I just finished ARR as a new sprout, so seeing these downfall videos made it seem like the whole community was quitting the game or something lol. So it really helps to have videos like this to balance out the perspective.

"The downfall of this, the downfall of that." I don't hate Final Fantasy. I hate KZfaq hate clickbait...

Oh, it's Lynx Kameli. They made another video on their alt KZfaq account, Lynx Karamel, about quitting 14 a while back over some static drama. in the comments for that video, it was mentioned that he's "quit" 14 multiple times, and makes a big song and dance about it. The drama about their static breaking up apparently had something to do with Lynx wanting to switch to DPS instead of tanking, his static wanted him to stay and tank and he fell out with them over it. This parts only a rumor though, but that's all I've heard about it.

Lynx failed to realize one thing if FF14 was only carter to only raiders than this game would've been shut down years ago, lots of MMOs in the past that was only catering to Raids or pvp only didn't survive and that's my main reason why FF14 is up there with being the top MMO till this day because of the different communities that contribute the success the RP community, Pvp Community, Casual Players, Glamour Fashion mains and of course our hardcore raiders.

Creativity wise, I always thought it was really cool how in P8S Phase 2, you had to make the correct combinations of DNA to create the phoenix DNA so your party resurrects after the boss' killing blow. That shit was cool as hell. Idk how you can see things like that and say that all fight designs now are boring and uninspired.

There are few things that can immediately extinguish my interest quicker in a video than opening with "I am a brave free thinker and everyone else is scared."

I'm all about people criticizing the game as we should always be willing to be critical of the things we love. But I think if people want to make their opinion really public they could come up with better points than "All fights are just stand and let thing resolve". I mean, by that logic Elden Ring is just hit attack button and dodge. Baldur's Gate 3 is just talk to people and hit things. The entire Monster Hunter franchise is press attack button and dodge button. We can make any game we like sound bad if we describe it in the most basic way possible.

There is another thing people tend to forget about this expansion that also goes into the same cup as everything else: all the pvp and dungeon reworks, adding Trust to all the leveling dungeons, QoL updates, fashion accessory updates and minor graphics updates in preparation for the graphical overhaul. While a lot of these are small things, but they all add up, and they are important to do in the long term.

My biggest issue from a tank perspective is... look if you are going to have tank responsibility, don't make it just the MT and swapping the tanks between each other. Let the OT do something consistantly. That's my issue. I hate being the OT and basically doing very little outside of busters to remember I 'exist'.

from 4 hours reacts condense to 42 mins well done mr editor, also youtube frogs you won this time

Feels like Xeno is the only content creator these days who takes a reasonable middle ground. The biggest problem XIV faces these days is the community itself being unable to accept that there is more than one playstyle other than that of [Insert Type of player here]. Hardcore players shitting on the casual and RP community, the casual side complains about hard content being added because putting in some time to practice or just, not care for it, is hard.

Hit the nail on the head with the "This game is for everybody." segment. When I watched the video and he started asking "Who is this game for now?" I was like, well it's legit for everybody. I think there was a recent interview with Yoshi-P where he even said this! He said he wants this game to have things for everyone, the Story Enjoyers, The Dungeon Enjoyers, The Fashion Enjoyers the PVP Enjoyers, The High End Raid Enjoyers, The Mid End Raid Enjoyers, the crafting and gathering enjoyers, The RP and Social Aspect Enjoyers, The Housing Enjoyers, Etc. Etc. The game is meant to have something everyone can find enjoyment in. Ofc some player groups could use a little more love, hence Xeno's cup diagram, but give it time and we'll see? Maybe? Hopefully. {Disclaimer: I'm not a 'defend ffxiv's faults' andie, I just thought that the "who is this game for?" argument was silly cause the answer was kinda obvious.}

The cup Xeno is talking about is the budget SE gives to Yoshi P. Lynx doesn't seem to understand that Yoshi P has to work within the confines of this budget. It doesn't matter how much money people pay for cash shop items or how many xpacks people buy, SE calls the shots at the end of the day. Honestly he probably isn't getting more money because of all the failed garbage that SE is producing right now, FFXIV is covering those costs... Also Lynx's channel has been dead for 2 years prior to this video, awfully convenient his re-debut video was a highly clickbaity video he knew would get traction.

Look the only thing that I believe the game is failing in is in job design. The 2 minute meta is stifling job creativity since every job has to fit into that little box. That and the devs making job changes to attract new players to the job while pissing off the people who already liked that job

making a “this game is dying”video about a game you haven’t played in a year xffing edit: it was actually two! what a fuckin grifter!

