Final Fantasy 14's grinds feel horrible to midcore players

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

Not that I disagree but a very common criticism of Eureka was that it in fact had players forced into a singular area of the game that they may or may not have liked. In other words, to get relics, engrossing yourself in Eureka exclusively was the only way. They addressed this by allowing players to engage in other activities. In this regard, people got what they asked for. The content they picked really just made the most logical sense, if I'm honest

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There’s ways to do that with the current expansion content though. Tie some materials behind hunts, fate crystals, implement some overworld quests stuff like that they can use to flesh out the overworld. I know it’s a bit crazy to ask for something…new instead of more reused content but there’s ways, it’s just the fact the devs don’t seem interested in it at all.

WHAT grind? There's about 4 hours of content a week that can meaningfully advance your character. It's early Tuesday afternoon, and I'm already done again.

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Originally Posted by Jennah

WHAT grind? There's about 4 hours of content a week that can meaningfully advance your character. It's early Tuesday afternoon, and I'm already done again.

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I mean, if you were paying attention, he presented the Pteradon mount as an example of one extreme while what you're presenting is the other extreme. There being no middle-ground is the problem.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

I mean, that's not exactly what he said, and I like to discount our resident trolls as much as possible.

I do think the game could use a better spread of rewards, it does tend to go extreme with some of the long term achievements without having anything really worthwhile in the middle.

On the other hand, a lot of stuff is pretty easy to grind out so in a way it balances itself. There's just nothing directly in the middle.

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Yeah... I could be confused, it happens lol, but.. I was also under the same impression that OP was talking about how there are a lot of HIGH HIGH end things to work towards but not as many comfy bumps in the road (for OP particularly middle of the road). Then using a system very akin to what players just saw with SE's "battle pass" pvp as an example which is poster child for basically saying 'lots of things along the way, with mile stone rewards'.

As far as I can surmise OP is not asking for more hyper grind-hardcore content, at least exclusively (perhaps they might exist but reward strewn along the way), and if anything this post would benefit both hyper casuals and the more engaged casual (honestly for me casual and midcore has a lot of overlap). As people who might not make it to the end, cause some of those achievements are pretty crazy, are still getting cool things rather than basically nothing.

I get the sense a few are replying by name rather than by content, or I can't read. /shrug lol

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

Translation: "I want a game that solely caters to high end hardcore content and I dont want casuals to have fun cool rewards earned through long grinds because only I deserve cool rewards because I am l33t and do high end group content"


WoW is awaiting for you, it treats casuals like 4th class citizens so exactly what you are looking for.

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that's not at all what is being said, not even close. that's not in the subtext of the OP. you are actively looking for the worst, least charitable interpretation of what was said, probably because you felt like it was targeting you specifically for some reason, but i assure you, this isn't about you.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

That is what was implied though.

Let's say they create more hardcore high end group content rewards like he asks so he "has more things to do"
And let's say they either remove or severely reduce the grind on many other cool rewards that werent gated behind high end group content

So now the casual/solo/etc players dont have any worthwhile achievements or anything to get because the game now fully caters to high end group content and gives scraps to casuals/solo/etc players, exactly what has happened to wow.

He might not say it directly because it looks extremely ugly but that is what he is asking for.

Thankfully after hearing Yoshi P. say he wants to create more content for solo and casual players I am happy to see he is not following WoW's example.

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You are just as bad as he is, I'm just going to point that out.

I don't really see the issue with using things in a game like Lost Ark as an example. Even WoW still has some good things that FFXIV could adopt.

Is it really that bad?

The EX primal mount tokens are a pretty reasonable grind now with the Story primal maybe being a little on the quick side whereas 99 tokens on the usual extremes is a solid grind over the course of a few weeks to a month or so.

On the more casual end of things, story issues aside, I think the relic weapon grind with Bojza was absolutely spot on this time round. It has a few properly grindy steps but they only have to be done once, outside of that it's just about right no?

Going beyond those two things the pickings start getting a bit slimmer though, maybe the gold saucer could do with a fresh coat of paint and a new major element to chase.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

I don't really see the issue with using things in a game like Lost Ark as an example. Even WoW still has some good things that FFXIV could adopt.

