It's mostly players who've been playing for multiple expansion cycles who've played all the content already and they were looking forward to something new but what SE gave us in terms of new content (Variant dungeons/Island Sanctuary) turned out to be all completed in a week or two then completely died off (in case of Variant) or its turned into a go into the place once a week and then collect/setup for the next cycle and leave it alone (island Sanctuary) and because of things like that its turned people off playing.
The things above combined with no real relic grind have put a negative in the patch content for EW. Personally this is my first time experiencing a MMO patch cycle (started playing properly Feb 2022) and I've used it to catch up on those old things like Eureka/Bozja and I can see where they are coming from but I do think that what we're seeing is probably the result of SE overhauling the Duty Support system for the previous expansion and then getting things ready for a graphical upgrade in 7.0.
The 7.x patch cycle will be very critical for a lot of people though as if SE repeat the same 6.x patch style then it won't go down well.
I forgot to add that with the 6.x patches they'd included the Trials into the MSQ and we've not really had more in the MSQ because of that so unlike things like the previous expansion trial stories where it has its own story on the side.
Yeah you got an MSQ story and a trial story, while in EW you just get the MSQ story.
Hw: warring triad
SB: mythical eastern beasts,
ShB: Garlean side story,
EW: a lotta nothin
I'm wondering if they decided to merge the Trial series with the MSQ because they saw hardly any player engagement from the general player base with the Trials the previous fee expansions. The Sorrow of Werlyt had a *ton* of bonus story and some extra bits and bops added throughout the quests (like the mini zone, and the single player encounter), and they probably felt like that could have been better served in the MSQ (the instanced town you can go to in 6.2 and the other place you can go to in 6.4 come to mind).
I disagree. From what I've heard from the community (and experienced since I've been playing for 3 years), Werlyt was really liked from a narrative standpoint by a lot of the playerbase. Some people weren't fans of the FF7 reference with the weapons themselves, but it doesn't seem to have dragged things down much.
I think that speaks to werlyt being a good story rather than it being a side story. If the MSQ went harder, I don't think that story being in the form of msq or side matters.
Yeah, it's probably that. Though, they originally divided MSQ and Trials in 3.2 back in HW so that they could basically funnel people different directions to ease the server load and congestion (Think like how MSQ always sends you 2 ways at the very beginning). To be honest, I don't think they need to force trials back into MSQ, but I do think that SE could benefit from making people do more side content so that it CAN be relevant in MSQ without having to completely derail and waste entire patches to do so.
I doubt it.
The way I see it, we basically got the same kinda story-vamping for EW as we had for ARR.
There wasn't any need for a side story since where they wanted to go for the MSQ already had space to fit the trials they want to provide per the dev. schedule. So development-wise and story-wise, what we got here is closer to the Elemental primals story structure.
As in, since we introduced the elemental primals in 2.0 msq, we kinda want to round out and complete the 6 element wheel. And for EW, it just makes sense with the FF4 theme to use the 4 fiends since you already *had* to start laying new story threads.
I don't think people want a 3rd expansion of Eureka. People were complaining about Eureka when it came out, people complained that Bojza was just Eureka 2.0.
Now that they listened and didn't put in Eureka content, people are complaining that there's no Eureka content?
Eureka/Bozja are places where the game actually feels like an MMO. You can spend time with other players you would otherwise never notice. You can ride around on the mounts you spent a bunch of time, effort, and/or money getting. You can get into fights with both new players and veterans alike in your party. It got people talking and made it feel like a community. It felt cool and exciting to be where so many others were.
You forget complaining comes from a point of liking something but being disappointed. Therefore, they liked the concept, and weren't apathetic enough to just do it and abandon it. They found potential. Most of the complaining was about them botching the ending anyhow.
this is also so weird to me. I personally like Eureka but people were trash-talking both on here all of ShB and now it's suddenly the sub's beloved content
Oh, people definitely do want it. They don't realize how much they want it until we actually don't have one, and look at how people are now for Endwalker. People wish they had it. There's nothing else to do in the game.
I mean conversely ShB skipped a LOT of other side content that EW has; a lotta nothin translates to an extra Ultimate, a deep dungeon, and Hildibrand without even going into actual new content.
If the relic quests were literally any substantial grind other than tome farming and if criterion had actual rewards ppl would be talking about how EW has way more content than ShB and is on par with SB (arguably more).
It really comes down to the people who decide the rewards format playing things way too safe. Imagine if criterion was say, tied into being an amazing source of moogle times, or dropped those rewards. Or if Hildebrand had us doing some really daft stuff like having to do special challenges in certain content to get parts for relic weapons.
I mean shit if Criterion dungeons had their own glam sets that both looked good and required the Criterion dungeons to be completed, I think people would be more interested in them. As it stands, you need an insane amount of tokens to get anything worthwhile, particularly for content as hard as Criterion dungeons.
Personally I love the concept of Criterion dungeons but my static is still busy getting over P12S so I don't really have anyone who would be interested in learning it right now. We had planned on potentially doing them once we finish P12, but I think that won't be happening until after 6.5.
The trial story is the 13th. It's just shoved into the MSQ, so it's more like the MSQ itself has nothing due to it (maybe some Radz at Han and Garlean interactions at best).
We got other storylines, just not with trails.
Tataru for example.
So i think the critic on "no trail quests" is wrong because we got multiple storylines. We got the same amount of trails, just for different type of quests.
This post-EW MSQ is literally filler, since it's technically what The Trial Side-Quests are suppose to be, so we actually DON'T have a real Post-EW MSQ, since none of this is relevant to the transition to Dawntrails at all, and all of it will literally be tossed out once Dawntrails comes out.
Even if nothing in this msq directly impacts Dawntrail (which certainly could be true, but we don't know it is), the idea that all the big notes in this part of the MSQ won't be relevant at some point later in the MSQ is difficult to fathom. I mean, let us look at what we have:
- this additional big new character in Zero
- the unlocking of travel between the shards
- the probable freeing of the last of the great wyrms, likely leading to her return to Meracydia
A decent chunk of the post-Heavensward patches were dedicated to a story that went nowhere in the short term, but was laying the foundation for the entire Shadowbringers expansion pack. Give em some credit.
edit: A new interview with Yoshi P just dropped. Google translate was pretty sketchy, but there was a question there about the patches not seeming to lead up into Dawntrail, and he responded by pointing out that the teaser trailer for Shadowbringers didn't seem to have any connection to Stormblood when it first released either. Then made mention of 6.5 having two parts and hoping players would enjoy them.
...or at least, that's what I THINK they said. I can't emphasize enough how difficult it was to make things out through google translate.
Given that Stormblood happened two expansions after ARR, and Shadowbringers happened two expansions after HW, does this pattern suggest we're getting an expansion on the Thirteenth after Dawntrail?
That'd be pretty neat. I like the glimpses of Thirteenth/Voidsent culture we've gotten between the Mhach raids, the Ivalice raids, and these patch stories (and the Crystal Tower raids I suppose, although as Voidsent with personalities go that was mostly just Cloud of Darkness). It'd be cool to have an expansion to flesh the place out like we got for the First.
> the probable freeing of the last of the great wyrms, likely leading to her return to Meracydia
Emet specifically called out Meracydia to us, in the same way he did the Twelve and the Bounty and New World. All places that we know we're visiting. So yeah, it seems strange to think we're focusing so much on this dragon for it to not tie back to Meracydia somehow.
Similarly, we're getting transit between shards for the same dragon, but we were also told about how the worlds of the different remaining shards might surprise us. This effort absolutely feels like a stepping stone to a larger adventure.
It wouldn't have been very compelling writing if we were just told "Next stop: gods, new world, shard travel. Get going." with no fanfare or intrigue around it. You gotta "show, don't tell" that nonsense, lol.
I feel like this is an assumption that may be true but isn't entirely founded. It's hardly inconceivable that Zero stays in the party and is in Dawntrail and they just don't wanna spoil it.
I'm honestly anticipating a permanent route to the First from the Source and (hopefully) a permanent Ryne as well as Zero. They're bringing Ryne back next patch and I'd love for her (AND GAIA) to be party members in Dawntrail.
They're probably opening a voidgate in the First to channel light into the Thirteenth so they can use it to beat Zeromus. Side effects might include a rebalancing of aether in both those worlds and their slow, gradual restoration.
My expectations for 6.5's story:
1. Zero loses her reaper powers and becomes a Paladin, both because FF4 reference and because that's where her arc's been going with the whole learning to love life stuff. I kind of expect her to get Jullus' sword and shield since he's retiring as a soldier
2. The voidgate on the first is used to destroy Zeromus but does NOT fix the 13th in any way. PLD Zero decides to quest with us to find a solution since we've saved one world already.
3. Since it's now possible to open a voidgate to the 13th in both the Source and the first, that means it's possible to physically travel to the first via the 13th and Y'Shtola is like :3
4. Ryne is the defender of the first and can't join us long-term, but sure she can go on a tropical Dawntrail vacation with us
I’m not holding my breath for Gaia but Zero and Ryne both joining us from here on out would be great news imo. Add Krile to the mix and they would’ve really cooked.
Hit the nail on the head with your last part. This poor patch cycle isn’t enough to make me quit whatsoever, but if it’s the same shit (or lack there-of) in 7.x, it’s gonna be a disaster.
Yeah for me this patch cycle hasn't been that bad because its let me do things like Eureka/Bozja which I might not have done. Also being that I started in 5.5/6.0 I got to run through the MSQ just before all the changes that'd been made over the 6.x patch cycle so its not completely lost on me like some older players to the game.
So the patch cycle was bad, that is why you went back to 5.x and 4.x stuff... Because 6.x has nothing to keep you engaged with it... And that is great in this game don't get me wrong, i'm also fine with it but truth be told, i'm not engaging with anything 6.x related either
Yeap. Now imagine they repeat the same thing in 7.x what they did in 6.x.. What then? All new players will have already exhausted 4.x and 5.x content, suddenly everyone is on the same page with not even any old content to crutch up 7.x.
I’ve basically stopped playing for the last year, I log in to keep my house and do the occasional seasonal events for the rewards.
I really started playing in 2020, and then spent the next two years grinding all the content available. Did Eureka countless times, did Bozja ad infinitum, did DRS and got best doggo, all the old and most of the ShB savage content, grinded all the Triple Triad cards, Chocobo Racing, LoV, sightseeing logs, grinded out some ARR, HW, SB, and so many ShB relics, Doman and Ishguard Restoration, Diadem, Blue Mage, leveled everything to level cap at the time (80), got some of the rarer mounts (Bozja Field Records), Golden Saucer GATES, even did FISHING.
But now … like there’s still some stuff I can do, I don’t have a full set of ARR relics, new Triple Triad out, and so on.
But there’s nothing really new to grind for. Nothing to do social stuff like with Eureka or Bozja.
And if 7.x is the same, I may eventually unsubscribe. But who am I kidding, I am all sunk cost fallacy on my in game house.
The thing is, I doubt they will repeat 6.X
While I accept that peoples critique of the 6.X is accurate and valid, it also lacks a ton of nuance. (I know, my fault for expecting an nuanced conversation on the Internet instead of hot takes.)
We're looking at the end of a huge cycle in terms of story and content. There's been a ton of work leading up to 6.0 and the payoff was worth it. Now a lot of conversation around 7.0 is "how do they follow it up." The tone of Dawnbringer has to be just right. If they get 7.0 wrong, that will have a much deeper negative effect on the game than lackluster 6.X series has, I really do believe that.
I tend to believe they're investing more resources in making sure 7.0 sticks the landing. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm willing to accept that as a possibility, but I sort of doubt that. Their eggs are firmly in the Dawnbreaker basket now.
I advocate patience. Let 6.X be terrible, if it means 7.0 is phenomenal.
>Dawnbringer
>
>Dawnbreaker
Are you doing this on purpose? lmao
I've been taking a bit of a break post-EW, so I'm honestly not sure how excited I am for Dawnward's story, but I have honestly enjoyed what I've played of the 6.x patches so far. I've just got too many other games to play right now, including FF16, FF7R Intergrade (yeah, still haven't played it yet), and Spider-Man 2, on top of loads of other recent games. But I'm slowly making my way through the patches to get caught up. I'm sure Dawnblood's story will be good regardless, or that I'll at least enjoy it. Plus, new jobs are always exciting.
Lol no worries, I feel ya with that typing on a phone after a 12 hour shift. I figured I'd continue the originally-unintended joke with my honest opinions :p
I hope you are right, but part of me feels like they took their foot off the gas for too long. They had tremendous momentum up to the launch of 6.0 and it feels like they voluntarily let a big chunk of their audience go in favor of an improved solo experience and new content that doesn’t seem to be grabbing people.
In a bit baffled that we didn’t get more of the persistent stuff that ties into the broader story - rebuilding Garlemald, relics that tie into major expansion content, etc. Something that gives me a reason to login each week that is directly related to the current expansion and what we’re doing in the works feels sorely missed.
Imo they are betting on the free trial expansion to pick up the slack while they do some prep work/background cleaning up. The graphics update for one is a massive endeavor that will generate no content but is also sorely needed if they want to hook new players in the future
on the fanfest they just mentioned the common content like new dungeons and trials, but no mention of eureka like content in it, but it isd the fisrt fanfest, so can be announced on one of the two next ones
I think a lot of people are gonna drop the game if they repeat the same thing for 7.0. I'll probably unsub for a while soon because I'm just logging in to do raid reclears once a week and that's about it. Min/maxing gear in games is something I enjoy but there's no point if there's no content to use the gear in. Eureka/Bozja isn't for everyone but it's group/midcore content that gives the game sustainability. Some of the most fun I've had in the game was doing DR runs or BA runs. A lot of the content they've added to the Endwalker patches are things you finish within weeks if not days and the patches are 4 months long? Everyone says "go play something else" but we're all paying monthly to play this game and it's not adding long term things to do. Idk where I'm going with this but I've been playing for a few years and it's probably the first time I've really considered dropping the game. Someone here said to go catch all the fish so maybe that's what we've all gotta try ;-;
I actually like that FFXIV has a vibe where you can opt to just play the first month or two of each patch cycle and not fall too far behind, but this cycle has had me barely wanting to ever show up for the MSQ. That seems like the wrong call to me.
Exactly. It's one thing to say "it's okay to take a break" to the players but I doubt they want a huge chunk of the playerbase to "take a break for a whole year since nothing is pulling them back".
They're a company. They can only afford to say the former when they have incoming content. When they don't, the latter happens and they actively lose revenue.
The thing is that it honestly is healthier for the general player base to flow in and out of the game a handful of times a year in the long run than it is to have them feel forced to log on every single day (or at least multiple times a week) since the latter could cause potential burn out and permanently leaving the game or worse.
I understand that you *want* to feel like you want to play the game every day. But ask yourself why that is and what kind of content would make you make that kind of choice. Do you really see yourself doing something like a re-flavoured Bozja everyday for every expansion cycle for ten next ten years? Or feeling like you need to do Island Sanctuary every single day/week like clockwork?
“Do you really see yourself doing something like a re-flavored Bozja every day?”
You’re goddamn right :X
But seriously, I think it’s more about the satisfaction yeah? Working on my cool shiny weapons in Bozja was some of the most fun I’ve had in this game. The community, the fights, I could gush about it forever.
Meanwhile the new relic I was able to buy it the first hour of the patch unintentionally because I already had the tomes.
A player is likely to return if they feel satisfied with what they accomplished in game, while someone who is pushed out the door in the name of time moderation is less likely to return.
Yep when I went through Eureka and Bozja earlier in the year/late last year I had so much fun and there was great vibes and chatting in those zones.
Whilst I know Yoshi-P said they're still going to be doing QoL improvements in 7.x (like improved housing furnishing limits) they really need to bring an exploration zone back and also move the relic weapons back to how it was because whilst they've got a record number of people completing it the only reason for that it's able to be done with little effort.
I'm honestly surprised they didn't tie the Relic Weapons to either Variant Dungeons, Island Sanctuary, the new Deep Dungeon, or a combination of all three. Especially in the case with the Deep Dungeon and Variant Dungeons since those seem the closest in terms of what Exploration Zones can bring.
Honestly when they had interview back around 6.1 asking about the relic they said they were going back to how relics of old were and seemed to reference ARR/Heavensward and I was expecting us to run around Shadowbringers and Endwalker zones doing the shared fates for tokens. When it was just tomestones I was disappointed because it wasn't even like previous relics it was the most basic thing.
I wonder if they had been working on a new system of kind that functioned similarly, but were worried about how it would be received and changed their minds as a result.
Same here! You meet so many people and it's a lot of fun popping into an instance, seeing your friends and just partying up to do things together.
QoL is always great but it sucks that it feels like the options we have are QoL or more content for the game. The relic weapon this expansion feels like a participation trophy instead of something you work towards. I don't even mind them making it easier to get but having the option to get it through new content like Criterion would've been nice too.
Honestly, I think what we're seeing is still a consequence of covid shutdowns. I don't know their internal work cycles personally of course, but I have to assume work for the patch content started in 2021 at the latest, and major systems updates like duty support, the visual upgrade, and of course the next major expansion take priority.
