Irony?

I find it extremely interesting that FFXIV is suffering from too much end-game content coming into this next expansion when so many MMORPGs suffer from a lack of such content. Personally I enjoy having a ton of story that can't just be skipped over, because that means it's integral to the story line and it means that players can't just skip over story dungeons and not know how to play their class/job in a party setting.

In fact, while it may potentially burn out new users, it will definitely make them veterans of the game by the time they hit Heavensward content.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

I find it extremely interesting that FFXIV is suffering from too much end-game content coming into this next expansion when so many MMORPGs suffer from a lack of such content. Personally I enjoy having a ton of story that can't just be skipped over, because that means it's integral to the story line and it means that players can't just skip over story dungeons and not know how to play their class/job in a party setting.

In fact, while it may potentially burn out new users, it will definitely make them veterans of the game by the time they hit Heavensward content.

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I would like more dynamic content with unique gears and rewards rather then stagnant content where you study for a test and you know the test.

Let's face it - the story isn't going to make anyone a veteran. Just look at how many people whined who couldn't clear steps of faith. These players aren't going to become vets because of story / blocked progression. They need it to be simple enough to clear it so they can experience the game too.

With any luck we'll see some fun optional challenging content in HW with rewards to match. But let's not mix story in as a reward. Players ecpect to see the whole story, that much I can appreciate.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

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While it does hold true that you can't just skip over story dungeons, that in absolutely no way correlates with them "knowing how to play their class/job in a party setting."


Should probably familiarize yourself with that now...

I think keep ARR's content relevant (or rather "mandatory") for a new player is a plus for this game. A new player coming after one or two expansions will have the equivalent of three brand new games (to him!) to play. The concept of "only the end-game matter" is bad for the game and specially for us, gamers, because we steal ourselves the pleasure of experiencing the game, since most of us will just rush through it all, reaching the top and feeling the game didn't worth the subscription.

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Originally Posted by JayCommon

While it does hold true that you can't just skip over story dungeons, that in absolutely no way correlates with them "knowing how to play their class/job in a party setting."


Should probably familiarize yourself with that now...

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You shouldn't be finding any main class tanks who don't know how to tank or healers who dps in the new dungeons. These would be legitimate problems otherwise that was extremely apparent in dungeons like Brayflox's Longstop and The Stone Vigil(which is when it became extremely crucial that tanks hold threat). Granted, I won't say that players who are starting a Dark Knight as their first tank class won't be FATE grinding up to Heavensward, so you will probably get experienced players who don't know how to tank, which could potentially be worse. XP

What's going to be really weird is that lv50 players need to have an average item level of 90 in order to clear all of the required story duties, and that could turn out to be either a major grind for them alone or a pretty expensive venture for a new player on the market board. While they could just run the old level 50 dungeons for either marks or the like, who is going to be doing them by the time new players hit 50? I get the feeling that it's very likely that level 50 craftable gear is going to skyrocket as a result.

@Eidolon, As for challenging content, I've heard that a great majority of English server players haven't completed Coils, and Extremes are still extremely punishing if you pug them. Considering that Coil gives the best gear and that Extremes give mounts that now play their primal's music while you ride them, I'd say there's quite a bit of reward for doing them. Not to mention that Extreme primals are essential for desynth. I do agree that rewards should probably be bigger for that content, but it's not like they just hand you an achievement and kick you out.

'too much endgame'? more like not enough, level 50 dungeons don't count as actual endgame when they are easier than low level ones imo. The dungeons have no real stakes and don't even require you to know how your job works. (the earlier ones did but they didn't have level 50 rotations for obvious reasons.)

Recent example regarding stakes is the demon walls in AK hm, even if you fail it doesn't matter, you can just continue from where you wiped making the whole mechanic wasted more than it already was by the item level scaling. When steps of faith came out I was excited, I thought this meant they were going to stop treating us like complete morons but alas we proved we can't handle a little challenge. Main scenario isn't a real excuse btw.

