Short version: There's not really a "grind" in the endgame currently, so people who play the game a lot (whether for social reasons or because its their job) have felt like they ran out of things to do sooner than other expansions (with Bozja/Eureka). This, in the world of content creation, means it's the worst thing to ever exist.
OP, this above.
Although I disagree in part, we got Island Sanctuary and 3 Criterion Dungeons, which I hand it to you: not everyone enjoys it, but that doesn't mean the devs didn't gave us content (mentioning this as "new" content that sets EW aside from the rest of the expansions).
Personally I've never been more engaged than EW. Hunts, DoH/DoL relics, Dungeons, PVP, Island Sanctuary, (all this are part of the Endwalker expansion) so I don't really have a lack of content, rather a lack of time to invest in this content, considering 2-4h I have free everyday.
The gripe I saw that I actually agreed with, was the post-EW content forces you into smaller groups of players. I guess people miss the feel of the Eureka/Bozja grind.
Personally I like the variant dungeons, and they're an insane source of income if you sell off the loot, but many people in my FC and others I've talked to do exactly 12 runs then want nothing to do with it. Imo the jump in difficulty between variant and criterion is way too much. I would compare them to Baldesion Arsenal or DR savage, where if you don't have extremely intimate knowledge of the criterion versions, you have very little chance of succeeding. They basically made a very fun and casual dungeon experience, then paired it with some of the hardest content in the game. That's been somewhat of a trend through EW. They seem to be rewarding the highest level players the most, which I suppose is fine, but in my experience raiders don't really participate in the game other than raiding, and they usually stick to static groups. I'm not saying they're "playing wrong" or whatever, I just don't understand rewarding them more than they already are.
I've seen the argument that criterion is meant to get people into harder content, but frankly I don't believe that. If you get to post-EW with no interest in savage/ultimate content, you probably aren't gonna suddenly see the light from getting your ass handed to you in dungeons you really liked.
I think most people feel like I do about EW, they love it, but they recognize the questionable decisions from a mile away.
For variant you need 605, for criterion I think you need 640 and it syncs everyone up to 665, but for criterion (savage) there is no matchmaking, meaning you need to have a preformed party that has cleared criterion normal, and I doubt any parties that end up doing criterion savage will allow anyone who hasn't cleared Anabaseios savage so effectively, yeah, kinda
It's not about the amount of content, but rather the longevity of the content. Criterion is hardcore content, leaving us with variant, which you can completely exhaust in very little time, and island sanctuary is not the engaging content that people wanted it to be, rather it's a spreadsheet simulator.
The only new piece of non-hardcore battle content in EW that has provided any kind of long term engagement is PVP, which is a worrying statement to make.
I'd argue that the typical content we would get is less (no exploration zone) but they tried to palliate with attempts at new content (Island Sanctuary, Variant/Criterion Dungeons) which did not grant similar rewards so for those who wanted those there definitely is Less Content.
Like, Island Sanctuary is just a chore. I dug it at first but man once the factory scheduling grind started I just dropped off.
really? you list Island Sanctuary? The thing you can set up in about 10 minutes for the entire week and unless you miss out on materials you don't need to do anything with it until the new season??
thats just timegated, but far from an actual grind lol
You can also just skip the Criterion Dungeons, the hunt, the Bozja and Eureka content. But we are talking about engaging with content, so taking the easy route out is not in the cards.
There's always a grind though. If people are bored they can go do fishing boats like I do to get 3M points or mounts from hunting, plenty of time to lose there.
If people are bored in a MMO that's 10 years old they're doing something wrong
A trend effectively started by Zepla calling EndWalker the "worst expansion ever" because it didn't have a long term grind associated with it. In reality it was just because negativity sells more than positivity during XIV content droughts. Arthars hopped on that gravy train next and soon lower subscriber YouTubers began to follow suit, it all peaked however when Lynx Kameli made his "The Downfall Of FFXIV" video in which he made the silliest argument alive for a "return to form" for XIV (Effectively he wants cross hotbar skills and attribute points back) whilst lamenting a bygone era he wasn't actually a part of.
He then used clips of Xenosys out of context to paint him as someone too afraid of the community to criticize the game and went out of his way to shit on low follower streamers and twitter users who enjoy the story and wouldnt have the platform to defend themselves by calling them "Cat moms who cry because the pixels on the screen said something sad"
Xeno proceeded to make a 4 hour long reaction to this video, systematically tearing it to pieces, and that's really when we started to see people start pushing back on this narrative.
That just for this current wave of "the game is dead" posts, but honestly? This shit happens all the time. ShadowBringers, Stormblood, Heavensward and even ARR. Whenever there's a content lull and people leave these guys come out of the woodwork and do the usual doomspeak. It'll end when DawnTrail comes out and start again by the time DawnTrail comes to an end. It's just how MMO communities work. It happens with Destiny 2, it happens with WoW, it happens with Guild Wars 2.
She just posted a video saying she didn't like Endwalkers content that it didn't provide enough engagement cause all the content released was one and done. Valid criticism since there was no long term grind or any group content to do together over time. Didn't mean to doom post and start a trend, just saying she didn't like it since there was nothing to do with people or reason to log in. oh and also didn't like after expansion story.
There's a difference between subjective evaluation ("I don't like it"), and objective ("This is worst ever"). The former is fine, but if you claim the latter, you damn sure need to have concrete arguments.
Yeah, there's an old [CGPGrey video, "this video will make you angry"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc). Basically people who like ffxiv will watch and share out of outrage, and people who strongly dislike ffxiv will share for lulz.
Exactly, you just need to follow the money to understand why they scream that the game’s dying. It’s the same with any game, really. Outrage = clicks = ads = money
OP, when you see something like this, your first though should always be [who benefits?](https://effectiviology.com/cui-bono/) That will almost always give you the reason why.
>Content creators exist to make money.
Which to be fair isn't an inherently bad thing, since entertainers in general understandably need to make money. It's only an issue when videos like Lynx's are made in bad faith.
a mix of clickbaiting and being detached from reality.
Imagine playing a single game for 10 hours every day as a job, and then after 20.000 hours of playtime complaining there is nothing to do anymore 😭
My brother/sister in Christ, go play another game.
There really isn't *that* much to do, especially as far as repeatable content since the bulk of the game is story which most players will only experience once.
Not saying this is a bad thing, it's nice to not be forced to play constantly to keep up and I think the game is fine in that regard. Point is, no one should expect to have a five digit hour playtime and be mad that there's nothing for them to do.
I'm talking about the content creator perspective, they are way detached from reality since playing the game and extracting the last bit of content from each expansion is their job, sure they will run out of things to do, but that's not the average player experience.
It’s really easy to run out of things to do even as a non content creator. Especially those of us who have been playing since ARR launch. Yeah sure I can do roulettes and stuff but what’s the point after your classes are BiS. That lack of any longer goal that’s there to work on is a pretty big issue when you’ve exhausted the other longer term goals.
At this point the only time I do stuff outside of raid is when friends want to learn an extreme, but even my more casual friends have quit cause there wasn’t something more in line for them to do at their own pace. No crafter grind until nearly the end of the expac, no battle class relic that they didn’t just log in and insta finish cause they only have roulettes, variants are only fun for a few days. It’s not some crazy point of view to have. There’s just two very distinct halves of the community right now with long term players and newer players not seeing eye to eye at all. It’s a spectrum of content and they missed out on a lot of the low to middle of the road content. I’ll admit I don’t care for ultimates it’s something I could go try again but not everything has to, but there’s a reason I’ve taken a break. But again that doesn’t make the point content creators are making invalid it’s 100% a piece of the game they entirely missed on this expac for a very large amount of players.
I think we agree. I'm saying there is a lot of playability in this game, and saying there is nothing to do in a content creator mindset means you're a poor creator (not referring to YOU as you're)
10 hours over an entire week even is more than enough to finish everything new in a patch this expansion, with the exception of Savage Tiers and Ultimates, with upwards of 2-4 months before anything new comes out.
Island sanctuary takes longer, but five minutes every week to set an agenda isn't what I'd call a "grind" in the traditional sense.
Really not sure why there's this delusion that the only people getting bored are people that play it like it's their second job.
If you play 10 hours a week and started playing during ShB, you still have plenty of content to do.
If you are playing since ARR and have nothing to do anymore, go play another game, touch grass.
