Any hopes to EVER get 8+ man content?

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

I hate hate hate large groups. I'd much prefer them stick to designing content for 3-5-8 person groups.

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So what?

No one is forcing you to do raid content.

We need some raids. Its not really a raid if a party can manage it, then its, by definition, group content.

We need guild vers. guild content ^^

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Originally Posted by Felis

We need guild vers. guild content ^^

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What like Miners Vs Archers?




^^

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Originally Posted by Coglin

So what?

No one is forcing you to do aid content.

We need some raids. Its not really a raid if a party can manage it, then its, by definition, group content.

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While I actually support larger content, it does have a direct effect on people that prefer small group content. The primary effect is that raid content tends to cost large amounts of resources which have to come from somewhere which means less time developing and releasing new content in smaller group sizes. I'm sure plenty of people have played other games and it is quite noticeable in some how much effort goes into raids and how that leads to less small group content with some patches containing none at all.

In addition, most games decide that raids should have the highest quality loot which has a much larger effect then people in the raid camp like to admit. The raid camp tends to explain that if they don't like the content they can just not do it. The problem is the community as a whole adjusts to people having access to this gear as they do other content and tends to lead to decisions such as who gets to come to new group content. In addition depending on the team developing, it has many times lead to content that is designed with the majority having access to old raid gear for new small group content or else it is incredibly not interesting to the raid crowd. This is all of course assuming that gear gets fixed in a way to matter more as the current set up in the game it would make very little difference.

Not every game is going to cater to every demographic. I personally would like some larger 16 person content, but I understand the arguments from other sides that would prefer it never occur. I'm also interested to see how 8 person content feels when something actually challenging is created since this is larger, group size wise, then many other games that have 4-6 people for groups and have raid sizes that are in many cases experiences with 8-10 people.

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Originally Posted by Arcell

And how would you suggest they balance content to an entire linkshell? I mean considering a linkshell is comprised of a wide range of members, upwards of 100. So yeah, let's see them balance content to that many people, piece of cake right?

We already have issues with just the 8 members, we should really try to perfect what we already have before progressing to multiple group balance.

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Well we were doing PvE with over 100 players on DAoC and it was working fine. Doesn't have to push it to 100, but content for ~40 players seems reasonable to me. Now I'm not asking for that on XIV 1.x, the game engine is simply not designed for that many players to be together...

But when 2.0 hits, with free companies and all, then yeah, large scale content would be great. Also remember that content with 40+ players doesn't mean 40 players stacked on the very same objective. You could have 3 small group of 4 players in a remote location, forced to coordinate with "the main group" in order to take down adds, or accomplish a specific objective...

There are tons of way to create large scale content, that's not only "zerg one world boss".

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Originally Posted by Sayam

While I actually support larger content, it does have a direct effect on people that prefer small group content. The primary effect is that raid content tends to cost large amounts of resources which have to come from somewhere which means less time developing and releasing new content in smaller group sizes. I'm sure plenty of people have played other games and it is quite noticeable in some how much effort goes into raids and how that leads to less small group content with some patches containing none at all.

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So what? Group content has the same effect on people that prefere larger then group content.
Personally I would like to see all end game stuff require 10+ players.

I really have to ask, if your for larger raids, why is your only post here, one that does nothing but argues against it. Makes absolutely no sense.

i dont want zerge fest engame, but something like this would be cool. esp if it scored you party and delt loot based on score or something.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrLdihWwXs

I hope so, but people hate playing with other people in an MMORPG...so at best we're looking at 4 man content only in the future, if that and if they don't add a solo option, which they will because of said reason.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

I hope so, but people hate playing with other people in an MMORPG...so at best we're looking at 4 man content only in the future, if that and if they don't add a solo option, which they will because of said reason.

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Your not even making sense here.

Yeah, if we're going to have a variety of content, there needs to be more 'raid'-like content geared for large groups that would be impossible to low-man while keeping such content from being zerg-fests also, like requiring certain goals to be tailored for gathering/crafting classes, and like forcing groups to split up periodically (a la randomized mazes maybe).

If you're not interested in having that variety, as mentioned, there are plenty of other games out there to suit your wants.

I think most, if not all, the pro-large group posters on here will agree that we are not asking for all, or even a majority of new events to be 16+ (personally, for me a large event should be aimed at 32 people).

But we want some events that cater to our demographic. Maybe a new one every 6 months to a year or so once 2.0 is released. Dynamis was great albeit it should have been shorter than 4+ hours per session. Besieged and Campaign were great. That didn't mean no-one did Nyzul or Salvage.

