Looking to the Future: FFXIV v7.x and Beyond

[Cthulhu 2020]

I'm glad they're doing Variant dungeons as a thing. While we're off romping around in far flung places in the MSQ, variants are a good bit of "home town" lore to ground and add to the original world. MMO Games that just forget their previous expansion territories as lost content are ass. I'm interested in knowing what's going on in the living world, not just what's in front of me.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Even Zenos fears the wrath of the Otaku. :'D

Well if we're nimble it would be difficult to pick us up but I generally agree that house sized monsters are just a nonsensical thing to do. They're probably a side effect of the developers trying to give you more and more impressive foes to fight against.

E.g.: Nidhogg fighting us on a floating platform. One swish with his tail, one proper flap with his wings and we'd all fall to our death. It makes -0- sense, even lore wise to be able to defeat him unless you are a dragon yourself.

GW2 does humongous boss fights quite well, IMO. Off of the top of my head: there are two meta events that climax in you fighting a humongous dragon. In Dragon's Stand, the dragon does actually try to destroy the platform you are standing on, so you have to jump off and deploy your glider or use a flying mount to fly to another platform to continue the fight (and hopefully kill him before you run out of platforms to stand on). In Dragon's End, the boss does use her massive tail to hit the platform and it is an instant kill if it hits you, and she has a tsunami attack that forces you to jump off of the platform or be killed. There is also the battle at the end of season 4 episode 5, where you fight the biggest dragon in GW2, Kralkatorik, but he is too big to fight conventionally, so you are flying over his body to reach different balconies and activate crystals that resonate with Kralkatorik to stun and injure him, and then at the end you gouge his eye out. FFXIV's clunky engine wouldn't be able to do battles like this fluidly, though.

- - - Updated - - -

Similarly, if we're shown the big bad monsters can just pick up and eat people like they're snack food, even people who are stronger than most others... why aren't they picking up our similarly people-sized cast of characters?.

The thing that always had me scratching my head was why they Ascians couldn't just teleport fifty feet into the air above the WoL and drop a rock on his head. Or teleport the WoL into space, or into lava, or into freezing water underneath an icy lake.

[Grinning Serpent]

I'm glad they're doing Variant dungeons as a thing. While we're off romping around in far flung places in the MSQ, variants are a good bit of "home town" lore to ground and add to the original world. MMO Games that just forget their previous expansion territories as lost content are ass. I'm interested in knowing what's going on in the living world, not just what's in front of me.

Going back to Classic and having that recent experience for comparison, I definitely feel like WoW removing the old world from TBC and then WotLK was definitely a misstep. I'd love to see them do a "Classic+" where they explore options to keep the old world relevant in at least some fashion (even if it's just as limited as requiring iron, mithril, or whatever to make armor and weapons and stuff.) XIV at least technically has relic steps and FATEs and achievements, I guess? But it shares the same overall issue.

- - - Updated - - -

The thing that always had me scratching my head was why they Ascians couldn't just teleport fifty feet into the air above the WoL and drop a rock on his head. Or teleport the WoL into space, or into lava, or into freezing water underneath an icy lake.

Yeah. Dragon can just grab a dude and throw him at the mountainside. If you don't have Fly or something like that handy, you're just going to be a smear on the rocks.

The reason this doesn't happen in XIV is because it would be an obvious and easy solution to the whole WoL thing. Plot armor/plot-induced stupidity prevents it from happening.

At least in D&D, by time PCs are actually fighting dragons, they've probably got a couple dozen RAW answers to the "what happens if the dragon just throws you at the ground from 300 feet in the air?" problem...

[Pannonian]

i always find this realism discussion in fantasy environments where magic exists a bit grating.

Why cant the ascians just port the WoL into lava? Writers can find restrictions, because its their world.
Why cant they drop a stone on the wols head? Writers can find restrictions, because its their world.

I mean, if you have fun doing it, be my guest, but its a bit like lord of the rings. I can either debate hour long on forums why they didnt take the eagles in the first place, or sit back and just enjoy the narrative and themes, without searching for logical loopholes, because a fantasy world with many different races, magic, etc. is a fairy tale anyway.

I mean realism is all well and nice, but to make it really realistic, then you need people (and not just the baddies) failing, so story lines abruptly ending because characters get killed etc. - and while i love the books of George R. R. Martin, which do exactly that, i wouldn't want to play that as a game, because it would be a bit disappointing (and given (in the other thread) how people are overwhelmed by 5 buttons in a rotation, the majority would not understand the plot anymore).

[MsSideEye]

Even Zenos fears the wrath of the Otaku. :'D

Well if we're nimble it would be difficult to pick us up but I generally agree that house sized monsters are just a nonsensical thing to do. They're probably a side effect of the developers trying to give you more and more impressive foes to fight against.