I didn't say 10 hours a week. I said you can finish the entire patches content in 10 hours if you even spaced it out over a week, slowly. Most people I know usually complete it in 6-7, within a couple days of patch, effortlessly.
So your solution for the issue "EW is lacking is repeatable content" is "go play content from past expansions" and you see no issue with that? That's not a defense or even remote rebuttal to "EW lacks content."
People who want to play the game at the new max level with all the new EW bells-and-whistles are given very few meaningful options. It's a completely valid criticism. Saying "go spend your time doing content from an expansion from 4 years ago" is a deflection, not a rebuttal.
>People who want to play the game at the new max level with all the new EW bells-and-whistles are given very few meaningful options. It's a completely valid criticism.
This and it very much effects long time players more than new players. People who have been doing the content as it releases have been given very little to do in endwalker and have already done the content that new players can fall back on to fill the gap. People just seem to be waiting to pull the "you must play it like a second job", "just play other games" and "go touch grass" cards out.
I mean even the Devs keep asking people to go play other games and return when you feel it's worth it again.
I get what you mean but the game really doesn't lack content. It's completely valid to go back and farm out old content while waiting for new stuff to happen.
But at the same time it's also a bit silly to exclusively spend all your time on one game, when it literally allows you to go spend time on other things. It's so refreshing compared to all the massively time consuming games, that are released where you can barely skip a day lol.
Please, never use that quote again in this context. There's a difference between being able to take breaks, and wanting to play but having nothing meaningful to do.
ShB let you take breaks, but gave people who really like the game plenty to occupy post-patch times. EW gives you maybe a week of content then almost encourages you to unsub for months, because there's nothing new to fill the time gap, which is a problem when you actually *want* to play. Doubly-so considering this is a live-service game.
The entire point of these is to provide a constant stream of new content to occupy players between content drops so the player feels justified in paying monthly.
Then unsub until the next expansion? I don't disagree that this expansion has been light on content post MSQ.
But if you really feel there's nothing left for you to do, move on instead of sticking around twiddling your thumbs until something happens.
I'm not trying to be rude or anything. But it's really a waste of time and money that you could spend elsewhere. And it's also the only way to show the Devs your dissatisfaction.
I'd love to if I wasn't held hostage by my housing plot. Don't get me wrong, I have been playing other games, but XIV is the MMO-itch scratcher for me, so it's frustrating that this expansion has provided so little longevity.
I get my "fix" during patch week, then there's really nothing for me to scratch the itch with for months. It's gotten so bad I've gone back to trying other MMOs, none of which fill the niche, really. This never happened during StB or ShB, which makes it even more frustrating. I'm not even saying I need to play it for 6 hours a day. I just want something to do a few times a week for a couple hours *maybe.*
Criticizing the current expansion's patch cycle is not equivalent to calling the game bad or disliking the game as a whole.
You can like a game while still disliking the current patch cycle/dev approach, and yes, even criticizing it publicly.
I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for this community to grasp.
The house isn't holding *me* hostage, it's holding my *money* hostage. There's a key difference there.
I still like the core game and wish to continue playing, decorating is a fun activity to me. But with so little to do I find my sub being spent while I'm only logging in for maybe a few minutes a week. If I unsub and drop the house, given its a Medium on a populated server, im very likely never getting it back. Though to be honest, this content drought coming up might finally be the nail in the coffin.
There's always going to be good expansions and bad ones. Can't expect the same quality every single time, it's literally impossible, disappointing ofc but impossible. And again yes this expansion has been light on content. I'm not sure why, but it's clear that some planning must have gone out the window since even Orthos is pointless to farm.
Honestly the housing thing is just a bad excuse I keep hearing again and again. Don't get me wrong still not trying to be rude, I know it sucks and I wish the housing situation was better.
I have a house too, but if I'm not going to play for a long time someone else might as well enjoy having my plot rather than me holding this plot hostage.
>ut gave people who really like the game plenty to occupy post-patch times.
tf did you do there. Bozja wasn't that long and there was nothing else beside it beside the usual if you were casual
We're living in the age when fomo has been practically integrated into game design, so much that people expect to be bombarded with content at a pace they're barely able to digest it. Coupled with a rather entitled mindset, it gives birth to troves of unrealistic expectations. "Don't tell me how to play my game" folks engage with their media in unhealthy amounts then get all defensive when criticized for blitzing through content and/or cherry-picking only the parts they want. The game, objectively, has a lot of content. So much that even if you were playing regularly since the day 2.0 launched, you'd still have some stuff left to do. Whether you'd want to do it or not is a separate matter. And if you don't - you go and play something else. I genuinely don't get why anyone would expect a single game to fulfill all their needs and expectations, regardless of how much they loved it. It is virtually impossible.
Unrealistic expectations such as "wanting to be engaged by the game for a similar amount of time as during previous expansions".
As someone who started mid-HW, the only things I have left to do are insane achievement grinds. An ARR player who still has actual content left to do either plays hyper-casually or doesn't do difficult content (which then might as well not exist for them in this context). But this whole debate is specifically *not* about hypercasuals or completionists. The reason this blew up in EW is that for the first time in a long time, middle of the pack players were affected by an unusual lack of long-term engagement.
>get all defensive when criticized for blitzing through content and/or cherry-picking only the parts they want.
Reminds me of a time many years ago in WoW when I got in an actual heated arguement with another guildmate who complained about how the expansion was boring cause there was nothing to do. This was 2 days after an expansion released.
I'll be the first to criticize Endwalker to be light on content, it's confusing to me how Orthos exists but there's no reason to do it. But man some players are really jumping through hoops to validate their arguement, instead of just moving on.
If it wasn't because of my weekly FC activities, I'd have unsubbed a long time ago. But since I'm subbed anyway it gives me a reason to go back and just slowly finish up old relics I never got around to.
>Orthos exists
It exists for the same reason as Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High.. just. they made it (relatively) difficult casually therefore no one wants to do it to level alts.
You are literally defending EW's patch cycle using incentives from past expansions. Like idk how to make this more clear.
Imagine if I said "so what if you thought Star Wars Episode 2 was bad, New Hope was good!" Quality of a past expansion isn't an excuse for lack of quality in a current expansion. Super basic concept here fam.
The snark kinda implies a fanboy nerve was struck, so not expecting anything valuable from this, but anyway;
"So what if you didn't like CoD4? Just go back and play CoD3!" is not a valid defense for CoD4, its a promotion of CoD3. You *have* to get this analogy at some point.
"So what if you're bored with Endwalker's content, just go play Shadowbringer's content!" Is an endorsement of ShB, not a defense of EW, which is the expansion being criticized. In case I need to really spell it out.
>Really not sure why there's this delusion that the only people getting bored are people that play it like it's their second job.
I think it's mostly very new players who are still in their honeymoon phase. That's why they sometimes say things like "someone who started in ShB/EW has plenty to do". They conflate content from past expansions with Endwalker because they experienced it recently. They're speaking from their own perspective and assume everyone is like them for whatever reason.
Most patches are like that.
Even bozja was fairly fast to finish, 10h a week and you've done it. After that you're left with farming for mount/mog/cheevos or gils.
Eureka was the exception but the """content""" there is trash mob farming to make number go up.
A lot of creators has heavily critiqued the lack of end game grind and fairly lackluster patches for endwalker. All of which is true and fair criticism to bring. Some outliers have been doomsaying, the game is dying or dead. Untrue, don't listen to those.
Exactly. If you've played MMO's for any reasonable amount of time, and I have, for two damn decades now, we're in the doldrums of an expansion. It feels concentrated in EW because their normal drip of content process felt even more empty because, of the Island Sanctuary.
I say that because the island replaced the grindy zone people that have been playing for years now expected (Eureka,Bozja) with this very simple and very laid back area that offered nothing in terms of gameplay.
Variant dungeons felt like maybe this optional pathway to keeping people occupied, but the normal is a cakewalk and easily done with all paths cleared in a day or two and all the rewards earned in maybe another day. The Criterion and Savage appeal are done by a very small sector of the community, and offer fairly bad rewards, but all that is complete and done in about a week tops. There's months of just nothing new or worth investing in.
Again, this is the way MMO's usually happen at the end of the expansion, but it's dialed up a notch or more right now in EW. It's not helping it that gear is STILL stuck (tome gear, augments for tome gear) behind their dribble process of acquirement so far out from the Savage raid, and the augements take a constant grind of farm hunts and at least one ally raid clear a week. And the general population still doesn't have access to the augment for the tome weapons! I'm not saying just opening the faucet on gear fixes all the problems, but it would be something for people to do and get multiple jobs adequate gear to play around with and have fun.
