What happened to fun for fun's sake?

[ADVSS]

I have a question for people though. So they removed Ilvl sync. So you synced down to 60. But the sync at 60 is below 235. When we got in switched around on jobs to see what stats looked like. The level 70 monk synced down to level 60 had less stats then my unsynced level 60 monk that was 235. Is that right for all content I had never paid that much attention? But I though if we got synced down to 270 might have made it past floor 5.

Yes to some degree being synced down hits a point, that is often lower than optimal gear and level for that unsync. Or at least the stats get scaled down to medium type gear of that level as well. This happens at level sync.

[YitharV2]

You need a larger context for the psychology of mmo players. Mmos attract depressed people, people that feel like they underachieve, people that don't have fulfillment in their daily lives,etc. These people dive into a persistent fictional world as a means to exert some control and chase a sense of achievement.

This is not a single player or mobile game. People don't play to kill time. They play to fill a void. Rewards, achievements, and goals fill that void.

This doesn't apply to every single player, but it's a clear and persistent trend. You're barking up the wrong tree.

I don't think you're entirely wrong. But that's not necessarily true of every player either, at least from the people I've met. But that is definitely a very depressing way of looking at things.

But I think, in some ways, it feels better than a job in real life.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18461...-addicted.html

Autonomy (that is, you have some say in what you do day to day);

Complexity (so it's not mind-numbing repetition);

Connection Between Effort and Reward (i.e. you actually see the awesome results of your hard work).

[Elim]

Join a FC or make friends. My friends and I do tons of stuff just for fun. I two manned all of the ARR EX's and most coil turns with one friend. Undermanning content is sort of our thing now.

My FC has a yearly event that includes a modelling contest -- we even made a run way in our FC house.

tl;dr you just need to find the right people.

[Demafogotto]

In addition to your points, i am utterly baffled by how some players also want the game to stagnate because they want their gear to be revelant longer. Asking for deveopers to stop patching the game this fast, so they have time to enjoy the gear they earned.

Which in practice turns out that they get their gear and mostly do not even use it, afking in current hub-town to showoff. Why do anything else when you have cleared the hardest challenge? And then they actually loathe to be "forced" to get new, better gear in the next savage patch, instead of, you know, looking forward to the fight themselves.

They literally ask for a content drought so they could do nothing more. Why would you ever want that if you liked the game?

[Nixxe]

All old content is done unsynced because it's faster. And faster is always better, right?

I either ran it a million times or didn't bother because it didn't look interesting. Why would I suddenly be super excited to go do it 10 levels later? It's not reasonable to expect me to suddenly find it really appealing.

[Yukiko]

Its a bit sad,... tight DPS race and iLvL restrictions made it much harder to go for fun.
We used to do things like this in past: https://youtu.be/7TUm4F4dhuY

[Miste]

What blows my mind is that people somehow don't seem to comprehend the fact that they, and all of us, are playing FFXIV for fun. It's not our job. We don't just do this for money (not that everyone hates their job, of course). All of us are playing for fun.

There is one key thing you are missing here.

Fun is subjective.

The way you have fun might not be the way another has fun. So I mean...it shouldn't blow your mind that some people might not think or have fun the same way as you. Maybe others have fun by getting their rewards faster or they have more fun in full groups than undersize. Everyone is different.

Someone asking you a question doesn't always mean they are looking down on your idea...(unless they be openly hostile/rude about it). They may actually just be trying to understand your thinking or your way of having fun. Why 4 man? Well just answer them honestly...you want to try it for fun. Pretty simple to answer really...why does it get you so upset that they ask?

[Serilda]

I love silly challenges. The problem is that the game designers actively discourage having fun like this - locking undersized to unsynced makes it hard to balance lowman challenges properly (min ilevel is still a joke for most content and overkill when it's not). And then there's the lockout for all current content; not everyone has friends who want to spend their evening joining lowman groups just to make up eight people, then not actually playing. The lack of ability to even join 24-man content at all undersized is another problem. I don't expect to clear Void Ark with 3 people, but can't I at least just go in and take some pictures and have fun dying to raid bosses with my equally-stupid friends?

It's no wonder the players themselves become so skittish about these activities when the very game engine seems to discourage it to protect people from the risk of being unable to complete a duty due to their own foolishness. Let me embrace my own foolishness! My FC's 'ultra hard mode' evenings are the most fun I have in this game and I'd love them to be easier to run.

[MistakeNot]

Don't you know that MMOs are all about racing to the cap (level and gear) as quickly as possible, and then stand around complaining there is nothing to do? </sarcasm>

While rewards are nice to get and all, some of my best experiences in MMOs have had nothing to do with any rewards.

No, I don't really get the "racing to the top" mentality either.

[Vulcwen]

Another big thing here is opportunity cost, for a lot of players, just keeping up with the pace of the game is the majority of their playtime. They don't get to the point where they'd find it worth just messing around doing silly things when they still feel the need to cap tomes, level other jobs, work on crafting/gathering..
Obviously, silly things give no rewards whatsoever, so people are generally not up for it until they've got what they wanted for that day/week, which makes it hard to find people to do silly things, or not feel like you're losing out on something when you do it (which diminishes the fun you could have from it).