dev1031 You are losing your main playerbase by making things too easy/fast/casual

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Originally Posted by darkstarpoet1

hmmmm i may be mistaken, but who asked for endgame content? doe anyone here actually think we are anywhere near looking for endgame content? the truth is we still have the initial level cap. this cap will be raised multiple times before this games completion. there is no end game content to add. this gear and these mobs will be considered midrange by the time the game is finalized.

using your own logic nothing should be added at all because they do not want to do things twice. yes, this even means lowbie content. they are changing the battle format so why add anything new to fight until this is completed?

read and understand nobody has asked for endgame content because this game is nowhere near the endgame by any stretch of the imagination. the point is if they feel secure enough that the battle system is not going to change drastically enough to allow them to add 20 lower level nm's then a few of those should have been added to give the higher level characters something also.

you can't use the argument they didn't add tough monsters because the system is changing, but was ok to add low level mobs. if they are changing it enough to stop high level mobs then it should have stopped the adding of any new mobs.

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You maybe should read the thread (and others) a little better, a lot of people are raging for endgame content.

Endgame is simply content that's designed to work with the top level range of a MMORPG at any given time. The fact that level ranges could be increased in a non-foreseeable future has absolutely no bearing to that. Level caps are common in all MMOs, but developers still work on the *current* endgame, since players don't play in the future. By your logic developers should *never* work on the endgame in any MMORPG that supports the possibility of a future level cap increase.
The current endgame is level 50. We don't know when that cap will be raised, but it's unlikely that it'll be anytime soon. For pretty damn sure it won't change anywhere before the new battle system is introduced.

The current roaming NMs are, by definition, endgame content (albeit small, but this doesn't change the fact).

Lowbie content is by definition less complex, simply because the level of challenge is, in all MMORPGs, designed to increase towards the highest levels (and because players themselves have less tools to use). Less compexity means higher adaptability to newer systems. It's pretty simple.

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.] There is no "opinion" about FFXI being harder than this games, its a FACT. [Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]

To the guy talking about how FFXI is now, yeah, I know, it's why I was going to play it a month ago, read/heard about how it was, and quit instantly. Horrible game now, easiest most casual friendly MMO on the market ;_;.

@Argh, I loved your post about a time sink through a place avoiding aggro, I miss stuff like that. Hopefully this game gets harder so we get to experience going through hard zones avoiding aggro and stuff, and they remove anima so we can't instantly port everyone >_<.

Things that do need to be fixed in the gam rather than make it easier. One win you Dc you still can do you leve, nothings more fun than waiting 35 hrs than have your pc crash or your server crash mid leve it pretty stupid. Second when your fitting you should get xp from the yellow mobs as well prety stupid 3 things can agro but if you aoe you only get x1 xp retarded. simple problem that need to be fixed moths ago, some time i wonder if any of the devs have ever played this game? class system is fine. i don't think your making the jobs more unique buy make them more structured, how is it going to make everyone have the same class with the same skills is unique. i think its vary unique the way it is pick and chose your char turn your gld into a dark night with a few spells you can customize any class the way you play thats unique. some how they think buy make more people the same that unique seams flawed to me

I am hoping the dungeon is designed with a 60 cap in mind. The problems with the economy in this game can only be fixed with a cap increase. It would be silly to release the dungeon after the battle system is complete, then work on the economy and raise the cap all within a few months.

The reason the cap needs to go up to fix the economy is we need new items. All current materials need to become obsolete. Iron, silver, gold (maybe just sand), yew, walnut, oak all need to go. 50+ DoLs need to be gathering new raw mats such as darksteel, new gems, ebony and teak while 50+ DoHs craft them into new items. Supply of these raw materials needs to be a lot lower than current mats. Sure you could add raw mats like these to current ranks but then you're just diluting the problem rather than fixing it, as well as clustering too many important mats in grade 5 DoL nodes.

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Originally Posted by rainfish

Have you actually like...played FFXI recently?