The classic "I have 1 million hours in this game so i know what i'm talking about" well either they are full of shit to make it sound like they know what they are talking about or if they really have played 12k hours in 6 years then that is the issue, you played this game like a job and blasted through all the content and then got bored

MMO have low points but this isn't even in top 10 low points in gaming history game still thrives everyone being dramatic af im sorry

In regards to "stand and let thing resolve" the Dragon Soul raid in WoW alone did pretty much everything he complained about. Morchok had a rock you had to hide behind to avoid a mechanic. As a DPS class, you didnt have to move AT ALL during the Ultraxion fight. You literally just stood there, stationary, and pushed a single extra button once a minute or so.

Eureka/Bozja is important content, because it actually is a place that facilitates socialization with gameplay. EW feels more empty eithout it.

Lynx was the same guy that was rushing the dev team for content during the high of covid

Criterion is made for me, specifically me and no one else. You don't get to enjoy the content. It's all mine.

''oh no 14 is dying'' new expansion drops ''14 IS GREAT AGAIN!'' What i don't get is people complain how being overly positive is annoying, so why don't people understand that being overly negative is just as annoying. its not that hard to get why having the same 3 conversations about the ''lack of content i wanna do, burn out, and i want my big zone relic grind'' everyday, every stream until the next expansion is whats tiring. At some point you have to just go ''we get it, move on or change your mind set''

So let me confirm. This video is about a dude who hasnt played the current expansion, re-subbed to delete his character and proceeds to complain about the game?

I am not sure if anyone has pointed out in the comments but I did notice some things with Lynx's vid/Channel that may confirm some thoughts Xeno said at 36:11 why he could be so bitter about the game. 1. Yes, he stopped making videos for like 1-2 years on FF14 despite being pretty active in helping how to tank and other stuff on KZfaq n FF14. 2. He has another channel he made to have different content to FF14 (But is also pretty dead too, you can find it on his channels tab) and his most recent video was from 1 year ago stating why he was quitting FF14 for good and that one of the reasons why was about his Raid group that he played for years broke down with drama etc. and fell apart and soured the game for him. 3. ^Another reason in that same video from 2nd point is he didn't want to do the youtube grind anymore or do repeated type of videos for the game. So it makes me believe the reason on the video is similar to what Xeno pointed out on why the video feels bitter. Specifically: - To storm in n ride the wave of the "downfall of FF14" videos after taking 2 year break. - Having his raid group crumble and die and made him not want to play the game anymore. (Something negative happened in game) - They were realizing that their content will become repeated and they hate doing that for KZfaq so they ditched it for a long time. (Negative happen to their content)

I don’t think it’s a reasonable ask to expect to build a 40hr/week career out of a single aspect of one game. Either be willing to embrace all aspects of the game fully or broaden your horizons to similar experiences elsewhere.

It's not the core of ff14 players dragging this down but mmo hoppers that has played for many years dragging ff14 down because they will never be satisfied, 8 year veteran myself and sure the game can use some updates but ff14 is booming more then ever

Oh and I occasionally comes across people who THEN try and saw "Oh look at how fun GW2 combat/raid is, look at how fun WoW combat/raid is." and guess what? Because for them, it's a "Fresh, New, Experience." Now tell them to play for as long as they played FFXIV? Give it about 5 years, they'll say the EXACT same thing to those games with what they're saying about FFXIV, and THEN preach about it on other games that they hardly touched.

I hate when people keep saying old FF was so much harder, without taking in the factor that as a human being putting years of time into doing something, of course you're going to get better. But no, people tend to write it off as game ain't as hard anymore. The hardest thing in this game, for the most part, is finding other people capable of learning a fight fast and being consistent. Also, fuck platforming in a raid. Has this guy seen the community in Leap of Faiths? We'd be fucked.

Lynx represents people who want to live their life around playing FFXIV. IMO they added development manpower when the game became successful, but we're not gonna see the effects of that until the next expansion. Because during the start of the boom in ShB, EW was already mostly developed and content plans for the patches were already in place.

People confuse need with want and use their addiction as a motivating factor. This happens in a lot of games that I play. Particularly racing sims where there's more cars to drive than you would possibly be able to do in a single week.

I entirely agree with your proposed balancing of the "Fight Design" cup, because I think a lot of the "midcore" players are also getting bored in part, if not largely because the jobs are beginning to get more simplified, not so much necessarily in how they access their power but with the strict, samey 2-min meta pacing... Also, regardless of type of content, your job is what you take into it, and it should be as engaging as you dare make it (without making it too difficult for casuals, although honestly in casual content you don't need to perform well to clear fights in terms of damaging rotation so don't cater to the lowest common denominator - there's a balance to be struck) will have the greatest chance of keeping players entertained. By all means leave maybe a job per role much more simple and accessible, but keep some that require a bit more effort to master as well.

