ARR is a savior!Follow

If you're not happy with a magazine that publishes new issues on a three-month schedule while sending out smaller e-newsletters in between, then really, you should subscribe to a different magazine that publishes content at a faster rate.

Aside from the initial delay from the server issues, content for this game has been released on schedule. The problem we're discussing seems to be somewhat manufactured... ARR's content schedule shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, which is why I'm bewildered why some people chose to rush through the content as fast as they could.

Please note, I'm not telling you to GTFO and go play another game. However, I don't understand why you're playing this game if you're not happy with the way we always knew it would be updated.

Edited, Mar 3rd 2014 11:01am by Thayos

From my understanding, FFXIV:ARR is profitable... So much so that it pulled SE out of the pits? Maybe I'm missing something.

Edited, Mar 3rd 2014 2:49pm by Valkayree

SE is going to hit their ROI point a lot faster than they expected due to strong box sales (probably about $50 million from that alone), but that's also because the new CEO waved away all the development costs from 1.0 so they wouldn't be counted against ARR since it was a new team.

I think XIV is profitable, in that the operating costs are vastly lower than the revenue, but I don't think they've fully hit the ROI mark yet.

Edit: SE planned their initial ROI numbers based on less than half a million players, iirc.

Edited, Mar 3rd 2014 4:07pm by Catwho

What you are entitled to is open access to the servers when they are up, outside of announced maintenance.

That's the fee you are paying for.

Anything above and beyond that (e.g. new content) is gravy.

You read the title of the page and not the actual article. XIV didn't save SE. It's part of the reason that they project earnings instead of losses yes, but it wasn't the biggest contributor.


I knew there was a reason my roast chocobo tasted a bit dry

There's plenty of content to keep most of my FC going until patch 2.2 later this month.

According do an interview someone linked to on the official forums, patch 2.2 will bring "significant" increases in item levels, but then there will be another two or three patches before item levels are raised again. Patch 2.2 will also have a moderate amount of new content.

Then, 2.3 is going to be another more massive content patch.

For most of us, that's enough content and progression material to be satisfied for the next six months or more. In the same interview, Yoshi-P also indicated they were planning new types of content that would take longer to complete, which to me sounds like "time sink" content for the hardcore population to grind on.

After reading that interview, now I'm excited to get home and play tonight! Also excited to get the ps4 version.

No, she's right in this case. If she only plays two hours a week then she should be pretty easy to please and I'm not really that surprised that she's still enjoying the game. I was trying to make the point that the customers who play more should also be able to feel more satisfied than they do currently.

I don't think Catwho sounds like a player who lacks the ability to complete any of this content, but she just logs in less. So your going on about gamer niches and high brow MMO standards being revolting, etc. is going pretty off topic. She's easier to please because she's played for less hours and therefore hasn't hit the problem that many of us have - we ran out of stuff to do and she hasn't. I wouldn't necessarily call her a casual gamer or having different standards than me just because she's busier though, especially based on her FFXI related posts.

Edited, Mar 3rd 2014 5:05pm by LucasNox

I've probably played way more often than Catwho. In fact, I've probably logged as many hours as anyone in this thread. However, the way I play this game is just... different. I spread out and enjoy everything, I help FC members, I level different jobs, etc.

And I still have plenty to do.

So, it's not just about the number of hours you spend logged into the game. It's about what you do with that time. If all you enjoy is gear progression, but then you rush through the game until you've won the biggest fights and accumulated all of your gear, then of course you're not going to enjoy this for as long as people who take their time and explore all the content, even if that means slower progression.

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I wouldn't go that far.

That study supports the notion that most players play for at least 2 hours per day.

However, the fact that the majority of FFXIV players still log in and play each day tells me the game isn't lacking in content for most players.

There are still two servers as of March 3 you can't create new characters on or transfer to (Moogle and Ragnarok) because they are still overcrowded over 6 months post-launch. Yoshida was saying FFXIV had 1.8 million players as of February. The trolls who are running around saying all the servers are deserted because everyone got bored and left are overplaying their hand.

Catering to the hardcore hunger for content only means developing more content. When you're hungry, you eat. Hardcore players are hungrier for content so they eat more of it. Simple solution? Create more content. It doesn't have to be focused specifically on hardcore players. Lets try to keep it in context.

Forgive me for I only read a few responses since this morning.

I am seeing a common trend: people say some rushed and they have no content as a result left for them. This was OK for me 3 months ago.

I was personally willing to accept the fact that I would have no content if I rushed through the game like I did and so was the rest of my FC. There are always two extreme sides: one who plays very casually (maybe a few hours a week) and is just now getting to the end of the game. Then there are players like me who have been at the end of the game for months. Let's not focus on either of these groups in this discussion because we are the minority of the population as far as SE is concerned. Their goal is to attract the attention of the majority of their population.

Now that I see quite a lot of people with my same feelings approaching this place where I am, it's a bit more alarming. Perhaps some of you (and perhaps even me) are underestimating where that line is drawn for the majority of the population.

Promise I'll read the rest of the thread after the raid.



See this is a problem they admitted with 1.0.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/11/15/interview-final-fantasy-xiv-developers-apologise-to-unhappy-players/

To channel my inner Filth: While this influenced other issues (namely, pushing out an unfinished product), it would be detrimental if they were to follow the same habits and repeat the same mistake.

There are ways to design the game in such a way that it pleases all crowds. Heroic mode-type raids in WoW were the key to victory in pleasing the very hardcore players. I feel like extreme mode primals were their solution to this problem...however, if it can be beaten and farmed within a week of being released, it might need some extra tuning to withstand the test of time.



There are already such encounters that exist.

Requiring time to learn a fight (like you are doing with Titan, like people do with heroic content) is such a time investment. And it does equal becoming more skilled than yourself.

Edited, Mar 4th 2014 2:30am by HitomeOfBismarck