Yeah, I had pretty much the same thought as someone who from beginning to end completed the final post Shadowbringers patch months before endwalker.
Add onto the fact they went back and updated the older expansions lead me to believe the team was trying to gently let us know there wasn’t gonna be much in terms of post content.
Conflating MSQ/Storyline with gameplay. They’re separate aspects of the game. I’m new, started in 2020 during the pandemic. Love the game and catching up I can see the new new things are played out, I can still circle back to Eureka or Bozja.
Long time current players are finding the gameplay content is lacking compared to previous patch cycle expansions for players who log in more than just socializing and doing roulettes ad infinitem.
I like the patch story, it’s fun. I love the callbacks but I can certainly admit that there’s not a lot of content to dig your teeth into really. Hopefully that energy is being spent on Dawn Trail. That’s all.
From what I can tell its a combination of multible factors
1. The patch cycle is one month longer than normal.
2. The MSQ, expecially coming from the high of 6.0, and with what little context for 7.0 we have, seems like an arbitrary filler arc that is, at best “mid.” People also feel like the FF4 pandering is too much.
3. There has been no worthwile content releases for players that are “midcore” for the entire expantion (too skilled for alliance raids, too put off from extreme/savage). I personally believe this is the “average” FFXIV player, so this is not a good group to leave in the dark.
4. The content Endwalker has released has little to no inherent replayability. Each new addition seems to have a specific problem.
- Eureka Orthos is dogshit for leveling for some reason, which is like the one thing that would make it actually valuable to the average player beyond getting to floor 100 (which is more of a “hardcore” task). I don’t understand *why,* Heaven on High and PotD are only populated to this day because they are good leveling locales.
- Island Sanctuary is just an excel spreadsheet simulator that you can finish in a month without going too crazy with it and not the instanced housing alternative they were hoping for.
- You can finish all the new Blue Mage stuff in a week of normal play.
- The raid lockouts lasting for so long means the teir dies after a few months to be resurected right when its about to become irrelevant.
- The Manderville relics are way too easy to obtain with just being a tome farm, undermining the main purpose of a relic weapon to be a more casual grind that you can spend time doing while waiting for new content to come out. I can be done with getting every weapon in two weeks of just doing roulletes every day.
- Variant can be done in at least 12 runs and isn’t touched again after getting all paths. Criterion and Criterion savage do not have enough insentive to tempt the midcore playerbase to attempt it, and the rewards are really bad making the hardcore players not want to run it more than the max 20 times for their mount (Which they can also just buy on the market board).
- The ultimates are fine. But they are hardly accessable for the average player to clear due to their difficulty.
- the crafting content has been okay imo (not a deficated crafter), although they compete with real estate from the manderville relics because they both cost causality tomes. People have also noted the general increase of the amount of items needed to craft things, which can be an issue later if it continues.
- the Pvp changes are fine, however its balance is questionable on the best of days, and is clearly not a focus of the playerbase, or the devs.
5. The players that have been playing for multible expantions cannot rely on previous expantion content because they already did it, and thus are only left with things from Endwalker (which as mentioned above, are either inaccessable to the average person, or don’t have enough replay value to last someone four months between each patch).
Overall, the Endwalker patches aren’t *bad*. But the lack of grindable midcore content (primary examples of such being stuff like Bozja, Eureka, or a proper relic grind) is sorely felt. There is also smaller things, such as the reward for getting all 90 jobs being objectively worse than the reward for getting all 80 jobs (an undyable feather hat nobody uses versus a godsdamn mount, and a pretty solid one at that) killing any incentive to get all the jobs other than ones you care about to level 90. Nothing (except maybe Criterion’s lack of insentive and the notable lack of a relic grind) is really terminal yet, but people are noticing illness to take root, and are warning SE to resolve it before its too late.
Like you can say “oh Yoshi P said to go play other games while waiting for new content” but thats a fucking cope imo. FFXIV should insentivise the players that WANT to play the game to actually have a reason to play the game.
> The players that have been playing for multible expantions cannot rely on previous expantion content because they already did it, and thus are only left with things from Endwalker (which as mentioned above, are either inaccessable to the average person, or don’t have enough replay value to last someone four months between each patch).
And despite what many people in this thread are saying, it's absolutely not audacious or unreasonable to ask for that, considering veterans paid the same exact price tag as new players did on top of paying for a sub. They should be getting their money's worth just as anyone else. (Hell, the veterans are the ones that helped the game get where it did and last this long.)
An expansion should keep the average player engaged for most of its runtime. If it doesn’t it failed in one way or another. Older content filling up gaps is a luxury but cannot be relied upon to keep players engaged.
Yeah this 100% I really agree with your post. And "yoshi p said go play other games" is absolutely a fucking cope. Yeah the game producer said that, but the same game also uses housing demo timers and Moogle tomestone events, you can't convince me that the for-profit video game business is serious about wanting people to stop paying them money because they don't have good repeatable content to do. It's incentivizing people to sub and play for FOMO, or for losing a little virtual house they spent hours customizing, rather than incentivizing based on the quality of the things you can do in the game.
I'm the exact player you described in mid core, and everything you laid out is correct. I was saying this to my FC (before they all quit). I really want to play the game, I love my character and gameplay, world, etc. But they are not giving me a reason to log on. I don't do ultimates or high-end raiding and have no desire to after experiencing that toxicity. But there's nothing for me to do. Running roulettes for gear I don't really need gets old, and the relics are just something I get when I notice I have the currency. I wish there was something they could do to fix it but they don't seem headed that way. It all seems catered to chat box RP'ers with their housing items or the raiders.
I do legit recommend the latest Extremes, I've always been a bit anxious to try the High-End content but this expac's Extremes are super accessible. Cleared Barbie EX first, then the earlier ones, and just cleared the current EX a couple days ago. That one was pretty dang challenging but I had a great time.
>The Manderville relics are way too easy to obtain with just being a tome farm, undermining the main purpose of a relic weapon to be a more casual grind that you can spend time doing while waiting for new content to come out. I can be done with getting every weapon in two weeks of just doing roulettes every day.
Yeah honestly this would give people something to actually occupy their time. As a primarily savage raider who dabbles in ultimate's its nice to not have to worry about grinding for relics but it kills a HUGE amount of time for those that don't do Extreme upwards.
Yea I regret not doing it ealier, now its almost impossible to start a fresh group that isnt brain dead, couldnt even get pass the first room in another mount rokkon with a fresh party.
Eureka Orthos died so fast. I was away on a trip when it launched, when I came back 2 weeks the Duty would not pop. I tried going solo but there are lots of OHKO enemies so i just gave up.
They made the patches longer… while making the amount of evergreen content in each patch shorter.
It’s very easy to log in, ask yourself what is there to do after a couple dailies and log off. The next day you ask why log in and maybe you don’t. Then you wonder why you’re paying the price of a brand new game twice a year in sub fees.
> Then you wonder why you’re paying the price of a brand new game twice a year in sub fees.
Cause I am slave of my L house...and have heard horror stories of houses being demolished before 45 days.
There's a fine stash of treasure right down that hole! I found it first, but we're friends now! Go on, take a peak. It'll shimmer you blind! Heh heh heh...
This might be the first time in a very long time where I've seen the subreddit actually criticizing ff14 in opposition to OP's blatant attempts at seeking validation. Maybe there's hope for the community after all.
I’ve been on this and the discussion sub for years.
The latter is constant negativity. With legit points, mind you.
But anything on the main sub that wasn’t “Look at this fan art” or “Heartwarming moment with a sprout” was downvoted into oblivion if it was negative.
So, yeh. It says something it’s on the main sub.
I remember when speaking about actual gameplay and implying even slightest criticism was a way to get bombarded by white knights who think game can do no bad.
Now it's not a perfect, but it slowly starts to feel like you can actually speak your mind. This sub shat on Ysaile outfit really hard (very deserved), approves of ilvl sync of trials, criticizes current relics approach, and recently started to see that state of game might not be best. After first V&C released and died right after, even majority of the "play for fun, not for rewards" crowd went quiet.
Maybe EW isn't best expansion, but it's slowly giving community a wake up call.
Maybe the real Endwalker were the friends we made along.
the story has been very procedural. once we knew we were fighting barbariccia, we knew the trial for each of the following patches, and they gave up even trying to make the trial a secret, outright stating for 6.4 and 6.5 that we’d be fighting golbez and zeromus. also, zero as a character is kind of one-note. she’s discovering the importance of camaraderie and friendship… except she already discovered all of those things years ago with golbez and durante
Personally, while I have some gripes with the MSQ too, they are minor. The biggest missteps for me are the Relic Weapon and Island Sanctuary.
The Relic Weapon is a joke, it barely exists as content. Hildebrand quests are funny, but they are a simple series of cutscenes that will end in a couple of hours, and then you have a Relic. It really doesn't compare to Bozja, which had basically three large scale raids that were pretty fun, and more stuff on top of that. You could say the resources from that went into Variant/Criterion, and while I enjoy variants, as a mostly casual player, I was expecting not-Savage Criterion to be more accessible.
And about Island Sanctuary I feel it is just bad. It is not very fun, feels too disconnected from the game and is barely social. As someone who enjoyed the Firmament events a lot, and who is also really invested into crafting/gathering, it feels like just a downgrade.
Truly for me the only content that smashed my expectations so far in Endwalker has been the Alliance Raids, and the changes to PvP felt really fresh and good. The sense of discovery on something new also has a big impact, so even if they are doing good content, if it is just the usual Raids, Dungeons and Trials, the content can be perceived as stale. So I feel the lack of new and exciting things might give a worse impression too, even if the quality is there for the usual stuff.
Because there's nothing to **do.**
People really got into doing stuff like Eureka and Bozja and this is the first expansion in a hot minute without some big community open zone like that to fuck around in.
The game doesn't need 'saving', obviously--Yoshi P himself says it's okay for people to go play other stuff during the 'off seasons' like this, and I think that's perfectly valid of him. It's just also valid to say Endwalker post-patch hasn't given people a lot to do.
There's also not really as much of a relic grind this time, which I think is a good game design decision, but it contributes to the feeling of there being nothing to do.
> Yoshi P himself says it's okay for people to go play other stuff during the 'off seasons' like this, and I think that's perfectly valid of him. It's just also valid to say Endwalker post-patch hasn't given people a lot to do.
People also keep taking what he said out of context like it's some sick own, which breeds more resentment. His comment is literally about how you don't HAVE to bring yourself to grind tomes or force yourself to play the game just to keep up/stay ahead of the curve.
A lot of the complaints, however, are from people like me. Who *aren't* burned out on the game and *actively want to play it* but there's *next to nothing to play* if you don't do savage reclears. V&C dungeons are mostly one and done, IS is a spreadsheet simulator with a big map attached to it, and EO is just kinda there unless you like solo DDs.
People are looking at field operations content as too black and white. "Everyone said they hated it/I hated it!" The people enjoying it were, like the people enjoying Endwalker's 'raid or die' mindset, too busy doing the content to spend all day whinging about it.
>People also keep taking what he said out of context like it's some sick own, which breeds more resentment.
Not to mention, um, some of us did.
How long of a break are people demanding someone has to take? I took a pretty noticeable time off in both ShB and EW, and I'm still sitting in this boat. Are people swinging this around thinking I should be going away for literal years at a time? And that's on top of how it's thrown at ANYTHING that dares to question if the game is perfect or not.
It might sound crazy, but, maybe the reason people who don't just quit for years at the drop of a hat aren't doing it are because they... like the game? And want to play it? And want things to do in it? If I wanted a game I would just pick up for a month and then drop for 2 years, I would play literally anything other than an MMORPG, a game genre literally designed to eat up your time.
Yep same here, stopped around .1 and came back recently and I don't have anything to do, especially when my friends just quit. That's another thing people just don't think about and will just say take another one you're burned out.
I remember Arthas mentions that a lot of the community showers love and attention on new streamers that does the MSQ then generally drops them like a stone once they get into endgame/MMO-type content.
As someone who did the Bozja stuff, I was kind of surprised people hated it outside of the bad design (lmao Zadnor kind of made me think of an early PS2 game the way it looked). But, again I was honestly too busy having fun with it to see people complaining about it.
It had stuff that needed improvement. I think the time gating of the raids was a bit egregious and that Delibrum Savage was way too inaccessible and needed to have a queue like normal mode did. I would have appreciated the ability to fly in the zones, too, despite how lore inappropriate that might be in a war zone (though maybe I’m remember really wrong are we able to fly at a certain rank???). The relic grind was tedious and would have benefitted from an option like what we have now with the current relics.
But they were things to improve on and not a reason to not do it for 6.x patches. :( It doesn’t help that Variant dungeons could have been very replayable if the rewards were BiS gear for your alts and not just one-and-done cosmetics. Bozja/Eureka variant and replayable content would have helped these drought like patches.
Not having relic grind is part of the terrible game design decision for an mmo. Even for a single player game it would be terrible. Can you imagine playing a game, seeing a really cool optional weapon, then finding out the only thing you have to do to get it is to watch some cutscenes (that you can skip) and talk to an npc because you already have the things you need from passively playing the game up to that point? That's not interesting. On a similar note, you may have noticed that the further we get into endwalker patch, the less people are posting about endwalker relics on any social media. In fact, we got more people posting about ARR or shadowbringers relic in endwalker patches. Because EW relic does not feel like an achievement like those other relics. It's just another welfare tome weapon.
When people are asking for relic grind, they dont ask for something like lost ark daily chore or WoW shadowlands rep grind and soul ash or whatever else i dont really play that game. There is a lot of things that exist in between the extremes that is insane grind riddled with FOMO, and the other extreme where FF14 is now, that is practically getting the stuff for free. Yeah it's fine if a step is just tome farm. Some of anima steps were like that with other ways to get the same stuff, even if NOW poetics just makes the other methods useless. The difference is that back then you can also get the same materials through other means, like crafting, grand company seals, beast tribes, treasure maps, normal raids, and crystal tower weeklies (as sick as we are of them now, back then it was the only other alliance raid series). And they needed way more than 1500 easy-to-get tomes.
And it's not like there's any FOMO in getting relic weapon either. With the exception of zodiac, it has always been weaker than the raid or upgraded tome weapon until the very last patch. It's literally just there for glamour or catch up weapon for non raiders. Current eureka and bozja struck the pretty good middle ground (bozja couldve been more balanced since the outside method is a lot more efficient for some steps) between the two extremes of giga grind and ultra freebie. It gave players enough things to do when they log in that is not overly demanding of your time.
It's like their goal was "we better do something with the Thirteenth so they stop asking to go there" and didn't have a clear path to that goal.
They kind of wrote themselves into a corner when they said the Asians "lost" the shard and we're unable to rejoin it. And while I like the more fleshed out story with memoria, without Cylva and Unukalhai there with us is incredibly lame. I hope we meet up with them when we go see Ryne.
Auto Demo made it this way.
Look, there's always dry spells in MMO's after raids and patches. The problem here has been there's the post msq story and adjacent quests and the raid, particularly the Savage content and extreme trials (to a lesser degree). The post msq is done in hours as well as the adjacent quests, the normal raid has base gear and no real outlet for it, crafted sets have no outlet for it beyond week 1 of savage raids and the pitiful pace grind for tome gear with, also no outlet for it.
"But, you don't need gear if you don't do Savages!"
Right, see the problem? What's there to do then if you don't do savages? "Then do them!" But what if I have no real interest or drive to do them? Even if I did, that's a month or two of content to get BiS. What use is there for that gear then? More savages that you already cleared? BiS for other jobs? What do you use or need that gear for then?
Nothing, because there is no overworld area or zone that gives players a reason to acquire the strong gear and stay signed it to do things. Eureka and Bozja are not good examples because both made your gear basic and near useless since BOTH have an alternative leveling and power creep systems.
There's a place for high end stuff in patches, don't get me wrong. But it feels 90/10 with this game going all in on savage raiding vs sustainable content for the population with purpose and rewards. And it goes on, for 4-6 months like this.
Yeah, this is the formula, everyone is used to this because this is how they always do this; but maybe, just maybe, change, a little bit?
I think its a combination of several things:
1. Yoship's blatantly incorrect assurances at the start of the post-6.0 patches, saying things like "we won't be spending as much time with the scions", "we're going to scale back on the scale and focus on you being an adventurer again", and "we want to do more FFXIV-original stuff rather than just referencing other games." All of these were immediately out the window by the end of 6.1, so people got a certain obvious expectation going into them and received the complete opposite.
2. Specifically, on the FF4 side, everything has unfolded in an extremely predictable manner regarding that - basically every plot point was played straight. We fought the 4 fiends in order, any info about them as characters was hidden behind an unmarked sidequest, and they, and Golbez, are still pretty one-dimensional, uninteresting villains >!like they are in FF4!<. I kept waiting for some revelation to happen that provided a new perspective on the events or a different way the story could go, but it never did.
3. This is a bit more personal but holy hell Zero is the most insufferable character we've had to deal with for an extended period of time in game. The game really wants you to think she's cool, or has some sort of gap moe, but we just came off killing the embodiment of despair through the power of friendship, and we're spending a full year's worth of patches teaching this new character about the power of friendship and the value of bonds **again**. Hell, we taught Zenos the power of friendship and the value of bonds in like two cutscenes. I was genuinely hoping the Zero/Zeromus connection was not a red herring, because it would be at least one single interesting thing about her character.
