Take it easy on the Nerfing :/

All you talking about challenge and that SE did a "worring step".

It's a scenario fight, why care? I would be more worried if they had nerfed FCoB and not some main scenario fight.
All this doom and gloom about a trivial thing, you guys really love it that much to raise the flag when something trivial is nerfed?

I bet none of you did that damn fight more than once a day! You only want to argue about SE nerfing it, you don't eeven care about the fact that it made people stay stuck on their damn main quest.

Did any of you do Steps of Faith in a daily basis and explained the fight to the people you got puged with until you've completed the duty?
Did any of you here love that fight so much that you've went into duty finder to just go and do it for the fun it brought you?
Bet not even 3 in here did that.

That fight made people rage and not advance in their quests, why ? Because "people" can't cooperate correctly in duty finder.
The fight wasn't hard but the cooperation aspect of it was! And that's why SE nerfed SoF, not cauze it was hard but because people couldn't cooperate and beat the fight.

Se did the right thing to nerf it, if any of you want challenge go do FCoB, turn the echo off and/or go do 2nd CoB with 110ilvl Gear.
Already did all of the above ? Then wait for content and don't bit** about a main scenario fight!

Thank you!

The way some people talk about wanting simple content, it's almost like they don't want to play an mmo, rpg or just a game in general.

At the end of the day, people want shiny pixel armor and weapons to show their epeen to the world.
Savage is the proof of this.

"I want a challenge because I am cool!"
"Here, have this Savage T7"
"Butbut does it drop shinies"
"No."
"Then it does not count!"

Challenge should be its own reward.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niwashi

I would agree with this if the hardest content in the game were solo content. But like most (likely all) MMOs, the hardest content requires not just a skilled player, but a whole team of skilled players who are familiar with each other's gameplay.

Many players have real lives that don't allow for their gaming to follow the sort of regular predictable schedule that would make it possible to join a static group. No matter how skilled they are at the game, their job, and the specific content they're trying to complete, they can still only complete content that can be done by one skilled player and 7 other random unknown people that joined their PUG. The only content that's available to all paying players is content that's PUGable.

That leaves the only options as:

1) Make the hardest content in the game easy enough to do in a pick up group. Of course, this is going to anger any statics who want challenging group content.

2) Exclude most of their paying customers from any access to the content they're paying for.

3) Make sure all the rewards are available through easier content, and that the most challenging content simply provides somewhat faster access to them, along with the pride and enjoyment that comes from the challenge itself.

---

You know, it's not like people are FORCED to play this game. If someone does not meet the requirements to clear endgame, well, I am sorry, but that is how it is.

It is like whining I cannot be world champion in long jump because I do not have time to train, but I want to win the prize anyway.
At this point, why not removing gear and drops completely? Let's give every piece of gear, every title, and every mount to everyone, but hey, let's leave the hard encounters in the game. Everyone will be happy!

Everything is pretty much handed to you in this game now, Its been nerfed beyond nerfed....Too bad alot of these people didn't experience 1.0 there would be absolute chaos

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SirSaber

Se did the right thing to nerf it, if any of you want challenge go do FCoB, turn the echo off and/or go do 2nd CoB with 110ilvl Gear.
Already did all of the above ? Then wait for content and don't bit** about a main scenario fight!

---

So it's perfectly fine to cater to the exceptionally bad players (note: I said exceptionally bad players. Not casual players. Casual players are willing to listen and learn)? Also, people aren't asking Steps or any future main scenario fight to be Coil levels of hard. They just want it to feel like an actual fight that doesn't make us think "why the hell are people terrified of these things? They're wimps." It takes a lot of oomph out of the story.

Final Fantasy, as a whole, progressively got harder as you progressed in the story (yes, I'm including the single player games as well. Ya'll remember CPU from FFIV?). In FFXIV, the game get's progressively easier as you go through it. Trial fights have maybe one or two mechanics that can mostly go ignored and the dungeons tied to the story are unfortunately very easy, with bosses usually only having ONE mechanic (Yeti being the exception, though. That was a neat mechanic).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Remilia_Nightfall

At the end of the day, people want shiny pixel armor and weapons to show their epeen to the world.
Savage is the proof of this.

"I want a challenge because I am cool!"
"Here, have this Savage T7"
"Butbut does it drop shinies"
"No."
"Then it does not count!"