E.g.: Nidhogg fighting us on a floating platform. One swish with his tail, one proper flap with his wings and we'd all fall to our death. It makes -0- sense, even lore wise to be able to defeat him unless you are a dragon yourself.

To be fair, that isn't interesting, as far as us playing, watching, or even reading about. And that's kinda the main reason why we don't really care if we're fighting off against building sized monsters in any game, because it's more fun to believe that we're playing as characters who are capable of that. But we're also not exactly just a regular people fighting Nidhogg either. Not even counting the abilities of the classes or the armor/weapons we've got that are almost assuredly magic in some respects, our Echo is basically like Fordolas, allowing us to see attacks before they come and avoid them. When you've got Spider-Sense like reaction time, it's VERY hard to get him, no matter what player stands in the AOE.

I'm glad they're doing Variant dungeons as a thing. While we're off romping around in far flung places in the MSQ, variants are a good bit of "home town" lore to ground and add to the original world. MMO Games that just forget their previous expansion territories as lost content are ass. I'm interested in knowing what's going on in the living world, not just what's in front of me.

100% agreed. Being able to see things involving Nanamo and the Amalj'aa again was a breath of fresh air after the MSQ's craziness, and allowed us to get some insight in the history of the world that we've only seen mentioned a few times, once in Hildibrand, which you can't always take at face value. It's really fun to be able to explore a character's history and the rewards themselves aren't half bad either. I'm hoping that we might be able to see more of this with some of the other City-state leaders, Ga'bu, and more.

---update---

i always find this realism discussion in fantasy environments where magic exists a bit grating.

Why cant the ascians just port the WoL into lava? Writers can find restrictions, because its their world.
Why cant the drop a stone on the wols head? Writers can find restrictions, because its their world.

I mean, if you have fun doing it, be my guest, but its a bit like lord of the rings. I can either debate hour long on forums why they didnt take the eagles in the first place, or sit back and just enjoy the narrative and themes, without searching for logical loopholes, because a fantasy world with many different races, magic, etc. is a fairy tale anyway.

I mean realism is all well and nice, but to make it really realistic, then you need people (and not just the baddies) failing, so story lines abruptly ending because characters get killed etc. - and while i love the books of George R. R. Martin, which do exactly that, i wouldn't want to play that as a game, because it would be a bit disappointing (and given (in the other thread) how people are overwhelmed by 5 buttons in a rotation, the majority would not understand the plot anymore).

Yeah, I never understood the whole 'let's find every realistic thing in this story/game/what have you to break our enjoyment of it!' that some people do. I personally just look at them and go 'Yeah, and if it were realism, I wouldn't have Chicago's resident wizard of the White Council, the richest duck in the world, or a bunch of transforming into spandex wearing super heroes'. I don't care if it ain't real or if an enemy could do 'X' to win. Sure, if the writers behind the story bring that up and address it? Awesome! But I'm not going to complain about how Q could just snapped Picard out into space and kill him off, because that's not the point or the fun in it all. It's just BORING at that point.

[ippollite]

If i was the devil and facing an army of infidels... id just give everyone gastric flu. Im sure theres more effective and immediate means to lay everyone low, but... gastric flu means they'll think they can continue and create a weakness in the lines. Id prey upon hope and sweep through when the body couldnt keep up with the apirations of the mind.

[Ghost of Cow]

I always like to say that bosses are very considerate to bend over and put their heads on platforms for us to punch.

But really, it's all just gameplay nonsense. It's never going to mesh with lore, so why bother. For all we know, canonically the WoL just defeats everyone with sheer force of will and crushing their resolve with our dominating Echo power and...something...so we're not even really physically punching Nidhogg on a bridge or whatever.

[prwraith]

Another expac on the same tier as shadowbringers and we'll be set foreverr

[Yarathir]

Ah, the Ascian is flying? Excelllent. *grabs Dragoon job stone and aspects self with wind aether*

:^)

[Cthulhu 2020]

So SE announced a 71% year on year gain in profits, largely thanks to increasing subscription numbers. I expect they'll add even more servers to the new logical data center. FFXIV, the first MMO in a very long time that actually has to add servers due to a rapidly growing playerbase.

[Wrecktangle]

So SE announced a 71% year on year gain in profits, largely thanks to increasing subscription numbers. I expect they'll add even more servers to the new logical data center. FFXIV, the first MMO in a very long time that actually has to add servers due to a rapidly growing playerbase.

Source?

