Current State of the Game

I don't agree that this game has less polish than wow, but I've always been the person who enjoys more realistic looking games and wow is just too cartoony for me. Regardless, back on topic.

This game has the potential to be something great, the problem is it's being held back by an unrealistic vision that people will stay because content is accessible to all. With MMO's this just isn't going to work. We need diversity, we need challenge, and we need content that appeals to ALL players. Not just the casual, not just the hardcore, not just the midcore. All of us, period.

The current state of end game raids while enjoyable, is just bland... oh so bland. There is no thrill to it. "Oh Hai! Dip Dodge Duck I WIN!" WHA??? I remember beating the underfoot expansion (EQ's 11th? I cant remember) Heart pounding, Sweaty palms, combat rezzing, throwing bodies at it, FIGHTING TOOTH AND NAIL for the win, and when that bastard finally hit the floor, it was fkn EPIC! People screaming and hollering in vent, Just pure awesome. You wont get that with ARR, and it saddens me. Yoshi P. is a veteran MMO player and I'm not sure what he is thinking. I love what he has done with the mmo, I like the feel. There just is no excitement. Since when were end game raids THAT EASY? Where is the randomness? Where is the unpredictable? Where is anything but a completely 110% scripted event with a pattern, that is easily remembered? What happened to MMO's? Too soft..

Gear progression is way too fast, weekly lockout or not, its too fast. We are supplied with ez-mode gear that is over statted for end game as it is. That should have NEVER been accessible like that. There should be no need for artificial lockouts if the content is challenging enough.

Crafting and gathering serves no purpose and that is quite shameful as well. No economy to thrive on??

I will go and say this. The generation of MMO's that started it long ago are long gone :( No more are the days of EQ where just exploring could get you killed. Its all pound puppies and strawberry shortcakes that are ruining the genre. We all know it to be true. It's sad, because most of these hoppers you are talking about, are people that are seeking the next game that will sink its teeth into them. Truth! We need to get back to basics with MMO's, flat out because the same old crap just isn't cutting it.

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Originally Posted by Dazd

I don't mean graphical polish, I mean gameplay.

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I'm gonna go ahead and "white knight" for a minute here because I grow REALLY tired of people comparing a 10 YEAR OLD GAME with like 9 XPACS to a game that hasn't even been out a year. WE ALL know ARR needs some push in the right direction, but trying to make that comparison is just flat out stupid. Sorry If I offended you, but its true. If you want to compare this to WoW, compare it to WoW when it was under a year old. I think you will find things to be VERY VERY different.

I don't mean graphical polish, I mean gameplay.

I just farm my 450 myth every week, or do 50 or 100 a day, then head out to World of Tanks. Lots of people in my FC don't seem to be logging on now, and Gridania increasingly becoming a ghost town. I farm the philo stones for potash, lime sulfer, animal fat and coke, but prices for these have dropped to less than one third since December (3000gil now when they used to go around 9000 to 10,000). Lately I have been thinking about ending my sub, the thought about moving on seems to be growing and gnawing in my mind.

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Originally Posted by SinisterJoint

great words.

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indeed, everything you said is the absolute truth. for an MMO, there is no grind except in pvp...in a pve oriented game. all tomes gears is so easy to get these days (even before 2.1). this game cant survive in this "extremely causal" mode. it is sickenly that you can maxed out your toon by really do nothing hard. i hope 2.2 bring in so form of grind and make all tome gear to be expensive as sh**.the only reason im still playing is for my relic completion achievement and pvp (which i enjoy because amazingly it the only thing in this game that resemble a grind in this whole game)

Its what I told someone in my FC, couple months down the road when subscriptions are lack luster its gonna be harder for new players to do dungeons because people will be farther in the game or the gear will not even be worth it and no point in getting phil or myth.

Its basically a straight course with no off turns, I seen it in FFXI also when they got far into the story its like they go by if you were not here for the start you are too late, they have fates and leves but some story lines have you doing dungeons which will halt a lot of people in the future, the weapons on primals not worth it due to something in future being better after updates which will be pointless, I even thought getting the sword for garuda when I was doing relic was pointless cause 1 more fight would of gotten my sword.

