Lack of End Game Content

Hey now! I like my gambling and being mad at pixels on a screen! ;D

I think the Dev team might be stretching themselves too thin on content overall. I know a few have been considered failures based on the threads about them (BLU, Eureka especially Pagos, Glam Dresser, Housing).

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Originally Posted by Avraym

The game isn't the same as it was 6 years ago. It has grown.

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It has grown with the type of formula it has now. People unsubbing for parts of the expansion are only doing what Yoshida has said he's ok with people doing. The best way to give feedback if you really want change in the type of content they focus on is to quit completely until you see them changing the game. Otherwise, whatever it is they're doing for the past 6 years seems to work overall and they seem to like their current output for each expansion. It certainly works for me and some other players.

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It has more revenue, more support and a bigger team. It has more resources it can recycle to create new content which all other games rightfully do.

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Yoshida has said they're lacking people to do difficult PVE battle content. That doesn't change with bigger revenue.

As such, if true, then providing more Savage raid bosses probably won't take away from features like bard performance, but perhaps from Ultimate fight. After all, 2 Ultimate fights instead of 3 allowed them to do Baldesion Arsenal in Eureka. So more battle content of one type might take away from battle content of another type rather than from non-battle content.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

The game isn't the same as it was 6 years ago. It has grown. It has more revenue, more support and a bigger team. It has more resources it can recycle to create new content which all other games rightfully do.
So why are we fed the same amount of content and why does it mean resources need to necessarily be taken away from something? Would it be so difficult to invest a little more into something we can all agree doesn't have a lot currently invested into?

Nobody is implying casual content is worthless. We'd just like OUR side to be a little more sated.

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It has grown a lot. Which means every gear set requires even more work, every event and cutscene more testing to make sure it looks/sounds/plays OK with all the ingame assets and so on and so on. It definitely has more revenue, but does this go straight back into FFXIV? It seems not. I would love if it did and if we could be guaranteed that we would simply get more things instead of shifting teams around to sate one group while starving another I'd bet nobody would even bat an eye at your requests. Bigger team? I know they gave Yoshi even more responsibility but not necessarily more people.
The thing is we often get new things at the cost of other things. Eureka cost us content and so did diadem and lord of verminion. As long as the current schedule of content can be guaranteed there will be far less opposition to content as specifically targeted as "challenging endgame". But we cannot. By experience we've had slow releases and outright omissions because of "extra" content.

Both of our situations would be greatly improved if SE would just open up some resources for FFXIV to be expanded, I think that should be the focus of the community. Convince them that FFXIV is worth a bigger team and budget.

This thread became very "Us VS Them" on both sides, doesn't have to be though. We all want the game to be more expansive, but by example that's not what happens overall with this dev group. It's a blanket we're all tugging in different directions and someone's toes always end up sticking out, that's why people react like that.

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Originally Posted by linay

It has grown with the type of formula it has now. People unsubbing for parts of the expansion are only doing what Yoshida has said he's ok with people doing. The best way to give feedback if you really want change in the type of content they focus on is to quit completely until you see them changing the game. Otherwise, whatever it is they're doing for the past 6 years seems to work overall and they seem to like their current output for each expansion. It certainly works for me and some other players.

Yoshida has said they're lacking people to do difficult PVE battle content. That doesn't change with bigger revenue.

As such, if true, then providing more Savage raid bosses probably won't take away from features like bard performance, but perhaps from Ultimate fight. After all, 2 Ultimate fights instead of 3 allowed them to do Baldesion Arsenal in Eureka. So more battle content of one type might take away from battle content of another type rather than from non-battle content.

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I don't see quitting as viable feedback. Posts like, "I'm unsubbing goodbye forever" are nothing more than shrill, attention seeking posts (something we see often).

Instead, I believe creating an open dialogue about the problem is better.

It worked for the gender lock new races after all.

If they have the revenue but not the people, then hire more staff? That seems like an easy problem with an easy fix.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

I don't see quitting as viable feedback. Posts like, "I'm unsubbing goodbye forever" are nothing more than shrill, attention seeking posts (something we see often).

Instead, I believe creating an open dialogue about the problem is better.

It worked for the gender lock new races after all.

If they have the revenue but not the people, then hire more staff? That seems like an easy problem with an easy fix.

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Agree to a certain point. Yes a lot of "goodbye forever" posts are attention-seeking but even for this game quitting while giving feedback is good for Devs to put a lens on something that might need to be looked at.

Also, for sure open dialogue is the best on forum posts. I know everyone is passionate about what they love but resorting to insults and passive-aggressiveness doesn't contribute to conversation. And respectful conversation is great. Players should be asking together for Square to dedicate more money to its MMO.

And although there will be some communication/culture troubles if they hire Devs overseas, if it's been a problem for so long then maybe investing a bit on that side will prove fruitful.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

I don't see quitting as viable feedback. Posts like, "I'm unsubbing goodbye forever" are nothing more than shrill, attention seeking posts (something we see often).

Instead, I believe creating an open dialogue about the problem is better.

It worked for the gender lock new races after all.

If they have the revenue but not the people, then hire more staff? That seems like an easy problem with an easy fix.