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https://c.tenor.com/UdxPntdKQgEAAAAd/cx-czx.gif


Haha, Interestingly with the new expansion WoW is working on it looks like it might be taking some hints at the things FFXIV has done well with- while still doing the things that it has done well too. Not to sound scary or anything but such a thing, if the team is serious, SE should take seriously lol.

For a long while WoW appeared to forget the things that made it great while simultaneously ignoring large swathes of it's audience because some specific high power devs had a bias to certain types of content, now they 'might' be awakening to some of that.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Is it really that bad?

The EX primal mount tokens are a pretty reasonable grind now with the Story primal maybe being a little on the quick side whereas 99 tokens on the usual extremes is a solid grind over the course of a few weeks to a month or so.

On the more casual end of things, story issues aside, I think the relic weapon grind with Bojza was absolutely spot on this time round. It has a few properly grindy steps but they only have to be done once, outside of that it's just about right no?

Going beyond those two things the pickings start getting a bit slimmer though, maybe the gold saucer could do with a fresh coat of paint and a new major element to chase.

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I actually think the EX primal mount is a pretty steep grind personally. I didn't grind any single primal mount on my main because it takes way too much effort. 99 tokens is roughly a 20-hour grind (counting wipes and PF shenanigans), and that's not too bad but I dislike repeating the same solved encounters again and again.

For EX primal mounts, I don't think they should change anything currently existing. I grind <=10 times each patch to get a weapon that I need, that's good enough for me.

But primal mounts are an example of a grind that is reasonable over a few months but still feel bad in the moment. Because a lot of players will grind the mount for a few hours since once you stick with a good PF you wouldn't want to leave half an hour in. That is an extremely monotonous activity IMO. Since I only play a few hours a day, I don't grind mounts because doing so will consume basically my entire day.

What I'd like to see is having the game encourage a diversity in activities. People find time-gating annoying but you can encourage people to time-gate themselves. Give people a weekly checklist of various things to do in Eorzea: like do 2x current EX primals, 2x Expert roulettes, 1x S-rank hunt, 2x Gold Saucer gates, craft 2x expert recipes, etc. It exists in the form of Wondrous Tails but people usually cheese that. We just need one for endgame and have it be semi-fixed so people don't just take the efficient way out and do the fastest and yet most boring activities to complete it.

Right now a lot of the game's grinds are best done if you commit multiple hours consecutively to doing it. Like Eureka, Bozja, primal mounts, etc. Maybe it's ADHD but I don't want to do the same thing for more than half an hour when this game has enough diversity of activities for players to pursue. They should encourage that. Make a system that has the player dip their toes in a single activity for 5-30 minutes and then allow them to switch to something else.

I feel like we already have, lack of varied midcore content aside, the beginnings of good ways to shake up that grind.

Just imagine if the Hunt Log (perhaps reworked to be integrated with actual Hunts), Challenges, Wonderous Tails, and one's ongoing Relic Quests, etc., just had a unified screen available. Take those and run with them.

(That and start taking from the best procedures of Relic grinds and introduce Relic progress for a given expansion as early as its x.1 patches.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I feel like we already have, lack of varied midcore content aside, the beginnings of good ways to shake up that grind.

Just imagine if the Hunt Log (perhaps reworked to be integrated with actual Hunts), Challenges, Wonderous Tails, and one's ongoing Relic Quests, etc., just had a unified screen available. Take those and run with them.

(That and start taking from the best procedures of Relic grinds and introduce Relic progress for a given expansion as early as its x.1 patches.)

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There are a lot of systems in place that can develop into a good fleshed out system that gives midcore players plenty of stuff to do, but they don't seem to ever expand it significantly after one patch. Hunt logs for example have basically stayed the same for expansions.

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Originally Posted by Skiros

There are a lot of systems in place that can develop into a good fleshed out system that gives midcore players plenty of stuff to do, but they don't seem to ever expand it significantly after one patch. Hunt logs for example have basically stayed the same for expansions.

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I would love for them to go back and revamp Hunt Logs to give out little reward tiers for doing them.

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

And there it is, just another thread to Advertise and Praise Lost Ark.
This has become a Pattern Bruh.