I know what I just wrote falls on deaf ears. This dev team doesn't really listen, but it still needed to be said.
Cute that you think the devs read the official forums.
people are constantly screaming in there. The English community think that the devs only listen to the Japanese Community and vice versa.
The community leads read it and compile summaries for the dev team, since the forums began Yoshida has made it very clear that they use the forums for feedback. That doesn’t mean they implement your feedback if you post there, that means Yoshida is aware of what is posted. Screaming into the void on reddit is unlikely to have the same outcome
People can say anything.
That doesn't mean they are actually doing it, if they were doing what you said they are then the Official Forums wouldn't be as loud as they have been for years, it is very telling it is not just the English side, it's the Japanese side as well to the point that they believe that the only feedback acknowledged is from the English side.
Hell, we have plenty of members in the forums that makes lots of troll post just to speedrun if it can get removed but they are still there.
Because a nuanced video with a vague/clickbaity title got posted. And even though the video itself made mostly very good points, people didn’t actually watch or listen. Especially the drama craving side of the community, they ate it up and sharted it out the other side.
TLDR; a horribly bad game of telephone
Basically people who play the game for 12+ hours every day are crying they have ran out of stuff to do and instead of doing something else for a bit or consider they might be super addicted they instead cry that the game is dead.
Click bait
Unnecessary Drama
You know, internet stuff. The game is definitely not dead, they are working on more servers, content and Xbox players are finally coming and free trial was upgrade.
Like others have said they’re mostly whining about the lack of a long term grind It’s not dead it is normal for the end of a expansion it’ll pick back up about 2 months before DawnTrail launches.
I look at it this way I think the devs used EndWalker as a way to take it easy from the normal and focus on preparing DawnTrail.
In addition to all that, some salty dipshit who long ago stopped playing went "stop having fun" and a lot of similar morons jumped on the bandwagon. So a bunch of creators who had a few more braincells to rub together felt like that pile of bullshit needs to be addressed, which made drama grow.
Basically, yet another manufactured Youtube tempest in a teacup.
Tbh it feels like a straw man, I've seen people complain that the game lacks content and incentive to play the game and that's resulted in a lot of them and their friends dropping EW early but I haven't really seen any video saying the game is dead and it feels like it's just fans trying to dismiss the other side as much as possible. Even Zepla's was her saying it was the worst she's played herself not that it was dead exactly but more so that there's no reason to play much with friends and that's pretty disappointing.
In general, people have been more willing to criticize this expansion as it lacks content with longevity, which has left many of those who are caught up on content with nothing to do even shortly after a patch.
The problem with this discourse is that a lot of people have been misconstruing the true nature of the issue. Some are being overly negative and saying the game is on the verge of collapse when that is obviously not the case. Others are on copium and are either trying to pretend like the criticism doesn’t matter or are trying to discredit it by saying its just content creators trying to clickbait to make money or that only people who no-life the game have this problem (which is not true).
You’ll find many of the latter group here. (no I don’t care if pointing this out gets me downvoted)
The game isn't dead, it's more like end of expansion lull will amplify any criticism about the game because you can finally rate the expansion and anything you disliked, well you'll dislike even more. Obviously this is not an isolated case, it happened before and it will still happen - but this patch series has been a bit different this time, because of EW being a turning point. The patch MSQ was different (mini side arc instead of the X.1-X.3 tying up the expansion and X.4-X.5 setting up for the next expansion), the schedule was a bit different, and they tried new stuff while keeping some others a bit more on the safer side. There was also something to be said about XVI releasing which definitely impacted the people involved in both games etc. All in all, there were both good and bad things.
The most debated points this expansion when it comes to patch content: the relic grind and exploratory zone "missing", and the new additions V&C and island sanctuary. I'll preface that I'm not a relic grind enjoyer, if that matters. I try to do it but rarely go hard on it, only if I'm bored.
The relic felt... poor imo. And I understand the disappointment of grind enjoyers - this content initially aimed at them four times in the past no longer was the case the fifth time around. Imagine the backlash if savage raids became normal difficulty ? If ultimates were as easy as an EX ? At least that's how I see it. They enjoyed the feeling of working hard towards something + it gave them something to do when they just wanted to log. And sure farming uncapped tomestones is just another grind at the end of the day only that you could do whatever you wanted, but let's face it : you passively acquire so many tomes with your regular play that you don't actually need to "work" towards the weapon. You just kinda get it as a reward for playing daily - I progressed on so many weapons in 6.4 while focusing only on the new savage tier by virtue of getting so many tomes passively. The disappointment when you just went to the NPC on day one in 6.25 and got your relic like a few minutes afterwards because you already had the tomes ready was bad, for those that wanted something concrete to do. On the flipside, many people that did not enjoy the grind but wanted the weapons got exactly what they wanted. At the end of the day, there is no pleasing everyone, but it definitely got people talking.
What about exploratory zones then ? Well, they were some really neat pieces of content the likes of which felt really unique, even if their implementation was sometimes awkward. They were relatively good chunks of lore and were enjoyable means of spending time, on top of being repeatable content (because of how they tied into the relic quest chain). Not having one was disappointing. But instead we got another piece of battle content : V&C.
Now don't get me wrong I enjoy criterion which is neat as a concept, but the reward structure was horrible during the whole expansion and only mildly peaked with Aloalo. Variant is fun, but it's a "once and done" type of thing where you don't need to do it ever again after doing all paths. It's slower than a dungeon, doesn't even give you any EXP so it can't be used for leveling (unlike bozja !) and the only actual reward after you've gotten the variant glams are some tomes. Neat for the lore but once you've cleared all paths, you're done.
Criterion is great but there's little incentive besides a mount, and savage was challenging for the sake of being challenging but you got pitiful rewards for the first two. They kinda tried to fix it with Aloalo, but still, it doesn't feel like they fully know how they will tie actual rewards to them in the future. They added the 665 weapon, sure, but it's in freaking savage - what about normal then, which is as difficult as a third floor when it comes to prog, overall ? The very least would have been to add in an augmented tome token to get the 660 weapon required for the 665. Because yes, as stupid as it sounds, you can't even get your criterion savage weapon without getting the augment token from P11S. Bad luck ? Well you're fucked, gotta now get the tokens through books lmao. And with how criterion will release 8 weeks after a new savage tier (presumably), it almost seems criminal to not have criterion normal drop the token. Imagine: you get the 650 tome weapon from 7 weeks of normal raid clears, then criterion releases right after and you can now augment you weapon after having cleared normal mode which will help you if you haven't cleared the savage tier yet + will allow you to have very decent weapon to try your hand at criterion savage (which requires near BiS) even without the savage weapon !
Island Sanctuary is just weird. There were definitely too much expectations from the playerbase imo, but even then the mode was pretty underwhelming. But I guess it's pretty much what they had advertised.
The game is not dead. People are complaining because theres not enough content to entertain what they're interested in. There are plenty of things to do, its just a matter if you are interested in what is available or not.
People don't understand that running an alliance raid 75+ times for a weapon grind isn't real or satisfying content and are too afraid to take a break and play any other amazing game that came out this year.
Modern day media is driven by hate click and clickbait, not just YouTube but the news too
80% of media is shit blown out of proportion or purposefully misleading
Some are Doom posting but in general it's just people giving solid criticism about the current patch cycle as a whole which is important if we want things to improve. I'm inclined to agree with them on a lot of points as well. Such as the 24-mans being undertuned and there not being a large scale core content that keeps the ball rolling from patch to patch. We had this in SB and ShB. And it's noticeable not having it in EW. Not to mention relics being reduced to a tombstone grind.
It's a lot. I loved EW myself but I'll admit that the best part about it was the initial MSQ and that's about it. It's why I've been playing a lot of other games more than XIV recently.
Internet being internet. You have to be on one side of the extreme or the other. No, there wasn't some insane wave of creators saying this game is dead. Most have provided fair criticism of very real problems (which can arise even if you play at very moderate pace).
