So much hope for 4.0 but yet....

I might be in the minority here, but I'd rather get patches every 6 months instead of 3, if it meant the endgame and gear progression modules were a bit more varied, flexible, and satisfying to play. Even if the devs insisted on keeping the tome system, why can harder dungeons not reward more of them? Why this desperate push to place extremely skilled but casual players into the same mosh pit of gear progression as the Netflix-binging bong-huffers? Why are primals, an excellent example of skilled but time-conscientious content relegated to two difficulties only, with basically alt gear as the reward? Why does each gear update only really give us two item levels' worth of functioning gear? There would be so much room for content variation if we didn't basically have "tome gear item level" and "raid gear item level", with sometimes a dash of ".5 EX primal item level" in between.

I'm sure my ideas have flaws in their own right, but right now in my honest opinion the game is seriously sacrificing level-capped battle content in favor of glamour/roleplay/immersion features, new player pandering, and fun but ultimately fruitless minigames. It's great that so much detail is given to those areas, but I'd prefer that detail to be given ALONGSIDE a fun and robust endgame, not in place of it.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

My biggest concern is a bulk of their development goes towards the gimmick of content underwater. If Blitzball ends up being announced, I won't see that as a good sign things are changing. Although, I am still cautiously optimistic, they haven't exactly showcased much variety from the standard. That may be alright, provided there is a decent challenge and enough content as a whole. Six bosses for the raid tier? Now that would be a step in the right direction.

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This is my biggest concern as well. I get adding underwater for world immersion and exploration, which DOL ties into anyway. Announcing that there is no combat was somewhat a relief. However, I still have my concerns.

I see so many people calling for harder content, but nobody but the most skill players in the game. I think a change in glamour would be nice getting rid of prisims to a less complicated system would be nice. More social stuff would be cool a human companion system would be nice.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

I might be

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Then we would really have dry spells of people not logging in. You have to be honest that more players take part in the easier content in the game so that's y things are the way they are.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

Then we would really have dry spells of people not logging in. You have to be honest that more players take part in the easier content in the game so that's y things are the way they are.

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As has been said possibly a hundred times over. There exists a middle ground between brain dead content like current dungeons and Savage. In fact, I often find Stone Vigil or Brayflox normal harder than Xelphatol. Those are baby leveling dungeons yet they push you harder than the supposed Expert ones. Not to mention, it isn't like inexperienced would have nothing to do. Expert too hard for you at the moment? Do the tier below until you have better tier. Most games follow a set pattern of encouraging players to improve their gear or character levels. That boss too hard in Dragon Age: Inquisition? Maybe I need to respec my abilities since I may have missed something; maybe I just need better gear. With FFXIV, gear is almost made irrelevant unless you do savage. Why bother with Shire when Lore gear will still clear everything, up to and including Sophia EX?

I theorize a lot of people are bad at this game because it does a horrendous job incentivizing any sort of self improvement. Your hand is held for most of it until extreme primals and savage come along and absolutely murder you because their difficulty is scaled so much higher than everything else.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

Then we would really have dry spells of people not logging in. You have to be honest that more players take part in the easier content in the game so that's y things are the way they are.

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I think we're already having "dry spells" where people aren't logging in. The thing is, the content has become so bland and unengaging that less and less people are coming BACK.

I'm not advocating making the game harder, whether people like it or not. I'm advocating for the devs to spend a little less time churning out filler to meet a self-imposed "deadline" and a little more time in making a variety of content that, if people don't at least play it ceaselessly between updates, they're still interested in it enough to actually come BACK for a new patch.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

I think we're already having "dry spells" where people aren't logging in. The thing is, the content has become so bland and unengaging that less and less people are coming BACK.