Story quests aren't endgame. Endgame content is what do you do when you finish leveling to cap, unlock everything, and then go play (usually with a slant towards combat content. Buying a house is generally not most people's definition of 'endgame'). Finish story, unlocked all dungeons/areas (heavensward areas in a month) and then see what you have left to do. Right now it's:
*Grind weekly tomes.
*4 coil bosses.
*WoD (before they unlocked fcob. Now you'd just do more fcob)

Think of a single player rpg. Many have an serious of trial beyond the story. Super crazy side bosses. Playing it again on higher difficulty, replaying with harder objectives for special endings etc. Endgame is AFTER the story.

The problem with the 'endgame' is that it tries to negate all of the previous content. With each update, more and more of yesteryear's content becomes meaningless, with huge chunks of game being effectively skipped over by new players because they can outgear it in days. The rewards in this game are such that only the very best equipment is actually worth pursuing, and anything else is a stop-gap.

The problem we face now is that these stop-gaps are so close together that many players can skip over several in one bound. New jobs are going from level 55 to 90 in one bound, and then straight on to 120 or higher. This will only worsen as more high strength gear is released and more of yesterday's quests and dungeons become obsolete. The life-support that is the zodiac quest will be dead once Heavensward arrives, and I don't expect they'll be focused enough on vanilla gameplay to fix it afterwards.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Let's face it - the story isn't going to make anyone a veteran. Just look at how many people whined who couldn't clear steps of faith. These players aren't going to become vets because of story / blocked progression. They need it to be simple enough to clear it so they can experience the game too.

With any luck we'll see some fun optional challenging content in HW with rewards to match. But let's not mix story in as a reward. Players ecpect to see the whole story, that much I can appreciate.

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From what I saw in DF for SoF, it wasn't the new players complaining that the fight was too hard, it was veterans leaving before fight even finished loading that created frustration for new players. Out of the two dozen or so times I got SoF in trial roulette, there was only one time where after explaining mechanics, the party wasn't able to clear before we timed out. Most of the runs were actually one shots.

Now the fight is just another no talk faceroll, where the now now now crowd can get their daily tomes, while new players try to figure out what is going on.

Not everyone knows to look up guides either, there are maybe what? a couple hundred people who actually post on forums, maybe a couple thousand that read them? Game has 4M registered accounts, know that's no where near actual count of active players, but even if that's as low as 100k, thats still a much larger portion of community that doesn't even read forums, or know which youtube guides to follow, or even know there is a reddit community for game.

I could maybe understand if 3-6 months after 2.55, people were burned out on explaining mechanics, but this was less than a month after release, and people were abandoning in droves, rather than take the 2-3 min to explain basic mechanics of a unique, although easy, fight.

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

I would like more dynamic content with unique gears and rewards rather then stagnant content where you study for a test and you know the test.

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This. That alone would fix most of the issues I have with the game atm.

I feel like when doing the scripted fights that I am memorizing stuff the same way I do for my work (acting) and then I end up zoning out while doing the fights...very boring.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

In fact, while it may potentially burn out new users, it will definitely make them veterans of walking through the park by the time they hit Heavensward content.

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Fixed that for you.

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Originally Posted by Gardes

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I didn't say they'd be experts, but they certainly should know a successful rotation as tanks/dps and heals should know how to best deal with a multitude of situations by the time they're done with story content. Sure, it's nothing Coil worthy, but you shouldn't see players playing Gladiators or Conjurers without their job class in the new expansion dungeons or a tank that doesn't know how to use Flash/Overpower. The alternative is to let players skip the 2.0 story entirely, which would quite literally lead to players who don't know anything trying to do the new content.

Lol too much endgame.

85% of my guild stopped logging in until the expansion because they are bored out of their mind from the lack of worthwhile things to do.

This game has like 25% of the endgame it needs to keep people who play more then 10hrs a week occupied.

ENDGAME constantly negates itself in XIV. There is less then 10hrs of relevant endgame a week in XIV. Sure there is hundreds of hours of fluff and vanity content, but that is not going to work for the endgame players.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

Lol too much endgame.

85% of my guild stopped logging in until the expansion because they are bored out of their mind from the lack of worthwhile things to do.

This game has like 25% of the endgame it needs to keep people who play more then 10hrs a week occupied.

