The Current Status of FFXIV Patch 3.1 and How to Address it Moving Forward

Why would anyone bother with new weapons then if they have a relic that is always as good or better? Most veteran players wouldn't bother do to lack of reward.

The reality with horizontal progression is it still needs to be progression. There has to be some insentive to make whatever drops rewarding. This tends to require either pseudo level gating like stats that lower damage and damage done to particular enemies or creating niches, both of which can often lead to needing multiple sets for the same job depending on which content your doing.

More over a single weapon being optimal for a years would quickly get pretty stale.

The relic quest's issue with fun isn't its lastability. Its that many people don't enjoy grinding and doing older content. People who have an issue with that will have even a bigger one if the relic required and even worse grind, even if the weapon stayed relevant for years after.

I liked the relic before with chimera, hydra, ifrit, garuda, titan with the mobs and dungeons. since then the relic quests have been kinda overgrind.

I believe adding certain aspects of FF XI could help the current state of XIV, not the negative things, progression that could greatly add to things, but in a way that there is both a sense of fun enjoyment and accomplishment.

For example the merit system really gave us a reason to log in daily, to xp with others so we worked towards that minor edge we had with a few stats a bit higher.

We don't have that anymore as end game a few stat dif means nothing anymore, same as race choices, but it's not like a galka or a taru vs race choices now.

The choco buddy is not really as fun as say taking out our own npc's like retainers, that would give me a fun reason to take them out and lvl them even if the xp was a long grind, being able to gear them out and watch them grow and go on adventures.

I don't consider logging in daily farming numbers in old content 24/7 entertaining or even fun, it's a mindless boring grind, it's finding that balance in the current mechanics system.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

Stuff

---

Pretty much how I feel. vertical progression on the whole isn't rewarding and thus I spend a large amount of time inactive / unsubbed. I would kill for a decent amount of horizontal progression. where I know my time invested isn't going to be for nothing in a month when the next patch comes out.

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

horizontal progression would also allow for a greater variety of content as well, creating content where sword a is better than sword b but also content where sword b is better than sword a. and maybe content where sword c is better. this could be done any number of ways from something as simple as varying mobs a bit, have content full of mobs that hit hard and fast but have low evasion, then have content full of mobs that maybe don't hit as hard but will dodge like crazy, that's just one way of doing it.

in a way 1.23 demonstrated this quite well. at least as a tank, going against king mog or co-co my gear choices would focus on having enough hp to survive big hits. going against garuda or miser though my gear would focus more on doing as much damage as possible, and against ifrit / nael I tended to go more balanced and self sufficient. to free up other party members to do other things, and there wasn't really much gear that was the best piece in every situation. which kind of hinted at a degree of horizontal progression

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dzian

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

---

While I agreed with your main point, this here is incorrect (in this game). There are plenty of situations where I have seen people do better damage in gear ~30 less than someone else.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dzian

the other issue I have with vertical systems is the lack of influence skill has on a players abilities. a dps could get all of his abilities perfectly timed and executed and still do less dps than another guy whos just bashing random buttons in higher ilevel gear. it's not a very good system.

---

I'd disagree with this. The difference between a player who knows their job well and a player who simply knows how to play the job is miles apart. On the other hand though, even with gear upgrades it never does feel like oyu ever move up or feel empowered/stronger. All it gives is higher numbers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dzian

horizontal progression would also allow for a greater variety of content as well, creating content where sword a is better than sword b but also content where sword b is better than sword a. and maybe content where sword c is better.

---

And then you play more than one class. Gearing (and inventory management) is now hell.

Horizontal progression isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's nothing but vertical progression along multiple purpose lanes. You still improve your gear vertically, except you now optimize independent gearsets for specific situations (such as specific skills, in the extreme case). The main difference to leveling (and equipping) multiple classes is that you do it all on one class.

Actually, the progression here is really quite similar. Sastasha might no longer be relevant for your monk/nature resistance gear, but still for your conjurer/fire resistance gear. And after that there are still a few good gladiator XP/ice resistance pieces there. But after running it through for all the pieces/classes, you're done with that content and never have a reason to visit it again. This goes up to the point where you have the BiS pieces for all classes/situations. That's the moment when you're "done" and can leave the game until better items come along. Which in a horizontal model might never happen. In a vertical model, it's guaranteed.

That said, putting both on top of each other quickly results in gear overload. Not to mention that you'd increase the effort of getting gear for off-classes by multitudes. Lockouts make it a pain already, that would probably kill off the whole thing completely.

I think people have actually mentioned two issues a lot of people have with horizontal progression.

Firstly additional progression that gives minor stat boosts over a long period of time ends up adding up to a substantial difference which creates a major obstacle to new players and alts. Catching up becomes extremely daunting.

Realistically Horizontal progression needs to mainly be either non combative or situational ie. bonuses work only against certain enemies and in certain content. An example of situational for example would be GW1 where the reputation with the Order of Whispers had a progressive bonus to damage and reduction to damage received from a particular group of enemy. Similarly they offered other horizontal progression where players gained access to skills that were potent but specifically against enemies of a certain type or in certain content. This way a new player only has to progress on content that they and their friends are doing now rather than scaling a mountain from the very beginning.