As for the Auction house, shops give too much of the items you need and monsters drop rate is very good so why buy from Auction house, you get the gil from roulette once a day but gone instantly after a few dungeons costing you repairs up to 400 gil for 3 runs thats 1200 gone, no progression in gil.

There is no outside thing to do besides fates or leves, I like the game a lot myself but I feel trapped in a revolving door with only 3 things to do, dungeon- fate- leves thats it, you can craft but you need gil, you ain't got gil you do leves you do leves they are empty you buy 1 stack for 30k all leve gil is gone farm but items you need are across the region teleport costing gil pretty funny.

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Originally Posted by Jonny_Tapas

I'm glad to see a good discussion. Some points I want to touch on:


2.) If we wanted to play WoW we wouldn't have purchased Final Fantasy. No need to compare the 2. There are things we love about the FF series and we loved about XI online that drove us to this game. We're not asking for a copy of other games we choose not to play.

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Well put.

I haven't even completed all the dungeons and trials available. I've never capped my myth for the week. Yet, I still no longer feel compelled to log on anymore.

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Originally Posted by Vensaval

I haven't even completed all the dungeons and trials available. I've never capped my myth for the week. Yet, I still no longer feel compelled to log on anymore.

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thats...well probably an even worse sign about the game overall...which honestly it has plenty of other issues aside from endgame.

I love this game--a lot--and have been playing it for hours every day since release. And today was the first day I logged in, stared at my character, and had no idea what to do with myself. Ended up just chatting with my FC mates. It makes me sad that I feel this way because this has been more than just some game for me. I've met such awesome people because of it. I really hope the next patch will help with the boredom for longer than the previous one did. :(

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Originally Posted by ApolloGenX

You don't have to be a content locust to run out of stuff to do in this game.


That's when I realized- I am playing a lobby game...

/canceled.

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This is really the main problem, you have 4 hubs in the game, 3 city states and revernants toll. YOu have this beautiful land scape and world that has little to no use out side of generic quests and fates. I know once my FC gets a house i have no reason to go anywhere, and if the ycan add rowena into my house it'd be even easier to never leave. End game doesn't have enough content, the casual play is boring, I still enjoy the game and log on multiple days a week but I find my self longing for 1.23 more and more maybe its just my nostalgia glasses who knows.
Ultimately there retention plan seems to be throw nostalgia mounts and minions at as and pray

There not a lot of diversity in the game. It to much on the rails, and not enough ways to get to a means and get good smart rewards.

Example: there really only 4 pieces of gear to get , darklight,crystal tower,allagan and mythic. Once you got all them your done, in a sense. There ton of cool looking gear in the game just for what ever reason they do not got enough diversity after level 50 gear.

EX: Alternative gears with same states or little different stats. And could be harder and longer to get so do not look like same person. Like take the darklight,crystal tower gear meld them together and spend 20k company credits,500 myth credits, and 1k philosophy and a few items from a hard mode dungeons can make a new version of mythic gear.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Those are called Content Locust

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Yep.

You guys realize you're not even 10% of the game's current population right? As is stands now, if all the hoppers decided to leave, that would be 1.8 mil minus...ya...not very much.

BUT THERE'S MORE THAT'LL LEAVE TOO!

...and then of course many many more starting and/or coming back. This is a great game, has great potential, has great building blocks, and will be around for a looooooooooooooooooooooong time.

Live with it.

Because no one has said this, I will, this game is a f2p content build with no cash shop, and a sub fee.

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Originally Posted by SinisterJoint

I'm gonna go ahead and "white knight" for a minute here because I grow REALLY tired of people comparing a 10 YEAR OLD GAME with like 9 XPACS to a game that hasn't even been out a year. WE ALL know ARR needs some push in the right direction, but trying to make that comparison is just flat out stupid. Sorry If I offended you, but its true. If you want to compare this to WoW, compare it to WoW when it was under a year old. I think you will find things to be VERY VERY different.

