New Direction in Content

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Originally Posted by UBERHAXED

Is this not what we have with Alex? Do you have no recollection of the past? When they do this people will just complain "The fights haveno new mechanics, just higher dps checks, they are boring. Gear is just just recolor of normal mode with no new story and no reason to do it.". There is no winning (although I personally prefer the Alex way). Unless people have forgotten, people who develop the game are also regular players and they know what is a good idea based on the fact that they can model their own enjoyment of the content as any particular working adult, which is their main demographic. Usually the people who have problems with the scheme are just people who did not fit inside of the targeted demographic.

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You missed the point. Alex N was tuned to appeal to the non-raiders in this game. Why can't raiders have something more in line with what would appeal to them every "catch up" patch?

Thus far, if all we are getting is SR EX, 3.1 will be one of the cheapest end game patches ever released.

We are literally at this point where we are begging for a modicum of decent end game content. SE is just all over the map and their poor performance is finally starting to show.

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Originally Posted by Felis

I see it more as a stepstone that will replace the tome stepstones. Don't forget, there will be players who join during or after 3.1

3.0: last leveling dungeon (ilevel 148) -> first lv 60 dungeon (ilevel 160) -> law tomes (ilevel 180) -> Esotheric tomes (ilevel 200)
3.1: last leveling dungeon (ilevel 148) -> first lv 60 dungeon (ilevel 160) -> law tomes (ilevel 180) -> Ark1 (ilevel 200) + Esotheric tomes (ilevel 200)
3.2: last leveling dungeon (ilevel 148) -> first lv 60 dungeon (ilevel 160) -> Ark1 (ilevel 200) + Esotheric tomes (ilevel 200) -> ??? tomes (ilevel 220)
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3.4: last leveling dungeon (ilevel 148) -> first lv 60 dungeon (ilevel 160) -> Ark1 (ilevel200) -> Ark2 + ??? tomes (ilevel 220) + ??? tomes (ilevel 240)

Even during 2.5 there were still new players to those the CT was a nice option to gear up. Particularly if their average ilevel was only between 50 (enough to enter CT1) and 80 (required for high level roulette in 2.5). Now they can just buy a full set of ilevel 115 gear.

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Yeah, still seems pointless since eso tomes will be uncapped in 3.2 and anyone can be ilvl 200 from a week of grinding DF. That's what catch up should be. Void ark is literally just for glamour and alts, oh and the welfare upgrade items.

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Originally Posted by Azazua_azura

-stuff-
TLDR: It's the player's fault that people are not enjoying the game, it has nothing to do with the dev team.

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Fixed that for ya.

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Originally Posted by zosia

Yeah, still seems pointless since eso tomes will be uncapped in 3.2 and anyone can be ilvl 200 from a week of grinding DF.

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Yes. But at the same time law get removed and ex roulette min. ilevel get increased (to whatever the min. ilevel of the 3.2 ex dungeons will be). So the people who just reach lv60 have to farm first gears before they can use the roulette to farm tomes. And maybe Ark1 reward with more highest tome than a lv60 dungeon outside of roulette. And in later patches the cap between a fresh lv60 player and the roulette min. ilevel increase more again.

What I want to say is that Ark1 can be a important stepstone of progression to those who reach lv60 later.

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Originally Posted by Felis

Yes. But at the same time law get removed and ex roulette min. ilevel get increased (to whatever the min. ilevel of the 3.2 ex dungeons will be). So the people have to grind first for gears before they can use the roulette to farm tomes.

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Yes, that would be the point. These players are "catching up" so they have not been grinding for eso gear anyway. This would be new content for them to enjoy on top of the new content of 3.2.

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What I want to say is that Ark1 can be a important stepstone of progression to those who reach lv60 later.

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Ark1 should be an important stepping stone for players who have been subbed throughout 3.0, not just for players who were not around that need to catch up. Why Should SE be making content for players who did not play in the 3.0 endgame? SE should be making stepping stones for people who are now currently ilvl 200 or higher, not for people who are just resubing or hit lvl 60 last week.

