If you continue to dumb down the game, you will lose half your player base

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Meanwhile me: Doesn’t care about politics and happily bought diablo 3 and is having a blast with it.

If people stopped playing games made by shitty people or businesses, we wouldn’t have any games left to play. SE isn’t exempt from this either.

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That's a sacrifice I'd happily make.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

The WoW exodus was caused by what Blizzard is currently doing on the inside of their company. I played Diablo 3 constantly, but stopped the second the news hit. I still miss playing it, but any company that does what Blizzard did does not deserve my time or money.

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This is why I said "in part". I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back for most people, myself included. There can be many factors that can contribute to a person's decision.

Maybe create a "difficult mode"setting in your client that splits some abilities to create extra buttons, so that those who want the "challenge" can have their "challenge".

It sucks for those of us who can play a more challenging game, but when and where cash is king, accessibility will always be viewed as the best option. Why?

• A skilled player can play any game an unskilled player can, but not the other way around. Easy game = larger potential audience = larger potential income
• Can't make some classes 'hard' and others 'easy'. People who like the looks of a 'hard' class but are unable to play it well will nag to have changes made to make the class more accessible
• We can't have different styles/specs of each class. If we did, those chasing the meta around will force near uniformity in end game content. Why? Easy gameplay reduces the odds of making a mistake, so you'll be forced into running the easy setup unless the hard setup increases DPS, in which case easy-mode players will be banned from participating in places where DPS is king. Either way the choice is effectively removed from the player (just like base attribute points). If there's ultimately not going to be diversity, why invest resources to have it at all?

Maybe, just maybe it could be possible to balance the multi-spec thing to have it be generally acceptable. If "easy mode" versions of jobs could theoretically reach something like 80% of the theoretical max output of the "hard mode", I suspect that more casual raiding groups might be open to allowing "easy mode" players that's doing close to that 80% than asking them to do "hard mode" and then not clearing because they only manage 50-60% (or less). Of course, we've all seen groups who refuse to recruit anyone who isn't a top-tier job for the raiding meta because the lower cap on max DPS tends to translate to "greater chance of failing DPS checks" in their minds.

I feel like no matter how it's balanced, it'll be hard for an actual choice to gain traction without proper transparency (e.g. in-game DPS meters, showing who's in easy/hard modes, showing groups which have cleared content while using one mode or the other). Granted, that's pretty much not going to happen as SE has made it very clear that they aren't going to add in-game DPS meters.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Meanwhile me: Doesn’t care about politics and happily bought diablo 3 and is having a blast with it.

If people stopped playing games made by shitty people or businesses, we wouldn’t have any games left to play. SE isn’t exempt from this either.

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You should read the allegations against Blizzard execs a little more closely, friend. I'm not sure how sexual harassment, assault, and suicide = politics, but okay.

Shitty isn't binary: it is subject to gradation. Yoshi-P was creepy to a cosplayer once and I played anyway b/c I assume he was just trying to meme. Companies I still support engage in ethically questionable behavior b/c of perverse incentives created by our economic system. I understand relativity. What Blizzard execs did is FAR worse. The fact that you are being that dismissive about real people's suffering and reducing all of that to "politics" is gross.

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Originally Posted by -BlueGreen-

It sucks for those of us who can play a more challenging game, but when and where cash is king, accessibility will always be viewed as the best option. Why?

• A skilled player can play any game an unskilled player can, but not the other way around. Easy game = larger potential audience = larger potential income
• Can't make some classes 'hard' and others 'easy'. People who like the looks of a 'hard' class but are unable to play it well will nag to have changes made to make the class more accessible
• We can't have different styles/specs of each class. If we did, those chasing the meta around will force near uniformity in end game content. Why? Easy gameplay reduces the odds of making a mistake, so you'll be forced into running the easy setup unless the hard setup increases DPS, in which case easy-mode players will be banned from participating in places where DPS is king. Either way the choice is effectively removed from the player (just like base attribute points). If there's ultimately not going to be diversity, why invest resources to have it at all?

Maybe, just maybe it could be possible to balance the multi-spec thing to have it be generally acceptable. If "easy mode" versions of jobs could theoretically reach something like 80% of the theoretical max output of the "hard mode", I suspect that more casual raiding groups might be open to allowing "easy mode" players that's doing close to that 80% than asking them to do "hard mode" and then not clearing because they only manage 50-60% (or less). Of course, we've all seen groups who refuse to recruit anyone who isn't a top-tier job for the raiding meta because the lower cap on max DPS tends to translate to "greater chance of failing DPS checks" in their minds.