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I can compare it to WoW because SE isn't an amateur game company. They have previous experience to draw from and they had tons of people from 1.0 onward through the beta for ARR giving their opinions and they basically listened to none of it. This is how they wanted to make the game and aside from some minor changes that may come with patches it's pretty much staying the same and Yoshi has stated that several times.

Couldn't disagree more. We do not want to go back to like 1% drops in AV and CC of 1.0 I do not want to do coil 12 hours a day and get nothing. I'll take my go in do it once and be done for the week.

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Originally Posted by Lamentations

Because no one has said this, I will, this game is a f2p content build with no cash shop, and a sub fee.

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nobody has not said this because the sentence doesnt make any sense. a f2p mmo dont get patches this quickly or this frequent and the patches tend to focus on the the cash shop. if there is no cash shop, then is no "f2p" content. furthermore, a lot of those f2p mmo has recently been pushing out big and in game earn only content. lol i bet you felt real smart posting that nonsensical insult. this game has alot of issues ,but "f2p" content isnt even one of them.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

Yep.

You guys realize you're not even 10% of the game's current population right? As is stands now, if all the hoppers decided to leave, that would be 1.8 mil minus...ya...not very much.

BUT THERE'S MORE THAT'LL LEAVE TOO!

...and then of course many many more starting and/or coming back. This is a great game, has great potential, has great building blocks, and will be around for a looooooooooooooooooooooong time.

Live with it.

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but here is the kicker, we don't have to. Most of us probably wont. You cant sit and make a broad generalization like that because quite honestly, you have no clue how many people feel the same way. If something isn't done to improve the longevity of the content, than no, it wont be around for a long time. As it stands SE cant even deliver content that lasts the 3 moths it takes to push out another content patch.

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Originally Posted by Dazd

I can compare it to WoW because SE isn't an amateur game company. They have previous experience to draw from and they had tons of people from 1.0 onward through the beta for ARR giving their opinions and they basically listened to none of it. This is how they wanted to make the game and aside from some minor changes that may come with patches it's pretty much staying the same and Yoshi has stated that several times.

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You can do whatever you like, fact remains that you are comparing an apple to a loaf of bread. There is no relevance between the content in a 10 year old game and a game that hasn't even been out a year. Judging from your first post, you have no clue how WoW was at launch. Which pretty much says you have nfc what you're talking about. Sorry!

This was a relaunch with already existing content to build off plus a previous game to pull ideas from. WoW pretty much came from scratch when MMO's were fairly new. Instead of trying to continue making the game unique SE decided to make it a WoW clone and did a poor job of it and from how things look in the near future they aren't trying to change anything, only adding on to their pile of crap. Btw I hate WoW it's a boring repetitive game so I guess if that is what SE was going for they have succeeded.

The commentator's observations and recommendations are spot on. Whether he care to admit it or not a lot of what he proposed are things that made FFXI highly successful. Unfortunately his proposals are something we will never see as long as SE (Yoshida) has this unhealthy obsession with combating the RMT threat. Everything he cited as drawbacks i.e. worthless crafting, lockout, caps etc. are attempts on SE's part to prevent RMTs from gaining a major foothold in the game. Yoshida-san has stated as much. Unfortunately this blind obsession is destroying the games potential. Things will not change til there is a change in philosophy at SE.

i dont even understand why he bothered to put crafting in the game. kill it. kill gil. theres your game ultimate game yoshida. since thats pretty much the direction hes going with.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

that would be 1.8 mil minus...ya...not very much.

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Those are not subscriptions. Copies sold or total characters(I have 5 of them for example) on active accounts.

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Originally Posted by Moheeheeko

I knew this answer with pop up sooner or later. It's time to accept that XIV was never meant to be XI-2. this is its own game with its own engine and mechanics.it's not for people to relive the glory days of 11.

>>>>And even if all the 11 guys left now the subscriptions would still be high enough for square to consider this game a cold total success.

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<<<<
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LOL. Unbelievable.