Challenge should be its own reward.

---

This makes me very curious about English servers, because on Carbuncle I regularly see Savage groups in party finder.

I would love to see better difficulty=reward. It's a done to death argument but I still feel that things like i130 should have stayed coil-exclusive until the next tier was unlocked (not freebies by hunts/towers) so that the logical progression would be dungouns (4-man) = 110 + poetic 120; tower = 120, and FCOB = 130.

Hell, I'd love to see some raid difficulty level 4 man content that rewards i120/130. Master level dungouns with real mechanics and rewards? Yes, please!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Neuflune

This makes me very curious about English servers, because on Carbuncle I regularly see Savage groups in party finder.

---

I am sure that there are servers where this happens.

But it is definitely not the norm, at least on English ones.

"Muh difficulty! Muh prestige! Muh content I don't even do anymore but I want to stay hard so others cant catch up to me!" - This thread, 2015

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sartori

Everything is pretty much handed to you in this game now, Its been nerfed beyond nerfed....Too bad alot of these people didn't experience 1.0 there would be absolute chaos

---

Being completely honest, i was too busy with FFXI still to have given two figs about FFXIV when it was first released.

Excuse my ignorance though, but didn't 1.0 flop-hard? Also, were not many of the things i've seen ppl in this and other recent threads rail at Mr. P and company about(in particular 1)the devs actually retuning content rather quickly in stark contrast to the FFXI team that let content lay fallow for years before considering adjustments and 2)retuning to allow for as many subscribers to experience content as possible), the very types of things that turned the FFXIV ship around after its initial failure?

Your post made me wonder. I'm no expert at this game, only been playing going on a year after all. Just wondering.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eidolon

I would love to see better difficulty=reward. It's a done to death argument but I still feel that things like i130 should have stayed coil-exclusive until the next tier was unlocked (not freebies by hunts/towers) so that the logical progression would be dungouns (4-man) = 110 + poetic 120; tower = 120, and FCOB = 130.

Hell, I'd love to see some raid difficulty level 4 man content that rewards i120/130. Master level dungouns with real mechanics and rewards? Yes, please!

---

Liked and agree 100%.

Content like Assault and Salvage from FFXI. Completely optional and almost punishing at times and rewards that were completely balanced for the amount of effort. And the best bit of course that it was 4 man content.

Again, love the idea.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Neuflune

This makes me very curious about English servers, because on Carbuncle I regularly see Savage groups in party finder.

---

For T7 Savage though? T7 Savage is supposedly the hardest Turn due to how absolutely unforgiving it is and how perfect everyone needs to be.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eidolon

I would love to see better difficulty=reward. It's a done to death argument but I still feel that things like i130 should have stayed coil-exclusive until the next tier was unlocked (not freebies by hunts/towers) so that the logical progression would be dungouns (4-man) = 110 + poetic 120; tower = 120, and FCOB = 130.

Hell, I'd love to see some raid difficulty level 4 man content that rewards i120/130. Master level dungouns with real mechanics and rewards? Yes, please!

---

I like all of it, but the only thing I don't know about is having coils be the only i130 gear. There are already cases where people are choosing lower ilvl gear because they just have better stats. If they go a linear route where Coils, or whatever top raid at the time has the best of the best, the stats need to actually be good for the class the piece is suppose to be for. (Looking at you Spellspeed for Summoners, and Parry for Warriors)

What I feel they really need to do is stop with the linear progression, and add a second raid. 1 raid could drop 1 statted set, the other raid could drop the other statted set, and people can mix them however they like. (Ex. FCOB drops Dread gear, some other hard 8 man on scale with FCOB drops i130 Ironworks gear, and then there is just a different set in general for tomestones that are 10 - 15 ilvl's lower) Give people more to do overall, still lets them mix and match, and doesn't immediately put a piece of someones gear to 'best in slot' just because they ran a few dungeons for a week and bought a piece of armor from an NPC.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nestama

For T7 Savage though? T7 Savage is supposedly the hardest Turn due to how absolutely unforgiving it is and how perfect everyone needs to be.

---

No idea because the Party Finder does not display the Turn number (it cuts off at Sava...). Server just got back up and there's already a Savage group at party finder though.

