Endwalker mechanics are the worst yet

[Judeo-communism]

ARR-SHB were fantastic, all of the Trials and Raids felt memorable and the mechanics were fun and interesting. But not EW. Every single EW Trial and Raid feels like a completely different team now works on the game and it's taken a giant step down in quality. The mechanics are not memorable or interesting, and almost none of them any sense of uniqueness to them that all the others did. The creativity of this game's stellar mechanics have died, and it's sad to see.

I love this game, that's why I'm being critical on it. For the first and only time in my time with this game since I started it in 3.4 launch, I've found my self not actually having any desire to do the 24 man raid, extreme trials or savage raids. Never before have I felt this way. That's disappointing.

[Stormy Dawn]

Honestly the whole of post-game Endwalker has been very disappointing. Probably the worst expansion so far in that particular respect.

They tried, but it's clear FFXIV was sacrificed to work on FFXVI. To be fair, the devs could have done worse and all but ignored XIV, but they did do a poor job balancing the two and it shows.

[Aîze]

I like it. You're part of the minority for sure.

[MOSLEY]

Fight design in Ew is fine IMO. I could do without every boss hitbox being 66% the size of the arena and no mechanics ever requiring the boss to be moved from the middle of the arena though. I definitely miss having to optimise for uptime. I think the mechanics themselves are ok though.

The main issue with Ew for me is that it's completely devoid of lasting content. We're down to 10% of Ew release numbers and new patches are only bringing people back for an average of 2 weeks.

I think choosing to both not have an exploratory zone like Eureka/Bozja AND making relic weapons completely free was a huge mistake. There's nothing to work towards.

Island sanctuary effectively forces you out once you've taken the 5 minutes per day to sort out your workshop, granaries, animals and crops and only requires you to put in that 5 minutes per day for a few weeks before you're level capped and have bought the rewards. Island sanctuary would be nice if it was just something else to do on top of a more typical expansion, but there just isn't much else.

Criterion is a nice idea but it's entirely pointless after you clear it once.

Eureka Orthos was cool but you clear it a few times, get all the stuff and then what?

It seems like 7.0 is still another 8-10 months away and that's slightly concerning unless the devs have a big surprise or two up their sleeves, which I highly doubt. I'm not really sure what happened with Endwalker. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[GeminiEclipse]

I actually like the current relic weapon being an easy any content grind. I have 6 of them, and some resources saved to get 2 more if some of the glams are good later on. I have no relics of any other kind. Eureka and Bozja are two of my least favorite forms of content. And I could never get into ARR or HW relics. I really don't like the checklists of specific content.

That being said I don't think the EW form should be the way 7.0 relics are. Clearly there's plenty of people who want the extra grind zone for relic weapons. Going back to that should be fairly easy in a new expansion.

As for why Endwalker is the way it is? I think part of the reason is the resources devoted to other things. Island Sanctuary just seems to be a test for personal housing disguised as casual content. They've also devoted resources to pvp, the eventual graphics update, duty support, and some extra story content.

Every person who is working on that stuff isn't working on other stuff. I think the Criterion experiment is fine. It's important to test new things instead of just sticking with the same old safe stuff. Maybe they shouldn't have done too many different things at the same time? I dunno.

[Silly]

Endwalker has been a massive letdown in almost every aspect of the game (music's still on fire). Prior to this expansion, I never let my sub lapse even once and I started playing back in 3.2.
Nowadays, I can't find any reason to even login. Story and lore were completely ruined by Endwalker, jobs are getting reworked to oblivion or homogenized to death, there's less interesting and engaging content than ever and even the casual content such as alliance raids has been dumbed down and undertuned so much that bosses don't even get to use their full moveset in WEEK ONE after release.

This is of course my opinion, so feel free to tell me how I'm in the minority and how much you are enjoying playing through the MSQ again on your seventh alt.

[Judeo-communism]

Originally posted by Silly:

Endwalker has been a massive letdown in almost every aspect of the game (music's still on fire). Prior to this expansion, I never let my sub lapse even once and I started playing back in 3.2.
Nowadays, I can't find any reason to even login. Story and lore were completely ruined by Endwalker, jobs are getting reworked to oblivion or homogenized to death, there's less interesting and engaging content than ever and even the casual content such as alliance raids has been dumbed down and undertuned so much that bosses don't even get to use their full moveset in WEEK ONE after release.

This is of course my opinion, so feel free to tell me how I'm in the minority and how much you are enjoying playing through the MSQ again on your seventh alt.

