To those that say FF14 is not a big dog in MMO's

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Oh, it most certainly is. And I tested normal/heroic raids prior to bowing out and had very little problems with them in Legion content. Mythic was a little chaotic at points even before the changes but some bosses were doable. This was before we were even able to start leveling again though. After gaining 10 more levels my characters felt weaker which shouldn't happen.

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I remember reading that article and being shown the issues -- however, I cant say I see the replication in my own game. I wonder if its more based upon class, as I do play a plater-wearing DPS that tends to have very good survivability. Never had any issues with Visions of Nzoth (have the 5 mask solo FoS on my account) nor pre-nerf Torghast either.

However, a numbers squish does cause chaos and it shows that Blizz devs are lackadaisical about reviewing it on antiquated content. Its a lesson I do not want Square-Enix to follow in their own future numbers squish -- as we know Endwalker will have.

I get for some the competitive / toxic nature of WoW is not enjoyable but that is one if the reasons I enjoy the game. I enjoy both games for different reasons the laid back nature of FFXIV is nice just as I also enjoy the competitive/toxic nature WoW endgame embodies.

That is part of the reason while I would enjoy if they brought in some elements from WoW like mythic + I just do not know if the FFXIV community could handle the type of environment such content fosters. I am not saying it is inherently bad but it broadly seems to go against the vision from SE. Though on the other hand we have ultimate which is good fun and caters to a small group of the community just as feast does. So maybe it would work out I do not know.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

I remember reading that article and being shown the issues -- however, I cant say I see the replication in my own game. I wonder if its more based upon class, as I do play a plater-wearing DPS that tends to have very good survivability.

However, a numbers squish does cause chaos and it shows that Blizz devs are lackadaisical about reviewing it on antiquated content. Its a lesson I do not want Square-Enix to follow in their own future numbers squish -- as we know Endwalker will have.

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I mained BM hunter, which was survivability incarnate. In Shadowlands, at least at the beginning (and when I left tbh) my hunter was not in a good place. My pets were useless and my CDs couldn't make up for that. So...they died and I died a ton. I don't know what they've done since then though. It was the perfect storm I guess. I wasn't happy with the grinds. I wasn't happy with my class. I wasn't happy about some old content being harder to do than before. Either way, they broke an 11 year WoW vet.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

SL just doesnt have continuous rewarding content after loot changes. Lessened loot means less drive to do rewarding content. Maw and Torghast offer no long term rewards for actively doing them.

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This is one reason why M+ likely won't work as an endgame power progression content for FFXIV. The current reward structure just doesn't have room to accommodate such a content and not many people would do such difficult content without "proper" reward.

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Originally Posted by linayar

This is one reason why M+ likely won't work as an endgame power progression content for FFXIV. The current reward structure just doesn't have room to accommodate such a content and not many people would do such difficult content without "proper" reward.

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M+ can work in 14, you just would need to adapt the reward system different rather than RNG loot combined with the Great Vault. If it had some term of special currency tied to it that would be used to buy gear, cosmetics, etc. -- it may fit in more with the 14 style.

That being said M+ can be adapted into a small scaling difficulty where the higher the fixed difficulty -- the better the rewards.

M+ is great design for how WoW works, but it would just require finessing and reworking to mold into the FF14 system.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

I mained BM hunter, which was survivability incarnate. In Shadowlands, at least at the beginning (and when I left tbh) my hunter was not in a good place. My pets were useless and my CDs couldn't make up for that. So...they died and I died a ton. I don't know what they've done since then though. It was the perfect storm I guess. I wasn't happy with the grinds. I wasn't happy with my class. I wasn't happy about some old content being harder to do than before. Either way, they broke an 11 year WoW vet.

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Thats actually very understandable. I can understand why you would want to -- it does suck that BM was left in such an awful mess from BFA. Its why I like the spec system but also hate it. I like Frost DK but I can also say Frost DK just is plain bad outside of PvP in current content. I like having that openness to swap to keep playing my class -- but also dislike having to switch off something I like to play for something I find boring yet playable.

Its not a fun combo for sure.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Oh, it most certainly is. And I tested normal/heroic raids prior to bowing out and had very little problems with them in Legion content. Mythic was a little chaotic at points even before the changes but some bosses were doable. This was largely before we were even able to start leveling again though. After gaining 10 more levels my characters felt weaker which shouldn't happen. My gear was better. My level was higher. So...where was the increased strength? We were told that nothing would change after the stat/level squishes and that players could do everything they could do prior. This was a lie, and they got caught. Admittedly, this is why I'm skeptical of the changes this dev team is making with Endwalker.

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I think the problem with WoW's stat squish is that the content was not just tuned to the original stat, but also the additional powers and traits that came with your azerite gear in BfA or your weapon in Legion.

