FFXIV Criticisms

[Yarathir]

I feel like the FFXIV community provides the devs with far less leeway and patience than the WoW community, which inversely offers far too much.

Criterion isn't keeping the attention? Yeah. True. Does that mean the entire feature needs to be binned? I don't think so. It's the first iteration. The very first criterion dungeon, and it's already doom and gloom about how it flopped, rather than attempts to make it better. Same with Island Sanctuary.

[Moralgy]

I feel like the FFXIV community provides the devs with far less leeway and patience than the WoW community, which inversely offers far too much.

Criterion isn't keeping the attention? Yeah. True. Does that mean the entire feature needs to be binned? I don't think so. It's the first iteration. The very first criterion dungeon, and it's already doom and gloom about how it flopped, rather than attempts to make it better. Same with Island Sanctuary.

Honestly I can agree with that, it was cool to kill once but it lacked anything that incentivized re-playability like say ults or savages. But instead of viewing it like it was, most people were just like "lol this sucks im out" cause there wasn't a carrot on the end of the stick and didn't even bother doing it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

PvP is cool but hamstrung by severely inadequate netcode and a playerbase that's not really aligned with the idea of competitive laddering

To add to this, the game only promotes two PvP modes: Frontline (a boring zerg fest with no coordination or interesting map design whatsoever, would rather play GW2's WvW or WoW's epic BGs), and Crystalline Conflict, in which there is only one single objective: push the cart, which again means that there is no interesting decision making like in WoW or GW2 where you need to decide how to split your team amongst the different objectives. Also doesn't not help that the time to kill is ludicrously short. You die before you even realize what is happening buried under a cacophony of over-the-top visual effects, let alone have time to react. It's more absurd that WoW arenas. For PvP in FF14 to be fun, they need to add WoW and GW2 styled maps with multiple objectives and significant travel time between them, clean up the visual clarity of the game, and raise the TTK.

I dunno. "Open world never gets used" seems to be a big complaint I see leveraged against XIV. I honestly would like to see them lean more into the MMO aspects of the game in 7.0. If they had an engaging, active open world like how Dragon Isles is, with rare monster spawns, world quests, long-term rep grinds (that aren't required for progression! Rep grinds for progression are awful, but I frankly enjoy how Renown works), and so on. I really like stuff like the Siege of Dragonbane Keep, Community Soup, etc events. They already have a handful of long FATE chains, so there's already precedent for that sort of thing and I think they could easily implement more stuff like that.

I do not find WoW's world quest chores and rares to be a fun, engaging open world experience. GW2's meta events and hero point challenges and world dungeons and puzzles are fun open world content. Dragonflight dipped their toes into imitating GW2 events with the soup and primalist future events, but they're terribly designed and it is obvious that Blizzard couldn't be bothered to analyze GW2's 10 years of event design and learn from their mistakes and successes when designing the events for Dragonflight.

remember how people bitched about garrisons in WoD? Yeah, that's Island Sanctuary, except even less interactive.

Still disappoints me that you weren't able to choose where to place your garrison as was promised at Blizzcon 2013. I think even Genshin Impact lets you choose different environments to place your house in? Would have been so cool if for the FFXIV sanctuary, you could choose different environments too.

[Grinning Serpent]

I feel like the FFXIV community provides the devs with far less leeway and patience than the WoW community, which inversely offers far too much.

Criterion isn't keeping the attention? Yeah. True. Does that mean the entire feature needs to be binned? I don't think so. It's the first iteration. The very first criterion dungeon, and it's already doom and gloom about how it flopped, rather than attempts to make it better. Same with Island Sanctuary.

My problem with XIV's development process is that they are basically launching things prematurely, with alarming frequency.

Why did criterion dungeons need to be launched with *ONE* fucking dungeon? Did they *actually* believe the Ex and Savage modes would have staying power for more than like a week's worth of prog, and maybe a second week of reclears? And the variant dungeons is a really cool concept but that's also pretty much just one or two afternoons of casual progress before you've done it all.



And as a result of them launching this system with insufficient support, it's not going to excite players. Oh boy, another criterion dungeon! Bet it'll be DOA like the last one lmao!


The new DD is exactly as uninspired and bland as I expected to be, and they also somehow apparently undertuned it. In PotD and HoH, it takes a lot of aetherpool grinding and consumables hoarding before you're likely ready to go for a solo clear. I don't think this is a good thing, as this kind of gameplay is mercilessly grindy and incredibly boring (IMO), but it at least adds some life to the process. People were clearing Orthos reliably by week 2. Shit, didn't Maygi clear with a *class* on like week 2 or 3? Not even above 40-50 aetherpool either I don't think...


I don't know. I'd be fine with all of this if they weren't charging a fucking monthly fee to play - I think XIV is a great game to play for a few hours here or there each month or so, kind of like how No Man's Sky is for me. They aren't providing enough shit to do in the game to justify that cost. Hell, I don't think 5.3 in its entirety would justify $15 for a single month of play, it was that fucking anemic. Maybe if you're really into the story? But you can complete the MSQ segments in each major patch in a weekend playing casually (and most people interested in the story usually do it in a single night, it's seriously only like 2-3 hours at most)...

