Why do people like this game so much?

>the game is just the most formulaic, safe shit
There you go. Throw in the fact thats its one of the most solo friendly mmos out there, anyone can get into it.

sunk cost fallacy from 200 hours of unskippable cutscenes

This.
That's all the is to it, really.
If you don't enjoy it because of x and y then move on.
Why play a game you don't enjoy? Even if you've already sunk all this money into it, it's not worth any more of your time or effort so stop doing this to yourself.

It's inoffensive. That's all there is to it.
It has a competently (though nothing special) written story that doesn't pull retcons, idiot plots or character assassinations that upset the fanbase all the time.
It has a micro-transaction store but it's limited to cosmetics, and all the "cool stuff" isn't limited to the store, actual in-game obtainable cosmetics get effort put into them as well.
It doesn't have builds and overtuned encounters so there is far less drama about balance (even if it's still there and parsers are still retards).

It being formulaic and safe is part of the appeal, especially when you consider its main competitor having failed in innovation atttempts for 8 years now. When FFXIV gets liveletters or fanfests with patch info or expac announcements, people are actually excited for new content, no one goes "oh no, this wo'nt worka t all what are they thinking?".
The only way WoW is making people cheer lately is by removing stuff people hated rather than adding new things to like.

>those same autismos rally for public exposure
Nah, the less people playing the fucking better. It was comical watching the die-hard inclusives suddenly try to reword gatekeeping when it was blatantly clear they were not looking forward to the WoW community flooding in.

The XIV community acts welcoming, but there is a tangible "fuck off we're full" mentallity.

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Because I can make my brown catgirl do slutty poses with mods

I can fish as a cute anime girl. Unfortunately, there's not much outside of that.

It's easy and I like playing easy games because I like winning. No I have never done an extreme or savage.

You are not wrong, but you are missing the fact that the game has grown in playerbase every single expansion pack.
Your right that only ERP faggots and collectathon autists stay subbed for more than a month at a time but I've been playing XIV on and off since Heavensward so it's not hard for me to understand that mos of the playerbase does the same.

A more accurate description would be something like this:
>New Expansion/patch comes out
>Most People who already own the game resub for one to two months and then unsub for about 3-4 months until the next patch gets released
>Some of these people only resubbs at the end of an expansion after having played the start to maximise how much content they can do per sub
>People who don't already own the game buy it, play for a few hours or a few days and then either turns into the regular crowd that resubs every 3ish months/ every 2ish years or gets filtered by ARR and never play the game again.

I always hated its "balls deep" approach to playing it. There's no gradual progression to paying for it, you're either a free player or you're paying for an expansion plus monthly sub there's no inbetween. You're also either treated as a free player scum or barely tolerated as a paid player. I've never seen a game both want new players and strongly reject new players, it's bizarre.

How so? No one in the community cares if you are a sprout (some even welcome you with open arms) and every other MMO that isn't F2P works exactly like how XIV does.

>The story was fun, couldn’t imagine starting from arr and waiting slowly for it piece by piece but as a whole up until endwalker it was fun.
I caught up to the main story in 2.1. I thought it was enjoyable starting at Titan, but it had only taken me four or five sits to get there. I was enjoying questing and every other MMO I'd played so far before then took so long to level, the fact that I was flying through levels to almost reach the cap so "fast" was encouraging me to play more.
On top of that, even ARR put more effort into its story then literally every MMO I'd tried. As a life-long JRPG fan, I knew it was going to be a slow burn that turned out to be worth it.
Lastly, I think starting out with LNC was a great idea, because the LNC story was good and something to look forward to every 5 levels any time the MSQ started to disinterest me. DRG wasn't AS good, but still turned out to be a lot better than other Job quests.

Final Fantasy XIV is the Gundam Unicorn of the Final Fantasy universe.

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-The story. This is the core of the game, everything revolves around it.
-The music is also very varied, catchy and fits well enough the fight or scene.
-The boss fights feel cinematic and makes you feel the threat that it represents.
-Gameplay wise it's very basic and simple, but rewarding enough to keep you engaged.