Second issue is multiple gear sets. While if you have one or two Jobs this probably isn't an issue. If you have all 21 however it quickly becomes an inventory nightmare. Further having to constantly switch around gear to do different stuff is annoying and requires a hell of a lot of time building up different sets. FF14 struggles with its inventory situation as it is. A multi gear set situation just sounds completely unfeasible.

Perhaps something they could work on going forwards, addressing the inventory situation would help in a lot of areas as well.

In the end I've played since 1.0 and as such have formed a degree of attachment to my character and as such I want my character to be the best it can possibly be. from an SE viewpoint this is a good thing as it means i'll likely resub at some point

the issue though is that with vertical progression any time I invest in that goal ends up being for nothing as the things i obtain end up being worthless. thus there is no point in obtaining them, from an SE perspective not such a good thing as it means i might only sub for 1 month in every year to catch up with the story and skip several junk tiers of gear.

which goes back to what fizzle and many others have said about how the game needs to feel rewarding and for many it doesn't when so much of your time ends up being for nothing. even when the most challenging of battles will be a cake walk in a few months, undermining the challenge many players had to overcome.

if the game had a degree of horizontal progression that allowed gear to have a much longer life span then I'd likely invest much more time in building up my character and thus in turn would have an active sub for much longer. (even better from SE's perspective)

For everyone here thats willing to contribute how do you guys feel about nostalgia dungeons? Like imagine how crystal tower and voidark are but more targetting final fantasy endgame dungeons from other games. The storyline can also be corny I wouldn't care like Biggs and Wedge find some sort of device that opens a dark portal and oops Kefka is in your face ready to cause destruction as he devours a few of the primals for powers or something like that? I truly beleive that would work and its giving back more than you think to the fans. Thats maybe a bit too much to ask since it will interrupt with the storyline but it would give this game another value aswell for the nostalgia. Could also be something nice for Sephiroth with the new FF7 remake and making it more enjoyable than just a silly fate like they did with lightning.

I will leave this here... I hate fate farming period. I hate fates in general. I repeat I absolutely hate fates to the point that I still only have 5 total crystals. Please Devs gives us more options for this part of the phase. Like running all 2.x EX primals synced through DF to gain all the crystals. No rare drops just simply get it done. Those who don't like EX primals can do the fates. I just want to see more options for this. I would rather take a mid core approach to the relic than grinding mindlessly through fates. I want to have some challenge to this. I want to have a fun and thrilling experience. I do not want to turn on Netflix while fate grinding.

Please devs give us more options for the first phase of the relic... My brain requires stimulation not boring content. Give the players that want more challenge a challenge ... Heck I wouldn't mind having the options to clearing all turns of the coils (synced at lvl 50) as well for another option for the last phase of the 3.2 relic. This would really get more people back into that content.

OPTIONS OPTIONS and more OPTIONS is the key word here.

Agree. Even skilled players are now forced to farm FATEs like braindead sheep to get 18 ATMAs. Some alternative ways would make it much more attractive to ALL players.

What about Crystal Tower? Or Coil? There is alot unused 2.X-content since Heavensward, why you still focus on stupid FATEs?

Daily Quests like:
Ancient Labyrinth -> 1 of 2 Atmas (Fire and Ice)
Syrcus Tower -> 1 of 2 Atmas (Water and Earth)
World of Darkness -> 1 of 2 Atmas (Lightning and Wind)

Im in complete confusion as to how development with relics come to this conclusion, Ifrit titan and garuda WAS FUN! People ENJOYED IT! they felt amazing SATISFACTION from finally getting their items. Hard modes wasn't an amazingly hard content, in the slightest. it was just right in terms of effort and reward and was a challenge to overcome utilizing brand new exciting content. How many people have you guys even talked to and discovered that they didnt enjoy the way you got those weapons? For gods sake impediment polls for questions you want to ask to get accurate information on the true enjoyment of your players please. I've personally not seen any players who enjoy rehashed grinding EVER.

You have essentially (in my personal opinion) Taken an amazing idea that tied into the main story amazingly well, that had satisfaction reward and was actually interesting and turned it into .. well... something completely boring

Just for information i completed two relics without any nerf's only completed second and third coil when echo was implemented, i am in no way a hardcore raider. But relic always gave be something to work toward, and Felt amazing whenyou finally got this brilliant weapon to show off before the rehashing kicked in.

Id personally urge you to reconsider this. Id loved and played this game since before 2.1. but im just watching the life of things that was amazing start to be drained away :(

But thats my 2 cents.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

snip

---

That is just a lazy way for developers to get players in and only works in the short term. The developers are right when they say that FFXIV needs to be it's own thing and any nostalgic factors from other games has to make sense and written well into the story. Things like Crystal Tower and Cloud of Darkness work because they are still part of the FFXIV world and CoD is more of an entity than an actual person.

All developers need to do to make their three points work is to fix raid structure that I have gone over plenty of times in here, make Diadem have a variety of reasons for wanting to go in without creating an imbalance with raids, and attempt to put fun in between grinds in the relic. In concept, all three are easy to improve, but I am very sure the developers are going to make ways for them to be worse and no one is happy at the end of the day. Raids we know are already going to be worse in design, can check that off. Maybe they can fix Diadem. We know they are going to keep anima weapons absolutely awful, can check that off also.

Can we please fix ALC potion crafts back to 2.x while we're at it? You want to help people meet dps checks, make potions easier to craft, with the old 3-per-craft yield back, and mats that aren't gated behind ephemeral nodes, gated further behind RNG.

