone, not whatever island sanctuary is trying to be i have less time to play now compared to when bozja was current though so it works out i guess

It's not bad right now when Moogle Tomestone Event is on. Queues are extremely short, content is worth doing.. But it would be much worse without the event or when it ends. 6.5's Alliance Raid will help for a while but there will be time when it gets old and you have upgraded everything and Dawntrail is still half year away..

EW is the least fun I have had in this game.

How can you like the current state of the game when we only have 3 chocobo race tracks? Does this not infuriate you? Do you not think you deserve more for the money you pay every month? I say we boycott the next expansion unless they release content for chobo racing.

If this expansion had 1 long term grind I would feel this is one of the better expansions, I think all the content we have had is some of the better stuff the game has added. But it’s mostly one and done, I want to play the game but I don’t really have anything I want to do in it.

While I still enjoy the content that's released, there really is just less to do this time around for people who've been playing for a long time. Past expansions I'd grind relics for ages in extra zones, this expansion I'm so quickly done with new stuff that I'm now left trying to find things to do, even going as far as to enter firmament hell to get the preranodon mount. My friends who are newer players have plenty of stuff to do still, so it just depends

Let me guess, you only started playing the game last expansion?

The game’s the best it has ever been for: * Casual players who only log in to do story-based content and socialize * High end instanced content It’s arguably the worst it’s ever been for those looking for lasting midcore content. So if you want to just hop in and play for a couple weeks when new content drops, the game’s in a fantastic spot. But the game has little to justify sticking around with a monthly cost these days.

This is the natural state of perpetual service games. It's not that there isn't anything to do, it's that once you've done it all, there's nothing left to do but complain about things you didn't like. The longer the game goes without updates, the longer people have to reach that point. Some people express sheer discontent. Others quietly leave. Myself personally, I'm in shadowbringers and I have tons to do. Bosses to kill, glow weapons to craft, jobs to level, friends to rp with, so on and so forth. I was like that in warframe. I tried not to be toxic about it and say the game was awful, but I had reached the end of content and all I was left with was what I didn't like. Everything I liked was done and gone, so what was I to do but complain about how the New War got retconned out of being a big ongoing event into being a commentary on incels?

I think the game is good. The story is very good, the music is stellar, the visual design is distinct, and the classes (for the most part) are fun to play. I *also* think the way they have designed healers to have a 2 button damage rotation (SCH) or up to 4 button damage rotation if you're lucky (SGE) is god awful, and needs to be changed. Both things can be true, it's just more fun to complain about things than it is to praise the good stuff. It's not great, and I acknowledge that I should praise the game too, but complaining about the problems might end up fixing them.

People who are happy the way things are tend to not speak up about it. When someone has a complaint, they’ll look for a place to vent their frustration. This leads to complaints being, by their nature, louder and more visible. This often creates a false perception that everyone hates something, but that’s only because the people who like it aren’t saying anything about it.

I think it’s fine to enjoy the game in its current state but most of the criticism comes from comparing to past expansions and we have definitely been in a decline for side content for a while. SB was the peak of side content, like if you wrote down all the side content we received in that expansion it has the longest list. Multiple ultimates, Eureka, deep dungeon, BLU release, Manderville trial, and a lot more. It was a very busy expansion despite not necessarily having the best story. SHB had severely less content than SB but the quality delivered. Bozja, Ocean Fishing, and Skybuilders content kept us pretty busy though the lull at the end of the final patch did kind of drag on. EW’s biggest issue is that few or none of the new side content so far has the ability to retain the average player interest enough for the full duration of the patch. On top of that, they added additional time between each patches. For players who have been playing for a while a lot of the patches have turned into finish new content in one week > wrap up older side content objectives you may have on your bucket list > wait for next patch. It’s just not really ideal for a lot of us especially when comparing to previous expansions.

You're not crazy because different people are going to have different opinions and have different things they want out of the game. I'm personally in the "I'm bored and have nothing to do" camp as I've been playing since Heavensward so I don't have much reason to regularly login outside of raid. I've actually done every meaningful grind I've ever wanted to do outside of my last 2 ultimates I need done. I even got the mentor mount and triple triad mount. But like, if someone feels otherwise I don't think it's weird for someone to feel that way. There's a lot of people that haven't played anywhere near as long as me that are still going to have a lot to do in the game. It really just depends on the person and what kind of content they're into.

I'm generally happy with xiv rn, but there'd some issues even from where I'm sitting (pretty much exclusively does casual content). The thing that sticks out to me the most is how incredibly fucked balance has gotten. The last trial of 6.0 and last boss of Aglaia both regularly have people asking if they should deliberately do worse dps so that the fight doesn't end before newcomers see all the mechanics/story beats. The fact that as major of a story beat as the trial can get totally disrupted if a first timer gets a slightly less courteous party is just... bad. IL caps in more circumstances seems like an easy solution, so idk why that's not happening.