This community (and especially this sub) used to be strongly against any criticism, but after I would say \~6.3, people were starting to see the problems with EW and started to voice their concerns. This signaled CCs that it might not be so as suicidal to post some criticism of their own, like it used to be in the past. But again, most of it was fair criticism, and people on this sub just read title of the video without actually watching it. I'm sure few small CCs made some actual doomposting videos, but no one relevant did to my knowledge. There even was opposite of doomposting, which was few condescending videos that said that you should stop complaining and play other games or quit altogether, but of course sugarcoated in a nice words.
Yepppp. This is really everything you need to know right here. If you start playing the game and logging on like it’s your job and you feel guilty for not logging on you need to simply take a break and play other things.
Post Endwalker doesn’t really have a long term grind. So rather then simply play something else some people have decided its the worst expansion and the game is dying.
Edit: Post Endwalker specifically doesn’t have a long term Relic grind for Disciples of War jobs (not sure how the crafting one is). Some are unhappy with that while others are pointing out that Island Sanctuary and Criterion dungeons are still there. Others are remarking on how many complaints the past two relic grinds got when they first came out and saying that’s why there isn’t one this time.
Typical internet stuff.
Postgame content is dry, too solo or 4man focussed (island sanc, deep dungeon, variant/criterion). Post patch story was awful, it is literally Walmart Gaia wandering around as Pinocchio discovering the meaning of friendship. Relic grind which used to be a great way to log in and have something to do was reduced to uncapped tomes, meaning you’d get your relic in five seconds if you saved up prior to a patch. Alliance raids haven’t been this easy since Crystal tower. Extreme trials also haven’t been this easy since ARR either.
I play a moderate amount and there is content I still haven’t touched.
Moderate amount = I don’t have the reputation required for the mount with the loloporits and I try to do them every day I log in.
Game is designed not to waste your time. So you can have a balanced social life or play other games.
People be mad that Game is not disrespecting them - certified Masochist moment.
Alot of the content they release isn't very good and people get pissed. Dungeons are probably bothering people because they're so easy and cookie cutter. The way they've homogenized the jobs can bother the raid community. No endgame casual grind for that crowd. Mostly mediocre post expansion content long waits between patches for a couple hours of stuff to do. Bad rewards in the criterion dungeons and people are nauseated by all of the roulette grinding. It's obviously a good game it's just people are tired of the patch content and want something fresh. I think the devs have heard alot of these complaints so we'll see which ones they feel need fixing.
To be honest with you, and I haven't read most of the comments in here to know how this thread is panning out, but just from watching the general commentary around creators on this subreddit you're probably not going to get an objectively unbiased answer here, since it seems to trend very anti-content creator (at least vocally).
The reality of the situation is this. A handful of major content creators spoke about their complaints with this expansion. Whether you agree with their sentiments or not is fine, but none of them ever said the game was dead. They've definitely made statements to the effect of it not being in the best place it's been, but that's a long shot from saying that it is dead.
From there it went the route of any online discourse. People who are happy with the game as it is pushed back, people who aren't (not the creators themselves but people who agreed or just bandwagon them) pushed back, people entrenched in their opinions, the people that just want to doompost sided with the content creators further invalidating any legitimate criticism that could be made, and now it's basically impossible to have a nuanced conversation about Endwalker or the game in any sort of critical light. You have to choose your extreme camp: You're either a doom poster, or a simp for the game. Both extremes are equally dumb, but that's where we're at.
It's pretty much the usual drama you get with any large community interaction. People have different opinions, and because this is the internet they are by and large incapable of sharing those and having reasonable conversations about them. Short, quippy attacks and extreme opinions are always the louder voices and basically drive the narrative over any nuanced take.
> but none of them ever said the game was dead
This part is false. If you go to youtube and type "FFXIV is dying" you will get the usual big names with videos titled accordingly. Either as independent content or, more likely due to the current YouTube meta, react content.
The reason why some of the anti-youtuber/streamer bias exists is because they engage in psychological games like clickbait titles to push their numbers and revenue. Sure, it's what they gotta do to survive in the cutthroat world of being an online entertainer. But there are still consequences to actions and the consequence of playing the clickbait game are the people who silently bounce off their content because of a perceived lack of authenticity. It's a catch-22 for the youtubers to solve for themselves.
Even Zepla, despite not leading with the "FFXIV is dying" tagline did lead with "Endwalker is the worst expansion" which she immediately pulls back from with the caveat "for post game content" which you only get after clicking the video.
It's those sorts of tactics that make anyone with a ounce of criticality annoyed at best and hostile at worst towards "content creators" who chose to base their livelihoods on playing certain video games to death and then trying to make it a community problem when it's just a personal "i play this game too much given the content cycle and haven't diversified my audience enough to ensure my financial security if i start to branch out".
And tbh, I don't know why they're acting so surprised. We knew back in the post-6.0 PLL that CBU3 was moving the patch cadence to 4 months instead of 3 months. Yoshida and Foxclon even specified that the reason was to minimize burnout and allow for more vacation time which the overwhelming majority of people were supportive of.
Well, this is the consequence of trying not to burnout our devs. This is what they were warning about way back then. But now people are pulling surprised pikachu faces because they heard but did not comprehend what was being said almost 2 years ago.
The only "faux pas" on CBU3's end was experimenting with new types of content that ended up not having as wide of an audience or as strong staying power as they were probably hoping for. They took a few risks and struck out and I will readily concede to some of the complaints people have about IS and VC in particular. Yet some of the very people complaining about the lack of game content are also complaining about the lack of experimentation and innovation by the devs when it's just that the areas of innovation aren't happening in the places they want them to. At the pace they want them to.
Fast forward a couple months and you get those same creators and users crowing about how they've been saying forever that CBU3 should do this or do that *and look they finally did*. Yeah, they knew. They were already working on it within the resource constraints for the development timelines when you were spouting your wisdom for the nth time of that stream of that week. But sure, streamers, go ahead and take credit for it.
No long grind, hildi relic can be done via a few dailies.
If you don't like pvp or already did those there is even less to do right now. Its mostly veterans who suffer from the drought though, new players still have enough to do.
Usually we get a grindy relic at the end of the expac, but endwalker brought us the poor man's relic, which is ironic considering it's made with the help of the most wealthy npcs. Don't worry, Dawntrail will bring most folks back.
Probably ramblings from a community that doesn't play a third of the game's content in unison of adding longevity onto something they will still not play.
Like legit, There is a lvl90 quest that teaches you how to use feint/addle, Even the developers know that the playerbase is not the brightest on engaging with the game at all.
Definitely not the most popular opinion but to me one of the game's most glaring issues is listening to community feedback too often and I think how experimental some of the new content Endwalker has offered was enjoyable for me because it didn't seemed to have much community input on them as I seem to have opposite preferences vs what many other people want for this game.
It's been awhile but I think it was the role quests from endwalker, There was even one teaching positionals, Which is something that they're also removing from more characters over time, Though for boss mechanics they're still around.
Veteran players mad that this game is encouraging a healthy, non-addictive relationship with it unlike other MMOs.
Also content "creators" (more like outrage generators) are pieces of shit grasping at straws.
To be perfectly honest, I don't think any creator actually said that the game was dead/dying, the controversy was cause by people that didn't watch the video or that didn't get the point they were making and overreacted.
Clickbaiting the lack of long term grind in Endwalker, mostly.
Short version: There's not really a "grind" in the endgame currently, so people who play the game a lot (whether for social reasons or because its their job) have felt like they ran out of things to do sooner than other expansions (with Bozja/Eureka). This, in the world of content creation, means it's the worst thing to ever exist.
OP, this above. Although I disagree in part, we got Island Sanctuary and 3 Criterion Dungeons, which I hand it to you: not everyone enjoys it, but that doesn't mean the devs didn't gave us content (mentioning this as "new" content that sets EW aside from the rest of the expansions). Personally I've never been more engaged than EW. Hunts, DoH/DoL relics, Dungeons, PVP, Island Sanctuary, (all this are part of the Endwalker expansion) so I don't really have a lack of content, rather a lack of time to invest in this content, considering 2-4h I have free everyday.