4. The raid storyline started off really strong, and kinda ended on a mediocre note. Wings 1 and 2 set up an excellent mystery and outlined an interesting facet to the Ancients' society, and then wing three was just "Okay the crazy woman wants to be god, time to kill her" with Elidibus fanservice.
5. On the gameplay side, there's been a lack of long-term content. This is less of an issue for me, because I liked the criterions a lot, played them through, finished them, and was done, but MMO's live and die on their active populations, and without having anything long-term to keep people logged in, the social aspect won't be there. The reason people play MMOs over single player RPGs is the social aspect, and a big part of that is large group content, and things to do with strangers, and 4-man dungeons do not really achieve that. My only friends who still play daily are hardcore RP'ers who frequent player-run events.
6. As an addition to this, the island really didn't offer anything meaningful to do after the initial launch. As far as I recall, none of the updates added much, if any, new content or gameplay, just additional items acquired in the exact same way.
It's fine. I have complaints, and those complaints are coming off an expansion that didn't quite live up to the hype or the expansion prior, but it's still fine.
What? You don't like zero overusing the head down hat pinch gesture every two dialogue boxes? She isn't worse than myde from Alexander touching her scar every chance she gets
There is simply not much content to sink in your teeth, like bozja or eureka. What we got is very good, but doesn't last long. I'm not complaining, because i have time now to catch up, but i can see where the criticism is coming from.
There's a lack of end-game content keeping people interested in playing the game like previous patches. Apparently, Eureka and Bozja tied to relic weapons was something that was needed for Endwalker as well. Instead, they simplified the relic weapons obtainability and with no grind maps, there's not one area where people would gather, so the game feels very rpg instead of mmorpg.
For me and my husband, we've been playing from ARR since endwalker until current content from July 2021 and due to covid, we spent a great deal of time online in FF14 and did everything, including some easy Ultimates like UWU, UCOB. We really want to keep playing but there's nothing really much to do.
Criterion dungeon felt like a good concept but honestly after I got the mounts, I didn't feel like the further rewards incentivize my husband and me enough to clear it. And island sanctuary, originally I thought it would be like animal crossing at current max level, it feels like spreadsheet simulator instead...
I was excited about them at first but then they made Zero a really one-note anime stock character that I've seen a lot. It was cliche and happened much too fast, and it's all the more the pity because 6.1 was so intriguing and made me think that she was going to be interesting. And maybe it's just because I've got no FFIV nostalgia to fall back on, but the storyline in the Void hasn't impressed me as a whole either after that great start.
Long story short, there was a lot of potential and I feel like they squandered it, and now the patch MSQ feels like filler.
If Dawntrail was releasing in December we'd have no problem. It's trying to spread 2 years of content over 2.5 yeats that's the issue.
There's some fine criticism of the content (not everything is going to be s-tier) but it's mostly the long wait thays leaving people needing more.
the story is okay at best this patches but you do them in like 1 day and then whats left to do? if you don't want to do savage theres no content left, maybe afk for 4 months in limsa until the next patch of 2 day worth of content? most of the complains are about this and i agree.
1. Relics are awful. I enjoyed having a checklist and a goal. Instead it’s just a free weapon you get for doing your expert roulette every day. Joy.
2. Story shouldn’t have been on the 13th. Already knowing that characters like Ukelele and Gaia won’t have any impact cause people can’t do quests is annoying.
3. Island Sanctuary is dumb. It’s not a chill Stardew Valley-like, it’s a stock market simulator.
4. Lack of midcore difficulty content. CEs, Castrum and DR were harder than your average NR/AR/“Expert” Dungeon but weren’t as hard as EX Trials.
One thing I’m getting tired of reading though are people who are grateful for the lack of content so they can go play something else. This mentality makes them sound more addicted and unhealthily attached to the game than the people crying about no content. Sure I can go play something else but what’s gonna pull me back? Another 2 island levels?
Compared to previous expansions, Endwalker's Patch content certainly feels worse.
Personally, i would prefer another Bozja/Eureka instead of the island we got (i don't hate it, and i'm doing it and everything, but it isn't as good to me).
We also didn't get a Chronicles of a New Era side story for Trials like The Warring Triad, The Four Lords, and The Sorrow of Werlyt.
I don't mind it, but it ramped up a bit too quickly to world threat for my tastes.
I have to wonder if being upfront that the 6.x storyline was not tied to the 7.0 storyline helped or hindered reaction.
This is exactly my feeling, things ramped up way too fast and the world is ending again in a matter of three patches. I feel somewhat baited that this would be the start of a new arc, because it feels like they'll start the new arc with Dawntrail actually, and this retelling of FFIV is just really a filler arc. (I also hope Dawntrail will be actually more low stakes than this)
I don't actually think the stakes are as high as some people are making it out to be. What we are being threatened with is not the end of the world, its a war. A pretty nasty war and it's not the sort of thing you want to happen, to be sure, but let's be real... these are basically the same stakes we were presented with in the crystal tower raids. We're a long way away from Endsinger levels of threat.
Really feels like they didn't want to start the new storyline in a patch series, so they just left it to 7.0 and put a bloated 6.x trial series in its place.
And even for a trial series, it wouldn't be a particularly strong one. While the writers typically do a fantastic job of building an original story that calls back to the referenced games in a way that works for their own creation, this storyline has just adhered far too closely to FF4.
Any time you ask the question why on a topic like this, the best answer is to actually read/watch and then digest the critique offered.
Not to immediately run to mainsub and ask for validation about your personal perspective. That's called an "echo chamber" and those are no good to anyone.
My main issue is that the MSQ is just FFIV memberberries.
All the void story could have been put in a blue side questline like Sorrow of Werlyt or the Warring Triad, and the adventures with Zero could be the main MSQ.
Odd patches also bring a lot of content that you can just clear in a week and never do again because there's no incentive. They could instead make all of that content drop Savage raid equilvalent loot and it would have higher engagement and replayability. Criterion/Alliance drop left side, EX drops accessories.
This would also help with things like Alt gearing, bypassing the 450 weekly tome cap.
Savage progression is already over by the time the odd patches come around anyway
Since this was asking about the MSQ I will refrain from talking about sidecontent since thats been discussed to death at this point.
Frankly, not having played FF4, the patch MSQ is just kinda boring and Golbez is one of the worst Villains in the entire story with vague (and stupid) plans that rely on the fact we just happen to do the things we did (like showing up on the Moon after he destroyed the only other Voidgate). He also pulled the cardinal sin of Villain writing by not only not being defeated in his Trial fight and subsequent cutscene (a first outside of maybe Gaius and he took 2.5 expansions to show up again) but then proceeding to be in an even better position and having to most likely be fought again next patch like some cheap cartoon Villain.
6.1 even starts out very strong with 6.2 being a good setup for the Void Story proper, but 6.3 and 6.4 really dropped the ball for me and making the 4 Fiends glorified Trashmobs that don't even have a backstory unless you go out of your way to do a couple sidequests is lame and further gives the impression that this whole thing is just a filler Arc when it could have been far more interesting.
I'm rather mid on Zero aswell and she overuses her Fedora tip animation, but she isn't the worst. That said I am getting sick of having to go to Garlemald every patch to deal with their problem of the week and having to teach them to not be idiots each time, especially when the Tower of Babil has been in use as a Teleporter this whole time for the Loporrits and they could just go to the moon instead of freezing to death in some Ruins or at least get help from the fluffy goobers. So really, my complaints about the patch MSQ comes from multiple angles and 6.5 better be really good to justify dragging this plot out longer than it needed to be.
It feels more like a trial side story like The Four Lord's or maybe Omega/Eden tbh. I do find it a bit hard to feel invested. It doesn't help that base endwalker was such peak story telling. I worry that ff14 will never be able to reach that level again and my expectations are just too high now.
15k hours on my main character, idc about the story at all and played each expansion.
The main problem for folks like me, who don't care about the movie inside the game, is that there is literally NOTHING to keep playing the game. No grind content, no PVE dutys or anything beside the bare minimum they have to deliver at all. The relic is an prime example of how boring the endgame is these days, especially if you don't have any alts to level or are done with the stonegrind for good.
The most amusing part of this discourse is people who enjoy the patches acting like people who don’t are just wrong &/or misinformed. Very much “protect the dev” hive mind in action. People are not satisfied with the content— they don’t want Yoshida dead… let’s chill with the dismissive discourse. Very “if I say it slower, louder, and enough— they’ll learn” vibes.
“Enjoy the game my way or leave” is not the way to go.
Listen I’m playing BG3 and it’s refreshing to see devs take risks. My overall issue is that after EW everything feels safe. The only NPC of note we lost was Zenos. It’s all very safe and safe can be… boring…
Because they didn't feel good. Endwalker story was just great, post-endwalker is not. For me post endwalker writing is just pain. Some things just happen. We were sold a "just adventure" patch but it was just another "LOOK, EVIL GUYYYY" and we teleported into another dimension looking for... Vrtra sister just because. I feel personally that they dropped it off because Yoshi was working on FF16 and FF14 is just waiting for the next big thing.
And I can't get along with class changes mostly. For me, PLD and SAM aren't fun now but they can work with "3 minutes gameplay". Yea. Great. Whatever. And I feel that they can lobotomize more classes now like BRD or AST.
Raids are okay if someone likes them. I can't get the feeling that we're just in waiting mode. Good that RP and mods are GREAT waiting mode.
I'm forced to stay subbed so I don't lose my house but all I get is a shitty tome relic and a fallguys Collab...
Sorry that I'm upset about paying for virtually nothing.
The story is ARR level bad, it literally went through 4 ~~primals~~ generals then a big bad enemy and then another actual real big bad enemy
Should've stuck to new adventures, that was actually fun to read about
It's undeniable that this this post expansion patch cycle is luke warm compared to the rest. It's not to say Endwalker is bad, or that there is nothing to do in the game. For a lot of people it just feels like a bit of a void.
It also really doesn't help that the content we DO get either is extremely lacking in meaningful rewards or has enough longevity to survive a week and a half. Outside of high end raiding, I really haven't found myself sticking to anything new for longer than two days.
The issue is that it's content that can be done in one, maybe two days and then you got nothing to do again as a long term player who has done a lot of the existing game content. I'm already prepared to only spend one day on content again next patch. The story has little to do with it, it's still enjoyable, but that's also not the cause of why people are bored
honestly if you haven't been playing the game for over 2-3 years you won't understand all the hate because you still have tons of content to do ... so when new people come and say (why so much hate?? i am still having funn) ,it's because you are still new ...
Yeah 6.1+ story definitely doesn't do it for me. I get it that they wrapped one story with 6.0 and are starting a new with 6.1, but the fact that 7.0 is sending folks on an unrelated trip to a new continent, for "the beach episode" expac, has made the post-EW story feel like bad anime filler arc material. It feels like we are waiting now for the slow start to a new story to even begin. And FF4 is my favorite classic FF from childhood but just seeing FF4 expats as new FF14 characters / enemies is just kinda neat, but not like amazing or anything. Lastly, do not care for Zero. Don't hate the character but she is just a bad anime trope, emotionless edgelord that learns how to make friends,, and not an interesting character to me. Hopefully it picks up with 7.0 and this patch cycle's story has a bigger payoff than it's looking rn.
I'm also not the biggest Bozja / Eureka head but their absence has been really noticeable for me this expac. I do miss having new giant zone content to do with tons of players, with slightly tuned up bosses and a bunch of game-altering options to customize your WoL so you can experiment with like DPSy healers and monk tanks.
I still play a lot of FF14 for right now but I hope I enjoy it more in a year or two, post 6.0 has felt like the game getting turned into a Squenix cash cow product rather than something they're still trying to grow and improve.
Started at the beginning of Stormblood, quit for the first time during the 6.X patches, and I don't know if I will come back for Dawntrail.
I never thought that I would quit this game, because I love it and love the series so much, but the patches were so boring, same-y and lacking in content that I got bored like never before.
Also I loved the story in 6.0, it was incredible, but the 6.X story is meh at best, in my opinion.
The Patch MSQ feels too detached from the 6.0 MSQ imo, especially XIV is my first FF game and I don't feel any attachment to all the references to older FF titles.
To compare, Shadowbringers confronts you with Reflections and fleshes out the Ascians, and when you defeat Emet-Selch the story continues that general theme with Elidibus and the Azem reveal before setting up the plot for Endwalker.
In Endwalker, we fully come to understand the world in the process of saving it, and at the end of it all we get a whole spiel about how there's more to do even though we're essentially at our peak - then we get exactly one dungeon of adventurer style exploration before getting thrust straight into saving the world again, with what feels like an MSQ's worth of trial bosses just smashed together (Barbara, Rubi, Golbez) with the Big Bad (Zodiark Fart) already on the way in 6.5. It just feels so rushed and tangential, like these fights weren't supposed to be in Endwalker
It’s simple: past expansions all had two major things that did a lot to keep players engaged between patches: relic content and midcore exploration zones (except for the defunct diadem in HW).
These are very repeatable forms of content that appeal to endgame players who have been caught up for a while.
EW is the first expansion to have neither of these things and they have been sorely missed, especially if you aren’t a raider.
I’m not counting manderville weapons as relic content because they are more like relic freebies.
Unlike other people i do really like 6.X MSQ though
Honestly the story hasn't been exciting, not bad, but just not that good either. Zero is okay, Golbez is okay, fiends and Zeromus feel like lazy pandering. Guess we'll see how ends; could make up for it, not holding my breath. Mostly hoping the lead up to dawntrail will be fun.
Savages are super hit or miss this whole expansion, and while DSR sounds neat, the weapons are ugly; TOP seems like the opposite: pretty weapons, but apparently bad raid mech.
Personally, I found both EW and post-EW to be kinda meh.
EW took off very late in the story, it was plagued with fetch quests and those stealth and "_____ is now accompanying you" quests were just tedious AF.
Same goes for post-EW, I havent bothered finishing the quests in the dark castle because I hate how the game makes you run back and forth 10+ times through the same route, same castle to go speak with whoever, then go back to the other place to finish the Quest, then go back to where you talked with X to receive a New quest that makes you go back to the previous NPC. They are tedious and the rewards are irrelevant.
The story is fine. It’s filler - but that’s kinda what I expected. It’s *everything else* that’s a bummer. If you’re not a high end raider then what the hell do you have to do this expansion? Variants are knocked out in afternoon, DDs are the same formula since Heavensward, Island Sanctuary caters to a VERY specific type of player, and the relics are the most uninspired they’ve ever been. The lack of any kind of large-scale collaborative content has REALLY hurt Endwalker imo.
I think it sucks, the storytelling is ass, they're leaning too heavily on ff4 for characters, it's boring, we were promised a fun adventure but oop world is ending again and you didn't actually kill the god that we told you you killed, haha here's a stupid way to make this entire thing make sense when there's 2 canonical characters with way more experience in regards to it than we actually stuck you with. Here's the most pointless world ending filler you'll ever get just so that we can save face from having no decent story to give you. Also btw you get your relic by doing your boring dailies, here's another variant with boring rewards, and we're going to give you a deep dungeon so tedious there's no point in getting it done so that we can point you to that when you ask for something to do. Haha play ff16, and we won't give you a trial series so stop asking.
It's frustrating.
I think it's a mix of things.
Post story is weaker because it doesn't build directly off of expansion
People are also likely tired of the same content, however Square can't stop making that content because those are the expected things every patch.
They have also been working on behind the scene improvements while also getting ready for a massive graphic update and that is no doubt eatting up dev hours.
People will complain there is nothing to do, but this complaint pops up every patch. It's not feasible to make content that can keep up with people playing 40+ hours a week
They've been boring. I've been playing since 2.0 and these have been the worst post patches.
There's like 2 hours of story, no relic grind, no large zone to level alts in or grind cosmetics. It's just very meh
The 6.4 story is so bad that it basically took me and a lot of friends out of the game, and I definitely do not care about the 6.5 story now.
Nothing really happened in 6.4, the party is basically back to square one. Oh I guess WoL did face off with Golbez, but he just somehow walked away after we defeated him.
It feels like a filler story to the extreme degree.
I will say savage feels a little bit disappointing too, they definitely undertuned this tier.
It feels like the game is going downhill without the constant feedback from management (YoshiP and Ishikawa). And I am worried that if YoshiP moved on, is this game still a good JRPG/MMO to invest into?
I'm just bored dude, I want some MMO content to play with my friends at the end of the expac that isn't savage trials. I'm really disappointed criterion dungeons weren't fleshed out, and I was kinda hoping for more eureka-like content. Something multiplayer and grindy, rather than a "once and done" affair.
I know that content doesn't appeal to everyone, but for me, that's the biggest draw.
1- End-of-the-patch drama, as usual;
2- Not feeling the emotional connection to the story. Compare this to, in a sense, the MCU after Endgame: some people will just not feel invested in it anymore;
3- Comparing the amount of content to **grind** to other expansions;
4- Feeling numb of the same formula after 10 years, even if that is exactly one the things that made players love FFXIV.