ENDGAME constantly negates itself in XIV. There is less then 10hrs of relevant endgame a week in XIV. Sure there is hundreds of hours of fluff and vanity content, but that is not going to work for the endgame players.

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Unfortunately for said endgame players, they'll never... ever... be the focal point for XIV, so long as the Yoshi-P aims for the game to be easy access to everyone. Time will always be spent primarily with "fluff and vanity content" as a result. As much as players hate to admit it, they'll willingly spend as much time as possible trying to get something if they want it... even if it's in the name of vanity and riddled with self-inflicted complaints along the way.

If you're strictly about the endgame, you will leave... and be of zero loss. If you're about endgame but also enjoy the fluff and vanity (story, GS, glamour, mounts, having fun doing random stuff with friends, etc), you will thrive here. Maybe you'll leave in that light, that's bound to happen... we all lose interest or maybe have financial issues or other priorities to take care of. Things happen. You and your friends are in the wrong part of town if you're only playing for endgame.

Highest tier endgame will always get the short end of the stick, its always been that way... it always will be that way, as its an inevitability of what we call "progression" when dealing with raids. If you're bored of an MMORPG, welcome to the club. It's a club called "life". We tend to experience things here that a select few might consider "odd", in that it was "odd" that people may not realize you can grow bored of anything at any moment. You should never look at and hope/expect an MMORPG to hold your life hostage from everything else outside of it. Play if you feel like it, stop playing if you don't (such as if you're bored of it). I suddenly became bored of popular games like Skyrim in the first hour of playing, but that doesn't mean there was something wrong with the game though.

I want many type of reward that can be collected or gated, not just tomes.

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Originally Posted by Gralna

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I'm the only one who active at forum among my friends and fc.

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Originally Posted by Gralna

From what I saw in DF for SoF, it wasn't the new players complaining that the fight was too hard, it was veterans leaving before fight even finished loading that created frustration for new players. Out of the two dozen or so times I got SoF in trial roulette, there was only one time where after explaining mechanics, the party wasn't able to clear before we timed out. Most of the runs were actually one shots.

Now the fight is just another no talk faceroll, where the now now now crowd can get their daily tomes, while new players try to figure out what is going on.

Not everyone knows to look up guides either, there are maybe what? a couple hundred people who actually post on forums, maybe a couple thousand that read them? Game has 4M registered accounts, know that's no where near actual count of active players, but even if that's as low as 100k, thats still a much larger portion of community that doesn't even read forums, or know which youtube guides to follow, or even know there is a reddit community for game.

I could maybe understand if 3-6 months after 2.55, people were burned out on explaining mechanics, but this was less than a month after release, and people were abandoning in droves, rather than take the 2-3 min to explain basic mechanics of a unique, although easy, fight.

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It's amazing how many people do that, usually it's a tank because instant-queue, wasting everyone's time if you get into something like the Chrysalis, a tank leaves right away and you can't clear it because you're stuck with a LB2 instead of LB3...
There should be a 1h lockout if you leave in the first 30min of a story-dungeon.
Those me-me-me folks are driving me nuts sometimes.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

You shouldn't be finding any main class tanks who don't know how to tank or healers who dps in the new dungeons. These would be legitimate problems otherwise that was extremely apparent in dungeons like Brayflox's Longstop and The Stone Vigil(which is when it became extremely crucial that tanks hold threat).

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"Shouldn't" and "don't" are two very separate terms.

.....are you telling me that you haven't encountered a terrible tank in Stone Vigil who obviously knew nothing about their job? Warrior's without Defiance turned on, Paladin's get Shield Oath at level 40 but going into SV with Sword Oath still on. Telling them to switch to Shield Oath only to find that they haven't done their level 40 Job quest yet?? And then, these tanks who refuse to pop into their stance also don't rotate cooldowns on big pulls or bosses. I've had a Warrior tell me he won't turn Defiance on because it lowers his DPS....in a 4man low level dungeon.

And heals who DPS is a legitimate problem? If a healer (especially a scholar) can keep the party alive and throw out some dots or any DPS at all it is an absolute delight to have in the party because it makes killing that much quicker. I won't be the one to chastise a healer who doesn't DPS, but in a lot of low level content if the tank is doing his job correctly there is a LOT of downtime as a healer. I had absolutely no problem DPSing twice as much as healing when leveling my WHM to 50 in every low level dungeon outside of the final 3, because the damage is real from Stone Vigil onwards.