I feel like no matter how it's balanced, it'll be hard for an actual choice to gain traction without proper transparency (e.g. in-game DPS meters, showing who's in easy/hard modes, showing groups which have cleared content while using one mode or the other). Granted, that's pretty much not going to happen as SE has made it very clear that they aren't going to add in-game DPS meters.

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People who talk this way are almost never anywhere close to as good as they think or say they are. This is just something you learn after playing mmorpgs for 25 years.

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Originally Posted by s1mulacrum

You should read the allegations against Blizzard execs a little more closely, friend. I'm not sure how sexual harassment, assault, and suicide = politics, but okay.

Shitty isn't binary: it is subject to gradation. Yoshi-P was creepy to a cosplayer once and I played anyway b/c I assume he was just trying to meme. Companies I still support engage in ethically questionable behavior b/c of perverse incentives created by our economic system. I understand relativity. What Blizzard execs did is FAR worse. The fact that you are being that dismissive about real people's suffering and reducing all of that to "politics" is gross.

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It's in the direction society or maybe more so NA has been going as of the late decade. Pretty sadge IMO.

FFXIV was never really designed to be hardcore competitive, complex game. Even the 1.0 was, while grindy and tedious, fairly straightforward in its combat gameplay.
On my server (Faerie), majority of people play the game as a single player RPG and only use the MMO aspects for socializing and fun group activities, rather than to accomplish challenging goals, and it feels at least, that the sizeable chunck of the population plays this way (as much as some people wish it wasn't so).
So while personally I wouldn't necessarily object to a more complex gameplay, I would be concerned that by doing so we will lose more than we will gain.

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Originally Posted by s1mulacrum

You should read the allegations against Blizzard execs a little more closely, friend. I'm not sure how sexual harassment, assault, and suicide = politics, but okay.

Shitty isn't binary: it is subject to gradation. Yoshi-P was creepy to a cosplayer once and I played anyway b/c I assume he was just trying to meme. Companies I still support engage in ethically questionable behavior b/c of perverse incentives created by our economic system. I understand relativity. What Blizzard execs did is FAR worse. The fact that you are being that dismissive about real people's suffering and reducing all of that to "politics" is gross.

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Its video games. I typically dont really care what the company themselves do, i detach them from the game itself. I can still find a game to be made well and have fun, just because the people behind it may be bad doesnt really change that for me.I could hardly care what you think of me though, this playerbase has shown one too many times its....lackluster taste.Either way i play games to retreat from real life. I dont need people bringing up that a company did xyz and that i shouldnt play their game because of it. Its childish.

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Originally Posted by Felis-Silvertis

FFXIV was never really designed to be hardcore competitive, complex game. Even the 1.0 was, while grindy and tedious, fairly straightforward in its combat gameplay.
On my server (Faerie), majority of people play the game as a single player RPG and only use the MMO aspects for socializing and fun group activities, rather than to accomplish challenging goals, and it feels at least, that the sizeable chunck of the population plays this way (as much as some people wish it wasn't so).
So while personally I wouldn't necessarily object to a more complex gameplay, I would be concerned that by doing so we will lose more than we will gain.

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This, this, a thousand times this. If you want to play a game that is super-duper-complex, play FFXI.

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Originally Posted by KayRadley

This, this, a thousand times this. If you want to play a game that is super-duper-complex, play FFXI.

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The same guys think WoW is hardcore when it was designed to be extremely casual in the age of insane grindy hellish mmos. Before that we had 10-12 hour raids where you competed with other guilds along with a boss that required 70 players to kill.

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Originally Posted by Roflcopter

The same guys think WoW is hardcore when it was designed to be extremely casual in the age of insane grindy hellish mmos. Before that we had 10-12 hour raids where you competed with other guilds along with a boss that required 70 players to kill.

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You see tons of FFXIV players literally have only played FFXIV as their only MMO. They think people who don't want the main game to be a pointless game with no obstacles want the game to be fucking Dark Ultimate Souls DX: Prepare to be killed edition when in reality most people are just asking for the midcore crowd to not get the shaft and for normal content to be engaging.

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Originally Posted by Roflcopter

The same guys think WoW is hardcore when it was designed to be extremely casual in the age of insane grindy hellish mmos. Before that we had 10-12 hour raids where you competed with other guilds along with a boss that required 70 players to kill.

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It was casual in its time, sure. But times change. Today you have many more things vying for your attention than in 2004 and your time is more valuable than it was in 2004. So by today's standard vanilla WOW is hardcore and grindy.