"Stand and let thing resolve" Shows a mechanic where you have to kill things before they resolve. Genius editing there guy.

They teach you these raid mechanics during leveling so that when you see them during higher end content (now coming at you faster and with added complexity), you can start working out how to resolve them. They do introduce new mechanics, but it has to be mixed in with the old stuff or no one would know what the fukk to do. If everything is coming out of left field, it would be confusing af and there would be even less people able to do the endgame content.

I sorta saw where he was coming from till I realized from people's posts that he got run out of the community for harassing female streamers.... a lot of the examples are misleading even in the clip he was using. He ignored that there was controlled knockbacks IN HIS CLIPS, there was baited stacks to spreads, also using the tsukiyomi normal clip that lmao, even with the stack he was having to dps ads down.... i think he just improved as a player. p8 and p12 have some of the most inventive fight design I've seen. Think about it, like, a savage fight had high concept, an idea that in previous iteration was in an ULTIMATE (fulfilling a requirement to get a phoenix debuff to survive mass damage and get partywide res) and THIS TIME has multiple debuffs you have to juggle in multiple different ways. p12 has people LOCKED on separate parts of the arena and if you're stuck in the wrong spot you WIPE regardless, p12 part 2 has multiple new ideas, and one of the few times you HAVE to esuna in high end content. Idk. Literally the only common type of fight missing from panda I'd say is what. Duo boss juggling?

Honestly it’s getting really tiring at this point. The game, sure it needs some updates to it and it needs more content, but man is the community dragging this to hell. It’s crazy tbh and I dont even play the game anymore lol But excellent video my king Xffing

I really think people need to stop seeing a community criticisizing a game as the game dying. People were criticisizing WoW for YEARS before it actually showed real signs of dying in Shadowlands. It had ups and downs. Do I think the game needs different content with more effort put in? Yes. Do I think jobs need to be more unique in their timings? Yes. However, I think especially with Endwalker we are working off a covid and ff16 deficit.

I love part with Lynx being like look these Zepla viewers agree with her opinion like no shit most of them wouldn't watch/follow her if they didn't. Using ones own viewers/followers is just bad metrics since most of them will typically be your yes men.

The fact that he deleted his character is so extra lmao.

This is 100000% the truth right here. Lynx feels that this game should only cater to hardcore raiders like lynx. He is so out of touch with the community as a whole. He literally dropped a video to talk shit and leave. Xenos point about the game being for everyone is so spot on. You can’t cater a game only to hardcore raiders. Ff14 didn’t survive this long thanks to just hardcore raiders. The rp community, PvP, and other communities all contribute to the overall success of the game.

I think he named few recurrent mechanics like spread, stack, limit cut but he would just add jumping in the list if it appeared 2 or 3 times in raids. Mechanics being recurrent is not such a bad thing, especially for blind proggers, using my past experience to resolve a mechanic the first time you see it is satisfying af, like lightstream in P11S is kind of a reskin of 3rd boss of ASS (in logic) or some fates in Zadnor, or Thaliak doing a mechanic similar to Zodiark. I see creativity everywhere, Rhalgr, Nald'Thal, Althyk & Nymeia, Llymlaen are amazing fight. Zodiark rotation and constellation, endsinger's rewind, rubicante's rotation thing, Zeromus's meteor, Trinity avowed's hot&cold and arrow mechanic. High concept, and classical concept ... All of that are amazing. also it's dumb to value a final product from their basic components. It's like saying phones and cars has barely ever evolved and never innovated because they are all made of scraps of metals, plastics and electronics.

Stand and let thing resolve isn't every single mechanic in FFXIV. Stormblood comes to mind in omega when you have to use the paint brushes. While it's not savage, the shield shits in Lakshmi exists too. The point would actually make more sense if he made up an example of what he'd like to see.

the size of the cup is not only dictated by Yoshi-P's will, but also by: Square Enix's budget (remember that Yoshi-P is not the CEO and doesn't order the money around), size of the dev team and their competence to do what they should, time restraints, etc etc a lot of content creators that know a lot about playing games and not much about making them are talking about these issues that aren't much more than personal bias, maybe if any game dev (even an indie one) who played this game was called to talk about this issue anywhere they could be heard they could finally shine light that, no, it's not as simple as "the devs don't want to give what we want" or "they don't know how to make good content"

Lynx is the guy that also said that players that clear UCoB/UWU don't count as actual ultimate clears on account of them being older, yeah? I get it, the game isn't as it was in the past expansions, but it isn't as plain toast or as gutted as he's making it out to be, just look at anabaseios and top/dsr. It's the same stuff but with more mix of casual stuff for others not interested in those to do.