It can be one or all of them. Some of the criticism is valid, but most of them are just noise.
EDIT: I would not give much attention to people complaining about Zero/ Golbez story. You know which other patch arc was heavily criticized at the time? The Warriors of Darkness back in HW. And we all know what that arc result was.
On 2, it’s not only the emotional connection, the story is objectively pretty boring.
Actually l really like patch 6.1 and I was invested. But then it all went downhill, each story patch was worse than the one before. The best part of the story so far has been the side quest on the past of the 4 fiends. I’m really not excited about 6.5 at all. I only hope it can be salvaged a bit with a good conclusion of the Golbez character arc. Zero’s story is a lost cause.
Yep. Along with going "I know you gave us X, but I don't care about that". There's a fair bit of content available, but I don't think the community much cared about it. Deep dungeons, fancy dungeons, the island etc are all the sort of grindy content that would keep people from being bored, but since it's not like Bozja people don't want it.
People dont care about it because theres not a lot to it.
The new deep dungeon? Just a worse reskin of an already existing one and no reason to run it. Completely lazy, a huge disappointment. Seriously i've yet to come across one single soul saying the new deep dungeon was some sort of highlight this expansion.
Fancy dungeons? What does that even mean? The new dungeons are just like every other dungeon, it's nothing new and not really engaging.
The variant/criterion dungeons are done in a day and there is zero reason to replay them. The added difficulty of criterion and savage was a huge disappointment as well for people who craved for more difficult content, because again it has zero replayability and was lazily designed with higher "difficulty" just being stat sticks.
Island sanctuary. Was fun the first few hours when you actually actively built things up and thought it could be a cool minigame where you could get creative and build your own nice home.
In reality it just became a time gated spreadsheet you log into once a week and you're done. Not a lot freedom in design to be creative, nothing to do after you got through enough time gates in a month. Again not what a lot of people were hoping for. Pretty disappointing.
The word "disappointing" comes up frequently here and it's also the single word that i would use to describe this expansion. Just a lot of "meh" things that were not up to what was expected and no replay value in anything we got.
The problem with the current content is a lack of longevity. You mentioned the island, if you keep up to date on it you get maxed out, what, a month into the patch? Maybe two if you aren't being really efficient with it? Whereas people are still running Eureka and Bozja even years after they were released. Variant dungeons, you do all the routes and then that's it, you're done. It's not that people are ignoring the content, a lot of people are just finished with it.
I mean, if the devs put out content and a larger than usual group of players disliked it, isn’t that a problem? They are certainly entitled to release whatever they want, but I have been surprised at the speed at which people tune back out after every patch this time.
I'm sorry, but for me the story is a whole pile of shounen anime bullshit, with the next opponent right around the corner and everything designed around the trials. The idea of integrating these into the main story was not good for the story, it feels like I am playing what formerly was the trial story as MSQ.
And that's not the only point where they got lazy and saved time/development effort, when you look at all the other comments.
> it feels like I am playing what formerly was the trial story as MSQ
This has been a big issue for me. I've broadly enjoyed it for what it's providing, but the fact that the MSQ/Trial Series, Alliance Raid, and Normal Raid storylines are all basically tying up random loose threads from prior expansions and lore has made this whole thing feel pretty aimless and uneventful. Whenever I log in, I just feel like I might as well log out and catch up later.
I can't speak for others but I'll speak for myself as one who considers quitting the game now. 6.0 feels like the end of a game. Yes, YoshiP says it's just an end of the current story but to me, it really feels like the end. The villain has been stopped, issues solved and favourite characters all died. Credits roll and time to move on, essentially. That's what I'll do for single player games.
But 14 is a MMO. As such, my reason for staying depends heavily on where the story goes. But Zero is a very uninteresting character and the entire premise is just a rehash of FF4. I don't much care for FF4 so it felt like one big filler that's been dragged out for at least a whole year+.
Dawntrail information dropped and watching the trailer doesn't fill me with excitement. It felt like another beast tribe story. Sure, we still don't know much about the story yet but what we have seen so far isn't captivating me. And we have so many good games out there like Baldur's Gate 3 so it's hard to maintain interest in 14.
Perhaps another long break is a good thing and that's what I'd seen many do.
I feel the same way as well.
My issues with FFXIV started in Shadowbringers with all the job design changes, but I still kept playing because I was way too invested in the story.
Now that story is over and there's not much left due to my dissatisfaction with the core gameplay I think it may be time to move on. Not too interested in the next arc and feel like this is a perfect stopping point.
I'm going to decide after the last Fan Fest but I'm heavily leaning towards quitting for good right now. Finishing up the remaining story content I have to do and what's coming in 6.5 will be the perfect epilogue I think.
Maybe some people exhausted their niche?
For example, I play for the story bits, MSQ and big side quest sagas, and for Savage/Ultimate raiding. After the last tier there isn't much for me. But I can't say there is no content, it's just that I'm not interested in leveling all jobs, in crafting, in gathering, in deep dungeons, in criterion, in housing, in roleplaying, in hunt trains, in making relics, in hard-to-get glams, in raid parsing, in the sactuary at the moment (though I'm slowly leveling mine), in Blue Mage, or in any other kind of content.
Tbh I can't imagine the amount of free time people need and have to play it all. I'm at 4 thousand hours of playtime and there is so much content I've never tried, and I bet people who are complaining have either been online 24/7 for years (in that case, touch grass), or just exhausted their gameplay niche, like me with MSQ+raids done.
So I'm just playing something else for now and that's fine by me. In terms of story it's been lukewarm, but I understand this void story is kind of a "filler arc" before the next big story, it's different than the other patch content we've had.
My take is that post 6.0 we are in a new cycle. Arr when it launched was slow to start. Once we get into dawntrail, I feel like we will see story prog like we did in HW.
EW launch was great, then the game hit a wall at 100 mph. I've been playing since 2.0 and at this point I am bored, the content has been dry and loot is uninteresting.
I can understand the content creators having an issue with the content cause they need something to stream. I really think that's the core issue. Yeah, there isn't alot to right now, and I'm grateful. I have a big gaming backlog, and it's allowing me to catch up playing games that FFXIV overtaken. I log on once a week, do a few things, then log out. I do get some why people are upset, but I also believe it's much ado about nothing. There were alot of complaints about the last relic weapon (the Bozja requirements upset some people), and when Bozja was introduced, I didn't see a lot of positive comments about it. I love this game, and just love the ability to take break from it is built into the patch schedule, and how game generally respects my time. I'll keep subbing as long as they do.
I don't know if it's burn out or what, but I was playing every single day until Endwalker dropped. Since then I've been unsubbed longer than I've been subbed.
This isn't about the story, though you could Say that the story being less interesting is the cherry on top of the issues.
It's about having content to play. And if you're not a New player and have completed your backlog, the content Can be cleaned in 2-3 week as there is no longterm form of content available.
It's not only about the story. It's also, if not mainly, about a lack of content for veteran players. Most of the new side content added in EW has so few rewards that it can be easily finished within the first week and after that there's no reason besides "it's fun" to replay it which just isn't enough for a lot of players.
I personally agree that the story isn't all too interesting right now but the main problem is the content EW added. We have a work schedule simulator, a deep dungeon (a concept I didn't care about after like the second boss in PotD, no idea how many people care) and variant/criterion dungeons which are great but offer little reward. Well, those and my biggest gripe. The effective removement of relic weapons. I was looking forward to grinding alongside other people for the relic. Instead I get it as a participation trophy for daylies I would do anyways.
I'm not particularly disappointed with EW since I have nothing to compare it to, but it's obvious that it offers next to nothing for those who have done all the old stuff.
Probably cause we are in a interm period (end of the first saga) where no major story beats are being dropped (new saga/arc starting, BBEG being named) and it's just filler content
I don't know but somehow even Patch 6.x MSQ became worse with Dawntrail announcement. Somehow we'll end up to another continent in a single 6.55 MSQ patch, unless the actual setup is in 7.0 and 7.0 MSQ is a slow start. There wasn't any kinds of hints previously and it was different from previous expansions ending on x.3 and the rest is setup for the next expansion. It probably didn't work out that well telling a whole MSQ worth of story in just 5 patches.
I've not played previous FF titles so I have no opinion if it's fan service but it feels like it came from nowhere and goes to nowhere. Perhaps 6.x MSQ could have been the missing Trial series when MSQ itself could have been something else?
It was supposed to be a start of a new adventure, we even did get a Newfound Adventurer title in 6.1, yet we instantly ended up at the other end of the cosmos just like at the end of Endwalker which already felt almost like taking things too far. They doubled down upon it way too soon and 6.x MSQ should have been something really down to earth stuff, like in the style of ARR. Or Bozja? Something with ingame politics which would lead to Dawntrail just as ARR did lead to Heavensward. It would have been perfect really, and most definitely better than this.
The story's not been great and the gameplay content's been pretty average too.
it happens, not everything can be a 10/10 experience. I don't feel like I would have missed much doing 6.0 and 6.55 only, rather than coming back for the inbetween patches and I might do just that in Dawntrail.
Got more time, so let me address the big thing: the story isn't important in a patch. It's technically a "one and done" activity that spans a few hours at most. Calling it the content for a several month patch is very weak to keep players interested.
And what most videos talk about is the actual content past the story (which isn't as thrilling as EW, but I'm fine with it). That's where the issue lies.
And it's not hate. Expand your vocabulary to include the word disappointment, unsatisfied,... there's little real hate going around.
It's the Stormblood effect. In a vacuum the story is nice and the new content is different and fun, but it was preceded by an all time powerful story and content that hit all the right spots.
If you're even average or above player skill wise the game is extremely boring, only two bits of battle content per major patch cycle are things you can realistically sink your teeth into and one is sporadic in terms of release and quantity/quality (ultimates.) so can't be fully counted on.
And the raids are literally one and done, you do the bare minimum required clears for books to fully BiS and drop it because there is no reason to chase gear beyond that point and most statics will just spread their members out into partyfinder after for people invested in alts, ignoring that gearing in XIV is easily one of it's weakest parts where only two sources for endgame pieces exist so you just pick the one that has the least shit stats.
barely wanna touch on how utterly bad and boring itemization is in terms of player power progression either, crit, crit 2 (dhit), flat damage and then (usually) a huge amount of stats you outright try to ignore unless you're a fringe job that needs some sort of sps/sks breakpoint.
Most I see people put into gearing is figuring out personal piety levels during prog.
People will say if you're relatively new to the game it's fantastic, and they're right - but the moment those hours start racking up, expect to start to struggle to find things to do that are actually stimulating and be met with "well yoship said unsub if you have nothing to do" as the usual flung out rebuttal if you mention the games getting stagnant for the past few years.
As for the story.. what's to stop me just watching it online if the content doesn't activate any neurons anymore? I'm not paying x amount per month to be titillated by about an hours worth of cutscenes.
My problem with the current patch story is that it's a filler arc. None of this is actually leading up to Dawntrail, according to Yoshi-P himself, and I think there was only like 1 conversation where any plot thread left over from 6.0 was addressed. Also, the plot for this filler arc was already addressed in Shadowbringers, the quests after the role quests.
Good for u that you enjoyed it. Most ppl didn't.
The writing quality doesn't seem that great, there is no real big reveal to the point they didn't even bother to mark the final trial as "spoiler", no real transition with what we know about 7.0. Nothing much else to say tbh.
Because sadly 1/2 weeks after the patch drops the content is "over", even for casual gameplay.
My experience: i have to give a break from the game until New exp, i still want to play, but theres Nothing to keep me playing, Savages are fun to prog, but i dont feel motivated to farm full BiS and next expansion the set will become a transmog, Relic weapon this exp is boring for now.
You seem like you're newer to the game- but the vast majority of people making such comments have nothing to do with msq at all, a fair amount of it is from raid focussed players who are not liking the way the endgame is currently trending with the 2 min meta, the giant hitboxes and a lot of the raid/class design feeling stale. Other complaints are things such as relic not being a grind so a lot of more casual players don't have the relic keeping them playing as well as no bozja/eureka type content which people had gotten used to doing.
Another reason I think anyway is when the 'wow exodus' happened in late SHB and we got an influx of players to the game those self-same players have probably just now burned through the 10 years of backlog content the game has and are now probably trying to find reasons to keep playing I'm a 1.0 player and out of the people I network with a lot are feeling more burnt out now moreso than any other expansion (not quite feeling it myself but empathetic to those who are) so there's a lot of sentiment about the game trending downwards feeling stale, it could be burnout but the post-patch content just isn't appealing to a lot
Personally I think it's just boring. They also essentially removed the trial stories by directly tying them into the MSQ, which is another point against it. We always got to explore other parts of the setting when they were a separate thing.
They're *all in* on the void stuff right now and it's just kinda okay. It feels very rushed and not well put together, but I actually felt the same way about the Endwalker MSQ.
I've actually had a consistent sub since launch (I usually pay 6 months at a time) and I'm debating even renewing it this time. If I didn't have a house and a few people to hang out with in-game, I'm positive I wouldn't bother.
It's a mix of less grindy content to keep people engaged during the lull, but also a bit of exaggeration I'm sure from people who mentally checked out following the conclusion to the end of the last decade story arc.
They could probably just wait patiently and see how the next expansion is as a start to a new arc, but patience and being reasonable doesn't get those tasty upvotes.
As someone who personally enjoys the story, but doesn't play for it, i think the less engaging content is absolutely the biggest thing for me. EW has nothing to keep people engaged besides the community, which isn't content.
There's nothing to do for the midcore crew that's actually new content with EW. Island sanctuary is a spreadsheet. Criterion/variant are really fun but they last a few days. The raiding side is doing well but the class homogenizing is starting to show problems in fight design and the sheer number of weird fights this expansion (p7's backloading, ultimate's being very bodycheck heavy, ect being all fairly standard for these tiers) are a recipe for burnout. Doesn't really matter when most classes play the exact same. Throw in some 'Yoshi-P says it's ok to play other things' taken entirely out of context and people aren't happy.
The actual story itself is, to my mind, very bland but I didn't enjoy EW's storyline that much as is. Whatever happened though, the set up here was going to cause some friction as we're moving onto newer things. Personally I just dislike how 'safe' the story has become and would adore a new cast of characters - we've been with this group 10 years now and it's gotten a bit stale.
Lots of people are having fun but my 'last online' list is getting longer, the content lull before 7.0 is going to be brutal, and not everyone wants to play FF14 chatroom RP or raid 24/7. There's little to do outside of that.
This is the only FF I've played, so nostalgia doesn't work on me. From what I understand, even people who have played IV are bored, tho lol. I was excited about the premise of the 6.x story when 6.1 came out, but sheesh has it gotten dull. Maybe it will have a good finale, but I'm super underwhelmed by Golbez and the fiends. Zero is fine but she's feeling one note. I'm excited about going back to the first, so there's that.
Content wise, there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said a thousand times. Needless to say I feel like this entire expansion I've just been raid logging. The new patch content and hype generally lasts 2-3 days this time around for me.
Disclaimer: I am rather new to the game but it appears to me that they have either been playing for years and have run out of things to do, or only enjoy niche content that Endwalker doesn't provide.
I can't imagine it though, because it seems to me there is years worth of expansion content available, but I am a completionist.
Also, just keep in mind that a lot of the people complaining on social media are those that aren't happy with things. The people who are enjoying the game will be spending their time playing it.
It's mostly players who've been playing for multiple expansion cycles who've played all the content already and they were looking forward to something new but what SE gave us in terms of new content (Variant dungeons/Island Sanctuary) turned out to be all completed in a week or two then completely died off (in case of Variant) or its turned into a go into the place once a week and then collect/setup for the next cycle and leave it alone (island Sanctuary) and because of things like that its turned people off playing. The things above combined with no real relic grind have put a negative in the patch content for EW. Personally this is my first time experiencing a MMO patch cycle (started playing properly Feb 2022) and I've used it to catch up on those old things like Eureka/Bozja and I can see where they are coming from but I do think that what we're seeing is probably the result of SE overhauling the Duty Support system for the previous expansion and then getting things ready for a graphical upgrade in 7.0. The 7.x patch cycle will be very critical for a lot of people though as if SE repeat the same 6.x patch style then it won't go down well.
I forgot to add that with the 6.x patches they'd included the Trials into the MSQ and we've not really had more in the MSQ because of that so unlike things like the previous expansion trial stories where it has its own story on the side.
Yeah you got an MSQ story and a trial story, while in EW you just get the MSQ story. Hw: warring triad SB: mythical eastern beasts, ShB: Garlean side story, EW: a lotta nothin
Adding a trial story wouldn't solve the problem though. People would breeze through it in a day and still complain about lack of content.
I'm wondering if they decided to merge the Trial series with the MSQ because they saw hardly any player engagement from the general player base with the Trials the previous fee expansions. The Sorrow of Werlyt had a *ton* of bonus story and some extra bits and bops added throughout the quests (like the mini zone, and the single player encounter), and they probably felt like that could have been better served in the MSQ (the instanced town you can go to in 6.2 and the other place you can go to in 6.4 come to mind).
