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

The comparison is meant to be literal. You invest little to no effort and get rewarded for it ie. free epics. Even in the Diablo you remember it from, the loot pinata is literally a mob with no health that you one-shot and it rewards you with what you'd expect to get from killing a boss. It has nothing to do with loot variance, it's just about getting free ****.




Raiding isn't for everyone, but it is something to do. Part of the reason that games have content that is considered 'loot pinata' is to distribute items and gear to players in hopes that they will gravitate toward the main thing to do and not notice that there isn't much else there. It's actually meant to get people into normal raiding in hopes that the progression from grinding through normal and eventually harder modes will take up the bulk of your time and keep you subscribed. I understand that a lot of people don't even raid and many that do just want to get through the normal raid for the experience. Are the people who are complaining about things to do referring to raiding or outside activities?


That's pretty much how it works in TERA. You get a tell that something is coming and based on that tell, the direction the boss is facing, your proximity to the boss and a few other things... you have to react accordingly. Some of the mechanics in games these days barely even require any attention. It's a large part of the reason there is so much outcry about LFR in WoW. Literally half of the raid of players could go AFK when the boss is pulled and the others could clear it, still with little challenge.

Edited, Sep 25th 2015 2:09am by FilthMcNasty

Yep lol. Despite the flaws TERA has (aside their own systems, a large part of the game's systems are bland) it did a lot right for its raids/bosses. Same with PSO2. But people on OF would cry...not that the general playerbase even avoids telegraphed attacks to begin with lol.



General activities, which is why they'll be the first to complain about Lords of Verminion after all is said and done and the fact the Afro hairstyle requires grinding Chocobo Racing and triple triad tournaments (which wouldn't have died off if it truly was a great system.) Realistically though, raiding is generally what lasts because the "optional activities" tend to get exhausted pretty quickly, ESPECIALLY using the formula SE uses for XIV ARR where it becomes the forefront of a 3-5 month's patch content, e.g 2.5 was Golden Saucer then 55 was the last story bit and steps of faith. So when Lords of Verminion becomes the only content you can spam (and it will depending on how badly the RNG is in Voyages) people will be wanting things to do even if there are "things to do", which is why a lot of people have been saying and agreeing more and more with the "negativity."

The ones complaining about raiding mostly dislike Alex Savage due to design. It really should have been more like Coil or even Nyzul, which is why I said it's pretty clear they tripped up when they had to design the story mode version.

I am in the same sentiment with Hio, but I am labeling the difference as being cleverness not skill. Both games take skill, 14 requires more reflex skill in pounding out rotations and dodging while 11 requires more situational counters rather than dodging. Does this make 11 more challenging than 14 in my eyes? No. But because I have more options to counter or mitigate stuff, it requires more thinking thought patterns versus my limbic brain and my speed limitations in my fingers.

Both games have emergent environments, 14 is usually restricted to instanced dungeons while 11 has it in dungeons and the open world. These environments don't always equate to fun. But they add another level to the thinking process in conjunction with the base combat mechanics.

Both games have monsters, 14 removed unique characteristics of enemies such as weaknesses to specific stuff, alternate aggro behaviors, alternate link behaviors to keep the playing field more even in party composition. In 11 different situations called for different gear setups or skill usage and enemies retained all 14 removed, this led to party invitation being less frequent. But it added another level to the thinking process.

Below in the link there is a discussion how pulls, enemy dynamics, renkei/party synergy added another layer to the thought process. These process required more timing based skill and not so much twitch.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/261664-More-Horizontal-Progression-please?p=3327772&viewfull=1#post3327772

Those encounters you listed weren't really more difficult. They just added more dynamics and layers to an encounter besides dps race or dodge the baddies when tuned right. Those things only became irrelevant in some cases due to bad global characteristic tuning such as things being skewed towards light/darkness ice/thunder sleep/stun.

I don't like the global cooldown personally and it's just me. I think it is just an additional resource on top of what hp/mp/tp were designed to take care of in the first place. It con-volutes things for me personally. The hardest thing for remembering when to use x ability out of 40 abilities for me is remembering which ability can be used at a specific time.

Honestly I don't even know if Square could ever balance a game 100% like that. I know I like Horizontal over vertical, but at the same time I don't like the idea of a gear not being replaceable through the life of a game.I also don't like the idea of gear being replaced every couple of months though.