Pulled the consolidated financial statement and the analysis reads:

(1) Analysis of consolidated business results
The Square Enix group (the “Group”) is continuing determined efforts to strengthen the competitiveness and
profitability of its business segments of Digital Entertainment, Amusement, Publication and Merchandising.
Net sales for the six-month period ended September 30, 2022 totaled ¥163,392 million (a decrease of 3.3％
from the same period of the prior fiscal year), and operating income amounted to ¥26,044 million (a decrease
of 10.6％ from the same period of the prior fiscal year). In foreign exchange rates, the weakness of Japanese
yen compared to rates as of the end of the prior fiscal year resulted in the booking of a foreign exchange
gain amounting to ¥20,143 million, which contributed to ordinary income of ¥45,133 million (an increase of
43.4％ from the same period of the prior fiscal year). In addition, the Group concluded a contract to divest
select overseas studios and intellectual property through the transfer of shares, producing a gain of ¥9,455
million on the gain on sale of shares of subsidiaries and associates. This contributed to a profit attributable to
owners of parent of ¥39,473 million (an increase of 71.7％ from the same period of the previous year).

I see the 71% gain, but it looks like it's attributed to divesting shares and FX gains.

It does go on to say this:

In the MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) Game sub-segment, net sales rose compared to the same period
of the previous year due to growth in the number of monthly paying subscribers for “FINAL FANTASY XIV.”
Net sales and operating income in the Digital Entertainment segment totaled ¥117,156 million (a decrease of
9.5％ from the same period of the prior fiscal year), and ¥24,596 million (a decrease of 16.6％ from the same
period of the prior fiscal year), respectively.

This does demonstrate that the MMO net sales rose and it's definitely due to growth in the number of monthly paying subscribers, but the 71% profit based on this is straight misinformation.

[zealo]

So SE announced a 71% year on year gain in profits, largely thanks to increasing subscription numbers. I expect they'll add even more servers to the new logical data center. FFXIV, the first MMO in a very long time that actually has to add servers due to a rapidly growing playerbase.

More likely to get new logical data centres than more worlds added to them outside the ones already announced that they'll be doing, id say.

They don't really want more than 8 worlds per DC cause of limitations with the login system when under extreme load, which is why JP got reshuffled just recently.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Could have made for a threatening boss.

A third deep dungeon was a pleasant surprise after ShB didn't introduce one and Yoshida said that there would be no new grind zone in Endwalker.

Kugane themed 5v5 map looks nice.

They didn't show off what UI theme #3 looked like.

Patch comes in January and there isn't any real meat to it unless you like doing ultimate raids.

[MsSideEye]

The next patch actually looks pretty packed. We've got the normal Dungeon and Trial that we expect for a patch, part 2 of Aglaia and the hopeful exposure to more of the Twelve, Loperits Tribal Quest, New Ultimate, New Deep Dungeon, More Hildy, New PVP arena, Quality of life changes (Thank god I can finally glamor my Retainers instead of just giving them my Hand me Downs), and I believe they hinted at the Paladin Rework coming in as well?

Feels good to actually have a big patch and with it being in Janurary just reminds me that I need to get my Crafters/Gatherers up to snuff before the patch, since we'll likely be getting new gear for both of them that same patch as well.

I'm really hoping that they've done some new design on the Deep Dungeon myself and progressed it some... though that said I've only got Palace of the Dead to go by. I've not really gotten around to doing Heaven on High.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Now that I think about it, the new deep dungeon might not even come until March or April, given how the devs try to stretch out the already paper thin content by releasing stuff in X.5 patches a couple months later, like we just saw with Criterion Dungeons.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Now that I think about it, the new deep dungeon might not even come until March or April, given how the devs try to stretch out the already paper thin content by releasing stuff in X.5 patches a couple months later, like we just saw with Criterion Dungeons.

There's plenty of content in every patch. You just don't want to do any of it. That's all. But I suppose you're one of those people who demands that an MMO give you something every single day to be your forever game? Please bro, I don't want compulsory dailies.

It's time to find something else for you to obsess about.

[NineSpine]

Now that I think about it, the new deep dungeon might not even come until March or April, given how the devs try to stretch out the already paper thin content by releasing stuff in X.5 patches a couple months later, like we just saw with Criterion Dungeons.

