Endgame Post from a JP PlayerFollow

I think there is a way to incorporate randomness without having back to back Weight of the Land (at least not excessively so).

The way to prevent back-to-back yucky stuff in FFXI is monster TP; so no monster - bosses or regular ones - can just unleash back-to-back nasty stuff unless they are specifically scripted to be so.

It is not possible to do that for FFXIV, but there are alternatives. Basically, makes the probability of having a certain WS to be dependent to the one before it ("Markov Chain"). Say after a Titan plume, the probability of having a plume next to it can forced to zero or be some low probability. So what get scripted are the probabilities of Titan WSs but not the order. It is easy to do in coding.

Edited, Jun 10th 2014 12:00pm by scchan

Edited, Jun 10th 2014 12:00pm by scchan

This would never fly in ffxiv. the amount of people that can't get past scripted fights and get suck on fights where there are no surprises and very detailed walk throughs would have no chance beating some of theses bosses that could use all their moves when ever they wanted. Lots of people would find it fun but all the people complaining about content walls would forever be stuck. Just think could you imagine a pug trying to dodge twister while someone is marked with fb trying to dodge then group up for a soak

Sure it's nice that I'll be able to at least see the Levi fight. Doesn't change my issue with the fights or community though.

And yes anyone could get past randomly scripted fights if the bosses attacks didn't intsantly kill you. Please read your context clues!!

Yes, anyone could get past them when they are made to be easier. The more you know..

Because some people want to feel like a special snowflake; they want something they can use to tout their superiority over the "scrubs".

They can't do that, if the content isn't hard enough to keep a lot of people out. That's when they complain "this game is too EZ!"; they don't want to see those "dirty scrubs" actually clearing content because that's less they can use to feel important or special.

You see this type of behavior in every MMO ever that ever had any challenging game content.

And of course on the flip side of the coin, you got the common joe gamer that just wants to have fun, and doesn't like being locked out of a large chunk of the game's content just because he isn't hardcore enough; a lot of these joe gamers have IRL jobs, variable schedules, a family, etc that limits how much they can play.

Then, of course, the "elite" are going to say "then you don't deserve to see the content if you can't put forth the work to see it".

It just goes back and forth, and the same arguments have been done on nearly any major MMO's forums.

So where's my opinion of this?

I like WoW's version. They give you the same content but several difficulty levels. FFXIV kinda does too, but I haven't seen enough of its endgame to really comment on it, I know they've got different difficulty levels for various stuff, but beyond that I don't know a whole lot about it yet and I don't want to say something wrong.

In WoW, though, you got Raid Finder, Normal, and Heroic (they're changing this in the next expansion). All 3 are pretty much the same thing, except for the numbers are tuned higher, and some things were "dumbed-down" in Raid Finder to make it easier for perfect strangers to clear the content with less coordination/teamwork as it is harder for perfect strangers to communicate and coordinate as well as a guild would (especially when you get foreign language speakers in your group which has been happening more these days).

Everybody (well, almost everybody) gets to "see the content", and outside of higher item level gear, nobody gets left out, as the Raid Finder is tuned easy enough that most players should be able to clear it. That way, if an Elite player wants to wave his e-peen around, he can do so with achievements and higher item level gear. Regular Joe can see the locales, the bosses, and the story. Everybody should be happy.

Except, of course, the Elite will still complain that LFR even exists in the first place, but most people know that they're just trolling.

Sorry about the rambling, its just... something that gets brought up everywhere.

Edited, Jun 10th 2014 2:33pm by Lyrailis

It's not like people aren't clearing all the content outside very specific encounters that don't amount to much in the big picture of things.

But, obviously people are going to pass the majority of content and be stuck on the specific encounters that require more skill (and ***** about those encounters). Nothing will change about this until no content ever is exclusive, which just means another group of people will shout there's a problem. Some group will ALWAYS shout that there's a problem. Some group will ALWAYS be driven away by the design decisions.

Edited, Jun 10th 2014 6:36pm by Hyanmen

Truth of the matter is:

The more easily and quickly people can blow through content the more likely people are to unsub and maybe later resub when the next patch comes out. This is why as of late they've been giving us content we can't "blow through" in order to keep us busy until the next update. If content is "slowed" down that not everyone can get through, you'll have your subs working on content for a long time compared to your subs eating up your updates within a week.

With current design it becomes increasingly obvious when people get bored or finish the last update's content that lasted longer (the dungeons usually get worn out within a day or two unless you can use em for tomes.)

Pretty much with ya on everything else you'd posted, but I'd personally lump demanding better gear out of the process as a negative.

"But it's harder.... 'n stuff!" some would say.

Fair, but still generally discounting why people can't/won't partake in the "more difficult" aspects when their individual skill isn't an issue. However, it's pretty much a given that most MMOs these days are gear check after gear check after check. So, lacking alternative routes to the same quality of loot can not only hold people back, but hinder their morale to keep playing.

Coincidentally, the broader content variety and loot options can help slake off a bit of the time sink aspect by giving folks more things to do less often than fewer things to the point of insanity... like myth tome farming for relics. But what do I know, I'm just sick of this "tradition" perpetuating indefinitely because stringing along subs is more important than making the games fun and widely appealing, thus raking in the cash by default.

Evolution <Can I have it?> ;_;

Well, the Hardcore crowd needs some kind of reward for doing what they do.

I might advocate making a game more accessible to the masses, but even I have to stop and admit that Better Skill should equal Better Rewards.