You can start a new job at level 1, have it capped at 90 in a few days and get every piece of endgame gear for it in 1-2 more weeks. This includes the weapons that are more powerful than a relic. Oh and did I mention you can do all this with a handful of players?

If that's not easy I don't know what is.

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I haven't played the game in years so i would not know if this is true or not. I think you are being sarcastic, though.

But you also have to understand that ffxi is at the end of its life cycle so that usually means that content becomes easier so newer characters can catch up to veterans quickly so they wont be alone in the world.

Who was the one tried to made Casual MMO?

he must be silly

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Originally Posted by Argh

I have played the game in years so i would not know if this is true or not. I think you are being sarcastic, though.

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No, actually he's not.

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But you also have to understand that ffxi is at the end of its life cycle so that usually means that content becomes easier so newer characters can catch up to veterans quickly so they wont be alone in the world.

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That's not the problem. The problem is simply that the market has evolved and isn't the market that we had 8 years ago.
Endless timesinks and grinding simply don't fit a successful game in today's market. SE had to drastically reduce them in order to slow down the player bleeding from the game towards games in which time is spent more actively.

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.] There is no "opinion" about FFXI being harder than this games, its a FACT.

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Again, taking a line completely out of context is a rather weak argument. You may want to actually read a discussion before butting in. We were quite obviously talking about *tanking grind mobs*, which is a rather *specific* topic.

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[Removed by Moderator according to the FINAL FANTASY XIV FORUM Guidelines.]

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Ahem, who are you again?

I'm very, very interested in seeing you quote examples of when I "stalked" you (quite unlikely, considering that I have no idea of who you are), or even more "insulted" you. Please, do show.
Mind you, disagreeing with you (if I ever did, because again, you don't really ring a bell) doesn't equate to insulting you.

Disagreeing with a point does not equal stalking. I think Abriael brings up alot of good points as do many people replying to this thread.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

No, actually he's not.



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then that is the reason the game has died off. completely changing the formula to match "another" game is a killer. star wars galaxy did the same thing as did ultima online. the problem with the final fantasy series is also an inherint one. that it is not allowed to graphically improve with time as other mmo's are because it is soul bound to a console since it's creation.

The reason this thread isn't a Dev tracked thread is because their main player base hasn't even started playing the game yet. (PS3)

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Originally Posted by Argh

then that is the reason the game has died off.

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FFXI has not died off (not completely at least). And the main reason why it has not died off is that they made it more accessible, both by changing the rules (what we're talking about now) and considerably reducing or removing timesinks (in some cases even too much, leveling is WAY too fast), and commercially (by distributing on Steam at a low price, which is something SE should definitely do with FFXIV as well at the same time with the PS3 launch). In fact the accessibility changes have come *after* the playerbase has started to dip considerably, not before. They are an effect, not a cause.

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I have played the game in years so i would not know if this is true or not. I think you are being sarcastic, though.

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Nope the time it takes is true, for hardcore players anyway. You can take a char to cap in a few days and cap all your gear in a couple of weeks if you join a decent LS. For casuals these things take quite a bit longer but they can all be achieved by anyone.

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then that is the reason the game has died off. completely changing the formula to match "another" game is a killer. star wars galaxy did the same thing as did ultima online. the problem with the final fantasy series is also an inherint one. that it is not allowed to graphically improve with time as other mmo's are because it is soul bound to a console since it's creation.

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What they did to FFXI shows the companys direction with MMO's, if you think they won't do the exact same thing with FFXIV then time will show you better. Casual MMO's are where the money is, I don't personally agree with how far it's gone with Square but I can see why it's being done.

Even if they do ad somewhat hardcore content they will tame it right down in patches a few months later same as they do in XI. If you play for status FF games are not where you are going to find it.

Request Lock

Enough said we getting what we want both for casual and hardcore matter if you like it or not.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

Everyone can rest assured that the raid dungeons and content that we're planning to implement in the future will feature not only tough battles, but also challenging and exhilarating bosses. The nitty-gritty details are tied into the future rollout of Grand Companies which we'll be announcing the juicy particulars of at a later date. I hope you're all looking forward to it with bated breath!

