Updating "Old" Content

I am curious why SE or game developers in general (assumption) don't update "old" content as a game evolves. That is, periodic updating of pre-existing content to make it slightly different/more challenging so it remains challenging and rewarding.

Take the faction NMs for example. Why don't they add a layer of complexity or different piece of gear to these fights every now-and-again to give players a reason to revisit these fights?

By the time I reach 50, the only thing relevant to me, or really able to get people for, will probably be the latest and greatest Primal fight. To me, it is a waste of work not to add small pieces to old content to refresh it and make it different or new.

What are all your thoughts?

i said the same thing, add some new drops and it instintly becomes viable content again. or change the stats of the gear that drops, or make NM gear meldable. lots of things could be done. I said before id liek to see things drops from several places and then be crafted together to make something.example:batraal claw+dodore wing+ ifrit horn = something awesome

I would rather them invest the time in bringing out new content.

Besides, if they are constantly adding new peices to NM's then you are faced with either:

A) NM drops too much gear, unbalanced
or
B) Theres no low gear if they keep upgrading the items they drop

Or if what you are asking is for them to buff the NM's and the drops accordingly, then we are left with no soloable NM's, ruining both player immersion and causing confusion in the process.

If what you are proposing is NM gear drop rotation, its just a huge waste of time. I'd rather them just implement new content with new models, textures and enviroments.

NM meldable gear sounds fine to me, given how weak the current drops are.

i think too they may update the "old" content, because it's not that old, its a waste that nobody wants to do batraal dungeon or free roam high NM's now because they are relatively not so old content, batraal at least. And the game doesnt have too much content to waste the last high end content of previous patchs...

Nah...I don't want old content refreshed...you lose the concept of progression if you backtracking old content. There should be a regular continued cycle of new content. Which SE is working toward. Unfortunately, until 2.0 is out the regular patches of new content will not be available as the current system at this point due to all the bandages.

The real problem I think most players have is there is no real progression track of a storyline...unfortunately this can't be fixed with the current game so hence 2.0.

But as far as old content...they actually have redone a lot of the leves...in fact most of them have been altered...and when we get to 2.0 pretty much all the leves will be new since it's a new world altogether. :)

As it is...it seems every major patch the game seems like a totally new game due to the epic type of sweeping changes they applying.

The purpose on an expansion is to expand on content, not to refresh what's already done. I'd prefer leaving most old content untouched. WoW's Cataclysm for example completely destroyed that game. In this game's case, the game requires a total refresh so I'm not that against it; however, once it's fixed up, I don't want to see constant refreshing on content. I want to see new content.

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Originally Posted by Rjain

The purpose on an expansion is to expand on content, not to refresh what's already done. I'd prefer leaving most old content untouched. WoW's Cataclysm for example completely destroyed that game. In this game's case, the game requires a total refresh so I'm not that against it; however, once it's fixed up, I don't want to see constant refreshing on content. I want to see new content.

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This.
/10char

dodore is still viable content even though it is older because they did it right. They gave it a unique drop that is still in demand. i dont see anything wrong with making content last longer like this. One way to do this would be to make NM gear meldable. Who wouldnt want a melded tricorne. To each there own though, i dont really care one way or the other.

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Originally Posted by Rjain

The purpose on an expansion is to expand on content, not to refresh what's already done. I'd prefer leaving most old content untouched. WoW's Cataclysm for example completely destroyed that game. In this game's case, the game requires a total refresh so I'm not that against it; however, once it's fixed up, I don't want to see constant refreshing on content. I want to see new content.

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Um, what expansion? hell what game?
If every little patch makes playing all older content worthless and crafting + materia makes all the best gear, then the best class to play is a crafter, because everything else is pointless, like coffer drops.

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Originally Posted by Akuun

Um, what expansion? hell what game?
If every little patch makes playing all older content worthless and crafting + materia makes all the best gear, then the best class to play is a crafter, because everything else is pointless, like coffer drops.

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By expansion he means patch in this case.
Crafting has no other purpose than to make the best gear.
And yes, coffer gear is pointless. Well observed.

What I'm hoping is that they keep introducing new content, then when 2.0 comes around they bring everything up to a similar level so that there's a really broad range of choices based on what you want and for what purpose. Having really tough faction NMs that drop gear with unique trait/ability alterations etc would be really neat.

If they did that, when 2.0 rolled around we'd have:
-Faction NMs
-Dungeons
-Roaming NMs/bosses (Odin and more?)
-Primal fights
-Company quests
-Hamlet Defence
-Chocobo escorts
-Guild leves
-Strongholds
-Story missions
-Quests
-Overworld dungeons/coffers
-Ishgard content
-PvP

And maybe more as potential options for things to do, if they could each provide unique benefits or alternative progression routes. Of course some of it like chocobo escorts and guild leves would probably be complimentary to other content rather than standalone.

