Patch 2.2, Accessibility, Difficulty Levels, and Throwing Away Content

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Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

I don't believe that hard content should prevent less skilled players from enjoying all of the story content. However, I believe there should be rewards that create incentive for players who are able to defeat the tough challenges

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There is a reward. It's called self fulfillment and gear that's higher than the average on the server.

What on earth gives you entitlement to special treatment just because you're playing the game more than others?

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Originally Posted by Edellis

What on earth gives you entitlement to special treatment just because you're playing the game more than others?

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Wow...i'm not sure how you could misinterpret that so badly. The achievement system I have been vouching for is to directly benefit those who don't play as much as others so that they can one day return to an old battle (under its original conditions) and earn an achievement for doing so. I even said, I feel that all players should be able to enjoy the story. Similar to other MMOs, you are going to have a player level to 50 and deactiviate their subscription till the expansion is released; reactivate and level to the new level cap, and then clear all of the vanilla content they couldn't clear before and then deactivate. I'm fine with that; but I think it would be more fun if there was ALSO an incentive to play the "vanilla" content under its original conditions.

The player who reactivates upon the release of the expansion will level up and quickly surpass the ilevel limit of the original content. That player is free to clear all of the older content with ease; but i would propose an achivement for clearing that older content under the original ilevel cap (91) and without the echo. Via an ilevel synchdown system this is easy.

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Originally Posted by Dovah

It really is pathetic when people complain about their "accomplishments" being "invalidated". Simply unsub because nobody would miss you. None of you are special little snowflakes so please stop thinking you are.

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Like for Fight Club reference!

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Originally Posted by skho01

Like for Fight Club reference!

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*punches skho for mentioning fight club*

they were going to "throw away" the content eventually anyway. no point and delaying the inevitable. or ushering it for that matter.

back to viewing everything with indifference.

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Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

Honestly - was your response even necessary? Even in the slightest? An achievement doesn't necessarily need to be difficult; it can also relate to time invested. If you want to call Twintania easy, then so be it. I'd honestly be floored if even close to 10% of the game's subscribers have cleared it.

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I don't disagree that achievements do not have to be hard, but I'm pointing out that beating it at all, in any version, would be an achievement and we'd end up needing SquareEnix adding 100 achievements per dungeon so that we can show people exactly how we beat it.

I beat my dungeon in a pick up, with a tank wearing gear score 50, and by killing the boss in 7 minutes. So I need a special achievement showing exactly this, else my achievement is not accepted by SquareEnix and my work is totally lost!

So instead of being ridiculous about this and demanding stuff to prove ourselves, why not just accept that achievements are in our own hearts and for story telling. We don't need them to invest months of development time into something that will give you an icon so other people say "Oh I don't care, but do keep believing you are a special snow flake".

I'm completely fine with the way content is progressing. With my playtime (~4 hours a day) I can complete the content of the patch quite comfortably before the new one without losing interest. If you play more than that and complain that you're running out of things to do.. Well you're really just shooting yourself in the foot. But that is for a different thread..

So now we have pretty much only vertical progression each patch. SE has kind of backed themselves into a corner on this one with the way that items are setup. You have 4/5 unique stats per item, with no negatives. Say you have i90 belts for Dragoon. You have 4 unique stats to put on them, det, crit, acc, spd, along with the standard STR/VIT. If each item follows the current standard and has 2 of each of these on there, then the amount of combinations of those unique stats is 6. This means that to allow horizontal progression in a new patch, you would have to release variations of these 4 stats 6 different ways. This is not a good idea, 2 is already bad enough, with 3 in the case of jewellery.

I've said it since beta that the item stats are boring, and they are, holy shit they are. But what this is doing to the game is really restricting horizontal progression. We see slight variations in these stats, with 2-3 different combinations in the item level. If they added new stats, new additional effects, negative stats, larger variations etc etc then it would be "too difficult to follow" for the majority of players. SE is playing it too safe, and trying not to scare morons away by having an even remotely complicated stat system.

Going back to my original statement, I'm completely fine with vertical progression. It really doesn't matter to me how they progress the game because I enjoy playing it. Just find the item system lame, and interesting to note how SE doesn't even have a choice in their progression system because of the way item stats are set up.

I think Echo buff is an awful bad idea. Under storyline, the game just becomes a mindless click-through, so dropping it on a dungeon is shameful.

Optional you say? Because the party I'm in are going to be thrilled that I demand to be handicapped... /votekick

If you are resolved in implementing this piece-of-crap system, please do prevent treasure chests from spawning, as suggested earlier, to at least give some incentive to clock up a normal-mode win.

I've taken a break from gearing my DoW/DoM the last month or two to focus on my crafts and gathering and hence earn gil more efficiently for my small FC. I now feel obliged to make that secondary just so I can experience Coil how it was designed, instead of with this awful buff.

Geez, I remember when The Echo was the best thing about this game; we had an intricate and detailed storyline thanks to it. I've had to put up with a dull, uninspiring plot since ARR launched and now you're taking the game challenge away from me. Boo on you.

NOT GONNA STOP ME PLAYING THOUGH. :/

casual game. I dont want to mindlessly hit my head against my keyboard just for an onion shield that I think looks cool. You want extreme content and rewards or accolades? Fine have them in the form of couches or Titles but dont demand cosmetics or higher level gear. 90% of the people I've asked, at random, on my server have admitted that they cannot even beat Garuda EX....more than 60% have stated that they had to opt in for 3-4 healers and a solo tank party just to beat Titan HM. You honestly believe content progression should be tied to more difficult content? I'll probably be gone before 2.2 even launches

To me this isn't about hard mode vs easy mode. What i read is that instead of fixing the horrible delay (server side), that is bottle necking so many ppl on titan hm. To appease them and hopefully keep there subs., they are "dumbing down" content.

I mean whats the point of sticking around and paying for a game when the culmination of your endgame is Titan HM?

I see a "bait and switch" here, maybe lose a few "hardcore players", but keep a lot more "casuals" w/o really fixing anything or actually dealing with any issues.