Thoughts on what the game needs to do

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

No one came here in any real numbers to raid in this game because of it, no one is really recruiting for it (i see barely 2-3 pfs even mentioning it per day per data center) and all the world firsters either went back into hibernation, or are scum who are trying to sell the runs using means that violate tos (unless you think people can seven man that content as opposed to log in as a players account, and are not doing it for real life cash) so yeah, protest all you like, i say its a failure and it is.

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I agree on some of your points, and disagree on others - but I find your argument that Ultimate was a failure is heavily mired in a biased vitriol based on the bolded comment above and undermines your position immensely. You sound like one of those bitter people who either don't have the skill or time to get into raiding and then blaming the raiders for just existing because of either your inability to perform or inability to participate.

For the record - I didn't find Ultimate to be a failure. It was designed for a very niche subset of raiders when raiders are already a smaller subset of the player base as a whole. Just because the content isn't being run 24/7 doesn't mean it's a failure. It was aimed at it's intended audience and it hit the intended audience with a bullseye. I'm not even a hardcore top 1% raider but I certainly enjoyed watching the massive amount of precision, skill, and raw endurance necessary to execute the content perfectly. If I enjoyed it by watching it from the outside, then there are others like me who enjoyed it too. We might be a small subset but we do exist and the content makes us happy to watch.

And I guess just to quote you.

"Protest all you like, I say its a success and it is."

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Twitch is useless unless the game can be played free or its a game people dont want to pay for but do want to watch. Virtually all of the top 20 games are F2P, and the topmost game is God of War for Ps4, which is a single player story game that already got great reviews; so people are essentially watching others do it. If you look at the games people play seriously or buy that aren't free, it's very grim; only 30ish total have more than 5k watchers, and many hover at 500-600, including Nintendo greats like Botw and Splatoon 2. EVE online is barely 500 watchers. Cuphead has something like 150.

Twitch really relies on a certain genre of game, and a hot game, to get anything more than token watchers. FFXIV is never going to be more of a blip on its radar, and trying to chase the cheapskate market never works

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The way you personally define success of something is by how long is had player retention, which in this case is fundamentally flawed. As you said, Breath of the Wild, a critically acclaimed video game, is barely scraping 500 views. Well, since people aren’t interested in it anymore, is that game a failure?

God of War is a fresh release game that is pulling viewership numbers comparable to BotW on release. This is just an example of how viewership naturally works. Interest is fleeting, and very rarely will you be able to keep an audience engaged for a long time. That’s why I think it’s a flawed way of looking at success. Really, you should look at the quality of the experience that was delivered when it was still fresh and exciting. The way BotW was back then and how God of War is right now are signs that the games are delivering on a fantastic experience. People who played and watched the games had a fantastic experience, and they are now happy to put it behind them. In no way are they failures.

Now, this ties into Ultimate as Ultimate was designed to be an experience much like those games above. Ultimate is designed with a different mindset than Svaage raids. It’s not meant to be something done habitually to gear you up like savage is, it’s designed as a challenge that people work their way towards clearing. And once they’ve cleared, they are content with the experience they had, and put it behind them. The release of ultimate breathed new excitement into FFXIV and FFXIV viewership. More importantly, it created excitement for those people that only log in on reset night, gave them a reason to play for more than just one night. And plus, people still are tackling UCoB today. That’s a measure of how it’s meant to be a one time challenge, not a routine grind.

Therefore, assessing Ultimate to be a failure based simply on how it isn’t retaining players right now is just the wrong way to look at it. The first two weeks after Ultimate was released created the highlight of many player’s FFXIV careers. It was a huge success at the time, and its succcess should be measured with regards to its release.

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

based on the bolded comment

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People who sell runs for ultimate are scum, for two reasons.

1. They are probably selling it for real world money. There isn't anything worthwhile for gil in this game beyond a certain point. Even if they wanted it, given that they are all advertising cross server makes it impossible, since converting that quantity of gil would take more items than AHs have for sale or people have inventory for and require the player to transfer his main over if just to do the trade.
2. They are probably logging in to the players account to do it, unless somehow people can reliably run ultimate with a 7 man and one on the floor.

Both are things RMT do, and I refuse to walk that back.