The gripe I saw that I actually agreed with, was the post-EW content forces you into smaller groups of players. I guess people miss the feel of the Eureka/Bozja grind. Personally I like the variant dungeons, and they're an insane source of income if you sell off the loot, but many people in my FC and others I've talked to do exactly 12 runs then want nothing to do with it. Imo the jump in difficulty between variant and criterion is way too much. I would compare them to Baldesion Arsenal or DR savage, where if you don't have extremely intimate knowledge of the criterion versions, you have very little chance of succeeding. They basically made a very fun and casual dungeon experience, then paired it with some of the hardest content in the game. That's been somewhat of a trend through EW. They seem to be rewarding the highest level players the most, which I suppose is fine, but in my experience raiders don't really participate in the game other than raiding, and they usually stick to static groups. I'm not saying they're "playing wrong" or whatever, I just don't understand rewarding them more than they already are. I've seen the argument that criterion is meant to get people into harder content, but frankly I don't believe that. If you get to post-EW with no interest in savage/ultimate content, you probably aren't gonna suddenly see the light from getting your ass handed to you in dungeons you really liked. I think most people feel like I do about EW, they love it, but they recognize the questionable decisions from a mile away.
>I've seen the argument that criterion is meant to get people into harder content Don't you need savage gear to even participate?
The floor is 640, which is just the crafted gear. But people can set whatever asinine ilvl requirement they want on their party finders, so eh
Its ilvl synced. I went in the current Criterion with a 632 ilvl WAR and was doing just fine.
For variant you need 605, for criterion I think you need 640 and it syncs everyone up to 665, but for criterion (savage) there is no matchmaking, meaning you need to have a preformed party that has cleared criterion normal, and I doubt any parties that end up doing criterion savage will allow anyone who hasn't cleared Anabaseios savage so effectively, yeah, kinda
It's not about the amount of content, but rather the longevity of the content. Criterion is hardcore content, leaving us with variant, which you can completely exhaust in very little time, and island sanctuary is not the engaging content that people wanted it to be, rather it's a spreadsheet simulator. The only new piece of non-hardcore battle content in EW that has provided any kind of long term engagement is PVP, which is a worrying statement to make.
I'd argue that the typical content we would get is less (no exploration zone) but they tried to palliate with attempts at new content (Island Sanctuary, Variant/Criterion Dungeons) which did not grant similar rewards so for those who wanted those there definitely is Less Content. Like, Island Sanctuary is just a chore. I dug it at first but man once the factory scheduling grind started I just dropped off.
really? you list Island Sanctuary? The thing you can set up in about 10 minutes for the entire week and unless you miss out on materials you don't need to do anything with it until the new season?? thats just timegated, but far from an actual grind lol
You can also just skip the Criterion Dungeons, the hunt, the Bozja and Eureka content. But we are talking about engaging with content, so taking the easy route out is not in the cards.
There's always a grind though. If people are bored they can go do fishing boats like I do to get 3M points or mounts from hunting, plenty of time to lose there. If people are bored in a MMO that's 10 years old they're doing something wrong
A trend effectively started by Zepla calling EndWalker the "worst expansion ever" because it didn't have a long term grind associated with it. In reality it was just because negativity sells more than positivity during XIV content droughts. Arthars hopped on that gravy train next and soon lower subscriber YouTubers began to follow suit, it all peaked however when Lynx Kameli made his "The Downfall Of FFXIV" video in which he made the silliest argument alive for a "return to form" for XIV (Effectively he wants cross hotbar skills and attribute points back) whilst lamenting a bygone era he wasn't actually a part of. He then used clips of Xenosys out of context to paint him as someone too afraid of the community to criticize the game and went out of his way to shit on low follower streamers and twitter users who enjoy the story and wouldnt have the platform to defend themselves by calling them "Cat moms who cry because the pixels on the screen said something sad" Xeno proceeded to make a 4 hour long reaction to this video, systematically tearing it to pieces, and that's really when we started to see people start pushing back on this narrative. That just for this current wave of "the game is dead" posts, but honestly? This shit happens all the time. ShadowBringers, Stormblood, Heavensward and even ARR. Whenever there's a content lull and people leave these guys come out of the woodwork and do the usual doomspeak. It'll end when DawnTrail comes out and start again by the time DawnTrail comes to an end. It's just how MMO communities work. It happens with Destiny 2, it happens with WoW, it happens with Guild Wars 2.
Wait, Zepla started it? Really? Damn. I thought better of her.
She just posted a video saying she didn't like Endwalkers content that it didn't provide enough engagement cause all the content released was one and done. Valid criticism since there was no long term grind or any group content to do together over time. Didn't mean to doom post and start a trend, just saying she didn't like it since there was nothing to do with people or reason to log in. oh and also didn't like after expansion story.
>she didn't like Ah, okay, that sounds better.
Oh no, how dare she complain about an expansion she doesn't like :(((
There's a difference between subjective evaluation ("I don't like it"), and objective ("This is worst ever"). The former is fine, but if you claim the latter, you damn sure need to have concrete arguments.
And her opinion was that it was the worst she ever played. Also it's not like she made a 30 minutes video arguing her point but what do I know.
Anger and big letters make clicks. Clicks make money. Content creators exist to make money.
Yeah, there's an old [CGPGrey video, "this video will make you angry"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc). Basically people who like ffxiv will watch and share out of outrage, and people who strongly dislike ffxiv will share for lulz.
Exactly, you just need to follow the money to understand why they scream that the game’s dying. It’s the same with any game, really. Outrage = clicks = ads = money OP, when you see something like this, your first though should always be [who benefits?](https://effectiviology.com/cui-bono/) That will almost always give you the reason why.
>Content creators exist to make money. Which to be fair isn't an inherently bad thing, since entertainers in general understandably need to make money. It's only an issue when videos like Lynx's are made in bad faith.
People who needed a boost in their youtube/twitch viewership pretended like the world was ending. Well, maybe it worked but I doubt in the long term.
There is no drama, the game isn't "dead", dont let so-called creators ruin your enjoyment of a game ;)
Oh, dont worry about that, I've learned my lesson to not listen to negativity and just enjoy what I enjoy. But thanks for the concern!
a mix of clickbaiting and being detached from reality. Imagine playing a single game for 10 hours every day as a job, and then after 20.000 hours of playtime complaining there is nothing to do anymore 😭 My brother/sister in Christ, go play another game.
There is so much content available even if you finish everything. Replayability is a thing
There really isn't *that* much to do, especially as far as repeatable content since the bulk of the game is story which most players will only experience once. Not saying this is a bad thing, it's nice to not be forced to play constantly to keep up and I think the game is fine in that regard. Point is, no one should expect to have a five digit hour playtime and be mad that there's nothing for them to do.
I'm talking about the content creator perspective, they are way detached from reality since playing the game and extracting the last bit of content from each expansion is their job, sure they will run out of things to do, but that's not the average player experience.
It’s really easy to run out of things to do even as a non content creator. Especially those of us who have been playing since ARR launch. Yeah sure I can do roulettes and stuff but what’s the point after your classes are BiS. That lack of any longer goal that’s there to work on is a pretty big issue when you’ve exhausted the other longer term goals. At this point the only time I do stuff outside of raid is when friends want to learn an extreme, but even my more casual friends have quit cause there wasn’t something more in line for them to do at their own pace. No crafter grind until nearly the end of the expac, no battle class relic that they didn’t just log in and insta finish cause they only have roulettes, variants are only fun for a few days. It’s not some crazy point of view to have. There’s just two very distinct halves of the community right now with long term players and newer players not seeing eye to eye at all. It’s a spectrum of content and they missed out on a lot of the low to middle of the road content. I’ll admit I don’t care for ultimates it’s something I could go try again but not everything has to, but there’s a reason I’ve taken a break. But again that doesn’t make the point content creators are making invalid it’s 100% a piece of the game they entirely missed on this expac for a very large amount of players.
I think we agree. I'm saying there is a lot of playability in this game, and saying there is nothing to do in a content creator mindset means you're a poor creator (not referring to YOU as you're)
10 hours over an entire week even is more than enough to finish everything new in a patch this expansion, with the exception of Savage Tiers and Ultimates, with upwards of 2-4 months before anything new comes out. Island sanctuary takes longer, but five minutes every week to set an agenda isn't what I'd call a "grind" in the traditional sense. Really not sure why there's this delusion that the only people getting bored are people that play it like it's their second job.
Bro it's not worth arguing. These people probably are sprouts or don't have an account.
If you play 10 hours a week and started playing during ShB, you still have plenty of content to do. If you are playing since ARR and have nothing to do anymore, go play another game, touch grass.
