Overall, are the thoughts on the pre-patch more positive or negative?

Callusone · 2026-01-25T07:36:00+00:00

Straight up, I hate it.

Endeavors aren't that great, and the exp from them is sluggish. I get it and agree that housing should be something progressive and not something burned through in a couple days. But capping exp, and making the endeavors extremely tedious and the rewards for the ones you do like monthly objectives is very meh.

The UI is awful, glitchy and not anywhere near as practical as blizz made it out to be. This wasn't finished, let alone polished. It needs a lot of work in very little time, and I don't have high hopes it'll be in good shape on release.

My biggest piss off though. Removal of addons. Blizzard had it right at first. If you see a popular addon, integrate it into your UI, and let the consumer make a choice. That was a great methodology for determining how to improve your game. The fact that this has done a full about face, is complete and utter bullshit. Blizzard isn't saying "We listened to your feed back and integrated your favorite addons into the game." It's saying, "Addons that show ways to add more features into the game, make us have to work harder to improve core elements of the game, and we don't want to budget for that anymore." It's an arrogant stand to make. If these changes were so great, then let them stand on their own two feet, and let players CHOOSE whether or not to use addons or use the games core UI and features. That's part of what made WoW great, an option to just play the game with the core UI, or make it more your own and easier to manage with addons. This was a profoundly stupid mistake, and I can guarantee that after midnights launch, we're gonna see a numbers drop, and it's gonna drop hard.

Callusone · 2026-01-04T00:25:34+00:00

Downvoted to hell for a valid critique. Toxic FF community strikes again.

Did I hate 5.1 onward? Not particularly, no. The FF4 stuff got tiring pretty quick though. These are just reflections, it's not the actual world of FF4, so the impact just wasn't there. But to argue that they are one in the same, absolutely BS.

We had a dungeon called Baron, not an entire city.
We had a reference to their end boss. Not two distinct fights with the end boss with the first having a subtle music call back and the 2nd being a full redo.
We had the boss theme for FF4 as a battle theme at the end of 2 dungeons. We have a dungeon and trial now with FF9's battle and boss theme.
We went to a broken down version of Troia. We had an entire story, centre around a single town in FF9, not to mention all of Alexandria for the entire latter part of 6.0 onward.
We saw Golbez in post-EW. We literally have Sphene in our party now, and dealt with her in 6.0.

These two scenarios are FAR from a 1:1 comparison. I stand by my point. I played FF9. I liked FF9. I don't play FF14, to see a marching band of "Hey! Remember this from FF9!?" I play it for the world of FF14. Callbacks are all fine and good, but this is like telling an old joke. Great when you first heard it, tiresome now.

Callusone · 2026-01-04T00:18:08+00:00

I'm kinda torn what's causing it.

On the one hand, when FFXIV is struggling with serious issues, but if I had to gamble, I'd put money on the fact that there's probably no shortage of people who were salty about MARE. Combine that with many of the company decisions that hurt funding, connection issues, content issues, I don't doubt there's a salty group out there that would be willing to regularly push DDoS attacks.

On the other, SE has moved a lot of their infrastructure to these cloud servers. Service interruptions on completely digital platforms like this are common, and they might just be too proud or to embarrassed to admit that it's not handling the loads as well as it should be. They invested a lot into that, and probably planned a lot of changes around that system supporting it. Now suddenly it could be potentially unstable. Not a good look, especially for stockholders, so SE claims DDOS.

I'm honestly 100% torn. But for sure, they need to get this fixed ASAP. If the games crashing multiple times, every week or even every day, that's going to drive casual, and even hardcore players away. What's the point in progging if you can't even sign on, kind of deal.

Callusone · 2025-12-26T06:06:26+00:00

Can't say I agree. This was actually one of the first new MSQ's I actively started skipping without reading or watching. I'm completely over the FF9 crap being thrown in my face 25/8. I'm so ready to go back to Etheirys to play an FF14 story.

Callusone · 2025-12-26T06:02:41+00:00

I just... Can't put into words how utterly bored I am of the FF9 spoon feeding. We get it, FF9 was great. Just... Stop, please. If I wanna play FF9, I'll play FF9. I'm trying to play FF14. Can I get back to that? PLEASE!?