One good thing about FFXIV's simpler take on gear is that they only have to worry about new skill level distribution when doing a stat squish, which they have done every expansion even without a stat squish.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

M+ can work in 14, you just would need to adapt the reward system different rather than RNG loot combined with the Great Vault. If it had some term of special currency tied to it that would be used to buy gear, cosmetics, etc. -- it may fit in more with the 14 style.

That being said M+ can be adapted into a small scaling difficulty where the higher the fixed difficulty -- the better the rewards.

M+ is great design for how WoW works, but it would just require finessing and reworking to mold into the FF14 system.

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It could work if, by finessing, you mean turn it into a side content like deep dungeon where you're more after achievement/title/mount/cosmetic/etc rewards rather than gears that affect power progression.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

Except, Higher keys in M+ actually require meta a lot more often to deal with increasingly more damaging mechanics while maintaining an under-clock timing. The issue with obsession becomes where people try to enforce it below 10+ and think it doesnt make public key running not completely toxic.

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I understand that for the purposes of practicality some standards need to be met, however it is known that people often ask for more than is required or absolutely refuse to take anything that is not the best possible choice, even if the difference is small, which automatically leaves out some players. I didn't try Mythic + but I have many friends who have, and even those who had a lot of success with it were often very frustrated with the attitudes of other players. From what they said the Mythic + community is very similar to the raiding community, and I became exasperated with the raiding community in that game a very long time ago. It's not for me.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

As much as people want to say that the players ruined Classic, the nostalgia of Classic remains with your own personal journey that you had when you first experience. You will not have that same experience now 16+ years later.

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Completely agree with this. You can experience something for the first time only once. I was not expecting to get a first time experience again. I just wanted to play an old game again. It's a shame I encountered enough toxicity that made me want to put it down. Coordinating with people is a must in Classic. There is no DF tool so you have to find groups manually, and you do need to have kill orders and use cc before max lvl. Sure you can just avoid doing dungeons...but experiencing them again is a huge reason why I played Classic, and well seeing quite a lot of unnecessary spite made me lose my taste for the game. That is not to say every single dungeon I did was a bad experience, but enough were that I had to stop playing.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

That being said: people who didnt expect that people were going to optimize Classic were going to be in for a rude awakening regardless -- because the private Classic servers had many people doing optimized Classic runs. Classic WoW was also massively easier but more tedious compared to retail. Molten Core being completely finished in HOURS after being open was bound to happen since MC was a rushed raid that barely had mechanics.

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Well it wasn't a surprise for me that the old raids were thrashed in a few short hours. The mechanics back then were significantly more simple, people have better internet and pcs now so they don't have connection and fps issues, the engine was modernised so the game runs better, and people know the tactics already. All that combined, of course it was nuked super fast. I completely expected it.

I didn't expect the community to be just as it was before, but I also wasn't expecting a dps priest to get laughed at in Ragefire Chasm, the lowest lvl dungeon in the game, solely because they're not playing holy. The best part was their dps wasn't even the lowest and they still got ridiculed for their choice of spec.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

I never played WoW when it was actually in Classic -- but bought into my friends who talked about its fancies and nostalgia. I tried it, and just stopped playing after reaching level 30 -- its boring and tedious as hell. I never had that connection and nostalgia playing it back 16 years ago and to me it felt like a poorly optimized MMO that was moonlighting as an RPG.

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The game is a time capsule. Sure the community changed but the core of the game did not. By modern standards Classic is not a very good mmo and I can completely understand why someone would not enjoy it, especially if they did not play it during the time when it was launched. I replay a lot of my old games, so Classic was just another venture into that for me.

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Originally Posted by linayar

It could work if, by finessing, you mean turn it into a side content like deep dungeon where you're more after achievement/title/mount/cosmetic/etc rewards rather than gears that affect power progression.

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You would either:

1) Have to tune down the progressive rewards to either keep it at levels to match base gear (tomestone/crafted/Bozja) or offer a breakpoint where you can buy "Savage but not as good" gear. Similarily to like how Bozja gear offer max casual gear stat and offer a second path of high-end gearing besides do Savages. Which may require more intuitive balancing.

OR

2) Remove the progressive gearing out of it and make it completely end-game casual content that gradually gets harder offering tiers and seasonal rewards. This may require more planning -- because you would need to decide how to deal with previous season rewards and tiers. You want to keep the content as fresh as possible with rewards or else it becomes antiquated HOWEVER you do not want to lock players out of previously awards either.

Either way requires work and planning -- along with the knowledge that SE has to continuously update rewards for the system. YOu would also decide how you wanted to make it more difficult -- seasonal affixes? more mobs? higher health?. You would also want to decide if you want to do a seasonal rotation of dungeons (perhaps based on a theme).

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I understand that for the purposes of practicality some standards need to be met, however it is known that people often ask for more than is required or absolutely refuse to take anything that is not the best possible choice, even if the difference is small, which automatically leaves out some players. I didn't try Mythic + but I have many friends who have, and even those who had a lot of success with it were often very frustrated with the attitudes of other players. From what they said the Mythic + community is very similar to the raiding community, and I became exasperated with the raiding community in that game a very long time ago. It's not for me.