I have seen my fair share of tanks/healers who don't effectively play their role correctly in all levels of content, and I hardly ever use the DF. "Having to do" story missions means nothing when you can do them on any class, and most people in the game are more comfortable completing those missions on a DPS where they can perform average or sub-par and get away with it because they are being carried by a good tank/heal combo, or the other DPS is outputting enough damage to make up for the lack of the other.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

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What you describe is not a solely FFXIV problem and imo it is not so much a problem as a part of mmo's in general. Not a good part, but a part all the same. I mean for all the flash and cool graphics and such, mmo's haven't really changed that much since they first hit in the '90's.

New content hits and old content is replaced. Yeah, companies put their own spin on the cycle and some like SE even try to keep old content semi-relevant(Roulettes for examplethat have you replay old content for current rewards that are periodically updated), but the cycle is what it is.

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

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You are right that there isn't a whole lot of actual EG cntent in FFXIV at present. I would put forward though that the game is still very early in its life-cycle. Using SE's only other MMO that i have played for comparison, where the game is right now is just before the Rise of the Zilart expansion for FFXI. And that is way early to really expect a super robust EG scene imo.

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Originally Posted by BunnyChain

It's amazing how many people do that, usually it's a tank because instant-queue, wasting everyone's time if you get into something like the Chrysalis, a tank leaves right away and you can't clear it because you're stuck with a LB2 instead of LB3...
There should be a 1h lockout if you leave in the first 30min of a story-dungeon.
Those me-me-me folks are driving me nuts sometimes.

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I completley agree with you on the me me me people reguard, They have got to be the most fustrating bunch.

this is a fine idea while the game is still relatively young. But as it get older and more expansions come our way it will begin to be detrimental to pulling in and retaining new players.

For instance imagine if you began playing an older game such a World of Warcraft NOW and were forced to progress through all content from Vanilla to whatever expansion they have now before you even got to experience the things you saw the advertisement for that piqued your interest.

The current content would be far outdated by the time you got there to enjoy it. But then you're still required to progress through it even though all your friends and everyone else is doing this new thing.

I'm not saying that it is necessarily a bad thing at the moment to require this content be cleared to move forward. But there is going to have to come a point where they decide to let the older stuff fall off in favor of letting new players experience the current content. Because as it is it is building up. For a casual player it's not a matter of just doing some quests and clearing all the content just from 2.0-2.55 in a matter of a few days. It's a good month or more for most. Which isn't bad right now.. but later on say as early as 4.0 and having to clear from 2.0-3.?? Thats a different story.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

I find it extremely interesting that FFXIV is suffering from too much end-game content coming into this next expansion when so many MMORPGs suffer from a lack of such content. Personally I enjoy having a ton of story that can't just be skipped over, because that means it's integral to the story line and it means that players can't just skip over story dungeons and not know how to play their class/job in a party setting.

In fact, while it may potentially burn out new users, it will definitely make them veterans of the game by the time they hit Heavensward content.

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I'd be a lot happier if half of those level 50 quest had instead been spread between levels 35 to 49.

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Originally Posted by JayCommon

"Shouldn't" and "don't" are two very separate terms.

.....are you telling me that you haven't encountered a terrible tank in Stone Vigil who obviously knew nothing about their job? Warrior's without Defiance turned on, Paladin's get Shield Oath at level 40 but going into SV with Sword Oath still on. Telling them to switch to Shield Oath only to find that they haven't done their level 40 Job quest yet?? And then, these tanks who refuse to pop into their stance also don't rotate cooldowns on big pulls or bosses. I've had a Warrior tell me he won't turn Defiance on because it lowers his DPS....in a 4man low level dungeon.