People are upset at how Squenix allocates their resources to make new content. People were mad when Covid hit and the first thing on the chopping block was the 2nd Shadowbringers ultimate. That fucked over the ultimate raiders. People are mad that the Endwalker "Bozja" was obviously cut for the resource-intensive Variant/Criterion dungeons and Island Sanctuaries. There is content for casual, midcore, and hardcore players. I don't think they should ever change how much content each demographic gets so that another demographic gets something more. They tried to balance it with Variant (casual), Criterion (midcore), and Savage Criterion (hardcore). But there's hardly a reason to do it. It didn't garner enough interest from my perspective.

First criticism 'They follow the formula too much and it got stale' Second criticism 'I don't really like all the new stuff they added this xpac and would have preferred more of what we had in previous xpacs' .... You should probably think through your feelings on this a little bit more in-depth...

I vaguely recall an interview where Yoshi-P explained that he'd love to do more things with FFXIV, but that he can't because SquareEnix does not give them the required revenue to implement those plans, so they're stuck working with what they're given.

I think the Counter system would more or less be the interrupt they added for certain attacks indicated by the glowing cast bar

I saw part of this video last week, and I couldn't finish it. I also saw the xeno clip and was like "hmmm I wonder what he REALLY thinks about this topic." By his own admission, he only speaks up because he thinks ppl won't confront him about his opinions now, and he projects his insecurity on other people. If he(lynx) hasn't played the game in so very long, coming back like this just makes him look opportunistic and bitter. It's almost like his departure was punctuated by an explosion of drama and he hasn't gotten over it since.

the 'everything is stand and let thing resolve nowadays as opposed to the days of paradise' point kindaaaa goes in the trash when a12s is literally the boss forcing you to stand still and let thing resolve (temporal statis), long/short needle (the brute justice clip he showed) is followed by mega beam, super jump, and apocalyptic ray (which are all stand and let thing resolve) lol

I started playing ffxiv last year and I quickly understood it's a game I can heavily play on patches and expansions release then take a break to come back for the next ones. Right now I'm just trying to clear p12s in pf. As soon as it's done I will come back on next patch do what will drop then take a break to come back for Dawntrail

For me, my ultimate moment is when my static cleared shiva. It was our first tier together and the first time I was in charge of a raid static so me being very inexperienced wasn't sure on how it would go. We struggled, but I was so happy when we cleared that damn fight. Even more so when we did it before the lockout ended.

Lynx is entirely wrong about the dungeons being removed. They didn't say anything about raiding, they said they stopped making as many dungeons because it was their least played content so it didn't feel worth it to them to keep that schedule up

I'm what I think people would label a "casual" player. I've never done a duty harder than normal difficulty, I don't care about grinding top-end gear, I don't play the game in a minmaxy sort of way. I love the game's writing and its world. I love the MSQ to absolute bits. As I was doing it I stopped to do every major side story series (normal raids, alliance raids, Eureka, will get to Bozja eventually, that good stuff) and since catching up to the MSQ I've been slowly doing roulettes to level my alternate jobs so I can go through job stories (I then get them to 90 out of a sense of sunk cost, but that's beside the point). I spent ages getting every DoH and DoL class to max so I could see their stories. Outside the MSQ taking a bit of a dip after Endwalker (which is to be expected, Endwalker was the freaking end of a 10 year long saga, you're going to get a little worse to follow that up), I'm ecstatic with the state of the game and its newest updates, the storytelling's great, roulettes are fun, it's like a dream come true. I chafe a bit about being called a "casual" when I've almost got 2.5k hours in the game at this point and I show no sign of stopping, but fine. I get pretty annoyed when people who don't really care about the aspects of the game that make it unique pretend the game's dying and getting bad. FFXIV is unique among MMOs because of its focus on story and the way it caters to players who don't want to smash their head against an Ultimate wall like myself. I'm fully willing to believe that the game's pretty bad right now for hardcore players. That sucks, and it's fine if they complain about that, just as I'd complain if the story went to shit in a patch with fantastic raid content. Both complaints are just as valid, as Xeno says - the game is for everyone. My problem is that framing those hardcore raider problems as "the game's bad, it's dying, it's garbage" is just not accurate. The game's really, really good for players like me, FFXIV right now is the MMO I've wanted to exist since I first tried WoW and which I got incredibly disappointed in The Old Republic for not being. If the next patch fixed all the issues raiders had but had absolutely awful story content and I put out a video about how that means the game's dead now I'd be rightfully laughed out of the room, so why isn't the same the case when a hardcore raider who skips the story does the exact same thing but reversed? I'm willing to bet that there's a lot more players who play the game the way I do than hardcore players would guess. The game's marketed as a classic Final Fantasy RPG that happens to be online, it's openly trying to attract players like me. I don't know what the proportions are but both hardcore raiders and casual story fans are certainly important to the game's health. We matter, my experience with the game matters, and I find it really obnoxious to pretend like the only way to play the game that deserves attention is the super-hardcore way, especially when you have stuff like Yoshi-P literally telling you to unsubscribe, stop giving them money, and take a break for a few months if you think there's not enough content. The message often seems to be "the game should cater more to the super-hardcore raiders, screw the casual players!" when the whole reason I play it is because it's the only MMO that seems to care about the experience of players who want to play the game the way I want. There's a million MMOs out there which cater to hardcore raiders, and it feels like they want the only one that caters to me to stop doing that. Wall of text, whatever, I've been finding these takes more and more often and I find them incredibly annoying, I just wanted to vent.