Edited, Sep 25th 2015 11:31am by sandpark

If these voyages are going to be open world, then I suspect we'll see a community 100x more toxic than hunts when it comes to the mobs that drop the i210 gear.

Take that right there and spin it on its head.

If you remove progression development from Hardcore raiding, you are, in fact, not removing it from hardcore raiders.

If you place progression raiding in hardcore raiding, you are, in fact, removing it from your casual base, as if there's a bouncer sitting at the entrance to the loot pool saying "Sorry, you must be this obsessed in order to get in."

The claim you make here makes no sense. You're not taking progression away from a base of players by removing it from niche content. You're putting the bar for progression lower so that niche rewards don't feel like treating other players as second-class subscribers.

What I'm (very casually, for the sake of conversation) asking is:

If only 5 percent of your playerbase is interested in hardcore raiding, while meanwhile the other 95 percent just want fun, challenging content -- and if everyone wants progression -- then why gate the progression where it's only accessible for that 5 percent?

The knee-jerk response is "the hardcore players should get the best gear first."

But why?

This isn't a hardcore game. I'm pretty sure all of us agree on that; even Hio said she'd probably only play FFXIV long enough until a real (and good) hardcore game comes out.

If this isn't a hardcore game, then why the insistence on making the best loot only accessible to the most hardcore players?

I feel this is one of those legacy thought processes, kind of like how some people who buy new cars still think they need to change their oil every 3,000 miles, when really you can now drive like 7k miles between oil changes thanks to advancements in engines and synthetic blends. To some degree, I think game developers and "elder gamers" are still a bit stuck in the old-school MMO era, when getting the best gear meant grinding away like you're at a second job.

But that's not how games are built anymore... and that's not how most gamers want to play, either.

So... maybe it's time to just say goodbye to hardcore raiding -- at least in this game?

Hio, I think the problem is you and I view this game (and the meaning of "hardcore") from very different perspectives. But I'll go through some of your responses so you can see what I mean.



This is exactly why I think it's wrong to say Coil was "in the middle." For all of 2.0, Coil was the hardcore content, and there's a good reason why so few players ever completed it. You're right in that the difficulty wasn't the issue... the playerbase was. Again, that's exactly my point. People don't find this kind of hardcore raid grind fun, and they don't want to spend hours per night trying to learn each stage. For many, like myself, they couldn't even do the content if they wanted -- it's just too tedious and time-consuming, and trying to mesh schedules with seven other people (who usually aren't reliable) is just not fun, not fun, not fun... and a horrible waste of time. Coil is just as hardcore as Savage is now. Yeah, it was easier... but it appealed to the same folks with the same open schedules and the same appetite for punishment. And that's not many people.



Nowhere did I propose giving out the best gear for killing A-ranks. What I'm suggesting is doing away with hardcore raiding and replacing it with something else that doesn't require as much effort. That's night-and-day different than saying "give everything away for free."



MMO thought process, automotive thought process, etc... my point exactly. Thought processes that don't evolve become obsolete.



People are getting bored with the formula, but they don't want more hardcore raids that they either don't have time to do or won't have fun doing. Making inaccessible content won't solve the problem. Fully focusing on content that the bulk of the game's playerbase would love would be much more efficient, yes?



You are massively underestimating casual players. They want to be challenged, just not stupidly so. It's a video game.

Edited, Sep 26th 2015 12:28pm by Thayos

I know the raiders wanted to use the story as their motivation to continue going, but the story in Alexander was so lackluster I'd be disappointed if I was a raider doing Savage and that was what I got.

I'm fine with raiders getting exclusive, raid only content. Buttwings were a huge status symbol when FCOB came out. Still are, really. I'm totally cool with the exclusive mounts, rare titles, and unique gear for glamours (even if the iLvl will get replaced in a few years.)

But it was disheartening for me as a casual who didn't have the schedule or energy to run a regular weekly static to be locked out of the story, which is the main advantage of a Final Fantasy game. That's why our FC is now slogging through Second Coil; we can handle it as casual content we can run on a Sunday afternoon. When it first came out as progression content, there was no way we could have done it.

Gating is baked into progression. Not sure why people don't understand that when you remove harder difficulty, you remove progression. Not that it isn't an accomplishment to defeat normal content, but if there is nowhere to go when you're done with that than it isn't progression.