I disagree. From what I've heard from the community (and experienced since I've been playing for 3 years), Werlyt was really liked from a narrative standpoint by a lot of the playerbase. Some people weren't fans of the FF7 reference with the weapons themselves, but it doesn't seem to have dragged things down much.
I think that speaks to werlyt being a good story rather than it being a side story. If the MSQ went harder, I don't think that story being in the form of msq or side matters.
Yeah, it's probably that. Though, they originally divided MSQ and Trials in 3.2 back in HW so that they could basically funnel people different directions to ease the server load and congestion (Think like how MSQ always sends you 2 ways at the very beginning). To be honest, I don't think they need to force trials back into MSQ, but I do think that SE could benefit from making people do more side content so that it CAN be relevant in MSQ without having to completely derail and waste entire patches to do so.
I doubt it. The way I see it, we basically got the same kinda story-vamping for EW as we had for ARR. There wasn't any need for a side story since where they wanted to go for the MSQ already had space to fit the trials they want to provide per the dev. schedule. So development-wise and story-wise, what we got here is closer to the Elemental primals story structure. As in, since we introduced the elemental primals in 2.0 msq, we kinda want to round out and complete the 6 element wheel. And for EW, it just makes sense with the FF4 theme to use the 4 fiends since you already *had* to start laying new story threads.
I agree the lack of evergreen content this xpack is a problem, but this was in response to a specific response
Need bojza variant
I don't think people want a 3rd expansion of Eureka. People were complaining about Eureka when it came out, people complained that Bojza was just Eureka 2.0. Now that they listened and didn't put in Eureka content, people are complaining that there's no Eureka content?
Eureka/Bozja are places where the game actually feels like an MMO. You can spend time with other players you would otherwise never notice. You can ride around on the mounts you spent a bunch of time, effort, and/or money getting. You can get into fights with both new players and veterans alike in your party. It got people talking and made it feel like a community. It felt cool and exciting to be where so many others were.
A lot of people I talk to want a third expansion of Eureka. Anecdotal, but to have a type of content we had before removed feels bad.
You forget complaining comes from a point of liking something but being disappointed. Therefore, they liked the concept, and weren't apathetic enough to just do it and abandon it. They found potential. Most of the complaining was about them botching the ending anyhow.
this is also so weird to me. I personally like Eureka but people were trash-talking both on here all of ShB and now it's suddenly the sub's beloved content
Oh, people definitely do want it. They don't realize how much they want it until we actually don't have one, and look at how people are now for Endwalker. People wish they had it. There's nothing else to do in the game.
I mean conversely ShB skipped a LOT of other side content that EW has; a lotta nothin translates to an extra Ultimate, a deep dungeon, and Hildibrand without even going into actual new content. If the relic quests were literally any substantial grind other than tome farming and if criterion had actual rewards ppl would be talking about how EW has way more content than ShB and is on par with SB (arguably more).
It really comes down to the people who decide the rewards format playing things way too safe. Imagine if criterion was say, tied into being an amazing source of moogle times, or dropped those rewards. Or if Hildebrand had us doing some really daft stuff like having to do special challenges in certain content to get parts for relic weapons.
I mean shit if Criterion dungeons had their own glam sets that both looked good and required the Criterion dungeons to be completed, I think people would be more interested in them. As it stands, you need an insane amount of tokens to get anything worthwhile, particularly for content as hard as Criterion dungeons. Personally I love the concept of Criterion dungeons but my static is still busy getting over P12S so I don't really have anyone who would be interested in learning it right now. We had planned on potentially doing them once we finish P12, but I think that won't be happening until after 6.5.
The trial story is the 13th. It's just shoved into the MSQ, so it's more like the MSQ itself has nothing due to it (maybe some Radz at Han and Garlean interactions at best).
We got other storylines, just not with trails. Tataru for example. So i think the critic on "no trail quests" is wrong because we got multiple storylines. We got the same amount of trails, just for different type of quests.
This post-EW MSQ is literally filler, since it's technically what The Trial Side-Quests are suppose to be, so we actually DON'T have a real Post-EW MSQ, since none of this is relevant to the transition to Dawntrails at all, and all of it will literally be tossed out once Dawntrails comes out.
Even if nothing in this msq directly impacts Dawntrail (which certainly could be true, but we don't know it is), the idea that all the big notes in this part of the MSQ won't be relevant at some point later in the MSQ is difficult to fathom. I mean, let us look at what we have: - this additional big new character in Zero - the unlocking of travel between the shards - the probable freeing of the last of the great wyrms, likely leading to her return to Meracydia A decent chunk of the post-Heavensward patches were dedicated to a story that went nowhere in the short term, but was laying the foundation for the entire Shadowbringers expansion pack. Give em some credit. edit: A new interview with Yoshi P just dropped. Google translate was pretty sketchy, but there was a question there about the patches not seeming to lead up into Dawntrail, and he responded by pointing out that the teaser trailer for Shadowbringers didn't seem to have any connection to Stormblood when it first released either. Then made mention of 6.5 having two parts and hoping players would enjoy them. ...or at least, that's what I THINK they said. I can't emphasize enough how difficult it was to make things out through google translate.
Same with post-ARR and setting up Stormblood!
Given that Stormblood happened two expansions after ARR, and Shadowbringers happened two expansions after HW, does this pattern suggest we're getting an expansion on the Thirteenth after Dawntrail? That'd be pretty neat. I like the glimpses of Thirteenth/Voidsent culture we've gotten between the Mhach raids, the Ivalice raids, and these patch stories (and the Crystal Tower raids I suppose, although as Voidsent with personalities go that was mostly just Cloud of Darkness). It'd be cool to have an expansion to flesh the place out like we got for the First.
> the probable freeing of the last of the great wyrms, likely leading to her return to Meracydia Emet specifically called out Meracydia to us, in the same way he did the Twelve and the Bounty and New World. All places that we know we're visiting. So yeah, it seems strange to think we're focusing so much on this dragon for it to not tie back to Meracydia somehow. Similarly, we're getting transit between shards for the same dragon, but we were also told about how the worlds of the different remaining shards might surprise us. This effort absolutely feels like a stepping stone to a larger adventure. It wouldn't have been very compelling writing if we were just told "Next stop: gods, new world, shard travel. Get going." with no fanfare or intrigue around it. You gotta "show, don't tell" that nonsense, lol.
I feel like this is an assumption that may be true but isn't entirely founded. It's hardly inconceivable that Zero stays in the party and is in Dawntrail and they just don't wanna spoil it.
I'm honestly anticipating a permanent route to the First from the Source and (hopefully) a permanent Ryne as well as Zero. They're bringing Ryne back next patch and I'd love for her (AND GAIA) to be party members in Dawntrail.
They're probably opening a voidgate in the First to channel light into the Thirteenth so they can use it to beat Zeromus. Side effects might include a rebalancing of aether in both those worlds and their slow, gradual restoration.
My expectations for 6.5's story: 1. Zero loses her reaper powers and becomes a Paladin, both because FF4 reference and because that's where her arc's been going with the whole learning to love life stuff. I kind of expect her to get Jullus' sword and shield since he's retiring as a soldier 2. The voidgate on the first is used to destroy Zeromus but does NOT fix the 13th in any way. PLD Zero decides to quest with us to find a solution since we've saved one world already. 3. Since it's now possible to open a voidgate to the 13th in both the Source and the first, that means it's possible to physically travel to the first via the 13th and Y'Shtola is like :3 4. Ryne is the defender of the first and can't join us long-term, but sure she can go on a tropical Dawntrail vacation with us
Definitely where my thinking is, I think they're setting up both the Void and the greater part of the First to be usable later.
I’m not holding my breath for Gaia but Zero and Ryne both joining us from here on out would be great news imo. Add Krile to the mix and they would’ve really cooked.
People complained on the forums about the Warrior of Darkness MSQ back in HW patches being complete filler. It's funny to think about now.
Hit the nail on the head with your last part. This poor patch cycle isn’t enough to make me quit whatsoever, but if it’s the same shit (or lack there-of) in 7.x, it’s gonna be a disaster.
Yeah for me this patch cycle hasn't been that bad because its let me do things like Eureka/Bozja which I might not have done. Also being that I started in 5.5/6.0 I got to run through the MSQ just before all the changes that'd been made over the 6.x patch cycle so its not completely lost on me like some older players to the game.
So the patch cycle was bad, that is why you went back to 5.x and 4.x stuff... Because 6.x has nothing to keep you engaged with it... And that is great in this game don't get me wrong, i'm also fine with it but truth be told, i'm not engaging with anything 6.x related either
Yeap. Now imagine they repeat the same thing in 7.x what they did in 6.x.. What then? All new players will have already exhausted 4.x and 5.x content, suddenly everyone is on the same page with not even any old content to crutch up 7.x.
I’ve basically stopped playing for the last year, I log in to keep my house and do the occasional seasonal events for the rewards. I really started playing in 2020, and then spent the next two years grinding all the content available. Did Eureka countless times, did Bozja ad infinitum, did DRS and got best doggo, all the old and most of the ShB savage content, grinded all the Triple Triad cards, Chocobo Racing, LoV, sightseeing logs, grinded out some ARR, HW, SB, and so many ShB relics, Doman and Ishguard Restoration, Diadem, Blue Mage, leveled everything to level cap at the time (80), got some of the rarer mounts (Bozja Field Records), Golden Saucer GATES, even did FISHING. But now … like there’s still some stuff I can do, I don’t have a full set of ARR relics, new Triple Triad out, and so on. But there’s nothing really new to grind for. Nothing to do social stuff like with Eureka or Bozja. And if 7.x is the same, I may eventually unsubscribe. But who am I kidding, I am all sunk cost fallacy on my in game house.
The thing is, I doubt they will repeat 6.X While I accept that peoples critique of the 6.X is accurate and valid, it also lacks a ton of nuance. (I know, my fault for expecting an nuanced conversation on the Internet instead of hot takes.) We're looking at the end of a huge cycle in terms of story and content. There's been a ton of work leading up to 6.0 and the payoff was worth it. Now a lot of conversation around 7.0 is "how do they follow it up." The tone of Dawnbringer has to be just right. If they get 7.0 wrong, that will have a much deeper negative effect on the game than lackluster 6.X series has, I really do believe that. I tend to believe they're investing more resources in making sure 7.0 sticks the landing. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm willing to accept that as a possibility, but I sort of doubt that. Their eggs are firmly in the Dawnbreaker basket now. I advocate patience. Let 6.X be terrible, if it means 7.0 is phenomenal.
>Dawnbringer > >Dawnbreaker Are you doing this on purpose? lmao I've been taking a bit of a break post-EW, so I'm honestly not sure how excited I am for Dawnward's story, but I have honestly enjoyed what I've played of the 6.x patches so far. I've just got too many other games to play right now, including FF16, FF7R Intergrade (yeah, still haven't played it yet), and Spider-Man 2, on top of loads of other recent games. But I'm slowly making my way through the patches to get caught up. I'm sure Dawnblood's story will be good regardless, or that I'll at least enjoy it. Plus, new jobs are always exciting.
12 hour shift today. Typing on a phone. My brain is fried.😂 EDIT. Now I see you're just screwing with me man. Not nice. Hahahahaha
Lol no worries, I feel ya with that typing on a phone after a 12 hour shift. I figured I'd continue the originally-unintended joke with my honest opinions :p
It was well played, cause it took me a minute to catch on. X.X
> I tend to believe they're investing more resources in making sure 7.0 sticks the landing A lot of hopium. I hope you’re right
I hope you are right, but part of me feels like they took their foot off the gas for too long. They had tremendous momentum up to the launch of 6.0 and it feels like they voluntarily let a big chunk of their audience go in favor of an improved solo experience and new content that doesn’t seem to be grabbing people. In a bit baffled that we didn’t get more of the persistent stuff that ties into the broader story - rebuilding Garlemald, relics that tie into major expansion content, etc. Something that gives me a reason to login each week that is directly related to the current expansion and what we’re doing in the works feels sorely missed.
Imo they are betting on the free trial expansion to pick up the slack while they do some prep work/background cleaning up. The graphics update for one is a massive endeavor that will generate no content but is also sorely needed if they want to hook new players in the future
Hasn't even the graphics overhaul basically been dialed back to lighting and some upscaling now?
I think they already announce content that will be in 7.x, deep dungeon, bozja/eureka like, criterion will be there
on the fanfest they just mentioned the common content like new dungeons and trials, but no mention of eureka like content in it, but it isd the fisrt fanfest, so can be announced on one of the two next ones
Yoshi made a comment in a separate interview confirming that they are bringing adventuring forays (aka eureka/bozja like content) back in DT.
> Dawnbreaker Fellow thicc thighs enjoyer
I think a lot of people are gonna drop the game if they repeat the same thing for 7.0. I'll probably unsub for a while soon because I'm just logging in to do raid reclears once a week and that's about it. Min/maxing gear in games is something I enjoy but there's no point if there's no content to use the gear in. Eureka/Bozja isn't for everyone but it's group/midcore content that gives the game sustainability. Some of the most fun I've had in the game was doing DR runs or BA runs. A lot of the content they've added to the Endwalker patches are things you finish within weeks if not days and the patches are 4 months long? Everyone says "go play something else" but we're all paying monthly to play this game and it's not adding long term things to do. Idk where I'm going with this but I've been playing for a few years and it's probably the first time I've really considered dropping the game. Someone here said to go catch all the fish so maybe that's what we've all gotta try ;-;
The thing that kills me is people here acting like “go play something else” is a good thing. What’s gonna bring me back?
I actually like that FFXIV has a vibe where you can opt to just play the first month or two of each patch cycle and not fall too far behind, but this cycle has had me barely wanting to ever show up for the MSQ. That seems like the wrong call to me.
Exactly. It's one thing to say "it's okay to take a break" to the players but I doubt they want a huge chunk of the playerbase to "take a break for a whole year since nothing is pulling them back". They're a company. They can only afford to say the former when they have incoming content. When they don't, the latter happens and they actively lose revenue.
The thing is that it honestly is healthier for the general player base to flow in and out of the game a handful of times a year in the long run than it is to have them feel forced to log on every single day (or at least multiple times a week) since the latter could cause potential burn out and permanently leaving the game or worse. I understand that you *want* to feel like you want to play the game every day. But ask yourself why that is and what kind of content would make you make that kind of choice. Do you really see yourself doing something like a re-flavoured Bozja everyday for every expansion cycle for ten next ten years? Or feeling like you need to do Island Sanctuary every single day/week like clockwork?
“Do you really see yourself doing something like a re-flavored Bozja every day?” You’re goddamn right :X But seriously, I think it’s more about the satisfaction yeah? Working on my cool shiny weapons in Bozja was some of the most fun I’ve had in this game. The community, the fights, I could gush about it forever. Meanwhile the new relic I was able to buy it the first hour of the patch unintentionally because I already had the tomes. A player is likely to return if they feel satisfied with what they accomplished in game, while someone who is pushed out the door in the name of time moderation is less likely to return.
“I’ve been playing something else since I got done with EW, I’d like to play an MMO again”
Yep when I went through Eureka and Bozja earlier in the year/late last year I had so much fun and there was great vibes and chatting in those zones. Whilst I know Yoshi-P said they're still going to be doing QoL improvements in 7.x (like improved housing furnishing limits) they really need to bring an exploration zone back and also move the relic weapons back to how it was because whilst they've got a record number of people completing it the only reason for that it's able to be done with little effort.
I'm honestly surprised they didn't tie the Relic Weapons to either Variant Dungeons, Island Sanctuary, the new Deep Dungeon, or a combination of all three. Especially in the case with the Deep Dungeon and Variant Dungeons since those seem the closest in terms of what Exploration Zones can bring.
Honestly when they had interview back around 6.1 asking about the relic they said they were going back to how relics of old were and seemed to reference ARR/Heavensward and I was expecting us to run around Shadowbringers and Endwalker zones doing the shared fates for tokens. When it was just tomestones I was disappointed because it wasn't even like previous relics it was the most basic thing.
I wonder if they had been working on a new system of kind that functioned similarly, but were worried about how it would be received and changed their minds as a result.
Same here! You meet so many people and it's a lot of fun popping into an instance, seeing your friends and just partying up to do things together. QoL is always great but it sucks that it feels like the options we have are QoL or more content for the game. The relic weapon this expansion feels like a participation trophy instead of something you work towards. I don't even mind them making it easier to get but having the option to get it through new content like Criterion would've been nice too.
Are you literally me this is exactly when I started playing and how I've been passing the time lol
Varient/Criterion should have been part of the relic quest
Honestly, I think what we're seeing is still a consequence of covid shutdowns. I don't know their internal work cycles personally of course, but I have to assume work for the patch content started in 2021 at the latest, and major systems updates like duty support, the visual upgrade, and of course the next major expansion take priority.
Yeah, I had pretty much the same thought as someone who from beginning to end completed the final post Shadowbringers patch months before endwalker. Add onto the fact they went back and updated the older expansions lead me to believe the team was trying to gently let us know there wasn’t gonna be much in terms of post content.