You have to consider that we're talking about content that all players have to clear simply to progress the main story line. So that includes 'players' who are reasonably inept at gaming.

I feel the population of this game that enjoys challenging content and doesn't complain does need to start being more vocal. There needs to be people letting we know that there is people who enjoy the tougher content and oppose all this I want it now with no effort attitude that is being expressed on the forums every day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by matt8107t

I feel the population of this game that enjoys challenging content and doesn't complain does need to start being more vocal. There needs to be people letting we know that there is people who enjoy the tougher content and oppose all this I want it now with no effort attitude that is being expressed on the forums every day.

---

Why? There is already savage content in the works. Walling people off from experiencing whole parts of the game forever is foolish and will lead to people(not just the ones you don't like) quitting or simply ignoring the content, which leads to low clear/participation rates, and basically the devs putting their hard work for only a handful of people while the rest stagnate on the game and get bored, tweleve help you then if the devs decide on making that same hard content necessary for even more stuff sans adjustments.

What you are asking for, requires either a more comprehensive change than you might think. If "learning" becomes "imposing", It will be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ablongman

What is key, in my opinion, is that the power-as-reward method is problematic and should be abolished entirely from progression content.

---

Removing the power-as-reward method would remove the motivation for at least some subset of what's already a small portion of the population.

Raid instances generally get an unbalanced proportion of development time (compared to the number of people participating in it), which is why we're getting two difficulties for Alexander. SE want more people participating in that kind of content, not fewer.

Of course, you can justify having extremely niche content (challenge, with no power rewards) with things like Savage SCoB, since that means you don't have to develop a lot of new assets, but then people just complain about it being "recycled content" instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niwashi

That leaves the only options as:

1) Make the hardest content in the game easy enough to do in a pick up group. Of course, this is going to anger any statics who want challenging group content.

2) Exclude most of their paying customers from any access to the content they're paying for.

3) Make sure all the rewards are available through easier content, and that the most challenging content simply provides somewhat faster access to them, along with the pride and enjoyment that comes from the challenge itself.

---

I wouldn't say they're the only options. Just to come up with some completely random things totally off the top of my head:

4) Introduce the content at a high level of difficulty, directed at organized groups, and start incrementally decreasing the difficulty after it's been available for some amount of time, or when new content is added.

5) Provide comparable (rather than identical) rewards that can be obtained through easier content.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by matt8107t

I feel the population of this game that enjoys challenging content and doesn't complain does need to start being more vocal. There needs to be people letting we know that there is people who enjoy the tougher content and oppose all this I want it now with no effort attitude that is being expressed on the forums every day.

---

I suspect that the population of the game that enjoys tougher, challenging content is already proportionally more vocal than those that either don't enjoy it or don't care.

It's just that the second group is several times the size of the first, so even with a smaller portion being vocal, they still have more total voices.

Thankfully, in the future SE is going to split everything giving the people who want ez mode their free clear, and people who want meaningful content their's.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ditto

"Muh difficulty! Muh prestige! Muh content I don't even do anymore but I want to stay hard so others cant catch up to me!" - This thread, 2015

---

Yes, SoF was ultimate end game difficulty. It was literally the hardest thing ever created, and there was no way to catch up to people who being "gods among men", surpassed such an instance.

lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

Thankfully, in the future SE is going to split everything giving the people who want ez mode their free clear, and people who want meaningful content their's.

---

Which is the best step they have taken so far in this whole matter. I don't want to be thankful before seeing the Alexander, but it might work well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

Thankfully, in the future SE is going to split everything giving the people who want ez mode their free clear, and people who want meaningful content their's.

---

Making story content accessible to people who only have an hour a day to play is just smart business. The idea made Blizzard billions of dollars and the largest mmo in history.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

Thankfully, in the future SE is going to split everything giving the people who want ez mode their free clear, and people who want meaningful content their's.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

Which is the best step they have taken so far in this whole matter. I don't want to be thankful before seeing the Alexander, but it might work well.

---

As an aspiring raider this too makes me happy. I just need to make sure that I can get through it before there's a chance for nerfs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tuathaa

Making story content accessible to people who only have an hour a day to play is just smart business. The idea made Blizzard billions of dollars and the largest mmo in history.

---

Uhh.....

uhhhhh....


Did you... play Vanilla WoW? Molten Core? Black Wing Lair? AQ40? NAXX???????