[Ghost of Cow]

People were clearing Orthos reliably by week 2. Shit, didn't Maygi clear with a *class* on like week 2 or 3? Not even above 40-50 aetherpool either I don't think...

Yeah, Orthos was being cleared immediately. I think Finh completed their omniclear within a week? Or two? It was insane.

[NineSpine]

Yeah. I see complaints about how WoW patches introduce a new island and all the activity is there, but I don't buy it. Yeah, sure, all the new *gear progression* is there, but unless you're no-life grinding reputation, there's still a lot of reasons to keep doing WQs throughout the expansion zone for rep, cosmetic rewards, etc.

I disagree that WoW's gearing is flat. Compared to XIV's, it's much better designed. I can get a pretty decent level of gear without ever entering high-end content. ilvl 398 gear (slightly better than primal gear from Forgotten Reach) is guaranteed now with open world tokens and currency. You can get 424 (previous Mythic ilvl) gear with weekly-limited casual currencies, and I think you can also get them from low M+/normal raids (I would still qualify this tier of content as "casual".) After a few days of playing casually, I have a full set of new Scalewarden PvP gear which is ilvl 434 in PvP (which is I believe 3 ilvls below max Gladiator?), which is either 389 or 392 PvE and will be upgradeable to... not sure, probably low 400's starting next week with the weekly trophy quest?

So you have multiple methods for gearing. Then, you have multiple substats and different sets with different substats. Priority for substats will vary based off of content type and spec... which, while not exactly "exciting" is still certainly better than literally every class going "GCD speed/mininum piety > crit > DH > det" in XIV with materia and gearing. I think haste being a thing in WoW also makes things a lot more interesting.

For the vast majority of players, "equip the highest ilvl" is going to be the answer in both games and if it isn't that it is going to be "What does X guide day to do" which is also the same in both games.

And even if gearing in WoW is flat, assembling raid groups certainly isn't. Classes and specs are allowed to be different. There's homogenization enough to prevent classes from becoming "must have" outside of RFWF type play, but classes are still allowed to be distinct. Yes, it does mean there's balance issues, but these issues are generally irrelevant below KSM/AOTC tier gameplay. And I'd argue even AOTC/KSM are achieveable with "weak" specs, you just have to work a little harder.

FF14 doesn't have room for this because of raid sizes being so small, so it is what it is. Smaller raids is so unequivocally better IMO that I weigh that way more.

I dunno. "Open world never gets used" seems to be a big complaint I see leveraged against XIV. I honestly would like to see them lean more into the MMO aspects of the game in 7.0. If they had an engaging, active open world like how Dragon Isles is, with rare monster spawns, world quests, long-term rep grinds (that aren't required for progression! Rep grinds for progression are awful, but I frankly enjoy how Renown works), and so on. I really like stuff like the Siege of Dragonbane Keep, Community Soup, etc events. They already have a handful of long FATE chains, so there's already precedent for that sort of thing and I think they could easily implement more stuff like that.

Open world content in FF14 is incredibly weak. I'd like to see it get better. It has the elements to make it better, but they always feel very underdeveloped.

Really, the main reasons I stopped playing (and don't expect to return unless we see major changes with 7.0, which admittedly is entirely possible!) are that lack of open world interactivity and what feels like very bland and uninspired PvE class design. Like... I really like XIV! I just wish there was shit for me to do that isn't raiding, if I want to fight monsters and stuff. I still miss the game. I've been tempted to re-up, but I just know that I'll log in and be bored and log out within 30 minutes, simply because there's just not much content there for me to while away time on.

It's weird. There's a lot to do, but it is all so fragmented that there isn't enough motivation to do a lot of it. I haven't played much this year, but I plan to jump back in and catch up.

I don't think games need to or *should* be designed around being a full time job. But WoW is in a nice place right now, I think. I can log in for an hour or two to do WQs and stuff, or I can skip days at a time and feel no real loss. Add in stuff like garrison in Draenor and associated old mount/achievement/etc chasing from old content and there's tons of stuff to be done... if you feel like doing it. I suppose I'd eventually run out of reasons to do WQs if I was no-lifing the game, but at my current "casual" pace I don't think I'll exhaust things to do before the expansion is essentially wrapped.

I doubt I'll ever log into retail wow again. Dragonflight was the last straw for me. The game just feels like an empty shell, a bunch of boring make-work.

I hate how wow deprecates content so quickly. It really killed the game for me over time.

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is it ? WoW has the Problem of boring Stats. Its always Mainstat + 2 Seceondary /yawn. On the other Hand you at least get new Trinkets or some Special Items like the Bow for Hunters or the Staff for Evoker etc when a new Major Patch comes.

And the biggest replayable 5man Content with M+ something FF14 never managed to make. Dungeons only exist for Story or to fill some Weekly stupid Caps.

I hate M+ and would rather do random dungeons in FF14 any day.