Quote:

---

Based on the feedback that we have been receiving, we will be lowering the difficulty of Alexander: Midas (Savage) that will be implemented in Patch 3.2, while simultaneously setting the item level of the Savage weapon and the item level of the new Allagan tomestone weapon to be different. We would like to revamp the overall balance moving forward with these changes.

---

Is this really going to fix the problem with end game players who have quit because the current savage is still hard?

Even if the next set of raids is easier, very few will going to see them unless, either the current raids are nerfed or the requirement of beating the current raid to progress to the next raid is dropped. So what is actually going to happen with 3.2? Will there be nerfs and echo to the old savage or will it just not be a requirement to do Midas?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zumi

Is this really going to fix the problem with end game players who have quit because the current savage is still hard?

Even if the next set of raids is easier, very few will going to see them unless, either the current raids are nerfed or the requirement of beating the current raid to progress to the next raid is dropped. So what is actually going to happen with 3.2? Will there be nerfs and echo to the old savage or will it just not be a requirement to do Midas?

---

Most likely you'll only have to clear Midas NM to unlock Savage, since NM is the canon story and Savage is the Minstrel's deliberate re-imagining of what happened.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by neoxdeciple

Im in complete confusion as to how development with relics come to this conclusion, Ifrit titan and garuda WAS FUN! People ENJOYED IT! they felt amazing SATISFACTION from finally getting their items. Hard modes wasn't an amazingly hard content, in the slightest. it was just right in terms of effort and reward and was a challenge to overcome utilizing brand new exciting content. How many people have you guys even talked to and discovered that they didnt enjoy the way you got those weapons? For gods sake impediment polls for questions you want to ask to get accurate information on the true enjoyment of your players please. I've personally not seen any players who enjoy rehashed grinding EVER.

You have essentially (in my personal opinion) Taken an amazing idea that tied into the main story amazingly well, that had satisfaction reward and was actually interesting and turned it into .. well... something completely boring

Just for information i completed two relics without any nerf's only completed second and third coil when echo was implemented, i am in no way a hardcore raider. But relic always gave be something to work toward, and Felt amazing whenyou finally got this brilliant weapon to show off before the rehashing kicked in.

Id personally urge you to reconsider this. Id loved and played this game since before 2.1. but im just watching the life of things that was amazing start to be drained away :(

But thats my 2 cents.

---

Frankly everything I have heard is ALOT of people complained about the original implementation of the relic because A) it was too difficult for most casual people to get and B) it was easier to get than the raid weapons making raiders less motivated to do Coil.

They solved this by making the relic very easy but time consuming to get and making it slightly inferior to raid tier weapons. Strickly speaking the relic/anima isn't for players who want a challenge just as Thordian EX and Savage aren't for players who want an easy experience.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mindy_Macready

Can we please fix ALC potion crafts back to 2.x while we're at it? You want to help people meet dps checks, make potions easier to craft, with the old 3-per-craft yield back, and mats that aren't gated behind ephemeral nodes, gated further behind RNG.

---

I honestly haven't found this a problem since there are ephemeral nodes up somewhere almost all the time and the dust you need from them for potions is pretty common.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Belhi

snip

---

Here is where the sad thing lies in relic weapons. If the developers intend to make it for people who want to go the easy yet long route to getting the weapon, then whatever. However, their team who are suppose to be making fun content believes that only mindless grinds should be in it. I remember they used interesting content back then like puzzles that couldn't simply be looked up on a guide since people's quest were different from one another. It was very interesting and fun, and also did not require much out of the player besides working your brain. Why can't there be steps like this between the grind? Why can't developers put something fun in between the grinds. Use methods that goes strongly into the lore, keeping things interesting. You don't have to use battle content, it doesn't have to be 100% mindless grind the way through. Just give people some time to breath and not hitting the same mob for days/weeks.

As much as I disagree with SE's approach to relics, they have to at least attempt to be creative in doing these quests. Not simply slap old content together and tell people to bang their heads on the keyboard till they receive a prize. All they care about right now is taking the easy route out, not actually caring about being creative.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Velhart

Here is where the sad thing lies in relic weapons. If the developers intend to make it for people who want to go the easy yet long route to getting the weapon, then whatever. However, their team who are suppose to be making fun content believes that only mindless grinds should be in it. I remember they used interesting content back then like puzzles that couldn't simply be looked up on a guide since people's quest were different from one another. It was very interesting and fun, and also did not require much out of the player besides working your brain. Why can't there be steps like this between the grind? Why can't developers put something fun in between the grinds. Use methods that goes strongly into the lore, keeping things interesting. You don't have to use battle content, it doesn't have to be 100% mindless grind the way through. Just give people some time to breath and not hitting the same mob for days/weeks.

As much as I disagree with SE's approach to relics, they have to at least attempt to be creative in doing these quests. Not simply slap old content together and tell people to bang their heads on the keyboard till they receive a prize. All they care about right now is taking the easy route out, not actually caring about being creative.

---

They never put puzzles into the Zodiak questline though, and though they did that once in 2.x, when they did anything similar in 3.0 with the Broom quests people complained.

I'd also add that 'fun' is often relative. I tend to find PvP style games lose my interest very quickly as competitive gameplay holds lasting interest for me. However PvP is clearly a very fun pastime for a lot of people.