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Originally Posted by KayRadley

This, this, a thousand times this. If you want to play a game that is super-duper-complex, play FFXI.

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Is this another variation of the same braindead "if you want Dark Souls" strawman?

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Its video games. I typically dont really care what the company themselves do, i detach them from the game itself. I can still find a game to be made well and have fun, just because the people behind it may be bad doesnt really change that for me.I could hardly care what you think of me though, this playerbase has shown one too many times its....lackluster taste.Either way i play games to retreat from real life. I dont need people bringing up that a company did xyz and that i shouldnt play their game because of it. Its childish.

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If every person who cried "shame on X company" stuck to their guns and boycotted their products, they'd probably starve to death or live in a house with absolutely nothing in it. The business world is a shitty fucked up place and no amount of crying will ever fix it. Best to learn to live with it.

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Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami

Its video games. I typically dont really care what the company themselves do, i detach them from the game itself. I can still find a game to be made well and have fun, just because the people behind it may be bad doesnt really change that for me.I could hardly care what you think of me though, this playerbase has shown one too many times its....lackluster taste.Either way i play games to retreat from real life. I dont need people bringing up that a company did xyz and that i shouldnt play their game because of it. Its childish.

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Couldn't care less*

It's not that you continue to play the game; no one should tell you you have to stop playing. I don't judge people negatively who didn't stop playing Blizzard games when they heard the news. It's that you trivialize the real suffering of other people by dismissing the situation as "politics".

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Originally Posted by Kyrj

If every person who cried "shame on X company" stuck to their guns and boycotted their products, they'd probably starve to death or live in a house with absolutely nothing in it. The business world is a shitty fucked up place and no amount of crying will ever fix it. Best to learn to live with it.

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Or maybe the world would be a better place and the market would be forced to adapt. When people left WoW en masse, all of a sudden Blizzard was willing to allow cross-faction: a thing they said they would never do. How do you think labor laws happened?

There really seems to be a sense of almost… exaggerated dread around this patch. Not thats anything new. I feel like every MMO I have ever played gets such discussions when class changes are implemented. I just feel that we are a long way from jobs that can play themselves or totally loose their uniqueness. Not to say we should not question the choices made, but I feel the reasons the devs are making such changes are more complex then just ‘They want to make it easier for casuals.’

I cannot comment on say, the SAM changes, as I have not played it much and even then I would like to wait and actually play the class after the changes to see. That said I feel ‘button bloat’ is a real thing that needs to be carefully controlled as we raise in levels. Having a rotation that takes up several rows is not going to be everyones cup of tea. Is removing skills the answer? I do not know. I was not much of a fan of how they cut down Summoners core set, but then others love the changes. I am personally a fan of making more skills transform during combos, a bit like Gunbreaker and Red Mage do. Its a good way to keep the bars neat but not sacrificing skills, and I wish they would add it to more Jobs.

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Originally Posted by s1mulacrum

Or maybe the world would be a better place and the market would be forced to adapt.

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Pfffhahahahahahahaha

Yeah, no. You clearly have no idea how shitty the business world really is. They will say whatever and do whatever to stay in business and earn a buck.

FFXI isn't complex. There are a lot of abilities yes, most if not all on 1-5 minute cooldowns making for a completely different combat experience. The game was *difficult* in the past if you lacked access to gear, spells, or groups but that has largely been done away with now that they have trusts and easier ways of gearing up as you level. The difficulty there is whatever you make it.

This game has gone through various eras of job design. Some were better than others. Streamlining for the sake of convenience and removing clunkiness like stance dancing or downright bizarre abilities like Flash and Tri-Bind is a good thing. Taking away the Samurai fun power up button was an enormous miscalculation, with whatever they meant to eventually replace it with being too far in the future of 7.0 to warrant its removal now.

In terms of my preferred difficulty level to base "normal" around I'd be happy with Titania/Hydaelyn and less annoying mechanics like the one boss from Vanaspati that causes "misdirection" - easily the worst status effect in the game. The game does a bad job of preparing some players for these fights though, partly due to the fact that higher level players are the ones who carry them through the bulk of story content up until Shadowbringers.

I do believe that more solo-oriented players will benefit more from future Trust additions simply because they do not, in fact, coddle lower skilled players. If you mess up more than 3 times in Trust, that's it. It forces somewhat of a learning curve onto them that isn't present in Duty Finder. Sadly, a lot of high level players do not realize this and continue to rally against the system despite it ultimately being more beneficial than harmful.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Is this another variation of the same braindead "if you want Dark Souls" strawman?