FF14 Raids are horrible to look at. Always the same god damn Room with different Backgrounds. The Fights itselfs are amazing

I like the Alliance Raids the most because you feel like you are in a Raid and not some bland looking Circle all the time

I think the variety of raid environment is a bit overrated in WoW. People kept saying this, so I went back and ran through some raids, and half the rooms looked almost identical in any given raid. In practice, they were almost all similar sizes and shapes. It's certainly more environmental variety than FF14, but on balance it isn't so much that it counterbalances how much better the encounter design in FF14 is.

[Grinning Serpent]

For the vast majority of players, "equip the highest ilvl" is going to be the answer in both games and if it isn't that it is going to be "What does X guide day to do" which is also the same in both games.

That's fair. WoW has definitely dialed back the gearing aspects for better or worse. But even if you're just following a guide, someone had to math out which stats were the best for which specs and in which amounts. Which is still better than XIV where crit is king for literally everyone and haste is verboten because anything that messes with carefully tuned GCD timings breaks the entire DPS cycle.

Maybe I like WoW's gearing more because it's more granular (even if it's just equip highest ilvl, there's a LOT more ways to gear up and almost everything is useful in terms of prog since many rewards are keyed to your highest ilvl piece on that character) and because class design isn't so fucking bland and uninspired. I really think haste not being a "thing" is a major issue for XIV's overall design. Turn purple materia into generic haste, make haste actually useful for classes, and go from there. Haste is a lot of fun.

Open world content in FF14 is incredibly weak. I'd like to see it get better. It has the elements to make it better, but they always feel very underdeveloped.

I've said before that if they're going to half-ass it so much, I would honestly rather there not be open world content. Just go full on single-player JRPG with little semi-open zones like Tales of Arise or something. It *has* to take a lot of effort to create these large open world zones, and they don't *do* anything with them. Only thing people is hunts and those are just flying to a specific spot, killing the monster, and moving on. It doesn't really involve zone interaction.

If they're gonna have full open zones, they really need to figure out something like WoW's renown and WQ system.

I doubt I'll ever log into retail wow again. Dragonflight was the last straw for me. The game just feels like an empty shell, a bunch of boring make-work.

I hate how wow deprecates content so quickly. It really killed the game for me over time.

Yeah, true. But I didn't play retail since a bit of Legion so it's all still fresh and interesting to me. I log in, do the WQs that draw my eye, maybe do some old content stuff, and then I'll do BGs or something if I want to keep playing or otherwise I just log out and play something else or go do something productive with my time. There's always stuff for me to do if I want to do it, but I don't feel *compelled* to do it if I don't want to. The only thing I feel like I'm "missing" is daily stuff like one-day cooldown crafts if I don't log in, but that's all old content so I'm not "losing" progress except on my own self-directed achievement chasing.

I *really* wish WoW had a sync or MINE option like XIV does for its old content. I'm fine with blazing through old stuff but it would be nice to have the *option* to go thump Arthas for realsies again, without having to wait for Timewalking. I do like that Timewalking rewards you with gear that is relevant to end-game ilvls though (equivalent to heroic dungeons at highest I think?) and Timewalking badges can be used for all kinds of useful things.

I hate M+ and would rather do random dungeons in FF14 any day.


I think the variety of raid environment is a bit overrated in WoW. People kept saying this, so I went back and ran through some raids, and half the rooms looked almost identical in any given raid. In practice, they were almost all similar sizes and shapes. It's certainly more environmental variety than FF14, but on balance it isn't so much that it counterbalances how much better the encounter design in FF14 is.

Big same. I just have little to no interest in M+. I think this season I will at least do some very low keys (maybe up to +5 or so) to fill out weekly quests and such, and I do plan on doing normal Aberrus, but otherwise I just don't much care for WoW's end-game PvE. While I hate how bland and "safe" dungeons and raids are in XIV, the presentation and flow feels *SO* much better than what WoW has on offer.

If I could get actually fun classes, like what WoW has, with the presentation and pacing and aesthetics of XIV, I'd be happy as a pig in shit. It's really weird. Dungeons and raids *look* good in XIV and raids are fun to prog, but reclearing that content is absolutely fucking *miserable* because of how brainless and homogenized they've made every class, all for the sake of placating balance whiners and... I dunno, some kind of misguided crusade to protect idiots who don't read tooltips from having to invest in the game?

I don't have enough experience with old versions of XIV to say for sure, but from what I can find by digging up old articles and information, class design seemed to be much stronger in HW and SB, accounting for horrible balance issues. But the balance issues could've been addressed without throwing the baby out with the bathwater... ShB was okay but you can clearly see some classes got absolutely fucked by the changes to design (SCH lmao), and then instead of admitting they maybe made some mistakes, they doubled down on it for EW.

I watched the PLLs or at least the recaps of them during ShB. But EW was so bland, so boring, that I stopped watching them. I really hope 7.0 shakes things up a lot. XIV feels depressingly stale and "safe." Like Square-Enix can't risk disrupting their cash cow because the rest of the company is doing so fucking badly...