Basically, it's really really well presented. You can argue that you personally think it sucks, or you don't like the music or a certain character, but at the end of the day, you cannot deny its popularity. I won't convince you otherwise since you already made up your mind, but I hope you can now understand and if not, then you are probably too 5head for me and everyone else that enjoys the game.

youtu.be/XanSPcQ00eQ

>it's well presented
. _.

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>the game is just the most formulaic, safe shit
You answered your own question. MMORPG players don't really want anything new or radically different, just familiar ideas wearing a different skin.

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Its comfy, simple as :)

I fucking hate the pvp and the pvp community in this game. I was fucking one win away from getting to Crystal and I ended up against with all the faggot cheaters.

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>consistently, aggressively, mediocre
>not WoW
its the MMORPG genre, this is all it takes honestly
you could name things that were a bit more special and stand-out about 100 other MMOs, but also the huge downsides and deal breakers that came with them, so where are they now?

Wildstar had actual unique and interesting classes and science fantasy to stand out in the sea of swords&sorcery, but it was programmed by drooling retards, had 0 atmosphere, and cringe BADASS!!! stylings.
SWTOR had Star Wars, but a dogshit engine and a dogshit publisher.
Everything Korean has Korean grind, P2W, and are handled by retarded NA/EU third parties. Not even something with as good core gameplay as Tera can be saved from it.
Warhammer Online forgot they needed to master networking technology in an MMO and the publishers bailed on it instantly.
GW2, 2bh it mostly serves it's audience ok, it's not a complete fail on this list. But most people in the genre are going to get turned off by the fact there is no power progression and the content is all scatterbrain attempts at trying different things and instantly dropping it - it's mostly a faceroll for rewards that are like being handed a goodie bag from a toddler's birthday party that contains a paper hat and a half-chewed moldy piece of candy,

FF14 is consistently good enough to satisfy as many people as possible without completely destroying itself with overambition or being too hyperfocussed for one type of player.
There's a little raiding, not much, but its decent enough.
Crafting and gathering is alright.
There's plenty of single player pandering, collections, RP/Social friendly stuff like housing.
The world isn't very immersive, but the story and characters are great.
PvP is eh but a bit more passable with CC.

>The drama in this game is crazy. I've seen it all.
This. Legit had a friend that got in an argument with some fag on limsa because he jokingly said that the other character's tattoo looked like shit and everyone started ganging up on my friend, he got reported and suspended for "harassment", it's insane how mentally ill the playerbase actually is.

You can meme all you want, but that doesn't change the facts. That, or you are just way more intelligent that the rest of us user, what can I tell you. You have trascended to a plane above the rest, you have such a good understanding of what is good taste is, that low lifes like me cannot dare to look at you in the eye.

>Good lore
>Good storytelling
>Content for every playstyle be it casual shit like playing dress up, housing, solo challenges, autistic professions, auction house flipping, raiding, PvPing
>And each of these you can do without chores, immediately after logging in
Simple as

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And for the rest of the comparisons
>FFIV
IGLOO
>FFV
0080 and G
>FFVI
X
>FFVII
OG and Zeta
>FFVIII
Wing
>FFIX
G Reco
>FFX
00
>FFXII
08th MS/0083
>FFXIII
SEED

1.0>HW>ARR>SB>SHB>EW
Sorry, i dont make the rules, game becomes more soulless with each expansion.

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>the content is all scatterbrain attempts at trying different things and instantly dropping it
this is GW2's biggest problem. I don't think a sane team would casually memory hole their dungeons, for example.

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Because unlike most other MMOs XIV adapted to the changing times.

Instead of promising "the good old days" like many other MMOs do - without delivering on it - XIV throws a bunch of activities at you that you can do at your own pace without much gatekeeping.
You wanna raid? Possible on most levels with people still doing old content regulary. And current top end gear is something you can get within a day without too much grind.
Just wanna hang out in Limsa or Gold Saucer? You can do that.
You also have fishing, glam posting. mahjong and lots of other stuff to do and people regulary go back to the game for the story alone.
The days where people play a MMO simply to chat and socialize with other people is over. People have discord or whatsapp for that. In order to get people to play your game you have to give them a lot of different things to do and players need to be able to do that content at their own pace. Your game will not succeed if you force players to do things in a certain way - Players will just stop playing your game and try something else. People have less freetime nowadays and every minute wasted on bullshit can potentially lose you a player forever.

