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I finally won't have to raid to endgame!Follow

#327 Nov 02 2015 at 4:22 PM Rating: Excellent
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Speak for yourself.


I agree that "nobody wants to" is a poor choice of words.

I'm neither a spokesman for the game nor its players... I'm just one guy. And your rant is very much appreciated!

That said, "nobody wants to" is the simplest way I could think of to get my point across, which is that most players in this game don't want to deal with (or appear to not want to deal with) grinding through hardcore raids. I think that's a very safe assumption, and here are a couple points of evidence:

1) If more people wanted to grind these raids, then we wouldn't have such a high rate of unsubscribers between patches... they'd still be here grinding for the higher item levels they don't yet have.

2) SE's own data has shown that only a small percentage of players has actually progressed through hardcore raids.

I've got plenty of anecdotal evidence based on my own personal experiences, but none of that is needed to make my point. The two items above really speak for themselves.

And before anyone tries to say that Alexander NM has killed raiding, I'm gonna preemptively call BS on that. Yes, it's true that NM has put a dent in the number of people running Savage, but SE's own data has already shown that not many people did coil. It's illogical to think that we'd suddenly have this massive shift in player motivations that would lead to a sudden playerbase-wide interest in hardcore raiding.

If anything, the fact Alexander NM took away from Savage mode only goes to prove my point. People would rather run a more forgiving raid that doesn't require huge amounts of face-to-wall bashing than run traditional "hardcore" raids.

And that makes perfect sense, because this game was designed to appeal to casual players -- again, SE's words.

Perhaps a more long-winded thing to say would be "Most people in this game are not hardcore raiders. They either find the content to not be fun, or they're unable to progress through it because of how it's designed. Therefore, this content is only used by a small percentage of the game's players. And then those players get upset when there's not more hardcore content for them to do."

I normally try very hard not to speak for other people. In this case, though, I believe what I'm saying is pretty darn safe. In fact, I'd say it's even common sense. I'd be much more alarmed if someone was trying to portray this game's playerbase as being hardcore.


Edited, Nov 2nd 2015 2:31pm by Thayos
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#328 Nov 02 2015 at 4:34 PM Rating: Good
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The whole time someone runs a easy dungeon a dozen times in a day and gets as good of gear before someone in coil. It is easier to gear up not doing hard end game for the same results. Why would some one do something like coil other to say they beat it or for the sake of beating it? That aint enough reason for most. Makes no sense someone can gear up faster on easy content than hard content and also have just as good of gear.

Going to approach this from a few angles.

First is that we must acknowledge some people raid solely because it's the only source of character progression they can find. They may hate it, but still want their characters to grow, so they do it. Introduce something else they can do and hopefully enjoy (at least more) and it's possible they'll drop raiding entirely. I frequently sense a general uneasiness within the raiding community because they know a fair number of people would fall into this category, subsequently making it harder for them to field the needed bodies for a full run. Cynically, I feel like this needs to happen just to prove the ultimate point that the 10-15% who succeeds in this stuff isn't the majority despite all the development resources it takes to placate them.

The second approach is you'll have people who will do both, raiding when it's time and dungeons/whatever when it's not. The hardcore would gear up quickly, yes, and might even complain there's nothing to do a month into the patch cycle. I don't really have sympathy for these kinds of players even if I may occasionally fall into the same trap. Still, this is where being able to gear up multiple classes to the high end would be advantageous. Someone may still prefer one, but their versatility expands if they can help fill in the gaps with others. This somewhat "fixes" the problem brought up in the first point, assuming role availability (often tanks or healers) is the issue and not manpower.

Third, what should come of tackling the harder content is a mix of speed in acquisition and vanity perks like costumes, pets, mounts, furniture, and titles. I've been on the record repeatedly stating that no single item in an MMO should take more than a month to obtain. In the raid scene, this frequently amounts to acquiring gated currency and after so many weeks, yay, you're guaranteed at least something if a random boss drop doesn't favor you. If we consider the amount of equipment slots people are running around with, even something like a week per slot is a long time of grinding for a single class, barring possible cross-over. The trick is to obviously find that happy medium between time and manpower, with respect to possibly abolishing access cooldowns outright. And not to be all broken record, but this is more readily achieved if you shift progression to crafting instead of completed mob drops with currency used to buy the same mats at respective prices (and likely requiring a clear of their source).