Edit: I should add that I don't think constantly refreshing old content is really a great idea (although hard-mode versions of primals etc in the future would be cool for even better gear), but having different options for specific niche pieces of gear etc would be cool. With a solid base like the above in place, they'd have more freedom to move forward after 2.0 and add completely new stuff (CARD GAMES PLZ).

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Originally Posted by Rjain

The purpose on an expansion is to expand on content, not to refresh what's already done. I'd prefer leaving most old content untouched. WoW's Cataclysm for example completely destroyed that game. In this game's case, the game requires a total refresh so I'm not that against it; however, once it's fixed up, I don't want to see constant refreshing on content. I want to see new content.

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Cataclysm refreshed several old dungeons ...

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Originally Posted by Khazar

Cataclysm refreshed several old dungeons ...

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They pretty much just added modern WoW mechanics to old dungeons, and lots of people complained over it. I think 7 years into a game's life that's more acceptable than 1 year in, though.

i seriously think its hilarious that people would complain about some reskinned piece of gear being add to old content. its not that big of a deal imo.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

And yes, coffer gear is pointless. Well observed.

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this isn't entirely correct. Here are two words to prove my point: Sentinel's Armor


For the most part, I agree though. Something needs to be done about the faction NM gear. Who in their right mind would wear the Templar's Sollerets over any of the gear that's come out post 1.18 for example? +1 str? Are you kidding? 700 faction points at minimum to get them, makes those things extremely expensive pieces of trash.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

this isn't entirely correct. Here are two words to prove my point: Sentinel's Armor


For the most part, I agree though. Something needs to be done about the faction NM gear. Who in their right mind would wear the Templar's Sollerets over any of the gear that's come out post 1.18 for example?

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they should make faction gear lvl 45 if its gonna suck so bad

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

this isn't entirely correct. Here are two words to prove my point: Sentinel's Armor


For the most part, I agree though. Something needs to be done about the faction NM gear. Who in their right mind would wear the Templar's Sollerets over any of the gear that's come out post 1.18 for example? +1 str? Are you kidding? 700 faction points at minimum to get them, makes those things extremely expensive pieces of trash.

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1 Peice of gear for 3 "Dungeons" doesn't seem viable tbh.

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Originally Posted by Avraym

1 Peice of gear for 3 "Dungeons" doesn't seem viable tbh.

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I'm not sure what you mean. It's 5 pieces of gear, feet, hands, belt, body, head, and we won't count the pants 'cause they suck. I've had a ton of fun trying to get all the pieces (and double melded too).

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Originally Posted by Gidonoidon_Sur

I am curious why SE or game developers in general (assumption) don't update "old" content as a game evolves. That is, periodic updating of pre-existing content to make it slightly different/more challenging so it remains challenging and rewarding.

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A. People love to absolutely complain if you don't do new things and focus on older content.
B. It allows people to experience content before their time if they're a brand new player x years down the road.
C. It's not part of your current outline, e.g "We're going to add this, that, this and that for the next year or two", you don't just up and decide to do something you generally already have things on a set plan.

There's nothing wrong with updating Old content, it's just a lot of MMO players hate that which is why devs stray from updating old content in any significant manner.

Agreed on being able to updating and/or balancing the old content.

The problem with this is that the current player base burns out on the content. New content comes along, old players move onto that content and burn out on it too. New players come along and have difficulty finding people to run through the older content. They end up doing old content as a result of a high level player running them through it (negating the original design of the content) or skip old content and only focus on the new content where the other players are at.

The problem is amplified when the new content is of improved quality, better rewards, more balanced, and/or less time consumption.

I bring WoW into this for a moment. Expansion #1, initial quest rewards were on par with time-intensive pre-expansion endgame PvE content. Expansion quests provided significantly more XP than endgame content of pre-expansion at a quicker pace, reduced risk, and requiring less party members. You quickly out-leveled the old endgame gear.

At some point, people just power level their friends through levels 1 to max, just so they can have someone to play the new content with. Meanwhile, new player skips over the old content (not just WoW, happens in every PvE-centric MMORPG I've played.)

Roaming NM gear can be melded... At least my Tricorne has a nice materia on it... ._.

Hi All,

Good post / question.

I think there are a few points at work here. For those that don't want "old" content updated, I think there's a difference between "old" content that has run its course (and was successful / provided most of the player population with a good experience (e.g., Final Fantasy XI's SKY or Dynamis)) vs. some of the things being asked by Gidonoidon or syntaxlies and others.