This argument translated to real world equates to someone who can only work part time wanting to afford the same lifestyle as someone who puts in 70 hours a week. When I transpose the question you're putting forth here Thayos, I get "It's not fair that I can't drive a Benz simply because I can only work 20 hours a week". I can't really sympathize. I know single moms who would love to drive a Benz, but they instead have to raise their children. No one judges them for taking care of other responsibilities.

If you aren't actually trying to access endgame content, then you're unlikely to run into anyone looking at your gear with a magnifying lens anyway. It also doesn't make sense that you would say that you want challenging content when obtaining the best gear would remove the challenge from all of the activities you participate in. I still don't see why you would cut out a part of the game that provides entertainment to players(no matter how small the minority) simply because YOU don't have time to participate. What makes even less sense is that it's because you don't have access to a specific tier of gear; gear that would also go the way of the dodo should you remove the content that rewards it... mind is blown.

I'm really just disinterested in the counter-argumetns on this aspect.

Removing rewards from Story will give story the same problem as Savage through opposite means: No one will want to do it ,because they got the story and they're done. That's as dumb as making Savage as bad as it is. Rewards keep content populated. Period. Alexander normal is non-challenge content and should be part of gear progression. It's part of the 'preperation' phase. Challenge content like Savage should be part of the "Accomplishment" phase. Rewarding end-accomplishment with more progression pieces is redundant and hampster wheel - especially considering that those rewars are irrelevant to the progression of the next stage. We won't need 210 to clear 3.2 content when it comes out, we'll need 230. Savage Gear does nothing to prepare you that easier gear does not. This includes the next set of Savage.

Shouldn't there be rewards in Savage Content that lasts? That's why I propose rewards outside of progression for Savage content.

Those who enjoy their playstyle will defend it. We know this. But those who enjoy it don't often realize just how few others do. That's why I propose alternatives. I don't need justifications why people 'like the way it is' we know how many people like it compared the the majority, and those numbers are slanted towards change.

I've gone through several other models in my head when it came to alternatives to the current endgame, yes, including breaking apart the difficulty rating to smaller components, and no, that would not solve the problem because it ignores the premise that the problem is content is not being populated. That's a two pronged approach (rewards, and difficulty). If the difficulty is tuned too high, then no matter of rewards will matter, which is what we have with Savage. People think that adding more honey to the trap will solve this, I highly disagree - in fact I think all you'll do is serve to frustrate players more.

When you gate things behind the difficulty, the player feels forced. That breeds animosity. Sure, you get more to maintain at the start, but the losses are more permanent when they are lost. You maintain a certain level of ease. Sure, some people will remain finicky with their subscriptions, but if you design the encounters to be engaging, rather than just difficult, then you will get those players back each time you release new content.

That's where the rewards component comes in:
In a vertical progression game, rewards relate to progression are pointless to a player who can just unsubscribe until the next item patch. So trying to honey-trap content with progression materials has a strong expatriation date to it.

But locking story behind obscene basically derives a fundamental player right - and does not work anyways because information bleeds out. Soon as someone clears and records it - people are going to know the story and not do the content anyways. Locking story behind difficult content does not work in today's model.

This is why I lean towards aesthetic rewards - ones that tie to the character themselves, or their place of home, or rewards themselves and their friends. These types of rewards are both timeless, keeping the content relevant to anyone who wants to obtain these treasures without having to worry about inventory bloat, and enticing, because people like rewards that have a clear impact in what they are doing, even if that impact is strictly visual.

The rewards should be the reason for someone to keep coming back. The difficulty should be tuned so that the majority of the players can enjoy it. The 'difference' should be in how players execute - rating player performance rather than a hard pass/fail system. Think on how Devil May Cry works and other such games with a score raiting. You can make fights challenging, but not punishing, by making it difficult to execute perfectly. The element of failure can be there for making repeated, large, or compound mistakes. But the ultimate result is trying to go for best score. Then being rewarded accordingly.

This would mean wide appeal, accessible content, desire to master content, and distinction for those who achieve that mastery - and scaling rewards for these factors: All the components people want in an MMO - and interestingly enough, found in an Arcade.

So in brief:

Cutting off Gear Progression at High Difficulty - Challenges the Developers to design a skill-based endgame that is easy to play but difficult to master, breeding competition through protection and greater rewards for better performances without developing a strict pass/fail system that shoves players away. Additionally, cutting it of at that point allows for the system below to actually be balanced.