[Kittahsmash]

WoL is a pre-determined character by SE and has a very strict role to play in the story. By definition they are a different character from your OC. The WoL dying is completely different than your OC dying and would not cause any complications with your OC's story.

Yes, the WoL is not invulnerable. But now the expectation is that the WoL will just murder anything that is stupid enough to step in front of the WoL. It detracts from any real sense of danger that might be presented by the game.

Your character IS the Warrior of Light. The Derplander that they show off in promotional material (nicknamed 'Meteor' for some reason) is just a generic stand-in for your character.

By definition, it LITERALLY is your character. Your OC is literally the exact same person as the Warrior of Light.

[Ghost of Cow]

That's fair. WoW has definitely dialed back the gearing aspects for better or worse. But even if you're just following a guide, someone had to math out which stats were the best for which specs and in which amounts. Which is still better than XIV where crit is king for literally everyone and haste is verboten because anything that messes with carefully tuned GCD timings breaks the entire DPS cycle.

Maybe I like WoW's gearing more because it's more granular (even if it's just equip highest ilvl, there's a LOT more ways to gear up and almost everything is useful in terms of prog since many rewards are keyed to your highest ilvl piece on that character) and because class design isn't so fucking bland and uninspired. I really think haste not being a "thing" is a major issue for XIV's overall design. Turn purple materia into generic haste, make haste actually useful for classes, and go from there. Haste is a lot of fun.

XIV lacks a lot of the "little things" that make gearing more fun. Procs, trinket effects, etc. It's just stat sticks in every slot, most of which are just varying forms of Critical Strike.

I watched the PLLs or at least the recaps of them during ShB. But EW was so bland, so boring, that I stopped watching them. I really hope 7.0 shakes things up a lot. XIV feels depressingly stale and "safe." Like Square-Enix can't risk disrupting their cash cow because the rest of the company is doing so fucking badly...

Indeed, and it has been that way for a while. It just becomes painfully evident as each expansion ages and we're starving for new stuff to do.

[Wrecktangle]

I disagree that WoW's gearing is flat. Compared to XIV's, it's much better designed. I can get a pretty decent level of gear without ever entering high-end content.

I don't know that I like the word flat for this context, but I'll use it to keep parity with the discussion. Wow's is definitely less flat, but honestly not by much, and frankly hardly enough that it matters in the scope of the discussion. Both games have bland vertical gearing with often uninteresting effects. Again, WoWs is better (trinkets, unique effects, etc.), but still pretty binary.

I understand the need that some players feel to have numbers go up, but both games could simply remove gearing and just create challenges and I would probably enjoy them identically. It's an interesting discussion tbh.

I feel like the FFXIV community provides the devs with far less leeway and patience than the WoW community, which inversely offers far too much.

Interesting point is that if you look back this statement didn't tend to be true IMO. FF14 community would defend some of the most bizarre bad takes or devs are 100% right now matter what stances. I think the formula has truly gotten stale for a lot of people and you can see peoples patience and even their stances change over time. I love FF14, but honestly find it harder and harder to stay subbed past the expansion drop each time.

FF14 doesn't have room for this because of raid sizes being so small, so it is what it is. Smaller raids is so unequivocally better IMO that I weigh that way more. I hate M+ and would rather do random dungeons in FF14 any day.

I'm curious if you don't mind explaining. What is it about M+ that you dislike so? Frankly, given how much you like small form factor raiding (and I do too!) I am surprised you don't like M+. I find it to be FANTASTIC for this if you actually push keys early on in the season. Trying to figure out solutions with your comp, pushing the most DPS and survivability you can.

If I could get actually fun classes, like what WoW has, with the presentation and pacing and aesthetics of XIV, I'd be happy as a pig in shit.

I'm on record here with basically the same stance. I think a marriage of the 2 games core principals would create my ideal MMO.

I don't have enough experience with old versions of XIV to say for sure, but from what I can find by digging up old articles and information, class design seemed to be much stronger in HW and SB, accounting for horrible balance issues. But the balance issues could've been addressed without throwing the baby out with the bathwater... ShB was okay but you can clearly see some classes got absolutely fucked by the changes to design (SCH lmao), and then instead of admitting they maybe made some mistakes, they doubled down on it for EW.

I've been playing (and raiding) since 2.0 (open beta specifically). I find class design to be WAY better now than it ever has been. I know I generally believe that encounter design used to be way better back in the day. Things were less on rails and a smidgen less scripted back then.

XIV lacks a lot of the "little things" that make gearing more fun. Procs, trinket effects, etc. It's just stat sticks in every slot, most of which are just varying forms of Critical Strike.

