New Lucky Bancho Census 12/1/17

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Were you just making a general statement? I interpreted your reference to Warlords of Draenor as WoW losing subscriptions based primarily on their raid being too difficult, hence the comparison. If that wasn't the case, my apologies.

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It looks like it's partly my fault. I was more trying to use that as an example of development resources being too focused on one vocal minority can easily cause problems. WoW's raids aren't too difficult. In fact at their lowest difficulty setting, they're even easier than FFXIV 24 man raids, but they still have a relatively low clear rate. What makes WoD a good example though is because raids were essentially the only completely developed content for the entire expansion. Nearly all other features were cut, dropped, or just otherwise under performed. From other's confusion it appears I just didn't explain myself well enough.

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Originally Posted by CosmicKirby

Because the original post in the chain isn't just blaming the dev's for making content aimed at a relatively small % of players. It's blaming the players that content was made for, which is insane.

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I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. I would never think that players are the problem. In fact I'm very glad FFXIV got super savage even though it's the kind of super niche content that I'm wary about. It's nice that it's in the game. I just don't want it to be something the devs spend a lot of their time on. Unless of course it's beneficial to the game in other ways. There was a lot of twitch coverage on people doing Ultimate Coils, so maybe I'll have to wait and see how that turns out.

It's a shame that Dzian's excellent point about reward longevity has been mostly dismissed as "XI nostalgia" and nothing more, because I actually think it's the right idea. "Stuff" doesn't have any feeling of permanence in this game. Why raid when you can play other games for 3-6 months and come back for two weeks and spam some faceroll stuff to get the same item level? Gear isn't a motivator for everybody, sure, but I guarantee it's a motivator for a decent number of people and right now a maybe 5% difference in output from BiS vs full tome gear isn't enough to make people give a crap.

Now, nobody HAS to raid, of course, but you can translate the same feeling over to crafting and whatnot too - investing in full max crafting "twenty-star craft capable" or whatever it is now doesn't have any damn permanence to it. Enjoy being the top of the food chain for three months (minus the time it took for you to get there even, of course), knowing that the devs will release a new pile of upgraded x values that render all your previous hard work meaningless.

I get that they're afraid that too many "walls" makes it hard for people who took a break to get reinvested again. But I have to wonder if they wouldn't have vastly better player retention if SE just made your hard work actually worth something for a while longer.

Not sure if it's been said, but I really like raiding. Even now, months after Deltascape Savage has been out, I still enjoy doing it. However, there's a problem:

99% OF THE PLAYERBASE DOESN'T WANT YOU IN THEIR PARTY AFTER YOU CLEARED IT!

You have to pretty much wait a whole week, or get lucky enough to find a party who doesn't want 2 chests. And this system pretty much KILLS it for people who like to raid. It basically makes it so that we only get to play 2-3 hours a week, and then we're done. The rest of the week is logging on and checking the Party Finder to see if there's any people looking for a 0-chest clear so that you can actually have some fun.

But raiding isn't the only thing, tho. I miss doing a lot of the older content the way it was meant to be played - synced. But now, everybody does it unsynced, as there's no real incentive to do it otherwise. Which SUCKS, seeing as how some people are looking for the challenge.

If only they made old content still relevant by implementing certain incentives towards syncing it, this would make the game lively again. I have a couple of ideas but I don't want to get into too much detail in this thread.

I don't bother looking for a raid group anymore the gear/reward itself doesn't interest me at all! I'll lot on whatever 230 drops that week and go play something else. I'm sure the challenge of it will be mention, but again I don't find the reward to keep repeating challenging content worth it to me. /Shrugs

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

Not sure if it's been said, but I really like raiding. Even now, months after Deltascape Savage has been out, I still enjoy doing it. However, there's a problem:

99% OF THE PLAYERBASE DOESN'T WANT YOU IN THEIR PARTY AFTER YOU CLEARED IT!