One of SE's challenges is to create content that will be playable and consumed by the largest portion of their playerbase possible. Things that will only appeal to a smaller portion then to get relegated to the occasional extras. This is one of the reasons you see a lot more casual gameplay than challenging. Simply put there are a lot more people playing casual gameplay than is playing challenging. I wouldn't be surprised to find the number of players who have actually downed Thordian EX to be well under 10%.

SE tries to mitigate this somewhat by adding story or trying to add a little diversity or even just giving interesting rewards. However this is bound to be a constant issue SE has as they try to balance what content they deliver. From their perspective the people who really would get value out of the relic are people who wouldn't be getting it other ways like doing the EX primals. Regardless, due to the power of the end relic they were always going to gate it behind a lot of time consuming effort regardless. Running Ravana EX 30 times wasn't going to get a player a weapon on par with the weapon drop from savage Alex.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Belhi

snip

---

I cannot agree to any of this. You are basically saying that SE should not do anything to shake things up even at casual level game play. People are not asking for them to make the relic quest where you need to beat bosses harder than Thordan or Savage. What people are asking is to at least put some breathing room in the relic quest line. It doesn't have to be difficult content, but it should be fun content. Something to get you out of that grind mind set, even if it is just for a little while. I think you have failed as a company when you have tons of people dreading on how not creative the quests is and they are not fun at all, then you make an excuse on why it has to be not fun. The very same people who preach that if people are not having fun with it, you did something wrong.

Seriously, wouldn't of it been great instead of running old dungeons from ARR again which in itself took no time at all, you instead offer an interesting puzzle that has you going around the world finding clues, then working together with the community to put the pieces together, figure it out, then finish the quest and continue on your new grind. It is called breathing room where you don't go from a painful grind to another painful grind. It just blows a fuse in a lot of people.

You are not going to make any content without shaking up the community a bit, its going to happen no matter what. Why not attempt to give them something they didn't know they wanted? SE lost it's creativity and is now just putting mindless grinds in and poor attempts to bring FFXI like content into this game. All they can accomplish is getting people back in the game for a short while before they head off again. They barely do anything now to influence people to stay in. Playing too much into the safe route and catering too heavily on the casual audience, they are going to learn the hard way that it is not a good idea. Again, they think only short term, not long.

It feels like at this point that FFXIV doesn't know what it wants to be anymore and we all suffer for it.

Velhart: People just want FFXI elements that are rewarding not a mindless grind that will be nerfed in 3 months and unrewarding. I think that speaks for more than just the relic but since we can't have everything people seem to be wanting for the relic to be rewarding fun time consuming and that it feels like an actual acheivement and not something thats useless by march/april. Even if you seem to be so anti FFXI for some reason and saying its two different games Yoshi P uses alot of elements and ideas from other games too might aswell use some FFXI elements the right way? (Diadem don't count LOL). Do dungeon x get item ex use item X to pop boss to get item X for relic on the world map. Boss has to be hard too where you need to actually get help from other people to do it. Not instances not a fate something you can pop with item x and have any random people from the worldmap helping you. <-- If you read alot of the comments people are wanting something similiar to this and don't take this the wrong way this is not anything negative I'm just trying to understand why you are so anti ideas like that? Is it because they where used in FFXI and it isnt something "new"? If Final Fantasy XIV has over 5m people most of this will be new content for alot of people. FFXI at its peak had 1m subs wich means 4m other people get to experience something thats new to them.

I'm not so much defending the current relic quest line as stating why it is. I'm also realistic in the resources available to produce it and am happy to have it even as it is rather than not have it at all because they didn't have enough spare resource toproduce unique content for it.

By the same page I will point out again that there are things like puzzles that many players are very much against. Even the very simple puzzles of the Broom quests were too much for some people.

I do however think more variety in ways to progress the quest would be a good thing. However this wouldn't lower the amount of grind, simply what you chose to grind because the grind is part of the justification for the reward in the first place.

I would make two points about the relics.

First, I don't like the RNG aspects even though they allow the option at least for levelling alternate Jobs. I would far prefer a system like lights where you 'charged' the luminous crystals with a chance on every FATE for a bonus spike of charge with perhaps the special FATEs having an increased chance of a bonus. RNG is rarely a good mechanic in any grinding scenario unless its well mitigated by alternate progression options.

Secondly, I think one way the new anima chain is very much superior to the old chain is the amount of options of what content we can gain progression from doing. This makes the grind far less cumbersome since we can gain progress from stuff we were doing anyway. I would also think opening it up further to include things like EX tokens and such would be a good thing, as long as people understood it wouldn't make it any faster. The weapon is going to be a grind. You want a weapon of that level by doing hard content you should be doing the hard content that rewards a weapon of a similar level.

Im very much keen to see them experiment with quests and puzzles and such. I don't however think the relic/anima questline it the place for it. Too many people who will be attracted to the anima weapons won't want to see content like that or find it fun.

Ex Primal - yes!
Crystal Tower - yes!

These two content DF is taking more than hours... = god damn dead content ...
Stop rescuing your lol FATE and get these content back to live. They are far more better content than lol FATE grinding...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pompompar

Ex Primal - yes!
Crystal Tower - yes!

These two content DF is taking more than hours... = god damn dead content ...
Stop rescuing your lol FATE and get these content back to live. They are far more better content than lol FATE grinding...