Honestly, I never expected to like Monster Hunter as much as I did. I only tried it because of the FF14 crossover event I saw that DRG armor and set and gameplay and was like wtf this is everything I ever wanted. That one collab had me put well over 200 hours into that game. I think that game did gearing well. The horizontal nature, the skill buffs, and creating a build, etc. I loved it. Each monster being practically a raid boss felt so good. I still look back fondly on my time with MHW and think that more games, especially an MMO could utilize a system like that well, but I know I'm probably one of the few who could care less about vertical gearing.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Gear customization in WoW has fluctuated on and off over the past decade. It used to be that the only meaningful choice was your two trinkets and their on use (or passive) effects, and ocassionally a legendary weapon or cloak or ring. Then Legion/BFA/Shadowlands happened where you could much better customize your character by picking which legendary or azerite power or corruption or Runecarver memory to use. That was fun but the acquisition process was often not, usually being completely up to RNG. Now we're back to the only meaningful gearing being your choice of two trinkets and their effect. 10.07 introduced a legendary ring that you could socket three gems with special effects in them (ie, if you succesfully interrupt you cast a flamethrower), but that ring will soon be invalidated by gear treadmill.

I saw a suggestion on the FF14 official forums for being able to socket/meld gems/materia that augmented the elemental damage that players did. Ie, being able to be a frost warrior or lightning dark knight or an earth samurai. Elemental damage types mean jack all in FF14, unlike in FF11, but being able to customize your abilities would be cool, even if it was only visual.

I understand the need that some players feel to have numbers go up, but both games could simply remove gearing and just create challenges and I would probably enjoy them identically. It's an interesting discussion tbh.

I've been an advocate against gear treadmill ever since GW2 proved you could have an MMO without one. Progression in that game is not measured by an arbitrary gearscore, but by the acquisition of permanent abilities and map completion.

I'm curious if you don't mind explaining. What is it about M+ that you dislike so? Frankly, given how much you like small form factor raiding (and I do too!) I am surprised you don't like M+. I find it to be FANTASTIC for this if you actually push keys early on in the season. Trying to figure out solutions with your comp, pushing the most DPS and survivability you can.

I do not find speedrunning the same half dozen dungeons over and over again to be entertaining. The so-called "reward" of an arbitrary ilevel increase that is nullified when the next patch drops isn't a compelling reason to play it either. I also find WoW's top end PvE gameplay to be overcomplicated. Your class is overdesigned and you have too many buttons to comfortably bind, too many buffs and class mechanics to keep track of. Then you're fighting overdesigned bosses and there are a half dozen of them per dungeon, and then you're layering affixes on top. Then you're adding the pressure of time trial, and it's just too much.

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If I could get actually fun classes, like what WoW has, with the presentation and pacing and aesthetics of XIV, I'd be happy as a pig in shit. It's really weird.

Personally, I'd love to have a MMO with:

• The faction war focus of Warcraft with open world PvP

• Huge map like in WoW

• Lots of high fantasy zones rather than lots of boring places

• The single hotbar and customizeable gameplay of GW2 (in GW2 I only have 10 abilities. My DPS combo is one button that is on autoattack, so I can look away from my bar and actually look at the other characters and environment while DPSing. I can replace my other abilities with passives, and use GW2's talent tree to further reduce how often I have to press my remaining abilities).

• The powermetal aesthetics of Warcraft (really differentiated races that aren't just reskinned humans, the silhouettes, the gritty texturing, the bevels, etc).

• The fluid animations of GW2 (and somewhat FFXIV too).

• GW2's mount system (mounts have acceleration and abilities that allow you to traverse maps like a metroidvania).

• Some polish from each game (/cpose and adventurer plates from FFXIV, boss tutorialization. The toy box from WoW, unique raid fights. GW2's dye system where you can dye every part of an armor, plethora of chairs, player voice acting. WoW's flex raid so you don't have to worry about having to bench people for the night or wait around in LFG because a guy left).
  Housing

• Open world content like GW2 with lots of rewards out in the world and event chain gameplay.

• Game is generally difficult (not just optional endgame raids), incentivizing players to team up and socialize.

[Grinning Serpent]

I understand the need that some players feel to have numbers go up, but both games could simply remove gearing and just create challenges and I would probably enjoy them identically. It's an interesting discussion tbh.

This is a lot more feasible for XIV than WoW because WoW's progression system has always been purely about "lol numbers go up," and fight design is based on that constant trickle of ever-increasing stats. Maybe Method can clear Mythic without *too* much loot grinding (in actuality they just literally grind raids like it's a job so they gear up faster), but most players will need the extra stats to have a chance.

Compare this to XIV, where *stats are literally meaningless.* Dungeons, trials, etc? All synced down so your gear usually doesn't matter. Current raids? Explicitly tuned around being cleared with entry-level gear (crafted/normal raid ilvl.) Most of the challenge in raiding is just memorizing and understanding the fight's script. And with the increasing prevalence of body checks, twice comes ruin, a *massive* damage down debuff for botching mechanics, I'd argue that stats don't even really give you that much wiggle room. Wiggle room lets people do stuff like E6S soccer or E10S orb skip, and Yoshida apparently gets annoyed when that stuff happens.

I've argued before (I don't think here?) that XIV should just rip the band-aid off and go truly horizontal, because the game is pretty much there already.

Interesting point is that if you look back this statement didn't tend to be true IMO. FF14 community would defend some of the most bizarre bad takes or devs are 100% right now matter what stances. I think the formula has truly gotten stale for a lot of people and you can see peoples patience and even their stances change over time. I love FF14, but honestly find it harder and harder to stay subbed past the expansion drop each time.