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Based on what was written and quoted in various topics, it's not a simple "hire more" problem, but appears to be more about *finding* staff that fulfills their (high) standards for creating this kind of content. Unfortunately, I cannot find a concrete source for it.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

I don't see quitting as viable feedback. Posts like, "I'm unsubbing goodbye forever" are nothing more than shrill, attention seeking posts (something we see often).

Instead, I believe creating an open dialogue about the problem is better.

It worked for the gender lock new races after all.

If they have the revenue but not the people, then hire more staff? That seems like an easy problem with an easy fix.

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I don't mean posting about quitting. I just mean that you say this game can change its formula because it has grown, but this game grew with its current formula. If it were to lose people on a permanent basis rather than a seasonal basis, then the developer would have to take notice. Otherwise, while they still appreciate the feedback and would want to create more content to appease those who want more challenging PVE, it might not be as high on their priority if they cannot find people to work on it without affecting their current schedule.

And hiring more staff is probably the problem because the people with the right qualifications are not applying from what I gather.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

I also see XI mentioned a lot, but I'm afraid I do not have any experience with it to know how it properly compares.

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The odds of you getting a non-polarized interpretation of XI is pretty small. I played it for a decade, but would have no hesitation in calling out flaws that reflect a creation of castes within the player base, a distinct lack of more modern features to at least make (older) content possible, a push for no-lifing/multi-boxing for certain feats, gross imbalances of enemy AoEs (including status effect spam/buff removal/incredibly high damage), and a hyper-fixation upon the "right way" to do things that tend to parrot the first publicly shared first clear strategy or the like that usually translated outright to job discrimination.

Now, in playing as long as I did, there were obviously things I liked that won me over more compared to WoW. Art style, for example, was a factor, taking on a more realistic western medieval style than the cartoony WoW fantasy take. I don't care for PvP or the common shortcomings it invites ranging from balance to (unreasonable) player expectation. It felt like XI took storytelling more seriously, both in content and presentation (frequent cutscenes compared to text window dumps). I'm still a fan of all jobs/classes on a single character over needing an alt army. Yet, I could also say I wasn't too keen on the complete absence of quest-based leveling in XI or a more solo-friendly process to leveling up in the majority of the game's early years. Meme jokes about DRGs sitting in Jeuno LFG for 8 hours didn't just spin out of the ether. RDMs being favored as a healer over WHM was very real regardless of how well a good WHM could pull their weight just fine. I wouldn't be surprised that if, upon RDM's implementation here, there were people pissed it wasn't a main healer or buff monkey, either. XI basically had a way of instilling... feelings... for better or worse, that sometimes run absent to the evolution of gaming and not just MMOs since its prime. And frankly, you'll still have people who will argue 75 cap is the superior version of the game despite it being just as prone to content exhaustion as XIV is, though with added complications specific to its own identity.

If there is a simple phrase I'd attribute to both XI and XIV, it'd be there's wasted potential. XIV only has the benefit of being the more recent game, and thus the most likely to get any form of significant content update just like Shadowbringers brought. We can point to (artificially) limited resources. We could say there might be a lack of talent to produce in such a timely manner. We can have people that refuse to accept a minority status or assert they're super secretly a majority and the naysayers are just idiots who don't get it. There is a valid concern of focus on Y means less of X. Some can't even decide what the hell a casual player or endgame activity is.

At this point, I'm just going to default to something no MMO has really yet to embrace in earnest: User Generated Content.

Give the players the intuitive tools they need to configure existing game assets into a customized venue and we could actually get the super, extra, difficult hard content some crave when official content is in a lull phase. Players who like jump puzzles could make their own. Those more interested in weaving independent plots can do so. What could amount to housing on crack by making a custom hangout hub is also something people could do. Some folks could configure scavenger hunts. Some could make an arena that's about overcoming specific challenges. Basically, the limit would be a mix of player imagination and the tools they're given, with acknowledgement you'd get no gear or EXP from it. You'd be doing it for the fun, either as a participant or a creator. Though, if it turns out those talking about difficulty won't do it precisely because it lacks reward, I can't say it paints a pretty picture about their true intent.

Someone complaining about lack of content less than a month after expansion launch? This has got to be sum of that gooood bait.

Thank you Saidosha for the explanation and the great post, much appreciated! Interesting to see both MMOs kind of being polar opposites of each other in some regards.

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Originally Posted by Emmanellain

Someone complaining about lack of content less than a month after expansion launch? This has got to be sum of that gooood bait.

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Aww, someone not bothering to read the thread, contributing to the discussion and dismissing it entirely. So adorable :)

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Originally Posted by Emmanellain

Someone complaining about lack of content less than a month after expansion launch? This has got to be sum of that gooood bait.

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No - it just speaks to the nature of the problem.

You've demonstrated both an inability to read the title or contribute something constructive.

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Originally Posted by Emmanellain

Someone complaining about lack of content less than a month after expansion launch? This has got to be sum of that gooood bait.

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Nearly 75 pages into the thread and you really believed this comment would be worthy of turning the discussion? Gee thanks for adding absolutely nothing of value.

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Originally Posted by Xieldras

I also see XI mentioned a lot, but I'm afraid I do not have any experience with it to know how it properly compares.