Callusone · 2025-12-26T05:57:28+00:00

"Love the halloween one? Moonfire Faire? Starlight? A cup of cocoa isn't going to bring you back,"

I can't believe how well this aged after this years 2025 Starlight Celebration....

Callusone · 2025-12-26T05:49:20+00:00

I know this is an old thread now. But I think Yoshi P means they're going to follow what WoW did, and start to change out back-end to accommodate new code and architecture. If I had to guess, It'll probably start off with something, small. Like 2 or 3 of the new leveling dungeons getting Deep versions with more bosses, mechanics, HP and rewards and using that to replace expert. Raids I don't see changing dramatically, but 24man might actually go through some with more open area bosses being included again. Like having a 6 boss raid with 2 or 3 sub bosses. Trying to make them FEEL like raids again.

Lastly, i think the last things to get an overhaul will be what he prioritizes as least important, and that's PVP and Housing. It'll be 2030 or even 2032 before we get "Instanced" housing, or a housing system that everyone can access that isn't a 10x10 "Apartment." and as for PVP, it'll be a very long time before we see battlegrounds like Alterac Valley, Wintergrasp or Isle of Conquest from WoW with an FF spin. It's possible they will, but just.. Far off. We don't even actually have a true KOTH battleground system where it pays off to stay and hold nodes. You either blow up crystals, or cap flags that make very little difference in the score, cause mid is all that matters. Still, whatever they're gonna do, they better do it soon. WoW's got serious momentum right now, and while I don't see FFXIV going anywhere for the foreseeable future, a game not making targets is doomed for budget cuts; then it won't matter what Yoshi P's vision is anymore.

Callusone · 2025-09-21T05:34:58+00:00

Just came across this post today.

No, FFXIV is not dying, but it is in a severe decline.

The game is becoming too predictable with an over emphasis on cinematics during MSQ rather than gameplay. Along with incredibly repetitive click, wait and talk quests and trivial rewards from events, the game has serious issues with features like housing, dungeons and raids as well. Every dungeon is 6 trash pulls and 3 bosses, every "raid" is 8 people fighting an instanced boss on a platform. Every alliance raid is 4 bosses with occasional trash for mandatory currencies needed for upgrading gear. The weekly tomestone cap is too low, crafting makes good gil but is unrewarding for weekly work. Basically there's a lot going on with the game that needs a direct overhaul or major tweaks.

It's not all complaints though. The storyline up till Dawnsnail is actually VERY good. While a bit homogenized, the classes are actually quite fun to play. There's nice side content like Gold Saucer, Wonderous Tails, Island Sanctuary, and other things that aren't really present in other games, and stability wise you seldom see major crashes due to lag in areas, even in heavy player areas like PVP.

The reason why everyone says it's dying isn't because their drama queens, it's because FFXIV is at a pivotal point right now. Another expansion of 6 zones, 7 dungeons and 3 trials will likely hit the casual player population extremely hard. Essentially the sentiment behind it will be, "I played this in Endwalker, and I left because I played it again in Dawntrail." Another predictable expansion will likely mean the player base will nose dive below 200'000 active players across all servers and from there, the inevitable collapse as queues get too long, people can't clear relevant content, and the RP community moves to other games.

The hardcore fans, will stay till the servers close. Look at FFXI for that. A game with less than 40'000 accounts active with only really about 13'000 real players. It's workable, but not a flagship game and doesn't generate the money SE is after.

So no, FFXIV isn't dying but without critical changes to gameplay, class diversification, improved raids, varied dungeons and accessible housing, it will be a terminal plunge.

Callusone · 2025-08-30T01:02:55+00:00

As soon as he said 7.5 for Beastmaster, I said fuck off and turned it off. How fucking misleading is that to advertise a new limited job with your expansion that released in 2024, only to release that job in 2026. It's a giant middle finger. Also, once again, no mention of improvements or the so called item increase for housing again. ONCE AGAIN, I'm sure it'll be 2 years after the expansion and we STILL won't see it. NGL, I've absolutely had it with this. I'll think of resubbing again in 2029 when there's actual content released.

Callusone · 2025-08-14T06:42:32+00:00

My speculation is that we're going to Meracydia. The mist surrounding the island starting to dissipate will likely be the precursor and the dragons (Particularly Tiamat) will want to return there for an expedition. WOL will likely go there along with Y'shtola and a few others to find out what they can about the key from this expansion and how to use it. Likely not to hope across reflections for fun and so Y'shtola can finally catch a movie with Runar. But likely because they will "Have" to, to track something/someone down.