Yeah, they got that backwards. Blizzard gets a ton of shit for every single mistake they make - DF is pretty good but people haven't forgotten what an utter shitshow BfA and pre-9.1.5 SL was. They've also been getting praise when they do it right. Meanwhile, XIV has that "enforced positivity" thing going on in the community and if it's not "omg housing is terrible because *I* personally don't have a house even though I totally deserve one because I'm the best mentor ever!" type complaining, it's probably going to get you castigated. Meanwhile, people are practically salivating at every word Yoshida says and obsessing over PLLs even though content is so fucking stale in Endwalker that there's really no surprises to be had...

I've been playing (and raiding) since 2.0 (open beta specifically). I find class design to be WAY better now than it ever has been. I know I generally believe that encounter design used to be way better back in the day. Things were less on rails and a smidgen less scripted back then.

I dunno. I mostly played healer and tank in XIV and it's hard to argue that those two roles aren't a lot worse now than they used to be. Healers used to have shit to do even when the group *wasn't* fucking up and tanks allegedly had to shift between DPS stance and tank stance as needed. I say allegedly because the balance tuning just wasn't there and it was more like "tanks spend all their time in DPS stance and healer adjusts." That's something balance tuning and fight design could address, though.

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Gear customization in WoW has fluctuated on and off over the past decade. It used to be that the only meaningful choice was your two trinkets and their on use (or passive) effects, and ocassionally a legendary weapon or cloak or ring. Then Legion/BFA/Shadowlands happened where you could much better customize your character by picking which legendary or azerite power or corruption or Runecarver memory to use. That was fun but the acquisition process was often not, usually being completely up to RNG. Now we're back to the only meaningful gearing being your choice of two trinkets and their effect. 10.07 introduced a legendary ring that you could socket three gems with special effects in them (ie, if you succesfully interrupt you cast a flamethrower), but that ring will soon be invalidated by gear treadmill.

I saw a suggestion on the FF14 official forums for being able to socket/meld gems/materia that augmented the elemental damage that players did. Ie, being able to be a frost warrior or lightning dark knight or an earth samurai. Elemental damage types mean jack all in FF14, unlike in FF11, but being able to customize your abilities would be cool, even if it was only visual.

I think DF is trying to reintroduce some of that old "chasing legendaries" aspects with the crafted embellishments. It's not there yet, but it might make it there eventually. I think they could just do the legendary system right now, using the same system they're using for primordial stones though - toss unwanted legendaries into the scrapper, it spits out a reasonable amount of currency, and you use that currency to buy a lootbox that contains one of a few different legendaries of a given type.

I liked what legendaries did in regards to making decisions about your, much like how set bonuses and trinkets do. I think flexing that direction would go a *LONG* way to making gear less boring in XIV.

Personally, I'd love to have a MMO with:

• The faction war focus of Warcraft with open world PvP

• Huge map like in WoW

• Lots of high fantasy zones rather than lots of boring places

• The single hotbar and customizeable gameplay of GW2 (in GW2 I only have 10 abilities. My DPS combo is one button that is on autoattack, so I can look away from my bar and actually look at the other characters and environment while DPSing. I can replace my other abilities with passives, and use GW2's talent tree to further reduce how often I have to press my remaining abilities).

• The powermetal aesthetics of Warcraft (really differentiated races that aren't just reskinned humans, the silhouettes, the gritty texturing, the bevels, etc).

• The fluid animations of GW2 (and somewhat FFXIV too).

• GW2's mount system (mounts have acceleration and abilities that allow you to traverse maps like a metroidvania).

• Some polish from each game (/cpose and adventurer plates from FFXIV, boss tutorialization. The toy box from WoW, unique raid fights. GW2's dye system where you can dye every part of an armor, plethora of chairs, player voice acting. WoW's flex raid so you don't have to worry about having to bench people for the night or wait around in LFG because a guy left).
  Housing

• Open world content like GW2 with lots of rewards out in the world and event chain gameplay.

• Game is generally difficult (not just optional endgame raids), incentivizing players to team up and socialize.

That'd probably be pretty fun, although I don't know about that last one. I think your baseline difficulty level needs to be *very* generous, because those "what are tooltips?" dumbasses are the lifeblood of your subscriber base. I think challenging content works best when it is opt-in, not mandatory.


For my money, I honestly would just like "Classic 2.0" WoW. Start us out with regular vanilla, open up Molten Core after perhaps a month. But after that, or perhaps BWL (I have fond memories of BWL, this is absolutely my bias talking), strike out in your own direction. Let Dwarves become Shamans. Let Tauren become Paladins. Write new storylines, make new dungeons and raids and other things for those stories.

And then, while you're at it, make #SomeChanges to the baseline formula while you're at it. Throw out those fucking godawful original talents and skills and replace them with more fun and engaging ones - pull ideas from the entirety of the "classic trilogy" and maybe even one or two from modern WoW if they're really awesome (like Heroic Leap instead of Intercept!) Maybe implement some modern conveniences and contrivances like the reagent bank and reagent bag and the general function of "if it's in your bank, the game considers it on your person." Use modern models and textures, but maybe add in an option for "old school" visuals if people prefer them.