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One of the big things about FFXI is that overall it was a slower paced game, and outside of consumable items most good gear had a bit of permanence to it. At least up until Abysea and Adoulin changed the formula. So once you got your haubergon(sp?) or scorpion harness as a melee arourd the 50s, that would last you a long time. A RME weapon took a lot of investment to build, but thankfully SE didn't trash them when upped the level/ilevel caps, and let them be upgraded. So in FFXI while you might work hard to get any one particular thing, if it was endgame worthy it wasn't getting outdated every single patch which helped keep a lot of things relevant to endgame.

XIV and its gear treadmill ends up with no gear really feeling important and permanent. No content stays relevant for long. So outside of either slowing down our consumption of content, or finding a way to cost effective way to produce satisfying quality content faster, it means will always be a lack of end game content. Afterall it only takes 20-30m to do a dungeon when it probably took them a month or two to put it together.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

No - it just speaks to the nature of the problem.

You've demonstrated both an inability to read the title or contribute something constructive.

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I don't see end-game content vs. side content, I just see content.

You've decided to make the distinction, which I can accept as a definition (only can be done at level 80), and my response is "so what?"

Before returning to FF14, I considered all the content in front of me, didn't matter to me if it started at level 80 or not, I just wanted to see all the things I COULD do, if it interested me, and if the systems in place were ones I liked. Felt the game was a good fit for what I wanted to do, so came back to FF14 and I"m happy.


One of things I really enjoy doing, for example, is leveling the different jobs, which can obviously be done before level 80, so you would say it isn't end-game.

You miss, however, the fact I don't care if you call it end-game or side-game. I only ask myself if I am having fun playing his video game, and if the answer is yes, I do it.

As far as I'm concerned, your problem is a self-created problem.

You've done a good job defining for yourself what counts as end-game content, even though it doesn't include things like hildebrand or level 80 mini-games, and also made the decision that you will only partake in that content.

Ok, fine, that's your right to do, but to then tell me I am playing wrong cause I enjoy a lot of the side content, or that I'm delusional because I don't understand the lack of end-game is a very self-centered perception.

You view the game in terms of what you enjoy, what you don't enjoy, and when people tell you they are happy, or like me, that I don't care if there's no additional end game content, you want to keep twisting into something we or the company is doing wrong.

These lines you create are just there to justify how you want to play while simultaneously dismissing the rest of the content.

People say it's a themepark, and should cater to all people, but ignoring the fact there's different theme parks. Like telling Disney everything in their park is bad, and they should have more adult-only entertainment and scary looking rollercoasters.

Just like SE, you can talk about how much money Disney has, and how they could invest in all these various things, all while ignoring that Disney doesn't make parks like that. People have noted (perhaps even you) that the formula has been the same now for several years and many expansions - so what on earth are you still doing here if you dislike it so much?


Me telling you to play something else was being kind.

That is far more rational and sensible (finding something that suits your interests) than trying to keep making something unfun, be fun, or seeing something with a successful formula and then telling them to change, for your sake.

You scream there's a lack of end-game content, I say I DONT CARE.

Even if I were to agree there's not much content exclusive to level 80, or there is a lack of raid bosses, at the end of the day, I really don't care because I'm happy with the state of the game. One could even say I don't mind the lack of end-game content because it's countered by the large amount of side content.

If you don't like that dynamic, which is basically unchanged for several years now, leave. Who honestly seems more rational:

the person continuing to pay for something they enjoy, or the person paying for something dislike, which has been largely unchanged for several years?

I, too think 6 bosses (2 trials + 4 raid bosses) is kinda lacking especially when the raid is another "tournament ark" when we just going to fight bosses in a linear order to restore life but with no exploration whatsoever. I miss the exploration factor that we had in Alexander and Coil.

I take this moment to complain about the lack of creativity in the arenas, now they are only squares or circles. I miss first-time Twintania in Coil of Bahamut when we fought at the giant hand of the dragon/primal. Or that Snake boss arena that can divide itself in half and you have to keep then in certain spots, or even elevators with trash mobs...even alexander had cool arena designs.

In Stormblood I can only remember the Phantom Train and Ghost Paint arenas being cool, the other ones were lacking.

I think people white-knight this game too much, I mean, look what happened to Scottzone...

They say this community is good but only until you criticize their perfect game...

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Originally Posted by Inuk9

I think people white-knight this game too much, I mean, look what happened to Scottzone...

They say this community is good but only until you criticize their perfect game...

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Do you really think that's an appropriate representation of this community? You could just as easily point to any complaint thread in the official forum and say this community complains too much.

I personally think this community is just big enough that it has different people with different opinions.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

I've been here since 1.0 aswell. Could you please allude to what end game content keeps you busy and entertained?

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Pokemon battles, crafting, alternate classes, housing stuff,pvp, gold saucer. I am more entertained by other shit my self.

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Originally Posted by linay

Do you really think that's an appropriate representation of this community? You could just as easily point to any complaint thread in the official forum and say this community complains too much.

I personally think this community is just big enough that it has different people with different opinions.

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Maybe you are right, but that is not what we are seeing in the last weeks. Yeah sure there are people who have common sense and critical thinking but I still think the majority got into this "FFXIV the untouchable" bubble.