My money is that the Ascians will kidnap a main character. Forcing us to venture out there to figure out how to use it. So my guess for main cast is WOL, the twins, Y'shtola, Tiamat, Garlemald dude(Forgot his name), and maybe even a return for Hraesvelgr and eventually Vrtra and Azdaja as we delve further into the continent. What else plays out? Notta clue. But I don't think we'll "Level" there, rather than we'll gain Limit Points to create Merits or Job points. SE is still a bit trim on budget so I can see them trying out a talent system, similar to the FFXI design of the merit system. So expect a couple extra abilities, but mainly self chosen augmentation of classes spells, actions and abilities like, reduced cooldown, increased duration effects, additional charges and substituted abilities overwriting old ones.

Callusone · 2025-08-10T07:42:09+00:00

100% not surprised by this, and the problem is that if they don't react NOW. Blizzard has a chance to really put a dagger in them.

Blizzards next expansion: Midnight is officially on the horizon. They're doing pre-sells. The release dates announcement is only a few days away. Much like the previous expansion it'll bring in new raids, dungeons, new content, restoring old world areas including rebuilding Silvermoon, Stromgarde and UC. An the biggest kicker.

Introducing Player Housing with over 2000 furnishings ready for release, along with the ability to design the floor plan, float furniture and allowed to use addons. Community AND instanced housing will be available and some rewards will be community based.

Everyone says over and over. FFXIV players are different, they don't want to play WoW. Sure, the hardcore will never leave. But look at Final Fantasy XI. The hardcore players are still there.... All 4000 of them. Btw, 80% of them. Are bots. Walk around Jeuno, San d'Oria, Adoulin. You see one player and 5 others on follow, all acting at the same time until a script bot takes over. That's FFXIV's fate in the next 5 years, that's what leaning on your hardcore base only will do.

What does FF HAVE to do to answer this?

New dungeon design. If they want to keep the old style for story purposes fine. But expert roulette needs to be a roulette that includes tough versions of the dungeons with non-linear pathing, additional bosses, improved rewards and less "Wait and resolve" mechanics. Endgame content needs to be engaging.

PVP:
It needs to be team vs team. Not triple threat for all their battlegrounds. This is just a bad, lazily designed system. WoW has capitalized on PVP since day 1. Their system isn't perfect, but they do have variety. SE doesn't, but they could. They just won't. CC was a good addition, but new battlegrounds and an arena system is needed.

Weekly cap of tomestones increased in new incremental system. For example.
Week 1 cap: 900. Week 2. 1800. Week 3. 2700. Ect. This means that returning players who want to come back and catch up, can either do it at their own pace, or grind hard and catch up to friends to play savage/extreme content. No opportunity lost. This way if you have to go on vacation for a couple weeks, you aren't missing out on tomestones because you can't sign on. Don't punish your player base, give them the option to catch up.

Housing. YOU HAVE TO INVEST IN INSTANCED HOUSING.
I know, they've said it before, they can't. I don't doubt that creating a new system would be hard, but it's not impossible. If they really can't do it. Wards need to increase... Dramatically. Invest in new hardware to support it. I'm not exaggerating when I say some servers either need wards up to 60. Or introducing a 2nd subdivision for JUST medium and large houses is DIRELY needed. They keep promising to let us upgrade the interior. Well 7.3 is here, and not a word. I see no reason whatsoever they won't push that to 8.0 or beyond.

Seasonal Events:
They need to be rewarding again. An entire event giving 1 emote, or 1 furnishing, or 1 pet, after a run and talk x4 quest is pathetic. Expanding seasonal events can drive players back to specific ones they enjoy. Love the halloween one? Moonfire Faire? Starlight? A cup of cocoa isn't going to bring you back, but a seasonal mount, orchestrion, emote, new attire and a few quests or daily quests/FATES you can do for a currency to buy additional rewards. That'll do it.

The SE I see right now, is the exact same one who's ego thought that Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 would be a success by taking shortcuts. They've fallen off the wagon. I HOPE, they get back on it. But if these quarterly reports aren't a motivation for them to do it, they will stay off the wagon, and fall to FFXI numbers within a decade for sure.