But really, we need to avoid throwing artificial game overs at people just because their preferences or life doesn't allow for one rigid method of play. I'm not a fan of Hard Mode dungeons after the fact, either. Yeah, they may change bosses, behaviors, and maybe layout slightly, but it feels more like corner cutting on content production, sort of like how we got multiple Primal tiers. But like raids, tackling these would be a faster approach, and likely undertaken once you're a bit in the gearing process as is. Nonetheless, after the nth time, it all gets kinda blah. So, yeah, further why I want elements of randomization in maps/monsters.
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#329 Nov 02 2015 at 4:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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If you want someone to do the content, you should make the content enjoyable, not try to pass it off with a bigger carrot. Carrot's the bonus. You can only make a piece of content so terrible before the majority of your players go "nope" - and we're seeing it - that's why this conversation is even important in the least.

Raiding sucks right now so they're worried that anything more that offers anything comparable will suck the life out of their already poor showing - there does not even need to be the patch, or the evidence of it happening, to incite the panic. Just the scare of it.

But they're equally scare of losing their precious 'challenge', and adamantly defending their 'Hard' difficulty. Even though the highest droprate for Exploration Missions would be contained in a challenging version (ala Diablo Series). So it's not as if those who tackle challenging content are being punished here. They're still being given the advantage. Players of a more casual nature are just not hard-locked out of the loot now.

There's no point beating around the bush. This is veiled elitism. If it was a matter of 'populating the content' then the problem would be with the content, not the rewards. Be it how the content rewards people, how the difficulty of the content is received, what have you. That's a separate discussion. The 'base value' of the 210 gear is not the issue here - never was. Those that take up that route are just stubbornly holding out to an elitist ideal - alternative forms of reward don't even come to consideration with them - and honestly that's where the major sticking points with me lie. Prestige can be gained through other ways of showing off.

This idea of "Character Progression" as an excuse to isolate out content rewards is bull. Again, you don't need a singular method of getting current gear, especially considering how quickly this gear gets recycled. The fact that there is more of a variety soon to be available devalues nothing. It's not as if I can get a piece of Alexander Savage gear from this. What's unique to Alexander thus far STAYS unique to Alexander.

With the exception of clearing dated content, Progression really means nothing in this game. So if we're talking about rewarding challenging content, perhaps we should focus on things not related to a character progression that just flat out resets over and over again.


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First is that we must acknowledge some people raid solely because it's the only source of character progression they can find...

The second approach is you'll have people who will do both, raiding when it's time and dungeons/whatever when it's not....

Third, what should come of tackling the harder content is a mix of speed in acquisition and vanity perks like costumes, pets, mounts, furniture, and titles.


Yes, yes, and yes. Raids alone should not be, bar none, the only method of getting to max ilvl. The fastest route should be playing a variety of content - which, IMO, that variety should exist from the get go. Currency, Exploration, and Raiding should all have access to their respective gear sets at about the same time.

Yes, someone may strike jackpot on the lottery and get quick 210 set from Exploration Missions with perfect stats superior to all else doing nothing but Normal Mode. I may also have a supermodel walk into my room sometime tonight and want me to father her children clear out of the blue. The chances of that happening, however, are likely very similar to each other.

Unique, non-progression rewards that have staying power really should be part of the individual reward draw. The rest is a matter of making the content appealing to those of their sensibilities.


Edited, Nov 2nd 2015 6:09pm by Hyrist
#330 Nov 02 2015 at 5:04 PM Rating: Good
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I definitely agree we need a wider variety of content for people to do at endgame. There should be multiple entirely valid progression paths for people to follow so that they can choose the one or two they enjoy doing and safely ignore the rest. Whether this means that they all award some kind of shared currency (to prevent people from having to do ALL of the possible paths) or if they're just entirely self contained, I don't know. But we need something... the current model isn't working.