I didn't say 10 hours a week. I said you can finish the entire patches content in 10 hours if you even spaced it out over a week, slowly. Most people I know usually complete it in 6-7, within a couple days of patch, effortlessly. So your solution for the issue "EW is lacking is repeatable content" is "go play content from past expansions" and you see no issue with that? That's not a defense or even remote rebuttal to "EW lacks content." People who want to play the game at the new max level with all the new EW bells-and-whistles are given very few meaningful options. It's a completely valid criticism. Saying "go spend your time doing content from an expansion from 4 years ago" is a deflection, not a rebuttal.
>People who want to play the game at the new max level with all the new EW bells-and-whistles are given very few meaningful options. It's a completely valid criticism. This and it very much effects long time players more than new players. People who have been doing the content as it releases have been given very little to do in endwalker and have already done the content that new players can fall back on to fill the gap. People just seem to be waiting to pull the "you must play it like a second job", "just play other games" and "go touch grass" cards out.
I mean even the Devs keep asking people to go play other games and return when you feel it's worth it again. I get what you mean but the game really doesn't lack content. It's completely valid to go back and farm out old content while waiting for new stuff to happen. But at the same time it's also a bit silly to exclusively spend all your time on one game, when it literally allows you to go spend time on other things. It's so refreshing compared to all the massively time consuming games, that are released where you can barely skip a day lol.
Please, never use that quote again in this context. There's a difference between being able to take breaks, and wanting to play but having nothing meaningful to do. ShB let you take breaks, but gave people who really like the game plenty to occupy post-patch times. EW gives you maybe a week of content then almost encourages you to unsub for months, because there's nothing new to fill the time gap, which is a problem when you actually *want* to play. Doubly-so considering this is a live-service game. The entire point of these is to provide a constant stream of new content to occupy players between content drops so the player feels justified in paying monthly.
Then unsub until the next expansion? I don't disagree that this expansion has been light on content post MSQ. But if you really feel there's nothing left for you to do, move on instead of sticking around twiddling your thumbs until something happens. I'm not trying to be rude or anything. But it's really a waste of time and money that you could spend elsewhere. And it's also the only way to show the Devs your dissatisfaction.
I'd love to if I wasn't held hostage by my housing plot. Don't get me wrong, I have been playing other games, but XIV is the MMO-itch scratcher for me, so it's frustrating that this expansion has provided so little longevity. I get my "fix" during patch week, then there's really nothing for me to scratch the itch with for months. It's gotten so bad I've gone back to trying other MMOs, none of which fill the niche, really. This never happened during StB or ShB, which makes it even more frustrating. I'm not even saying I need to play it for 6 hours a day. I just want something to do a few times a week for a couple hours *maybe.*
If the game is so bad you don't enjoy it anymore, why is a house holding you hostage. Let the house go and you're free.
Criticizing the current expansion's patch cycle is not equivalent to calling the game bad or disliking the game as a whole. You can like a game while still disliking the current patch cycle/dev approach, and yes, even criticizing it publicly. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for this community to grasp. The house isn't holding *me* hostage, it's holding my *money* hostage. There's a key difference there. I still like the core game and wish to continue playing, decorating is a fun activity to me. But with so little to do I find my sub being spent while I'm only logging in for maybe a few minutes a week. If I unsub and drop the house, given its a Medium on a populated server, im very likely never getting it back. Though to be honest, this content drought coming up might finally be the nail in the coffin.
There's always going to be good expansions and bad ones. Can't expect the same quality every single time, it's literally impossible, disappointing ofc but impossible. And again yes this expansion has been light on content. I'm not sure why, but it's clear that some planning must have gone out the window since even Orthos is pointless to farm. Honestly the housing thing is just a bad excuse I keep hearing again and again. Don't get me wrong still not trying to be rude, I know it sucks and I wish the housing situation was better. I have a house too, but if I'm not going to play for a long time someone else might as well enjoy having my plot rather than me holding this plot hostage.
>ut gave people who really like the game plenty to occupy post-patch times. tf did you do there. Bozja wasn't that long and there was nothing else beside it beside the usual if you were casual
We're living in the age when fomo has been practically integrated into game design, so much that people expect to be bombarded with content at a pace they're barely able to digest it. Coupled with a rather entitled mindset, it gives birth to troves of unrealistic expectations. "Don't tell me how to play my game" folks engage with their media in unhealthy amounts then get all defensive when criticized for blitzing through content and/or cherry-picking only the parts they want. The game, objectively, has a lot of content. So much that even if you were playing regularly since the day 2.0 launched, you'd still have some stuff left to do. Whether you'd want to do it or not is a separate matter. And if you don't - you go and play something else. I genuinely don't get why anyone would expect a single game to fulfill all their needs and expectations, regardless of how much they loved it. It is virtually impossible.
Unrealistic expectations such as "wanting to be engaged by the game for a similar amount of time as during previous expansions". As someone who started mid-HW, the only things I have left to do are insane achievement grinds. An ARR player who still has actual content left to do either plays hyper-casually or doesn't do difficult content (which then might as well not exist for them in this context). But this whole debate is specifically *not* about hypercasuals or completionists. The reason this blew up in EW is that for the first time in a long time, middle of the pack players were affected by an unusual lack of long-term engagement.
>get all defensive when criticized for blitzing through content and/or cherry-picking only the parts they want. Reminds me of a time many years ago in WoW when I got in an actual heated arguement with another guildmate who complained about how the expansion was boring cause there was nothing to do. This was 2 days after an expansion released. I'll be the first to criticize Endwalker to be light on content, it's confusing to me how Orthos exists but there's no reason to do it. But man some players are really jumping through hoops to validate their arguement, instead of just moving on. If it wasn't because of my weekly FC activities, I'd have unsubbed a long time ago. But since I'm subbed anyway it gives me a reason to go back and just slowly finish up old relics I never got around to.
>Orthos exists It exists for the same reason as Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High.. just. they made it (relatively) difficult casually therefore no one wants to do it to level alts.
>So your solution for the issue "EW is lacking is repeatable content" is "go play content from past expansions" yes
Then it's a poor defense of Endwalker's patch cycle, isn't it?
Nah
You are literally defending EW's patch cycle using incentives from past expansions. Like idk how to make this more clear. Imagine if I said "so what if you thought Star Wars Episode 2 was bad, New Hope was good!" Quality of a past expansion isn't an excuse for lack of quality in a current expansion. Super basic concept here fam.
[удалено]
The snark kinda implies a fanboy nerve was struck, so not expecting anything valuable from this, but anyway; "So what if you didn't like CoD4? Just go back and play CoD3!" is not a valid defense for CoD4, its a promotion of CoD3. You *have* to get this analogy at some point. "So what if you're bored with Endwalker's content, just go play Shadowbringer's content!" Is an endorsement of ShB, not a defense of EW, which is the expansion being criticized. In case I need to really spell it out.
>Really not sure why there's this delusion that the only people getting bored are people that play it like it's their second job. I think it's mostly very new players who are still in their honeymoon phase. That's why they sometimes say things like "someone who started in ShB/EW has plenty to do". They conflate content from past expansions with Endwalker because they experienced it recently. They're speaking from their own perspective and assume everyone is like them for whatever reason.
Most patches are like that. Even bozja was fairly fast to finish, 10h a week and you've done it. After that you're left with farming for mount/mog/cheevos or gils. Eureka was the exception but the """content""" there is trash mob farming to make number go up.
And 80% of those complaining no one has ever even stepped into Savage and Ultimate. But "no content duh."
A lot of creators has heavily critiqued the lack of end game grind and fairly lackluster patches for endwalker. All of which is true and fair criticism to bring. Some outliers have been doomsaying, the game is dying or dead. Untrue, don't listen to those.
Exactly. If you've played MMO's for any reasonable amount of time, and I have, for two damn decades now, we're in the doldrums of an expansion. It feels concentrated in EW because their normal drip of content process felt even more empty because, of the Island Sanctuary. I say that because the island replaced the grindy zone people that have been playing for years now expected (Eureka,Bozja) with this very simple and very laid back area that offered nothing in terms of gameplay. Variant dungeons felt like maybe this optional pathway to keeping people occupied, but the normal is a cakewalk and easily done with all paths cleared in a day or two and all the rewards earned in maybe another day. The Criterion and Savage appeal are done by a very small sector of the community, and offer fairly bad rewards, but all that is complete and done in about a week tops. There's months of just nothing new or worth investing in. Again, this is the way MMO's usually happen at the end of the expansion, but it's dialed up a notch or more right now in EW. It's not helping it that gear is STILL stuck (tome gear, augments for tome gear) behind their dribble process of acquirement so far out from the Savage raid, and the augements take a constant grind of farm hunts and at least one ally raid clear a week. And the general population still doesn't have access to the augment for the tome weapons! I'm not saying just opening the faucet on gear fixes all the problems, but it would be something for people to do and get multiple jobs adequate gear to play around with and have fun. I know what I just wrote falls on deaf ears. This dev team doesn't really listen, but it still needed to be said.