You have to pretty much wait a whole week, or get lucky enough to find a party who doesn't want 2 chests. And this system pretty much KILLS it for people who like to raid. It basically makes it so that we only get to play 2-3 hours a week, and then we're done. The rest of the week is logging on and checking the Party Finder to see if there's any people looking for a 0-chest clear so that you can actually have some fun.

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I have been complaining about this all tier. Because Savage has become borderline midcore content, many more PFs now want two chests even on a Monday. Even Creator had enough 0-1 chest parties just looking for their weeklies and you rarely see them nowadays. I understand they want to limit people carrying a friend to easy gear upgrades, but I wish they would change the system so 1-2 previously cleared players won't impact coffers. Two good players can only drag dead weight so far, thus SE wouldn't have to worry about sales and the like. It just sucks how if I feel like running alt jobs in actual difficult content, I'm mostly SoL

Also, heya Blue!

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

I get that they're afraid that too many "walls" makes it hard for people who took a break to get reinvested again. But I have to wonder if they wouldn't have vastly better player retention if SE just made your hard work actually worth something for a while longer.

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I suspect it's that and how do you incentivize the next tier if all the current gear remains relevant? The latter of which I understand to an extent. If Omega 5-8 is tuned towards gear we already have, what's the reward for clearing it? Games like FFXI or even WoW get away with a more horizontal focus by gating progression behind enormously long grinds. If I recall, the Artifact equivalent WoW weapon you build takes ages to finally reach max level. Another side-effect of doing that is it promotes focusing on a single job since very few people will want to repeat said grind on multiple jobs. And you will be expected to have this better gear for raids.

Now I certainly want to argue FFXIV's system is better, especially I do find it a little stale. I just don't think arbitrarily adding length to gear tiers will accomplish much.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

Not sure if it's been said, but I really like raiding. Even now, months after Deltascape Savage has been out, I still enjoy doing it. However, there's a problem:

99% OF THE PLAYERBASE DOESN'T WANT YOU IN THEIR PARTY AFTER YOU CLEARED IT!

You have to pretty much wait a whole week, or get lucky enough to find a party who doesn't want 2 chests. And this system pretty much KILLS it for people who like to raid. It basically makes it so that we only get to play 2-3 hours a week, and then we're done. The rest of the week is logging on and checking the Party Finder to see if there's any people looking for a 0-chest clear so that you can actually have some fun.

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Not sure if you are interested in them or not, but there used to be speed/parse/for fun runs listed in the PF frequently for some of the floors. However, last I heard in one of the raiding discords I’m in, someone was going around reporting the PF owners for parsing/advertising “parse runs”, so people have stopped putting them up, or set them to private and give out PWs to interested players in the raiding discords.

But I know what you mean. Sometimes I would like to go back into a fight and do it again, either for funnsies or to try and get a good or better parse or to just work on my rotation for the fight, but everyone wants 2 chests. Even some of the first-time clear parties just want 2 chests so it’s kind of like, welp.... I understand wanting the gear but at the same time, makes it boring for raiders that have already cleared for the week and just want something to do.


Unrelated, but pretty sure you were in a V4S clear group I was in this weekend. You were a great WAR, btw. :3 It’s too bad that you weren’t our first WAR, because then we would have gotten the people that wanted a clear their clear. :/

I just cleared v4s yesterday with other 12 people. So add that on too please :V

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Not sure if you are interested in them or not, but there used to be speed/parse/for fun runs listed in the PF frequently for some of the floors. However, last I heard in one of the raiding discords I’m in, someone was going around reporting the PF owners for parsing/advertising “parse runs”, so people have stopped putting them up, or set them to private and give out PWs to interested players in the raiding discords.

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This depresses me.

That would be great. 5+ clears: 0 chests. 3-4 clears: 1 chest. 0-2 clears: 2 chests. And in each of these cases, players who have already cleared can't roll for the items, even if they didn't get anything.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

Not sure if it's been said, but I really like raiding. Even now, months after Deltascape Savage has been out, I still enjoy doing it. However, there's a problem:

99% OF THE PLAYERBASE DOESN'T WANT YOU IN THEIR PARTY AFTER YOU CLEARED IT!