While the structure of WoW at the time was more "open" (wasn't a concrete path), the story line and progression path put you through there. Those raids required 40 people, and skill far greater than what SoF was (and a lot of the coils even). There were attunement quests that required anything from clearing raids, long difficult (at the time) quests (Onyxia), or spending a fortune/grinding a faction (Naxx). Dungeons themselves were far more difficult than (speed run this in 10min and aoe forever), which could last from 45m to 1.5h to half a day with BRD (might be exaggerating but damn was that a huge awesome dungeon).

Outside of dungeons which had a easy/hard mode (even then it was more just level 60/level 70), Burning Crusade followed the same path but dropped the raid size to 20 (or was it 25?).

Guess where those subscriptions came from? Oh that's right, during Vanilla and TBC. What happened when they made the game a giant easy mode "casual" game? Oh that's right, they've been losing subscribers ever since.

https://tagn.files.wordpress.com/201...ughjan2015.png

Funny thing about WoD. They hyped it as being more in line with Vanilla and TBC, and look at that jump in subscriptions! Too bad it turned out to be a flop, which I heard was because they took the MMO out of MMORPG and shoving people into instanced garrisons... where players got to play a Facebook game. They've now dropped to 7.1mil losing 3 million subscribers in 3 months. At least they got a SELFIE CAM!

So, tell me, where is this "smart business" you speak of? People keep talking about "oh look at WoW", but if SE ever adopted anything from when WoW was gaining subs, the forums would implode with the gnashing of teeth. I can just imagine all the complainers that something like BRD or UBRS would be "too hard" or "too long" for a dungeon.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

Uhh.....

uhhhhh....


Did you... play Vanilla WoW? Molten Core? Black Wing Lair? AQ40? NAXX???????

---

Yes I did. Guess what in no way did you or were you required to do those raids to progress from one xpac to the other.
Wows highest subs ever were from wotlk and that had to do with making raiding accessible by everyone.
Currently their decline is do to bad decisions such as integrating twitter instead of fixing game breaking bugs and they thought and still think strongholds are fun
If they made AQ 40 a requirment to enter TBC the game would have died right there. Or Sunwell to enter WoTLK it would have ended also.

I don't understand peoples time restraints if you can't put time into an MMO get a single player or co-op game then.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

...

---

Yet there was the greatest increase toward (as well as maintaining during) WotLK where raids (as well as dungeons, and gearing for said raids) were much more accessible.

Even staying at that amount of subs is pretty damn impressive if you can get people to stick in a game where content patches (with very little QoL/mini patches inbetween) are months in between.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tuathaa

Yes I did. Guess what in no way did you or were you required to do those raids to progress from one xpac to the other.
Wows highest subs ever were from wotlk and that had to do with making raiding accessible by everyone.
Currently their decline is do to bad decisions such as integrating twitter instead of fixing game breaking bugs and they thought and still think strongholds are fun
If they made AQ 40 a requirment to enter TBC the game would have died right there. Or Sunwell to enter WoTLK it would have ended also.

---

You mean when their subscription plateaued right? The line becomes literally horizontal for most of the existence of WoTLK until the end. They got a small bump due to Cataclysm hype (as every expansion does) but hype isn't going to power your game. There was a turning point during that expansion which led to the following decline, further increasing the drop as more bad design was introduced (making the hyper theme park instead of a more open world). Also, no one is asking for a AQ40 style raid to gate you to the next expansion, where did you get that? I brought up SoF because it's the storyline of ARR, (as was all the raids the storyline of Vanilla), not because it was required to get into Ishguard. This thread is about nerfs in general rather than just SoF.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Yet there was the greatest increase toward (as well as maintaining during) WotLK where raids (as well as dungeons, and gearing for said raids) were much more accessible.

---

As I said above, look at every expansion release and you see a bump in subs. If WotLK making raids "accessible" did that, you'd see an increase a year and a half later, not at the tail end of the expansion when Cata is being promoted.

Also we are talking about a short increase of subs (a few hundred thousand for only a few months) for the loss of millions later. Yeah, I think the term is "short term gains".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

..
.