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I never said anything about Dark Souls. If you're gonna put something in my mouth, make it food, not words.

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Originally Posted by KayRadley

I never said anything about Dark Souls. If you're gonna put something in my mouth, make it food, not words.

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How about something to stimulate reading comprehension?

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Originally Posted by Kyrj

Pfffhahahahahahahaha

Yeah, no. You clearly have no idea how shitty the business world really is. They will say whatever and do whatever to stay in business and earn a buck.

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You should read my response again...

I agree they will do w/e they can for a buck: that's my whole point. If you put them in a position where their consumers are leaving b/c they aren't making specific changes, they lose money until they either cave or find another solution. I understand your frustration with how terrible the incentives in the business world are, and I agree, but your assertion is factually and historically inaccurate. Collective bargaining, boycotts, and protests are incredibly powerful tools when wielded proficiently (or sometimes there are latent effects from seemingly unrelated movements, like the WoW exodus).

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Originally Posted by Lauront

How about something to stimulate reading comprehension?

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How about not putting bloody words in my mouth and strawmanning?

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Originally Posted by KayRadley

How about not putting bloody words in my mouth and strawmanning?

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He's not engaging in either activity.

Or as this poster put it:

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Originally Posted by MagicalChase

You see tons of FFXIV players literally have only played FFXIV as their only MMO. They think people who don't want the main game to be a pointless game with no obstacles want the game to be fucking Dark Ultimate Souls DX: Prepare to be killed edition when in reality most people are just asking for the midcore crowd to not get the shaft and for normal content to be engaging.

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Likewise, I'm not aware of anyone asking for the game to become "super complex" - not the OP, and certainly not in this thread. The majority of us are just asking for the above.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I do believe that more solo-oriented players will benefit more from future Trust additions simply because they do not, in fact, coddle lower skilled players. If you mess up more than 3 times in Trust, that's it. It forces somewhat of a learning curve onto them that isn't present in Duty Finder. Sadly, a lot of high level players do not realize this and continue to rally against the system despite it ultimately being more beneficial than harmful.

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I agree that the system is beneficial and definitely feel it teaches better than Duty Finder does. But what do you mean mess up more than 3 times and that's it? It doesn't auto-boot you after 3 wipes or anything.

A lot of you are looking for complexity that has never existed in this genre before. GCD based MMOs are not "complex", nor are their combat systems deep or engaging. The game isn't being dumbed down, just the gap between those that know their playing an mmo and need to google a guide and those that didn't bother is getting smaller. That's the heart of these changes.

Dark Souls isn't even hard, and I don't know why it's constantly brought up are the barometer for difficulty in video game. Y'all out acting like it's Ninja Gaiden or something smh.

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Or as this poster put it:

Likewise, I'm not aware of anyone asking for the game to become "super complex" - not the OP, and certainly not in this thread. The majority of us are just asking for the above.

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But the OP is asking for increased complexity across the board. I think if they were asking for an optional increase (like split dungeons into "story mode" with trusts and slightly more tuned "normal mode" with players), I don't think anyone would have objected.
I do agree it would be nice to have dungeons where wall to wall isn't possible, or you actually have to use CC for real.. with corresponding XP/tomes increase for time invested.
I am personally not even against making gameplay slightly harder, just not convinced it is going to be better for the game long term.

The "WOW analogy" is patently wrong. WOW is losing players not because it is super easy. I remember time when Ion was a player himself and trust me, he had (and presumably still has) nothing but extreme contempt for those who do not min-max to nth degree. If he were to get his way, he would just turn WOW into one giant raid.
WOW is losing players because 95% of population has nothing to do - casual players get watered down raids/dungeons plus endless grinds and that is literally it. No housing, no farming, no mini-games or puzzles, no light-hearted stories, just raids/dungeons/pvp mixed with grind and seasoned with toxic elitist community, that Ion helped foster himself during his time as the elitist jerks guildmaster.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I agree that the system is beneficial and definitely feel it teaches better than Duty Finder does. But what do you mean mess up more than 3 times and that's it? It doesn't auto-boot you after 3 wipes or anything.

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I meant to say more like vuln stacks, trusts cannot save players who have more than 2-3 of those on boss raidwides, and while they are pretty consistent at healing w2w as a tank you cannot survive them without rotating cooldowns properly.

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Originally Posted by Hurlstone

There really seems to be a sense of almost… exaggerated dread around this patch. Not thats anything new. I feel like every MMO I have ever played gets such discussions when class changes are implemented. I just feel that we are a long way from jobs that can play themselves or totally loose their uniqueness. Not to say we should not question the choices made, but I feel the reasons the devs are making such changes are more complex then just ‘They want to make it easier for casuals.’