---

And please, DONT try to do something with Hunts >_>

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FizzleofHyperion

snip

---

You see, you are saying this, but you are not actually giving suggestions on how they work in this game without tearing down core elements of this game which does not happen just like that. It is called destructive criticism and I rather offer criticism or ideas that work in the context of the game already established, because that is more realistic than saying drop what the game is now and copy/paste a game from 13+ years ago in here. Also yes, Diadem does absolutely count. If you cannot tell that was clearly inspired by people on the forums wanting FFXI exploration like content in here than I don't think you played FFXI.

If this game at 2.0 was straight out FFXI with a new coat of paint, I would still likely be playing it. I don't have anything against FFXI itself and still like the game for what it is, but you have to realize that concepts from that don't translate well here. Each time the developers try to make it work, it always falls flat on their face or not working as intended. Largely because the community has a different mind set in general on how to approach content as oppose to how FFXI presented it.

Also, you are speaking of the same community that gets bored of content within it's patch. You can't rely on making long lasting content through an expansion without people getting sick of it. It also limits the ideas and amount of content that developers are capable of giving us. Them being able to make new content every few months gives us new goals and new mobs to kill. This is significantly harder to give us on a pure horizontal method. On vertical, you can at least make the reward greater to influence people to go. The style of gameplay you seek does not match the community mind set. This is not fifteen years ago anymore. Yes this game is absolutely different from FFXI.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Belhi

I'm not so much defending the current relic quest line as stating why it is. I'm also realistic in the resources available to produce it and am happy to have it even as it is rather than not have it at all because they didn't have enough spare resource toproduce unique content for it.

By the same page I will point out again that there are things like puzzles that many players are very much against. Even the very simple puzzles of the Broom quests were too much for some people.

---

I had not met anyone who said they hated the broom quest nor do I believe was a big deal here. When we got our last major quest puzzle, we had threads of people joining together to unlock parts of the code and helping people with theirs. It did bring community together and it would again here. You are basically saying that developers should not ever make interesting content for anything and go by the same tropes. The lack of resources is just a convenient excuse to not put the effort into quest. It is sad they constantly give us quests at a half-ass state and then give us the excuse that lack of resources made it this way. They can't even try to come up with something interesting within the budget/time they have. It doesn't hold water, especially with a AAA company.

Quote:

---

I do however think more variety in ways to progress the quest would be a good thing. However this wouldn't lower the amount of grind, simply what you chose to grind because the grind is part of the justification for the reward in the first place.

---

Grind will always be a thing in MMO's, you cannot prevent it. However, developers in other MMO's have gotten much better at making it that at least the grind does not feel so tedious and make interesting ways of going through said grind. FFXIV makes no effort on this part. It is one blatant grind after another.

Quote:

---

Im very much keen to see them experiment with quests and puzzles and such. I don't however think the relic/anima questline it the place for it. Too many people who will be attracted to the anima weapons won't want to see content like that or find it fun.

---

And they find it fun now? The amount of people who find the quest fun are very, very few. It is the ideal place to experiment with. If developer's at least acknowledge that most people don't like this approach, then they have to admit there is some failure on their end despite saying this is how they like it. If they are heavily intent on making the content for people who are so casual that not even the slightest challenge battle wise can be put in it, then they need to offer challenge elsewhere in the quest line.

Again, I will post this a third time:

http://odinwatch.com/wp-content/uplo...el-817x320.jpg

Belhi, just accepting whatever is thrown at you isn't going to make the relic better. It doesn't take a lot of time to have that shady merchant thrown up some more tokens that will require more if a grind to do, that cuts into the relative worth of the relic to its intended audience.

There have been several suggestions to make questline long, and engaging. SE knows how to do it at least, it showed on the second step, but its missing in the 1st step(RNGsus and lootcifer are fickle companions), and they phoned it all in on the long 3rd step.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Velhart

The amount of people who find the quest fun are very, very few.

---

I suspect the number that do is larger than you realize. People play and pay for this game primarily because it provides them with entertainment, and there are numerous reports of servers that are experiencing more active PF participation lately, much of which can be attributed to the Anima questline. While there are players who will indeed do things they don't like to in order to achieve a goal, I'd be willing to bet even those players at least find the goal for its own sake fun.

The wealth of criticism on the forums is slowly dying down when nothing has really swelled up to replace it, which suggests that there's not really a continued disappointment with the quest from the larger playerbase to me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alahra

I suspect the number that do is larger than you realize. People play and pay for this game primarily because it provides them with entertainment, and there are numerous reports of servers that are experiencing more active PF participation lately, much of which can be attributed to the Anima questline. While there are players who will indeed do things they don't like to in order to achieve a goal, I'd be willing to bet even those players at least find the goal for its own sake fun.

The wealth of criticism on the forums is slowly dying down when nothing has really swelled up to replace it, which suggests that there's not really a continued disappointment with the quest from the larger playerbase to me.

---

It is a ilvl210 weapon, it is an upgrade, especially to people who are still trying to tackle Savage. Of course people are going to do it if there is a reason. It doesn't make it more fun. When people are dedicated to a character, or wanting any type of advantage to get content they cannot clear done, of course they are going to do it, no matter how poorly designed it is. It doesn't make my point less relevant that they need to focus on the fun factor as much as the grind.