I think it honestly comes back to the dev team being too small to support a game this size. I mean... seriously... it takes them on average 3-4 months to design 4 bosses and a couple dungeons? That's ridiculous. WoW poops out a raid tier with every major patch, each of their raids has between 8 and 14 bosses for 4 difficulty levels, on top of that they get a ton of ancillary stuff too.. new systems.. new events.. maybe a new open world zone.. just generally new stuff to do every patch. The difference isn't just the age of the games there. The WoW dev team is huge. They can take on a whole bunch of different things for every patch cycle and it usually all comes out a winner. FFXIV feels hamstrung in the developer department. Especially when Yoshi P is saying at Fanfest that they've got like 5 guys doing everything... that's just not acceptable anymore. This isn't a bold experiment in game resurrection anymore, this is a living breathing title that needs to be taken seriously by the people in charge of it.
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#331 Nov 02 2015 at 5:11 PM Rating: Good
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I don't think we're all that far from the solution. The current models provide the methods. Those methods just need to be appropriately adjusted and distrusted. HOW that happens, however, is debatable.
#332 Nov 02 2015 at 5:13 PM Rating: Excellent
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If you want someone to do the content, you should make the content enjoyable, not try to pass it off with a bigger carrot.


I'd just love to point out the ultimate example that illustrates this point:

Destiny.

I can't remember a game that's been so wildly successful despite initially being slammed so hard in reviews (without being rebuilt from scratch and relaunched, lol). This is basically a FPS MMO that had a really crappy endgame. The storyline was hollow, there was no quest system and the endgame was a tedious grind with very small carrots.

And yet... the game retained a massive playerbase.

Why? Because the game was incredibly fun to play -- that's it.

On a personal level, that's why I enjoyed Alexander STORY Mode. I actually had fun and doing a more relaxed raid, and getting the i190 gear was good for my character's progression and will later make good glamor gear. But I didn't need a massive carrot to chase, because the content itself was fun for the amount of work I needed to put into it.

EDIT: Good catch, Hyrist!

Edited, Nov 2nd 2015 3:25pm by Thayos
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#333 Nov 02 2015 at 5:17 PM Rating: Decent
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I think you mean 'Story' Mode there Thayos.

Speaking of Destiny. That's another game with distributed methods of character advancement. Not as wide as I would like it, but still fairly nice.

Also, I'm seeing a trend of random loot, random monster placement in games that really sings well with me. I don't thing FFXIV's static placement holds over well.

*sound of shattering glass*

Oh, bugger, there goes that plastered image of me as a FFXIV Fanboi thinking Yoshida can do no wrong. Going to have to repent at my Yoshi-P shrine located next to my giant bed to host my 13 Siberian wives all dressed high level, high defense Tera gear (Which, of course, means its more revealing.) waiting for me to attend to them.

Edited, Nov 2nd 2015 6:21pm by Hyrist
#334 Nov 02 2015 at 7:43 PM Rating: Decent
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Oddly enough, I think my point from back on page 1 is finally coming through here. You don't have to ask the question 'What do non-raiders want with raid gear' if you add content to the game that is not raiding but still requires players to be well geared to clear it. As said before, it would be nice to see the new event which is rewarding the gear being challenging enough that it's warranted. It would also be nice if this is a step in the direction of adding more challenging content that isn't raiding.

I get the feeling that more players might actually raid if it was one of many options for challenge rather than the only avenue presented.
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#335 Nov 02 2015 at 7:47 PM Rating: Decent
I know Thayos saying nobody enjoys end-game seems a bit extreme, but when you look at some of the numbers...ya...

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/230417-Fan-Census-This-is-embarrassing

That was the FCOB completion rate by servers, with Chocobo being the highest at a whopping 15%. Highest NA server was Excalibur at a huge 4% (that one's legacy, so I'm assuming populated enough). Then the most populated NA server Balmung a whole 2.3%. Then there was the recently released Alexander census stats which were downright pitiful too.