As someone who plays both FFXIV and WoW, I don't find that there is any less "endgame" content in XIV than in WoW. If anything, I would say that once reaching the "endgame", FFXIV's systems actually make for a more flexible "endgame" experience.

In WoW, on a single character at max level I am restricted to farming the same content (M+ dungeons, ONE raid with anywhere from 7-14 bosses depending on the tier, daily world quests, island expeditions) daily or weekly depending on lockouts for around 7-8 months. With no new content added until the next major content patch and raid tier. I can farm mounts/pets/achievements from old content raids... once per week if I am so inclined. Other than that, though? There's not actually that much to do. I could go back and clear low level quests that I missed when I was low level, I suppose but what would be the point? There's no intrinsic benefit to doing so.

In FFXIV once I reach the end of the story and max level I can subsequently go back and level every other job in the game on the same character, or turn to crafting and gathering. I can farm mounts/minions/orchestrion rolls from any content I choose, for as many or as few hours as I choose without being locked out of the relevant instance for a whole week after a single run. I can do FATEs or run Trust dungeons or roulette instances. I can expect new content in the form of new story, new dungeons, new single boss raids or new alliance raids about every 2-3 months (or less). Frequently enough to ensure that I don't feel bored or conversely feel like I *have* to log in and farm specific max-level content every day in order to be able to keep up with the content being released.

I don't buy the argument that "only max-level content counts as endgame". Endgame is "what a player does when they reach the end of the game". In FFXIV, that leaves a huge array of endgame content for players to dig into.

We all know that Yoshida wanted to make an MMO which was accessible for everyone. From Hardcore Raiders to casual players who can only play every once and a while. The game was to be story driven, with a rich story and job system that would give that Final Fantasy feel to it. This resulted in the Themepark MMO we have right now.

Sure, the game is far from perfect, with it's quirks and "system limitations", but also players who want more casual, midcore and hardcore content (aside from more glamour options, minions, mounts, collaborations, races, jobs, etc, etc). There's nothing wrong with players wanting more content, tailored to their taste. Personally, the more content to play, the better.

However, there are limits to what a company can produce for their product while retaining the highest quality possible. But, we cannot say where these limits lie and if they can be "easily solved" by simply adding more developers to their staff. That is something the team itself and the upper management has to decide. You can't always slap more developers on the case in order to make something bigger and better at the same time.

Yoshida gave a good explanation on it during the interview with MizzTeq:

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Originally Posted by MizzTeq

Q: Are there thoughts of ever creating ever-increasing difficulty mode for those past dungeons, similar to Mythic+ System in World of Warcraft?
A: It's something that could possibly be considered but that means it would take away efforts on creating new content. Or the patch cycles may get delayed. It's actually been brought up a few times with regards to WoW and end content like that, and if we were allowed to take as much time as WoW does, we might be able to accomplish something very similar but we would like to keep our major patch update schedule as we currently have it. It would be difficult to juggle both keeping that consistent schedule and also including more difficult content. But, we are definitely impressed by the system that WoW does employ in their dungeons where they are ever-increasing levels and the systems that they have for the gear sets and what not. it's really well-made. Maybe if we had double the number of people in the battle system team, the battle content team, our QA team, oh and, one more Yoshida...

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Source: Question Six (MizzTeq NA Media Tour Interview)

It doesn't mean that they won't increase their team over time. It just not like they can open a can of developers and tada! New challenging raid content! \(^_^ )/

Not all content is for everyone and we should respect their opinions on it, because that's how they see it.

I've been here since the Alpha version of 1.0 and I love to see people enjoy playing the (current) game as much as i do. If you feel like the game could use more content, just let them know through the forums. It might inspire them to create just that or maybe something similiar (which would match their vision of the game).

I would only ask not to berate others from making these types of suggestions (calling them elitst, toxic, trolls or tell them to find another game), but also refrain from berating the developers if something doesn't turn out the way you want to (calling the game "crap" because it "only has x bosses"). At the end of the day, we are all just people who want to enjoy ourselves and invest time into something love to do. This applies to everyone, even the developers who are working hours on end to make stuff which we can as players can enjoy.

There's still more content to come. For everyone. I for one am dying to get my hands on Eden Savage and the Yohra Raid (which will be introduced in 5.1).

So many arguments taken verbatim from WoW.

Hardcore Tryhard players trying to hold developers hostage with their subscriptions. We can see how that worked out in WoW. Going back and hind-sighting the change from Challenge Modes only being for transmog gear(MoP)-Challenge dungeons dropping a raid gear coffer(WoD)-Mythic Modes dropping better gear and an heirloom piece(WoD)-Mythic+ becoming part of the gearing cycle(Legion/BFA). Thunderforged becoming Warforged becoming Titanforged all for the illusion of a never ending BiS chase.

And all that for a small section of the playerbase that ended up leaving anyway. All the changes made that trickled down into the rest of game. All so that a smaller selection of classes could see the "new" style of endgame. All for a gameplay mode that encourages "GOGOGO" and cheese strategies. All for a section of gamers that never were going to stay. There is not, never was, and never will be a viable design strategy that is worth catering to Hardcore Tryhards. All Blizzard did was show the casual playerbase that they were willing to throw then under a bus, and then the casuals left as well.