Everything dies down eventually because people usually give in or quit the game. You can only beat a dead horse of a topic but so much. I am very sure that most people would vote that the quest line is very disappointing, uninspired, and lazy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alahra

The wealth of criticism on the forums is slowly dying down when nothing has really swelled up to replace it, which suggests that there's not really a continued disappointment with the quest from the larger playerbase to me.

---

Honestly, it also gets to the point that like you mentioned earlier in a different topic, it runs into a full circle and ultimately exhausting. It can be both ways, but it's not nesesscarly that people have "gotten over it". Both sides gives their two cents and it only goes for so long until it gets to speculations.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alahra

I suspect the number that do is larger than you realize. People play and pay for this game primarily because it provides them with entertainment, and there are numerous reports of servers that are experiencing more active PF participation lately, much of which can be attributed to the Anima questline. While there are players who will indeed do things they don't like to in order to achieve a goal, I'd be willing to bet even those players at least find the goal for its own sake fun.

The wealth of criticism on the forums is slowly dying down when nothing has really swelled up to replace it, which suggests that there's not really a continued disappointment with the quest from the larger playerbase to me.

---

I guess I just don't see a point in posting the same argument over and over and over, when clearly Square Enix doesn't care. I complained a lot until they posted their response to criticism, and showed that they just don't give an F.

I completed my relic, grind wasn't so bad, but it was still beyond horribly implemented. Release timing was off, glamours suck, pre-glamorus are copy pastes, quest line is lack luster, stats on most are subpar, and duties to make you get it are uninspired and obnoxious (crafting/gil hole?).

Ultimately though, what I hated most, was that for the past 2-3 weeks, i wasn't able to do anything I wanted in the game. I mean outside of the desire to have my weapon before my raid met up this week (succeeded!). I had just started to do a bunch of 2ndary stuff, such as leveling my BLM, and quickly it was all tossed to the side. I'd even regret queuing for roulettes, because the second I got in an S rank would spawn and I'd leave to go kill it. I began to just stop doing most roulettes. When FC mates asked for help 'nop, must hunts'. I was just encouraged to do everything I could to be as unsocial to my FC, unhelpful to my friends and have the least amount of fun for the past 3 weeks. It's now over, and I can continue to enjoy this game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kaurie

snip

---

Hey girl, congrats!

I agree with your complaints about the grind but most of them are minor to me except the 1.stats issue (seriously, they better fix that with the materia/customization step) and the 2.crafting issue (I know they want to encourage crafting, but they should have made it faster or easier for crafters, not a gate for everyone). Hopefully they will respond to that criticism, but I'm not holding my breath.

You make a good point about having to postpone other things you like to do in game to focus on it. That is actually really sad and I bet you're thrilled that it's over (I would be)! BUT, at the same time you sacrificed those other things to meet your self-imposed time goal for raiding. It's not like everyone is forced to sacrifice things they love by DESIGN; they will just get the relic a little slower. Throwing your face against it (while I'm glad that's an option and it's not time-gated like eso) kinda is against the grain so-to-speak and there will be consequences for choosing to do it that way. Just a thought.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KaitlanKela

Hey girl, congrats!

I agree with your complaints about the grind but most of them are minor to me except the 1.stats issue (seriously, they better fix that with the materia/customization step) and the 2.crafting issue (I know they want to encourage crafting, but they should have made it faster or easier for crafters, not a gate for everyone). Hopefully they will respond to that criticism, but I'm not holding my breath.
You make a good point about having to postpone other things you like to do in game to focus on it. That is actually really sad and I bet you're thrilled that it's over (I would be)! BUT, at the same time you sacrificed those other things to meet your self-imposed time goal for raiding. It's not like everyone is forced to sacrifice things they love by DESIGN; they will just get the relic a little slower. Throwing your face against it (while I'm glad that's an option and it's not time-gated like eso) kinda is against the grain so-to-speak and there will be consequences for choosing to do it that way. Just a thought.

---

Thanks :D It's very true, the goal was self inflicted. That said, it was also strongly encouraged by the design of the game. They've made weapons be the most important factor in your DPS with weapon damage being value so much more than everything else. They then implemented a huge jump in difficulty on A3S and gated the weapons equivalent to the relic behind it. So, by their design, they made this a huge priority item.

Ultimately, this is how I can see the whole relic process being better, now that I've had a chance to complete it fully:
1. Provide more options to obtain items (GC Seals, WolfMarks etc etc)
2. Allow pre-items to interchange (i.e. allow one to make 1 item from maybe Alex 1 5 runs + roulettes or seals if they want etc) - this will help alleviate burnout on doing the same thing over and over.
3. Make the crafting an option to help speed up the process, but allow for you to grind out more items in it's stead.
4. More adequately balance the time investment for each alternative method. Alex was far faster than any other method. This will allow people to move around and do various things, again alleviate burnout.
5. Release the relic in a more appropriate time. 170 should have been 180 and released on 3.0. 200 should have been released on 3.05. 210 should have been released with 3.1.
6. Allow customized stats, but not with Materia. This just makes CRIT materia cost an arm and a leg.
7. Incorporate more of a story of how you are building your weapon. This could include part 6, i.e. in order to add crit you need to complete X objective, or DET complete y objective etc - and have the objectives make logical lore sense to the stat.
8. Just... make a better story. I know you can do it (see 2.4, 2.5, 2.55, 3.0, Hildebrand etc).
9. Being as we are building a weapon, it would actually be neat if we build it's design (at least in part) too. Allow us to modify it's appearance in size/color, addons etc.
10 (maybe?). Time gate it. If you want it to be a time investment, instead of making us run 620 runs of Alex - maybe make it that you run 100, but you can only do 25 max per week (or whatever). This will help alleviate burnout, make it a long term goal, and allow you to have time for other game interests.