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And thats fine. Thats why there is multiple different paths to progress your character -- the current issue is if its rewarding for the effort. I dont personally like M+ because I just find it boring and tends to wear out its welcome fast in my mind.

Since M+ is tied to gear progression, WoW players in some facet will try to enforce that min-max or meta method. They do with almost every part of that game -- because of trend following and lack of casual content.

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Well it wasn't a surprise for me that the old raids were thrashed in a few short hours. The mechanics back then were significantly more simple, people have better internet and pcs now so they don't have connection and fps issues, the engine was modernised so the game runs better, and people know the tactics already. All that combined, of course it was nuked super fast. I completely expected it.

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My favorite moment of all of it was how completely it shut up the Classic supremists who would basically call retail baby-mod easy with claims of how hard Classic was. Im sorry, but you cant claim a game is hard when you end-game boss (for release) is down within HOURS of release.

Again this is happening with TBC, and again -- Im ready with popcorn with how fast things will be done.

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The game is a time capsule. Sure the community changed but the core of the game did not. By modern standards Classic is not a very good mmo and I can completely understand why someone would not enjoy it, especially if they did not play it during the time when it was launched. I replay a lot of my old games, so Classic was just another venture into that for me.

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Its just nostalgia bait. Its all re-living memories once had as a kid or as a young gamer. Its fine to relive those, but you will always have that rude awakening when the game, its audience, and you have changed since that time.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

I understand that for the purposes of practicality some standards need to be met, however it is known that people often ask for more than is required or absolutely refuse to take anything that is not the best possible choice, even if the difference is small, which automatically leaves out some players.

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Regarding this, I've never used the feature myself when i was still playing WoW, but I heard that their PF equivalent only gave a list of applicants rather than having slots that are filled. Thus, the "PF starter" has to choose the applicants that would be accepted. If true, that might be why their standard is higher, especially for roles that have many applicants.

The way this happens in FFXIV is when a PF listing sets a min ilvl higher than what the content itself requires (or requiring duty complete for a clear and not a farm), but you're not able to directly compare between multiple specific applicants.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

You would either:

1) Have to tune down the progressive rewards to either keep it at levels to match base gear (tomestone/crafted/Bozja) or offer a breakpoint where you can buy "Savage but not as good" gear. Similarily to like how Bozja gear offer max casual gear stat and offer a second path of high-end gearing besides do Savages. Which may require more intuitive balancing.

OR

2) Remove the progressive gearing out of it and make it completely end-game casual content that gradually gets harder offering tiers and seasonal rewards. This may require more planning -- because you would need to decide how to deal with previous season rewards and tiers. You want to keep the content as fresh as possible with rewards or else it becomes antiquated HOWEVER you do not want to lock players out of previously awards either.

Either way requires work and planning -- along with the knowledge that SE has to continuously update rewards for the system. YOu would also decide how you wanted to make it more difficult -- seasonal affixes? more mobs? higher health?. You would also want to decide if you want to do a seasonal rotation of dungeons (perhaps based on a theme).

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Yeah, there could be different ways at handling it. But depending on the scale of the work involved, this could mean a reduction in content elsewhere, likely in battle content. So it's a very fine balancing act if they ever want to think about adding it to FFXIV.

I still think FFXIV's 8-player content (as opposed to WoW's 20-player raid) means FFXIV doesn't have as much need as WoW to provide for a 4-player content, especially when people are already saying that the 8-player content is lacking. While it's still easier to find 3 other people, finding 7 other people is not as hard as finding and organizing 19 other people.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

My favorite moment of all of it was how completely it shut up the Classic supremists who would basically call retail baby-mod easy with claims of how hard Classic was. Im sorry, but you cant claim a game is hard when you end-game boss (for release) is down within HOURS of release.

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What is genuinely more difficult in Classic is solo questing. Aside from the famously broken frost mage, solo questing in Classic is significantly more dangerous than modern WoW and FFXIV. This was one of the things I loved about Classic. The world is a threatening place. Things hit you very hard, they take much longer to die and class resources don't last for very long. But I admit that by today's standards it's tedious. It's not super easy to do but it's not necessarily interesting either. And the downtime between pulls can test people's patience far more than the combat itself.

But the raid content, oh I knew that wouldn't present anything resembling the challenge it did before. When you have a highly coordinated team with at least years if not over a decade of raiding experience behind them, bosses were doomed to fall over fast. They were absolutely not designed for that level of team play or experience. Back in vanilla the raiders were newbs, and Blizzard were newbs to boss design. It was a very different time. Never mind how so many useful Classic add-ons now simply did not exist during Vanilla, which is another advantage modern players have.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

Again this is happening with TBC, and again -- Im ready with popcorn with how fast things will be done.