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Who said I was threatened?
I was just pointing out you make alot of threads putting down FFXIV and Praising Lost Ark. Does this scare you or threaten your Thread in some way?
Lol

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Yup, to both Points.
It IS just another ""FFXIV bad and LA good"" post
At the same time, Im not advocating against learning from the Competition.

The main point of my Post at its core though, it is "Another" Post basically Advertising Lost Ark on the FFXIV Forums
I never said anything against it...just that it happened..Again XD

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Sometimes I really question if people actually read my posts....

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I read your posts. This thread is discussing a suggestion that someone had for improving midcore content. Instead of contributing to the thread by either saying "That sounds cool." or "That's not going to work because X...", you have a string of meta-narrative posts that complain about people using the same popular game as an example of how to improve the systems in FF14. So, either you're trying to contribute to the conversation by complaining about the source of the ideas or you're just filling this thread with meta-narrative drivel that does nothing to contribute to anything.

Nobody needs you to point out that there are other threads discussing ideas from a different popular game in the same genre. I'm sorry if I assumed that you were trying to contribute to the conversation.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

I would love for them to go back and revamp Hunt Logs to give out little reward tiers for doing them.

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To be honest, both the hunt logs and the FATE system should largely be reworked, either to a skirmish/critical engagement-esque system. Or even better, they should just find a way to bring back the Emergency Mission feature for open-world from way back when in Diadem. Allow people of all level ranges to participate with either a simplified job kit or even their full job kit. I feel like this would help greatly with player retention since they can actually experience the game proper, instead of having to go through hundreds of hours of MSQ to get but a glimmer

Lost ark just a mobile style mmo where you get those shiny rewards at first levels and some everyday rewards what trying to keep you in the game,later you have much monotonic daily grind with your alts or use real cash for progress,i have two T3 characters and 4 T2 and quit that grind fiesta,it feel like a job to run all those characters everyday and those rewards for daily login later only annoys.

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Originally Posted by Terria

Lost ark just a mobile style mmo where you get those shiny rewards at first levels and some everyday rewards what trying to keep you in the game,later you have much monotonic daily grind with your alts or use real cash for progress,i have two T3 characters and 4 T2 and quit that grind fiesta,it feel like a job to run all those characters everyday and those rewards for daily login later only annoys.

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monotonic daily grind just sounds like 14 tome stone grinding. those rewards at early levels sounds like veteran rewards before they took them away.

Nothing midcore about you, baby

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

monotonic daily grind just sounds like 14 tome stone grinding. those rewards at early levels sounds like veteran rewards before they took them away.

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At least IN FFXIV only latest alliance raid and savage are reward locked weekly,in Lost ark all dungeon rewards weekly locked and if you want progress you need to do that 2xtimes daily thing,not remember name at all characters everyday,guardians what gives you lower rewards 2x and those world bosses and rifts 1x for all chars,comparing to FF in Lost ark nothing more to do,only everyday same repeat and repeat and pray to honing succes or all goes for nothing,even in Black desert grind more fun than in Lost ark.

The thing about Grinding in MMOs is, it is never about fun, unless you have a masochistic vein.

And to be fair, FFXIV Grinding in almost ALL sides of contents avaiable (with Hunt Mounts/Pteranodon from Archievements being the only exception) is very easy going with the Grinding Game, compared to MMO Standards. Old MMOs from 2002-2009 were ALOT worse on these aspects, in some of them, it took you 1 week of Grinding every evening until midnight, just to get one levelup, only killing trash in the corner of some huge Dungeon over and over again.

And yet, Grinding IS the Soul of every MMORPG. If you cant make amends with even the easiest of Grindings, even if it is just Gear progression, youre better advised to stay away from MMORPGs.

That's my two cents on the matter.

"Other mmos like Lost Ark do this and that..."

Yeah, um for those of us in the back, could you name these other mmos like Lost Ark? I'd be interested in playing an mmo like Lost Ark, that isn't Lost Ark. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

"Other mmos like Lost Ark do this and that..."

Yeah, um for those of us in the back, could you name these other mmos like Lost Ark? I'd be interested in playing an mmo like Lost Ark, that isn't Lost Ark. Thanks.