I cannot comment on say, the SAM changes, as I have not played it much and even then I would like to wait and actually play the class after the changes to see. That said I feel ‘button bloat’ is a real thing that needs to be carefully controlled as we raise in levels. Having a rotation that takes up several rows is not going to be everyones cup of tea. Is removing skills the answer? I do not know. I was not much of a fan of how they cut down Summoners core set, but then others love the changes. I am personally a fan of making more skills transform during combos, a bit like Gunbreaker and Red Mage do. Its a good way to keep the bars neat but not sacrificing skills, and I wish they would add it to more Jobs.

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An increased awareness of 6.1 is appropriate. It is the first patch after the conclusion of a major story arc. In many respects it is going to set the tone for what to expect from the game going forward. What's in this patch is going to determine for a lot of players, whether they quit now that the original story is over or keep going to see what happens in the next story.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I meant to say more like vuln stacks, trusts cannot save players who have more than 2-3 of those on boss raidwides, and while they are pretty consistent at healing w2w as a tank you cannot survive them without rotating cooldowns properly.

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Yeah they definitely can't keep you alive if you run around with 16 vuln stacks, lol.

But that's one thing I really enjoy about Trusts. They're a great opportunity to take your time and puzzle out something that is giving you trouble rather than just getting tugged along like a kite with players.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Dark Souls isn't even hard, and I don't know why it's constantly brought up are the barometer for difficulty in video game. Y'all out acting like it's Ninja Gaiden or something smh.

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That's just people wanting to feel special because they pushed the button more than others.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Dark Souls isn't even hard, and I don't know why it's constantly brought up are the barometer for difficulty in video game. Y'all out acting like it's Ninja Gaiden or something smh.

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The only thing Dark Souls is an indicator of is your ability to memorize patterns, and react to them. It becomes VERY easy for that reason, as the speed is often slow enough for you to start reading frames. Sekiro is what I'd consider the pinnacle of difficulty, since the final boss is a pure skill based boss fight testing everything you've ever learned over the course of the game, and ends up being the fastest, most hectic fight since there is NOTHING you can do to heavily push it into your favor, just you and the final boss in an epic hectic battle to the death.

Also this thread is a statistical black hole, because simplification began with Stormblood where also the rapid growth of the playerbase began.
So if you make a simple line graph, you could make it a function of x being straightforward gameplay and y being MAU and you would probably get a straight line going up.

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Originally Posted by Felis-Silvertis

But the OP is asking for increased complexity across the board. I think if they were asking for an optional increase (like split dungeons into "story mode" with trusts and slightly more tuned "normal mode" with players), I don't think anyone would have objected.
I do agree it would be nice to have dungeons where wall to wall isn't possible, or you actually have to use CC for real.. with corresponding XP/tomes increase for time invested.
I am personally not even against making gameplay slightly harder, just not convinced it is going to be better for the game long term.

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I don't know if you actually read the OPs post or you are posting on the wrong thread? They did not even mention anything about dungeons. Everything they said strictly related to job complexity and that pruning abilities is not a solution.

I think there is good pruning and bad pruning.

For example, the gunbreaker changes are really good since no abilities are removed and those on different buttons are simply condensed to one, which allow for players to play the job without extra button bloat.

However, the latest samurai changes where an iconic ability is removed is simply bad because it dilutes the flavor of the job and removes an essential part of its gameplay, without returning anything back.

Just did some test runs of Vigil and Brayflox and.. it is so sterile now. Anything that made the bosses there even remotely threatening is just gone. Am fairly certain I could afk as tank and the trust AI would keep me alive. Certain mobs were removed along paths too reducing pull size. Sadness, enjoyed seeing friends attempt the insane Vigil pulls the first time there and every blunder this caused. Gone now..

Baited aoes are gone from last boss. Second boss only does single buster, flatten has been removed, then stands around doing diddly between raid wide > buster > single easily dodge able mechanic. By the twelve these dungeons could put a Mia too sleep before but will absolutely dread rouletting into them now. May make macro to press buttons for me that I can push every so often and use that roulette to procure foods.

I think players in this thread need to remember that these are MSQ duties that have been adjusted and for good reasons - start as a new player (not a vet) and play DPS then find yourself stuck in queue after queue just to progress your storyline.

Harder content without the AI systems is there and continues to be added. This is all about keeping the new players progressing instead of dropping out because they cant face wasting time in another queue.

I am darn sure the devs would not have added it otherwise.