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I am curious to see how Sunwell goes, the final raid instance, because there was a boss in there notorious for making guilds fall apart. I don't expect it to present the same challenge as before, but it will be interesting to see how long it will stand up against today's players.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

Its just nostalgia bait. Its all re-living memories once had as a kid or as a young gamer. Its fine to relive those, but you will always have that rude awakening when the game, its audience, and you have changed since that time.

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It 100% is nostalgia bait. With the TBC launch being soon I am really wondering how Blizzard are going to maintain Classic. Wrath is next but after that...well lets just say a huge amount of the playerbase agree that Cata is when WoW began its downfall. It's a controversial expansion to say the least.

It would be funny if they just rebooted Classic or just stopped at Wrath instead of continuing on into Cata because that would be, in a sense, Blizzard admitting that particular expansion was the beginning of a wrong turn.

And just to note before anyone perhaps accuses me of not liking the huge jump in difficulty in content Cata gave, I actually really enjoyed it. However it was too heavy handed from the beginning so it alienated many players whose skill level was enough for their goals before and then suddenly it was not. The difficulty increase should have been gradual, not a sudden big change. Huge mistake by Blizzard.

It was also controversial due to the manner in how many zones changed. To this day I'm still salty over what the goblins did to Azshara, lol.

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I didn't expect the community to be just as it was before, but I also wasn't expecting a dps priest to get laughed at in Ragefire Chasm, the lowest lvl dungeon in the game, solely because they're not playing holy. The best part was their dps wasn't even the lowest and they still got ridiculed for their choice of spec.

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What was it I said a week or so ago?

Oh thats right...I remember now....

"We allow people to use dps meters in FF 14? in a single day we will have "that guy" spamming dps numbers in Sastasha"

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Originally Posted by Ralph2449

I find FF14 raids to be far more enjoyable because a MAJOR part of an mmorpg is immersion, the fights often are designed in such a way and with such animations that you feel being part of them, I still remember when Niddhog falls down on the platform and causes a mini earthquake that makes you FEEL his weight or Susano's giant sword. Plus the realistic and non cartoony graphics helps a lot with that aspect.

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There's certinly a little truth to this but at the same time fight design and animations is often one of the biggest immersion breakers.

If we take Susano for example that big sword screen shaking smash. Sure it can look cool but there's this huge disconnect between whats actually happening and what you see. It's realistically possible to stand right under that sword smash and live because the animations while nice, are heavily out of sync with the rest of the gameplay. There's thousands of examples of times where you can quite literally stand in the stupid and be fine because the damage was already calculated before you stepped into it.

This leads to a huge disconnect for many people because it smahses that sense of immersion when you get hit by something you were visually a malm away from and something you're stood right in the middle of doesn't even touch you. absolute immersion breaker.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

If I'm reading it right, that's still a respectable number. FF XIV's population has never been the absolute biggest, but I'd say it's one of the most loyal fan bases.

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While there's some loyalty there, for many players it also does a pretty good job of showing the rate at which 14 loses players. The population you see in those censuses tends not to fluctuate very much over time but when you consider the ever increasing number of new players the game pulls in.. 4 million, 5 million, 6 million, 8 million, 10 million, 12 million.... ever increasing. Yet ths population always remains about the same which is why many people say the game struggles because for every million players it pulls in, it effectively bleeds another million right out.. Which is where the sentiment about the games lack of longevity often stems from..

Which also adds fuel to the ever growing number of people getting tired of the same old repeatable pattern of content, the boring treadmill and any number of other arguemnets. accessibility and over simplification has taken away a lot of that Final Fantasy depth and magic and a lot of players get bored very quickly because simple stuff just isn't engaging, satisfying or rewarding.. "Yay I got a new pair of gloves." but at the same time "Meh I'll just throw them away next week....." Not very satisfying gameplay is it when everything you get is ultimately just rubbish?

The longest players tend to stick around for reasons less about the game andmore about the players.. I have some great friends some I've known since playing FFXI 20 years ago andi can still have fun hanging out with those guys occassionally. The fun isnt so much the game, it's the banter and jokes we crack between ourelves.. I know a good few people with a similar mindset.

But that comes back to new players as well.. I think one of the bigger factors determining how long new players stick around is governed less by the game itself and more by any social connections they makewhile playing.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

which also adds fuel to the ever growing number of people getting tired of the same old repeatable pattern of content and boring treadmill and any number of other arguemnets. accessibility and over simplification has taken away a lot of that final fantasy depth and magic and a lot of players get bored quite quickly because simple stuff isnt engaging, satisfying or rewarding.. "Yay i got a new pair of gloves". but at the same time "meh i'll just throw them away next week....." not very satisfying gameplay is it when everything you get is just rubbish.

the longest players tend to stick around for reasons less aboyt the game andmore about the players.. i have some great friends some i've known since playing ff11 20 years ago andi can still have fun hanging out with those guys occassionally. the fun isnt so much the game it's the banter and jookes we crack between ourelves.. and i know a good few people with a similar mindset.

but that comes back to new players as well.. i think one of the bigger factors determining how long new players stick around is governed less by the game and more by any social connections they make..