The problem is that the 3 paltry Faction NMs that we have in XIV, and Dzemael Darkhold have been experienced by such a tiny amount of players, and they are effectively being "thrown away" / overridden for new content when this game hasn't even really taken off yet.

I think by now, most of the Players have 1000 Faction Credits saved up (Max Limit) with nothing to spend them on. There's a system - Faction Credits System with 3 NMs already created - that is basically just sitting there, useless at this point.

Dzemael Darkhold - a rather fun, introductory Dungeon (for those that have never been in one before) - is now mostly invalidated by the Materia System and Ifrit content.

It's one thing if this content was experienced and farmed repeatedly as heavily as, say, SKY or Dynamis was in XI, but it's not even close. And to be fair, Faction NMs and Dzemael aren't even close to the interest-level / fun factor of SKY or Dynamis, but this is still functioning content that sits unused in the game now.

I think a few ways to make some of this "old" content viable again wouldn't take too much work:

• Update the Stats on the Faction NM Drops: This would take no additional resources except 1 Combat Designer to vette out the stats to make sure it was balanced and "fair" compared to current New Items in the same category.

• Change the Faction NM and/or Dzemael Darkhold Drops to be Materia Meldable and Convertible. Again, look at the stats and make slight adjustments as necessary, but then allow them to be Meldable or at least Convertible (perhaps with a better chance at rarer Tier IV Materia). This is again a cost-effective change that would make this content viable again.

• Consider making Dzemael Drops by Materia Meldable *and* the result of Rare *Parts*:
  
  Imagine if the Bladedancer's Jackboots were Materia Meldable *and* they can only be created by finding, say, 2 Rare Materials.
  
  1 Rare Material is from Dzemael Darkhold. And the 2nd Rare Material is from the New Dungeon in 1.21 (announced already).
  
  You'd have to get both, and then you can create the Bladedancer's Jackboots and you can fuse Materia to it as well.
  
  With a change like that, you'd have a relatively cost-effective solution to make already created drops far more meaningful, *rarer* and span 2 Dungeons instead of 1. The Jackboots are already created, so it's more of the time it takes one Designer to balance out stats and place the drops in the 2 dungeons.

If you think about it (in hindsight), Dzemael was created to really appease all of us who were desperate for some Max Level Content. Looking at the amount of drops it gives, in *ONE* Dungeon, it's rather crazy to think about how many drops were contained in there (from all the Chests along the way and Batraal himself). It covered every single class, and they had multiple Armor pieces, Weapons, etc. that were all just drops (no components or other steps necessary), with high drop percentages.


There are definitely some ways to make our current "old" content viable for us right now, with little extra work. And that work that's done on this (like the examples given above) could still make it meaningful as a good foundation of starting content when 2.0 launches (since the Faction NMs are spawned, so they are not affected by Map Redesign; and Dzemael Darkhold is an instance so it can be moved anywhere safely).

Yoshida's post looks like it would fit nicely in this thread since he addressed some concerns that were also mentioned in here. Sorry for raising it from the dead. Mmmm BRAINSSS!

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Originally Posted by Naoki_Yoshida

Hello, Producer/Director Yoshida here.

Thanks for the feedback on The Dzemael Darkhold and other previous content.

There is a reason we’re working on implementing new content before making adjustments to existing content. After the launch of the game, there wasn’t really any high-level battle content like instanced raids and primal battles, so first we needed to quickly add in additional battle content. Of course some of you might be thinking “you're only giving us new content, but you're not doing anything to adjust the previously implemented content.”

However, we have chosen not to actively push PR activities, or actively seek out new players, because we think that the best thing to do would be to cater to our current players by implementing lots of “consumable” content that matches the players’ levels. (You’ll start to notice more PR-related activity with the release of patch 1.21)

Of course, we won’t simply ignore implemented content as it is, and in the coming patches, we plan on preparing some motivation to go back and tackle previous content again.

Also for 2.0, as I said in a separate thread, we plan to introduce an easy mode and extra hard mode for primal battles and instance raids, and the rewards will be vary depending on the difficulty setting.

Up until 2.0, we'll continue our main focus on increasing the amount of content first and foremost and then with 2.0, we'll expand on the previously implemented content, as well as adding more. This is how we plan to go about things, and if you have any further ideas please let us know!

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GM necro. The best kind.
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...die/Brains.jpg

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

Yoshida's post looks like it would fit nicely in this thread since he addressed some concerns that were also mentioned in here. Sorry for raising it from the dead. Mmmm BRAINSSS!