Now this doesn't reflect the amount of people who tried said raids, but it shows who actually gave a damn to try and complete them. So no, it's not nobody, but it's very few.
I can see why SE doesn't really focus on more endgame, that being said, maybe if they changed things up, more people would.

Then again, maybe these numbers can be summed up by a Simpsons quote: "Oh people can come up with statistics to prove anything Kent. Forfty percent of all people know that."

Edited, Nov 2nd 2015 8:48pm by Montsegurnephcreep
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#336 Nov 02 2015 at 8:07 PM Rating: Good
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but it shows who actually gave a **** to try and complete them


No, it shows the percentage of people that actually completed them, not the percentage of people that game a damn to try and complete them.

And the way I know that is that I tried to complete them. I didn't get through T13. Got through everything else, but not T13, so I'm not in that percentage even though I gave a damn and tried to complete it.
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#337 Nov 02 2015 at 8:43 PM Rating: Good
Alright, poor choice of words on my part. Honest question though, do you think people who attempted T13 and those who completed it have that big a difference in %? I don't personally have a big enough sample size to judge this at all. Most of my friends and ls/fc mates fall in the, we didn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, or they trudged through until they eventually get it done.

My guess is most who don't complete it, is simply because the static loses members. So eventually you get tired of trying to teach and repeating the same things over and over again with no progression. Like I say, I honestly don't know, and unless SE releases numbers of people entering T13 vs those completing, we won't know.
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#338 Nov 02 2015 at 9:21 PM Rating: Good
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Montsegurnephcreep wrote:
Alright, poor choice of words on my part. Honest question though, do you think people who attempted T13 and those who completed it have that big a difference in %? I don't personally have a big enough sample size to judge this at all. Most of my friends and ls/fc mates fall in the, we didn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, or they trudged through until they eventually get it done.

My guess is most who don't complete it, is simply because the static loses members. So eventually you get tired of trying to teach and repeating the same things over and over again with no progression. Like I say, I honestly don't know, and unless SE releases numbers of people entering T13 vs those completing, we won't know.


I have no idea what the completion rate vs attempt rate for that fight is. Well ok we know the completion rate because it was in that census, but as a function of attempts? Got nothin.

This actually is a pretty good reason why a lone stat like that is kinda more dangerous than no information at all. Because it invites you to draw conclusions with insufficient data to draw any conclusions. We know the completion rate for T13 on various servers. Is it controlled for active characters? What was the server-wide attempt rate? Is it surveying only level 50 characters who have access (have completed T9)? We don't know any of that so the stat is completely meaningless.
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#339 Nov 02 2015 at 11:45 PM Rating: Good
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Regardless, it still shows that the VAST majority of FFXIV players don't care about hardcore end game raiding

...Not that you needed to see statistics to know that

Edited, Nov 3rd 2015 3:47am by BrokenFox
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#340 Nov 03 2015 at 12:15 AM Rating: Excellent
That's the important distinction.

FFXIV players DO like raiding, as evidenced by the number of people who participate in the CT and Alex NM raids.

They just tend to not like the hardcore raids as designed in this game.
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#341 Nov 03 2015 at 3:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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People like the IDEA of raiding. That's why things like Alex NM and CT are so popular. It's the feel of a raid without all the hassle you normally associate with it.
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#342 Nov 03 2015 at 5:38 AM Rating: Excellent
People want to do something that is a challenge, but not beating your head against a wall for two months because it requires 8 people to move in perfect synchronization for 15 minutes.

We've been hammering at T9 as a FC for the last month or so and it's just so frustrating to fail, over and over again. Some people enjoy that kind of challenge. I hate it. I hate that storyline got locked behind such content which is why I'm over a year behind on it. I hate that even if I do everything right, even if I yell YOU HAVE TWIST into Ventrilo, I can't control the actions of the other 3-4 people in the group. (Hey, we made it to divebombs finally.) But I want to clear it once and then never do it again.
#343 Nov 03 2015 at 8:15 AM Rating: Default
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Thayos wrote:
That's the important distinction.

FFXIV players DO like raiding, as evidenced by the number of people who participate in the CT and Alex NM raids.