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Lol by reading that my brain was like .. "HE SAID OTHER MMOS LIKE LOST ARK DO THIS AND THAT" :D

I was curious so I googled it and one of the first results on google was such an uncompelling list that I wanted to share it:
https://gamerant.com/best-games-like-lost-ark/

Spoiler WoW, FFXIV, GW2, and ESO are on there. Lol. .


Sort of not really an MMO but to answer your question more seriously but clearly only vaguely so, I feel Diablo 3 and Path of Exile have similar vibes as I felt Lost Ark was heavily inspired by those type of games anyways. (This of course then adds Hades, Torchlight, V Rising, etc).

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Originally Posted by Terria

At least IN FFXIV only latest alliance raid and savage are reward locked weekly,in Lost ark all dungeon rewards weekly locked and if you want progress you need to do that 2xtimes daily thing,not remember name at all characters everyday,guardians what gives you lower rewards 2x and those world bosses and rifts 1x for all chars,comparing to FF in Lost ark nothing more to do,only everyday same repeat and repeat and pray to honing succes or all goes for nothing,even in Black desert grind more fun than in Lost ark.

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Unreal trials are weekly locked. Tome stones are weekly locked. Hunt lists are weekly and daily locked. normal raids are weekly locked for awhile.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Lol by reading that my brain was like .. "HE SAID OTHER MMOS LIKE LOST ARK DO THIS AND THAT" :D

I was curious so I googled it and one of the first results on google was such an uncompelling list that I wanted to share it:
https://gamerant.com/best-games-like-lost-ark/

Spoiler WoW, FFXIV, GW2, and ESO are on there. Lol. .


Sort of not really an MMO but to answer your question more seriously but clearly only vaguely so, I feel Diablo 3 and Path of Exile have similar vibes as I felt Lost Ark was heavily inspired by those type of games anyways. (This of course then adds Hades, Torchlight, V Rising, etc).

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Yeah...I'm gonna have to apologize, Shougun. I know ya meant well but I was kinda hoping to have the OP personally spring up this question just to point out the necessity to start his posts constantly with "other mmos like Lost Ark" is disingenuous. Most mmos like Lost Ark, specifically the f2p variant are just not overall well made but this is not new information to most of us here in the forums. You don't need to constantly bring up a currently successful mmo just to prove to us that the one thing its doing is worth implementing. Hell, you can do the same thing with current unsuccessful mmos and still make a good point. Perfect example is WoW. Currently wildly unsuccessful but its glamour log is *chef kiss*. "Other mmos like Lost Ark do X" is just a line spewed to reinforce the idea that what a game does is probably rampant across other games so FFXIV should follow suit. Probably true. Probably not. Either way, the statement mostly runs on the (small) possibility that you haven't played other mmos of the Lost Ark variety to verify that the feature exists successfully(big keyword here because there are similar game systems that just don't execute well).

It's almost like if Skiros act like if he doesn't bring up Lost Ark every time he wants a nifty QoL or an invigorating gameplay change to FFXIV, his post will crumble and people will immediately dismiss it. And if it's not that, then yeah, it just looks like he just wants to shout from the mountaintops how awesome Lost Ark is. Heck, it could be both things, idk. But one thing I do know for sure is that while most people here do like suggestions that improve the game, they absolutely hate it if comes pre-packaged in bullshit or thinly-veiled deceit.

It's not even necessarily the grind (although, this game has had some really horrific ones), it's about rewards and pacing. I don't really feel rewarded for participating in many of this games grinds.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

The thing about Grinding in MMOs is, it is never about fun, unless you have a masochistic vein.

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There's a difference, though, between "grind" in the sense of consuming non-finite or less-finite content and "grind" in the sense of something the player considers dull, though.

A game --especially any that relies on non- or less-finite content to create space for player hours, such as per any MMO-- has (in this relevant portion) failed to the degree that the prior form of "grind" (essentially, content longevity) seems like the latter form of "grind" (boredom).

Guildwars does a few good things. There are ongoing things to work towards, monthly and even specific things like weekly pvp or weekly puzzles etc. I liked that doing a lot of one thing got you a pretty nice thing, but doing a lot of different things still got you a variety of different things. Always something to work towards, with pretty clear ways to go about it. Whatever you did worked towards a certain goal, but you also got reasonable xp to level up as well.