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Enough said.

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Enough said.

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They said the same in XI, they still made everything open to all and easy.

In XI they made difficult battle areas but allowed you to choose to put on massive buffs that made the fights a joke, ofc everyone used the buffs so it was never a difficulty option.

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Originally Posted by rainfish

They said the same in XI, they still made everything open to all and easy.

In XI they made difficult battle areas but allowed you to choose to put on massive buffs that made the fights a joke, ofc everyone used the buffs so it was never a difficulty option.

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i quit before the level cap so what battle areas are you talking about?

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Originally Posted by rainfish

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What they did to FFXI shows the companys direction with MMO's, if you think they won't do the exact same thing with FFXIV then time will show you better. Casual MMO's are where the money is, I don't personally agree with how far it's gone with Square but I can see why it's being done.

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Their direction with MMOs is to make them beyond easy/casual and have them die? :p

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Originally Posted by Zenaku

i quit before the level cap so what battle areas are you talking about?

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Probably the 3 mini-expansions...but they're not possible without the buffs, and still hard/challenging with them.

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

Probably the 3 mini-expansions...but they're not possible without the buffs, and still hard/challenging with them.

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You mean the first 3 or the new onces that pretty made the game into casual? Because fighting the crystal in the first addon was a pain in the ass the hardest fight i saw in a long time in ffxi.

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

Their direction with MMOs is to make them beyond easy/casual and have them die? :p

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No, it's to make them accessible to the widest playerbase possible in order to not have them die. That's what they did with FFXI, and that's what they're trying to do with XIV.

ff14 have long way to go

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Originally Posted by Abriael

FFXI has not died off (not completely at least). And the main reason why it has not died off is that they made it more accessible, both by changing the rules (what we're talking about now) and considerably reducing or removing timesinks (in some cases even too much, leveling is WAY too fast), and commercially (by distributing on Steam at a low price, which is something SE should definitely do with FFXIV as well at the same time with the PS3 launch). In fact the accessibility changes have come *after* the playerbase has started to dip considerably, not before. They are an effect, not a cause.

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I won't argue with your assumption that the game is still going because of these points, but it being too hardcore isn't why the game population started to die in the first place. I know this is an individual experience but I knew a lot of people on my server and not one left the game because it was too hardcore. Most MMO's just get boring after playing for 6-7 years. But even that isn't the real reason why it died.

SE was just very poor in putting out new content. About 6 months after ToAU came out is when I started to notice the decline. People left because they were still doing the same things. Sky, Sea, Dynamis, 3 kings. That's it for many years. The new NM's and content that came out from ToAU was mostly worthless in terms of endgame progression. ToAU was out for quite a long time before they finally put anything out of worth. The decline continued after WoTG because of these same reasons. Endgame content was still very slow. Sky, Sea, Dynamis, 3 Kings, were still major parts of the endgame content, nyzul isle and salvage helped but wasn't enough.

Everyone I knew quit because the game simply got boring. It had nothing to do with how hardcore it was, it had nothing to do with timesinks. SE was just very very bad at adding in new endgame content. They were not only slow in adding it, but when they did we got crap like Hydra that dropped almost nothing of worth so no one bothered doing it. Then when new people started to leave, naturally less people were leveling jobs so any new players the game got suffered due to it being built around party play. I think that is mostly why Abyssea somewhat "saved" the game although it also lost a lot of people due to it's casualness.

Anyway, I'm not advocating a time sink filled game. I personally don't have time for it. Just setting the record straight, because I think the assumption that XI failed because of it's time sinks is an incorrect one. Just remember, even WoW has had a lot of time sinks throughout it's popularity and during it's popularity spike. I would argue that the endless rep grinds were even worse than most of XI's time sinks. Not to mention repeatedly doing dungeons you were long since bored of just to get this 1 piece of gear to move onto the next boring tank and spank filled dungeon. They just added to the time sinks with achievements. Do this many quests in this area for this quest achievement! /hug 20 critters for this achievement! Travel to every boring part of the world for this achievement! Do this thing that takes many many wasted hours for a re-skinned mount that does everything all your other mounts do! YEAH FUN!!