EDIT: Just adding that I think the above would be modifications to the current system that would work; however, i think a completely different and more fun and engaging system would be better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Velhart

SE lost it's creativity and is now just putting mindless grinds in and poor attempts to bring FFXI like content into this game. All they can accomplish is getting people back in the game for a short while before they head off again. They barely do anything now to influence people to stay in. Playing too much into the safe route and catering too heavily on the casual audience, they are going to learn the hard way that it is not a good idea. Again, they think only short term, not long.

---

I agree with this quite a lot it pretty much sums up the way i play entirely, spending large amounts of time unsubbed and only coming back occassionally to catch up on the story in a netflix style fashion, where i wont watch every episode as it comes out but instead i'll sit there and watch the whole series in a couple of nights whereas in xiv i tend to not play every patch and then burn it all in a month.

There is no reason to stay in the game as everything is so focussed on the short term, nothing lasts so nothing is worth getting. this was a hot topic even back in beta, and when i came back to xiv for a couple of months it didn't seem any different. i blitzed everything in a coupple of months even blitzed coils 1-13 and many of my friends and people in linkshells either gave up on coil or didnt even try it. "whats the point the gears going to be junk in a couple of months?" or "it'll be nerfed in a couple of months so we'll wait" were common opinions. and ones i share the only reason i pushed through it was for story purposes i wanted to be done before heavensward.

haven't played since for much the same reason. all this 200 210 gear that people are mad about is going to be junk in a few months so why waste my time. i'll just wait till 3.3 3.4 maybe even 3.5 and blitz everything in a month or 2 again to catch up on the story.

Going back to the quote above the game design does nothing to entice people to play long term. the focus of most content is gear and yoshi p said back in beta that gear was not something to get attached to as it was disposable. it doesn't really make sense. the focus of the content is disposable junk. and as players don't get attached to disposable junk they lose incentive to play.

gear needs to last and in many cases so do challenges. if you look at final coil i think more people would have stuck with it. if the loot at the end was long term, even without the echo bonuses and nerfs. if the life span of the loot was long enough it would have justified the difficulty, but with the loot being disposable, and the knowledge that the content will be easier in a month, there's no real incentive to try.

if they want players to play long term then rewards them selves also need to be long term and worth getting, this is where horizontal progression comes in. i'd play a lot more if I knew the gear I was going to invest my time in getting was going to last.

item level is the worst thing ever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Velhart

It is a ilvl210 weapon, it is an upgrade, especially to people who are still trying to tackle Savage.

---

Folks working on Savage are probably more than capable of getting the Thordan EX weapons, a number of which are pretty close to the Anima weapons in effectiveness, though, especially given the work to reward ratio. I really doubt getting a leg up on Savage is a reason a significant number of players are doing the Anima grind.

But regarding fun factor—how would you actually make the grind more fun? Keep in mind that you can't rely on harder content to do that. What kinds of grinds are fun to you and why are they more fun than the current Anima grind?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Velhart

Here is where the sad thing lies in relic weapons. However, their team who are suppose to be making fun content believes that only mindless grinds should be in it... Why can't developers put something fun in between the grinds. Use methods that goes strongly into the lore, keeping things interesting.

As much as I disagree with SE's approach to relics, they have to at least attempt to be creative in doing these quests. Not simply slap old content together and tell people to bang their heads on the keyboard till they receive a prize. All they care about right now is taking the easy route out, not actually caring about being creative.

---

Great post Velhart. I totally agree.

While we may disagree about the potential for a Long-Term Goal-type Relic (FFXI Style), your post summarizes a fundamental flaw with the current Relic Quest, even as is (short-term, eclipsed every other patch).

It's the most lazy, uninspired, boring quest we have in FF XIV, easily. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...milies/mad.png It's sad: Just replay old dungeons, old content, and grind mindlessly until you achieve the target number. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/i...s/rolleyes.png

I would still like Yoshi P to consider a Long-Term, Always Viable version of the Relic (where it's Alternative Content with its own unique challenges), but if it had to be kept as is (for casual only), at least make it more interesting.

Heck, they could RE-USE pre-existing 3D Models of various Monsters in the world, and rename them to be special "NMs", throw in some ambushes, or script some battles (that *don't* have to be super hard), and take you across various parts of the world and it'd be infinitely better than the garbage that is the current Anima Weapon Quest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kiara

I would still like Yoshi P to consider a Long-Term, Always Viable version of the Relic (where it's Alternative Content with its own unique challenges), but if it had to be kept as is (for casual only), at least make it more interesting.

---

I would be willing to bet that they have considered it, but also that they don't have the resources to really produce that content specifically for the weapon questlines. In a perfect world, I think everyone would love to have a questline full of nothing but new content through each expansion, including the developers themselves, but the necessities of making that happen are probably not within the realm of possibility for the team as it currently stands.