Like, I really and truly love the slow pace and feel of actually exploring a world that classic has. I don't think any game has ever truly matched it. I would probably balance basic gameplay a little towards the harder side of things - soloing quests and such would be challenging if you aren't cautious and you really would need to group for those group quests (or even some that aren't, such as fucking Samophlange...) Maybe implement the crafting orders feature from Dragonflight - I really like the idea of crafters needing to work with each other to get the components necessary for major crafts.

Stuff like that. I know it'll never happen, not with the way Blizzard is being run these days. But it's nice to think about.

[MsSideEye]

Saw some story talk a few pages back and wanted to add to it.

Seems like some folks think that the story is 'too small' or that the scope of things has kinda been thrown outta wack thanks to the Warrior of Light being someone whose punched a C'thulu level creature in the face. And on the one hand, yes, going from 'Slayer of gods beyond our mortal keen' to 'Let's help out a sad dragon' is a bit of a downgrade in terms of urgency, on the other you've gotta realize that this wasn't only planned, but also does two things for us that were kinda need.

One, this puts the player back on the path of an Adventurer. Not only was this something that was told for us straight up, but it gives something more to do than just be there for yet another world or reality ending threat. Our point is to explore, to find new things, to push out into the parts of our world (and others!) that we don't know. We've never just been the puncher of gods. We've also been that person whose more than willing to deliver a sandwich to a guy whose unable to get it himself or helping out someone who wanted to learn how to dance. After having so much of the focus of the story be 'stop the giant evil', we're finally able to just relax and help those who need it. Such as a dragon whose missing their sibling and wants us to find them.

Which leads me to the second point. How do you write for a character who can punch out something that wipes out the universe? Give them a task that can't be solved by punching. One of the biggest problems a lot of people have with, say, Superman is the fact that so many stories write him about this big dumb guy who is unbeatable because he gets a problem that can be solved by his fists. Where as the BEST Superman stories remember that, for all he's capable of, Superman CAN'T be everywhere at once. He can't just punch everything until it stops moving and he knows that there are situations where a kind word and an offered hand would do more than all the strength in the world.

That's kinda the beauty in the storyline they've been telling with Zero, the thirteenth, and the dragons. Right now, we're facing a problem that we can't truly punch down, that being the fixing of the thirteenth. We can't even travel that world without problems, even as the vaunted Warriors of Light, and need to rely on the strength of others to get anywhere in it. And even then, there's nothing to say we'll be successful in our intentions for the thirteenth. We're helping out a single member, Zero, and working to take down Golbez who we CAN punch out, but even that will likely do nothing to actually solve the problems that have been presented us.

Unlike Warlords of Draneor, to use CaptainV's example, we're not going into a completely unrelated world that has no real connection to ours or has no hard reaching effects into the Source. This is the thirteenth, the void. The world in which all the demons, monsters, and other dark creatures that have been the basis of the sources darker side for it's entire existence come from. What we're doing here, even if it's as small as rescuing a dragon from Golbez, is going to have far reaching effects in the rest of the game. We don't know how us taking down five of the biggest badasses of the void is going to disrupt things. We don't know if any of the actions we and the scions take to try and fix the thirteenth will do anything. We don't even know if our jobs there will be DONE by the time the next expansion hits. It's all left in an interesting story that, while can be a bit slow and seemingly small in comparison, is something that we NEED after the massive fights we've been into. Small moments, calmer times, lower stakes. These are all needed to make the big moments that more epic.

It makes me all the more interested in what just is going to come next!

[Yarathir]

Maybe I'm outing myself as a "not-true-MMORPG-fan" but an endless gear treadmill and arbitrary lists of armor from different sources to chase don't exactly give me unparalleled elation. Neither does the idea of having a spreadsheet of passives with some occasional abilities strewn about, and I just shake my head whenever people use the absence of those features as an objective flaw/failing of FFXIV as if having those is some core qualifying component for any and all MMORPGs. They aren't to me, and I'm happy I don't have to wrestle with what feels like completely inconsequential (to me) window dressing to enjoy the game.

I also don't know why every MMORPG needs to be the same. If I play XIV, I don't want to play WoW and vice versa. I don't want to play GW2, I don't want to play OSRS, I don't want to play New World; I want to play XIV. If I wanted to play any of those other MMOs, I would be playing them.

Other than that, my main gripes with XIV in its current state are probably things like the way zones are currently set up and the dated UI and inventory. The latter is fairly self-explanatory. The former is more about how every zone is a separated box with invisible walls around and in it. I don't know if the chances are high at all, but I hope that someday, there's the chance to connect the zones that are adjacent and extend the invisible walls far enough beyond where they are now that you can conceivably freely fly around the world without hitting them.