I think the reason for seeing mechanics youve seen from other bosses is kinda a nice additive to newer bosses. Its a nice twist that and adding new mechanics on top of it. As we progress further on in content we will see nods to other bosses in the future. Its Ffxivs formula.

One thing that is always forgotten is the streamer consumption vs the average majority. 12k hours over 6 years is a MASSIVE amount of time, not even to mention the streamers that play just this game for 8 hours a day. There is no game that can keep uo with that level of consumption. Its fully unreasonable. Is FFXIV perfect? No, will it ever be? Also no, can it possibly keep up with the unrealistic expectations of people that play this game like its the only source of entertainment left on the planet? Impossible.

In my opinion he just sounds like a mythic raider wow nerd while admitting he skips story and other parts that give a lot of that content. The only thing I could agree with him (and you) on is maybe a savage mode of dungeons

Im gonna be honest i wasnt a huge fan of Xeno’s content before now but its actually wild how level headed you are considering all the clips ive seen lol.

15:21 "Did this guy do current raids?" And that's probably why he deleted his character. Cause now we can't check and see. Seems to me he didn't.

Allegedly Endwalker and its patches were already planned out when the whole boom hit, so they didn't get many additional resources for it. I'm hoping that with DT and them obviously investing into the future with the graphics update we'll actually be getting that bigger cup

I feel like some of these people have never played an MMO that is genuinely falling off. It's a poor expansion in comparison to the other expansions (2 min meta and Island Sanctuary grr), but it's still top of the line when compared with 98% of other MMOs. People also need to leave the the early-2000s mindset of being shackled to a single game. It's super unhealthy.

Endwalker's eureka/bozja resources went to island sanctuary. It got updates at about the same rate and schedule they did.

36:13 Lynx made a video on a second channel explaining that something went down with his friend group and he wasn't going to be playing anymore. So you're pretty correct here.

As Ex-WoW Player.. i can say you the "real downfall" will maybe start in.. 10-14 Years? (after someone say "THE GAME IS DEAD!") Btw.. i play sometimes Lotro (nice MMO) and when its almost impossible to find CURRENT class guides even if the rework was maybe 2-3 Months in the past, you know the MMO is in a rly bad shape.. Endwalker is just.. we give the people what the want and now they starts to cry even more, because they get what the want and realized "We are fucking idiots!" but accepting the fact is hurting their feelings thats the reason why the start to blame the devs.

You mentioned something might've happened to this person's raid group that made him bitter. Go to his channel and there's a link to his second channel where he has a video that explains the real reason he quit ffxiv: static drama lmao

I do think that they are going a bit too far with simplifying raid content, Alliance raids should not be cleared without a single wipe on patch day. Plus, a lack of EW relic journey is really sad.

Crystal Tower has interesting mechanics though you never see over half of them anymore. ShB and EW alliance raids are just... find the safe spot. I have to wonder how much of that is because of Duty Support and Trust, because the NPCs are fairly stupid and only seem able to "stand here and let thing resolve," and the fight designers let that creep into the other fights. Personally I love trying to perfect my rotation and greed around mechanics in dungeons, so I don't mind that necessarily; but Alliance Raids should have more cooperative mechanics. I dunno sometimes it can feel like 24 people doing their own thing and you simply hope enough people dodge enough telegraphs to get the clear. I love CT and Ivalice because it's thrilling to depend on other folks to do mechanics to save your life, even if it can get toxic when you constantly wipe on Ancient Flare because people refuse to do it.

So what about the Diamond EX mechsnics where you have to change platforms based on your debuffs, or the boss nuking them.