You have to pretty much wait a whole week, or get lucky enough to find a party who doesn't want 2 chests. And this system pretty much KILLS it for people who like to raid. It basically makes it so that we only get to play 2-3 hours a week, and then we're done.

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This is so true, damn.

My best IRL friend quit FF XIV simply because of this one reason. (he was a top-tier raider too)
He complained how he can only play about 2-3 hours per week in actual content and then there's nothing to do for him.

At first he wanted to buy a Jump potion and level another Ninja, but then he will play 4-6 hours per week and he gave up.
He's not interested in farming Susanoo 99 times and such "repeatable" activities for mounts/etc.

And another female friend of mine log-in 1 time per week, clears O1S-O4S in 3-4 hours and then i won't see her till another reset. She also told me "there's nothing to do" and i "should quit till 4.2 in late January".

If your only fun in game is raiding you still can do the older ones with min IL.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

If your only fun in game is raiding you still can do the older ones with min IL.

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Not if no one else wants to. And even then, that only keeps you entertained for so long and doesn't allow you to have fun with the new abilities.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

It looks like it's partly my fault. I was more trying to use that as an example of development resources being too focused on one vocal minority can easily cause problems. WoW's raids aren't too difficult. In fact at their lowest difficulty setting, they're even easier than FFXIV 24 man raids, but they still have a relatively low clear rate. What makes WoD a good example though is because raids were essentially the only completely developed content for the entire expansion. Nearly all other features were cut, dropped, or just otherwise under performed. From other's confusion it appears I just didn't explain myself well enough.



I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. I would never think that players are the problem. In fact I'm very glad FFXIV got super savage even though it's the kind of super niche content that I'm wary about. It's nice that it's in the game. I just don't want it to be something the devs spend a lot of their time on. Unless of course it's beneficial to the game in other ways. There was a lot of twitch coverage on people doing Ultimate Coils, so maybe I'll have to wait and see how that turns out.

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Well then your first post was just a bit unlucky. ;)

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

If your only fun in game is raiding you still can do the older ones with min IL.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Not if no one else wants to. And even then, that only keeps you entertained for so long and doesn't allow you to have fun with the new abilities.

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Or if you've already done them a few times... >x>

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

If your only fun in game is raiding you still can do the older ones with min IL.

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I actually I love doing old content with minimum ilvl but I seem to be one of the VERY FEW since I've never been able to put together a party of people to do anything. Hell, I even my synced parties don't fill up. It's useless. But if they were to create incentives and give players a reason to do these kind of things, I'm sure at least a considerable portion of players would come together for it.

I have a lot of ideas of how they could make players do older content either synced or at minimum ilvl, but I'll just list some simple ones that don't require much explanation:

1. Doing certain Extreme trials and older Savage raids at minimum ilvl awards players with special tokens that can be used to efficiently level up another character.

2. A new type of shorter Wonderous Tails where you can't unsync the fights, and they're only Extreme/Savage content.

3. A new type of roulette, similar to Mentor Roulette, but exclusive to Extreme Trials and older Savage Raids. The rewards would reset daily and would grant increased amounts of gil (I'm looking at around 50,000 gil) and/or tomes once a day, with repeats just granting a small amount of gil (maybe 10,000 or so).

4. Completing trials at minimum ilvl automatically drops the respective mount.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

I suspect it's that and how do you incentivize the next tier if all the current gear remains relevant? The latter of which I understand to an extent. If Omega 5-8 is tuned towards gear we already have, what's the reward for clearing it? Games like FFXI or even WoW get away with a more horizontal focus by gating progression behind enormously long grinds. If I recall, the Artifact equivalent WoW weapon you build takes ages to finally reach max level. Another side-effect of doing that is it promotes focusing on a single job since very few people will want to repeat said grind on multiple jobs. And you will be expected to have this better gear for raids. .