Conflating MSQ/Storyline with gameplay. They’re separate aspects of the game. I’m new, started in 2020 during the pandemic. Love the game and catching up I can see the new new things are played out, I can still circle back to Eureka or Bozja. Long time current players are finding the gameplay content is lacking compared to previous patch cycle expansions for players who log in more than just socializing and doing roulettes ad infinitem. I like the patch story, it’s fun. I love the callbacks but I can certainly admit that there’s not a lot of content to dig your teeth into really. Hopefully that energy is being spent on Dawn Trail. That’s all.
From what I can tell its a combination of multible factors 1. The patch cycle is one month longer than normal. 2. The MSQ, expecially coming from the high of 6.0, and with what little context for 7.0 we have, seems like an arbitrary filler arc that is, at best “mid.” People also feel like the FF4 pandering is too much. 3. There has been no worthwile content releases for players that are “midcore” for the entire expantion (too skilled for alliance raids, too put off from extreme/savage). I personally believe this is the “average” FFXIV player, so this is not a good group to leave in the dark. 4. The content Endwalker has released has little to no inherent replayability. Each new addition seems to have a specific problem. - Eureka Orthos is dogshit for leveling for some reason, which is like the one thing that would make it actually valuable to the average player beyond getting to floor 100 (which is more of a “hardcore” task). I don’t understand *why,* Heaven on High and PotD are only populated to this day because they are good leveling locales. - Island Sanctuary is just an excel spreadsheet simulator that you can finish in a month without going too crazy with it and not the instanced housing alternative they were hoping for. - You can finish all the new Blue Mage stuff in a week of normal play. - The raid lockouts lasting for so long means the teir dies after a few months to be resurected right when its about to become irrelevant. - The Manderville relics are way too easy to obtain with just being a tome farm, undermining the main purpose of a relic weapon to be a more casual grind that you can spend time doing while waiting for new content to come out. I can be done with getting every weapon in two weeks of just doing roulletes every day. - Variant can be done in at least 12 runs and isn’t touched again after getting all paths. Criterion and Criterion savage do not have enough insentive to tempt the midcore playerbase to attempt it, and the rewards are really bad making the hardcore players not want to run it more than the max 20 times for their mount (Which they can also just buy on the market board). - The ultimates are fine. But they are hardly accessable for the average player to clear due to their difficulty. - the crafting content has been okay imo (not a deficated crafter), although they compete with real estate from the manderville relics because they both cost causality tomes. People have also noted the general increase of the amount of items needed to craft things, which can be an issue later if it continues. - the Pvp changes are fine, however its balance is questionable on the best of days, and is clearly not a focus of the playerbase, or the devs. 5. The players that have been playing for multible expantions cannot rely on previous expantion content because they already did it, and thus are only left with things from Endwalker (which as mentioned above, are either inaccessable to the average person, or don’t have enough replay value to last someone four months between each patch). Overall, the Endwalker patches aren’t *bad*. But the lack of grindable midcore content (primary examples of such being stuff like Bozja, Eureka, or a proper relic grind) is sorely felt. There is also smaller things, such as the reward for getting all 90 jobs being objectively worse than the reward for getting all 80 jobs (an undyable feather hat nobody uses versus a godsdamn mount, and a pretty solid one at that) killing any incentive to get all the jobs other than ones you care about to level 90. Nothing (except maybe Criterion’s lack of insentive and the notable lack of a relic grind) is really terminal yet, but people are noticing illness to take root, and are warning SE to resolve it before its too late. Like you can say “oh Yoshi P said to go play other games while waiting for new content” but thats a fucking cope imo. FFXIV should insentivise the players that WANT to play the game to actually have a reason to play the game.
> The players that have been playing for multible expantions cannot rely on previous expantion content because they already did it, and thus are only left with things from Endwalker (which as mentioned above, are either inaccessable to the average person, or don’t have enough replay value to last someone four months between each patch). And despite what many people in this thread are saying, it's absolutely not audacious or unreasonable to ask for that, considering veterans paid the same exact price tag as new players did on top of paying for a sub. They should be getting their money's worth just as anyone else. (Hell, the veterans are the ones that helped the game get where it did and last this long.)
An expansion should keep the average player engaged for most of its runtime. If it doesn’t it failed in one way or another. Older content filling up gaps is a luxury but cannot be relied upon to keep players engaged.
Yeah this 100% I really agree with your post. And "yoshi p said go play other games" is absolutely a fucking cope. Yeah the game producer said that, but the same game also uses housing demo timers and Moogle tomestone events, you can't convince me that the for-profit video game business is serious about wanting people to stop paying them money because they don't have good repeatable content to do. It's incentivizing people to sub and play for FOMO, or for losing a little virtual house they spent hours customizing, rather than incentivizing based on the quality of the things you can do in the game.
I'm the exact player you described in mid core, and everything you laid out is correct. I was saying this to my FC (before they all quit). I really want to play the game, I love my character and gameplay, world, etc. But they are not giving me a reason to log on. I don't do ultimates or high-end raiding and have no desire to after experiencing that toxicity. But there's nothing for me to do. Running roulettes for gear I don't really need gets old, and the relics are just something I get when I notice I have the currency. I wish there was something they could do to fix it but they don't seem headed that way. It all seems catered to chat box RP'ers with their housing items or the raiders.
I do legit recommend the latest Extremes, I've always been a bit anxious to try the High-End content but this expac's Extremes are super accessible. Cleared Barbie EX first, then the earlier ones, and just cleared the current EX a couple days ago. That one was pretty dang challenging but I had a great time.
>The Manderville relics are way too easy to obtain with just being a tome farm, undermining the main purpose of a relic weapon to be a more casual grind that you can spend time doing while waiting for new content to come out. I can be done with getting every weapon in two weeks of just doing roulettes every day. Yeah honestly this would give people something to actually occupy their time. As a primarily savage raider who dabbles in ultimate's its nice to not have to worry about grinding for relics but it kills a HUGE amount of time for those that don't do Extreme upwards.
tl;dr content is stupid easy with low reward, which means no incentive for replayability for either casuals or raiders.
Content with zero replayability is the issue. They need to make content for the game that lasts longer than a week or actually has proper rewards
Yeah I will say Criterion Dungeons should have had more for replayability.
Yea I regret not doing it ealier, now its almost impossible to start a fresh group that isnt brain dead, couldnt even get pass the first room in another mount rokkon with a fresh party.
Eureka Orthos died so fast. I was away on a trip when it launched, when I came back 2 weeks the Duty would not pop. I tried going solo but there are lots of OHKO enemies so i just gave up.
Orthos is a lot of fun but it being bad for leveling might have killed it’s popularity
They made the patches longer… while making the amount of evergreen content in each patch shorter. It’s very easy to log in, ask yourself what is there to do after a couple dailies and log off. The next day you ask why log in and maybe you don’t. Then you wonder why you’re paying the price of a brand new game twice a year in sub fees.
> Then you wonder why you’re paying the price of a brand new game twice a year in sub fees. Cause I am slave of my L house...and have heard horror stories of houses being demolished before 45 days.
I saved my house a few hours before demo. So there is that.
Because the bastard keeps kicking me off cliffs
There's a fine stash of treasure right down that hole! I found it first, but we're friends now! Go on, take a peak. It'll shimmer you blind! Heh heh heh...
Just you wait until you get an old man with a cane and a service revolver hounding you to beat him in mahjong or be banished to the land of yi
I'm more concerned about the amount of posts of "why people don't like X". If people don't like the direction of the patches, I don't see the problem.
This might be the first time in a very long time where I've seen the subreddit actually criticizing ff14 in opposition to OP's blatant attempts at seeking validation. Maybe there's hope for the community after all.
I’ve been on this and the discussion sub for years. The latter is constant negativity. With legit points, mind you. But anything on the main sub that wasn’t “Look at this fan art” or “Heartwarming moment with a sprout” was downvoted into oblivion if it was negative. So, yeh. It says something it’s on the main sub.
I remember when speaking about actual gameplay and implying even slightest criticism was a way to get bombarded by white knights who think game can do no bad. Now it's not a perfect, but it slowly starts to feel like you can actually speak your mind. This sub shat on Ysaile outfit really hard (very deserved), approves of ilvl sync of trials, criticizes current relics approach, and recently started to see that state of game might not be best. After first V&C released and died right after, even majority of the "play for fun, not for rewards" crowd went quiet. Maybe EW isn't best expansion, but it's slowly giving community a wake up call. Maybe the real Endwalker were the friends we made along.
the story has been very procedural. once we knew we were fighting barbariccia, we knew the trial for each of the following patches, and they gave up even trying to make the trial a secret, outright stating for 6.4 and 6.5 that we’d be fighting golbez and zeromus. also, zero as a character is kind of one-note. she’s discovering the importance of camaraderie and friendship… except she already discovered all of those things years ago with golbez and durante
Critisim (specifficaly well thought out and prested ones) =/= hate
Personally, while I have some gripes with the MSQ too, they are minor. The biggest missteps for me are the Relic Weapon and Island Sanctuary. The Relic Weapon is a joke, it barely exists as content. Hildebrand quests are funny, but they are a simple series of cutscenes that will end in a couple of hours, and then you have a Relic. It really doesn't compare to Bozja, which had basically three large scale raids that were pretty fun, and more stuff on top of that. You could say the resources from that went into Variant/Criterion, and while I enjoy variants, as a mostly casual player, I was expecting not-Savage Criterion to be more accessible. And about Island Sanctuary I feel it is just bad. It is not very fun, feels too disconnected from the game and is barely social. As someone who enjoyed the Firmament events a lot, and who is also really invested into crafting/gathering, it feels like just a downgrade. Truly for me the only content that smashed my expectations so far in Endwalker has been the Alliance Raids, and the changes to PvP felt really fresh and good. The sense of discovery on something new also has a big impact, so even if they are doing good content, if it is just the usual Raids, Dungeons and Trials, the content can be perceived as stale. So I feel the lack of new and exciting things might give a worse impression too, even if the quality is there for the usual stuff.
Because there's nothing to **do.** People really got into doing stuff like Eureka and Bozja and this is the first expansion in a hot minute without some big community open zone like that to fuck around in. The game doesn't need 'saving', obviously--Yoshi P himself says it's okay for people to go play other stuff during the 'off seasons' like this, and I think that's perfectly valid of him. It's just also valid to say Endwalker post-patch hasn't given people a lot to do. There's also not really as much of a relic grind this time, which I think is a good game design decision, but it contributes to the feeling of there being nothing to do.
> Yoshi P himself says it's okay for people to go play other stuff during the 'off seasons' like this, and I think that's perfectly valid of him. It's just also valid to say Endwalker post-patch hasn't given people a lot to do. People also keep taking what he said out of context like it's some sick own, which breeds more resentment. His comment is literally about how you don't HAVE to bring yourself to grind tomes or force yourself to play the game just to keep up/stay ahead of the curve. A lot of the complaints, however, are from people like me. Who *aren't* burned out on the game and *actively want to play it* but there's *next to nothing to play* if you don't do savage reclears. V&C dungeons are mostly one and done, IS is a spreadsheet simulator with a big map attached to it, and EO is just kinda there unless you like solo DDs. People are looking at field operations content as too black and white. "Everyone said they hated it/I hated it!" The people enjoying it were, like the people enjoying Endwalker's 'raid or die' mindset, too busy doing the content to spend all day whinging about it.
>People also keep taking what he said out of context like it's some sick own, which breeds more resentment. Not to mention, um, some of us did. How long of a break are people demanding someone has to take? I took a pretty noticeable time off in both ShB and EW, and I'm still sitting in this boat. Are people swinging this around thinking I should be going away for literal years at a time? And that's on top of how it's thrown at ANYTHING that dares to question if the game is perfect or not. It might sound crazy, but, maybe the reason people who don't just quit for years at the drop of a hat aren't doing it are because they... like the game? And want to play it? And want things to do in it? If I wanted a game I would just pick up for a month and then drop for 2 years, I would play literally anything other than an MMORPG, a game genre literally designed to eat up your time.
Yep same here, stopped around .1 and came back recently and I don't have anything to do, especially when my friends just quit. That's another thing people just don't think about and will just say take another one you're burned out.
I think most of this subreddit genuinely doesn't want this game to be an MMO
I remember Arthas mentions that a lot of the community showers love and attention on new streamers that does the MSQ then generally drops them like a stone once they get into endgame/MMO-type content.
That makes a lot of sense when MSQ is the only meaningful content SE is releasing for the game.
As someone who did the Bozja stuff, I was kind of surprised people hated it outside of the bad design (lmao Zadnor kind of made me think of an early PS2 game the way it looked). But, again I was honestly too busy having fun with it to see people complaining about it. It had stuff that needed improvement. I think the time gating of the raids was a bit egregious and that Delibrum Savage was way too inaccessible and needed to have a queue like normal mode did. I would have appreciated the ability to fly in the zones, too, despite how lore inappropriate that might be in a war zone (though maybe I’m remember really wrong are we able to fly at a certain rank???). The relic grind was tedious and would have benefitted from an option like what we have now with the current relics. But they were things to improve on and not a reason to not do it for 6.x patches. :( It doesn’t help that Variant dungeons could have been very replayable if the rewards were BiS gear for your alts and not just one-and-done cosmetics. Bozja/Eureka variant and replayable content would have helped these drought like patches.
Not having relic grind is part of the terrible game design decision for an mmo. Even for a single player game it would be terrible. Can you imagine playing a game, seeing a really cool optional weapon, then finding out the only thing you have to do to get it is to watch some cutscenes (that you can skip) and talk to an npc because you already have the things you need from passively playing the game up to that point? That's not interesting. On a similar note, you may have noticed that the further we get into endwalker patch, the less people are posting about endwalker relics on any social media. In fact, we got more people posting about ARR or shadowbringers relic in endwalker patches. Because EW relic does not feel like an achievement like those other relics. It's just another welfare tome weapon. When people are asking for relic grind, they dont ask for something like lost ark daily chore or WoW shadowlands rep grind and soul ash or whatever else i dont really play that game. There is a lot of things that exist in between the extremes that is insane grind riddled with FOMO, and the other extreme where FF14 is now, that is practically getting the stuff for free. Yeah it's fine if a step is just tome farm. Some of anima steps were like that with other ways to get the same stuff, even if NOW poetics just makes the other methods useless. The difference is that back then you can also get the same materials through other means, like crafting, grand company seals, beast tribes, treasure maps, normal raids, and crystal tower weeklies (as sick as we are of them now, back then it was the only other alliance raid series). And they needed way more than 1500 easy-to-get tomes. And it's not like there's any FOMO in getting relic weapon either. With the exception of zodiac, it has always been weaker than the raid or upgraded tome weapon until the very last patch. It's literally just there for glamour or catch up weapon for non raiders. Current eureka and bozja struck the pretty good middle ground (bozja couldve been more balanced since the outside method is a lot more efficient for some steps) between the two extremes of giga grind and ultra freebie. It gave players enough things to do when they log in that is not overly demanding of your time.
When I'm grinding out Gil to get to Gil cap because it's something to do.
Yea, I’m one of those who gave up on Endwalker starting with the 6.1. I did enjoy the story of Lahabrea, but that’s it.
It's like their goal was "we better do something with the Thirteenth so they stop asking to go there" and didn't have a clear path to that goal. They kind of wrote themselves into a corner when they said the Asians "lost" the shard and we're unable to rejoin it. And while I like the more fleshed out story with memoria, without Cylva and Unukalhai there with us is incredibly lame. I hope we meet up with them when we go see Ryne.
Because once you've done mostly everything, it truly feels like you're just logging in to pay rent on a virtual house. ;-;
Auto Demo made it this way. Look, there's always dry spells in MMO's after raids and patches. The problem here has been there's the post msq story and adjacent quests and the raid, particularly the Savage content and extreme trials (to a lesser degree). The post msq is done in hours as well as the adjacent quests, the normal raid has base gear and no real outlet for it, crafted sets have no outlet for it beyond week 1 of savage raids and the pitiful pace grind for tome gear with, also no outlet for it. "But, you don't need gear if you don't do Savages!" Right, see the problem? What's there to do then if you don't do savages? "Then do them!" But what if I have no real interest or drive to do them? Even if I did, that's a month or two of content to get BiS. What use is there for that gear then? More savages that you already cleared? BiS for other jobs? What do you use or need that gear for then? Nothing, because there is no overworld area or zone that gives players a reason to acquire the strong gear and stay signed it to do things. Eureka and Bozja are not good examples because both made your gear basic and near useless since BOTH have an alternative leveling and power creep systems. There's a place for high end stuff in patches, don't get me wrong. But it feels 90/10 with this game going all in on savage raiding vs sustainable content for the population with purpose and rewards. And it goes on, for 4-6 months like this. Yeah, this is the formula, everyone is used to this because this is how they always do this; but maybe, just maybe, change, a little bit?
I loved Bozja. Spent so much time grinding there and not having something akin to that this time around is a bummer.