"Quit when you run out of things to do, come back when new stuff comes" went from a positive to proof the game is dead

this whole video reminds me of that one Duality guy that used to spam every single one video mentioning xiv in comment section with a whole ass essay about how xiv needs things wow has. Just go play the game you want to play, that's way easier than transforming thing A into thing B lmao

The stand let it resolve argument Lynx uses is completely stupid. You could apply that gross over-simplification to pretty much any game

I think his point of boring mechanics are that everything is all the same. Stack, Flare, Tower, Knockback, avoid aoe stuff, etc. It doesn't have a new one coming in besides just a combination of those. Example, in WoW there's a boss that needs a dps check that's not attainable. The way you get around it is by getting a debuff that keep damaging you, but at the same time it increases your damage. It ramps up over time, to the point where you'll die over just one tick. You can dispel the debuff by going to a certain spot. This will drain the healer, but the dps as well cause what used to be just seeing rotation, now they gotta notice their healthbar and debuff stack. In XIV it's all about the dance while maintaining dps properly. But in WoW, it's always a new mini game, even though it finally gets to a point where you can't do it withouot addons, back then it's just pure mayhem and improv. A very unique mechanics that's never been repeated are mostly somehow in stormsblood. The arithmetic robot in Ivalice alliance, the sword repulsion of Susano, Lakhsmi's Vril, Phantom Train shenanigans. These are "unique" mechanics. We need more of these. It need not to be hard. I think Gordias actually dishes out those the most. Carrying robots to lava, pulling out bombs from the crowd, shapeshifting to be gorilla / vulture. These needs to come back

Too many people have taken Zepla's video and taking it way out of proportion, then blame her for the current mood that the community is in. People need to start taking responsibility of their own feelings, actions, and words. No content creator can dictate how you feel about anything.

Angy bald strummer with the most sane takes about how to approach this game Pretty much wording this stuff exactly how Ive been seeing it for years

I don't believe FFXIV is facing a downfall, its just normal for mmos at some point to have a expansion hype die and people not login for an extended amount of time waiting for a minor patch or the new expansion release. And tbh taking breaks is always a good thing, can't play ffxiv everyday every months, can we? And to me ffxiv is still very creative, even to this day the bosses we get to fight are awesome and full of flavor and tbh.. I don't feel like I need more content dropping each expension, to me 13 dungeons, 7 trials, 3 savage raid tier is enough considering all the other things there is to do and the social aspect of the game. And also he says that SE doesn't deliver in terms of new things for how much money they're getting... is the graphical overhaul of 7.0 a joke to him? lol Also, do I have to mention how FFXIV have all the great things people liked in the franchise mh? the housing from FFXI, the materia system from FFVII, the targetting line from FFIX I believe, events giving outfits, hairstyles, mounts from other FF games, story bits featuring other FF characters. There is minions that looks so cool, dozen of mounts when FFXI for example only had a chocobo for mount I believe and it came really late. But not only that: We have the only producer out there that isn't a businessman that will promise a ground breaking experience only to have a shitty game, Yoshi P actually saved this game with his team and still to this very day gives us good quality content.

There are 4 things at the START of the video, that instantly make it seem like an uncompelling mess of a ragebait/burnout hate video. 1. "I love this game like no other, and really want it to get better" -> proceeds to delete character 2. "Content creators pander to the community cause the community cant stand criticism" -> "Zepla's criticism of the game was incredibly well received" 3. Saying that a content creator that regularly shits on parts of the game he doesn't like, is pandering to the community. 4. "For the first time in recorded history, Final Fantasy 14 is currently going through a bit of a rocky period." The fuck is he talking about? Even players that started the game with endwalker would most likely know that this is some bs. This was all in the first minute or two. Intellectual dishonesty, ignorance, idiocy, ragebait, call it whatever you want. THIS is not how proper "criticism" works.

As someone who started playing in 1.x at Ifrit release, all through alpha and beta and continued to play up until the big story finish of Endwalker, I can't help but see the gradual deterioration and lack of innovation in this game. I have been delighted to see actual critique of this game recently. Of course big content creators who make a living out of playing this game will say that nothing is wrong and things are being exaggerated. It is natural and healthy to criticize the game that you like and enjoy, but the community finds it hard to accept, which I think hurts the game more than anything. My statics and FC's have quit playing the game altogether. They are not on hiatus, they are finished. And I've seen that trend in my full friend list in game as well. Personally the game has become nothing more than a glorified chat box. What content is there when all the maps are empty placeholders for gathering spots that you auto-fly while watching KZfaq? When every dungeon is the same thing wrapped in a different skin? When raids are artificially hard because of body checks and no innovative new mechanics? It is no wonder people have quit the game when the content does not reinvent itself. Belittling the issues is not the way in the long run.