---

There's only so many people that are interested in MMOs. Granted I'm pulling facts out of my ass here but thats how I see it and that was definitely the case for me; If there was a spike upwards for an expansion, chances are those are returning players and not new subs. And technically, TBC had already made steps to accessible raids by lowering the instance size to 25, and introducing currency for gear (which acts in place of doing older instances to get said gear).

Question though, what is the relevance of bringing up WoW's 40 man raids? You brought it up, but at the same time you're saying "no one is asking for it" and I really don't see how it's related to the topic (nerfing main scenario)

If it was really that short term, it would've dropped during WotLK. I played during catacylsm, and some of the issues I can personally attest to is the lack of meaningful end game outside of raids and (to me) overall aesthetics. Heroics when we capped were also more difficult than the WotLK heroics. Catacylsm arguably had less content compared to the likes of WotLK and TBC for players who were previously cappd because it focused mostly on redoing the old world (level 1-60).

Same with MoP, except add in the removal of daily quests limit and alot of players suffered from extreme burnout trying to cap everything.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Barimu

I don't understand peoples time restraints if you can't put time into an MMO get a single player or co-op game then.

---

Actually there wouldn't be a problem with playing MMO while time restrained.
The problem starts when people who play 10 hours a week expect the same outcome as people who play 50 hours a week.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

There's only so many people that are interested in MMOs. Granted I'm pulling facts out of my ass here but thats how I see it and that was definitely the case for me; If there was a spike upwards for an expansion, chances are those are returning players and not new subs. And technically, TBC had already made steps to accessible raids by lowering the instance size to 25, and introducing currency for gear (which acts in place of doing older instances to get said gear).

Question though, what is the relevance of bringing up WoW's 40 man raids? You brought it up, but at the same time you're saying "no one is asking for it" and I really don't see how it's related to the topic (nerfing main scenario)

---

The relevance is comparing the difficulty of content back when WoW was gaining subs, vs when they stopped gaining and started losing subs. People keep saying "make it easier, look WoW has a millions of subscribers", but they ignore (or just don't know) the fact in the early days WoW was hard, and the recent (well, with WoW's age, more like half a decade ago) trend everyone is comparing to was when they were in fact losing subscriptions. You can't point at WoW's millions and say it has these numbers because the game was a casual themepark, when the whole time it was in that era, subs dropped. You have to look at where subs were gained, and that was in a time when WoW was way more sandboxy, and had difficult but rewarding content. One last thing, I'm not using difficult here just for raid type content. Dungeons don't have to be T9. However even dungeons have turned into brainless activities that more act as a timer to your 75 soldiery bonus rather than something to work together to clear and beat. Compare that to WoW's old dungeons, which required CCing, watching patrolling monsters, and maneuvering around mob groups.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

Actually there wouldn't be a problem with playing MMO while time restrained.
The problem starts when people who play 10 hours a week expect the same outcome as people who play 50 hours a week.

---

I had actually typed up a massive post, then deleted it because I got lost on my point (lol), but that is one of the things I mentioned.

People need to have reasonable expectations of what they can accomplish in game based on the amount of time they are able to spend.

I personally do not do coil, at all. I work full time, and have a husband & toddler who eat up a good chunk of my time, and so it's just never worked out for me. I am 100% OK with that, but I still enjoy the things I have been able to do in game.

I think a big issue with this thread (and the others) is that a lot of people are unfairly labeling all "casual" players as being unskilled, lazy, and just wanting things handed to them on a silver platter, and that's just not true. I am assuming a lot of people will label me a casual since I don't do Coil, and that's fine. But as a casual player, I have almost all jobs & DoH/L at 50, I keep my main jobs fairly-well geared (playing a bit of catch-up now after an 8+ month break), and I do actually care about my performance for the fights that I am able to partake in. Despite what some people think, plenty of "casual" players do actually have quite a bit of skill.

Once people can stop claiming all casuals behave the same and only try to take the easy way out, perhaps the conversation on nerfs can actually become something worthwhile.

Pretty much strejda with the time restraints thing. Although I'm sure once Alexander comes out someone will complain about the hardest tier being too hard or "overtuned" and want it nerfed...

Oh and Skivvy, we'll do that when you concede the fact that all the jerks running around in DF with Dreadwyrm gear don't represent all of us "elitists" as you guys like to call us.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aureyo

Pretty much strejda with the time restraints thing. Although I'm sure once Alexander comes out someone will complain about the hardest tier being too hard or "overtuned" and want it nerfed...