I've just been playing SWTOR recently and their idea of large-man events is 4+.

FFXIV has a niche. It's the only MMO I can think of on the market where open world partying is the norm for levelling. It's the MMO where being social is the standard and the lone wolves are the minority. I think we all appreciate that. It's time it was capitalized on.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

I hope so, but people hate playing with other people in an MMORPG...so at best we're looking at 4 man content only in the future, if that and if they don't add a solo option, which they will because of said reason.

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Sadly true.

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Originally Posted by Aegis

FFXIV has a niche. It's the only MMO I can think of on the market where open world partying is the norm for levelling. It's the MMO where being social is the standard and the lone wolves are the minority. I think we all appreciate that. It's time it was capitalized on.

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Perhaps you should play more MMOs. Open world partying has been the norm in MMOs for quit some time. Alot of MMOs have the same or similar claiming system allowing for larger amounts of players to participate in raids, others allow groups to link to raid parties.

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Originally Posted by Coglin

Your not even making sense here.

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I'm making perfect sense:

For some reason people hate large group content, people hate playing with others (no other reason to hate large group content) and people want the ability to do things in groups of no more than 4 which sure is fine if that's what you want, but MMORPGs were designed to be played with lots of people and despite popular belief....

"Well, there's 7,200 people walking around but I still rather solo or do things in groups of 2-4 only but I can chat with them still, I'm playing with people..SEE?!"

Doesn't count as playing together. For some reason "large group content is outdated" is why MMOs suck lately, people sucked all of the fun out of it by wanting to treat it as a personal playground rather than playing nice and letting other people play with you on the merry-go-round.

It's sad but true. 8+ raid content is fun as hell in MMOs, but it seems the casual nature MMOs are becoming people are against it as a whole (hence why WoW and it's clones are doing good.) The only time they want large group content is if its PvP related, ironically.

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Originally Posted by Coglin

Perhaps you should play more MMOs. Open world partying has been the norm in MMOs for quit some time. Alot of MMOs have the same or similar claiming system allowing for larger amounts of players to participate in raids, others allow groups to link to raid parties.

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No, Open World content and partying has died out in the advent of Casual must prevail MMOs.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

I'm making perfect sense:

For some reason people hate large group content, people hate playing with others (no other reason to hate large group content)

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What a dumb thing to say. There a lot's of reasons to hate large group content. The obvious is lag.

Also, 8 man content is people in a group, probably friends, having fun. 20+ content is applying for a linkshell online getting accepted, and then doing the content with your mouth shut while 1-4 people bark orders over vent. Hmmm which do I think classifies as "playing with others..."

Also the only difference between if we had 24 man raids and the current 8 man raids is that there would be 2 more cons and 14 more arcs.

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Originally Posted by IStolzI

What a dumb thing to say. There a lot's of reasons to hate large group content. The obvious is lag.

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Lag? If your PC can't handle it that's not a reason to hate and request against large group content nor have I ever heard of that being a reason people hate large group content.

It usually falls under: "It's not for casual players, which should be your target playerbase."

My reasoning for hating large-group content is because it trivializes the contributions of a single person. For those of you who were DDs in FFXI's dynamis with more than 18 people... did you feel important? Chances are, you probably didn't. The outside alliance (that amalgamation of people on random jobs that didn't make it into the main alliance) sure didn't. I did, however, feel important doing Salvage with a group of 6 people though, and I was just the thief!

If they add more party based content, please make it creative, make puzzles, battles and dungeons were people have to cooperate in very different ways to win. It would be great !

Sadly,I am one of those lone wolfves. I can´t play much at day (one hour from monday tp friday, and thankfully, a lot more in the weekend). But I still wish to see content like that in this game and I have more time.

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Originally Posted by Raldo

My reasoning for hating large-group content is because it trivializes the contributions of a single person. For those of you who were DDs in FFXI's dynamis with more than 18 people... did you feel important? Chances are, you probably didn't. The outside alliance (that amalgamation of people on random jobs that didn't make it into the main alliance) sure didn't. I did, however, feel important doing Salvage with a group of 6 people though, and I was just the thief!

