Ultimate hiatus feedback

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

And my whole point here is that I believe content like Eureka suffered because of effort poured into making more content for the 1%.

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Eureka objectively took much more resources than Ultimate and is considered casual content (whether or not it managed to do that is another debate I don't mean to go into). Even beginning to compare the amount of resources needed to make Ultimate vs. what it took to make Eureka is an insult to the development process. Eureka required designing of a HUGE new mode, all the cinematics and quests, a billion enemies, NMs, achievements, much more gearsets and weapons, about a dozen NPCs that needed to be put all over the place, and that in turn also means a lot more things that need to be tuned and maintained...
Development is a zero sum game. Every piece of content developed means something else was either pushed back or cancelled outright. But if you think Ultimate is the main offender in why we're been getting less content across the board, you're very likely mistaken.

eh the resources on ultimate involve balancing and fine tuning fights, where eureka is more in zone design and systems. The side benefit of eureka is that its development time may benefit other things in the future; just being able to /tell in an instance for example. Being able to have data center-wide instances capable of tells, recruiting party members, and changing jobs. Real-time mob transformation (all bosses generally use phase transitions).

You may not like it as a game aspect, but the technical aspect tends to justify the resources because it gives flexibility for the future.

Ultimate's issue imo is that SE probably looked at the first one and saw barely anyone beat it in six months, and decided not to add a third. If it is inexpensive to develop, if anything theyd want to push it out; its probably just too hard or too unused by the intended audience.

Aren't we like 3 months too late to demand a 3rd fight...? 4.4 is just around the door. Don't try to give devs a heartbreak by suddenly giving them an unanticipated project that needs to be finished and tested asap.

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Originally Posted by Vriel

Aren't we like 3 months too late to demand a 3rd fight...? 4.4 is just around the door. Don't try to give devs a heartbreak by suddenly giving them an unanticipated project that needs to be finished and tested asap.

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Have you checked OP's post date?

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There is definitively far less effort put into Savage than in the past.

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I don't think the fact they took trash out of savage is attributable to them putting in "less effort", but rather they realized that most people don't actually care about the trash and it added nothing significant to what is essentially supposed to be a boss fight.

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Are you really meaning to tell me that them working on Ultimate took so much time and effort that it spoiled their 18 month project of Eureka?

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I think it's a contributor, yeah. But I don't feel it impacted just Eureka; there is a marked decline in the amount of all the casual content we've gotten. It started in HW and has proceeded to get worse in SB. Instead of addressing that, we're instead getting these "ultimate" fights that barely anyone in the playerbase can even do. Again, tell me, what other conclusion should I draw from this?

It's not just the trash. It's the spectacle. Raiding is now just glorified trials (hell, Ultimate is a glorified trial too.)

Maybe look at what else has been going on since HW: PotD and Diadem styled content. Both of which take them much longer to make, and much longer to balance, and much more effort to manage. Both of which break their usual content cycle up a lot. You're trying to isolate hardcore content as the issue, but 5 fights every 6 months does not cost them entire dungeons, especially when 4 fights every 6 months has been the usual since A Realm Reborn as far as hardcore goes.

I think they limited it this time to see the feedback. Now that they know it's positive and has a positive effect on the game. They can plan for the next expansion to have several throughout

No Ultimate but we may have greater chance to have a (very) hard tier this time (considering the boss listed in the leak...).

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

No Ultimate but we may have greater chance to have a (very) hard tier this time (considering the boss listed in the leak...).

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If said leak is accurate. But I don't think the difficulty will increase; the developers said Savage would stay the same difficulty, and Sigmascape wasn't really any harder than Deltascape. I doubt we'll go back to the preferred Midas levels of Savage. At most, it will be Creator difficulty.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

If said leak is accurate. But I don't think the difficulty will increase; the developers said Savage would stay the same difficulty, and Sigmascape wasn't really any harder than Deltascape. I doubt we'll go back to the preferred Midas levels of Savage. At most, it will be Creator difficulty.

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All these secrets boss have like as much importance as Exdeath or Kefka, in my opinion.
It would be outrageous to put them at 1st (O1S, O5S) or 2nd (O2S, O6S) level difficulty.

I don't raid Ultimate or Savage content but I fully support giving the serious raiders something more to chew on rather than limited it to two fights per expansion.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

All these secrets boss have like as much importance as Exdeath or Kefka, in my opinion.
It would be outrageous to put them at 1st (O1S, O5S) or 2nd (O2S, O6S) level difficulty.

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Not all of them can be Kefka level. At least two of them will be about the difficulty of Phantom Train for entry.
Putting anything at the difficulty level of Alte Rolte is an insult. He’s not even Savage-level difficulty.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

I can't really get behind this idea unless I avoided getting the feeling that savage/ultimate/whatever content development was contributing to a lack of content and development with the rest of the game.

Unfortunately, that's exactly the feeling I've been getting now in Stormblood.

I personally can't feel excited about content for the <1% (a group I'm certainly not part of) while the rest of the >99% are (imo) paying the price for it.