At least XI didn't try to sugar coat their time sinks. Or maybe they should have. It's worked so well for other games.

The new NMs I love. I think it is a great idea to have NMs that Mid rank groups can take down and just makes the game that much better for new comers for the future.

However...... dumbing down the already implemented R50 NMs is completely asinine being that they were all easily taken down with 8 players or less WITHOUT the party buffing system. Now, if you feel that they were too powerful based on the strength of the gear made from the materials it drops that's one thing, but you took the only remotely challenging thing to do in the game away without having anything else to back up that desire of content players have. It would have made more sense to dumb them down at a later date when you added new challenging group content. Now we're back to absolutely nothing to do other than grind new classes, grind crafting, or try out new low-mid ranked content.

Learn from this one mistake and try to be mindful of all sides of the player base next time.

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Originally Posted by Zenaku

You mean the first 3 or the new onces that pretty made the game into casual? Because fighting the crystal in the first addon was a pain in the ass the hardest fight i saw in a long time in ffxi.

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The ASA/ACP/moogle

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Originally Posted by Kazimir

I won't argue with your assumption that the game is still going because of these points, but it being too hardcore isn't why the game population started to die in the first place. I know this is an individual experience but I knew a lot of people on my server and not one left the game because it was too hardcore. Most MMO's just get boring after playing for 6-7 years. But even that isn't the real reason why it died.

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Every game gets boring after a while. That's not the problem and it's almost inevitable. The problem is that successful games get new gamers costantly in order to replace the ones that left. That's what stops the population bleeding everywhere.

Final Fantasy XI always had the problem to be very, very unfriendly towards new gamers, and that mean that people left due to boredom and no one replaced them. That's why they removed/drastically reduced the timesinks, to make the experience of upcoming players much smoother and accessible, restoring the influx of new players to replace the old ones that were inevitably lost.
That's why FFXI did *not* die.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Every game gets boring after a while. That's not the problem and it's almost inevitable. The problem is that successful games get new gamers costantly in order to replace the ones that left. That's what stops the population bleeding everywhere.

Final Fantasy XI always had the problem to be very, very unfriendly towards new gamers, and that mean that people left due to boredom and no one replaced them. That's why they removed/drastically reduced the timesinks, to make the experience of upcoming players much smoother and accessible, restoring the influx of new players to replace the old ones that were inevitably lost.
That's why FFXI did *not* die.

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My point was you keep bringing up time sinks when the time sinks had nothing to do with the losing of players. All games have tons of time sinks even the most popular. The game didn't get or keep as many new players because you were forced to group to level (not an issue in this game) which only became and issue once most of the player base was established into endgame and not as many people were leveling other jobs. This only got worse when people quit due to how boring the game got from lack of new and fun content. Not to mention the poorly handled economy was very bad and inflation also had a lot to do with people not staying in the game.

For those that actually leveled to 75, it was also hard to get established into endgame after so many years of the game being out. People didn't want to recruit new players because their gear was lacking. It was tough for new LS's to become established because of the competition and the fact that gear that was released 5 years earlier was still some of the best.

FFXIV doesn't have to avoid time sinks to become popular. They don't need to avoid the systems Sky used, nor do they need to avoid open world NM's and rare drops (as long as it's done in the way it was when WoTG came out and not how the 3 kings were). Farming is not an issue, death penalty is not an issue, grinding of various sorts is not an issue. Even the most popular MMO's use these systems.

If they put in content that establishes the strong sense of community that XI had by forcing more group play (especially during missions), avoided camping by having NM's spawn at various times in various areas, and added pop systems (Sky, Sea) as well as instanced dungeons and a better system of character progression than XI had, the game will succeed just fine. They've already established a system that allows people to solo level which was the main culprit in XI not gaining new players.