I like the story and the world of FFXIV and want to immerse myself, but then I just bump into a hard wall that breaks the illusion. Or I try to hop over a hill or a pit and get smacked by another invisible wall. They tell a good story and wove an interesting setting, but it isn't supported by the actual game. If they were to focus on making the world more like a world, they could also add activities to it to take advantage of it. From the mundane like minigames, to something more akin to critical engagements.

[NineSpine]

I'm curious if you don't mind explaining. What is it about M+ that you dislike so? Frankly, given how much you like small form factor raiding (and I do too!) I am surprised you don't like M+. I find it to be FANTASTIC for this if you actually push keys early on in the season. Trying to figure out solutions with your comp, pushing the most DPS and survivability you can.

I don't like repeating the same short bits of content over and over and over again. There isn't enough variation to make it interesting to me. I don't want to run each dungeon more than one time per week. If the way the system worked was just that it was an extremely hard difficulty setting with weekly affixes and you could loot each dungeon once per week, I would probably love it. It's the keys, the scaling difficulties, the timer, and the gogogo that make it get old super fast.

[Yarathir]

Doing the same dungeon over and over again is just not really content to me either. Add to that the compulsion to do your weekly 8 (or whatever it is now) at the highest key level that matters and all I can say is that I'm happy XIV doesn't have an equivalent system.

[Wrecktangle]

I dunno. I mostly played healer and tank in XIV and it's hard to argue that those two roles aren't a lot worse now than they used to be. Healers used to have shit to do even when the group *wasn't* fucking up and tanks allegedly had to shift between DPS stance and tank stance as needed. I say allegedly because the balance tuning just wasn't there and it was more like "tanks spend all their time in DPS stance and healer adjusts." That's something balance tuning and fight design could address, though.

PLD is in a better spot than it has ever been. In fact, ARR PLD was so boring I fell asleep once during a raid. I literally use to cry before EW anytime I got synced down because it was a relic of a more boring time.

As a top ranked PLD I HATED stance swapping. I loved that I could do meaningful damage, that part was great, but the actual mechanic of stance swapping was shitty (esp for PLD as ours was on the GCD when other tanks weren't). I can't speak meaningfully to healing as I've never done it in anything challenging, but even back in the day it was still about pushing DPS, but I think MMO's players continue to get better expansion over expansion which makes healing more and more optimized (i.e. binary in execution).

They've definitely done a lot of homogenization in the tank/healing paradigm, but I'm not sure that's as huge an issue as others do. I think tanking and healing in general just needs to be more interesting and less binary, rather than significantly differentiating the tanks/healers. I actually don't mind flavor and mechanics being the differentiator rather than type of tools.

I don't like repeating the same short bits of content over and over and over again. There isn't enough variation to make it interesting to me. I don't want to run each dungeon more than one time per week. If the way the system worked was just that it was an extremely hard difficulty setting with weekly affixes and you could loot each dungeon once per week, I would probably love it. It's the keys, the scaling difficulties, the timer, and the gogogo that make it get old super fast.

Fair enough. What type of FF14 combat content do you enjoy and why? How do you feel about expert roulette where you run the same 2 dungeons for 3 months daily?

Mind you, I actually like your suggestion and it tends to be how I play M+. I have a firm rule that my group sometimes gripes at me for where I won't do the same dungeon back to back or more than twice in a week. I just don't find it fun.

[Ghost of Cow]

Which leads me to the second point. How do you write for a character who can punch out something that wipes out the universe? Give them a task that can't be solved by punching. One of the biggest problems a lot of people have with, say, Superman is the fact that so many stories write him about this big dumb guy who is unbeatable because he gets a problem that can be solved by his fists. Where as the BEST Superman stories remember that, for all he's capable of, Superman CAN'T be everywhere at once. He can't just punch everything until it stops moving and he knows that there are situations where a kind word and an offered hand would do more than all the strength in the world.

That's kinda the beauty in the storyline they've been telling with Zero, the thirteenth, and the dragons. Right now, we're facing a problem that we can't truly punch down, that being the fixing of the thirteenth. We can't even travel that world without problems, even as the vaunted Warriors of Light, and need to rely on the strength of others to get anywhere in it. And even then, there's nothing to say we'll be successful in our intentions for the thirteenth. We're helping out a single member, Zero, and working to take down Golbez who we CAN punch out, but even that will likely do nothing to actually solve the problems that have been presented us.

I thought about this, and as interesting as it sounds I think we all know that this will probably end up being a, "Load bearing boss" situation where we DO solve it by punching things because once we punch the last guy hard enough, it takes all the bad stuff with it somehow.

Or Y'shtola and Urianger will just Deus Ex Aether something and the void is solved, which of course requires us to punch the last guy to make it work.

The "big problem" is rarely the most interesting part of the story, because it gets resolved regardless.

[Yarathir]

At this point, I'd be surprised if Golbez goes down without succeeding at a rejoining.

[zealo]

At this point, I'd be surprised if Golbez goes down without succeeding at a rejoining.

I would be surprised if that happened.

By what the established lore about rejoinings constitutes that would require an eight calamity coming out of the left field, which doesn't seem particularly likely.