<<<<Hey you with the rose-colored glasses on, gtfo cuz you are so inconsequential if you all left legitimately in the next month of subscriptions it wouldn't make a dent in the financial success of FFXIV ARR. Leave us and stop with the suggestions for changes which shows you care. We really don't, we're just here to have a few minutes of fun and if/when it goes down the tubes, oh well, it was ONLY a video game - not something compensatory in place of problems we have in our own life like YOU...you irrelevant legacy players you.<<<<<


Ridiculous. But go right ahead and keep insulting those who have been the most loyal - putting their money where their mouth is, being active in the Final Fantasy online communities, spreading the word - free marketing to countless numbers of others who then joined...yea, don't let the door hit you in the kaboose Legacy players. Ba-bye.

***Nods with respect to Legacy players. There, I'm a white knight forum poster for the Legacy constituents among us! So very glad you are here, have been here and hopefully will continue to stay in order to balance the tide of here-take-my-money-this-isn't-really-important-in-my-life-gamers. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

Yep.

You guys realize you're not even 10% of the game's current population right? As is stands now, if all the hoppers decided to leave, that would be 1.8 mil minus...ya...not very much.

BUT THERE'S MORE THAT'LL LEAVE TOO!

...and then of course many many more starting and/or coming back. This is a great game, has great potential, has great building blocks, and will be around for a looooooooooooooooooooooong time.

Live with it.

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1.8 million =/= subscriber numbers. Continue to make up facts to prove your points.

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Originally Posted by SinisterJoint

but here is the kicker, we don't have to. Most of us probably wont. You cant sit and make a broad generalization like that because quite honestly, you have no clue how many people feel the same way. If something isn't done to improve the longevity of the content, than no, it wont be around for a long time. As it stands SE cant even deliver content that lasts the 3 moths it takes to push out another content patch.

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“Most of us….”

But here’s the kicker, people with this point of view are not “most of us”. They’re just not. This game has PLENTY of content to keep the casual-serious gamers occupied for a very long time. It DOES NOT have enough content to fulfill the insatiable appetite of the “mmo consumptionist”. No game does…anywhere…ever….in the world.

And yes, I’m pretty sure I have a clue that the vocal minority saying this game has nothing to do does NOT represent the sentiments of a majority of the player base.

This game will be added to, improved upon, and going strong for a long LONG time after this minority leaves. Happens every single time.

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Originally Posted by Vigoram

1.8 million =/= subscriber numbers. Continue to make up facts to prove your points.

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Fine. 5%?

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Originally Posted by Vensaval

I haven't even completed all the dungeons and trials available. I've never capped my myth for the week. Yet, I still no longer feel compelled to log on anymore.

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And I'm the opposite. I haven't completed all of the dungeons and trials available, nor have I capped anything for a week ever yet I just keep logging in. I feel like everyone is so far ahead of me and that I'd just be a nuisance to them, but I just keep finding more and more things that I'd like to do. I just keep setting goals for myself and my tiny Free Company and don't worry about what others and the game itself tries to tell me is my main objective.

Psh, I'll get to the HM primals, ct, wp and ak eventually.

Yoshida, "1.8 million players around the world, 6.7 million characters created, over 400 million hours played"
Source: http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/13/540...tart-for-naoki

1 person represents 0.0000006%(rounding) of the population (doesn't matter if you are a die hard fan, hard core, casual, whiteknight, pessimist, optimist, etc..).
5% would mean 90,000 people
I'm not seeing 90,000 actively using these forums, otherwise they'd blow up.


Lets just be a pessimist and say that only half of 1.8 million are active subscribers (which is low balling in any MMO estimates).
90,0000 actives.
1 person represent 0.000001%(rounding)
5% would mean 4,500 people
I can see 4,500 people actively using the forums at maybe peak times when the game is being patched for maintenance. If they were active users then you'd see a crap ton more topics, posts, replies each day.