Heck, one was just “sit in every kind of chair that exists in the world”.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Guildwars does a few good things. There are ongoing things to work towards, monthly and even specific things like weekly pvp or weekly puzzles etc. I liked that doing a lot of one thing got you a pretty nice thing, but doing a lot of different things still got you a variety of different things. Always something to work towards, with pretty clear ways to go about it. Whatever you did worked towards a certain goal, but you also got reasonable xp to level up as well.

Heck, one was just “sit in every kind of chair that exists in the world”.

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Those kinds of achievements are cool. Something that makes you engage with the world. Wish there was more of that in FF14

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Most of the really time-consuming grinds are actually aimed at the 'midcore' playerbase. They don't take a lot of skill to achieve, but you can patiently chip away at them over a longer period of time and feel good when you finally achieve them because of the relative scarcity of it.

What players always forget is that if something is easily obtained and isn't skill gated, then everyone is going to have it and nobody is going to value it.

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The problem is the "long period of time" is actual literal years if you DON'T sit and grind away at it every day

I'm casual as they come and it's taken me years to get even a third of the way toward the hand of mercy title (5000 killing blows in pvp) because I'm not sitting doing pvp every day, and even doing hunt trains every single day for the first several weeks of this expansion AND last expansion (that's multiple instances worth multiple times a day plus my more casual hunting through the rest of every expansion) has barely made a dent in my progress toward the centurio tiger

Like. OP is right. There's a whole lot of very quick and easy, and very very long term time commitment, and not a ton in between right now.

And this is coming from someone who spent hundreds of hours over close to a decade farming achievements in WoW just to get the achievements. I have a ton of beef with WoW, but at the very least that system gave me a lot to do and felt way more satisfying and rewarding for the time required than any achievement in this game

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

It's not even necessarily the grind (although, this game has had some really horrific ones), it's about rewards and pacing. I don't really feel rewarded for participating in many of this games grinds.

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Yeah this here is my problem with it, and why I usually just plain don't bother with most of the longer grinds at all. They just take way too much time for not enough, or a too far off, reward.

Honestly the grinds they do have in-game are okay for what they are. The danger area is when grinding and usual filler end-game content ends up becoming so much of an obsession that it overrides the decision to do newer content being released by the developer.

The relic weapon quests probably need some quality of life changes, like allowing for players to get the materials for said relic weapons through newer content, as some folks have played the game so long the real challenge is finding the will to go through the same tired old content for weeks on end just to get a reward. There is a reason someone gets a mount reward for grinding every single combat job to 80.

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Originally Posted by Avidria

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But that's how an MMO grind works. Everything has an opportunity cost attached, be it learning a raid tier, farming Ex trials for mount drops, collecting Relics, or obtaining PvP kills. The value of the reward is always proportional to the time cost, because that determines scarcity. You just need to determine if the reward is worth it to you personally and how exactly you want to pace yourself. It's okay to take years to obtain a specific achievement going after a rewards that you want, if that's a function of your time commitment. It just means that you progressed in a more laidback fashion. Doesn't make it any less exciting when you actually get there.

I think the problem is that people compare themselves to everyone else, and then spread themselves out too thin only to achieve nothing. Or they view this as an obligation and go after things that they really have no interest in, simply for the sake of completionism.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

But that's how an MMO grind works. Everything has an opportunity cost attached, be it learning a raid tier, farming Ex trials for mount drops, collecting Relics, or obtaining PvP kills. The value of the reward is always proportional to the time cost, because that determines scarcity. You just need to determine if the reward is worth it to you personally and how exactly you want to pace yourself. It's okay to take years to obtain a specific achievement going after a rewards that you want, if that's a function of your time commitment. It just means that you progressed in a more laidback fashion. Doesn't make it any less exciting when you actually get there.

I think the problem is that people compare themselves to everyone else, and then spread themselves out too thin only to achieve nothing. Or they view this as an obligation and go after things that they really have no interest in, simply for the sake of completionism.