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@Raldo: I rarely had an alliance of useless people.. Maybe a party reserved for whatever job was the gimpiest at the time (mostly lolPUP--What are they doing here?! Wtf, throw them in their own party...). To carry a full alliance of dead weight though? Doesn't sound right. >.> Also, check out my last post, in particular the part about where two party content could actually involve the two parties taking two completely separate paths but relying on each other. I think you might like it. =]

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Admittedly, DD made up the majority of the alliance(s) because you needed lots of damage dealt... So it could be said, I guess, that the sheer importance/size of DDs (as a group) made individual DDs feel less important... In most of my endgame experience, though, the only people who were important on an individual level were: the main tank; the main /assist; and the leader of the event (giving instructions).

I guess a shell could draw a line for "Main Alliance" and "People who don't matter," but in the end the only things that could separate them would be other people in the party--i.e. if you didn't get a healer, didn't get a refresher, didn't get a BRD/COR, etc. In Dynamis, you could still do your job whether your in the "main alliance" or not. For open world NMs, though, those outside the main alliance definitely got shafted, but the XIV claim system fixes this in all but who gets the titles; being rotated in for drops was never an issue before (at least unless they continue the stupid "individual loot list" idea).

And I don't know why we can't have both options... I'm alright with events that only need one party, but they don't fulfill my wants from a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Likewise, I understand that large group content might make someone unhappy, but I have to make sacrifices and do the low-man stuff, you can make sacrifices and play some high-member events. I want to play with massive numbers of players; not just compare my gear in Ul'dah because my 8-10 friends were luckier than your 8-10 friends... If you want to play that way, just buy a game with 3-4 person co-op and rotate your friends in; if you're concerned with showing off, make sure it's got leaderboards...

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Originally Posted by Darkhaund

Nooooooo...... No wow clonessss. I like that FF14 is not trying to be yet another wow clone

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lol what? oh yeah I forgot WoW was the first MMO ever


PS: wow started out with 40 man raids and has since been going to smaller and smaller group content so if anything going from 15 to 8 is more like WoW than adding in an alliance system.

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Originally Posted by Mychael

I rarely had an alliance of useless people...

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The "alliance of useless people" I was referring to is... lets say you had 26 people show up for dynamis. 18 people get in the main alliance, generally your core members. You form up your main alliance to peak effectiveness, but that leaves 8 people to form the remaining "alliance". The remainders were generally people that didn't have a lot of jobs leveled, or were just in general not very necessary. The external alliance often didn't have many of the luxuries that the main alliance did; you'd rarely see bard/cor, sometimes not even a decent healer, and you would always miss out on whatever important things were said in party chat. As I was often the token thief ("we don't care what you do, just tag Treasure Hunter on everything"), I know firsthand that being in that external alliance was boring as hell.

That said, yes, two party content where they both go their own ways and do their own things while assisting each other sounds great! I realize that my complaints about large-group content are often things that could have been corrected possibly by better leadership, but I just don't want to see another Dynamis rehash where have your group can be half-asleep and still do their job.

tl;dr : I'm all for larger group content, just make it active. Fun is not doing nothing but switching targets and mindlessly mowing down monsters.

I like that Idea but at the same time, it can be difficult to manage a good 8 man team for thing like moogle. I really hope what ever they come out with is tough though. Hopefully crystal towers is similar to CoP in the time it takes to unlock as well as difficulty.

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Originally Posted by Coglin

So what? Group content has the same effect on people that prefere larger then group content.
Personally I would like to see all end game stuff require 10+ players.

I really have to ask, if your for larger raids, why is your only post here, one that does nothing but argues against it. Makes absolutely no sense.

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My only post here is this because it is the only place where I thought I could contribute anything. I find larger groups nice because it allows for some more intricate design of encounters and lets me do things that feel more epic in nature. Both of these points have already been made in the forum pretty well.

I find when discussing these issues it is helpful to look at these questions from both sides to make sure we have a clear idea of both the pros and cons. The so what is that i think the pro large group content side of arguments tends to ignore the other sides valid concerns. I think the pros outweigh the cons because it allows for a massive feeling that can't really be gotten in many other game types. However I find the assumption that it in no way harms group players because "they aren't forced to do it" to be wrong. It seems you'd agree considering your statement here is that it is true but that current design does the same thing to people that want large group content. It is quite possible that I read into your statement an assumption that I've seen on MMO boards before, but you were not making yourself.

I just don't want to see the endgame in this turn into wow style raids. I'd like it to be more like XI with a wide variety of content with comparable gear. Personally I had more fun with assault and nyzul than I ever did with dynamis... But the dynamis story line was one of my favorites.

Well Nyzul was fun yet mechanisms were pretty simple and it was only about rinse and repeat. Nyzul isn't a raid either. I don't call a <30 minutes mission with 6 players a Raid. Hell 30 minutes was only if your party was really bad or if you were really unlucky. Most of Nyzul runs were ~20minutes.