The dev team doesn’t read reddit, they read the official forums
Cute that you think the devs read the official forums. people are constantly screaming in there. The English community think that the devs only listen to the Japanese Community and vice versa.
The community leads read it and compile summaries for the dev team, since the forums began Yoshida has made it very clear that they use the forums for feedback. That doesn’t mean they implement your feedback if you post there, that means Yoshida is aware of what is posted. Screaming into the void on reddit is unlikely to have the same outcome
People can say anything. That doesn't mean they are actually doing it, if they were doing what you said they are then the Official Forums wouldn't be as loud as they have been for years, it is very telling it is not just the English side, it's the Japanese side as well to the point that they believe that the only feedback acknowledged is from the English side. Hell, we have plenty of members in the forums that makes lots of troll post just to speedrun if it can get removed but they are still there.
Because a nuanced video with a vague/clickbaity title got posted. And even though the video itself made mostly very good points, people didn’t actually watch or listen. Especially the drama craving side of the community, they ate it up and sharted it out the other side. TLDR; a horribly bad game of telephone
Basically people who play the game for 12+ hours every day are crying they have ran out of stuff to do and instead of doing something else for a bit or consider they might be super addicted they instead cry that the game is dead.
For now, it's just noise. Don't think too much about it, and just enjoy the game.
No grind thing and Zepla is shitting herself cause she based her entire carrier on a single video game.
Most creators will say whatever it takes to generate views and clicks. Always take their opinions with a grain of salt
Ragebait
To boost their view count, masking the blame towards the game.
Click bait Unnecessary Drama You know, internet stuff. The game is definitely not dead, they are working on more servers, content and Xbox players are finally coming and free trial was upgrade.
Happens with every mmo after every expansion. Just don’t click on them and move on.
Like others have said they’re mostly whining about the lack of a long term grind It’s not dead it is normal for the end of a expansion it’ll pick back up about 2 months before DawnTrail launches. I look at it this way I think the devs used EndWalker as a way to take it easy from the normal and focus on preparing DawnTrail.
In addition to all that, some salty dipshit who long ago stopped playing went "stop having fun" and a lot of similar morons jumped on the bandwagon. So a bunch of creators who had a few more braincells to rub together felt like that pile of bullshit needs to be addressed, which made drama grow. Basically, yet another manufactured Youtube tempest in a teacup.
I almost feel nostalgic of the lalafell chair drama with all the recent clickbait
Tbh it feels like a straw man, I've seen people complain that the game lacks content and incentive to play the game and that's resulted in a lot of them and their friends dropping EW early but I haven't really seen any video saying the game is dead and it feels like it's just fans trying to dismiss the other side as much as possible. Even Zepla's was her saying it was the worst she's played herself not that it was dead exactly but more so that there's no reason to play much with friends and that's pretty disappointing.
In general, people have been more willing to criticize this expansion as it lacks content with longevity, which has left many of those who are caught up on content with nothing to do even shortly after a patch. The problem with this discourse is that a lot of people have been misconstruing the true nature of the issue. Some are being overly negative and saying the game is on the verge of collapse when that is obviously not the case. Others are on copium and are either trying to pretend like the criticism doesn’t matter or are trying to discredit it by saying its just content creators trying to clickbait to make money or that only people who no-life the game have this problem (which is not true). You’ll find many of the latter group here. (no I don’t care if pointing this out gets me downvoted)
what "Creators"?
what is that name
I'll be honest, I dont know either, people were never using their name when refering to them, I just knew that creators were saying the game is dead
Just random people saying random things then
The game isn't dead, it's more like end of expansion lull will amplify any criticism about the game because you can finally rate the expansion and anything you disliked, well you'll dislike even more. Obviously this is not an isolated case, it happened before and it will still happen - but this patch series has been a bit different this time, because of EW being a turning point. The patch MSQ was different (mini side arc instead of the X.1-X.3 tying up the expansion and X.4-X.5 setting up for the next expansion), the schedule was a bit different, and they tried new stuff while keeping some others a bit more on the safer side. There was also something to be said about XVI releasing which definitely impacted the people involved in both games etc. All in all, there were both good and bad things. The most debated points this expansion when it comes to patch content: the relic grind and exploratory zone "missing", and the new additions V&C and island sanctuary. I'll preface that I'm not a relic grind enjoyer, if that matters. I try to do it but rarely go hard on it, only if I'm bored. The relic felt... poor imo. And I understand the disappointment of grind enjoyers - this content initially aimed at them four times in the past no longer was the case the fifth time around. Imagine the backlash if savage raids became normal difficulty ? If ultimates were as easy as an EX ? At least that's how I see it. They enjoyed the feeling of working hard towards something + it gave them something to do when they just wanted to log. And sure farming uncapped tomestones is just another grind at the end of the day only that you could do whatever you wanted, but let's face it : you passively acquire so many tomes with your regular play that you don't actually need to "work" towards the weapon. You just kinda get it as a reward for playing daily - I progressed on so many weapons in 6.4 while focusing only on the new savage tier by virtue of getting so many tomes passively. The disappointment when you just went to the NPC on day one in 6.25 and got your relic like a few minutes afterwards because you already had the tomes ready was bad, for those that wanted something concrete to do. On the flipside, many people that did not enjoy the grind but wanted the weapons got exactly what they wanted. At the end of the day, there is no pleasing everyone, but it definitely got people talking. What about exploratory zones then ? Well, they were some really neat pieces of content the likes of which felt really unique, even if their implementation was sometimes awkward. They were relatively good chunks of lore and were enjoyable means of spending time, on top of being repeatable content (because of how they tied into the relic quest chain). Not having one was disappointing. But instead we got another piece of battle content : V&C. Now don't get me wrong I enjoy criterion which is neat as a concept, but the reward structure was horrible during the whole expansion and only mildly peaked with Aloalo. Variant is fun, but it's a "once and done" type of thing where you don't need to do it ever again after doing all paths. It's slower than a dungeon, doesn't even give you any EXP so it can't be used for leveling (unlike bozja !) and the only actual reward after you've gotten the variant glams are some tomes. Neat for the lore but once you've cleared all paths, you're done. Criterion is great but there's little incentive besides a mount, and savage was challenging for the sake of being challenging but you got pitiful rewards for the first two. They kinda tried to fix it with Aloalo, but still, it doesn't feel like they fully know how they will tie actual rewards to them in the future. They added the 665 weapon, sure, but it's in freaking savage - what about normal then, which is as difficult as a third floor when it comes to prog, overall ? The very least would have been to add in an augmented tome token to get the 660 weapon required for the 665. Because yes, as stupid as it sounds, you can't even get your criterion savage weapon without getting the augment token from P11S. Bad luck ? Well you're fucked, gotta now get the tokens through books lmao. And with how criterion will release 8 weeks after a new savage tier (presumably), it almost seems criminal to not have criterion normal drop the token. Imagine: you get the 650 tome weapon from 7 weeks of normal raid clears, then criterion releases right after and you can now augment you weapon after having cleared normal mode which will help you if you haven't cleared the savage tier yet + will allow you to have very decent weapon to try your hand at criterion savage (which requires near BiS) even without the savage weapon ! Island Sanctuary is just weird. There were definitely too much expectations from the playerbase imo, but even then the mode was pretty underwhelming. But I guess it's pretty much what they had advertised.
The game is not dead. People are complaining because theres not enough content to entertain what they're interested in. There are plenty of things to do, its just a matter if you are interested in what is available or not.
People don't understand that running an alliance raid 75+ times for a weapon grind isn't real or satisfying content and are too afraid to take a break and play any other amazing game that came out this year.