They just tend to not like the hardcore raids as designed in this game.


As well as Binding Coil and Second Coil. There's only 2 hardcore raids - Savage Coil 2 and Alexander Savage. Final Coil you only get achievements once you beat T13, which is why there's low rates because T13 was designed as a :"final boss" raid of 2.x series, even as Yoshi said himself, which is why it was designed to essentially give you "the feels" between T12-T13 and after you beat it to see what really happened.

So you are right - People don't like Savage Coil 2 or Savage Alexander due to the poor design.

Catwho wrote:
People want to do something that is a challenge, but not beating your head against a wall for two months because it requires 8 people to move in perfect synchronization for 15 minutes.

We've been hammering at T9 as a FC for the last month or so and it's just so frustrating to fail, over and over again. Some people enjoy that kind of challenge. I hate it. I hate that storyline got locked behind such content which is why I'm over a year behind on it. I hate that even if I do everything right, even if I yell YOU HAVE TWIST into Ventrilo, I can't control the actions of the other 3-4 people in the group. (Hey, we made it to divebombs finally.) But I want to clear it once and then never do it again.


Indeed - T9 however is probably the easiest compared to T5 and T13. Even at this point in time, failing it is more a cooridination problem than anything because the normal gameplay doesn't really test your skills. At all. Not even in Ex Primals. If you can beat Bismarck and Ravana, you can certainly beat T9 for example because Ravana Ex is definitely harder than T9, divebombs and Favor tend to be the only hard part that gets people stuck because it's a lot of mechanics to worry about. It's just..whenever people see actual mechanics in a fight, either the switch in their head turns off..or they're just too busy panicking - Much like in older FF games when people panic going into super bosses or certain bosses they forgot to swap a certain character into to handle it easier.

So yeah people want challenge, some don't - But the main problem is how you reward people who like either: It makes no sense to reward someone doing 10 minutes of work gear that is the same or surpasses the gear from harder content. XIV's content is just poorly designed, but you'll be hardpressed to state that without getting called a hater unless you have a history of praising the game.

This is why I feel they should have just followed and updated XI's layout - it was well organized no matter how much you liked or hated it. PSO2 even uses a similar format with the standard MMO format thrown in. Hell, PSO2 doesn't even limit your party if you're on a story mission that requires a story NPC there with you - It may seem weird seeing multiple parties with the same story NPC, but at the same time, it's nice that the game lets you do..basically whatever with whoever and how many others. Yeah some missions will be impossible to solo, like Very Hard Mining Defense:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBwNNQtEpNY

But in the long run, that's why I feel SE really need to re-evaluate the way they design the content and why HW, 2 years later, should have been -THE- time of change.

Thayos wrote:
Hio, you keep asking why other players deserve to have gear that's as good as the gear that drops from these hardcore raids...

My question to you is, "Why gimp everyone else's progression because of the rewards in FFXIV's crappy, not-at-all-fun hardcore raids?"

And my other question is, "Considering this isn't a hardcore game, who gives a crap if -- months after these rewards are available in hardcore raids -- these iLevels become available to the majority of players through things they'll actually enjoy doing?"

This is exactly why I wouldn't be sad if the developers just axed all future hardcore raids. This game doesn't need it, and every patch cycle we have to put up with hardcore players getting upset over everyone else catching up to their iLevels.

Why even deal with it? Most people don't play the hardcore content anyway (although at least story mode made the Alexander raid content something everyone could enjoy).

Edited, Nov 2nd 2015 10:55am by Thayos


Thing here is Thayos:

It doesn't matter if you catch up in ilvls, that means nothing other than strength of gear -- However, why do you need top ilvl gear if you're not touching content that justify the gear? It's not because of "bad design" like Hyrist says, it's because you don't need ilvl210 gear to do ilvl190 max content. You need only ilvl170-180s to properly it. However therein lies the situation: Savage Alexander, the only end-game raid, drops the max ilvl gear.