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We'll see my point is that there are not enough rewards with an amount of time investment proportional to their value to me, personally. The sliding scale outside of savage and ultimate raid prog pretty much consists of quick and easy, maybe a week or two of work, and then, again, actual literal years, with not a lot in between. There's a consistent lack of easy casual grinds that feel rewarding along the way, and it's a problem I've had with the game for a while. It's not a big enough problem to keep me from playing, but it's enough of one that I'm currently at the point where there are very few things I'm interested in doing in game at all because my options in things that aren't going to take months to years to complete (read: get literally anything out of) are extremely limited, and I'm super not interested in that kind of time commitment at the moment.

Personally my current solution to this is going to be unsubbing once my raid team finishes P4 re clears until enough new content has been added to draw me back in again.

Edit to add... I think part of the disconnect here is that I do not care about scarcity. I like having rare things, sure, but I also just like having things to do that are fun or worthwhile. In an ideal world, the best case is for the thing to be fun AND worthwhile. I'm not saying they should take out the obscenely long grinds, I'm saying they should add more things that fall in the middle ground.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

I think they need to be a little more innovative and consistent with their rewards. I want to go out on a limb and say that even certain content which you may otherwise typically do just once and done, can be further incentivized by creating achievements that are job-based. E.g. completion of a solo deep dungeon on a particular class. Certain rewards and grinds such as the Pteranodon could do well by having better milestones. Create another for 100K on each class, another for 250K, and then the final one for 500K. As it stands some of these grinds reward you for an entry point, but then require you to make a full-on commitment for any additional rewards. -- I must admit that achievement-wise Ocean Fishing has been a fantastic experience thus far.

As far as the point milestones go, e.g. 20 points for something mediocre, whilst another has approx. 5 achievement points for tenfold the effort. This practice I don't necessarily mind, really. What I do mind, however, is that beyond the now abolished veteran reward system, all rewards contained therein have just been relegated to achievement tokens, and there are not nearly enough rewards locked behind these tokens. Add more mounts, minions, etc. I'm sat on approx. 330 of these tokens and I have…

Absolutely nothing to use them on... and this doesn't account for not recently retrieving them. The sad part is they already have fairly good systems in place, they just don't execute consistently enough, or even utilise them to a fraction of their potential.

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I like the idea of milestones. We see that already in the achievements that are I, II, III, etc and then the final reward for V like Custom Deliveries. You get the goodie at the end but you get those hits along the way as you fill up that achievement bar.

They could also stand to revamp systems like challenge log, hunt log, and sightseeing log to make those more viable. And resurrect levequests as a system with good risk versus reward. Doesn't necessarily even have to be all new rewards since that could be prohibitive with dev time. Maybe alternate ways to get things we can get now, like bicolor gemstone items. Or another path to crafting / gathering items. The hunt log could tie into the Hunt system and give another daily way to build up those tokens. This could also be a way they could keep it from feeling like you have to log in every day, but you still get a goodie for doing tasks.

I do find it rather amusing that a game which "respects your time" lacks quality of life changes for a lot of the old grinds. I appreciate that some grinding is always going to be some part of a subscription MMORPG, that's just the business model, but there's old content that still needs to be played like it was originally implemented. A Realm Reborn relics are a prime example of this in needing to grind various sections of ARR content until you get the required drops which includes the ARR FATE grinding very early on into the acquisition. Was this fine by ARR standards? Probably but in 2022 this doesn't need to exist. Newer relics from Stormblood and Shadowbringers are nowhere near as bad in this regard plus have their own unique content associated with them (even if participation is usually at the minimum acceptable level for the ShB stuff).

I quite like that Square Enix have used a modern battle pass-style system for the new PvP content but how they can take that model and apply it to other content areas isn't so clear. At the very least quality of life changes to the time needed to do old relics, beast tribes and other grinds should be considered at this stage. Newer players doing a time commitment reduced version of older content is better than it not being played. Until then, it's just a growing list of do X task 100s or 1000s of times until you want to rip your eyes out.

There is a lack of a middle ground that probably needs addressing. You can either play with a fairly minimal time investment and not fall behind on the obvious progress curves like gearing or you can play this game like a full-time job and have every single grind completed for every expansion and job. For people that want something in the middle... it doesn't really exist.