Yeah, you're hitting the nail on the head for me. I still remember Ramuh ex, Thordan ex, even Seiryu ex and Warrior of Light ex like they were yesterday but I can't even tell you half the mechanics on EW ex trial 2 after clearing it 99 times. Or EW ex trial 3. I've lost all desire to keep playing. I didn't even bother with EW ex trial 5. Just a bunch of random uninspired panels on the ground and arena, even worse it's a memorable boss from older FF games.

[Катюша]

It sounds like you might be burnt out for sure. Might be worth taking a break and returning at a later date.

Personally I think it's the worst expansion by a long shot. From story, to content, and everything in between.

[Stormy Dawn]

It's just a massive disappointment to finally see the resolution of the Ascian storyline after ten plus years and then they give us a bunch of fan wank from FFIV instead? Come on. I mean, I like FFIV as much as the next guy, but you're not going to tell me that I'm supposed to take Golbez and the archfiends seriously after all we've been through. It's a giant waste of time and extremely uninteresting.

I mean the whole Crystal Tower raid series is just FFIII fan wank, but at least they tied it into the story of FFXIV and gave it narrative purpose. So far they have failed to do that with the story of the Void, and I hightly down this last patch is going to magically change that.

Honestly unless 7.0 is just some amazing idea that blows my mind, I consider the main story of this game over, and with it so too might be my time playing it. If the 6.1 and later story has anything to say about it, I will be thoroughly disappointed.

[Judeo-communism]

Originally posted by Катюша:

It sounds like you might be burnt out for sure. Might be worth taking a break and returning at a later date.

But I never felt like I had no motivation or desire to do ex trials and savage raids on launch. Only in EW did this happen. I always cleared all content, got the mounts etc. and loved it. I'd play less here and there but never fully quit. It isn't that I feel burned out, it's that I feel like EW is just bad. It feels like a cheap imitation of the FF14 I've loved since ARR.

[GeminiEclipse]

Originally posted by All glory to God:

Originally posted by Катюша:

It sounds like you might be burnt out for sure. Might be worth taking a break and returning at a later date.

But I never felt like I had no motivation or desire to do ex trials and savage raids on launch. Only in EW did this happen. I always cleared all content, got the mounts etc. and loved it. I'd play less here and there but never fully quit. It isn't that I feel burned out, it's that I feel like EW is just bad. It feels like a cheap imitation of the FF14 I've loved since ARR.

Yeah that's not burnout. That's just the game has lost novelty for you.

[Integrity]

I did the first tier and DSR. And I agree they were underwhelming. I haven’t stepped inside TOP but heard it’s pretty good. I also didn’t do the most recent raid tier and I’ve hear it’s pretty good as well.

[Calandir]

Originally posted by All glory to God:

ARR-SHB were fantastic, all of the Trials and Raids felt memorable and the mechanics were fun and interesting. But not EW. Every single EW Trial and Raid feels like a completely different team now works on the game and it's taken a giant step down in quality. The mechanics are not memorable or interesting, and almost none of them any sense of uniqueness to them that all the others did. The creativity of this game's stellar mechanics have died, and it's sad to see.

I love this game, that's why I'm being critical on it. For the first and only time in my time with this game since I started it in 3.4 launch, I've found my self not actually having any desire to do the 24 man raid, extreme trials or savage raids. Never before have I felt this way. That's disappointing.

Main issue I have with FF atm. After years of playing are jobs. They need to rework jobs and bring something new, because so far EW is huge L in terms of new skills and job fantasy.

[Elixir]

My biggest complaint with "modern" FF14, is that the Dungeons feel way too samey. Its pull 2 trash packs, Aoe down, Pull 2 more Aoe down, then Boss, repeat.

Older Dungeons had way more charm and had you doing different stuff in dungeons to unlock doors/barriers. Also, I remember there being a Dungeon where a Tonberry chased you and would 1 hit you if it caught up to you. This is seriously annoying! Why on earth are they making their dungeons identical to each other???

Most of the focus is put onto boss fights now, which is good I guess because I do think Boss fights now are more fun than Boss fights Pre Stormblood or something. But I do miss when Dungeons had more going on in them, I miss Dungeons like that Gorilla Island one!

[Jon]

Im just coping that ff16 is cause of lack of effort on ff14.

[Meranius]

What i wanna know: you complain about a bad story but dont say what exactly is bad. i loved and enjoyed it , yeah welcome "fanboy screamers", it had funny moments, sad moments and in the end it closed the Story so they can Start a whole new Arc.

Must say i lost my intrest in Raids bcause its not mine but i found my love in Glam, housing, RP and many other stuff. Saying its the worst Addon just bcause Raids is in my eyes 100% wrong bcause this game has much more then only Raids