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I kind of agree with this.
I try to do everything I can in the game, but that's mostly to be helpful to friends I play with. I noticed I have a lot more fun replaying the ARR and Heavensward content than anything of the endgame, and that's because I just don't connect with the hyperfocus on accessibility the game had since 2019. I would have unsubbed and just wait for Endwalker if I wasn't hanging with friends in the game.

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I noticed I have a lot more fun replaying the ARR and Heavensward content than anything of the endgame, and that's because I just don't connect with the hyperfocus on accessibility the game had since 2019.

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You'd have content and gameplay LESS accessible?

Why?

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

You'd have content and gameplay LESS accessible?

Why?

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The issue lies less with the accessibility itself and more this idea people have that accessibility must mean ultra simplistic or easy.
Accessible can be hard as nails. The definition means being able to access content.
Whether or not you can actually clear it has nothing to do with it's accessiblity.

Savage raiding for example is accessible content for anyone its designed to be that way.
It's designed in such a way that even if you only have 60-90 minutes you can jump in the raid finder and get ya weekly clear or even just a decent bit of practice.. It's been that way since late heavensward at least. It doesn't require massive time investments of 4-6 hours a night. It is quite possible to log on for just an hour and get a couple of fights done or a bit of practice. The JP side demonstrates this with great success. (the NA side would to if they used raid finder properly and didnt expect carries)

Yet despite being super accessible the raid teirs get easier and easier, and arguably so does all other content.. right down to dungeons..

This doesnt make content more accessible. It just makes it less rewarding and less satisfying which is why many players get bored.
Hence why its a pretty common opinion that 5.0 content has been pretty bland in comparison to previous expansions.

Accessibility is fine. Its when they over simplify and tone things down as much as they do that it becomes a problem for many players. because thats not making it accessible it's making it braindead boring..

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

You'd have content and gameplay LESS accessible?

Why?

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I enjoy hiking as a hobby. It's fun. I like a challenge, so I'll tackle all sorts of different slopes and trails.

You could make them more accessible, yet after a certain point those slopes become a flat line which ceases to be hiking at all.

By making the game accessible to every possible person ever, a similar issue arises. There's no grit or challenge after a certain point. I find dungeons in their current state to be mind numbingly boring. They're so easy and it's a crying shame they aren't designed more along the lines of the original Pharos Sirius. With adjusted rewards to make the extra challenge pay off.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I enjoy hiking as a hobby. It's fun. I like a challenge, so I'll tackle all sorts of different slopes and trails.

You could make them more accessible, yet after a certain point those slopes become a flat line which ceases to be hiking at all.

By making the game accessible to every possible person ever, a similar issue arises. There's no grit or challenge after a certain point. I find dungeons in their current state to be mind numbingly boring. They're so easy and it's a crying shame they aren't designed more along the lines of the original Pharos Sirius. With adjusted rewards to make the extra challenge pay off.

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It's a weird problem that this game has.

The skill floor is higher than in other games. To get by you need to know what you're doing after a certain point. There is a lot to learn from long and fairly complex rotations to encounter design to things as simple as customizing your HUD.

The skill ceiling, however, is a lot LOWER so when you learn the ropes and get comfortable you might feel like the game has no challenge outside Savage.

It helps keep it distinct from becoming a visual novel; being a game there should be some level of challenge to overcome. Fights like Tsukuyomi or Seat of Sacrifice are pitched at around the right level of difficulty, IMO, for MSQ stuff - putting aside the group wiping if someone fails the button mash on Elidibus. Mettle loss aside, the DR stuff was also good. The opponents in the MSQs are some of the most potent lorewise, so it is a shame that sometimes the mechanics don't do them justice, and something which concerns me as we shift to Hydaelyn and Zodiark. The Ex modes may compensate from a mechanical POV, but they're non-canon usually. Much easier than the trials I mentioned, and it becomes a bit of a joke. This is irrespective of whether there are harder modes etc. for those who want to do them; it is a point regarding immersion.

Theodric is right about dungeons and I've hated the ones since Grand Cosmos.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

The issue is less with the accessibility itself and more this idea people have that accessibility must mean ultra simplistic or easy. accessible can be hard as nails.the definition is able to access content. whether or not you can clear it has nothiong to do with accessiblity.

Savage raiding for example is Accessible content for anyone its designed to be that way.

it's designed in such a way that even if you only have 60-90 minutes you can jump in the raidfinder and get ya weekly clear or even just a decent bit of practice.. it's been that way since late heavensward at least
It doesnt require massive time investments of 4-6 hours a night. it is quite possible to log on for just an hour and get a couple of fights done. from a design perspective at least.. the JP side demonstrates this with great success.