So since that's not something that's likely to happen, let's take your other thought: how do you make the relic questlines "more interesting" while keeping in mind certain fundamentals that the content should address: 1) it needs to focus on time investment as opposed to clearing difficult content; and 2) it should serve as a means by which older content can be made relevant again for the benefit of newer and returning players (or, if you would rather they not do this, you have to understand that development time would thereby need to be spent on finding a way to keep that content relevant so that they game doesn't stop attracting new players entirely).

I rather like the idea of NMs (I was always fond of them in FFXI), but the game already sort of has a model for this in Hunts, which would mean revisiting old content again, which you consider problematic. Whether they used NMs or Hunts (which are, essentially, NMs without unique loot drops and currency drops instead), over-reliance on them would also introduce elements of randomness and competition (hooray spawn-camping) that might not sit well with some players.

Doing some spawned monsters could be interesting (not unlike the NMs in FFXI's Abyssea), though. They did something like that to a certain degree with the Novus stage—some of those maps were actually a bit risky to complete solo. I wouldn't mind seeing a stage similar to that again (dress it up differently, though, in my opinion—don't just do maps again).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Velhart

I had not met anyone who said they hated the broom quest nor do I believe was a big deal here. When we got our last major quest puzzle, we had threads of people joining together to unlock parts of the code and helping people with theirs. It did bring community together and it would again here. You are basically saying that developers should not ever make interesting content for anything and go by the same tropes. The lack of resources is just a convenient excuse to not put the effort into quest. It is sad they constantly give us quests at a half-ass state and then give us the excuse that lack of resources made it this way. They can't even try to come up with something interesting within the budget/time they have. It doesn't hold water, especially with a AAA company.

---

Firstly while you may have not heard anyone complain about the Broom quests clearly Yoshi P did cause he mentioned people having issues with them in the Live Letter directly after the HW launch. I'm also not saying they shouldn't make content like that but it shouldn't be a pre requisite to something which is very much mainstream content. A lot of people don't want to screw around with puzzles. I personally love them. The investigation missions in The Secret World are one of the most special things about that game.

Secondly, you seem to make the assumption they had more resources that they just didn't use. Considering every indication we have seen has been that this team works its ass off which is match by a very competitive development speed compared to other MMOs, it's likely they didn't have a great deal of additional resources to spend which means either something would have had to be cut from elsewhere or we wouldn't be getting the relic quest here at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kallera

Belhi, just accepting whatever is thrown at you isn't going to make the relic better. It doesn't take a lot of time to have that shady merchant thrown up some more tokens that will require more if a grind to do, that cuts into the relative worth of the relic to its intended audience.

There have been several suggestions to make questline long, and engaging. SE knows how to do it at least, it showed on the second step, but its missing in the 1st step(RNGsus and lootcifer are fickle companions), and they phoned it all in on the long 3rd step.

---

It's not that I don't want to see better and I stated several things about the current chain I would have like to see differently. I just recognise there are limitation on what we will likely be getting and would prefer what we have over nothing at all.

Also while I don't like the RNG in quests like this, particularly when this grindy, and I think the final step is too long, though I understand their logic so I'm hopeful they won't repeat the mistake, a questline like this which will be time consuming will be grindy. The second step wasn't grindy or long. It was probably the easiest and shortest relic quest ever. That's probably why it didn't both many people. Most people in my guild had it done in less than 3 hours.

The one thing the second step did have which would be nice to see them replicate was the occations where we had a story interlude. Perhaps a better solution with say the first step would be a cutscene when we delivered a set of Luminous crystals where we see the nodes charging up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Belhi

Secondly, you seem to make the assumption they had more resources that they just didn't use. Considering every indication we have seen has been that this team works its ass off which is match by a very competitive development speed compared to other MMOs, it's likely they didn't have a great deal of additional resources to spend which means either something would have had to be cut from elsewhere or we wouldn't be getting the relic quest here at all..

---

Honestly, we're coming to the point where the "we don't have enough resources" thing isn't going to fly when they fail to deliver (again). They have already cut from regular content (expert dungeons, MSQ and primal fights) to add content like Diadem and LoV, and we see how those turned out. Or really, the lasting power of an expansion launch in general; there shouldn't have been a feeling of a content draught 3 months after an expansion release.

In regards to the bolded part, I honestly don't care for "how fast" they release content, I'm willing to wait if it can tide me reasonably long enough to the next cycle (the quality of the content). Haste makes waste, and sure enough I feel like there's a lot of corners being cut and rushed to meet deadlines or expedited release with the content we're getting. They might be the fastest updating MMO I've played, but its also the fastest one thats taking a nose dive in regards to content quality, esp in relation to their liveletter previews.

It was passable in 2.0, being a relaunch and it still having the novelty of a new mmo hitting the shelfs. But I feel like at this point ,that's he best they could have done because 3.0 in general feels really...bleh, to the point that it's just a content patch that I paid for, and especially so with the anima weapon if I wanted to take a daily approach to it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

snip

---

Well I think it's a catch 22 here; either the devs spreads patches apart and risk losing people from being bored for waiting for so long (in addition to losing more people if the patches aren't up to snuff), or they try to keep people interested in shorter bursts while risking of recycling content to save time. It's clear that the team needs more resources and the higher ups seem to not want to spend a cent on them since they're not FF15 or the FF7 remake.