As for world firsters raid logging, that's what they do. That is not controversial in the slightest.

Sigh, as for failure it is, because ultimate is not going to save this game. Ultimate in the next patch does nothing if Eureka is the same old "90% of people stay afk in the fate train" stuff we got in this patch. It wont fix how half the roulettes are now pointless because eureka is more efficient to cap tomes and it took away motivation to get poetics and creation for capped players like past relics did.

It doesn't solve the fact we have nothing new to do in the open world that we didn't have at HW early patches. People liking to watch it is not going to keep them subbed, because you can just go to twitch and watch it while never opening the game. It gives a very small percentage of the playerbase something to do, and while thats ok for them, SE cannot base the future stream of content on this.

Their stated goal was to reduce content slightly to increase experimental content, but the way they are doing it is by releasing niche things that fail to really keep people into the game. That's how all the content I listed fails. PPl are focusing on ultimate, but all content is like this that they have released.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

People who sell runs for ultimate are scum, for two reasons.

1. They are probably selling it for real world money. There isn't anything worthwhile for gil in this game beyond a certain point. Even if they wanted it, given that they are all advertising cross server makes it impossible, since converting that quantity of gil would take more items than AHs have for sale or people have inventory for.
2. They are probably logging in to the players account to do it, unless somehow people can reliably run ultimate with a 7 man and one on the floor.

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Let's go with an easy 2 words. Prove it.

Without undeniable proof, you're just spouting nonsense to SE. Also, what does it matter if they sell content for gil or dollars? You're just upset people can actually get paid clearing stuff while you struggle with easier encounters I feel.

Ultimate was not designed to be a game saver and eureka wasn't either.
They were designed to appease a part of the community not all of them, which is good regardless.

Besides content is labeled as a failure if it doesn't get support, if content gets support it isn't a failure at all.

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Originally Posted by AxlStream

Let's go with an easy 2 words. Prove it.

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Why would anyone sell the hardest fight in this game for a resource anyone can get more than enough of absurdly easily? Gil gates nothing in this game. The FCs that do this kind of stuff probably already have crafting wings that supply raid food and potions, if gil matters just being able to four star armor in this game means you can easily earn all you need. Gil is worthless in this game beyond the 20 mil you need for a mansion, because everything that matters or has status is gated behind playing. Nothing gil can buy you will ever give the status of having what that ultimate weapon means.

And you still have the issue of doing the hardest content in this game with seven people if you do it legit an the run seller is with you. Not savage, where it's possible; i didn't say ppl who sell those do so. Ultimate. Content that took the best guilds in this game 3 weeks compared to normal savage of one day to clear. So count me suspicious as hell.

Who ever said that Ultimate was supposed to save FFXIV? You're just making things up as you go along. And without proof on top of that. And now you're drawing a line between Eureka and Ultimate? Are you even seeing what you're typing right now?

Kaiva my overall point is that the strategy of releasing niche experimental content is a failure because its not reaching enough people. People are defending ultimate, but even ultimate is a failure if that is the aim, because it's like all the other content. The content they release dries up, but the amount of people that does it and is satisfied by it is much less. Ultimate is just shocking for people to hear being trashed apparently; you can replace it with submarine missions if it bugs you, which is just as stupid content.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

Kaiva my overall point is that the strategy of releasing niche experimental content is a failure because its not reaching enough people. People are defending ultimate, but even ultimate is a failure if that is the aim, because it's like all the other content. The content they release dries up, but the amount of people that does it and is satisfied by it is much less. Ultimate is just shocking for people to hear being trashed apparently; you can replace it with submarine missions if it bugs you, which is just as stupid content.

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Since you hate everything, maybe it's time to go play another game. There's lots of them out there.

Your overall point was fine, except the comments about Ultimate because it makes absolutely no sense. It's not supposed to reach everyone. It's not meant for me, it's not meant for a lot of players on the forum, it's definitely not meant for you. Again, as has been stated not only by myself and many other forum posters, but also on record by the devs themselves, this is only for elite players. After they clear it, they move on, as they are supposed to do. I have no idea how you keep trying to draw a parallel to other, more important issues plaguing FFXIV. Quit it. The argument you leo making about Ultimate makes no sense.