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Originally Posted by Kazimir

My point was you keep bringing up time sinks when the time sinks had nothing to do with the losing of players.

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The timsinks have a lot to do with not getting new players. Losing players is pretty much inevitable for every game as boredom ensues and new games get released. The only real way to offset it is to get new players in. Nowadays' market simply doesn't support timesinks and new players simply don't chose a game that wastes their playing time when they have many alternatives that don't.

Timesinks = Losing old players/Not getting new players -> Population bleeding
No timesinks = Losing old players/getting new players -> Bleeding amended

Mind you, we already know that FFXIV will *not* go back to FFXI's timesinks. Yoshida and the team know very well than to save this game they need to give people more ways to *have fun* instead of boring them to death by making them spend their playing time waiting.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Nowadays' market simply doesn't support timesinks and new players simply don't chose a game that wastes their playing time when they have many alternatives that don't.

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Yet every single popular MMO has time sinks. Your argument makes no sense. The only way to avoid time sinks even in this day and age is to simply not play an MMO. They are all filled with time sinks.

The fact that most of them sugar coat it with achievements and rep grinds that give you mediocre gear and mounts doesn't make them any less a time sink.

The entire point of every game in existance is to be a time sink
why are you people even arguing about it lol

The question is what kind of time sink do you want not wether or not they should exist

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Originally Posted by Kazimir

Yet every single popular MMO has time sinks.

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Actually every popular MMO is doing away with timesinks as fast as possible.

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

The entire point of every game in existance is to be a time sink
why are you people even arguing about it lol

The question is what kind of time sink do you want not wether or not they should exist

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"Timesink" = "Time" -> "Sink" = "time thrown in the sink" = Wasted time.

Wasting time is very, very different from spending time.

A well designed MMORPG nowadays will make you "spend" as much time as possible actively having fun (IE: not wasting it).
A badly designed MMORPG will resort to timesink (wasting time), in order to mask lack of content.

OP. Do you think this game can be a long term success with only it's current player base. SE can't cater to just the old FFXI Hardcores, because having 1k server populations for the duration of this product's life span is not going to keep this game going long term. It's time the hard cores stopped being so selfish, and instead of looking for a game that's purely catered towards them and hostile to casuals, can work together with SE to find some semblance of balance between hard core and casual that can allow this game to be a success long term. More hard cores are leaving every day is what I keep hearing so if ANYTHING they need to focus MORE on the casual non FFXI market than they are.

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Originally Posted by Kazimir

Yet every single popular MMO has time sinks. Your argument makes no sense. The only way to avoid time sinks even in this day and age is to simply not play an MMO. They are all filled with time sinks.

The fact that most of them sugar coat it with achievements and rep grinds that give you mediocre gear and mounts doesn't make them any less a time sink.

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Of course you have to invest time to play a MMO.
But if the MMO requires a whole week for single Item and more importantly if it doesnt offer activities were you get an almost equally Item, then its just forcing you to something boring which i would call timesink not time investment. (it was just an extreme example)

Someone wrote something that Life ist casual too, wow one of the few things that is actually true.
And that is what many people just dont want, they dont want a Real life Simulation, were they come Home from work and do the same in a Game.
There are different opinions of how much time you have to offer to earn a single Item, i dont want to sit around, thats all i want Challenge.
If a Dungeons requires more than an Hour/2-3-4 or whatever, thats fine, as long is i dont have to sit around and wait for respawn.(again an extreme example)

And honestly, i dont care about punishment for death but why should it add difficulty?.
As for me, i just have to grind to get the same amount of XP again and then repeat...if i die again the same, so i dont really get that point.

This thread is why we can't have nice things.

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Originally Posted by Winterclaw

This thread is why we can't have nice things.

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You can have anything you want because NMs repop fast then normal mobs LOL

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Originally Posted by Winterclaw

This thread is why we can't have nice things.