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A very rough quick example as it's like 3am here
you could simply stagger the gear out more. rather than replacing entire sets of gear every single time. just replace a few pieces.

You could have omega 5-8 pretty much focus on right side drops only. have 5 drop some rings. 6 drop some bracelets sort of thing... given the number of players that want to gear multiple jobs this wouldn't be that much of an issue. might even allow you to tailor drops specifically for each job. rather than one casting ring for all 3 casters that might have awesome secondaries for smn but useless secondaries for blm.

then in omega 9-12 you might do the left side gear and once again could separate it out more for jobs to expand content life. no more this tank body is awesome for pld but sucks for warrior and drk. or this healer body is great for ast but sucks for whms.... might actually allow bettor looking gear as well. that's more thematically fitting with specific jobs.

might actually also allow them to create more interesting and job relevant stats or bonuses as well. a blm body that might add +1 second to astral/umbral durations or something. might be enough to squeeze out that extra fire 4. and certainly be more interesting than just a few extra points of int and spellspeed.

players have complained about all the stats being dull and uninteresting ever since 2.0.

something like this would also keep content relevant for much longer even when 9-12 came out for example 5-8 would still be relevant content.

that's just 1 randomly thought up idea
there's a hell of a lot they could do really when you think about it

I'm a little confused about people saying they only log on for 3-4 hours and that's new to FFXIV. I just knew it as Raid logging and it was something a lot of people in many mmo's did, am I missing something?

Personally I felt OS1 was the perfect start for a beginning raider, it would be just challenging enough for them but not too hard so they wouldn't get disheartened about trying. Shame to see that it still didn't incentive people to try.


I really liked Coil when it came out, it was a really fun raid and I really hate how FFXIV had reduced it's raiding to "Boss in a room, no story you haven't seen k go" Alexander was unfun as it was but that made it painful and while the fights are decent in Omega, they just don't have the same punch as... say Ice Crown Citadel or even Karazhan (I'm an old school WoW raider, forgive me)

Raid has never made a game though, I can link to some stuff about how Casual's are the core demographic for any MMO if you'd like.

4.1 is also a boring patch. Without Eureka there's not a lot here.

Personally I wouldn't like story locked behind waiting on 24 people for me.

I would like to see extreme solo and 4 man dungeons and trials. Half the work is done with reusable assets. Doesn't make sense to use resources on content hardly anyone does and not use it for something more people might do more. I am not saying get rid of raids, but apply the same design focus for solo to 4 man content.

Content a little harder than your normal stuff. Which I think normal and hard modes are normal.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

Personally I wouldn't like story locked behind waiting on 24 people for me.

I would like to see extreme solo and 4 man dungeons and trials. Half the work is done with reusable assets. Doesn't make sense to use resources on content hardly anyone does and not use it for something more people might do more. I am not saying get rid of raids, but apply the same design focus for solo to 4 man content.

Content a little harder than your normal stuff. Which I think normal and hard modes are normal.

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I agree would love more solo content that waas a challenge that you could do and didnt need other people to help with

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

I agree would love more solo content that waas a challenge that you could do and didnt need other people to help with

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How would you make solo content more engaging/challenging? Would you increase mob HP? Damage? More glowing circles on the ground?

I'd be curious what you could come up with given the constraints of the current design, because I've failed to come up with anything.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

How would you make solo content more engaging/challenging? Would you increase mob HP? Damage? More glowing circles on the ground?

I'd be curious what you could come up with given the constraints of the current design, because I've failed to come up with anything.

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well i dono about on a dps but on tanks or heals soloing some of the older primal was fun or attempting to ha , so you could put a primals or boss somewhere on that level but i guess maybe a little watered down so more people could do it, so more than just a msq mission that would be to easy. I mean they have already mention that euroka will be able to be done alone so I hope thats a step in the right direction as well.