So outside of BiSing or a challenge(a nuts one imo)...What's the point of doing Savage now with Void Ark dropping upgrade mats for eso gear?

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Originally Posted by Phireblast

So outside of BiSing or a challenge(a nuts one imo)...What's the point of doing Savage now with Void Ark dropping upgrade mats for eso gear?

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BiS comes from explorations. The only reason is the challenge at this point.

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Originally Posted by zosia

BiS comes from explorations. The only reason is the challenge at this point.

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Eh, they're aetherial equipment. I'm not so sure to be honest even with the 210 potential.

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Originally Posted by Phireblast

So outside of BiSing or a challenge(a nuts one imo)...What's the point of doing Savage now with Void Ark dropping upgrade mats for eso gear?

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It's also completely possible (follow me here, now) that the Void Ark does not drop upgrade mats for eso gear. Let's not make assumptions. SE changed the raiding model in 3.0 and the Raid weapon is no longer a higher ilvl than the tome weapon. Also let's not assume that you can get 210 gear from the easy islands. I'm pretty sure that they are going to be as rare as atma at this point, and likely only from the very last islands you can discover with a max level airship. And even then, stats are randomized.

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Originally Posted by UBERHAXED

It's also completely possible (follow me here, now) that the Void Ark does not drop upgrade mats for eso gear. Let's not make assumptions.

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Technically speaking, you are correct given I used incorrect wording:

http://puu.sh/kYVpv/7430cb78b1.jpg

Which is why I questioned the point of doing Savage outside of BiSing and challenge content. I'm not even going to factor the islands. I feel getting the tokens to upgrade something as little as a shoe will take two or so weeks, making it longer than running A2 weekly given your group's RNG is good.

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Originally Posted by zosia

BiS comes from explorations. The only reason is the challenge at this point.

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BiS won't be decided until some shmuck gets a decent piece of randomized gear, posts a screenshot, becomes "most sought after stats and nothing can compare". Ya'll can have fun with that mess lol

Even if the eploratory 210 gear isn't equal to the savage 210 I'll probably still primarily work on that simply because Savage just feels like more coil without the great story attached to it. If I can take my entire FC and go roam some islands and kill some big mobs and generally have a good time exploring with my friends - I would MUCH rather do that than slam my head against insta-wipe mechanics for hours until everyone learns the script.

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Originally Posted by Sylkis

Would like to see a 99 floor semi-random dungeon

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I too would like to see a randomly generated dungeon, of semi-variable length. 99 floors is probably a bit much.

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Originally Posted by Phireblast

Technically speaking, you are correct given I used incorrect wording:

http://puu.sh/kYVpv/7430cb78b1.jpg

Which is why I questioned the point of doing Savage outside of BiSing and challenge content. I'm not even going to factor the islands. I feel getting the tokens to upgrade something as little as a shoe will take two or so weeks, making it longer than running A2 weekly given your group's RNG is good.

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Let's be real here. You shouldn't expect anything faster than the token we have right now. Which is a month for 1 upgrade item and 2 months for the weapon. Not sure where you are getting 2 weeks from.

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Originally Posted by OoglieBooglie

I too would like to see a randomly generated dungeon, of semi-variable length. 99 floors is probably a bit much.

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FFXI was able to achieve 100 floors with Nyzul Isle, but you wouldn't handle them all at the same time. Basically every 20 levels there was a big boss to fight that dropped gear (Floors 20 & 40 could either be Adamantoise, Behemoth, or Fafnir so even the bosses were semi-random) and you went up 5 floors at a time, if I remember correctly. The areas were random and there were different objectives for each floor. It was pretty fun content and it lasted for a good while.

(Again, I don't want FFXIV to become FFXI, I'm just saying this kind of content is doable. Especially if FFXI was able to pull it off years ago.)