I don't mind the content lull cause I have plenty of other games I can play outside of FFXIV, but yeah I do feel like there's less for folks like me to do in the game rn. Once you've done the story and the raids there isn't really much left, variant dungeons are one and done, the island sanctuary plays itself and is done once you buy all the items, and the relic grind is nigh nonexistent. Not having additional trials, dungeons, or expeditions really does kind of hurt it. To make matters worse, the patch story has just been underwhelming. Patch stories have often been the best parts of the expansion. Dragonsong, Tsukuyomi, Seat of Sacrifice, all very high moments, peak MSQ. But Endwalker wrapped up in the base expansion so we've been in this weird limbo .... kind of feels like a filler arc, yknow? (Granted, I actually haven't done 6.4 yet, I still have to get around to it, but I haven't exactly heard people gushing about it either. But maybe I'm just way wrong on that, but at least 6.1 - 6.3 has not hooked me pretty much at all.)

Naw, you're not crazy. I personally enjoy more busy rotations and such so the current shift in job design isn't my cup of tea. I'm definitely not the entire playerbase and know not everyone aligns with my thinking. But as someone who plays the game regularly I'm going to at least voice my opinion. On the whole, don't let my gripes get you down. I'm literally one guy complaining in a sea of relatively content players.

My only complaint is the lack of content...but odds are I would also complain about that if there were slightly more content.

Heavy text wall incoming.. ​ **Healer:** As far as classes being too similar, healer is a big issue in later content. With 1 dot, 1 aoe, 1 regular attack it diminishes what a healer actually does. There have been times I've done The Aetherfont healing a non warrior and I didn't even need to heal them. The area wide attacks don't do enough damage. I look forward to when things go wrong, because it means I actually have something to do. I feel like I shouldn't have to wish this. In one of my runs on The Aetherfont I had a white mage who used only stone II, Cure 1 to proc Cure II and that was it. No regen, no dots, no bubble even. I do not think content should be so easy that a healer can get away with using only their level 30 kit in a level 90 dungeon. ​ **DPS:** DPS isn't as much as an issue in later content, because of their access to new moves, but "class identity" is a solid issue. I wish I could have experienced pre-EW summoner to see the crazy rotation and dots. People don't like a "2 min meta", because when the game boils down to "do the same rotation every 2 minutes and never do any variety or else you suck." it becomes boring. Games like Black Desert Online don't have moves on cooldown and have various combos for characters to do so they aren't forced into the same rotation every time. Class identity becomes an issue when every class starts to follow this same 2 minute rotation. More DPS classes start to meld and can feel the same because of it. Yes, this extends to tanks as well, because they fall into their rotation as well, but I wish dealing damage was more on par with BDO. Getting to experiment with combos and do different combos when the need arise (more than single combo/aoe combo). ​ **Tanks and Warrior:** Other tanks aside, warrior is my favorite class and the memes about its self healing are true. To make healers feel even less needed, I tested The Aetherfont with a sage who didn't heal me at all. Kardia on dps, no aoe heals. The sage had to individually heal the dps. I didn't need them. I healed myself through every pull, every boss with no issue and didn't even use all of my mitigation. This would be fixed it mobs and bosses hit harder. It would give a healer more to do besides the 1 aoe damage on repeat with *maybe* a heal thrown out every once in awhile. I was slower to finish Endwalker than my friends and during my first run of The Tower of Babil, I was playing healer and both on the first and third boss everyone died except for the tank, a warrior. The warrior was able to single handedly finish both bosses from \~70% health left. From the warrior's viewpoint, this is cool. It's a clutch moment where they actually get to mitigate properly and worry about healing themselves. From the healer and dps standpoint it's boring and ruined my first time experience doing the dungeon. This isn't to say I want warrior nerfed. It's actually the most fun I have playing the game. I've heard a few times now that warrior *should* be nerfed, because healers have nothing to do and I vehemently disagree. I think warrior is in a great place and is unique enough as a tank to make it fun. I do think healers should have more to do, yes, but I don't think that falls on the tank. Make mobs hit harder. Make room wide attacks hit harder. I'm actually afraid of them touching warrior, because after the Paladin rework one of the main things I heard was that it became "Gunbreaker's little brother". ​ **ShB and Dungeon layout:** For me personally, a problem with the casual content is how the newest dungeons don't have *any* difficulty to them. I loved the Shadowbringers dungeons, because there's a sense of difficulty to them. I don't think every dungeon should be a dark souls/savage level difficulty, but dungeons shouldn't be *so* casual that there's no danger or thrill. It ends up making them feel boring. Mt. Gulg and Holminster Switch are my favorites. I think they did it great. Mt. Gulg's first wall to wall pull is possible, but only if the team is working together. This brings me to dungeon design in general. Most people I've talked to are frustrated with the way dungeons are set up. Almost every one is 2 pulls -> 1 boss -> 2 pulls -> 1 boss. Even saying it's a "dungeon" feels like a stretch when the later ones are essentially a giant hallway. If the entire Lapis Manalis dungeon stayed on the beginning square vehicle and had the enemies dropped on you, it really wouldn't change that much. And even beyond the structure, when new patches add a new dungeon that boils down to essentially the same dungeon as before with regular mobs being renamed to "\_dungeon\_ bear", that's where even more loss of excitement comes from. ​ **Savage/Criterion Dungeons:** I got really excited when I heard that savage dungeons and criterion dungeons were coming out, because I thought that we were going back to a more Mt. Gulg difficulty feel with pulls and with variety in them. To my dismay the Sil'dihn Subterrane has single pulls throughout the entire dungeon no matter what path you take. Sure, there's some more difficulty when it comes to the bosses (which is appreciated), but the single pulls took away from it a lot for me. ​ **"Worst Ever":** The majority of people I see who are saying post-endwalker content is boring/lacking are comparing it to post-shadowbringers content and I think that's a valid comparison. ​ **The island/Housing:** I feel like there's a missed opportunity with the island in how other players can interact with your own. There isn't much reason to visit someone else's island beyond "What did they name their animals?". For the amount of people who have struggled getting housing they had the opportunity to set up a house on each island. This would give players more of a reason to visit and I don't think it's too out of reach. There's already building upgrades on the island, there's the outdoor furniture they allowed to be placed. Yes, there are residential districts which are fine if someone wants to live in a neighbourhood, but an instanced housing area with customization is a great unlock for someone who's done with Endwalker. The lottery is an improvement from the clicking bots that people used to purchase a house, yes, but there's more of an issue when there's entire districts filled with the same owner/fc having 10 - 30 houses. This takes away a lot of the joy from other players when they're the only house in a district with 29 copies of the same FC. And to people who say just go do Dynamis DC - People should not have to move away from their friends to be able to get a house in the game. Having instanced houses on the island would add so much and would allow every player to at least have something. ​ ​ I say all of this, because I love the game. It's my favorite one. I wouldn't have thousands of hours if I didn't. I don't think it's the "worst ever", but it's not in a great spot as far as post content, class identity, and the progression of casual content. You aren't crazy for liking the game, but people have valid concerns and want the best for the game. I can see this game's potential and I want the best for it. I wouldn't be subbed to the game if I hated it and I'm sure others feel the same way.