Folks need to understand when they say things like "most of us" and "majority" that they have no clue what they are talking about.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

snip

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Vocal minority? MMO Consumptionist? Man, I didn't rush to the end game, I didn't and still don't feel the need to get everything right way but I've done all coil many times, my raid team takes less than an hour to finish the entire thing, we jump to weekly primal and kill them without wipes, we farm items from them and still we end up without anything else to do. All you need to be good in this game and finish all the content is to have at least a grasp of the skill necessary to play an MMRPG with scripted mechanics and big red circle you're supposed to move out from. If you wanna play this game like a button mashing platform game or action game, then you will fail. This game is no hard at all. So, stop pointing a finger at people's face and saying it's pretty much their fault for finish the few end-game content this game has (EASy end-game content, btw...).

We all know what we have now is just a game release's amount of content, the problem is that the content is way tooooo easy and we won't get anything added to it, they will just nerf the old and add new, making the easy easier and soon enough after the patch we will still have people complaining they have nothing to do in the game.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

Yep.

You guys realize you're not even 10% of the game's current population right? As is stands now, if all the hoppers decided to leave, that would be 1.8 mil minus...ya...not very much.

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Last time I check when they released ACTIVE SUBS numbers it was only around 600k and that was months ago. They do not have 1.8mil ACTIVE SUBS.

I agree with everything the guy in the video said :<

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

Ya know people can look at your profile right? Just say there's nothing YOU want to do. You wanna raid? Fine go raid. But don't say you've exhausted everything this game has to offer when you haven't.

And there's plenty of mechanics that don't involve red circles.

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Why do people keep using this argument? And then will turn around and say "You shouldn't have done everything you play too much"

You don't have to do everything in a mmo! It's plenty of mmos where people only run dungeons and still have fun or only touch a little part of the game and they are still satisfied with the content because it's not watered down.

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Originally Posted by Edenholt

...snip....

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Ya know people can look at your profile right? Just say there's nothing YOU want to do. You wanna raid? Fine go raid. But don't say you've exhausted everything this game has to offer when you haven't.

And there's plenty of mechanics that don't involve red circles.

Honestly... the content locusts left months ago. The people leaving now are the players who took their time but had a good static that could actually beat each boss.

This game requires almost no time once you've learned a fight. Almost all of endgame is literally just a small boss arena with a pretty skybox and a teleport directly to it. Coil 1-5 and all three primals takes about 90m or so once you've learned the fights. That not being a content locust... that is just no content. Even my dad, playing 6-10 hours per week is bored and has unsubbed. He got into coil a few times but he's said "Why bother going into coil, I have full i90 with the mix of allagan and mostly myth that I do have". He's right... what is the point? Unless you feel compelled to level every class and try to gear it in full i90 this game has a pitifully small amount of content. Not because of how much content they have developed but due to design choices that makes almost all of their content irrelevant and locks you out of the content that is relevant. It's just poor design decisions cause 'end-gamers' to quit.

imo myth gear ruined the endgame, just knowing its going to be the same story for 2.2 as well. 2 months to get coil 6-9 on clear and leviathan will probably take a week or two.. even for our fairly casual static. Then its back to monday night farm and log... not worth $13 per month.

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Originally Posted by Errors

Lets just be a pessimist and say that only half of 1.8 million are active subscribers (which is low balling in any MMO estimates)

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They had +600K subs and servers were packed brim with people(new servers were added way before this announcement). Now servers are much emptier, so no, SE don't have 900K subs, not even 600K.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

Ya know people can look at your profile right? Just say there's nothing YOU want to do. You wanna raid? Fine go raid. But don't say you've exhausted everything this game has to offer when you haven't.

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People going to exhaust content they find interesting and that is it, no more content for them. Are insisting they should be happy playing content they don't like? Don't be so full of yourself.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

And there's plenty of mechanics that don't involve red circles.

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Which are...?

They need to open this game up abit the lockouts are really starting to hurt bad. This last week even from tuesday night have been terrible for finding anyone to do coil and now today its like a ghost town on our server even checking PF there is like 2 things listed because all other content is done.

If they have to have a lockout on stuff like coil I would rather them do the CT way and lock gear out to once a week but leave the place open. We have some statics but there are people who we rotate in but not everyone can get a chance each week its pretty ridiculous at this point. Some of us are even at T4 and T5 yet we need abit more gear and again no one can continue because everything is capped or locked out stopping everything in its tracks.