Yet despite being super accessible the raid teirs get easier and easier, and arguably so does all other content.. right down to dungeons..

this doesnt make content more accessible it just makes it less rewarding and satisfying which is why players get bored. hence why its a pretty common opinion that 5.0 content has been pretty bland in comparison to previous expansions.

Accessibility is fine. Its when they over simplify and tone things down as much as they do that it becomes a problem for many players.

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I don't raid in this game due to work schedules and also Eden not being particularly interesting to me as a raid tier, but from that vantage point, it sounds like there's a missing gap in the midcore area which savage is conscripted into filling, as the higher difficulty stuff filters into the (rare) ultimates. If you don't do savage, aside from the occasional alliance raid and the (badly designed) PVP, there isn't much else repeat content. Not everyone likes the relic grind and much of it consists of repeating old content. NA and EU raiding being what it is, it requires more of a time commitment.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

You'd have content and gameplay LESS accessible?

Why?

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Making a game accessible? Fine

Making a game oversimplistic? Bad.

You dont want to make a game oversimplistic or else it will start to wain on game identity and job identity overall. For example, if SE decided to remove positionals from melee DPS -- it would make the classes more accessible to players but it would also simplify all melee jobs to being the same difficulty and lose any active aspect of their gameplay outside of OGCD weaving.

Along with that, removing challenge or difficulty from a game actually hampers gamelife. If there are no challenges a player must overcome in terms of difficult content, endgame becomes even more stagnant. Sure, there are things like housing removed -- but if SE removed things like Savage or Ultimates, you would ultimately lower the skill ceiling of your game to where it would be near the skill floor.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

While there's some loyalty there, for many players it also does a pretty good job of showing the rate at which 14 loses players. The population you see in those censuses tends not to fluctuate very much over time but when you consider the ever increasing number of new players the game pulls in.. 4 million, 5 million, 6 million, 8 million, 10 million, 12 million.... ever increasing. Yet ths population always remains about the same which is why many people say the game struggles because for every million players it pulls in, it effectively bleeds another million right out.. Which is where the sentiment about the games lack of longevity often stems from..

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And that is why the number of current active players is largely irrelevant as long as it's not in constant decline and people are generally able to find other players to complete (at least the main) contents.

Beyond that, total registered accounts, the metric that SE is willing to publicly show and celebrate, is good enough to show that the game has enough interests for the company to continue investing in and for potential new players to also try. These new players may stay or they may not, but as long as the game can keep a healthy influx of new players while retaining enough of the old players (including cyclical players that unsubscribe then come back either every major patch or every expansion), then they are on the right path, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by linayar

And that is why the number of current active players is largely irrelevant as long as it's not in constant decline and people are generally able to find other players to complete (at least the main) contents.

Beyond that, total registered accounts, the metric that SE is willing to publicly show and celebrate, is good enough to show that the game has enough interests for the company to continue investing in and for potential new players to also try. These new players may stay or they may not, but as long as the game can keep a healthy influx of new players while retaining enough of the old players (including cyclical players that unsubscribe then come back either every major patch or every expansion), then they are on the right path, in my opinion.

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Pretty much. And this is why they may do better than WoW eventually. Meanwhile, the Blizzard devs want to design the game for themselves, not the player base, and seem perfectly content to let any and all players leave because to heck with them. That is a dark road.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

seem perfectly content to let any and all players leave because to heck with them. That is a dark road.

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To be fair, saying that SE is fine with you unsubscribing when you no longer have anything you want to do in the game might be seen the same way.

I certainly don't think that's the case for SE, and probably not for Blizzard either as they also like to celebrate monthly active user count (whatever that means). I just think that SE knows what they can release and is not in denial over the fact that it doesn't work for everybody, so it's a "no hard feelings" deal with them if people quit.

But I don't know, I probably should not be so comfortable with attributing any specific intent to companies. They have their own perspective while us players have our own anecdotal experiences (with some echo chamber effect in certain communities).

That said, my own anecdotal experiences in each game are enough to inform me of how I should play regardless of any other players' viewpoint. Those experiences have made me quit WoW (several times and currently) while I kept on subscribing to FFXIV except for one occasion in mid 2020 where I had to create a new account and start over due to personal issues.

It is what it is and different players' experiences and decisions with respect to either or both games will vary.

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Originally Posted by linayar

To be fair, saying that SE is fine with you unsubscribing when you no longer have anything you want to do in the game might be seen the same way.

I certainly don't think that's the case for SE, and probably not for Blizzard either as they also like to celebrate monthly active user count (whatever that means). I just think that SE knows what they can release and is not in denial over the fact that it doesn't work for everybody, so it's a "no hard feelings" deal with them if people quit.

But I don't know, I probably should not be so comfortable with attributing any specific intent to companies. They have their own perspective while us players have our own anecdotal experiences (with some echo chamber effect in certain communities).