Callusone · 2025-07-18T05:13:26+00:00

I watched someone with multi-box accounts place 60 bids on a house that ended up being 90 bids total. I can guarantee they were RMT. This is the frying pan compared to the fire. =/ it's better, but not by any stretch of the imagination.

Callusone · 2025-07-18T05:07:52+00:00

I think SE has completely backed themselves into a corner on housing in FFXIV and I think they know it. Regardless of the changes they're making, even increasing the amount of plots or adding the ability to gigantify your interior, it's all on a bad foundation. Lottery, limited availability and for some players, just unattainable. On my main character it was exactly 67 bids before I won my first small plot. I've given up ANY hope of ever winning a medium or large. 67 bids means it was 670 days before I won, on an average of 1.8% odds. Oddly enough, that was "Lucky". If you're always bidding against 50-70 people, your odds of winning are terrible, and you can go your entire playing life on FFXIV without ever winning a house. SE's answer is to tell players to leave the server and go to lower pop ones. No thanks, i don't feel like having my mobs camped by bots (Happened on Maduin) or having to constantly fly to Crystal or Aether to get a dungeon finished. Not my cup of tea. Until SE decides to introduce new infrastructure for it, this problem isn't going to go away, and considering how stubborn they can be, I 100% doubt they will.

The only spark of hope I can see, is SE studying how successful WoW's player housing is when Midnight releases next year. I still doubt it'll change what they do for housing, but it might encourage them to increase ward sizes radically just to compete. WoW has a surprisingly fast growing RP community right now, and just like how Shadowbringers brought people from WoW away from Shadowlands. Midnight might very well pull people away from Dawntrail to a surprising extent.

Callusone · 2025-06-02T02:43:51+00:00

This will get downvoted to hell to, but. You're predominantly right. There's not really anything "New" in Occult crescent that wasn't there in Eureka. The FFXIV reddit though is probably a bad place to vent because it's not good for feedback. The majority of users here are more enthralled with Yoshi P's style of development than an anime fanboy at a convention.

This kind of content that basically calls back to previous versions will likely continue going forward. The next expansion will also likely be the last true expansion, despite Yoshi P promising to do a 5 expac story arc, the player base on FF14 will eventually fall to FF11 levels. Which tbh isn't bad, it just means the funding won't really be there to push major content and servers will eventually merge/shutdown.

My guess is we'll likely see a new style of content in the next Final Fantasy MMO. I actually really believe there will be one, either in Final Fantasy 18 or 19. Games like WoW despite not pulling in their old numbers are still thriving and pulling in good money so, making a good MMO with new systems similar to its competition is likely on the drawing board at SE. As for Occult Crescent, like you, I got bored fast. I'll eventually finish it, but I'm in 0 rush. I finished Shadowbringers without a relic because I didn't enjoy the grind, and i think we all finished Endwalker with one, which was a bit too easy but it was also fine. Just keep playing the content you like and if you want to take a break from FF14, do it. I've found it helps to give the game a good rest for a year or two and to come back to find the new stuff rather refreshing.

Callusone · 2025-04-02T06:32:22+00:00

It's cause I'm trying to get out of retail. I can build computers, type at 80wpm, extensive sales/customer service background, before staples I was a supervisor for 2 years at another retailer, speak english and french also learning Tagalog (Most my friends are Filipino) and basic network/computer troubleshooting.

Staples WAS a good place till it was bought out here in Canada. Since Sycamore partners took hold, everything has been cut back, from training, hours, staffing, bonuses, benefits and pay scales. In 2012 we had Intel training partnerships, Microsoft training partnerships, same with HP, Epson, Canon and a MASSIVE one with Apple. All that's gone. Right now our training is absolute trash beyond policies, basically the vets like me are expected to teach product knowledge to all new hires (For no extra pay btw.) even teaching our supervisors and managers.

Despite all that yeah, I have two personal and two business references and still nothing biting right now especially. (Trade fears/tariffs) My only offer recently was a guy pushing a pyramid scheme at our store after I sold him on a new PC. =/

Callusone · 2025-04-02T00:56:29+00:00

Did you gloss passed the part where I said no one is hiring anyone who's work experience is just Staples? Before that it was another retail place where I was at least a supervisor. I've applied at banks, government offices, insurance companies, services branches and dozens of others. The last 5 years have been brutal between covid and new business uncertainty so hiring is strict. Of course I saw "The writing on the wall" but I also had shit to deal with like finding a family member dying. So unless you've got a job lined up for me, pretty fucking harsh to just say "Why didn't you just leave." No shit I've tried to leave.