We know the taste of what you want, and its taste is shite. So, no, don't try to turn our game into your shite-filled tail chase.

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Originally Posted by Deusteele

We know the taste of what you want, and its taste is shite. So, no, don't try to turn our game into your shite-filled tail chase.

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Meanwhile you invaded and destroyed the entire genre we used to love, but that's fine, right? My FFXI was ruined thanks to the casual conversion. You invaded it and now want us to have nothing.

Honestly Mr "Forever_learning." You are misconstruing everything we have been saying. Yes you have your right to disagree, just like we have every right to criticize portion of the game. Make of that what you will, honestly I further no need to try to convince you of anything.

Quite frankly you seem distraught for next to no real reason.

Practically foaming at the mouth.

Listen, I don't care what you or how you define endgame.

In truth we are all Forever learning, but that title seems to be most appropriate to you, since you refuse to educate yourself on the set and defined meaning of words and terminology. I have no further interest of arguing semantics with you.

https://www.fflogs.com/character/id/...&mode=detailed

Is this you? You said 4 savage bosses are not enough for you but I don't see you clearing any tiers ever. Also you only killed ex titania/innocence 7 times each and are grey parse. So looks like there are plenty of end game stuff for you to still accomplish. I mean, if you are gold parser/ultimate legend/clear every tier within week 1 or 2 then you have merits to your complaints, but if you haven't cleared any tiers and are grey parser then it seems funny for you to complain about lack of end game. If this is not you then I am mistaken.

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Originally Posted by Klb600

In truth we are all Forever learning, but that title seems to be most appropriate to you, since you refuse to educate yourself on the set and defined meaning of words and terminology. I have no further interest of arguing semantics with you.

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That's exactly my point. You want to define things in a certain way that serve your argument, and when I point out you are hiding behind self-made definitions and semantics, you turn to making an entire post only about me.

Why? Because you know you have lost the argument, and because I refuse to agree that the only content worth doing is the content you deem 'end-game content'

Since page 1, people have basically told you they are ok with the your perceived lack of end-game content because they do various other pieces of content, and the rebuttle is always "that doesn't count'

Sorry, it does count. Crafting, gathering, mount collecting, housing, all that content counts, especially when people in WoW are salivating for housing as something to do which would also help professions in that game.

It's funny how over on the WoW forums there are often threads requesting more casual content to do, while people in FF14 over here are asking for the dungeons and raids from WoW.

Why don't the people who prefer casual style content go spend more time in FF14, while the hardcore of FF14 goes over to WoW.

In truth, I know the answer. The amount of people doing so-called casual content is much larger than those seeking something like ultimate.

Thus, you need up hearing about all these WoW refugees going over to FF14 or ESO - very little refugees going from those games to WoW however.

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Originally Posted by Forever_Learning

That's exactly my point. You want to define things in a certain way that serve your argument, and when I point out you are hiding behind self-made definitions and semantics, you turn to making an entire post only about me.

Why? Because you know you have lost the argument, and because I refuse to agree that the only content worth doing is the content you deem 'end-game content'

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No because there is no point in convincing a man whose blind to his own delusions.

In 1.0 and 2.0 launch, there was an absolute drought of endgame content. 1.0 only had the Nael Van Darnus fight as the conclusion to the (very very basic) story until the servers blew up. No other dungeons or raids or anything. (Dungeons were open world, for that matter, much like they were at XI.)

When 2.0 launched, the only content we had beyond Castrum and Praetorium was Wanderer's Palace, the hard mode primals, and Coil 1-5. Had to wait until 2.1 for extreme primals and Labyrinth of the Ancients.

5.0's immediate content isn't actually that much more than 2.0 when I lay it out like that, but the difference is that there's all the old content there that can still be done. Yeah, it's not current progression content, but you can either try soloing it for a fun challenge (I do this with old dungeons and primals all the time) or getting a group of others also interested in a challenge and dropping down to min iLvl.

Truthfully, the game needs both the fluff content and the difficult end game content.

The fluff content is what makes the world feel alive, and its the stuff that keeps you coming back time and time again. The fluff is stuff like the ambiance of Xi Tah and Ifrit's Cauldron in 11, the awesome rock music when you fight Titan, the coblyn minion miners can dig up, the lore of the Tonberries in the Sch job quests. That is what attaches you to the game.

The difficult end game content is there for the gameplay and to challenge us. Without it, we are essentially using a glorified chat room. For some, the MSQ is more than plenty, others need bonus optional dungeons, and then some need to go even farther beyond that, much like how some in FFT were not happy with just beating the game or the deep dungeon, they also had to see if they could do it with ability-less calculators. All because they loved the game enough to see just how good they could get at it.

So maybe instead of debating over if fluff or difficult content is more valuable, might we not be better served by trying to find a better solution to the problem of how content is consumed faster than it is created without resorting to some of the bad systems mobile games use to gate player progression?

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Originally Posted by Zabuza

Meanwhile you invaded and destroyed the entire genre we used to love, but that's fine, right? My FFXI was ruined thanks to the casual conversion. You invaded it and now want us to have nothing.

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Yeeeeeeah, I'm gonna have to cut you off there.

Casuals did not ruin FFXI. Abyssea or the level cap increases didn't "ruin" FFXI, either, despite the frequent claim of such.