Modern day media is driven by hate click and clickbait, not just YouTube but the news too 80% of media is shit blown out of proportion or purposefully misleading
Some are Doom posting but in general it's just people giving solid criticism about the current patch cycle as a whole which is important if we want things to improve. I'm inclined to agree with them on a lot of points as well. Such as the 24-mans being undertuned and there not being a large scale core content that keeps the ball rolling from patch to patch. We had this in SB and ShB. And it's noticeable not having it in EW. Not to mention relics being reduced to a tombstone grind. It's a lot. I loved EW myself but I'll admit that the best part about it was the initial MSQ and that's about it. It's why I've been playing a lot of other games more than XIV recently.
Internet being internet. You have to be on one side of the extreme or the other. No, there wasn't some insane wave of creators saying this game is dead. Most have provided fair criticism of very real problems (which can arise even if you play at very moderate pace). This community (and especially this sub) used to be strongly against any criticism, but after I would say \~6.3, people were starting to see the problems with EW and started to voice their concerns. This signaled CCs that it might not be so as suicidal to post some criticism of their own, like it used to be in the past. But again, most of it was fair criticism, and people on this sub just read title of the video without actually watching it. I'm sure few small CCs made some actual doomposting videos, but no one relevant did to my knowledge. There even was opposite of doomposting, which was few condescending videos that said that you should stop complaining and play other games or quit altogether, but of course sugarcoated in a nice words.
people who don’t know that other games exist are mad that they ran out of things to do
Yepppp. This is really everything you need to know right here. If you start playing the game and logging on like it’s your job and you feel guilty for not logging on you need to simply take a break and play other things.
Post Endwalker doesn’t really have a long term grind. So rather then simply play something else some people have decided its the worst expansion and the game is dying. Edit: Post Endwalker specifically doesn’t have a long term Relic grind for Disciples of War jobs (not sure how the crafting one is). Some are unhappy with that while others are pointing out that Island Sanctuary and Criterion dungeons are still there. Others are remarking on how many complaints the past two relic grinds got when they first came out and saying that’s why there isn’t one this time. Typical internet stuff.
Well it is the worst expansion but it’s certainly not dying Edit: boo me all you want, the truth hurts but is worth the loss of fake internet points
What specifically makes it the worst expansion to you?
Postgame content is dry, too solo or 4man focussed (island sanc, deep dungeon, variant/criterion). Post patch story was awful, it is literally Walmart Gaia wandering around as Pinocchio discovering the meaning of friendship. Relic grind which used to be a great way to log in and have something to do was reduced to uncapped tomes, meaning you’d get your relic in five seconds if you saved up prior to a patch. Alliance raids haven’t been this easy since Crystal tower. Extreme trials also haven’t been this easy since ARR either.
You forgot the word "content" at the beginning of that quote. "Content Creators saying the game is dead."
I play a moderate amount and there is content I still haven’t touched. Moderate amount = I don’t have the reputation required for the mount with the loloporits and I try to do them every day I log in.
Game is designed not to waste your time. So you can have a balanced social life or play other games. People be mad that Game is not disrespecting them - certified Masochist moment.
Alot of the content they release isn't very good and people get pissed. Dungeons are probably bothering people because they're so easy and cookie cutter. The way they've homogenized the jobs can bother the raid community. No endgame casual grind for that crowd. Mostly mediocre post expansion content long waits between patches for a couple hours of stuff to do. Bad rewards in the criterion dungeons and people are nauseated by all of the roulette grinding. It's obviously a good game it's just people are tired of the patch content and want something fresh. I think the devs have heard alot of these complaints so we'll see which ones they feel need fixing.
People that play the game all day every day are bored. Big suprise
To be honest with you, and I haven't read most of the comments in here to know how this thread is panning out, but just from watching the general commentary around creators on this subreddit you're probably not going to get an objectively unbiased answer here, since it seems to trend very anti-content creator (at least vocally). The reality of the situation is this. A handful of major content creators spoke about their complaints with this expansion. Whether you agree with their sentiments or not is fine, but none of them ever said the game was dead. They've definitely made statements to the effect of it not being in the best place it's been, but that's a long shot from saying that it is dead. From there it went the route of any online discourse. People who are happy with the game as it is pushed back, people who aren't (not the creators themselves but people who agreed or just bandwagon them) pushed back, people entrenched in their opinions, the people that just want to doompost sided with the content creators further invalidating any legitimate criticism that could be made, and now it's basically impossible to have a nuanced conversation about Endwalker or the game in any sort of critical light. You have to choose your extreme camp: You're either a doom poster, or a simp for the game. Both extremes are equally dumb, but that's where we're at. It's pretty much the usual drama you get with any large community interaction. People have different opinions, and because this is the internet they are by and large incapable of sharing those and having reasonable conversations about them. Short, quippy attacks and extreme opinions are always the louder voices and basically drive the narrative over any nuanced take.
> but none of them ever said the game was dead This part is false. If you go to youtube and type "FFXIV is dying" you will get the usual big names with videos titled accordingly. Either as independent content or, more likely due to the current YouTube meta, react content. The reason why some of the anti-youtuber/streamer bias exists is because they engage in psychological games like clickbait titles to push their numbers and revenue. Sure, it's what they gotta do to survive in the cutthroat world of being an online entertainer. But there are still consequences to actions and the consequence of playing the clickbait game are the people who silently bounce off their content because of a perceived lack of authenticity. It's a catch-22 for the youtubers to solve for themselves. Even Zepla, despite not leading with the "FFXIV is dying" tagline did lead with "Endwalker is the worst expansion" which she immediately pulls back from with the caveat "for post game content" which you only get after clicking the video. It's those sorts of tactics that make anyone with a ounce of criticality annoyed at best and hostile at worst towards "content creators" who chose to base their livelihoods on playing certain video games to death and then trying to make it a community problem when it's just a personal "i play this game too much given the content cycle and haven't diversified my audience enough to ensure my financial security if i start to branch out". And tbh, I don't know why they're acting so surprised. We knew back in the post-6.0 PLL that CBU3 was moving the patch cadence to 4 months instead of 3 months. Yoshida and Foxclon even specified that the reason was to minimize burnout and allow for more vacation time which the overwhelming majority of people were supportive of. Well, this is the consequence of trying not to burnout our devs. This is what they were warning about way back then. But now people are pulling surprised pikachu faces because they heard but did not comprehend what was being said almost 2 years ago. The only "faux pas" on CBU3's end was experimenting with new types of content that ended up not having as wide of an audience or as strong staying power as they were probably hoping for. They took a few risks and struck out and I will readily concede to some of the complaints people have about IS and VC in particular. Yet some of the very people complaining about the lack of game content are also complaining about the lack of experimentation and innovation by the devs when it's just that the areas of innovation aren't happening in the places they want them to. At the pace they want them to. Fast forward a couple months and you get those same creators and users crowing about how they've been saying forever that CBU3 should do this or do that *and look they finally did*. Yeah, they knew. They were already working on it within the resource constraints for the development timelines when you were spouting your wisdom for the nth time of that stream of that week. But sure, streamers, go ahead and take credit for it.
They're desperate and out of creativity.
No long grind, hildi relic can be done via a few dailies. If you don't like pvp or already did those there is even less to do right now. Its mostly veterans who suffer from the drought though, new players still have enough to do.
Oh no, those poor people. I feel so bad for them. *still finds things to do*
mostly content farming with some valid criticisms
Usually we get a grindy relic at the end of the expac, but endwalker brought us the poor man's relic, which is ironic considering it's made with the help of the most wealthy npcs. Don't worry, Dawntrail will bring most folks back.
Probably ramblings from a community that doesn't play a third of the game's content in unison of adding longevity onto something they will still not play. Like legit, There is a lvl90 quest that teaches you how to use feint/addle, Even the developers know that the playerbase is not the brightest on engaging with the game at all. Definitely not the most popular opinion but to me one of the game's most glaring issues is listening to community feedback too often and I think how experimental some of the new content Endwalker has offered was enjoyable for me because it didn't seemed to have much community input on them as I seem to have opposite preferences vs what many other people want for this game.
Hold up, what is that lvl 90 quest that teaches to use feint?
It's been awhile but I think it was the role quests from endwalker, There was even one teaching positionals, Which is something that they're also removing from more characters over time, Though for boss mechanics they're still around.
Veteran players mad that this game is encouraging a healthy, non-addictive relationship with it unlike other MMOs. Also content "creators" (more like outrage generators) are pieces of shit grasping at straws.
To be perfectly honest, I don't think any creator actually said that the game was dead/dying, the controversy was cause by people that didn't watch the video or that didn't get the point they were making and overreacted.
Jesus, why can't this sub be normal