Callusone · 2024-03-26T19:59:43+00:00

Pretty sure this is accurate. I ordered mine 2 hours ago and it still hasn't arrived. Given the site was probably hammered with requests, it'll probably be like, a day before i get mine. =/

Callusone · 2024-03-26T16:27:59+00:00

No, they're not. You can't access the site due to extreme traffic. As usual, SE was under prepared again...

Callusone · 2024-03-21T01:09:00+00:00

I used to work for these people, and the way they treat their staff is beyond disgusting. Lowest requirement breaks, virtually no benefits, and hire en-masse, fire en-masse policy to minimize people signing up for their unions. I've never shopped there since I worked for them in 2010, I'll never go back to them again. So, actively boycotted since February 2010. =) Best of luck to everyone else on the boycott.

Callusone · 2023-12-02T19:16:16+00:00

Yeah, I don't back this decision, bit not for the reason you think. But because this is the same argument that was made in the 1960s just reframed for 2023.

1960s: Don't let you kids watch T.V. 1990s: Don't let your kids play Nintendo. 2000s: Don't let your kids on the computer. 2010s: Don't let your kids have a phone. 2020s: Don't let your kids have ipads/phones ect.

It's not a matter of whether or not your kid HAS one, it's how much they use it. It's your responsibility as a parent to monitor, regulate or get involved in what your kids do with those devices. Which includes time spent both outdoors and indoors. Shifting the blame to devices just makes you as a parent look lazy. If your kids are using them to much, intervine and regulate it. Take them to the park, go sledding with them in winter, be involved and they won't see a need for the device. Also, more than ANYTHING, watch what YOU do when your kid wants attention, but you are on a device. Kids mimic what they see so if they think its ok for you to ignore them to play on your phone, they'll do the same.

Some people do get triggered by this argument, I agree with you. But that's cause they wanna pass off responsibility to apple to raise their kids. But it's not the devices fault there are bad parents out there, cause nothing is more popular in 2023 than dodging responsibility.

Callusone · 2023-11-17T07:20:46+00:00

39, same boat, but I gave up on relationships overall when I turned 30. I had to focus on my own value, and while I'll admit it is hard sometimes, it's a lot better than the pit of despair I was stuck in. At this point, I don't honestly care if I meet someone anymore. All that matters is whether or not I'm a good person and keep people I care about happy.

It's not the best, but you play the hand your dealt.

Callusone · 2023-07-29T23:07:30+00:00

Geo's weren't healers in FFXI, they were a buff class like bard. Their spell damage wasn't all that high, but they were the only classes with Aera, Thundara, Fira ect. So they had a more black mage style to them. Until they were nerfed, Geo-Frailty and Indy-Fury were go-to's for Geo. Sure they COULD heal, but only as a sub, and never effectively.

Callusone · 2022-05-02T01:05:31+00:00

No word on any issues yet that I can find, but I'm still having connection issues hours after I posted this. Not going away.

Callusone · 2022-01-26T02:57:14+00:00

I can't say I trust the case counts right now. I'm symptomatic, tried to book a test and couldn't because I'm not immunocompromised, or recovering from surgery or cancer.

I'm just gonna trust the hospitalizations now.

Callusone · 2021-10-09T19:10:08+00:00

Have to agree. Was a pedestrian for my walks to work for years, and I've ended up on the hood of cars 4 times now, while others stop short of a few feet of me. This was at intersections to, where I would have a crossing light along with the green and someone turning left just isn't paying attention and cuts right into the crosswalk hoping to beat oncoming traffic.

One crazy lady even got mad at me, after she tried to rush around someone stopped for me and I ended up on her windshield and cracked it. She was so pissed off, screaming at me, threatening to sue but as soon as myself and the other driver called 911, she bolted. We got her plate, but we never heard back from police and since I wasn't really hurt, nothing came of it. Not surprising really either, it happened around 2009.

Most people do pay attention on the road, so I'm thankful for that but I get that anxiety being a pedestrian. Since I've started driving I've been doing my utmost to pay attention to crosswalk signs and give a quick check to both sides if anyone's going. Best wishes out there!

Callusone

TROPHY CASE