You could make them aesthetic rewards (WoW kinda does this with some of the Glory achievements, mounts and transmog gear), but that doesn't appeal to everybody. Some people love aesthetics. Others don't care about it at all.

That's why most devs go to the "higher item level" route.

And I do agree that there should be more ways to get gear. The more options you have, the better. Let the awesomely skilled people get their stuff faster if they so desire, I dunno. Maybe the "easy" way is more grindy or something.

Again, it is difficult for me to say much of FFXIV as I'm not to endgame yet, but yet it sounds like only a handful of things give you Myth and Soldiery, and IMO, running Brayflox (I've never seen the HM but I have done the original) over and over and over again does not sound very fun. The first few times, yeah sure. But anything will get old after awhile, no matter how awesomely designed it is. Once you've done the content enough times, you just wanna move on to something different.

That's why I'm staunchly against the use of Pure RNG-based progression (I'm not accusing FFXIV of this, just noting this in the 'repetition' thought as the first thing that popped into my head is Warframe); it is far too unfair to some players, where you get the guy who does it a few times and has what he needs, while the other guy can do it 50+ times and still not have what he needs.

Easier said than done, but as I said above, nearly anything will get old after awhile, and a developer cannot reasonably pump out content as fast as people try to consume it. Your average raid tier, or dungeon tier, or whatever only lasts, what, at most a couple weeks without the grind to acquire gear? You can't make a whole dungeon every week to keep the players happy. You just can't do it.

You could add some kind of... I don't know... side-game or something (WoW's pet battles, for example), but some people will get bored of that really quick (and some will outright refuse to do it because it doesn't offer any progression, even though it is sad that people feel that it must be progression to be worthwhile).

People need a carrot on a stick to chase around. There's only so many ways you can keep dangling that carrot in front of their noses and get them to keep chasing it. If you let them catch the carrot, there better be another, better carrot to chase afterwards or they're just going to plunk their butt down on the ground (read: unsub) until a new carrot does show up.

There's PvP, but how many actually do PvP in FFXIV? Probably about as many as there are in XI which is to say almost none (the one time I went to the PvP area to turn in a quest... there was absolutely nobody there, and Final Fantasy in general was never a PvP-heavy franchise in the first place). And even with PvP... there's still that carrot on a stick that people will want to chase.

So... if we're going to change from the time-gated content... what would you propose we do instead? It has to be a carrot for people to chase, but yet there needs to be reason why they don't get the carrot too quickly and unsub. Giving the carrot out in crumbs (Trial of the Magians in XI) doesn't work all that well either; even if the end reward is awesome, it feels crappy if you blow 50 hours on a quest and only get +1 strength or something like that and the NPC is all "Go spend another 50 hours and I might make that +1 strength a +2 strength instead!!"

Yes, RNG is worse than Trials of the Magian, I'll agree to that too.

And I heard they made ToM easier after awhile. Before they did, though, you could wait days and weeks for the right weather combination.

This is more or less it. The rest just involves a spoonful of "Get over it!" for the faux-hardcore (and Hyan) who will inevitably spew their tired lines of welfare, entitlement, and other juvenile insults toward the dirty casuals.

If you're good, you'll get stuff faster. You can gear up more jobs. As jobs increase, so will the minimum time to gear them all if that's your thing. There will still be some element of repetition, sure, but I look at it metaphorically as shifting from eating one big meal a day to 3-4 smaller ones. Granted, you could still only eat the one big meal if that's your thing, but everyone else won't have to.

Overall, crafting and the overworld are sorely underutilized. Housing or even airship building can't and won't sustain the former while the latter can obviously both fuel crafting and churn out other meaningful, repeatable content for solo and low-man alike. We need actual outdoor endgame zones with Things To Do(tm). Expand on chocobo leveling and add other alternative combat companions. Make larger-scale FATEs to not only cut down on congestion against singular objectives, but to potentially influence the related zone(s) and player options as a result (Think something like Campaign and the beastman BCs if the server has its **** together, just obviously not conquest tally locked). Expand the materia system to include ability modifying affixes for all classes. Don't lock **** behind dailies. Who knows, maybe the Hunts will be decent for this, but not everyone thrives on grinding (H)NMs. Relic-esque gear quests for visible armor slots? Could work if you don't kick people in the crotch like with Atmas and tome grinding.

Obviously I'm the enemy of MMO devs everywhere, however, because I dare to tell them to stop doing the same old social engineering **** that just leads to people raid logging, subbing one month out of four in a patch cycle, or just quitting entirely for another game only for it to happen again there. Please look forward to it, guys!

This is why I'm annoyed they strayed from what they had going with Primals, Coil and Myth. All gear was i90, myth took the longest to obtain, but by far the easiest path. Primals depending on groups could be farmed and could provide gear to several jobs. Then you had Coil, depending on luck, could give you multiple items or none, week after week. Turn 5 provided the hardcores with their challenge and rightful loot with i95 weapons and some fancy armor. So overall, everyone was gearing up, but those with the ability to do primals and coil were as you said, gearing up faster and on multiple jobs. How many people were crying about this? None. Sure, probably a few complaining T5 was too hard, but that was it.

To me, it felt like a good balance, and with time, casuals had one or two jobs geared up to start joining some Coil parties. The hardcores had their Allagan weapons, and that was enough to make me go, you lucky #(*$#(*$(#$*(. What the hell would of been the issue with making everything ilvl 100 with maybe T9 offering up some i110 pieces.