LIVE Letter (05/24/2014) Summary and ScreenshotsFollow

I'm certainly not looking to hold people back. Rather, to use the old axiom, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Right now, MMOs err more toward there being only one way, which is usually the whole Raid or GTFO thing. Thing is, for every "no" that pops up for alternative proposals, it's not only removing options, but trivializing preference and effort in a way appropriate to my earlier Nintendo example. If the eventual thought process is the guy at the bottom of the corporate ladder doesn't matter, then how many rungs could we chop off before the guys at the top start sweating? Like it or not, those "losers" matter. They're paying the winner's bills.

In practice, the people "winning" now would still be winning, winning not only more swiftly, but more often. If you want to correlate people getting their priorities straight and dumping content they dislike as holding others back, then yes, that will happen to a degree. Not everyone wants to be the ***** of a "winner" as was often the case in XI's relic acquisition process. Not everyone wants the people helping them to be short-changed, either, which led to a bit of deviance from pure RNG to the token systems we see today. But that's only one step, we need to keep climbing higher.

I could make some cheesy pun that this isn't reality, it's Final Fantasy, but the truth is it's escapism. Let's not start emulating the ****** aspects of RL through game mechanics. Looking up to vets can still be a thing. There can still be lofty goals. However, none of this 1% crap. If 100% of the content can't be accessed and experienced with fair effort, it's not content worth developing. That's not me asking for welfare, hand-outs, or whatever. It's me acknowledging people are different, but shouldn't be treated differently. Let their in-game behavior and the resulting social ramifications decide that.

I use it on my DRG to make that god awful looking Astrum set look like DRG relic set. People that run around half naked in an MMO are more than a little disturbing.

Edited, Jun 4th 2014 1:17am by Turin

What you're saying is on one hand true, but on the other hand to imply that it makes no difference why someone is or isn't "making it" is completely false. A casual player deserves to be treated fairly in a game where he can't have it all. The concept of being treated fairly is rather simple; unlike in the past, you don't get the first-class reward for merely having more time to play than most people. In other words, players are strongly against the time spent being the sole determining factor for making or not making it. Being a second-class citizen just because you have a life is not fair treatment. Being a second-class citizen because you don't have the skill and/or determination to beat T9 is fair treatment. Time is a factor there, too, but it doesn't come down to just time spent grinding money or easy encounters.

One characteristic that describes FFXI players excellently is having no problem with determined no lifers getting ahead of you simply because they are determined no lifers. That kind of nonsense doesn't fly anymore. You either beat the hardest encounter (which is actually hard) or you don't deserve the golden prize. Any sensible casual is okay with this, even if there are downsides, because it comes down to skill (which isn't limited to hardcore) and not necessarily the amount of hours (which is limited to hardcore).

Edited, Jun 4th 2014 11:21am by Hyanmen

You didn't even have to be a determined no-lifer to get a relic weapon. You just had to have a ridiculous amount of patience and run a Dynamis linkshell for four years. I did it while having a fiance and a full time job.

I don't mind if people with more time get greater rewards. In fact, that somewhat holds true in FFXIV. People with more time to play have already cleared content that I haven't had the time to practice and get through. People with more time are also much more likely to find others to form active statics. There are still plenty of benefits to having more time to play.

That said, FFXIV wasn't designed to snub people who have all day to play... it WAS designed as a game that busy adults could play without falling too far behind. I'd argue that Version 1.0 with the fatigue system was more anti-excessive playtime. People who have more time to play in ARR aren't penalized in any way... the game is simply more viable for people with less time.

While your post was funny, I slightly disagree here. The tome system is designed much in the way that capitalism is.

Work hard, finish the job, get paid.
You suck, job remains unfinished, you don't get paid.
Work a lot, get more pay.
Use pay to buy things to help you do better.
Gain experience to finish the job faster.

If you are sporting a leviathan weapon, you got past titan ex. Not everyone gets that trophy.