Val: "Paper Thin"

Reality:
Continuation of Main Scenario Quest.
Continuation of Tataru’s Grand Endeavor.
Continuation of Tales of Newfound Adventure.
Continuation of Somehow Further Hildibrand Adventures (patch 6.35).
New Tribal quests for Loporrits (patch 6.35).
New MSQ dungeon, Lapis Manalis.
New trials, ??? and ??? (extreme) – boss identity kept secret.
New unreal trial, Containment Bay P1T6 (Unreal).
Continuation of alliance raid, Myths of the Realm part two.
Ultimate duty five (two weeks after 6.3 release).
New deep dungeon, Eureka Orthos (patch 6.35).
New Treasure Dungeon, The Shifting Gymnasion Agonon.
Duty Support added for remaining Heavensward dungeons – The Great Gubal Library, Sohr Khai, The Aetherochemical Research Facility, Xelphatol, The Antitower, and Baelsar’s Wall.
New Crystalline Conflict arena in Kugane.
Tool enhancement quests (patch 6.35).
New custom deliveries.
New spearfishing location will be added to Upper La Noscea, making it the first area from A Realm Reborn to allow diving.
New sanctuary ranks and visions.
New item rewards, materials, crops, animals, isleworks handicrafts, and structures.
Gold Saucer – new course added for Leap of Faith.

[Wrecktangle]

There's plenty of content in every patch. You just don't want to do any of it. That's all. But I suppose you're one of those people who demands that an MMO give you something every single day to be your forever game? Please bro, I don't want compulsory dailies.

It's time to find something else for you to obsess about.

Val's nonsense aside, I didn't see you post a source up for the 71% statement earlier? Was curious if it was just some clickbaiting YTer or actual insider info, etc. I looked at their actual financial statements and didn't see that correlation. You're not usually one to peddle misinformation blindly, so you may have just been duped and wanted to help clarify the air on it.

[MsSideEye]

There's plenty of content in every patch. You just don't want to do any of it. That's all. But I suppose you're one of those people who demands that an MMO give you something every single day to be your forever game? Please bro, I don't want compulsory dailies.

It's time to find something else for you to obsess about.

Guys. It's Val. Just treat it like the air it is and move on. There's nothing to see and even less to care about.

Val: "Paper Thin"

Reality:
Continuation of Main Scenario Quest.
Continuation of Tataru’s Grand Endeavor.
Continuation of Tales of Newfound Adventure.
Continuation of Somehow Further Hildibrand Adventures (patch 6.35).
New Tribal quests for Loporrits (patch 6.35).
New MSQ dungeon, Lapis Manalis.
New trials, ??? and ??? (extreme) – boss identity kept secret.
New unreal trial, Containment Bay P1T6 (Unreal).
Continuation of alliance raid, Myths of the Realm part two.
Ultimate duty five (two weeks after 6.3 release).
New deep dungeon, Eureka Orthos (patch 6.35).
New Treasure Dungeon, The Shifting Gymnasion Agonon.
Duty Support added for remaining Heavensward dungeons – The Great Gubal Library, Sohr Khai, The Aetherochemical Research Facility, Xelphatol, The Antitower, and Baelsar’s Wall.
New Crystalline Conflict arena in Kugane.
Tool enhancement quests (patch 6.35).
New custom deliveries.
New spearfishing location will be added to Upper La Noscea, making it the first area from A Realm Reborn to allow diving.
New sanctuary ranks and visions.
New item rewards, materials, crops, animals, isleworks handicrafts, and structures.
Gold Saucer – new course added for Leap of Faith.

Good rundown of the things to expect in the upcoming patch. only thing missing is some of the UI elements and quality of life changes.

[Velnora]

Val: "Paper Thin"

Reality:
Continuation of Main Scenario Quest.
Continuation of Tataru’s Grand Endeavor.
Continuation of Tales of Newfound Adventure.
Continuation of Somehow Further Hildibrand Adventures (patch 6.35).
New Tribal quests for Loporrits (patch 6.35).
New MSQ dungeon, Lapis Manalis.
New trials, ??? and ??? (extreme) – boss identity kept secret.
New unreal trial, Containment Bay P1T6 (Unreal).
Continuation of alliance raid, Myths of the Realm part two.
Ultimate duty five (two weeks after 6.3 release).
New deep dungeon, Eureka Orthos (patch 6.35).
New Treasure Dungeon, The Shifting Gymnasion Agonon.
Duty Support added for remaining Heavensward dungeons – The Great Gubal Library, Sohr Khai, The Aetherochemical Research Facility, Xelphatol, The Antitower, and Baelsar’s Wall.
New Crystalline Conflict arena in Kugane.
Tool enhancement quests (patch 6.35).
New custom deliveries.
New spearfishing location will be added to Upper La Noscea, making it the first area from A Realm Reborn to allow diving.
New sanctuary ranks and visions.
New item rewards, materials, crops, animals, isleworks handicrafts, and structures.
Gold Saucer – new course added for Leap of Faith.

Most of that stuff gets completed in a day. Also, "duty support for heavensward dungeons"? That isn't content for people that have been playing since then. This game has the width of an ocean, but the depth of a lake.