So again, this is why I say no one likes that you need to do the hard raid to get the gear to properly do the hard raid - That's a fail on Yoshi's part because Binding Coil and Second Coil were perfectly augmented through the fact your tome gear, crafted gear and prior gear you gained was enough to get you into most of the Coils and gear up even further. This is why Savage Alexander is such a misstep in design because Savage is supposed to be Optional.

The only people who complain about "casuals catching up" are the same people from ANY MMORPG that complains about "unworthy" people catching up to them - they don't define everyone, just like people say the casuals who can barley beat Chrysalis doesn't define the entire casual population.

it's just, if you use common sense:

I can kill this rabbit - Get ilvl220 gear. (5-10 minutes of work and the rabbit dies in 40 seconds.)
I can go through a set of content, battle hard bosses and working with other people and get ilvl220 gear that has skill speed on it. (30-40 minutes of work.)

What would anyone do? The path of least resistance, of course. So you trivialize anything in any game by offering an easier path to the max rewards. They don't need to axe raids, they simply need to stick with the design that work instead of this Alexander situation.

Edited, Nov 3rd 2015 6:36am by Theonehio
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#344 Nov 03 2015 at 9:37 AM Rating: Excellent
Again, just trying to be brief, because so much of this has already said.

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As well as Binding Coil and Second Coil. There's only 2 hardcore raids - Savage Coil 2 and Alexander Savage.


My point was all of coil was hardcore as it was released. Even with it being nerfed, some turns are still really hard if you don't have a static of seven other people who can learn the dance with you.

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If you can beat Bismarck and Ravana, you can certainly beat T9 for example because Ravana Ex is definitely harder than T9, divebombs and Favor tend to be the only hard part that gets people stuck because it's a lot of mechanics to worry about.


That seems like an arbitrary statement. I had no problems with Bismarck Ex, but I struggled mightily on T9 (after the first nerf, but before HW).

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So yeah people want challenge, some don't


Most people want to be challenged -- again, that's common sense. However, most people a) don't have the time in their busy schedules to commit to (or find) a static, and b) most people simply don't enjoy rapidly dying for days/weeks/months just to learn the song-and-dance of a single fight. It's just not fun.

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It makes no sense to reward someone doing 10 minutes of work gear that is the same or surpasses the gear from harder content.


Which is why this has never and will never happen in FFXIV.

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This is why I feel they should have just followed and updated XI's layout - it was well organized no matter how much you liked or hated it.


Just to be clear, are you talking about old-school FFXI's layout or new-school FFXI's layout? Even if you're talking about new-school FFXI's much more casual design, I still don't think that would work for this game. This game was designed to appeal to casual gamers, and it was meant to be playable in bite-sized chunks without requiring heavy grinds. The game has built a strong playerbase based on that design. Changing that up now would be a huge, unnecessary gamble.

Again... most people who play FFXIV enjoy playing the game. We all want improvements, but if we wanted to play a different kind of game, we'd be playing a different kind of game.

I've been playing FFXI again for a few days, and there are still things I like about that game, but I do not find myself wishing that would turn into FFXIV.

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It doesn't matter if you catch up in ilvls, that means nothing other than strength of gear -- However, why do you need top ilvl gear if you're not touching content that justify the gear?


The problem here isn't cutting off the majority of players from gear -- never mind the fact that hardcore raiders already get access to this gear several months sooner than everyone else.

The problem here is SE needs to create new content for players to use this gear.

Some people enjoy the punishment of the game's style of hardcore raids, just like back in FFXI, I had friends who legitimately enjoyed standing around for hours to camp various NMs -- even though I couldn't fathom why that ALL OF THAT WAITING was fun.

But most players in FFXI loathed that kind of NM camping. Did it mean that most players didn't want a challenge? No, that's silly. But this version of FFXIV has only been out for a couple years, and the developers need time to install new kinds of challenges for players' different tastes. Hopefully, Exploratory Missions are a good first step in that direction.

If this game were truly made in the footsteps of FFXI, then what you'd see is a more forgiving endgame that rewarded people with great gear simply for participating -- because for a very long time, none of the endgame in FFXI required the best gear in the game to complete. Rather, the endgame required cooperating, teamwork and sometimes creativity. The rewards simply provided icing on the cake.