And heals who DPS is a legitimate problem? If a healer (especially a scholar) can keep the party alive and throw out some dots or any DPS at all it is an absolute delight to have in the party because it makes killing that much quicker. I won't be the one to chastise a healer who doesn't DPS, but in a lot of low level content if the tank is doing his job correctly there is a LOT of downtime as a healer. I had absolutely no problem DPSing twice as much as healing when leveling my WHM to 50 in every low level dungeon outside of the final 3, because the damage is real from Stone Vigil onwards.

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I'm sorry, I guess I didn't clarify enough on that point. I'm fully agreeing with what you're saying, because yes, I've run into Tanks/Heals who haven't done their job quest yet, and the result is that the dungeon quite literally becomes impossible unless everyone else is over-geared. I was trying to say that by making it so that players cannot skip that content, it makes it so that (hopefully) this problem doesn't spread to the new content. I put "shouldn't" because you can't stop lv50 players from fate grinding out their brand new Dark Knight and then running dungeons with it to speed through the new story.

I've run into the tanks and healers that you describe, and I was trying to say that I see them as a very serious problem. Mostly because these people are usually apprehensive and possibly already have a lv50 class, but have never played their role before. It also doesn't help that these people can't really even be kicked, because if they have the in-progress option checked then they will normally just re-insert themselves into the group. That's not to say that they aren't all that way though, and I've helped players know what they need to do in order to unlock that job class and then kick them if it's apparent that the dungeon can't be done with how they currently are.

I'm not against heals dps'ing and I share your stance that it does in fact make the run MUCH smoother in level sync'd dungeons, I've legitimately met healers in the DF who think that they queued as damage. I specifically remember it happening in Cutter's Cry. They don't heal at all, and since most players are over-geared by now, it doesn't become apparent unless the tank speaks up or, in our case, when all of the adds in the first boss didn't follow the healer because he wasn't healing.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

I didn't say they'd be experts, but they certainly should know a successful rotation as tanks/dps and heals should know how to best deal with a multitude of situations by the time they're done with story content.

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Nah, I still only tank with flash, flash, overpower, overpower,1,2,3,1,2,4,1,2,3,1,2,4
It's even easier on WHM, I just use medica 2 and cure 2 and move around.

The getting the basics down you're talking about isn't something that's built over the entire game.. Sure that's what it's "intended" to do.. But more than likely, tanks hit a road block at some point where they have trouble holding aggro (depends on the person, some run into this wall in Satasha, some in Brayflox, some just don't run into that issue ever) then realize they're doing something wrong.. Google something, 20 minutes later, voila! They're good to go.


You're suggesting that 200 hrs of gameplay from beginning to 2.55 is necessary to teaching that to newcomers.. It simply isn't, when somebody hits a roadblock, they'll learn and improve. OR NOT, some just simply refuse to improve.. Point is.. MSQ, job quests, guildhests etc. don't shape a good player, it's the personal inadequacy each individual feels that will lead them to learn, disastrous dungeon runs usually have that impact on people, not the tedious 200hrs of repeated quests.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

I find it extremely interesting that FFXIV is suffering from too much end-game content coming into this next expansion when so many MMORPGs suffer from a lack of such content. Personally I enjoy having a ton of story that can't just be skipped over, because that means it's integral to the story line and it means that players can't just skip over story dungeons and not know how to play their class/job in a party setting.

In fact, while it may potentially burn out new users, it will definitely make them veterans of the game by the time they hit Heavensward content.

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A) Other games dont necessarily have less end game content, they just dont force to do weeks of taxi quests and gear grinds before letting them move ahead with the story. SWTOR's story was leaps and bounds ahead of FFXIV's yet managed to allow players to go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, minus some story-centric dungeons, if that (IIRC). They could at least go to any planet they wished once they left the tutorial area.
B) Forcing players into playing every single dungeon at least once isnt going to make them better or even competent. Plenty of horrible players now who have completed the story, and then some, yet are horrible at their job. Nor are any of the elitist thinking the same automatically better players than those who havent finished the story.

Are't they gonnafocus on 2 dungeons per patch in 3.0?

I feel there is too much to do as well, getting all your jobs to ilvl 130 by farming coil, collecting all the pets and mounts, capping your poetics, crafting to make gil. Often it doesn't leave me much time for other games, but I guess that is a good thing that they offer so much to do. I never seem to run out of things to do in FFXIV.