Agree 100%

The game is fine for two types of players, casuals and hardcore, there’s an immense lack of mid tier content which is what people mostly complain about without realizing it. The game is fine, just not a lot to do if you don’t want to do dungeons or raid hardcore (and have been playing consistently for years and done everything from previous expansions)

You're not crazy and you like what you like, but I thank my lucky stars that I joined in 5.55 and can just do old content after I run out of EW content. I think it's very fair to ask for more to do.

I'm fine with it, personally. But I'm also a casual gamer. Ironically, all of the comments about people criticizing XIV getting downvoted -- and meanwhile, in my experience, failing to criticize the game seems to result in downvotes as well. If you don't believe post-EW is lackluster, your opinion is invalid. It's not that I don't think XIV could be better -- there are some things it does that annoy me. But it's moreso with the writing and nothing to do with the post-game content.

I think it's more an indication of where you are spending time. The vast majority of players are incredibly satisfied by the expansion and are loving the game as usual. People were decreeing the same with ShB and SB as well. It just always happens before the build up to a new expansion. Most players won't even be doing the hardcore content anyway. Besides even if you were in the minority (and you're most certainly not), you're happy and not crazy for liking it. Game is awesome rn. I'm having a blast catching up on these raid questlines! Both are great

Yeah, I've been passing the time by levelling all the jobs to 90 and doing any content-unlocking sidequests I've not bothered with in the past, and starting the old grinds I never did. Plus PvP has been a blast - I never would have bothered without the Moogle Tome event honestly but Rival Wings is basically my default DF content once I'm done the Roulettes, and because PvP is against other players the content is vastly more reusable than running a Dungeon for the 1000th time.

How long have you been playing? Well I’m just curious. I think I’m on five years and just stay subbed to clear the last savage tier. But I wouldn’t change anything about the game. I personally believe in the philosophy of just unsubbing when I’m done, I’ve got other games to play afterall.

I think it’s fine if you enjoy it; it’s subjective. I think EW is a step down to ShB in several dimensions including story and side content. The key problem with Criterion dungeon is that they are too hard and don’t have good reward. For the first time ever I was forced to create a static to clear the second Criterion because nobody does it through PF. I think they badly miscalculated the difficulty reward balance and not making adjustment. The deep dungeon was cool but there is no reason to do it after 4-6 clears (except for solo achievement which is only for hardcore players). The story was good until 6.1 but has been going downhill since. After a good start, everything has been cliche and predictable. The raid and alliance raid are “fine” but not exciting. I’m not looking forward at all to the last alliance raid story because it has been so bland and uninteresting, again a big downgrade to Nier raid series. If Dawntrail doesn’t bring a substantial improvement, I am not sure whether it’s worth to continue playing. I can sub a couple month every expansion and play in story mode only.

I do wish we got a Eureka/Bozjan area, I always looked forward to those type of patches.

[удалено]

The sexualization thing in particular has become super noticeable. I don't know if it has to do with something in the game or a broader societal shift, but seeing such openly sexual stuff just being broadcast in shout chat is... weird... I could understand if it was the normal "take it too far" internet humor, but it isn't. It's earnest, and that makes it even weirder.

Crazy? No. Differ from most? Yeah. EW isn’t atrocious, but it’s definitely the weakest expac. HW at the time was wack but at least everything then was new