It was evident near the tail end of ToAU that something was up in content development. Things were getting rushed or scrapped entirely. Eventually we learned that SE was making XIV as yet another MMO, helmed by the same guy who lead XI, the questionably infamous Hiromichi Tanaka. This presented a quite evident drain on FFXI resources, and the attention the game needed to continue to properly flourish in its own ways. Instead, when we finally learned about WotG, it stretched on and on and on and on to the point it took years for them to actually finish the main story content with it. 1.0 here also bombs pretty hard despite no shortage of beta feedback, which sends SE into panic mode because now they pretty much have to remake a game, and not just an RPG, but MMORPG. FFXI further suffers content release drought because all hands on deck are primarily trying to salvage XIV. Abyssea runs its plotted course, but there's still no real future in sight. Voidwatch tries to be that sort of old school HNM with a pop system style, but feels horribly received between the proc system, lights, and utterly craptastic reward scheme. Such also began the creep of the mandatory RME, particularly for melee jobs, which very much screamed anti-casual gating by people who favored short-term success over longer-term community health.

I'm sure this assertion may sound strange, but people do like having things to do. For players like myself who pretty much exhausted the entirety of the endgame content they cared for, camping Fafhogg yet again was not something we looked forward to, yet another night of Dynamis was just hours of blah, I had no reason to run Nyzul, Salvage, or whatever else because I had all the gear I wanted, and in some cases, wound up with just because no one else wanted it. Sandworm and Ixion, as they came with WotG, weren't really anymore engaging despite the obvious "counterbot" logic of their spawning mechanics that people just got around with POS hacking anyway. And in some cases people would deliberately spook the latter so another shell couldn't claim. They tried some niche things like Wanted NMs or the earlier and very poorly received etched gear NMs, but there was still ultimately a point where they could no longer really fit sidegrades into the equation. Further so with how restrictive XI's inventory system was, and to some degree, still is. Imagine getting an Adaman Hauberk in 2005 and it still being BiS in 2009. Sure, you get your mileage out of it for the jobs that could equip it, but that also said there were literally 4 years of play where there was no improvement for the slot for its purpose. It didn't matter, however, if SE released a statistical equivalent of an Adaberk+2 or went the route they did with the cap increase, though. People were going to complain because their Adaberks were no longer BiS or just try to skip it entirely for the new version. Just as people complained about RMEs being briefly antiquated earlier in Adoulin due to absent ilvl upgrades. For whatever nonsensical reason, in games that literally thrive on the concept of continuously evolving with new content, some people think that when they're "done" that that should be it an anything that threatens that sentiment is bad.

No, what "ruined" FFXI for some was that they could no longer rest on their laurels. Content was no longer so stringently bottlenecked to timed spawns, insane gil costs, or in the case of Abyssea, not needing 6+ people, many of which you may not have liked but still had to tolerate. The way people leveled up changed, regardless of how some may have felt about key leeches, by effectively tripling EXP party sizes and minimizing the competitive aspect that far too often made things like Mamools or Colibri camps a chore. You didn't need a BRD. You didn't a RDM. Heck, you didn't even really need a tank. People were simply free to actually play their jobs, and with certain atma combinations, in quirky ways the rest of the game would dare not allow. And sure, some mobs were optimal sources of certain things, but there were also alternatives. Were Brews silly? Sure. Needed? Nope. Regardless of how this shook up how people played, there was still the inevitable lack of new content once people leveled all they wanted to, merited them out, +2'd their Empyrean sets, and picked up other odds and ends. At least until Adoulin, and even then some would call that spotty with a not-very-intuitive weakness system or the balance that went into the final tier Delve NMs.

Nonetheless, there were still all the reasons why FFXI never went on to "beat" WoW and wound up more the niche MMO. It was pretty much all but impossible to converse with SE until the OF, certainly to mixed success. Tanaka had his vision, with balance the memed scapegoat for some weird decisions over time. We had bonehead mobs like AV and PW. A lot of people hated paying to play a game they couldn't actually play because solo self-sufficiency was a highly limited thing (BSTs, SMNs, BLMs, and other things that waxed and waned over time). Some people being adamant XI didn't "count" as a FF game because it was online and locked behind the sub. People got chased out by CoP thanks to all the level caps and zero incentive for strangers to backtrack for help. And on and on and on. While it's super easy to just scoff a retort of some equivalent "It's just not their game, then!" line, I'd be more apt to assert that FFXI would be in an even worse state than it is now if they stayed the 75 cap course, never implemented Trusts, removed things like the CoP caps, and basically realized that maybe players being able to do all these things that exist without being shackled to an endgame shell might not be the end of the world. Pine about the good ol' days some other vets might, but the conditions that went behind that era no longer exist. XI found out what it's like to have more than just WoW to compete against. People learned things could be different, better, and to be blunt, accommodating. Lessons learned for 2.0 here, even if painful.

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Originally Posted by Saidosha

Yeeeeeeah, I'm gonna have to cut you off there.

Casuals did not ruin FFXI. Abyssea or the level cap increases didn't "ruin" FFXI, either, despite the frequent claim of such.

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I am going to hardcore disagree with you there. At least on the abysea part.