Flat out upscale/downscale would be the most tuning. How about more challenging in terms of mystery or brains? Say like for Temple Of Karn Extreme there were more puzzles or environmental traps, hidden rooms, doors, puzzle rooms, things of that nature. Maybe a room where if you do not kill enemies keeping them below 10 adds on a high ceiling within x amount of time the roof comes crashing down for an instant wipe.

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Originally Posted by basketofseals

Well there's WoW: Warlords of Draenor that managed to lose nearly 5 million subscribers in 6 months. Anyone who played then can tell you any feature outside of raiding received criminal levels of neglect.

It is definitely possible to focus too hard on the most visible minority, because within a month over 80% of of players, that is to say the players that weren't interested in even the easiest version of a raid that has a difficulty of easier than an extreme primal, had absolutely nothing to do. WoD lost nearly a million subscribers a month of a good reason.

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Don't know if anyone said it or not, but when Blizzard said a Selfie camera and twitter was a major content patch, that probably did a lot of damage. Yes, they focused too hard on raiding, but one of the major patches didn't even have its raid. Just pictures.

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Originally Posted by ArmachiA

IPersonally I felt OS1 was the perfect start for a beginning raider, it would be just challenging enough for them but not too hard so they wouldn't get disheartened about trying. Shame to see that it still didn't incentive people to try.

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For many people the difficulty has very little to do with players being disheartened or lacking the incentive to try.

It's simply the fact the rewards just aren't desirable enough to warrant making any real effort to get. As suggested by this comment.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

IGear isn't a motivator for everybody, sure, but I guarantee it's a motivator for a decent number of people and right now a maybe 5% difference in output from BiS vs full tome gear isn't enough to make people give a crap.

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Another motivator is challenge but even that is only temporary. In was quite motivated to clear coil for example and wore that final witness title with pride and it had a sense of prestige about it. Then 3.0 landed and players could unsybc it all. Completely destroying the challenge and that sense if prestige associated with its rewards.

In my case I love challenges in games and my psn / Xbox profiles both have a good selection of trophies and awards for clearing many games on there maximum difficulties. And sometimes the only reason I do that is for the trophy. So the challenge of raiding really isn't a problem for me personally. It's just in my view raiding simply isn't worth it for what you get out of it. No lasting rewards no lasting prestige, Loot that's incredibly undesirable. All adds up to 2 very big reasons many players just have no interest or incentive to try raiding.

The difficulty doesn't scare them. If the rewards were actually lasting and valuable. Many players would embrace the challenge as increased challenge equals increased accomplishment. But those accomplishments also need to hold there value over time. Its undermining when people end uo roflstomping thing you bust your ass off for. Which is what many players said about coil. 2 manning t13 is just an insult to players who worked there ass off for it.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

For many people the difficulty has very little .

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I have to disagree here the challenge is what keeps people from doing the content. I really don't think that long lasting awards matter as much as ur assuming. Many people enjoy the birds or ponies but many choose the easiest path to get them. I know many people who waited to bird farm after it went unsync. Alot of people simply are afraid of challenge and don't want to learn rotations, or watch external guides to play their video game. If the gear lasted longer then six months it may motivate some but I doubt as many as u think. Also for people like me finding seven other people I know out of the 200 people on my friends list is the biggest challenge of all

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Originally Posted by Dzian

In my case I love challenges in games and my psn / Xbox profiles both have a good selection of trophies and awards for clearing many games on there maximum difficulties. And sometimes the only reason I do that is for the trophy. So the challenge of raiding really isn't a problem for me personally. It's just in my view raiding simply isn't worth it for what you get out of it. No lasting rewards no lasting prestige, Loot that's incredibly undesirable. All adds up to 2 very big reasons many players just have no interest or incentive to try raiding.

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There should be unique achievements for clearing savage/ultimate bosses when they are current tier content. Maybe even titles associated with the achievements. The loot from raids could have set bonuses to make them more desirable than other gear of equal level. However I would like for unsynced loot farming to remain possible because more people with different motivations see the content that way. Challenge seekers, trophy title hunters and those wanting the best gear will clear it when it's relevant and the people who want to farm mounts/glamour or just have an easy tour will do it later (and never get that cool title).