Same goes for Assault, lot of them were doable with 3 players (Red versus Blue spam anyone?) and could be cleared really fast. These are mini-mission made for casuals. Easy and fast. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying that this is completely different from large scale raid as other MMO have.

We need both kind of content. Fast and accessible content + large scale content that require a dedicated group of players.

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Originally Posted by IStolzI

I just don't want to see the endgame in this turn into wow style raids.

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Okay, make it like EQOA style raids.

There are tons of games that have had great and/or successfull endgame content before anyone ever heard of WoW.

64 man Dynamis GO

No reason there can't be single party/light party, and multi party content. Both can coexist

Yea it is different and different people prefer different things. The problem is when one type starts to give substantially better gear than other types. IF the game can find a balance like XI, fine. That's what I loved about XI.

But if it's going to continue the trend that every new kind of content trumps all previous content, I'd rather the content stay 8 man or maybe 16 man groups. Yes hopefully the days of being required to tell friends "I can't go out tonight, I have a raid and I'll get points taken if I don't show" on a saturday are over.

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Originally Posted by Coglin

So what?

No one is forcing you to do raid content.

We need some raids. Its not really a raid if a party can manage it, then its, by definition, group content.

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This is true, I was just stating my preference, like everyone else in the thread. I fully expect them to do large scale content, it's just not my cup of tea. I did the early 40 and 24-person raids in WoW and LotRO (I don't remember what size it was for LotRO...20 maybe? The Rift and the Watcher, whatever size those were) and didn't like them much at all, whereas I always had fun with the smaller party content.

there won't be much point for something like that unless they fix stats and mechanics. currently the game is just a zergfest.
dont get me wrong, the combo system is a step in the right direction, but we are nowhere near something ideal like xi had.

Bring on 16man pts. 2 full pts.

I should note that I'm not against larger group content, however just trying to look at it from the dev's perspective it seems like a nightmare to create and balance without having it turn into a zergfest. I think there's a place in the game for content that requires that many people however now is not the time to be worrying about it. We need to wait for the drastic changes to the game's systems to be finished and content for 8 people or less to be balanced and fun before worrying about going past that to multiple groups.

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Originally Posted by Venat

Bring on 16man pts. 2 full pts.

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Something like this with dynamis style content would be nice imo.

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Originally Posted by Majidah

there won't be much point for something like that unless they fix stats and mechanics. currently the game is just a zergfest.
dont get me wrong, the combo system is a step in the right direction, but we are nowhere near something ideal like xi had.

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Won't be a zerg fest if!!!!!~~~~~ http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Longer-fights They made each fight longer!~

In GW2 as many people can attack a mob as they want, but with more people the mob grows in strength and will start using special higher lvl skills. I would love to see this in FF14. for instance if you tried to attack the SH nm with 16 people the mages could cast instant death or the NM's lvl would just go up giving him higher lvl skills to use. anything like that would be good.

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

This is true, I was just stating my preference, like everyone else in the thread. I fully expect them to do large scale content, it's just not my cup of tea. I did the early 40 and 24-person raids in WoW and LotRO (I don't remember what size it was for LotRO...20 maybe? The Rift and the Watcher, whatever size those were) and didn't like them much at all, whereas I always had fun with the smaller party content.

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Thats okay. I understand, its not your cup of tea. By all means I do not want them to stop making content on the level they are now. I simply desire to expand on it so I can bring 2-4 full groups if I want. Its the type of end game material I enjoy most, and I know others enjoy it. I simply want what I enjoy most, the same as you. I am not asking that they stop designing what you enjoy. I want all of the above.

I love content designed for larger groups 16player/18player etc but that you can try to do with less. Make rewards that benefit smaller groups if your good enough to do said content with less all the more power to you. My favorite is doing incredibly hard content with way too few ppl, ex: when we got goblin bragadochio I did it 2~3man style since it improve my drop rate time, made the fight a real tricky endeavor and pushed my skills.

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Originally Posted by Rokien

Won't be a zerg fest if!!!!!~~~~~ http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Longer-fights They made each fight longer!~

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I agree; I mean. Not just that, after making them longer they'd need to add buffs and debuffs that fit longer battles. Make it more strategic for casters. I miss long lasting debuffs so much.

I know we are not likely to see this with 2.0, but 2.0 needs to have this out of the gate. It is so important to so many people who have been at cap for so long.