Entire post invalidated by calling Ultimate a failure, and no, I didn’t clear it nor do I have it unlocked. The world first race for UCoB gave this game almost as much attention during what would’ve been a filler patch at best as the game had at SB launch.

Recognize that content that doesn’t cater to your exact whims doesn’t automatically make said content a failure.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

because someone has the guts to tell hardcore people that their precious thing failed

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Guts? No. Delusional sense of grandeur? Maybe.

In your persist whining, you continuously seem to miss the fact Ultimate is comprised of recycled content. They could scrap Ultimate tomorrow and at most you may get a dungeon nobody cares to run, if even that. The only reason Ultimate even exists is due to its cheap development, thus allowing SE to profit from players who otherwise unsub for 3-4 months out of boredom. If Ultimate took several months away from other content or sapped resources which contributed to delays, you could argue about priorities, but it's costing them next to nothing otherwise they wouldn't have implemented it. In fact, this similarly applies to Savage. According to the devs themselves, they design Savage, then omit certain mechanics deemed "too hard" and lower numbers for normal mode. Once again, if Savage were scrapped because god forbid we have content not everyone can or wants to do in a Theme Park MMO, you would gain very little since they would still have to develop each fight for its normal mode variation.

That dungeon "no one cares to run" is better than content no one actually runs. Here is bancho's unofficial census data for who has cleared as of 1/27. Even if you multiplied it by a factor of ten for clears, on NA servers that's barely .5% of server population. (the last number on the right is clears.) Lamia has 7,387 people at level 70, and 2 people who cleared it then. Multiplying it ten fold makes it 20. If you multiply it a hundredfold, that's still barely any percent of the server's playerbase, and NA servers topped out at 92 then. on a server with 11k players at 70. That's the fourth highest total..

The numbers are inexact, but bancho is about as good a source as we have. Even if you gave a generous buffer, very few people will ever touch this content, especially on the NA end. Even on chocobo, if the ratio would hold, 10% of the savage playerbase has cleared it, and it goes steadily down from there percentage wise.

Even assuming much larger participation, this simply isn't going to be anything any real amount of players will do anything but watch. And other content seems to be the same thing; I don't see any real use of bard perform in cities, I don't see much interest in underwater missions, fashion report seems to only be done infrequently, and in general the side content really isn't exciting players.

And we can't build a game where a lot of the content is stuff people watch or just talk about infrequently.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

That dungeon "no one cares to run" is better than content no one actually runs. Here is bancho's unofficial census data for who has cleared as of 1/27. Even if you multiplied it by a factor of ten for clears, on NA servers that's barely .5% of server population. (the last number on the right is clears.) Lamia has 7,387 people at level 70, and 2 people who cleared it then. Multiplying it ten fold makes it 20. If you multiply it a hundredfold, that's still barely any percent of the server's playerbase, and NA servers topped out at 92 then. on a server with 11k players at 70. That's the fourth highest total..

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I knew it. I knew you were going to link this eventually. Pray tell since I am no longer mildly fluent in Japanese, is that Ultimate clears or is that something else?

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

I knew it. I knew you were going to link this eventually. Pray tell since I am no longer mildly fluent in Japanese, is that Ultimate clears or is that something else?

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ultimate clears last from the right, savage clears total third from the right, fourth from the right is prior tier savage clears i believe. Its old, so the numbers need to be multiplied. However i don't think we could extrapolate a 1/1 savage/ultimate ratio. Total clears as of that survey was 2294, 2/3rds of that from JP. If you took NA by itself, and multiplies clears tenfold, thats 2,300 players or so.

If you look at savage clears altogether, the percentage out of the entire population is the second from the right. Most NA servers really struggle to go beyond 6 or 7% total clear rates. Again there will be some rising, but I don't think most servers can reach gilgamesh at 11% clears. I'm not arguing savage any, that;s more than enough to keep many people engaged, but th hardcore audience for NA is a lot smaller than people think, I believe and that will reflect in superhardcore content.

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

ultimate clears last from the right, savage clears total third from the right, second from the right is prior tier savage clears i believe. Its old, so the numbers need to be multiplied. However i don't think we could extrapolate a 1/1 savage/ultimate ratio. Total clears as of that survey was 2294, 2/3rds of that from JP. If you took NA by itself, and multiplies clears tenfold, thats 2,300 players or so.