I think this is relevant once again

What other MMO's do right? is an (unspoken) emphasis on keeping PvE combat " Exciting ". Many MMO's manage to pull this off in several ways even before or without P2W.

But Square puts an Emphasis on " Content ". When Job's are made a joke to master or play? in grinding environments with near no peril? It's no wonder that there are Players requesting any grind like the Moogle-Tome once to just hasten cause nothing is worse then a Long Grind with " Zero Excitement ".

Yoshi-P said " Just take a Break " cause Square knows the appeal of XIV is mostly " Content ". When there's a drought of new content? XIV feels boring. Much rather preferred XIV to focus on keeping Jobs more engaging since you take a Job to anything PvE combat even a grind. Keep Jobs engaging? and any content is more appealing to do. Hollow out Jobs to be more boring? yay then any content becomes less appealing to do. " Grinds included "

This forum is tiring. Why are you all getting triggered by the fact He used Lost ark as an example. Guy made a developped post about with an intersting point, and you just all go "He said Lost Ark, nothing he said is worthy". You all need a breath of fresh air, sometimes. (And before you all jump on my back because "I defend Lost Ark", I never played or watch someone play that game.)

On the subject of the thread, I do share a similar view. As someone that has no interest in the high difficulty content (hear that I don't like the idea of needing a static roaster with a calendar saying "those days, every week, it's prog on extreme/savage/ultimate), I just don't do it. I don't mind the grind, but I like it being accessible (and I don't mean easily unlockable, but either "you don't need to wait for 20+ min to enter and/or don't need to organise a premade party" but can easily join on the fly). It's something Eureka (well, I still want to burn Pagos down) and Bozja/Zadnor were good with. But the perfect counter-example to me is the last deep dungeons.

When you look at Eureka Orthos, I feel we have casual content (stage 1 to 30), and hardcore player content (stage 31+). If I consider stage 31+ as hardcore player content, it's not because of the difficulty of the content, which is not that hard for 31-70, but because of the accessibility of the content. Stage 1 > 30 can be done with random people, by series of 10 floors. If you want to do them in several session because you lack the time, don't like that content that much but still want the reward, any reason, you can.

From stage 31+, it's not possible anymore. You need a fixed party. There is 2 possibilities there, either you can find 4 friends that have one of their 2 slots free, and then it's ok, either you don't, and you have to make a PF, and commit to a often several hours farm. Because of how it's designed, you can't paused after a serie of 10 floor and pick another time. Despite having some mid-tier rewards (silver-tinged sacks), the conditions to get to those are the exact same you have to accept to get the high tier rewards, that are made hardcore players. It's just not worth it for a lot of players, and it has been a problem for a long time before Eureka Orthos. Sky pillar is pretty much ignored, and even entering with the auto-team tool can take an hour. When you add to that it's more of a reskinned content than a new one, and one that was never really popular, Eureka Orthos was on a programmed death from its release.


So to me, we should have something like:
casual content > few grind, and easily accessible (see what I mean by accessible earlier)
midcore content > a lot of grind, but easily accessible (for deep dungeon, that could be making stage 31 to 50 being doable with auto-party, while dropping less mid-tier sacks than 51 to 70),
hardcore content > a lot of grind, but not easily accessible.
And obviously, something worth your time in both mid-tier and hight tier rewards (another crab mount, really?).
In a lot of EW content, the middle step doesn't exist anymore. If you still have some older content to complete, it's the perfect time. If you don't, the game kinda feels at the worst it has been for a long time. The lack of Eureka/Bozja content is strongly felt. I wouldn't be surprised it's the content that people go to during this period of the game.

I also argue the way the content is presented add to that feeling. The return of all the trials to the msq made disappear the trials storyline we had since HW. The content is still technically there, but the sense of diversity is not there anymore.
Same goes with the relic storyline, it was reduced so much it feels inexistant. We're back at something similar to what ARR had. Here again, there is no real loss of content compared to those time. A lot of relics steps ended being farm some old content or get some memo. They added a few alternative ways, but those stopped being worthy in later extensions. But yeah, the way it was presented was more creative, even in ARR and HW.
There is also the fact the MSQ of 6.3 was kinda not to the lvl of the previous patch. The 2 generals weren't as well build up as the previous 2, and the whole Garlemald part felt like a side quest to shoehorn the twins in there.