Oh and Skivvy, we'll do that when you concede the fact that all the jerks running around in DF with Dreadwyrm gear don't represent all of us "elitists" as you guys like to call us.

---

See, the issue is you are buying into stereotypes. That's never a good way to think, and definitely does not help a conversation.

I have never called a person an elitist due to their skill or how well-geared they are. An elitist is a prat who thinks they're better than everyone else, and will proceed to berate those they deem unfit. Very different things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

...

---

I agree that the dungeons they keep adding on are faceroll, but that's usually not because of their design, but because of the fact we overgear it by the time it actually does come out. I mean if you actually did current expert dungeons in mythology gear with a zenith, it'd definitely be less of a breeze than doing it in full ironworks (augmented or not). But by the time that it did came out, we've already gotten a few pieces, if not an entire set, of unaugmented poetics and a Zodiac (125) to boot.

If we're looking at subs gained, it was during vanillia, sky rocketed during TBC, and maintenance during WotLK. As far as a subscription is concerned, maintaining is still pretty solid because you're keeping players (and the fact it didn't rise too much for catacylsm meaning players who were interested in the hype were already still playing WoW for WotLK). Catacylsm and esp MoP losing subs were more than just difficulty (because I can attest to cata heroics being much harder than wotlk heroics).

TBC and especially WotLK were in that "casual era". Extremes of both is bad. Vanilla was new, but it wasn't appealing to a lot of players because of how exclusive it was (just look at wildstar and their end game, it's more-or-less the same as vanllia with the player requirement and attunements). MoP had raid finder for end game instances, but I ended up being burned out anyway before they released the final wing on LFR and before finishing my legendary questline.

And now the problem with SoF? Some people have already mentioned it, it just seems like an unusually jump from other main scenario fights. The fight is already pretty demanding when we went in with 6 people (three whom are dps) who are in T13 progression. You'd need nigh perfect execution if the party was actually ilvl 90 or close (which would actually be the case for new players or people who are joining after 3.0 release)

And honestly, SoF should really feel like an exception to all this. It's not just any content, its content that's gating an entire expansion. I don't mind that main scenario or current dungeons be hard (infact I'd like it to an extension), but it's a really really shoddy time to start doing so in the context of MS always been stupidly faceroll (even in relevant level gear, i'm looking at you, levi HM) and the requirement for 3.0.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by StrejdaTom

Actually there wouldn't be a problem with playing MMO while time restrained.
The problem starts when people who play 10 hours a week expect the same outcome as people who play 50 hours a week.

---

It's more a matter of expecting that someone who plays 10 hours a week should be able to reach the same point in 5 weeks that someone who plays 50 hours a week will get to in 1. But this is where the issue of having content start hard and be nerfed later kicks in, though. It relies on everyone who wants the challenging version being among the ones who have the time to get there first. Time and playstyle preferences don't match up that way.

If, on the other hand, they create both hard and easier versions and maintain both of them, regardless of whether players get to it the day it's released or a couple years later, then it's the players themselves getting to choose how they want to pursue that content. In terms of what's being developed, and even what needs to be done to earn the content's rewards, it's no different from the hard version early, nerfed version later pattern, except for disentangling that pattern from the timing of when the content is available.

I have high hopes for Alexander. At least it sounds as though it's going to be following the right pattern. I just hope it's done well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

I agree that the dungeons they keep adding on are faceroll, but that's usually not because of their design, but because of the fact we overgear it by the time it actually does come out. I mean if you actually did current expert dungeons in mythology gear with a zenith, it'd definitely be less of a breeze than doing it in full ironworks (augmented or not). But by the time that it did came out, we've already gotten a few pieces, if not an entire set, of unaugmented poetics and a Zodiac (125) to boot.

---

Even back in 2.0 content was speedrunned when we were in Darklight. Dungeon releases are always one patch behind in terms of gear level, so they can never be remotely difficult to a up to date player.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

If we're looking at subs gained, it was during vanillia, sky rocketed during TBC, and maintenance during WotLK. As far as a subscription is concerned, maintaining is still pretty solid because you're keeping players (and the fact it didn't rise too much for catacylsm meaning players who were interested in the hype were already still playing WoW for WotLK). Catacylsm and esp MoP losing subs were more than just difficulty (because I can attest to cata heroics being much harder than wotlk heroics).