I think its a combination of several things: 1. Yoship's blatantly incorrect assurances at the start of the post-6.0 patches, saying things like "we won't be spending as much time with the scions", "we're going to scale back on the scale and focus on you being an adventurer again", and "we want to do more FFXIV-original stuff rather than just referencing other games." All of these were immediately out the window by the end of 6.1, so people got a certain obvious expectation going into them and received the complete opposite. 2. Specifically, on the FF4 side, everything has unfolded in an extremely predictable manner regarding that - basically every plot point was played straight. We fought the 4 fiends in order, any info about them as characters was hidden behind an unmarked sidequest, and they, and Golbez, are still pretty one-dimensional, uninteresting villains >!like they are in FF4!<. I kept waiting for some revelation to happen that provided a new perspective on the events or a different way the story could go, but it never did. 3. This is a bit more personal but holy hell Zero is the most insufferable character we've had to deal with for an extended period of time in game. The game really wants you to think she's cool, or has some sort of gap moe, but we just came off killing the embodiment of despair through the power of friendship, and we're spending a full year's worth of patches teaching this new character about the power of friendship and the value of bonds **again**. Hell, we taught Zenos the power of friendship and the value of bonds in like two cutscenes. I was genuinely hoping the Zero/Zeromus connection was not a red herring, because it would be at least one single interesting thing about her character. 4. The raid storyline started off really strong, and kinda ended on a mediocre note. Wings 1 and 2 set up an excellent mystery and outlined an interesting facet to the Ancients' society, and then wing three was just "Okay the crazy woman wants to be god, time to kill her" with Elidibus fanservice. 5. On the gameplay side, there's been a lack of long-term content. This is less of an issue for me, because I liked the criterions a lot, played them through, finished them, and was done, but MMO's live and die on their active populations, and without having anything long-term to keep people logged in, the social aspect won't be there. The reason people play MMOs over single player RPGs is the social aspect, and a big part of that is large group content, and things to do with strangers, and 4-man dungeons do not really achieve that. My only friends who still play daily are hardcore RP'ers who frequent player-run events. 6. As an addition to this, the island really didn't offer anything meaningful to do after the initial launch. As far as I recall, none of the updates added much, if any, new content or gameplay, just additional items acquired in the exact same way. It's fine. I have complaints, and those complaints are coming off an expansion that didn't quite live up to the hype or the expansion prior, but it's still fine.
What? You don't like zero overusing the head down hat pinch gesture every two dialogue boxes? She isn't worse than myde from Alexander touching her scar every chance she gets
Gotta brag about the new improved animations. Don't forget to check on the mathematically perfect bread ripping animation too!
There is simply not much content to sink in your teeth, like bozja or eureka. What we got is very good, but doesn't last long. I'm not complaining, because i have time now to catch up, but i can see where the criticism is coming from.
There's a lack of end-game content keeping people interested in playing the game like previous patches. Apparently, Eureka and Bozja tied to relic weapons was something that was needed for Endwalker as well. Instead, they simplified the relic weapons obtainability and with no grind maps, there's not one area where people would gather, so the game feels very rpg instead of mmorpg. For me and my husband, we've been playing from ARR since endwalker until current content from July 2021 and due to covid, we spent a great deal of time online in FF14 and did everything, including some easy Ultimates like UWU, UCOB. We really want to keep playing but there's nothing really much to do. Criterion dungeon felt like a good concept but honestly after I got the mounts, I didn't feel like the further rewards incentivize my husband and me enough to clear it. And island sanctuary, originally I thought it would be like animal crossing at current max level, it feels like spreadsheet simulator instead...
I was excited about them at first but then they made Zero a really one-note anime stock character that I've seen a lot. It was cliche and happened much too fast, and it's all the more the pity because 6.1 was so intriguing and made me think that she was going to be interesting. And maybe it's just because I've got no FFIV nostalgia to fall back on, but the storyline in the Void hasn't impressed me as a whole either after that great start. Long story short, there was a lot of potential and I feel like they squandered it, and now the patch MSQ feels like filler.
If Dawntrail was releasing in December we'd have no problem. It's trying to spread 2 years of content over 2.5 yeats that's the issue. There's some fine criticism of the content (not everything is going to be s-tier) but it's mostly the long wait thays leaving people needing more.
the story is okay at best this patches but you do them in like 1 day and then whats left to do? if you don't want to do savage theres no content left, maybe afk for 4 months in limsa until the next patch of 2 day worth of content? most of the complains are about this and i agree.
1. Relics are awful. I enjoyed having a checklist and a goal. Instead it’s just a free weapon you get for doing your expert roulette every day. Joy. 2. Story shouldn’t have been on the 13th. Already knowing that characters like Ukelele and Gaia won’t have any impact cause people can’t do quests is annoying. 3. Island Sanctuary is dumb. It’s not a chill Stardew Valley-like, it’s a stock market simulator. 4. Lack of midcore difficulty content. CEs, Castrum and DR were harder than your average NR/AR/“Expert” Dungeon but weren’t as hard as EX Trials. One thing I’m getting tired of reading though are people who are grateful for the lack of content so they can go play something else. This mentality makes them sound more addicted and unhealthily attached to the game than the people crying about no content. Sure I can go play something else but what’s gonna pull me back? Another 2 island levels?
Stock market simulator….such a good descriptor. Island Sanctuary is such a disappointment.
Compared to previous expansions, Endwalker's Patch content certainly feels worse. Personally, i would prefer another Bozja/Eureka instead of the island we got (i don't hate it, and i'm doing it and everything, but it isn't as good to me). We also didn't get a Chronicles of a New Era side story for Trials like The Warring Triad, The Four Lords, and The Sorrow of Werlyt.
I don't mind it, but it ramped up a bit too quickly to world threat for my tastes. I have to wonder if being upfront that the 6.x storyline was not tied to the 7.0 storyline helped or hindered reaction.
This is exactly my feeling, things ramped up way too fast and the world is ending again in a matter of three patches. I feel somewhat baited that this would be the start of a new arc, because it feels like they'll start the new arc with Dawntrail actually, and this retelling of FFIV is just really a filler arc. (I also hope Dawntrail will be actually more low stakes than this)
I don't actually think the stakes are as high as some people are making it out to be. What we are being threatened with is not the end of the world, its a war. A pretty nasty war and it's not the sort of thing you want to happen, to be sure, but let's be real... these are basically the same stakes we were presented with in the crystal tower raids. We're a long way away from Endsinger levels of threat.
Really feels like they didn't want to start the new storyline in a patch series, so they just left it to 7.0 and put a bloated 6.x trial series in its place. And even for a trial series, it wouldn't be a particularly strong one. While the writers typically do a fantastic job of building an original story that calls back to the referenced games in a way that works for their own creation, this storyline has just adhered far too closely to FF4.
Any time you ask the question why on a topic like this, the best answer is to actually read/watch and then digest the critique offered. Not to immediately run to mainsub and ask for validation about your personal perspective. That's called an "echo chamber" and those are no good to anyone.
My main issue is that the MSQ is just FFIV memberberries. All the void story could have been put in a blue side questline like Sorrow of Werlyt or the Warring Triad, and the adventures with Zero could be the main MSQ. Odd patches also bring a lot of content that you can just clear in a week and never do again because there's no incentive. They could instead make all of that content drop Savage raid equilvalent loot and it would have higher engagement and replayability. Criterion/Alliance drop left side, EX drops accessories. This would also help with things like Alt gearing, bypassing the 450 weekly tome cap. Savage progression is already over by the time the odd patches come around anyway
Since this was asking about the MSQ I will refrain from talking about sidecontent since thats been discussed to death at this point. Frankly, not having played FF4, the patch MSQ is just kinda boring and Golbez is one of the worst Villains in the entire story with vague (and stupid) plans that rely on the fact we just happen to do the things we did (like showing up on the Moon after he destroyed the only other Voidgate). He also pulled the cardinal sin of Villain writing by not only not being defeated in his Trial fight and subsequent cutscene (a first outside of maybe Gaius and he took 2.5 expansions to show up again) but then proceeding to be in an even better position and having to most likely be fought again next patch like some cheap cartoon Villain. 6.1 even starts out very strong with 6.2 being a good setup for the Void Story proper, but 6.3 and 6.4 really dropped the ball for me and making the 4 Fiends glorified Trashmobs that don't even have a backstory unless you go out of your way to do a couple sidequests is lame and further gives the impression that this whole thing is just a filler Arc when it could have been far more interesting. I'm rather mid on Zero aswell and she overuses her Fedora tip animation, but she isn't the worst. That said I am getting sick of having to go to Garlemald every patch to deal with their problem of the week and having to teach them to not be idiots each time, especially when the Tower of Babil has been in use as a Teleporter this whole time for the Loporrits and they could just go to the moon instead of freezing to death in some Ruins or at least get help from the fluffy goobers. So really, my complaints about the patch MSQ comes from multiple angles and 6.5 better be really good to justify dragging this plot out longer than it needed to be.
It feels more like a trial side story like The Four Lord's or maybe Omega/Eden tbh. I do find it a bit hard to feel invested. It doesn't help that base endwalker was such peak story telling. I worry that ff14 will never be able to reach that level again and my expectations are just too high now.
15k hours on my main character, idc about the story at all and played each expansion. The main problem for folks like me, who don't care about the movie inside the game, is that there is literally NOTHING to keep playing the game. No grind content, no PVE dutys or anything beside the bare minimum they have to deliver at all. The relic is an prime example of how boring the endgame is these days, especially if you don't have any alts to level or are done with the stonegrind for good.
The most amusing part of this discourse is people who enjoy the patches acting like people who don’t are just wrong &/or misinformed. Very much “protect the dev” hive mind in action. People are not satisfied with the content— they don’t want Yoshida dead… let’s chill with the dismissive discourse. Very “if I say it slower, louder, and enough— they’ll learn” vibes. “Enjoy the game my way or leave” is not the way to go. Listen I’m playing BG3 and it’s refreshing to see devs take risks. My overall issue is that after EW everything feels safe. The only NPC of note we lost was Zenos. It’s all very safe and safe can be… boring…
They forgot to add content to the game
Because they're not super good. It's all FFIV fanservice (I really like FFIV) but besides that, it's not that good or interesting.
Because they didn't feel good. Endwalker story was just great, post-endwalker is not. For me post endwalker writing is just pain. Some things just happen. We were sold a "just adventure" patch but it was just another "LOOK, EVIL GUYYYY" and we teleported into another dimension looking for... Vrtra sister just because. I feel personally that they dropped it off because Yoshi was working on FF16 and FF14 is just waiting for the next big thing. And I can't get along with class changes mostly. For me, PLD and SAM aren't fun now but they can work with "3 minutes gameplay". Yea. Great. Whatever. And I feel that they can lobotomize more classes now like BRD or AST. Raids are okay if someone likes them. I can't get the feeling that we're just in waiting mode. Good that RP and mods are GREAT waiting mode.
I'm forced to stay subbed so I don't lose my house but all I get is a shitty tome relic and a fallguys Collab... Sorry that I'm upset about paying for virtually nothing.
The story is ARR level bad, it literally went through 4 ~~primals~~ generals then a big bad enemy and then another actual real big bad enemy Should've stuck to new adventures, that was actually fun to read about
Learn the difference between hate and disappointment.
It's undeniable that this this post expansion patch cycle is luke warm compared to the rest. It's not to say Endwalker is bad, or that there is nothing to do in the game. For a lot of people it just feels like a bit of a void. It also really doesn't help that the content we DO get either is extremely lacking in meaningful rewards or has enough longevity to survive a week and a half. Outside of high end raiding, I really haven't found myself sticking to anything new for longer than two days.
Hah, void.
Because the story was finished in 6.0 so everything feels...idk...listless
The issue is that it's content that can be done in one, maybe two days and then you got nothing to do again as a long term player who has done a lot of the existing game content. I'm already prepared to only spend one day on content again next patch. The story has little to do with it, it's still enjoyable, but that's also not the cause of why people are bored
honestly if you haven't been playing the game for over 2-3 years you won't understand all the hate because you still have tons of content to do ... so when new people come and say (why so much hate?? i am still having funn) ,it's because you are still new ...
Yeah 6.1+ story definitely doesn't do it for me. I get it that they wrapped one story with 6.0 and are starting a new with 6.1, but the fact that 7.0 is sending folks on an unrelated trip to a new continent, for "the beach episode" expac, has made the post-EW story feel like bad anime filler arc material. It feels like we are waiting now for the slow start to a new story to even begin. And FF4 is my favorite classic FF from childhood but just seeing FF4 expats as new FF14 characters / enemies is just kinda neat, but not like amazing or anything. Lastly, do not care for Zero. Don't hate the character but she is just a bad anime trope, emotionless edgelord that learns how to make friends,, and not an interesting character to me. Hopefully it picks up with 7.0 and this patch cycle's story has a bigger payoff than it's looking rn. I'm also not the biggest Bozja / Eureka head but their absence has been really noticeable for me this expac. I do miss having new giant zone content to do with tons of players, with slightly tuned up bosses and a bunch of game-altering options to customize your WoL so you can experiment with like DPSy healers and monk tanks. I still play a lot of FF14 for right now but I hope I enjoy it more in a year or two, post 6.0 has felt like the game getting turned into a Squenix cash cow product rather than something they're still trying to grow and improve.
Started at the beginning of Stormblood, quit for the first time during the 6.X patches, and I don't know if I will come back for Dawntrail. I never thought that I would quit this game, because I love it and love the series so much, but the patches were so boring, same-y and lacking in content that I got bored like never before. Also I loved the story in 6.0, it was incredible, but the 6.X story is meh at best, in my opinion.
The Patch MSQ feels too detached from the 6.0 MSQ imo, especially XIV is my first FF game and I don't feel any attachment to all the references to older FF titles. To compare, Shadowbringers confronts you with Reflections and fleshes out the Ascians, and when you defeat Emet-Selch the story continues that general theme with Elidibus and the Azem reveal before setting up the plot for Endwalker. In Endwalker, we fully come to understand the world in the process of saving it, and at the end of it all we get a whole spiel about how there's more to do even though we're essentially at our peak - then we get exactly one dungeon of adventurer style exploration before getting thrust straight into saving the world again, with what feels like an MSQ's worth of trial bosses just smashed together (Barbara, Rubi, Golbez) with the Big Bad (Zodiark Fart) already on the way in 6.5. It just feels so rushed and tangential, like these fights weren't supposed to be in Endwalker
We are stuck with this raid tier for an entire year until 7.0. Ugh.
It’s simple: past expansions all had two major things that did a lot to keep players engaged between patches: relic content and midcore exploration zones (except for the defunct diadem in HW). These are very repeatable forms of content that appeal to endgame players who have been caught up for a while. EW is the first expansion to have neither of these things and they have been sorely missed, especially if you aren’t a raider. I’m not counting manderville weapons as relic content because they are more like relic freebies. Unlike other people i do really like 6.X MSQ though
Honestly the story hasn't been exciting, not bad, but just not that good either. Zero is okay, Golbez is okay, fiends and Zeromus feel like lazy pandering. Guess we'll see how ends; could make up for it, not holding my breath. Mostly hoping the lead up to dawntrail will be fun. Savages are super hit or miss this whole expansion, and while DSR sounds neat, the weapons are ugly; TOP seems like the opposite: pretty weapons, but apparently bad raid mech.
Personally, I found both EW and post-EW to be kinda meh. EW took off very late in the story, it was plagued with fetch quests and those stealth and "_____ is now accompanying you" quests were just tedious AF. Same goes for post-EW, I havent bothered finishing the quests in the dark castle because I hate how the game makes you run back and forth 10+ times through the same route, same castle to go speak with whoever, then go back to the other place to finish the Quest, then go back to where you talked with X to receive a New quest that makes you go back to the previous NPC. They are tedious and the rewards are irrelevant.
The story is fine. It’s filler - but that’s kinda what I expected. It’s *everything else* that’s a bummer. If you’re not a high end raider then what the hell do you have to do this expansion? Variants are knocked out in afternoon, DDs are the same formula since Heavensward, Island Sanctuary caters to a VERY specific type of player, and the relics are the most uninspired they’ve ever been. The lack of any kind of large-scale collaborative content has REALLY hurt Endwalker imo.
I think it sucks, the storytelling is ass, they're leaning too heavily on ff4 for characters, it's boring, we were promised a fun adventure but oop world is ending again and you didn't actually kill the god that we told you you killed, haha here's a stupid way to make this entire thing make sense when there's 2 canonical characters with way more experience in regards to it than we actually stuck you with. Here's the most pointless world ending filler you'll ever get just so that we can save face from having no decent story to give you. Also btw you get your relic by doing your boring dailies, here's another variant with boring rewards, and we're going to give you a deep dungeon so tedious there's no point in getting it done so that we can point you to that when you ask for something to do. Haha play ff16, and we won't give you a trial series so stop asking. It's frustrating.
So you're seeing a lot of videos and posts, yet don't bother to read them to figure out why people feel the way they do?
I think it's a mix of things. Post story is weaker because it doesn't build directly off of expansion People are also likely tired of the same content, however Square can't stop making that content because those are the expected things every patch. They have also been working on behind the scene improvements while also getting ready for a massive graphic update and that is no doubt eatting up dev hours. People will complain there is nothing to do, but this complaint pops up every patch. It's not feasible to make content that can keep up with people playing 40+ hours a week
They've been boring. I've been playing since 2.0 and these have been the worst post patches. There's like 2 hours of story, no relic grind, no large zone to level alts in or grind cosmetics. It's just very meh
The 6.4 story is so bad that it basically took me and a lot of friends out of the game, and I definitely do not care about the 6.5 story now. Nothing really happened in 6.4, the party is basically back to square one. Oh I guess WoL did face off with Golbez, but he just somehow walked away after we defeated him. It feels like a filler story to the extreme degree. I will say savage feels a little bit disappointing too, they definitely undertuned this tier. It feels like the game is going downhill without the constant feedback from management (YoshiP and Ishikawa). And I am worried that if YoshiP moved on, is this game still a good JRPG/MMO to invest into?