At least you know it. Pathetic subhuman. Get out of my sight.

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FFXIV is easily one of the most toxic communities I've ever been a part of. There is zero tolerance for criticism of the game.

People also need to industry you're not really making a commitment for life anymore. There are so many other games to play these days.

Is it really that hard to just play the game, beat it and fuck off like every sane person? If you dig deep enough into any game you will find the same retards. It's more evident in XIV due to the facts you mentiones, but why would you want to deal with that? Are you an ERPer? How do you even get into drama if you are not surrounding yourself with that kind of people?

At least their pvp community is just as toxic as any other mmo and moba considering all the faggots I ran into in their pvp discord.

maybe your taste in gaming is also trash OP.

list me your favourite game.

Feastautists are the fucking worst

I found my wife 8 years ago there.

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Free Trials also nets you a lot of play time so not everyone is even committed to the game.

>I don't like this game so anybody who likes it must literally, unironically be brainwashed! Sheep!

/pol/ is doing a number on this boards denizens

They created the perfect negative example of an online game before it and all they have to do now to make something enjoyable is look and it and go "let's not do that again".

legit fucking baffling how leading up to EW everyone was shitting on how bad Sylvana's character actually is but as soon as the expansion dropped everyone flocked to defending pic related as a well written character.
I dont agree with everything that OP said, but the game certainly suffers from a huge cult like, honeymoon treatment, it's like everything that other games get shat on for doing is praised here and its fucking wild to see.

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You go and 'shout' in chat to a rand person that their tattoo is shit (and I'm sure there were more words than this, you are not fooling anyone, I fucking bet you acted like a retard too).
Then you got called out for being a schizo and reported.
>B-But I dindu nuffin
Yeah right, serves you well for being a retard.

Yea I thought I could find some help and like minded people, but instead what I got were cheaters, tryhards, and redditors. One of them even told me to "cope" after I called how brd and rdm and sam are bullshit with their silence and sam's debuff applying even when you don't directly attack them.

It is a comfy game to log into. The story is enjoyable, and the game always makes you feel welcome. It has plenty of little time wasters that are surprisingly fun. It has the best dressup system of all the MMOs I know and it is very low on the competitiveness scale. All this makes for a home away from home that you can log in any time and just do something and have some fun. It gets infinitely better if you have friends, to do stuff together and just vibe and chill.

go back to your online grooming game fag.

So you didn't understand the character and now everyone that likes her is a hypocrite? Hmmmmm

Everything about Birb's motivations were explained in game and made sense

Nothing about Sylvanas' motivations were explained in game and nothing about her made sense

You're a retard, Meteion is just Hermes' failure.

>Gets called out twice for being a retard.
>Groomer! Fag!
Sure

>'shout' in chat
>I'm sure there were more words than this

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Meteion is just a computer designed by a shitty programmer, how is she even remotely comparable in quality to the decade-spanning dumpster fire known as Sylvanas?

I think most people are lukewarm on Meiteon. It is what it is and they needed a big bad other than Zenos and Zodiark, and it was servicable. At least they took the time to introduce the character and it wasn't 'just' some random space entity.

A lot of people also disliked SB, especially Lyse and Zenos, because the first completely usurped the WoL's role and the latter felt just way too hamfisted. Granted, none of the above is as utterly bad as the writing Blizzard did on Sylvanas.

I normally hate talking about abstracts like 'soul' and 'heart' when talking about games, but I think that's why people tolerate ffxiv's bullshit over WoW's. The way FF is now is how WoW felt back in Wrath. Sure, they don't always get it right, but you can tell that the people working on it actually care and get invested themselves. Contrast that with lots of other games these days where everything feels like it's designed by committee with the help of formulas where they try and solve for "engagement". It helps that the dev team are very visible, it's harder to give people shit when the guy pops up every few months and is just generally cheerful and enthusiastic.

Serves your friend right for not only going to limsa, but also sticking around long enough to exchange words with the creatures there.