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Can confirm. We've hit end of expac burnout in my LSes. We'll probably log in for a while during 3.5, but right now, anything that we've wanted to do has been done. And it's not like we're grinding gear to be prepared for the next raid tier. 4.0 comes out, all that gear is obsolete. It's basically coming down to leveling at this point. If you have something to level, you're leveling it in preparation for 4.0, if you don't... Well... Do you really want to grind out alex and tomes for classes that aren't fully geared, knowing full well that there's no point to it?

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

you don't want more of the same... So what DO you want exactly?

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I actually would like to do more solo stuff. Right now there not many things that you can do solo. A few Dungeons (restricted to some classes, tanks or SMN ,so others are left out). For example, I would like to do Coils solo, farming glamour gear. Or Primals for weapons.
And then I would like to have Hunts, maybe S-Ranks, dropping rare minions or other stuff. I know, that sounds like I would like to have another WoW. I do not. It's just that this other game can keep you busy if you don't want to do the usual grind for lore tomes. All I'm doing at the moment is running Potd for shards, and I'm bored to dead.
And to Mr. Yoshida. I don't want to play other games while you and your Team are developing Ideas for future content. I want to play FFXIV. So please, give me some things to do and don't make me want to leave because of boredom.
In case someone is checking my profile. No, I don't want to level Crafter or Gatherer to kill some time. The Crafting system is so unpleasant I don't even have words to describe it (or Perhaps it is only because of my lack of English knowledge) :)

I'm really hoping they just gate less which I doubt, I personally would like to play the game how I want at my own pace. I stretch content just because it's out I don't have to goble it up like its Christmas dinner. I'm totally fine with barely progressing in story even of people are already raiding the new expansion. But that all depends on how gated storm blood is, I find players like me that pace are far less likely to burnout than those that finish everything as soon as it comes out.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

With FFXIV, gear is almost made irrelevant unless you do savage. Why bother with Shire when Lore gear will still clear everything, up to and including Sophia EX?

I theorize a lot of people are bad at this game because it does a horrendous job incentivizing any sort of self improvement. Your hand is held for most of it until extreme primals and savage come along and absolutely murder you because their difficulty is scaled so much higher than everything else.

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Pretty much this ^


This has sadly been the norm for quite some time now don't see it changing all that much unless something drastic happens which more then likely wont.. and Gear becoming obsolete the start of every patch is not going to change either, thats just the way the game is built. (as such, I don't mind if my gear falls behind a little bit for this reason)

Which is one of the reasons why after playing for so many years I have learned to keep my hype Lv's down so that I can actually be surprised by something.. However there were a few cool things @ JP Fest, Though what came out of no where & no one saw coming was the new 24 -man raid.. so if anything i'm looking forward to this lol Other then that, worst case.. we get more of the same with a few new features, and you better believe were going to be still mindlessly tome grinding =/

It's probably going to be more of the same, but we have more content with Aquapolis and PotD, and hopefully new Diadem and Eureka will be successful and an alternative to Savage raiding, but without making Savage irrelevant. Horizontal progression is tricky with a game like XIV. Wish we could get gear that could augment our abilities and WS without making other pieces appear lacking.

There needs to be bigger incentive for fates. After PotD, fates are dead content. The Yokai event really burned people out on these too, so we have new seasonal events that literally avoid fates for the time being. Personally, I think fates should share smaller rewards with the hunt system and reward marks/centurio upon how well you do. People are going to want to buy ventures and aetheryte tickets anyway, so maybe add more glamour, mount, crafting materials, and minion options to the Hunt vendor NPCs.

I'd like to see a significantly lower emphasis on tomestones in the future. As it stands, dungeon drops are irrelevant before they're even released, which destroys any excitement at seeing something drop for your class. IMO, tomestone gear should be catch- up gear for new or returning players rather than the end goal. I would set it up to where the order of strength, from low to high, was tomestone > dungeon/crafted > normal mode raids > 24 man raids > savage raids

When people say they don't like the current formula what is it they want them to do?

It sounds like it going to be the same formula cause it works. 8 man raid followed by 24 man raid next patch.