Thinking about it, given the previous conversation, I would be willing to forego increased ilvls every 6 months and instead allow them to just rebalance the different gear in the game to have effects on them instead of just being bland gear with cookie cutter stats. I'm aware they've said before this would be tricky to balance, but this would not only make certain gear released viable for longer but it would also bring back "builds" and let players have different play-styles and content itself would still be relevant later down the line because it isn't being made useless every time a new patch comes out.

1) While yes at the same time XIV is just one game, I mean if you have fun just playing one game that's fine but you don't always need stuff to do to keep your busy, sometimes what's best is to do other things outside the game than rely on the game to offer you content to keep you satisfied year-round.

2) Scripted fights are a way to keep balance sadly, see by making fights more dynamic all you do is put more pressure on healers and tanks to adapt to the fight, DD don't really have anything to lose by a non-scripted fight because they just gotta not get hit, to survive. With a Tank though, random actions/sequences that occur could cause more damage than normal and with healers having to heal for harder hits their MP drains faster. An unscripted fight generates an unfair treshold of losing because the boss decided to use hundred fist back to back and what fun is that to lose a fight all because RNG said I'm going to use my mega super strong ability twice? At least when a fight is scripted you know the limits and how far your job can take you but the moment you throw a wrench into it all you end up doing is making it harder for Tanks/Healers to deal with the content.

3) I will admit raids do have their issues however I think the type of raid people really want will be seen in island exploration. With the way the 24-man hard mode area sounds like, it seems that's the type of hard raid-like content players want. That's the thing, in today's MMO world it isn't exactly easy to get 24 people to always be up and ready to do content, even in the days of XI Dynamis getting that many to dedicate 2-4hrs to content wasn't easy, think about that for a second, 2 days out of the week you are asking a large group of people to come online at the same time and set time aside to do content that could take up to 3hrs, 4hrs if you consider getting there on time, waiting for others, going in etc etc. 4hrs is 1/6 of a day doing that twice over months is a lot to ask out of a large portion of people, it's much easier to have a "raid" content with 8 people because organizing 8 is way easier than organizing 24 and battle wise it's easier to balance fights with 8 in mind than 24 in mind.

When it comes to island content however it's less about point A to point B and more about setting your own path, going in, testing the waters for 90 minutes, learning new things and then going back to use what you learned. There is less structure towards a forced path and there isn't a sense of needing to get to the last boss to "win" that has been in every content released up to now. Island exploration offers an experience to allow you to go in with 2-24 people and do what you can, push as hard as you can, and challenge yourself that I think you are looking for when it comes to expressing the lack of 24 man "raid" content. If you played XI when Dynamis was first released and even the change, this is what island exploration sounds like it will be like.

4) Eh, besieged campaign, FATEs are pretty much those, you can do FATE and obtain xp for a job or seals for GC to turn in for items and profit yada yada but honestly what was campaign or besiseged but content to gain xp and some currency to trade in for items? Doesn't that sound a lot like hunts and FATE? Though I will say, it would be neat to have a Campaign like content where Beastmen tribes attack and summon their primal to cause havoc in certain areas, while sadly it would be difficult to implement into 2.0 zones it could fit into 3.0 areas maybe even something that erupts through the Alexander storyline, beastmen want it for themselves and now you have to hold them back. Heck man go one step up and have it where when the beastman "wins" it makes savage mode harder, since savage mode can only be done with people on your server it could be setup where when x tribe overwhelms and "corrupts" alexander it alters certain aspects of the fight making it harder which would encourage groups to ban together to prevent the beastmen from making those encounters tougher.

5)PVP could easily be fixed by creating a unique instance server for that content. There is no reason why USA servers should be segregated from one another, they are all in the same location so it would benefit SE in terms of keeping PVPers around to create a cluster of instances in which it grabs from every NA server rather than the current system. I honestly think this would be hard to pull off if anything they could change it where the restriction is that you can only queue for PVP or Dungeons, so if you want to PVP you can't queue for frontline and a dungeon in the same "queue" of waiting because they are off different servers. With that mentality I think the stress that would be put on the servers would be alleviated because when you queue for pvp it's only focused on pvp areas and it's grabbing from all the other servers in NA area that want to pvp, by doing this you would increase the grab of people able to pvp by quite a bit and it would satisfy a lot of players who may be disappointing by the way it currently pulls because you are in essence missing out on half your competition because if you are on Aether, you can't player with Primal and vice-versa.