Repeatable Gameplay through positive reinforcement - Scoring Card with non-identical combat Elements with a gradual rewarding system (Currency + possibly unlocking tiers of rewards at certain performance point thresholds) This will entice players to play better, and play more. Getting excited at improving their score rather than being bored that they're repeating content for a grind. Sure, cleaning the fight may be 'easy' but getting to that S rank clear will not.

Reward Systems:

Progression Rewards - A simple scapegoat and the go-to for most MMOs. Ultimately pointless in a vertical progression.

Story Rewards - A major no no as story components are information and information can be bypassed by a number of means. Also considered a 'right' by many casual players and could directly influence subscription numbers.

Aesthetic Gear Rewards - Possible, but subject to inventory bloating issues and already done at low-difficulty pieces of content - this is why current pieces in Alexander are not as attractive.

Housing Furniture - Possible, but again, suffering from inventory bloat and housing limitations.
FC Buffs - Unique buffs paid for by currency earned in raid will entice repeated run of raid for current content. Buffs can vary for content. Will encourage more FC memberships across the board.

Player-centrist (not gear centrist) Aesthetic Changes - Hairstyles, Unique Partial Effects, unique animations - these could all be highly attractive incentives that could be rewarded on a scale depending on their visual impact. (Low ranks get a change to a basic skill, high ranks make strong effects like Limit Breaks be completely different, etc.) This could be the new bread and butter attraction for Raiding, sprinkled in with other normal items like mounts, furniture, armor, and buffs.

I'm not interested in debating semantics or reasoning to defend portions of the status quo. I tend to make those same arguments with myself when brainstorming up ideas such as this or making stances like I do. I didn't even want to make a post like this, honestly, and only felt compelled to out of a sense of not wanting to disrespect the counterpoints.

I'm more or less done with the discussion as I don't want to fall into circular arguing. This is just my best honest idea on how to solve the Raid problem, and really, the problem with making difficult content in a casual-dominant player base. That's all.

As far as what happens with FFXIV. Debate all you like. SE will be making those decisions, not us. I don't agree with the base premise thus far (And have explained my premise) but I do like the steps they are taking. They just need to refine things a bit to widen the appeal.


Edited, Sep 27th 2015 11:45am by Hyrist

wish i could rate this even higher
hear, hear.

I'm sure several of us, myself included, do understand what it's like. I was totally hardcore in XI, but that was literally around seven or eight years ago when I was at my "peak" and now I'm more casual. I got all the hardcore out of my system, and when I gave it a shot last year, I realized I was beyond wasting so much time for so little progress. But, yes, I do understand what it's like to be hardcore, and why hardcore players should get the best gear for doing the most challenging things.

But that's why I'm saying just get rid of the top hardcore raids. Very few people do them anyway, so they don't really add much value to this game.

Instead, create more engaging, challenging casual content -- and yes, that CAN be done. Alexander story mode was challenging when it first came out, and the extreme primals are also challenging when people first jump into them. Yeah, they aren't challenging forever... but nothing in this game is, which is why the party finder ultimately fills up with groups for "FARMING ONLY, MUST ALREADY HAVE A WIN!" If everything were easy, then there would be no need for that, because everyone would just win all the time.

Content that can't be beat without joining a static that can practice three nights per week isn't "difficult," it's "ridiculous." At least, it is in FFXIV, which is clearly not a game where that kind of content will ever shine.

If it weren't difficult, it wouldn't require that time and effort spent hammering out strategies and making attempts. For a lot of people that is part of the draw to difficult content. There's no disrespect meant, but the words 'casual' and 'difficult' don't really have any place together.

There is a reason players ask for other experienced players to join their 'farm' groups. Most casual players aren't prepared for challenging content. If you go into challenging content with players who aren't geared and experienced, it ends up becoming a wipefest. Not all that much different from the wipefest that is hardcore raiding. You may consider yourself a skilled casual, but that isn't representative of the majority of casual players.

Most of them aren't studied on the ins and outs of their class, synergy between their class and others or formulating a group strategy. Most casual players are tuned to run mostly auto-pilot content that is more engaging for it's entertainment or story content rather than difficulty. The difficulty that you're asking for casual players already exists... it's called normal mode.