Yes, I'll take some of THAT in FFXIV.

Edited, Nov 3rd 2015 7:46am by Thayos
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#345 Nov 03 2015 at 9:43 AM Rating: Decent
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Thayos wrote:
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Speak for yourself.


I agree that "nobody wants to" is a poor choice of words.

I'm neither a spokesman for the game nor its players... I'm just one guy. And your rant is very much appreciated!

That said, "nobody wants to" is the simplest way I could think of to get my point across, which is that most players in this game don't want to deal with (or appear to not want to deal with) grinding through hardcore raids. I think that's a very safe assumption, and here are a couple points of evidence:

1) If more people wanted to grind these raids, then we wouldn't have such a high rate of unsubscribers between patches... they'd still be here grinding for the higher item levels they don't yet have.

2) SE's own data has shown that only a small percentage of players has actually progressed through hardcore raids.

I've got plenty of anecdotal evidence based on my own personal experiences, but none of that is needed to make my point. The two items above really speak for themselves.

And before anyone tries to say that Alexander NM has killed raiding, I'm gonna preemptively call BS on that. Yes, it's true that NM has put a dent in the number of people running Savage, but SE's own data has already shown that not many people did coil. It's illogical to think that we'd suddenly have this massive shift in player motivations that would lead to a sudden playerbase-wide interest in hardcore raiding.

If anything, the fact Alexander NM took away from Savage mode only goes to prove my point. People would rather run a more forgiving raid that doesn't require huge amounts of face-to-wall bashing than run traditional "hardcore" raids.

And that makes perfect sense, because this game was designed to appeal to casual players -- again, SE's words.

Perhaps a more long-winded thing to say would be "Most people in this game are not hardcore raiders. They either find the content to not be fun, or they're unable to progress through it because of how it's designed. Therefore, this content is only used by a small percentage of the game's players. And then those players get upset when there's not more hardcore content for them to do."

I normally try very hard not to speak for other people. In this case, though, I believe what I'm saying is pretty darn safe. In fact, I'd say it's even common sense. I'd be much more alarmed if someone was trying to portray this game's playerbase as being hardcore.


Edited, Nov 2nd 2015 2:31pm by Thayos


While the percentages back you up, I dont agree with you a little here. I do agree raiding needs to be well designed and fun too and not just rewards.

I think allot more people want to do it than you think. Tes and I love to raid but we dont anymore. I think coil because of its walls put a bad taste in people mouths and it is hard to get rid of. I dont think coil was bad design it was the wall to stop everyone. You remove turn 5 and it aint that bad. But no one wants to butt their head against a wall for no rewards and watch everyone not raiding pass them up.

My point is there are more people who want to raid but it has to be well designed like you said and it has to be balanced where there rewards = the work that goes into it. You give people a decent challenge that is balanced they will be there.

I also agree the battles in this game are more of a dance and require less skills other than dodging. Well lets make this fight harder ( lets see how do we do this?) I got it more aoe.. Well that really only makes it harder on the healer.

Catwho wrote:
People want to do something that is a challenge, but not beating your head against a wall for two months because it requires 8 people to move in perfect synchronization for 15 minutes.

[/i]


I agree.





Edited, Nov 3rd 2015 10:53am by Nashred
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#346 Nov 03 2015 at 9:51 AM Rating: Excellent
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My point is there are more people who want to raid but it has to be well designed like you said and it has to be balanced where there rewards = the work that goes into it. You give people a decent challenge that is balanced they will be there.


I couldn't agree more!

The game's current hardcore raids though are completely out of balance. They're so punishing that they're not fun, and you don't have a realistic hope of completing them unless you have the flexibility to commit to a static -- and then you have to be fortunate enough that everyone else in your group shows up.

That's just bad design, imo.

And if we do want to keep these raids in the game to satisfy that small niche who actually likes them, then fine -- but let's see some other endgame options for everyone else. And as Hyrist has said numerous times, lets find other ways to reward people who complete the various arms of endgame.

People who truly want to do these raids will still do them.