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This is great news as a confirmation of everybody's desire that, in the future, there's a retrospective look thrown towards homogenizing the quality of the game. And we thank you, Rukkirii, for posting this here.

However, welcome though this might be, it still leaves unanswered the very good idea introduced by Gidonoidon_Sur in his great OP. Is there, consequently, any chance that this idea could be presented to Yoshida, and ultimately graced by a reply from him? I'm convinced his reaction to this will be of great interest to all.

Again, thanks Rukkirii, and good day to you.

R

I was actually just thinking this morning how awesome dyzmael was, and how sad that all the gear and motivation to go there is gone now.

Also a note on the separate difficulties, I think it would be much cooler to have an easy and hard mode type of "switch" for each of the battles. Take Ifrit for example, a sort of hard mode could be triggered by not breaking the horns. And players that want to just beat ifrit without too much effort could just break the horns off.

I think incapacitation would be a much more interesting method of adjusting boss difficulty, and adding rewards for players who attempt the bosses unincapacitated all the way through and allowing the Primals special abilities in that form, would be farm more interesting than just having a prompt: ENTER IFRIT (HARDMODE); ENTER IFRIT (NORMALMODE)

Who said the 2.0 primal battles would be the same as the 1.x? ^^

For dyzmael gear, with 1.21 we can exchange u/u gear to company seals ^^

1.21 Special supply & provisioning ops : Addition of unique and untradable item categories

Great question cause I've never thought about it before. Simply updating the drops, or the battle, or the lockout of the NM/dungeon?

Dzemael gear gets replaced by single meld crafted gear, same with the weapons. Why not just make little adjustments to make the place worth going to for, if even for just one or two pieces of gear? (i.e Haste/Movement Speed+ gear for completion in under 20mins)

Being able to change the appearance of armor and weapons and still keep the stats of your best gear (like Rift or EQ2 appearance slots) would be a good idea to get people to do old content. I recently started playing WoW again and that transmog thing they added in the last patch has gotten a lot of people going through the old content to collect gear just for appearances.

I agree on some of the stuff here. Refreshing and expanding at the same time would work wonders. Not only would players backtrack to the old content to do new stuff, expanding and implimenting new content would provide even more things to do after all is said and done with the old. :D

As far as hard mode/easy modes are concerned, can they at least have some sort of lore related reason tied to them? I enjoyed reading the explanation as to why we're able to fight Ifrit over and over. It's the little things like that that make things like that okay to me. But just to have, say, Ifrit become insanely powerful or incredibly weak for no real reason other than "just because" would be sort of lame, in my opinion. I had the same problem in WoW when you can do the final boss of the expansion with a group of random people. But if you do it with normal people on your server, he's slightly stronger, and if you hit a button before you enter the dungeon he's MUCH stronger for no real reason.

Perhaps not allow people to actually "defeat" the boss in easy mode? More just make them retreat, which would explain the easy mode style loot. Just please don't go the Normal/Heroic mode with this and have absolutely no explanation as to why the monsters/boss are/is suddenly stronger or weaker, it really kills the immersion even more.

They just need to let us attach materia to HNM/Darkhold/coffer armor.

All of it is worthless. Even with one single materia, most of it isn't very useful. Going for forbidden would just encourage players to keep themselves busy with a wide variety of content, rather than just the newest fight until they're 7/7.

They could also buff some of it. Tricorne could use STR+11 DEX+11 to keep up with Paragon's Crown and so on.

Hopefully with varying difficulties for the raids, they can either expand how much of the dungeons are accessible (less for easier, more for harder), increase quality of gear and/or increase drop rates with the higher difficulty.

I'd say the difference in difficulty for the primals should be between solo (easy), party (medium) and alliance (hard), but then I'd get the flames for asking to borrow an idea from XI...so maybe just increase drop rate and/or quality of gear with increased difficulty...

I don't want these two new dungeons comming out, I want darkhold redone again. I also don't want a new primal fight, just take the wings off the moogles and throw them on ifrit and change his name to garuda. Also don't want AF gear, just reskin old gear to look like it, im fine with no stats.

New stuff is a complete waste of time, just keep recycling old content forever.

Easy Mode/hard Mode is a good idea. Easy, medium, hard, extra hard, super hard would be an even better idea.
In terms of lore inconsistencies, it would be easy enough in at least 'some' circumstances to lock certain bosses and scenes out of the easier modes... but in concept ... the idea is to have content for all level ranges.

Ifrit would be cool super hard, but amongst 10 ... 20 ... 25 possible primals, Ifrit is historically in the FF franchise, one of the weakest. Of course that doesn't need to hold up here, however... Well, i don't know what the answer is, but there is a danger that locking stuff out of dungeons ahead of end game could lame-ise the pre-endgame content, although not necessarily.

it just has to be done well.