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Originally Posted by Kailok

I think they just need to make 2 tiers of Raid content - the LFG version where you get the "catch-up" gear, kind of like how current Alexander exists, and then the more endgame oriented version where you take a small group in and spend some time in there. Sort of how WoW's Ice Crown Citadel worked where you went in and fought trash and each boss had a checkpoint where you could pick up again for the rest of the week. I just miss the "raid feel", and arena-based boss fights do not give any sense of adventure. Sure it feels good to finally win after hours and hours of getting everything just right, but that isn't a raid.

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Why do you like hours of wasted time on trash mobs? I don't get this at all.

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Originally Posted by Alex_Lenderson

Why do you like hours of wasted time on trash mobs? I don't get this at all.

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Why do you like running the same scripted fight over and over again, spending hours just learning the script instead of involving yourself in truly dynamic content?

Besides, who said it had to be "hours" of time on trash mobs? Noone wants to spend HOURS on that. Make them difficult, make them interesting! Make every mob in there as strong as a B rank I get people don't want to "waste time" - then why not make the trash pulls more interesting in theme with the upcoming boss? Why not make them useful and drop useful things that could benefit your group / fc? Then it isn't as much a waste of time as it is that getting through the trash is also part of the experience of not only getting gear but, say, airship components or crafting materials for your crafters. I don't want trash for the sake of wasting time, I want trash to be in theme with the raid and to be part of the endgame experience, not just dealing with it 'til you get to the boss. I'm not saying put 15 packs of goblins you can easily Deathflare to get past - I'm talking about interesting mobs to fight that drop items that are useful to your raid group. It doesn't have to be Endgame gear to be useful to you.

Hell, they could even take away the singular upgrade material (200 eso -> 210 eso materials) and make them a gathering thing where you need X amount, and by killing trash you are able to farm them instead of them being a drop from the boss. That way even if your group isn't able to progress on the boss, you've still collected upgrade materials that help you progress. Suddenly trash doesn't sound so much of a waste of time, it sounds like a viable experience of the endgame raid. Then they put a checkpoint up just before the boss so for the rest of the week you can hop right to the boss without having to fight anymore trash. Then repeat next week. If you can't handle 30 minutes of useful material farming per week, I don't know why you're doing endgame anyway.

the issue is trash mob.

Why is there trashmobs? I never understood why that became a thing in mmo. There should never be trash mobs, they only waste time. Do not drop anything and just can be mindlessly face rolled over.

Gona do a cardinal sin around here and bring up xi again.

Make them like they were in dynamis, things that are require crowd control, specific kill orders, timed abilities. Make it so the trash mobs if the alliance screwed up will kill everyone.

But then again make them have a chance to actually drop worthwhile stuff to. On trash it can be random drops or token drops, bosses garenteed if they want to do that.

As others said make each boss the strength of an A or B (HW not oldschool) and make them come in waves of 6 to 20. Make people utalize sleep spells, bind spells, gravity and such. Bring back kiting. That is what is missing from the raids and dungeons. Get rid of trash and add meaningfull mobs... that actually drop stuff. Can even be say like an allegan shard, which can be traded for 1-3 esoterics. Make the normal mobs drop that if not gear.

I really can't see any of the people complaining about trash as long term FF players. Trash mobs give us a hint of what random battles were on previous titles, something you had to deal with to get to the boss. I do think they need better AI and a chain loot system like FFXII, but they do not need any especific "reward" just because there are trash in some raids.

It'd be interesting to see if we can get a dev to respond on this. I know they are coming out with Explorations in Diadem, but I don't want them to stop there. I'd like to see more content like this and more progressive raids instead. I want to experience the next Alexander as a dungeon raid, really get a chance to explore it.