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Originally Posted by Demetirus

I haven't completed all of the dungeons and trials available, nor have I capped anything for a week ever yet I just keep logging in. I feel like everyone is so far ahead of me and that I'd just be a nuisance to them, but I just keep finding more and more things that I'd like to do. I just keep setting goals for myself and my tiny Free Company and don't worry about what others and the game itself tries to tell me is my main objective.

Psh, I'll get to the HM primals, ct, wp and ak eventually.

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That's pretty much me as well. Not like the content is going to spontaneously combust and disappear or anything. :cool:

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Originally Posted by Laf

People going to exhaust content they find interesting and that is it, no more content for them. Are insisting they should be happy playing content they don't like? Don't be so full of yourself.

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Then say, “there’s nothing I want to do” not “there’s nothing to do (haven’t done the beast tribes, haven’t done pvp, haven’t leveled a crafter, haven’t leveled their chocobo, haven’t xyz).

THAT’S being full of oneself.

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Originally Posted by Laf

Which are...?

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Stuff.

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

Quite frankly, the only reason the game hasn't seen a mass exodus yet is simple. How many major new MMORPGs have launched after ARR? The answer: zero. When Wildstar and EQN launch, you're going to see a massive nosedive in players. Even my FC has already decided to move back to GW2.

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ESO is garbage and will have to enter f2p purgatory after the 1st month. Wildstar looks interesting but since it's made by NC soft everyone knows it's subs will take a noise dive and EQN is Sony which is known for releasing MMO's full of game breaking bugs that never get addressed

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

Ya know people can look at your profile right? Just say there's nothing YOU want to do. You wanna raid? Fine go raid. But don't say you've exhausted everything this game has to offer when you haven't.

And there's plenty of mechanics that don't involve red circles.

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Level all classes is not content, it's just an option for those who like playing mages and melee and in this game you don't need to lvl alts. You don't have to to lvl them all to enjoy the game. I don't like healing, why should I lvl a healer? because I have no other options? Will it change anything in my understanding on the main storyline? I will give you that getting some of the cross skills are a good reason, but then you can get away without those. Crafting? Don't make me laugh, please. You spend hours getting materials, lvling and selling HQ just to just your prices constantly undercut. I have some items for sale it's been more than 3 weeks, I kept lowering but I refuse to lower even more and wanna know, it doesn't make any difference, it's faster to run dungeons to get gil. I'm not a legacy player and I already have pretty much everything I would need in order to be do what I want. And don't judge me by the gear my bard is wearing, I main a pladin and my bard only get the left overs, if my bard even have a the allagan bow you can image how easy is to get stuffs in this game.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

Then say, “there’s nothing I want to do” not “there’s nothing to do. THAT’S being full of oneself.

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From persons perspective it is exactly the same. If wording upsets you, well it is your problem... world doesn't spin around you. Choosing not to do anything if only other choice is to do stuff you don't like, isn't being full of yourself.

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Originally Posted by Imapooonu

Stuff.

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so none?

So many valid points... This topic has grown quite a bit overnight.

However we spend a lot of time talking about other games, and repeating what's wrong. I'd hope to see this topic grow into a different direction. We should be telling SE what we want. If our opinions truly matter and we voice them in the direction we need to help them dev a game we love. Maybe just maybe they will get it done.

In the video I mention, I'd like to see the game throttled in a different way. Removing caps and lockouts and rather having chests not be 100% to increase the longevity of content. I also mention adding rare craft items that craft into stuff that match gear being rewarded.

How do you feel about these concepts? What other ideas do you have that would entertain us as we log in daily?

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Originally Posted by Jonny_Tapas

We should be telling SE what we want.

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I think a lot of people have tried. I lurk the forums every day and I've seen lots of topics, well thought out, no "ERMGERHD DIZ GAME SUXS WOW CLONE", with nice suggestions and they either get NO response. Or a mod comes in says "After speaking with "x" team/ "x" person they have stated that there are no plans to change/fix "x" problem" I think maybe this game isn't for us and that this game is for new mmoers and super casuals. Not every mmo is for everyone :<