UGH I cringe every time someone mentions Zepla... nowadays I think she just loves making those clickbait videos and farming engagement. Isn't she into Genshin Impact or something else now? Like if you're done with FFXIV just go... don't need all these continual clickbait videos going back and for about "I'm leaving FFXIV again" "FFXIV is done" blah blah.... I used to watch her but she was getting like increasingly manic in her videos and they just started shitting on things which turned me off.

"Stand and let mechanic resolve" and "Find the safe spot" is an extreme simplification of the game. It's the same kind of simplification as saying first person shooters is simply point and click, and that runescape is nothing more than point and click. Yes, the vast majority of combat mechanics in their most fundamental form is find the safe spot and stand in the safe spot. Regardless if the unsafe spot is a donut, a circle, a rectangle or square, a triangle, or any other shape. This is so fundamental every single mmorpg has it. WoW called it don't stand in shit. Now maybe there is an argument with less unique mechanics in future raids, I'm not entirely sure if that was case. It's still a much better argument than "mmorpgs are boring because it's just find the safe spot". I didn't pay much attention to that detail. I do recall AAR, heavensward, and stormblood alliance raids having quite a few different unique mechanics. I've only done shadowbringer alliance raids once so far, I don't remember enough details to comment on those ones. Statements like this makes me think there's an inability or extreme hindrance on the guy's ability to enjoy the game. Possibly due to burnout.

That he starts off by labeling it as a niche substitute for WoW says a lot. SE doesn’t set out to make niche substitutes, and by 2.0 14 was better than WoW in almost every way. There’s more to do in 14 than most people ever have time to get to. All I ever ended up doing in WoW was rinse and repeat raids, dreading the inevitable total respec and regemming of my character because the game has, once again, been completely rebalanced for PVP. Some people enjoy feeling like they’re part of some exclusive niche community, whether or not they actually are or ever really were.

The only reason you didnt hear about this AS BAD during Shadowbringers is cause of the mass exodus to the game. All the new players coming in and the excitement distracted from the fact there was nothing new or of significant note being added till Endwalker. I came from WoW, around 6.2-25 is when i started. When i saw past complaints about the slight delays due to covid, how the game is barren towards the end of an expansion, all i think is: 1) ya no duh dude 2) you have it so easy compared to WoW. Imagine just not getting a whole patch/raid tier. Imagine many expansions or major patches getting delayed on a regular basis.

22:34 Huh... A cash shop in an online game. Oh you mean like they have in literally EVERY OTHER ONLINE GAME?

I've played MMOs since this kid was a 1 year old, and whenever i hear someone say "maintaining the difficulty" That is utter complete rubbish. 99% of the time. Classic WoW was supposed to be difficult, then when people went back to play it they realized its super easy. Because people actually get better at games the more they play. Whenever i hear someone thinking they're criticizing a game based on its difficulty, they haven't seen modern WoW to Classic WoW. the game alienates players. Its BAD and WRONG advice. This kid fails to factor in nostalgia and peoples ability to improve. FF14 has very simple mechanics, there is a ceiling to what you can do with simple mechanics. You cant add in "randomness" but this will just alienate players and dying to BS mechanics isn't fun.

I've been thinking this for a while ever since the first Zepla video came out: I think FF14 players want to only play FF14 but are getting bored and/or burnt out. They don't play (or want to play) other games and that's their problem/fault. They're asking too much for any one game. Yoshi-P has said before that it's okay to take breaks between patches. If you do that, you'll be content. Play the patch, take a break, repeat. But it's like players have this obsession (addiction?) of logging on. They feel bored/empty without the game but when they're logged in, they have nothing to do. And I think the simple solution is to take breaks. No matter what you play, you'll get bored of it eventually. And...I think this goes on a deeper level. Like people are letting FFXIV consume their lives; they are replacing friendships and whatnot for a video game and are living life for a video game and that video game becomes their drug. Or maybe they're finally coming down from that mountain High and now see that it's just a video game. PLAY OTHER GAMES, do something else!

My reaction to these "ffxiv is dying videos" are always, "cool story bro, heard that before for the last 6 exp, see you in the next expac... or not, don't care, cuz 14 will be fine. It was fine the last several expansions and it'll continue to be fine, w/or w/out the youtube clout trend chasers."

Seeing comments from Lynx's video all saying they've gotten pretty sick of the game and disliking lacking content and content being anti-repeatable, vs comments in here just shitting on everything about that video...I wonder what the true reality actually is.

31:26 “stand and let thing resolve” And there’s the issues of this guy’s argument, he doesn’t allow for any sort of nuance. That’s like saying all Mario platformers are only “run and jump,” you’re not *technically* wrong but simplifying it all into one box loses what they all have different from each other. The way I see it, he wants to play a different game, so why doesn’t he do that instead of playing FF14?