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Originally Posted by Phireblast

Technically speaking, you are correct given I used incorrect wording:

http://puu.sh/kYVpv/7430cb78b1.jpg

Which is why I questioned the point of doing Savage outside of BiSing and challenge content. I'm not even going to factor the islands. I feel getting the tokens to upgrade something as little as a shoe will take two or so weeks, making it longer than running A2 weekly given your group's RNG is good.

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It will probably be similar to savage Alexander it will be 4 tokens for a upgrade item. Which means 4 weeks of doing void ark before you get a upgrade item.

annnnd so after the reveals of 3.1 in the letter from whoever, we find that new direction for content is...



DING
DING
DING!!!!

Non-existent.

Johnny tell us what we've won!

Johhny, "Why it's the same shit you've been spoon fed for two years now! Congratulations!"

Much of it has certainly felt the same, definitely - Though I'm legitimately excited for the Diadem content, its the first semi-open world content we've gotten since Hunts. I just hope it lasts us a while and stays relevant through the course of at least 3.0.

Another thing I think they need to consider is mob scaling for the expert roulette. They could make it so that the expert roulette has every dungeon currently in the game but the mobs are scaled to 60. This would prevent us for getting super bored only being able to do 2 dungeons for months at a time because it truly would feel like a roulette of dungeons instead of basically getting a dungeon Neverreap over and over again.

I know people don't like bringing Final Fantasy XI into this but you know in terms of end game content XI probably was one of the rare mmo's that did it right (to an extent) where they failed was the claim system so most of the hnm's etc on 72hr+ windows were claimed by which shell had the best bot, but looking past that.

Dynamis - Can be entered with up to 18 players (full alliance in XI - 3 parties of 6) it is an alternate dimension of the home towns where you fight plenty of mobs to get currency(relic related in XI) and AF2 gear.

Sky - Big open area where every mob is a danger - got to beat NM's in the area to get pop items to summon one of the 4 sky gods (Genbu, Byakko, Seiryu and Suzaku) When you defeat all 4 get a pop item to summon Kirin.

Sea - Pretty much Sky but whole new area new 4 bosses and when killing the 4th boss there is a chance absolute virtue would spawn.

Limbus - was designed to be like Dynamis but CoP themed(the expansion for Sea)

ZNM's - This was a new pop system which was excellent - you buy a 1st tier item kill a boss and it drops an item for the next tier to spawn another boss each tier getting harder till eventually you can spawn pandemonium warden which at the 75 cap was extremely hard to beat.

Now imagine all this content dropping the same ilvl gear - pretty much what XI did for years and years and it worked since gear was unique stat wise - like in every game some gear was trash and some gear was good hell for some situations going back for some 71-74 gear could be considered BIS since it can contain stats such as damage reduction. I think for BLM/RDM the staffs in the 50-60 range was BIS since there was a hidden ability giving more damage with the particular element staff.

The problem is endgame material is too rehearsed, if it were completely say "instant" reaction to the battle, instead of memorizing a video. Players would not as easily be waiting around for more, but need to practice at skill then studying someone else's playing strategy.

SE is scared of change. They will keep repeating the ARR formula till they notice a real hit in population.

They don`t want to take any risk, they don`t want to improve or expand into anything, tomes are ok, raids are ok, content duration is ok, the "graveyard of content" that FFXIV is, is perfectly fine from SE point of view.

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Originally Posted by Yurihyuga

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I just wanted to make a small correction. Dynamis could be entered with up to 64 players.

ZNMs were kinda terrible, though. Good idea, but pops became more obnoxious than sea and sky after about the third time running them. This is a problem that persists today that you'll see if making a Mythic.

Nyzul Isle (75 more than the 99 one) and Salvage were amazingly designed events, though. XIV would benefit from something like Nyzul and it even fits well into the battle system.