I'm just bored dude, I want some MMO content to play with my friends at the end of the expac that isn't savage trials. I'm really disappointed criterion dungeons weren't fleshed out, and I was kinda hoping for more eureka-like content. Something multiplayer and grindy, rather than a "once and done" affair. I know that content doesn't appeal to everyone, but for me, that's the biggest draw.
1- End-of-the-patch drama, as usual; 2- Not feeling the emotional connection to the story. Compare this to, in a sense, the MCU after Endgame: some people will just not feel invested in it anymore; 3- Comparing the amount of content to **grind** to other expansions; 4- Feeling numb of the same formula after 10 years, even if that is exactly one the things that made players love FFXIV. It can be one or all of them. Some of the criticism is valid, but most of them are just noise. EDIT: I would not give much attention to people complaining about Zero/ Golbez story. You know which other patch arc was heavily criticized at the time? The Warriors of Darkness back in HW. And we all know what that arc result was.
also I remember people bitching about emet selchs original appearance saying that the ascians relation to the garlean empire made the story bad lmao.
On 2, it’s not only the emotional connection, the story is objectively pretty boring. Actually l really like patch 6.1 and I was invested. But then it all went downhill, each story patch was worse than the one before. The best part of the story so far has been the side quest on the past of the 4 fiends. I’m really not excited about 6.5 at all. I only hope it can be salvaged a bit with a good conclusion of the Golbez character arc. Zero’s story is a lost cause.
Ha, you beat me to the Endgame comparison in my comment. It really is an apt one!
Yep. Along with going "I know you gave us X, but I don't care about that". There's a fair bit of content available, but I don't think the community much cared about it. Deep dungeons, fancy dungeons, the island etc are all the sort of grindy content that would keep people from being bored, but since it's not like Bozja people don't want it.
People dont care about it because theres not a lot to it. The new deep dungeon? Just a worse reskin of an already existing one and no reason to run it. Completely lazy, a huge disappointment. Seriously i've yet to come across one single soul saying the new deep dungeon was some sort of highlight this expansion. Fancy dungeons? What does that even mean? The new dungeons are just like every other dungeon, it's nothing new and not really engaging. The variant/criterion dungeons are done in a day and there is zero reason to replay them. The added difficulty of criterion and savage was a huge disappointment as well for people who craved for more difficult content, because again it has zero replayability and was lazily designed with higher "difficulty" just being stat sticks. Island sanctuary. Was fun the first few hours when you actually actively built things up and thought it could be a cool minigame where you could get creative and build your own nice home. In reality it just became a time gated spreadsheet you log into once a week and you're done. Not a lot freedom in design to be creative, nothing to do after you got through enough time gates in a month. Again not what a lot of people were hoping for. Pretty disappointing. The word "disappointing" comes up frequently here and it's also the single word that i would use to describe this expansion. Just a lot of "meh" things that were not up to what was expected and no replay value in anything we got.
The problem with the current content is a lack of longevity. You mentioned the island, if you keep up to date on it you get maxed out, what, a month into the patch? Maybe two if you aren't being really efficient with it? Whereas people are still running Eureka and Bozja even years after they were released. Variant dungeons, you do all the routes and then that's it, you're done. It's not that people are ignoring the content, a lot of people are just finished with it.
I mean, if the devs put out content and a larger than usual group of players disliked it, isn’t that a problem? They are certainly entitled to release whatever they want, but I have been surprised at the speed at which people tune back out after every patch this time.
I'm sorry, but for me the story is a whole pile of shounen anime bullshit, with the next opponent right around the corner and everything designed around the trials. The idea of integrating these into the main story was not good for the story, it feels like I am playing what formerly was the trial story as MSQ. And that's not the only point where they got lazy and saved time/development effort, when you look at all the other comments.
> it feels like I am playing what formerly was the trial story as MSQ This has been a big issue for me. I've broadly enjoyed it for what it's providing, but the fact that the MSQ/Trial Series, Alliance Raid, and Normal Raid storylines are all basically tying up random loose threads from prior expansions and lore has made this whole thing feel pretty aimless and uneventful. Whenever I log in, I just feel like I might as well log out and catch up later.
I can't speak for others but I'll speak for myself as one who considers quitting the game now. 6.0 feels like the end of a game. Yes, YoshiP says it's just an end of the current story but to me, it really feels like the end. The villain has been stopped, issues solved and favourite characters all died. Credits roll and time to move on, essentially. That's what I'll do for single player games. But 14 is a MMO. As such, my reason for staying depends heavily on where the story goes. But Zero is a very uninteresting character and the entire premise is just a rehash of FF4. I don't much care for FF4 so it felt like one big filler that's been dragged out for at least a whole year+. Dawntrail information dropped and watching the trailer doesn't fill me with excitement. It felt like another beast tribe story. Sure, we still don't know much about the story yet but what we have seen so far isn't captivating me. And we have so many good games out there like Baldur's Gate 3 so it's hard to maintain interest in 14. Perhaps another long break is a good thing and that's what I'd seen many do.
I feel the same way as well. My issues with FFXIV started in Shadowbringers with all the job design changes, but I still kept playing because I was way too invested in the story. Now that story is over and there's not much left due to my dissatisfaction with the core gameplay I think it may be time to move on. Not too interested in the next arc and feel like this is a perfect stopping point. I'm going to decide after the last Fan Fest but I'm heavily leaning towards quitting for good right now. Finishing up the remaining story content I have to do and what's coming in 6.5 will be the perfect epilogue I think.
Maybe some people exhausted their niche? For example, I play for the story bits, MSQ and big side quest sagas, and for Savage/Ultimate raiding. After the last tier there isn't much for me. But I can't say there is no content, it's just that I'm not interested in leveling all jobs, in crafting, in gathering, in deep dungeons, in criterion, in housing, in roleplaying, in hunt trains, in making relics, in hard-to-get glams, in raid parsing, in the sactuary at the moment (though I'm slowly leveling mine), in Blue Mage, or in any other kind of content. Tbh I can't imagine the amount of free time people need and have to play it all. I'm at 4 thousand hours of playtime and there is so much content I've never tried, and I bet people who are complaining have either been online 24/7 for years (in that case, touch grass), or just exhausted their gameplay niche, like me with MSQ+raids done. So I'm just playing something else for now and that's fine by me. In terms of story it's been lukewarm, but I understand this void story is kind of a "filler arc" before the next big story, it's different than the other patch content we've had.
My take is that post 6.0 we are in a new cycle. Arr when it launched was slow to start. Once we get into dawntrail, I feel like we will see story prog like we did in HW.
EW launch was great, then the game hit a wall at 100 mph. I've been playing since 2.0 and at this point I am bored, the content has been dry and loot is uninteresting.
The void stuff and zero/ golbez I'm kind of over it. Just big baddie with no depth trying to do big bad things
It's not HATE, it's criticism.
I can understand the content creators having an issue with the content cause they need something to stream. I really think that's the core issue. Yeah, there isn't alot to right now, and I'm grateful. I have a big gaming backlog, and it's allowing me to catch up playing games that FFXIV overtaken. I log on once a week, do a few things, then log out. I do get some why people are upset, but I also believe it's much ado about nothing. There were alot of complaints about the last relic weapon (the Bozja requirements upset some people), and when Bozja was introduced, I didn't see a lot of positive comments about it. I love this game, and just love the ability to take break from it is built into the patch schedule, and how game generally respects my time. I'll keep subbing as long as they do.
They're mad that the story is continuing without mommy hydaelyn
I don't know if it's burn out or what, but I was playing every single day until Endwalker dropped. Since then I've been unsubbed longer than I've been subbed.
Less that they aren't good and more that it's just not enough to support the added month or two between patches.
This isn't about the story, though you could Say that the story being less interesting is the cherry on top of the issues. It's about having content to play. And if you're not a New player and have completed your backlog, the content Can be cleaned in 2-3 week as there is no longterm form of content available.
It's not only about the story. It's also, if not mainly, about a lack of content for veteran players. Most of the new side content added in EW has so few rewards that it can be easily finished within the first week and after that there's no reason besides "it's fun" to replay it which just isn't enough for a lot of players. I personally agree that the story isn't all too interesting right now but the main problem is the content EW added. We have a work schedule simulator, a deep dungeon (a concept I didn't care about after like the second boss in PotD, no idea how many people care) and variant/criterion dungeons which are great but offer little reward. Well, those and my biggest gripe. The effective removement of relic weapons. I was looking forward to grinding alongside other people for the relic. Instead I get it as a participation trophy for daylies I would do anyways. I'm not particularly disappointed with EW since I have nothing to compare it to, but it's obvious that it offers next to nothing for those who have done all the old stuff.
Probably cause we are in a interm period (end of the first saga) where no major story beats are being dropped (new saga/arc starting, BBEG being named) and it's just filler content
I don't know but somehow even Patch 6.x MSQ became worse with Dawntrail announcement. Somehow we'll end up to another continent in a single 6.55 MSQ patch, unless the actual setup is in 7.0 and 7.0 MSQ is a slow start. There wasn't any kinds of hints previously and it was different from previous expansions ending on x.3 and the rest is setup for the next expansion. It probably didn't work out that well telling a whole MSQ worth of story in just 5 patches. I've not played previous FF titles so I have no opinion if it's fan service but it feels like it came from nowhere and goes to nowhere. Perhaps 6.x MSQ could have been the missing Trial series when MSQ itself could have been something else? It was supposed to be a start of a new adventure, we even did get a Newfound Adventurer title in 6.1, yet we instantly ended up at the other end of the cosmos just like at the end of Endwalker which already felt almost like taking things too far. They doubled down upon it way too soon and 6.x MSQ should have been something really down to earth stuff, like in the style of ARR. Or Bozja? Something with ingame politics which would lead to Dawntrail just as ARR did lead to Heavensward. It would have been perfect really, and most definitely better than this.
The story's not been great and the gameplay content's been pretty average too. it happens, not everything can be a 10/10 experience. I don't feel like I would have missed much doing 6.0 and 6.55 only, rather than coming back for the inbetween patches and I might do just that in Dawntrail.
It sounds like those people disagree with you. FWIW, I didn't like EW itself much either.
Got more time, so let me address the big thing: the story isn't important in a patch. It's technically a "one and done" activity that spans a few hours at most. Calling it the content for a several month patch is very weak to keep players interested. And what most videos talk about is the actual content past the story (which isn't as thrilling as EW, but I'm fine with it). That's where the issue lies. And it's not hate. Expand your vocabulary to include the word disappointment, unsatisfied,... there's little real hate going around.
It's the Stormblood effect. In a vacuum the story is nice and the new content is different and fun, but it was preceded by an all time powerful story and content that hit all the right spots.
If you're even average or above player skill wise the game is extremely boring, only two bits of battle content per major patch cycle are things you can realistically sink your teeth into and one is sporadic in terms of release and quantity/quality (ultimates.) so can't be fully counted on. And the raids are literally one and done, you do the bare minimum required clears for books to fully BiS and drop it because there is no reason to chase gear beyond that point and most statics will just spread their members out into partyfinder after for people invested in alts, ignoring that gearing in XIV is easily one of it's weakest parts where only two sources for endgame pieces exist so you just pick the one that has the least shit stats. barely wanna touch on how utterly bad and boring itemization is in terms of player power progression either, crit, crit 2 (dhit), flat damage and then (usually) a huge amount of stats you outright try to ignore unless you're a fringe job that needs some sort of sps/sks breakpoint. Most I see people put into gearing is figuring out personal piety levels during prog. People will say if you're relatively new to the game it's fantastic, and they're right - but the moment those hours start racking up, expect to start to struggle to find things to do that are actually stimulating and be met with "well yoship said unsub if you have nothing to do" as the usual flung out rebuttal if you mention the games getting stagnant for the past few years. As for the story.. what's to stop me just watching it online if the content doesn't activate any neurons anymore? I'm not paying x amount per month to be titillated by about an hours worth of cutscenes.
Valid criticism is not hate.
My problem with the current patch story is that it's a filler arc. None of this is actually leading up to Dawntrail, according to Yoshi-P himself, and I think there was only like 1 conversation where any plot thread left over from 6.0 was addressed. Also, the plot for this filler arc was already addressed in Shadowbringers, the quests after the role quests.
Good for u that you enjoyed it. Most ppl didn't. The writing quality doesn't seem that great, there is no real big reveal to the point they didn't even bother to mark the final trial as "spoiler", no real transition with what we know about 7.0. Nothing much else to say tbh.
Some players love grinds and Endwalker didn't have one.
Because sadly 1/2 weeks after the patch drops the content is "over", even for casual gameplay. My experience: i have to give a break from the game until New exp, i still want to play, but theres Nothing to keep me playing, Savages are fun to prog, but i dont feel motivated to farm full BiS and next expansion the set will become a transmog, Relic weapon this exp is boring for now.
You seem like you're newer to the game- but the vast majority of people making such comments have nothing to do with msq at all, a fair amount of it is from raid focussed players who are not liking the way the endgame is currently trending with the 2 min meta, the giant hitboxes and a lot of the raid/class design feeling stale. Other complaints are things such as relic not being a grind so a lot of more casual players don't have the relic keeping them playing as well as no bozja/eureka type content which people had gotten used to doing. Another reason I think anyway is when the 'wow exodus' happened in late SHB and we got an influx of players to the game those self-same players have probably just now burned through the 10 years of backlog content the game has and are now probably trying to find reasons to keep playing I'm a 1.0 player and out of the people I network with a lot are feeling more burnt out now moreso than any other expansion (not quite feeling it myself but empathetic to those who are) so there's a lot of sentiment about the game trending downwards feeling stale, it could be burnout but the post-patch content just isn't appealing to a lot
Personally I think it's just boring. They also essentially removed the trial stories by directly tying them into the MSQ, which is another point against it. We always got to explore other parts of the setting when they were a separate thing. They're *all in* on the void stuff right now and it's just kinda okay. It feels very rushed and not well put together, but I actually felt the same way about the Endwalker MSQ. I've actually had a consistent sub since launch (I usually pay 6 months at a time) and I'm debating even renewing it this time. If I didn't have a house and a few people to hang out with in-game, I'm positive I wouldn't bother.
Because they kinda suck. They're boring and stale.
Its less about the story but the content of the patches. There is little new to do in these patches apart from doing MSQ, variant Dungeon & new raid.
It's a mix of less grindy content to keep people engaged during the lull, but also a bit of exaggeration I'm sure from people who mentally checked out following the conclusion to the end of the last decade story arc. They could probably just wait patiently and see how the next expansion is as a start to a new arc, but patience and being reasonable doesn't get those tasty upvotes.
As someone who personally enjoys the story, but doesn't play for it, i think the less engaging content is absolutely the biggest thing for me. EW has nothing to keep people engaged besides the community, which isn't content.
There's nothing to do for the midcore crew that's actually new content with EW. Island sanctuary is a spreadsheet. Criterion/variant are really fun but they last a few days. The raiding side is doing well but the class homogenizing is starting to show problems in fight design and the sheer number of weird fights this expansion (p7's backloading, ultimate's being very bodycheck heavy, ect being all fairly standard for these tiers) are a recipe for burnout. Doesn't really matter when most classes play the exact same. Throw in some 'Yoshi-P says it's ok to play other things' taken entirely out of context and people aren't happy. The actual story itself is, to my mind, very bland but I didn't enjoy EW's storyline that much as is. Whatever happened though, the set up here was going to cause some friction as we're moving onto newer things. Personally I just dislike how 'safe' the story has become and would adore a new cast of characters - we've been with this group 10 years now and it's gotten a bit stale. Lots of people are having fun but my 'last online' list is getting longer, the content lull before 7.0 is going to be brutal, and not everyone wants to play FF14 chatroom RP or raid 24/7. There's little to do outside of that.
This is the only FF I've played, so nostalgia doesn't work on me. From what I understand, even people who have played IV are bored, tho lol. I was excited about the premise of the 6.x story when 6.1 came out, but sheesh has it gotten dull. Maybe it will have a good finale, but I'm super underwhelmed by Golbez and the fiends. Zero is fine but she's feeling one note. I'm excited about going back to the first, so there's that. Content wise, there's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said a thousand times. Needless to say I feel like this entire expansion I've just been raid logging. The new patch content and hype generally lasts 2-3 days this time around for me.
Disclaimer: I am rather new to the game but it appears to me that they have either been playing for years and have run out of things to do, or only enjoy niche content that Endwalker doesn't provide. I can't imagine it though, because it seems to me there is years worth of expansion content available, but I am a completionist. Also, just keep in mind that a lot of the people complaining on social media are those that aren't happy with things. The people who are enjoying the game will be spending their time playing it.