That said, my own anecdotal experiences in each game are enough to inform me of how I should play regardless of any other players' viewpoint. Those experiences have made me quit WoW (several times and currently) while I kept on subscribing to FFXIV except for one occasion in mid 2020 where I had to create a new account and start over due to personal issues.

It is what it is and different players' experiences and decisions with respect to either or both games will vary.

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Well in FFXIVs case, I think YoshiP himself has even said "You dont need to keep playing our game forever. Its actually good to take breaks. Go do other things, and play other games for a while, then you can come back and not burn yourself out, check out the new content and patches"

Thats a massive Paraphrase, but he's basically said that he supports, if not outright encourages cyclical players.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Pretty much. And this is why they may do better than WoW eventually. Meanwhile, the Blizzard devs want to design the game for themselves, not the player base, and seem perfectly content to let any and all players leave because to heck with them. That is a dark road.

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There was a Community Manager some time ago (and no I dont have that quote as it got nuked with the new expac forums, it went down the memory hole ) who said

"It is our game and our journey, you are invited guests"

Wait..WHAT?

The utter arrogance and condescending nature of that one comment beggared belief. The players make that game what it is..I also remember another CM saying and I quote "WOD is the expac the devs wanted to play"..look I dont know what it is, I cant say where this is coming from, but one thing resonated with me , a comment sent last day I was ingame..he quit the same day as i did, and it was more a plaintive question

"When was it that WE became the enemy'?

I cannot say where it is coming from, but the key issue seems ( to me at least ) a growing disconnect between the devs and the playerbase. I was in at least two betas, repeatedly I handed them feedback along with others and all of it was ignored...in Gods name WHY ask us to test and then disregard what we tell you??

I did beta testing for other companies for a while, and the success or failure of their projects was directly proportional to their willingness to listen to the people they had asked to test for them. Some listened, some didnt, was a mixed bag. No one is saying design by committee, God knows the playerbase often doesnt even know what it wants, we can be and have been way offbase..but when you bring in a system or feature which is slammed by everyone and the devs are told WHY its bad in huge detail...and you go ahead anyway...why be surprised when you get almost universal negative feedback?

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To be fair, saying that SE is fine with you unsubscribing when you no longer have anything you want to do in the game might be seen the same way.

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YoshiP meant he didnt want players to feel obligated to log in, to not burn out and go have some fun elsewhere then come back later and play with your friends in new content.

Linayar: with the deepest respect, old friend, thats a far cry from "So quit, we dont need you", which, I am sad to say, seems to be Blizzards attitude now. I have been gaming for a long time, and in all truth, I am literally at a loss to understand it.

Or maybe Im just getting old.......

*sigh*

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Well in FFXIVs case, I think YoshiP himself has even said "You dont need to keep playing our game forever. Its actually good to take breaks. Go do other things, and play other games for a while, then you can come back and not burn yourself out, check out the new content and patches"

Thats a massive Paraphrase, but he's basically said that he supports, if not outright encourages cyclical players.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

YoshiP meant he didnt want players to feel obligated to log in, to not burn out and go have some fun elsewhere then come back later and play with your friends in new content.

Linayar: with the deepest respect, old friend, thats a far cry from "So quit, we dont need you", which, I am sad to say, seems to be Blizzards attitude now. I have been gaming for a long time, and in all truth, I am literally at a loss to understand it.

Or maybe Im just getting old.......

*sigh*

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Yes, that's how I understood it too.

I'm just saying that some people want to continue being engaged continuously and having to quit every time (even temporarily) might not be for them. In the end, FFXIV won't satisfy everyone, and I've definitely voiced my opinions against certain advices that would change FFXIV in order to attract/retain certain types of players that are not satisfied with FFXIV as is. It doesn't mean I think FFXIV is perfect with nothing to improve upon, but certain current features are things that I do appreciate about the game.

At the end of the day, even if FFXIV tries to retain players, it still won't satisfy everyone. Blizzard comes out with a 10-boss raid at 4 difficulty modes and M+ dungeons and some people still complain about content draught right now in Shadowlands.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Because FF 14 REALLY needs a Raider.io type database to abuse, humiliate and denigrate players along with dps meters.

Thank you, NO.

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We do have FFlogs and also the Japanese Datacenter have public blacklist where they put the bad people on.
We also have DPS meters for a very long time.

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Originally Posted by Fhaerron

We do have FFlogs and also the Japanese Datacenter have public blacklist where they put the bad people on.
We also have DPS meters for a very long time.

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Wait, they have a public backlist?

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Originally Posted by Axxion

Wait, they have a public backlist?

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Yeah. If a name on a BL joins a PF or DF, not unlikely that they'll get kicked without a word.

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Originally Posted by ZedxKayn

Yeah. If a name on a BL joins a PF or DF, not unlikely that they'll get kicked without a word.