TBC and especially WotLK were in that "casual era". Extremes of both is bad. Vanilla was new, but it wasn't appealing to a lot of players because of how exclusive it was (just look at wildstar and their end game, it's more-or-less the same as vanllia with the player requirement and attunements). MoP had raid finder for end game instances, but I ended up being burned out anyway before they released the final wing on LFR and before finishing my legendary questline.

---

I don't see how TBC was in "the casual era". Maybe once Sunwell dropped (which did away with attunements and the like), but Black Temple and before were not considered easy instances which still had to be attuned to. Also these things don't happen overnight. I remember in TBC people complaining about the direction the game was going back then when Sunwell dropped.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

And now the problem with SoF? Some people have already mentioned it, it just seems like an unusually jump from other main scenario fights. The fight is already pretty demanding when we went in with 6 people (three whom are dps) who are in T13 progression. You'd need nigh perfect execution if the party was actually ilvl 90 or close (which would actually be the case for new players or people who are joining after 3.0 release)

And honestly, SoF should really feel like an exception to all this. It's not just any content, its content that's gating an entire expansion. I don't mind that main scenario or current dungeons be hard (infact I'd like it to an extension), but it's a really really shoddy time to start doing so in the context of MS always been stupidly faceroll (even in relevant level gear, i'm looking at you, levi HM) and the requirement for 3.0.

---

The problem is that the main scenario has dug itself so deep with lack of difficulty that anything even remotely difficult now is considered "a jump". The mechanics of SoF are not hard. Someone shoots the cannons, someone shoots the Dragon Killer, use snares after the first DK. The rest is just kill adds and keeping DPS up on the boss. It even uses monsters and mechanics already taught to you in Stone Vigil, while having an NPC tell you what to do. SE designed it to teach players as they went along. Previous encounters have been so brain dead that you didn't have to think or communicate. So when just assigning people to roles is added in, it's all of a sudden this "difficult" instance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

...

---

Even with sunwell being out, their subscriptions still rised over time (sunwell being introduced Mid 2008 and numbers still rising from that point). and kept rising into WotLK. If people were complaining about that, then either they raked in a lot more subscribers than they lost, had a very weak conviction (playing regardless of disliking the change), or changed their minds about it after playing it for a bit.

Difficulty (something being hard or not) is subjective; That's why I didn't even mention "difficulty" when it came to SoF. Sure you have an NPC teling you what to do, the same NPC told me that my auto attacks would succeed us very little against Vishap (when you actually needed to deal about 50% or more of his hp assuming you hit him with all the DKs and the barrels). And go back to my previous post, maybe they should start doing that sort of main scenario fight then, but doing it at the end of the game and making it required for 3.0 is still a pretty bad move as far as trying to scale up the difficulty is concerned. The point remains that there was really no ramp up of communication required in the main scenario fights, and the end result is something so different that you'd realistically could not expect your typical DF to succeed (much like T5 and T9).

People, keep saying it's not hard, and I'd agree it's not as difficult or can be done easily, but only because I moved in with 6 other people who I can trust. Even basic communication aside, you can get players who refuse to talk, don't listen, or outright troll. PFing varies from servers, I never see a PF fill up on my server and they end up DFing the last 2-4 slots. Combine that with having one or two players in SoF being deficent can give you a hell of a time. I personally have no incentive to do the fight again unless its my trial roulette (and I don't even need soldieries so thats moot), and some people on my realm won't even bother helping unless they're selling it as a run.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

Uhh.....

uhhhhh....


Did you... play Vanilla WoW? Molten Core? Black Wing Lair? AQ40? NAXX???????

*chart n stuff*

---

*Raises hand*

I was a big WC3 fan. My WC3 lan party friends got me to play Classic WoW. TBH most of us stopped caring about WoW after we killed Arthas in ICC. None of us gave a care about Deathwing Who and kung-fu pandas. We're not alone.

WoW fell in the toilet for many reasons, not just the casualization (this a word?) of content. They do have hard mode dungeons and raids for the few willing to actually do them, just like here though players choose to ignore the hardmodes and then complain about how easy everything is. Leveling and questing was nerfed into afk auto-attack mode when WotLK released.

