When the failed 1.0 version of Final Fantasy XIV (PC, PS4) was taken offline five years ago, hardly anyone expected that the game would develop into one of the strongest subscription-based MMORPGs on the market by early 2018. Revenues are higher than ever, and the numbers of active players are slowly but steadily increasing.
However, the critical voices from the community have long complained about the lulls between individual content patches and their repetitive content.
Will the developers be able to address this criticism in the coming year? What are director and producer Naoki Yoshida and his crew planning for the future of Final Fantasy XIV in 2018?
2017 – The Year of Records for Final Fantasy XIV
The year 2017 started with a bang for FFXIV: At the beginning of February, the MMORPG took home two Guinness World Records at the Fan Festival in Frankfurt. Square Enix continued to build up the hype for the upcoming expansion “Stormblood” until it was released in June, catapulting the number of active players to its highest level since the release of “A Realm Reborn”.
Although the launch was somewhat rocky, a freshly revised job system including two new jobs, the cool story, and tons of new content ensured that the expansion was overwhelmingly positively received by the community. On Metacritic, Stormblood landed with 89% thus slightly above its predecessor “Heavensward”, and the editorial team of Mein-MMO also received the expansion well.
In connection with this growth, director and producer Naoki Yoshida informed Japanese players in a Q&A that a considered merger of low-population servers will no longer take place.
But FFXIV was also doing excellently in other areas:
- The concert “Eorzean Symphony” was completely sold out.
- After the success of the restaurant “Eorzea Café” in Tokyo, another café opened in Osaka in 2017.
- Moreover, the Japanese TV series “Father of Light”, which was localized in Germany by Netflix and is themed around FFXIV, quickly became a hidden gem among fans.
The Updates in Stormblood
With the launch of “Stormblood”, the developers also addressed various criticisms that had been repeatedly raised by the community.
Raid Content for Everyone, Hardcore and Casual
The difficulty of the epic raids was slightly lowered to accommodate the request of midcore players. The goal was to make it easier to get into raiding and to introduce a third difficulty level between hardcore and casual content.
At the same time, the development team released the first ultimate fight “Endless Shadows of Bahamut” in October, which was meant to satisfy the hardcore audience, which it indeed did. Raider Layla Bell, who already has two World First kills under her belt, wrote on her Twitter: “This is the best fight I’ve ever done”.
Other players from the raider community have praised the fight for its high fun factor, and FFXIV briefly landed in the Top 10 of the most-watched content on Twitch thanks to the Endless Shadows.
Overhaul of the PvP System
PvP enthusiasts were also not overlooked in the expansion. In Stormblood, the PvP mode received a tailored skill system, with the number of skills drastically reduced compared to PvE to make it easier for new players to get started and to implement balance adjustments more quickly.
In September, “Rival Wings” was introduced, a new PvP mode for 48 players, strongly reminiscent of modern MOBAs. Despite obvious balance issues, the mode quickly gained popularity, especially among Japanese players.
Community Criticism of Final Fantasy XIV
However, despite all the positive feedback and improvements in Stormblood, there have been continuous critical voices among players.
The “monotony” of the content patches was widely criticized, as the developers have been working for years under the motto “never change a running system”. The content patches are accordingly almost all set up in the same pattern: missions for the main story, one to two smaller dungeons, an 8- or 24-man raid, and some smaller features.
Players also complain about the lulls that begin about a month before the release of the next patch, as they feel there’s not enough content to bridge that time.
Additionally, the steep gear progression curve, which renders equipment nearly useless about six months after release, has been repeatedly criticized by players. This issue has existed since the launch of “A Realm Reborn”, but developers have not yet properly addressed or tackled it.
“Never Change a Running System?” – Near and Distant Future of Final Fantasy XIV
Do Naoki Yoshida and the team plan to address the “chronic issues” of the game in 2018?
For the year, Square Enix has big plans for FFXIV, and the feedback from the community plays a significant role in that. Content Patch 4.2 is already coming at the end of January, bringing, in addition to the usual contents, especially:
- A complete overhaul of the projection system
- Expansion of the inventory
- Balance changes for jobs like Black Mage and Monk
- Group ranking in PvP and adjustments to the “FEAST” mode
All important updates that players have been waiting for a long time.
To combat the monotony of patches, the long-delayed “Forbidden Land Eureka,” which according to Yoshida is content “that has never existed in the game before” will finally be released with the 4.2x patch series. The details have so far been kept well under wraps and will only be revealed in the next producer letter on January 19.
The community’s wish for difficult 4-man content is also expected to be fulfilled in 2018, as well as cross-server features.
Additionally, official PvP tournaments, the next ultimate raid, the assistant app, new PvP maps, balance changes, and much more will be introduced.
Most importantly, however, is the announcement of a fan festival in the USA on November 15, 2018. This was an important piece of news, as fan festivals have always been accompanied by the announcement of a new expansion.
The community can thus look forward to what the developer team has in store for them in 2018, or to put it in Yoshida’s words: “Please look forward to it!”
About the author: I am Echo Mirage: raider, crafter, and community person who has been active in FFXIV for over 5 years. In the German community, some may know me from the Facebook fan page Eorzea 24/7, where I post daily news, fan art, memes, and more and regularly organize fan gatherings for players from the Berlin and Frankfurt area.