I have been playing FFxiv since 2.0. I have not felt this supposed 'downfall'...

I like that they no longer make you jump through hundreds of hoops for stuff anymore, and I only like island sanctuary for the cosmetics, also spent a bunch of time running fates just for the thavnairian ribbon. Also as far as the shop goes I agree probably per item it is a bit overpriced and I think the monopoly on jet black and pure white is garbage, plus phantasias but coming from a lot of games that do gacha to the point where even a bikini can cost up to $120 just because of the rng of possibly not getting it the $5 - $20 outfits don't seem as bad for me anymore so that's probably helping work in their favor, I also don't understand what he wants when it comes to mechanics he uses realtime combat games as examples but ff14 is not a true realtime combat game it's turn based with snapshots and realtime movements.

I feel him on encounter design, after raiding for 3 expansions there are very few mechanics that happen and I don’t immediately think “Oh thats just Xxxxx” from another fight. And they are absolutely overusing party stacks, clock spots, pair stacks. I swear half of every fight is just this, P11 made me want to fucking shoot myself halfway through when you hit that point where it just repeats the same shit as the start of the fight for 90 seconds.

As a FFVIX gamer from the other side of the house, my best moments were while doing fashion, FC photos, and decoration errors/ingenuity. FFXIV is great but can do MORE. Some days I enjoy the easy content when I am brain dead from school. BUT I WANT a HARD version of the dungeon, like in ARR there were Easy and Hard modes that added more context to the dungeon. The game felt more alive and difficult and I had a blast ACTUALLY trying as a healer to keep my team alive. Also, we need 200-400 more housing spaces in Larges inside and 40 more outside. AND more season clothing and decoration. Why we being so stingy? Why cant we wear more NPC clothing?

I started playing again, had a break for almost two years. Was around two weeks before 6.5 and there is still a que to log inn on my server Odin. How can the game be dying if there is a que to log in? XD

Game is dying. Meanwhile at Fanfest:

tbf from the single perspective of seeing it being talked over and over for months now, I'd say there is definitely some truth in it

28:00 "stand and let mechanic resolve" something tells me this dude has not done savage or ultimates, where there are multiple mechanics that require constant movement

I think the problem with raid comparisons is that WoW is a VERY different game from FFXIV. WoW's speed, raid sizes, and physics engine allow for very different encounter designs than FFXIV. However, the converse is also true. A good example I like to cite is Wrought Chaos from Mythic Archimonde. Half the raid gets a debuff that causes each player to shoot a laser towards another player in the other half. When they get hit, that half gets the debuff and the process repeats a few times. This was considered by mythic raiders to be mechanically impossible without the use of addons, which is why Blizzard has never done that mechanic again. In FFXIV, such a mechanic would probably be considered fairly trivial to handle.

I'm not understanding his complaint about boss mechanics when he failed to provide any suggestions for what could be different OH YOU CAN JUMP TO ANOTHER PLATFORM - so I can stand and let mechanic resolve over there instead?

Tough versions of some dungeons would be nice. I really like the dungeons in FFXIV, but most of them are just waaay to easy. SE should make 2 versions of the Endgame Dungeons. The normal Lvl 90 version and then a real expert version. Mobs mit more life, more dmg, bosses wth 1 or 2 more mechanics....that would be awesome

Not saying FF14 combat raid mechanics are boring, its just not my Jam. Personally lacks the reactive normal attack patterns and mechanics. I enjoy Lost Ark more due to the reactionary combat system during raids. FF14 has a more scripted and liner fight design to most raids once the major wipe mechanics are figured out. The design choice comes at a limitation in FF14 due to SQEnix's decision to base the game's functional design primarily around console players and keeping accessible to them. Again not bad or good, just core design systems.

i think that what he mean by wanting other thing than "stand and let it resolve" is more interactivity with the encounter, maybe like interaction with some element like a lever to stop an attack from the boss in a arena who is on multiple floor ( just an exemple ) but that just not how ffxiv work, doing this would change everything about the game and combat system. Maybe it's not what he mean and i'm just dumb. Love the cup image btw, really good to explain the fight design in ffxiv.

I remember commenting on their video that they gave you too little credit. You literally DO NOT GIVE A SHIT about getting cancelled by your own audience from a controversial opinion shitting on FFXIV. You call out what you don't like. The difference is you recognize that many different players enjoy different types of content and you don't expect it to cater to just you. You still are blunt with your opinions and (frankly hilariously) are truly honest when you get mad at things and I LOVE that watching your content. Even if I happen to disagree with you or whatever. It's kind of weird but being known as the mad bald man... You're very chill.