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Exactly, people won't stop complaining that everything is too casual, well guess what, they planned that from the start. They just added a few mid level nms to appease most of the players who are stuck in the 30 to 40 level range, This was not end game content, it was something fun for new players/mid level players to enjoy.

You "Hard core" people need to get over yourselves, this game was never ment to be hard core, it was always ment to be casual. They even said in early interviews that FFXI was their hardcore game, and FFXIV was more casual where you only had to play a few hours a day to progress.

This game was never going to be FFXI-2, it's a casual game, and from their previous patches they don't seem to plan on changing it. So move on now if your expecting 5 days worth of grinding to get a stupid level 15 hand to hand weapon like in FFXI, cause that's never going to happen. Your over inflated egos, and constant e-peen stroking is what ruined FFXI for a lot of people, and I don't want FFXIV ruined aswell.

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Originally Posted by C56

Exactly, people won't stop complaining that everything is too casual, well guess what, they planned that from the start. They just added a few mid level nms to appease most of the players who are stuck in the 30 to 40 level range, This was not end game content, it was something fun for new players/mid level players to enjoy.

You "Hard core" people need to get over yourselves, this game was never ment to be hard core, it was always ment to be casual. They even said in early interviews that FFXI was their hardcore game, and FFXIV was more casual where you only had to play a few hours a day to progress.

This game was never going to be FFXI-2, it's a casual game, and from their previous patches they don't seem to plan on changing it. So move on now if your expecting 5 days worth of grinding to get a stupid level 15 hand to hand weapon like in FFXI, cause that's never going to happen. Your over inflated egos, and constant e-peen stroking is what ruined FFXI for a lot of people, and I don't want FFXIV ruined aswell.

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ya but ffxi is no longer hardcore lol so they both casual now so now all we want is something fun that is hard not something that wont take hours to do i don't know about the other players but i want something hard that wont take hours to do. Something can be casual and hard.

It's funny how some of FFXI players feel like they are or should be the center of attention.

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Originally Posted by Petori

It's funny how some of FFXI players feel like they are or should be the center of attention.

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Listen that happen in every game players would think there the center attention. I think SE should not listen to us so much -.- if they do this just going to become a lame low casual game with noting really hard. like what happen to wow when bizzard listen to there player base.

Listen to us without really listening to us. make the game hard and still casual i don't think that very hard.

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Originally Posted by Zenaku

Listen that happen in every game players would think there the center attention. I think SE should not listen to us so much -.- if they do this just going to become a lame low casual game with noting really hard. like what happen to wow when bizzard listen to there player base.

Listen to us without really listening to us. make the game hard and still casual i don't think that very hard.

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I agree. Listening to the players is not a good thing. SE is just doing it now because of how bad the release was.

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Originally Posted by Zenaku

Listen that happen in every game players would think there the center attention. I think SE should not listen to us so much -.- if they do this just going to become a lame low casual game with noting really hard. like what happen to wow when bizzard listen to there player base.

Listen to us without really listening to us. make the game hard and still casual i don't think that very hard.

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I'm all for challenging fights, but the ridiculous time sinks people seem to want are nothing but a waist of time, they are not hardcore, they just show you have more free time then people who have a lot going on -_-

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Originally Posted by C56

I'm all for challenging fights, but the ridiculous time sinks people seem to want are nothing but a waist of time, they are not hardcore, they just show you have more free time then people who have a lot going on -_-

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i agree i don't want something that would take 5-6hours with 8 players -.- i want something that at least last 1hour at best. but something that would only last 10-30mins is not very fun. The less time it is the more you have to redo them and you get bored of it so 40min-1hour ish is good enough time.

@Visch ya but now with the forums they just going to go on listening to us. The sad part is that they be listening to the same players too they quit so all going to happen is make this game fit the views of the few who are on here not the overall. i think a player poll would do much better and see the other fansite of this game to get more overall idea. maybe do a poll each month and before you log in you have to do a short poll and that be better :) making everyone do it.