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Originally Posted by CyrilLucifer

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been years lol so imagined I would have made a mistake. Was just trying to get across that end game can be made to last - raising level caps/ilvl gear and making stuff obsolete eventually gets old, people are already starting to get bored come back for a bit and then go again. In the direction this game is going it will eventually fall flat on its face. I am pretty much on a break till 3.1, come on for the odd fc event etc.

To be honest 3.1 doesn't even sound all that exciting the exploration islands could be good but I can't say anything till I have tried it since I reckon its just going to be like hunts and that was a disaster and still is.

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Originally Posted by Yurihyuga

been years lol so imagined I would have made a mistake. Was just trying to get across that end game can be made to last - raising level caps/ilvl gear and making stuff obsolete eventually gets old, people are already starting to get bored come back for a bit and then go again. In the direction this game is going it will eventually fall flat on its face. I am pretty much on a break till 3.1, come on for the odd fc event etc.

To be honest 3.1 doesn't even sound all that exciting the exploration islands could be good but I can't say anything till I have tried it since I reckon its just going to be like hunts and that was a disaster and still is.

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That is basically how many of my FC feel currently. They WANT 3.1 to be exciting and to bring them back, but if the content doesn't keep them entertained for long they are basically saying they will unsub and check back in for 3.2. This is the core issue: SE needs to figure out how to prolong their content so that it doesn't lose its flair within a couple of months after release. They either need to release enough content to keep people busy until the next patch, or find a way to keep their content lasting for a long time (which is a much better solution down the road).

Sorry for picking up this old thread, I didn't want to make a new one to just post, but since there was a thread I will make it short:
A lot of people feel the same about 3.2 like some did for 3.1. Previous 2 patch, 3.1 and 3.15 wasn't even close to what I expected. It's fine the patch was late, due to vacations and stuff, this is matter of respect, but they use alot of resources on something that died the day it came out (the minion fight, forgot name of it).
in 3.2 we see the same formula and I know we won't see anythng different until expension is out and hopefully they will change how patches will work.

Relic: Make it upgradeable through the game, from raids, dungeons, primals etc and I talk about get items from every content that exist. Don't make it worthless after a long time after you obtained it.
Example: Make relic get upgraded from items, gear, weapons etc you obtain from dungeons, primals and raids. Make the raiders get somewhat a bigger benefit, because they are raiding but going through alot harder stuff to make it better (for those who know dynamsis from xi, doesn't need to be dynamsis, but somewhat the same idea how to build relic).

Tomestone: I really hope they stop this, not for me but the for people whos going to remain still play the game. I unsubbed this game and the fact 3.2 didn't even look that appealing to me honestly
Tomestones and adding 2 dungeons every 3-4 months, for the sake of capping tomestones is geting old, really old. Make dungeons relevant, I talk about get some gear, crafter items, relic upgrades, etc

Raids: More raids, not alex normal with same boss into savage. Make 2-3 different raids, more gear to wear, different stats so people can have different sets for each fights. Do this for people who love to raid hard content and those who wanna do something like VA but make it 8 man for example, I'm sure people would enjoy this. Make a pure FC event as well, something that makes fc's more than just a big linkshell with buffs for experience points or a house.

The last and most importent thing, make people get better and what I mean is many people won't learn and some aren't even willing to, because they see no flaw in a system that works excactly for them, (nerfs of raids, catch up content etc). Make them get better and I'm sure a huge majority will actually be glad and have more fun if they do so. This isn't exactly me complaining how people play, but I think it's somewhat importent to see that people do wanna see more harder content and less nerfs. I know and we all know alot of people love how it currently is, but that's also one of the biggest problems. A lot of people I knew that been playing and LOVED this game has quit completely because of boredom or swapped to another mmo because it appeals them more.

I'm not saying we should follow the ''hardcore'' players, but I'm saying if most peole do get better and maybe, just maybe we will see more battle content that's harder and then mostlikely more stuff to do for both type of players: Those who invest alot of time into the games, because that's what most people wanna do, it's an MMORPG and then you have those who doesn't have alot of time but play it for the fun and social stuff, to actually have something to do while they are on as well.