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Originally Posted by Dzian

A very rough quick example as it's like 3am here
you could simply stagger the gear out more. rather than replacing entire sets of gear every single time. just replace a few pieces.

You could have omega 5-8 pretty much focus on right side drops only. have 5 drop some rings. 6 drop some bracelets sort of thing... given the number of players that want to gear multiple jobs this wouldn't be that much of an issue. might even allow you to tailor drops specifically for each job. rather than one casting ring for all 3 casters that might have awesome secondaries for smn but useless secondaries for blm.

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How does this incentivize longevity though? If Omega 5-8 only dropped right side accessories, I am guaranteed to be completely done with Savage in eight weeks or less, assuming we retain the page system. Furthermore, the actually difficulty can only go so much higher since it has to still accommodate the remaining ilvl 340 gear. All this accomplishes is speeding up the gear process, which in turn, makes Savage tier even shorter despite the devs trying to prolong each to seven months. Admittedly, you did say it was 3am. So I don't want to nitpick too much.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

There should be unique achievements for clearing savage/ultimate bosses when they are current tier content. Maybe even titles associated with the achievements. The loot from raids could have set bonuses to make them more desirable than other gear of equal level. However I would like for unsynced loot farming to remain possible because more people with different motivations see the content that way. Challenge seekers, trophy title hunters and those wanting the best gear will clear it when it's relevant and the people who want to farm mounts/glamour or just have an easy tour will do it later (and never get that cool title).

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Set bonuses are nice and all, however they're something of an illusion. People are going to determine the mathematically superior option and that's all anyone will care about.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Set bonuses are nice and all, however they're something of an illusion. People are going to determine the mathematically superior option and that's all anyone will care about.

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Oh no doubt there will be a best option. Ideally it would always drop from savage. I meant that the gear from savage would be the same item level (340) as the upgraded tome gear, but the set bonuses would make it better (as powerful as 345). Same amount of primary and secondary stats, but with added bonus effects. The reason I'd prefer bonus effects to just a higher item level is because bonuses have the potential to be more interesting. And if you make it so that only gear dropped directly from raids will have bonuses, then people will have an incentive to keep clearing even in the catch up patches.

I still prefer the illusion over what the current reward structure is currently it's why I don't bother anymore looking for raid groups and play something else until couple of patches the gear/materia for me is bland just not interesting for me to care it's hard to describe. /Shrugs

I just want Dragon Quest X.

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with FFXIV, but I just prefer Dragon Quest. The aesthetics of DQX suit me 100% more than FFXIV, hopefully after DQXI is released in English that same studio will be working on an English translation for DQX.

In the end, FFXIV is a good game, a bit direction-less at the moment, when the devs work out where they want to go with the game I think it'll be fine. The videos on the Japanese FFXIV Youtube is advertising ARR and Heavensward content, not Stormblood. The FFXIV marketing should not even think of advertising old content :(. This suggests to me that the FFXIV dev team doesn't really understand what it is about FFXIV that is unique and worthy of dedicating the money towards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLonWI9ZZXQ&t

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

I have to disagree here the challenge is what keeps people from doing the content. I really don't think that long lasting awards matter as much as ur assuming.l

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The challenge perhaps is what puts some people off but for many it is the rewards.

If you look through all the raiding threads that have come up over the years you will soon see a hell of a lot of people saying they simply don't raid exactly because the rewards suck. It's a very common opinion and has been for a long time. I'm not saying it's the only reason raid participation is so low but it's certainly a big one. there's even a few people that have said the same kind of thing in this thread.

So i'd say it's probably a much bigger reason than you might think it is. and is an important factor for more people than you might think.

on a more personal note it's also the main reason of people I know or knew stopped playing the game. because the gear just isn't rewarding or satisfying to get. and never actually feels valuable..