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That's brutal. tbh i thought the na/eu would have one of those.

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Originally Posted by Fhaerron

We do have FFlogs and also the Japanese Datacenter have public blacklist where they put the bad people on.
We also have DPS meters for a very long time.

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Main reason why SE are so against dps meters.

Public blacklists, huh?

Thank you for making my point for me.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Main reason why SE are so against dps meters.

Public blacklists, huh?

Thank you for making my point for me.

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If anything it shows that having DPS meters won't worsen things.
We don't have DPS meters but there are still public blacklists.

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Originally Posted by ZedxKayn

If anything it shows that having DPS meters won't worsen things.
We don't have DPS meters but there are still public blacklists.

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That's more of a cultural thing though. Direct confrontation tends to be frowned upon in Japan so instead people there spread word to one another to not play with certain people. To my knowledge this is unique to the JP community in this game.

EDIT: and by that I mean I haven't heard of it happening in EU and NA communities. Not that it only happens in FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Main reason why SE are so against dps meters.

Public blacklists, huh?

Thank you for making my point for me.

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but arent you on a JP server as well? That could happen to you with or with out parsing. Truth be told it will depend on your behavior.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

That's more of a cultural thing though. Direct confrontation tends to be frowned upon in Japan so instead people there spread word to one another to not play with certain people. To my knowledge this is unique to the JP community in this game.

EDIT: and by that I mean I haven't heard of it happening in EU and NA communities. Not that it only happens in FFXIV.

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I suppose the EU and NA equivalent happened to be more apparent a few years back. When individual servers had a stronger sense of community and more direct engagement between players, it was a lot easier to build up either a positive or negative reputation. It still is, technically, but it's much harder to avoid being just another face in the crowd compared to back then.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I suppose the EU and NA equivalent happened to be more apparent a few years back. When individual servers had a stronger sense of community and more direct engagement between players, it was a lot easier to build up either a positive or negative reputation. It still is, technically, but it's much harder to avoid being just another face in the crowd compared to back then.

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Yea WoW was like that once upon a time. You could get a bad reputation and find yourself with no one to play with if you were unpleasant often enough that people would warn others about you. People kicked players who gave their guild a bad name. But when the DF tool came into the game and dungeon groups became cross server that went out the window. It seems this sort of thing persists among Japanese communities whether there is a DF tool or not.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

Yea WoW was like once upon a time. You could get a bad reputation and find yourself with no one to play with if you were unpleasant often enough that people would warn others about you. People kicked players who gave their guild a bad name. But when the DF tool came into the game and dungeon groups became cross server that went out the window. It seems this sort of thing persists among Japanese communities whether there is a DF tool or not.

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That exists in lots of games, even today.
And to be honest I don't really see it as a bad thing. If you act like a disrespectful douche and noone wants to play with you that's your own fault.

Still exists on the NA side here. If you join a party finder and you're known to be a time waster you will get kicked.

If anything what the duty finder does is give people free reign to be douche bags and idiots..because theres no accountability for it.

But its not just games like this, It's all sorts. I've seen entire lobbies just up and leave when one or two notorious idiots join in many games. Seige, ghost recon, cod, nfs.

It's one of the big problems on the na side. Selfishness and a Lack of respect for fellow players..Which is why many people join party finder groups they clearly aren't prepared for and expect to be carried. And then call it toxic or elitism when they get kicked...

If they had any respect for there fellow players they wouldn't have joined that party and wasted everyone's time in the first place.. so if they get kicked and find no one wants to play with them it's there own fault.

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Originally Posted by VelKallor

Main reason why SE are so against dps meters.

Public blacklists, huh?

Thank you for making my point for me.

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Dude, RP communities have had blacklists for years regardless of the game -- its all behavior dependent at the end. You can always improve your DPS, but behavior is a lot harder to do.

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Originally Posted by Axxion

That's brutal. tbh i thought the na/eu would have one of those.

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entitled na players would probably claim harassment and dogpile on the creators of said blacklist to get them vilified everywhere tbh

FFXIV had a great run. I don't think every mmo needs to be elite status.

I like DCUO, and that mmo is at the bottom of the barrel; like D, C-list (See what I did there? Yeah that wasn't funny.......)

Most of the mmo I play are FAR lower tier than XIV, which is actually higher tier. XIV is a successful sub based mmo; there are not many of those. Let alone, one that has been running for over a decade with millions of players.

I also agree with those saying your reputation should follow you. Thus, people may not want to play with a elitist, douche, jerk, etc. I am The Monsuta Man on WoW, XI, Kritika, DCUO, ESO, Fallout, Skyrim.......I aint hiding.......This is pretty much the character I create in every game, or mmo.
(The real reason.......... I am too lazy to think up names and new ideas. So, I create the same elf, same name, same tuxedo/suit in every game. But lets just act like I am some valiant guy? Cool....)