And if SE makes other types of endgame, and suddenly NOBODY wants to do these raids? Well... then the answer is to make more of the content that people want to do.

Edited, Nov 3rd 2015 7:53am by Thayos
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#347 Nov 03 2015 at 10:18 AM Rating: Decent
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Well that too.. I have been saying for a while we need more than dungeons/raiding period. I am loosing faith though there will be anything different for a while. It seems like SE is more about cutting corners now, recycled content and designing stuff for the cash shop.. I looked at it the other day and could not believe how many pages of stuff there is in it.

This new content is pretty much forcing us into a FC. I am just picky when it come to FC and don't want to get in one we dont like and have to leave. That is never fun. Was hard to leave ZAM but they moved away from what we wanted after Bartel quit the game.

Well at least we get to share a house now. That was a huge deal for Tes and I..

Edited, Nov 3rd 2015 11:21am by Nashred
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#348 Nov 03 2015 at 10:36 AM Rating: Excellent
Yeah, for me the biggest drawback to the Exploratory Missions is that you have to either join a FC or go on a FC's mission to do hard-mode stuff.

For me, though, the problem isn't really that you must join a FC... it's that you can only join one FC. This places a lot of strain on smaller FCs who may not have the members to tackle the hard-mode obstacles, and yet they can't so easily pull others away from their FCs to bolster their ranks.

I've said all along that people in this game should be able to join multiple FCs, and really they should just do away with the linkshells -- they're unnecessary.

I've also seen various tidbits over the past couple years about possible FC alliances, which could help to solve the social infrastructure problem.

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#349 Nov 03 2015 at 10:56 AM Rating: Good
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Thayos wrote:
Yeah, for me the biggest drawback to the Exploratory Missions is that you have to either join a FC or go on a FC's mission to do hard-mode stuff.

For me, though, the problem isn't really that you must join a FC... it's that you can only join one FC. This places a lot of strain on smaller FCs who may not have the members to tackle the hard-mode obstacles, and yet they can't so easily pull others away from their FCs to bolster their ranks.

I've said all along that people in this game should be able to join multiple FCs, and really they should just do away with the linkshells -- they're unnecessary.

I've also seen various tidbits over the past couple years about possible FC alliances, which could help to solve the social infrastructure problem.



Yea I was in multiple LS in FFXI.. Their events were different nights so it was nice. Sometimes i had specialty FC like our Dynamis FC.

I get lots of invites but most of the FC's have less than 5 people on and we want to be in a FC a little more active than that. I dont want a huge FC either.
I also hate when they just send a invite with out talking to me. How do they know I am right for them. what is funny is a while back Tes and I had it narrowed down too about 5 FC's and soon after they all went belly up..
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#350 Nov 03 2015 at 11:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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Not a fan of large groups myself. But I don't see the idea of needing multiple FCs when we still have access to multiple Linkshells anyways. I always felt that FCs functioned more or less as communities anyways, and the LSes were more for specialized activities within or between those communities. So... not too upset at the idea of FCs having the Hard Runs through FCs. I get why people would be - there is definitely not enough housing to accommodate the demand, but if Hard is on par with Savage, it won't be popular enough to truly be a concern.
#351 Nov 03 2015 at 2:50 PM Rating: Good
Going to disagree with Thayos here.

The small FCs need to be "punished." Rather, they need these disincentives to stay tiny. I'm tired of tiny little FCs with 2-3 people whining that they don't get all the privileges of the bigger FCs. They can put on their big boy pants and merge with other groups like Swarm did with SPIN. We both came out much stronger for the union, and now we're probably the most dominant of the smaller FCs on our server.

FCs were meant to be the big mega groups - linkshells were designed to be the smaller breakout groups. That's why you can have 500+ members in a FC, and only 128 in a linkshell. (Double the amount you could have in an XI linkshell, for the record.) Poor design decision by SE? One could argue as such. But it is what it is until SE changes it, and there's no indication that they plan to do so.

Either recruit and grow, or merge and grow. And if you literally can't find any other people on the server whose company you enjoy, consider switching servers or changing games.
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