The game was in steady decline before abysea. It dropped from its peak of ~600k active players to around 390-420k over a 8yr period.

After abysea launched within a year it dropped by an additional 60% of that number... and this was at 1.0 not a game that actually was stellar. There was a reason why when XIV 1.0 failed hardcore and people never did go back to XI.

The Game shift away from guild focused content, negating ~25,000 hrs of content that existed in the game before it, Destorying the whole leveling process, ruined crafting, ruined jobs entirely, Literally made you a god ingame by using a stupid abysea potion thing. Abysea is when what FFXI was officially died. FFXI now and what it was Pre abysea is as night and day as 1.25 and ARR. I love how people say other wise. Look at the sub count, look at the reason why people quit. It is not that hard to see.

FFXI was not a nitche game it was mainstream mmo at its launch, and it was one of the most success mmo launched in that era one of the few to ever pass EQ. WoW redefined the genre, shifted it from midcore to hardcore only to allow the casual gaming audience to play. There is no way for a hardcore only game to ever compete with a casual game. Example which game is better Pokemon or Darksouls for example. I would say Darksouls but I bet nearly 10,000x as many ppl play pokemon.

The masses of FFXI did not leave and go to WoW when it was gaining millions apon millions of subs because they wanted that hardcore game, not an easy mode mmo. When SE tried to shift it to a casual game. Well WoW and all those other games were simply a better casual mmo then it so they all left and never came back.


I had a guild of 74 ppl pre abysea doing ~60hrs of guild events a week. Once abysea launched all but 7 ended quitting the game due to how bs the changes were and how little there was to do.

I enjoy the game, have for years, but I do wish there was more in the way in the way of lvl 80 adventuring tasks. For me though all the other content makes up for that.

What I would love though would be FF14s take on something like WoWs Mythic + dungeons. I would love this. Take dungeons ramp up the difficulty, have leader boards. And give some kind of reward that makes them worthwhile. Mount, Maybe some kind of item drop on completion that has an ilvl at current tome gear level or 5ilvls lower? It reuses all artwork/dungeons.

This would provide a challenge, enable one to gear up other jobs. And would take minimal development time. just up the damage done, and mob hitpoints, maybe add a couple suffix/affixes. And done.

That is one thing I find frustrating, The "oh you can play/level another job". Sure, that is possible and can be fun, but you can only gear up one job (or related job) at a time given the gating on tomestone gear. Savage raiding solves that somewhat.

I will say the devs have repeatedly tried to add more and more hard end game content over the expansions they are trying to do it with the resources SE has allocated them with probably a few mandates i.e don't lose large subs by doing this on top of X.
ARR added savage 2nd coil
HW added PotD challenge floors, resonably difficult 1 to 4 man content
SB added 2 Ultimates, HoH challenge floors, Extreme Rathalos for more 4 man content and lastly Baldesion Arsenal (while not savage difficulty it certainly wasn't 'casual' level of difficulty).

So believe it that the devs do try to add more content tailored to those that like harder stuff just it is never on Launch will never be on Launch because guess what expansion Launches change a lot of jobs up and they tailor difficulty and content around getting used to that, and they also want more content in patches or we would have the WoW model of big burst of content very long dry spells, and based on how everyone was feeling between 3.0 to 3.1 would probably start the downward spiral of subscriptions loss.

The reason people quit XI is because there were other non PVP centric MMO options, finally. SWTOR, LoTR online, then later on TESO and Wildstar. I dual-subbed XI and XIV 1.0 and even 2.x briefly, but after about a year of attempting to do both, I opted for XIV because it required less of a strict schedule. (I'd already drastically reduced my endgame schedule in XI due to graduate school - hard to get a master's degree and be part of a big HNM at the same time....)

Even then, I didn't consider myself "hardcore" in XI despite running a Dynamis linkshell and being an officer for my HNM shell. That was all project management and paperwork on the back end - nothing like extremely skilled play, especially since I was a bard. Maybe in terms of sheer hours played I was hardcore? It was over a thousand days by the time I quit. (I just ticked over 700 days in XIV. Catching up fast!)

I can't go back to those days. I'm too old now. I don't have 10+ hours a week to spend planning raids and doing data entry in FFDKP for loot and trying to herd the cats. Thankfully, XIV's duty finder system and loot system makes gearing up a lot more equitable. Even as the recipient of a Dynamis relic weapon, I recognize that it was an inherently unfair and limiting system, such that only the chosen few could ever obtain it for years. Maybe that's why my hobby in XIV is picking away at old anima and relic weapons in my spare time. Because I can, and it's limited only by the amount of time I'm willing to invest.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

I had a guild of 74 ppl pre abysea doing ~60hrs of guild events a week. Once abysea launched all but 7 ended quitting the game due to how bs the changes were and how little there was to do.

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Again, Abyssea wasn't the problem. It was the lack of follow through on SE. It'd be like if we were stuck with pre-Eden here in current content cycle with no real clue if anything is in the pipe. But by this point, the more general damage to XI was done with XIV's production being a resource vampire. If you think those same 74 people would do the same 60 hours of stuff indefinitely, you'd be wrong, and more likely look at a revolving door of players.