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Considering the devs design Savage first then remove mechanics deemed too difficult and tweak numbers for the normal mode equivalent, it has very little impact on the content drought. As for Ultimate, the most expense aspect of development is typically art design and modeling hence why Ultimate reuses everything. The devs have outright said, the only reason they've even implemented Ultimate difficulty is because it's cost effective. At most, Ultimate cost the lost dungeon alongside other content like Eureka. While you may see it as wasted, FFXIV viewership on Twitch was the highest its ever been throughout Ultimate prog. That alone likely paid dividends.

Regardless, you're going to have an uphill battle trying to argue Pagos would be better designed if Ultimate didn't exist. Nothing stopped them from putting in quests, leves, hunting logs or other activities. They simply chose not to because they wanted to recreate an old school feel. Pagos is bad due to their own poorly thought out design philosophy. Don't blame Ultimate for Eureka's failures.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

All these secrets boss have like as much importance as Exdeath or Kefka, in my opinion.
It would be outrageous to put them at 1st (O1S, O5S) or 2nd (O2S, O6S) level difficulty.

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Yiazmat is a secret super boss from FFXII and he got slotted in as a 24 man boss that you can zerg down. Super bosses aren't on the same level as iconic bosses like Kefka or Sephiroth.

Not to be a downer, but Ultimate doesn’t actually get enough engagement, in game, to warrant taking dev time away from other content. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I swear the excuse for less mid and casual content was due to Ultimate. That’s why we’re in this Pagos situation now and even casual players want to unsub.

Oh also, how exactly does Twitch viewers benefit S-E more than actual subs? Sounds to me people who stream on Twitch just don’t want to lose viewers and subs.

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Originally Posted by Conando

Oh also, how exactly does Twitch viewers benefit S-E more than actual subs? Sounds to me people who stream on Twitch just don’t want to lose viewers and subs.

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I believe the last few pages goes over how there are different teams for different content.

Also with the gaming community now, if the game looks fun on twitch then people will buy/sub which helps S.E

An example of this is with Bless, a lot of people said they would never touch Bless before the release, sodapoppin bought it and streamed it and then a lot of his community bought the game as well. Even though most of em refunded the game lol

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Originally Posted by OurMom

I believe the last few pages goes over how there are different teams for different content.

Also with the gaming community now, if the game looks fun on twitch then people will buy/sub which helps S.E

An example of this is with Bless, a lot of people said they would never touch Bless before the release, sodapoppin bought it and streamed it and then a lot of his community bought the game as well. Even though most of em refunded the game lol

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If that were the case, subs would be going up. Currently there’s nothing to suggest that. More likely, the people watching Ultimate are current players, or recent ones, who do not want to do Ultimate but want to see it. Just be honest about liking having an audience, and doing the content, rather than saying wasting money on stuff practically no one plays will get more people to buy the game. And they already outright said dungeon and story content was being cut for niche content like Ultimate.

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Originally Posted by Conando

If that were the case, subs would be going up.

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We don't have any official status of what's going on with subs one way or another.

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Just be honest about liking having an audience

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I don't stream nor do I run ultimate....

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And they already outright said dungeon and story content was being cut for niche content like Ultimate.

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When and where did they say this?

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Originally Posted by Conando

And they already outright said dungeon and story content was being cut for niche content like Ultimate.

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If anything, they made it sound like content was being cut for more diverse and engaging story content like the Lakshmi trial in 4.1, the Soroban trial, and more recently the "roleplay" instance. Which doesn't make sense since I doubt those things took that much resources, but at the time, iirc, that's the context they presented dungeon cuts in.
Now, don't get me wrong, I liked those instances a lot, but given they're one hit wonders since we can't run them again, whereas Ultimate has 1. replay value, 2. entertainment value for audiences, which is really the waste here?

They should unlock it for us peasant casuals. Maybe in 5.0.

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Originally Posted by LalafellDown

They should unlock it for us peasant casuals. Maybe in 5.0.

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Or earlier, tbh. After this raid tier, that's it for a year almost. I support taking the savage clear requirement out.

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Originally Posted by Rockette

Or earlier, tbh. After this raid tier, that's it for a year almost. I support taking the savage clear requirement out.

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But if you can't clear that tier's savage, especially with current gear, what hope do you have of getting past Twin or Garuda?

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

But if you can't clear that tier's savage, especially with current gear, what hope do you have of getting past Twin or Garuda?

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What does it matter? End of expansion, lift the locks, let people have a go at things. I've cleared both Ultimates, I see no reason to keep it gated behind Savage tbh.

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Originally Posted by Tigerlilley

What does it matter? End of expansion, lift the locks, let people have a go at things. I've cleared both Ultimates, I see no reason to keep it gated behind Savage tbh.

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I guess it's on Square to decide if it matters or not. They'll be so trivial to kill by expac's end that they wouldn't even have to lift the locks and most everyone who actually cares to go in will be able to.

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Originally Posted by Tigerlilley

I've cleared both Ultimates, I see no reason to keep it gated behind Savage tbh.

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Because then a flood of people who can't clear Savage will complain about Ultimate and want it nerfed. People who are good enough to clear Ultimate can clear Savage. If they can't clear Savage, they probably won't clear Ultimate.
SE isn't what stands between people and Ultimate.

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Originally Posted by Tigerlilley

What does it matter? End of expansion, lift the locks, let people have a go at things. I've cleared both Ultimates, I see no reason to keep it gated behind Savage tbh.

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What's stopping people from trying to clear God Kefka and NeoExdeath? especially by then?