I have no doubt that Yoshi-P knows this. He's a gamer, he played WoW and other MMOs. For me he has so far shown through his own game that he knows many of the things that worked well for Blizzard et.al. and many of the things that didn't, and tied it to a FF world. He's also a businessman that knows he shouldn't be gating players in old content if he wants to sell his new content.

They nerfed one trial in story mode of a game that offers plenty of content for hardcore, mediumcore, and casual players, one month before the expansion because players would not stick around to maintain a full party. This does not mean the entirety of FFXIV is now being catered to bad players, casuals, monkeys on a typewriter, or whatever the dramaqueens claim about the sky falling. It means he wants the abandoned souls to finish the required story for Heavensward. That’s it. It’s not like he nerfed everything at the end of the xpack ala Blizzard, or we’d all be 3manning Coil while the rest of the raid is afk. I remember what a joke Arthas became at the end xd

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Snip

---

The reason people are not help with SoF in trials is not due to failure. You can still fail on Titan or w.e. The reason is a lack of instance reset which drags unwinnable fights longer than needed. That was all that was needed to "fix" SoF.


You mention there was no "ramp up", but you need to start somewhere. This was the easiest way to introduce communication... roles assigned at the start, and everyone then works in their separate silos. The DK doesn't have to care what the cannoneers are doing. The snares don't have to care what the DK is doing. After roles are applied, as long as you do yours, you are good to go.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mythrella

*Raises hand*

I was a big WC3 fan. My WC3 lan party friends got me to play Classic WoW. TBH most of us stopped caring about WoW after we killed Arthas in ICC. None of us gave a care about Deathwing Who and kung-fu pandas. We're not alone.

WoW fell in the toilet for many reasons, not just the casualization (this a word?) of content. They do have hard mode dungeons and raids for the few willing to actually do them, just like here though players choose to ignore the hardmodes and then complain about how easy everything is. Leveling and questing was nerfed into afk auto-attack mode when WotLK released.

I have no doubt that Yoshi-P knows this. He's a gamer, he played WoW and other MMOs. For me he has so far shown through his own game that he knows many of the things that worked well for Blizzard et.al. and many of the things that didn't, and tied it to a FF world. He's also a businessman that knows he shouldn't be gating players in old content if he wants to sell his new content.

They nerfed one trial in story mode of a game that offers plenty of content for hardcore, mediumcore, and casual players, one month before the expansion because players would not stick around to maintain a full party. This does not mean the entirety of FFXIV is now being catered to bad players, casuals, monkeys on a typewriter, or whatever the dramaqueens claim about the sky falling. It means he wants the abandoned souls to finish the required story for Heavensward. That’s it. It’s not like he nerfed everything at the end of the xpack ala Blizzard, or we’d all be 3manning Coil while the rest of the raid is afk. I remember what a joke Arthas became at the end xd

---

I was mainly attributing it to difficulty due to the original topic being about content difficulty, but that was a piece of the large puzzle. A lot of bad decisions were made, in general changing WoW from the classic MMO it was (a virtual world to interact in and adventure) into a content delivery system. No longer did you run around the open world, you instantly teleport here and there, flying over any challenge to your destination. Difficulty was another thing that took a hit in the name of delivering as much content as possible. I touched on this when I mentioned vanilla was sandboxy while later ones became themepark. Anyway, that is another topic for whenever another "expand the openworld post appears". Also you mention a single trial, though that isn't the case. Coil was designated for raiders and placed in the "hardcore" category, yet saw huge nerfs in mechanics. T6 can be utterly ignore, T7 had all it's teeth pulled, etc. So I wonder, with the normal/savage Alexander split, will we see nerfs to Savage?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Magis

...

---

Yet the fails are going to happen anyway even if there was a reset button, and people are going to quit anyway. It's half and half, one just exasperates the problem more than it is. And as simple as communication is, you're still going to get those individuals that either don't listen or have the intent to troll, and having just two of those is enough to drag the entire party down. It's not as a straight forward as "no one wants to listen, ever", which people seem to be making out when they're against nerfs or people who wants nerfs. MAybe there's place this sort of thing in coil, but not main scenario (which again, is gating the expansion)

Right, and I still disagree that putting it in a way where it's gating an entire expansion would be the "wrong time to ramp it up". Maybe the very first main scenario fight in 3.0 perhaps?