More principally, I look to the following reasons for people to do content:
1) It improves their character.
2) It improves a someone else's character, usually a friend or guildmate.
3) To kill some time or a change of pace.

I don't shame people for being selfishly motivated in their play choices. If they see no value in a piece of content, that's fine. If the question of what could change that can be answered by a means other than throwing must-have gear into it, great, but I think most of us know things like that isn't magically going to turn PvEers into PvPers, or casuals into hardcore raiders. With these games being so combat-oriented, however, character growth is always the premier option. Lord knows I poked my head into an RP related thread earlier this morning to see people still mock and deride the hobby, so such tells me we still have a long way to go when it comes to some aspects of community receptivity.

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The Game shift away from guild focused content, negating ~25,000 hrs of content that existed in the game before it, Destorying the whole leveling process, ruined crafting, ruined jobs entirely

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I'm not going to be convince that a shift from alliance-based content was a bad thing. People come with numerous play styles and schedules, which you can't really expect strangers to accommodate if long term investment in a singular piece of content is forced. The very fact so many endgame shells has to have outside point systems to justify who deserved what further hammers home my belief that content rarely favored the individual or those who couldn't legitimately fit in for reasons beyond not being a jerk.

As for the old content, I'll just nod back to my 3 points. The longer someone's character exists and the more they partake, the more #1 and #2 are likely to wane, with #3 being a wildcard. It's safe to say there was a point where things like farming mannequin parts or doing certain BCs died on their own and it was by no means Abyssea's fault. It just mean certain rewards fell out of favor.

I'm not sure I'd call the leveling process much of a loss, either. It shifted over time, sure, from the IT++ grind with a balanced party early on with SCs and MBs be favored. You had MNK burns. RNG burns. Manaburns. Colibri hit and then you get double BRDs, a RDM, a COR, and two heavy DDs. People cheesed Astralburns for a bit. Level sync extended the lifespan of some camps. Basically, whatever the community deemed the most effective, they flocked to. I've never bought into the presumption that leveling the "right way" actually taught people how to play the game, when the endgame content usually had its own niche quirks that went beyond dispelling a crab's buffs or healing a middling ST TP move. Otherwise, I stick to my assertion that the Abyssea process being more inclusive was better for the game than hoping that maybe the players found the next iteration of Colibri in one of the revised zones.

Maybe I'm a salty Alchemist, but XI also never really handled crafting well. (H)NM drops often outshined a lot of gear, with something like the Peacock Charm/Amulet being BiS in the neck slot from the 30s to 75. Profits rarely existed in NQs. The durables market was super grossly saturated. Not all abjuration gear was good, or HQs didn't really change a stat that counted like Dalmatica not getting +2 Refresh. RMT did their number on the economy, while progression further pushed to R/Ex things and the rise of the mercenary market. XIV's crafting may not be perfect, either, but I'm inclined to call it more interesting at the very least.

I don't buy jobs being ruined by the level cap increase, either. BST, for example, gained a fair bit of viability with the increases. However, SE did have to later adjust the range at which you could trigger pet moves because players were treating them like disposable DPS sponges from safe distances. Otherwise, pretty much everyone gained new abilities, and in some cases, new subjob choices. You could argue that maybe not all jobs got it as good, sure, but that was always kind of XI's curse.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

Exactly! Take WoW for example.. I never really found farming azerite or world quests to be "thrilling". But i was kept busy and entertained.

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I found that just azerite gathering, and a few world quests that offered stuff I needed, anlong with 1-2 raids a week weren't enough. I'd be done playing after 1-2 hours in a day. Here, I can keep going all day, but that may end once I get my professions to 80.

Never bothered with M+ because I played Enhance and refused to use raider.IO = no chance at getting in.

Still more stuff to do here in a day than there was in a week of WoW, and I still haven't tried it all.

Your doing Endgame content everyday. It's called roulletes lol.

i think you guys should stop replying to the guy that doesnt even have a max level combat job and be incapable of reading

I'm always for more content..but not sure what else could be added. I think the way the gear system is rather linear and the stats are very simple make it a bit limited.

I remember in FFXI it seemed like I never ran out of stuff to do because of gear swapping and well..a lot of other things. There was so much gear to farm and that was fun for me. Anyway what truly made me play FFXI for so long and never get bored was probably the social aspect..but that's a whole diff thread..lol.

Anyway, there is no gear swapping in XIV so that's not really an option. I'm far from creative so I've no idea what else they could add. But again at this point any content they add is fine with me. I'd prefer stuff everyone can enjoy.

With how quickly gear gets replaced in XIV I've come to mostly just play it for the story and when I get very bored of my other games. I've played since 1.0 alpha but eventually the formula gets old after 9 years ^^;

I do like how I can log in and easily play..that is a nice aspect but at the same time I do wish it felt a but more rewarding. I've done progression raiding too since 1.x days but in the end with how the gear is replaced I dont bother anymore. The raid fights are fun for me and I'll do it for that but once it feels repetitive I just stop.

End game almost always turns into end of the game....to me the loot treadmill just isn't fun...I need some form of building my character or I go play something else.

Before they add new content, I think they need to go back and revise old content. Like Chocobo Racing, Lords of Vermillion, PVP, make BLU max level and useable in relevant content!