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Originally Posted by Rukkirii

we plan to introduce an easy mode and extra hard mode for primal battles and instance raids, and the rewards will be vary depending on the difficulty setting

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Cue whine from the 'hardcore' about giving the 'casuals' everything on a silver platter, they'll not bother to note the rewards aren't the same.

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Originally Posted by Gidonoidon_Sur

I am curious why SE or game developers in general (assumption) don't update "old" content as a game evolves. That is, periodic updating of pre-existing content to make it slightly different/more challenging so it remains challenging and rewarding.

Take the faction NMs for example. Why don't they add a layer of complexity or different piece of gear to these fights every now-and-again to give players a reason to revisit these fights?

By the time I reach 50, the only thing relevant to me, or really able to get people for, will probably be the latest and greatest Primal fight. To me, it is a waste of work not to add small pieces to old content to refresh it and make it different or new.

What are all your thoughts?

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I believe just updating stats on old pieces and adding better gear set bonuses would do. It would make Templar, Buccaneers, and Harlequins sets desiarable again.

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Originally Posted by Kraggy

Cue whine from the 'hardcore' about giving the 'casuals' everything on a silver platter, they'll not bother to note the rewards aren't the same.

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Quoted for TRUTH!

There's a big difference between "rehashing" old content and making old content viable. Here are some of my thoughts on the issue from the perspective of a WoW player:

Blizzard has tried (and is currently using) a non-progression based model where "only the current content matters" and it hasn't worked out; they can't keep up with the demand for content. Why? Because they didn't build upon what they had-- their current model is to make everything before the latest and greatest patch obsolete. The problem with that is, not even Blizzard has the development resources to completely reinvent the game every patch.

Right now Cataclysm's relevant content consists of the following: Three "heroics" (End Time, Well of Eternity, and Hour of Twilight) and one raid (Dragon Soul). That's it. All of the development time they were bragging about spending on Firelands, the previous raid, has been a big waste. No one goes to Firelands now, let alone Bastion of Twilight or Blackwing Descent (Cataclysm's original raids). Keep in mind that Firelands was only viable for *a few months*.

If Blizzard can't keep up with that type of development cycle, then SE sure as hell can't either. WoW did MUCH better in the vanilla/burning crusade days when there was a progression model. In TBC, you had to do Karazhan before you could do Serpentshrine Cavern. You have to do SSC before you could do Black Temple. You had to do BT before you could do Sunwell. Etc.

People might think they want a "casual" game where they are guaranteed to see the latest and greatest content, but people rarely realize what they want until it's gone. It turns out, nobody wants to pay to play an MMO like that; Cata didn't flop because it was too hard, it flopped because there was nothing to do.

So, SE, do like you did in FFXI. Build upon your content, don't make it outdated. That way there will ALWAYS be something for EVERYONE to do.

Faction Leves need to be Point based system (Aka Faction Points) Used for BCNM fights for Gear. Not to say this players should do Leve quests over and over to earn points. They could add Faction Points from other things like Chocobo Escorts and Repeating Raids. They should Readjust requirements for Faction Leve cost requirements to like 50/100/150.

Doing Faction Leves randomly gives players a keyitem for completing them. (50%) These Keyitems let you access Boss fights/Special Monster Fights. After slaying it a Chest Appears and you have a chance to earn rewards. Templar Armor etc. (BCNM access keyitems should Stack up to 10)

Lower Level/Less Faction Leve Mission Requirements give you easyer low level BCNMs.

Leve Quests.. lv1-10 1 Faction Point
lv10-20 2 Faction Points
lv20-30 3 Faction Points
lv30-40 4 Faction Points
lv40-50 5 Faction Points

Grand Companies Leves

Samething but +2 Faction points every 10 levels. So at lv40-50 its 10.

Raids

Darkhold Slay Mini boss 1 Faction points
Slay Megaboss 2 Faction points
Completion Above 20mins 2 Faction points
Completion Above 10mins 1 Faction point

Toto-Raw Slay Megaboss 1 Faction point
Completion Above 10mins 1 Faction point

Chocobo Escort lv20 1~3 Random Faction Points
lv50 3~6 Random Faction Points
Full Cargo +1 Faction chance.

Ifrit Faction Point+1 From Chest
Moogle Faction Point+1 From Chest

So that's Grinding for Faction Points then paying for Faction Leves then earning keyitems. Once Keyitem is earned you can do Special Boss fights for Chests that alwas appear after fight is done and earn random loot.