10 million players or so in this game. but looking at the ops data maybe 800k are active. makes me wonder how many of the other 9.2 million stopped playing for the same reasons as many of my friends. I'd guess it to be quite a few though. a lot of people have said this game has a real problem with player retention. hell some of these census threads have had the active playerbase at less than 300k.....

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Originally Posted by Dzian

So i'd say it's probably a much bigger reason than you might think it is. and is an important factor for more people than you might think

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If this were the case, why does WoW average lower clears overall? Now I don't want to insinuate FFXIV's progression system isn't stale, but I think you're overestimating just how much gear is a factor.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

The challenge perhaps is what puts some people off but for many it is the rewards.

If you look through all the raiding threads that have come up over the years you will soon see a hell of a lot of people saying they simply don't raid exactly because the rewards suck.

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For getting the initial clear rewards are rarely an issue - unless the rewards are REALLY good, in which case they can entice people who would otherwise be uninterested.
For becoming a "raider" and running the raids multiple times - then the rewards matter greatly.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

The challenge perhaps is what puts some people off but for many it is the rewards.

If you look through all the raiding threads I've the years you see a he'll of a lot of people saying they simply don't raid exactly because the rewards suck.

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You say these two things as if they had nothing to do with each other. They do however.

Enjoyment is an intrinsic reward. It's why people might RP, glamour, chat with people or have alts even though they get absolutely nothing for playing pretend, looking fancy, being social or putting up with the additional maintenance effort. There's a wealth of activities, both real and virtual, that have no reward other than this.

On the flipside, when something is not enjoyable for whatever reason (effort, morals, general dislike, whatever), a rational person is not going to do it - unless they are externally rewarded for it with something they do intrinsically enjoy.
The classic example is a bribe - Normally, you'd not do what somebody else tells you to, because it's not what you enjoy, but since he's offering you a lot of money for it and you do enjoy the things the money can buy you, you do it anyway so long as the enjoyment gained from the things you can buy for the money outweigh the dislike of the original action. The bribe can also fail if the value of the money does not outweigh the original dislike, for example refusing on grounds of principle.
Or in game terms, people don't raid because they don't enjoy raiding but they might do it anyway if the rewards are good enough to compensate. And the less enjoyable it is to a person, the bigger/better rewards you need to motivate that person.

And that's where the two are linked. If the challenge/organization effort wouldn't put people off in the first place, they'd need no/little rewards to raid, because they already get the reward of enjoyment out of it, on top of the rewards that already exist. Since they are put off, they need rewards to compensate and the current ones simply aren't big enough to overcome the dislike.

That said, I personally think that the current raid rewards are quite fine - They are good enough to tip someone inclined towards raiding to do it, but not so good that people who'd rather do something else instead push themselves to it. Who you can't help are the people who think they are the prior but really are the latter.

Since we're talking of rewards, tho, MMOs in general very frequently work with external rewards because let's face it: Repeating the same thing over and over is only fun for so long, especially with such static content as PvE, as it lacks innate replayability. It's kind of a necessary evil to keep it running, else people would run content once or twice and then queues would rapidly die, which is bad as the multiplayer bit relies on other players.
The easier it is to get these rewards, i.e motivators, the shorter they and the content associated with them lasts, as the motivation dies the moment the reward motivating people to do it is attained. That in turn means that the longer rewards are meant to last, the longer it needs to take to get them in the first place to keep the content running, or you'll quickly run out of things to motivate people with. That however runs counter to the primary audience: Casuals with little time, who also suffer from enjoyment degradation like anyone else.