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Here’s the thing, Riyah. You linked that, but that is where your entire argument completely collapses on itself. The numbers there do not prove anything about ‘failure’ or the game being built around Ultimate. The truth is that less than 10% of the entire player base is even capable of clearing Ultimate. Nobody’s building the game on Ultimate – you often complain about raiders not having anything to do. They have Ultimate if they want to go after that challenge. Assuming that they’ve beaten V4S in the first place, or V8S for the current tier. Again, this is a bragging rights title.

Aside from wanting another golden weapon, there is literally no other reason to challenge Ultimate Bahamut again once they’ve cleared it. And like the elite often do, they will unsub until the next raid tier. This has nothing to do with retainership and very little to do with getting new subs for the game. All that other stuff you mentioned, that’s an issue with the majority of the content. Ultimate has zero to do with the lack of interest in FFXIV once players complete MSQ and whatever else they want to do after a patch cycle is released.

There is absolutely no correlation between Ultimate and the droughts that happen every single patch cycle. None whatsoever.

Besides, is Ultimate really a failure for being exactly what it set out to be? Extremely high end content that about only 1% of the player base could ever clear? Isn't that what YoshiP even said it would be back in the day? Seems to me it does just that. It's not because it isn't meant for everyone that it isn't a failure. Eureka isn't meant for everyone, the only reason it is popular is because one of the most enticing piece of content is locked behind it, the relic weapon. Without it, I know many players, myself included, that wouldn't even step in there.

Ultimate was successful in the raid community and twitch I loved it but I have to agree it failed as longevity content as it didn't last long after the first couple weeks parties seemed to vanish along with the content my static just stopped playing the game but than again I don't think that was the intent in the first place and it was meant to provide more of a challenge for those not challenged enough in regular savage....

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Originally Posted by AxlStream

Besides, is Ultimate really a failure for being exactly what it set out to be? Extremely high end content that about only 1% of the player base could ever clear? Isn't that what YoshiP even said it would be back in the day? Seems to me it does just that. It's not because it isn't meant for everyone that it isn't a failure. Eureka isn't meant for everyone, the only reason it is popular is because one of the most enticing piece of content is locked behind it, the relic weapon. Without it, I know many players, myself included, that wouldn't even step in there.

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Ye, his plans for SB was to make raiding more approachable for everyone while giving something to do to the high end players, which if you ask me or some of those players he FOR NOW succeded, the next ultimate has high expectations to live up to

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Originally Posted by RiyahArp

That dungeon "no one cares to run" is better than content no one actually runs.

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If that were true, why did Square Enix opt to develop Ultimate in lieu of two dungeons per patch cycle? In fact, Yoshida, himself, acknowledged community perception towards dungeons has largely deemed them "boring." Furthermore, they insist the omission of a second dungeon actually had nothing to do with Ultimate.

Going a step further, the precedent has already been established if content were overwhelmingly poorly received they would either make adjustments or abandon it entirely, not remain "committed to a cycle of content when they designed it." Were your statement in any way accurate, why did they immediately adjust Midas after Gordias' disaster, only to subsequently nerf Savage wholesale from Creator onward? Your scenario posits they are simply ignoring Ultimate being a failure and damaging their own financial position by maintaining development on it for at least one more iteration. By such logic, either they are grossly incompetent or Ultimate succeeded in precisely its goal.

TBF I'm not so sure that 1 less dungeon really relived them of much work, since the dungeon we lost was essentially a rehash of one we had before with maybe 1 part of the map beign completely new.

That said I don't want to say that dungeons are largely irrilevant considering how they gear is not that useful and you have plenty of ways to get tomestones if you wish, maybe too much even.
Adding a timed challenge to dungeons might struck the fancy of some....I guess

What the game needs to do?

1st : Replace his producer. Or at least hire fresh blood to work WITH him. His skimpy vison of the game and his bad decisions are going go ruin it.

2nd : Hire US or EU staff. Japanese are only 1/3 of the game players. However it looks like they're the only one who are listened and the game have more and more features designed to please them first. This, really have to change.