In the end, despite having a similar content we lost several storylines, which also mean several things to wait for/be excited about. And the one one we still get are not that exciting. For a game focused on story telling, that might be the biggest mistake. Right now, the game is not selling dreams on what's coming. That feeling might not be present with people that are not up to date with the content, but it feels pretty strong with those who are. I really hope the reveal of 7.0 teaser will change that.

But to circle back to the point, that weakness of presentation makes the only grind we have as midcore player (the relic one) feel totally unrewarding. It's litterally farming the roulette and content of EW that have been there since far before the relics, without any hint of recontextualisation. As I said in another thread, I prefer that to some relic 80 steps (the one which asked to do either PotD or DR, which none, by the definition I gave earlier, are accessible), but it still feels kinda underwhelming.

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Originally Posted by CNitsah

When you look at Eureka Orthos, I feel we have casual content (stage 1 to 30), and hardcore player content (stage 31+). If I consider stage 31+ as hardcore player content, it's not because of the difficulty of the content, which is not that hard for 31-70, but because of the accessibility of the content. Stage 1 > 30 can be done with random people, by series of 10 floors. If you want to do them in several session because you lack the time, don't like that content that much but still want the reward, any reason, you can.

From stage 31+, it's not possible anymore. You need a fixed party. There is 2 possibilities there, either you can find 4 friends that have one of their 2 slots free, and then it's ok, either you don't, and you have to make a PF, and commit to a often several hours farm. Because of how it's designed, you can't paused after a serie of 10 floor and pick another time. Despite having some mid-tier rewards (silver-tinged sacks), the conditions to get to those are the exact same you have to accept to get the high tier rewards, that are made hardcore players. It's just not worth it for a lot of players, and it has been a problem for a long time before Eureka Orthos. Sky pillar is pretty much ignored, and even entering with the auto-team tool can take an hour. When you add to that it's more of a reskinned content than a new one, and one that was never really popular, Eureka Orthos was on a programmed death from its release.

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Eureka Orthos is a big disappointment. IDK why they made it way easier by removing dangerous autos and in turn removing a lot of the fun in pomander management, kiting, charting a safe route through the floor etc. Orthos now is just open a second screen to look at the monster mechanics and use pomanders at 3 and I guess Storm at auto-heal penalty.

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

What other MMO's do right? is an (unspoken) emphasis on keeping PvE combat " Exciting ". Many MMO's manage to pull this off in several ways even before or without P2W.

But Square puts an Emphasis on " Content ". When Job's are made a joke to master or play? in grinding environments with near no peril? It's no wonder that there are Players requesting any grind like the Moogle-Tome once to just hasten cause nothing is worse then a Long Grind with " Zero Excitement ".

Yoshi-P said " Just take a Break " cause Square knows the appeal of XIV is mostly " Content ". When there's a drought of new content? XIV feels boring. Much rather preferred XIV to focus on keeping Jobs more engaging since you take a Job to anything PvE combat even a grind. Keep Jobs engaging? and any content is more appealing to do. Hollow out Jobs to be more boring? yay then any content becomes less appealing to do. " Grinds included "

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Huge draw of Lost Ark was the combat gameplay. Even in dailies you farm for a month it feels fun.

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Originally Posted by hunkygladiator

Huge draw of Lost Ark was the combat gameplay. Even in dailies you farm for a month it feels fun.

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I tried, I really did, but that game is too much. It became too much for the majority of the playerbase too. I just couldn't do it, plus after taking a break, I had a huge amount I had to catch up on. I appreciate that it is a great PvE game, and has well designed fights, but the entire game is essentially just for high-end PvErs now. You can't really be casual or midcore, I feel, in the long run. UNLESS you pay to keep up. You either live your life in the game, or you pay. Nobody was even doing any of the horizontal content anymore, and expected people to pay to complete their weekly raids. It was awful. It's too bad, because that game has probably the best aRPG combat IMO, and a lot of other positives.