It's an interesting topic. While I don't think raids in particular are a big issue reward-wise, PvE content in general could use more innate replayability to increase the base enjoyment and reduce the rate of degradation, which would lower the needed reward threshold for participation and thus, allow for somewhat more longevity. There's only so much you can do on that front, but IMO it's worth looking into.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

I have to disagree here the challenge is what keeps people from doing the content. I really don't think that long lasting awards matter as much as ur assuming. Many people enjoy the birds or ponies but many choose the easiest path to get them. I know many people who waited to bird farm after it went unsync. Alot of people simply are afraid of challenge and don't want to learn rotations, or watch external guides to play their video game. If the gear lasted longer then six months it may motivate some but I doubt as many as u think. Also for people like me finding seven other people I know out of the 200 people on my friends list is the biggest challenge of all

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It does not even have to be fear of a challenge. I can only talk about myself but I only got all the ponies in HW and I still have some birds left to farm. I did Lakshimi ex but for me its just so much time that you need to maybe get the dog. So I will try it out and maybe get the drop but the true farming will be done when you can unsynch it. You dont need 7 other people and you need less time too. At the same time the drop rate is increased (thankfully) and most of them have the totems. I am not saying that there are not some that just fear challenge itself but for others its simply less time that they need to do it. I am still fine with that way because people need to wait a whole expansion to unsynch them so the prestige is still there for all those that did it synch.

My biggest problem is the normal gear. If you keep up with the gearing you will out-gear any new dungeon thus making those drops useless (if you dont need it for another job). At the same time it takes some work to get there yet the next stone gear is fast around the corner. Maybe they should make the gearing longer. Not release everything with one patch but give it to us over time. Make them a certain ilvl so that they are strong and in the meantime people can gear the missing pieces by either running the new dungeons or raiding (which would be higher). This way dungeon gear would not be useless for those that only play a small amount of jobs and at the same time the gear that you farmed for will be current quite longer. Maybe increase the amount of stones needed for it.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

Louisoix is filled with slackers. 36% of its players are at level 70.... :P

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Server still young with lot of people who wanted 'Road to 60' buff.

Also... SE where is our 10m players online that you say in your ads on Internet and facebook?!

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Originally Posted by Chiramu

Because Japanese people can play Dragon Quest X is why there are more Westerners. We only have FFXIV to play, where the JP players can play the better MMO DQX :(.

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And Phantasy Star Online 2 :(
And JP servers are only options now with fan translation. The SEA server has or are shutting down

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

That would be great. 5+ clears: 0 chests. 3-4 clears: 1 chest. 0-2 clears: 2 chests. And in each of these cases, players who have already cleared can't roll for the items, even if they didn't get anything.

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Why not use Rabanastre system? Chest always drops, just can't roll if already got loot for week?

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Not if no one else wants to. And even then, that only keeps you entertained for so long and doesn't allow you to have fun with the new abilities.

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Have you considered starting a group to do this content? Maybe post in the forums about it and see how it goes? If people are quitting because they can't raid more, then there must be others who would join you.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

It does not even have to be fear of a challenge. I can only talk about myself but I only got all the ponies in HW and I still have some birds left to farm. I did Lakshimi ex but for
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Is 6 months not enough , I seems like a very decent amount of time to me this is what Im not understand about what people mean by make the gear last longer, should gear last a year at a time? And in reality a 320 set if you do no ex primals or not even one of the raids will prob last the whole expansion.
I remember in hw that I tanked the last dungeon of the expansion with easy in lore gear so Im not understanding really. Also you say you get the mount faster but how 5.0 isnt coming out until like a year in a half from now. It would seem you could get the mounts alot faster during the actual expansion, and even ran unsync it could still take you the same 99 runs. I just dont understand what many even get out of the game only doing a small portion of the content. without the extremeres are raids its only 24 man , and 4 dungeons.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

Not sure if it's been said, but I really like raiding. Even now, months after Deltascape Savage has been out, I still enjoy doing it. However, there's a problem:

99% OF THE PLAYERBASE DOESN'T WANT YOU IN THEIR PARTY AFTER YOU CLEARED IT!

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QFT, I literally spend my time floating around my inn room listening out for anyone who might need a hand these days. My group's on hiatus and isn't interested in optimising omega or running coil and PF has very very little to offer me at this stage beyond the occasional amusing trap party. Barf.