Yoshida-san, Where's the Challenge? Where are the Real Changes? END GAME Content?

[AlexiaKidd]

Hi Alexia,

Good point. The original team probably thought they'd be moving on to Ishgard, Chocobos and raising the level cap (in their original plan) by now, but clearly hearing from the reaction the game has gotten, Players' Polls and the changes in the team, it's no longer the case.

I should've clarified that I was hoping for more stuff for the "current end of the game" (i.e., Rank 50) players to do at some point. As Darkstar and others have mentioned, heck, out of the 20 NMs they added for Patch 1.17, would it have hurt to take ~2 of them and had them be reused versions of an Inferno Drake or a Raptor and made it something that a group of Rank 50 players could band together and kill? Rancid Rakk the Raptor NM? :P

Exactly so much of the game has changed from what was originally envisioned. When you look back to interviews in early 2010 it is like the Dev team were talking about a completely different game. Even as late as June they were still talking about features that are completely missing. Tanaka even said the game would ship with at least a years worth of content but then everything started changing rapidly and things started getting pulled from the game. I don't know if it was because of feedback from the Alpha or Beta testing but something happened and made SE scramble.

Originally DoL/DoH were supposed to fight alongside DoM/DoW in battle. Though not as proficient in battle they we supposed to be able bring something to the party. They talked about how Miners would have THF like abilities like Treasure Hunter and Steal and Blacksmiths could sharpen weapons while it was in your hand. The Miner and Blacksmith descriptions were still on the Official FFXIV site for sometime after release before they were removed. Things like PUG's different fighting stances to give it different attack/defend tactics all sorts of things were all pulled at the last minute.

You wander around Eorzea and the evidence is all around that stuff has been crudely ripped out or blocked off with invisible walls. It's not that they don't have any content it's that they have stopped us from accessing it while they figure out what to do. I mean Chocobo's for example, maybe the reason we don't have access is because to rent them or whatever you might need a Chocobo Licence from Ishgard something as simple as that. As we can't access Ishgard we can't have Chocobo's. Why can we access Ishgard? Probably because it gives us access to other zones like Dravania much like Jeuno was in the middle maybe we aren't seeing what else Ishgard is linked to. Also any content they give us access to will have to be rebalanced if they make any changes to the battle system, which is exactly what they are doing.

They confirmed the PS3 version was ready to go in Oct/Nov but they still decided to hold it back until March, why? I think Tanaka believed he would have only needed 6 months to get the game back on track and get everything balanced. Unfortunately he didn't get the chance as the backlash was so huge SE had to do something to show they were serious about fixing the game so they replaced him with Yoshi P. While I do like Yoshi P. I can't help but wonder if with him being in control it is actually delaying things further. What I mean is that Yoshi P. might be changing so much of the core ie. Battle System that they have to go back now and completely reassess every bit of content they had ready to make sure it all works. I doubt we will ever know what caused the sudden shift in direction for FFXIV and the damage it has caused to the game.

Back on topic though and the reason for lack of End Game is that you can see they can't do anything until the Battle System is complete now and their hands are tied. If they release End Game content (even though R50 is temp End Game) then they will only have to re-balance it with the new system creating even more work for them. What we have is an empty shell of what FFXIV is supposed to be and if they had got done what they needed to do in the 6 month time frame they had originally given themselves we wouldn't be where we are now. I think at launch they had purposely put in low SP/EXP and fatigue at launch to slow us down so we wouldn't have so many R50's by the time the 6 months was up and the PS3 release shipped, however Yoshi P. has changed that now we get loads of SP/EXP everyone is flying up to R50 and now wondering why they have nothing to do when they get there.

[Magiksmurf]

Again I point to the flame drakes and Ixali fencers, and redwing keds and emerald salamanders, go get em!.

Grinding sux, there's no point going after those mobs. When people ask for a challenge they mean from quests/content.

[darkstarpoet1]

Back on topic though and the reason for lack of End Game is that you can see they can't do anything until the Battle System is complete now and their hands are tied. If they release End Game content (even though R50 is temp End Game) then they will only have to re-balance it with the new system creating even more work for them. What we have is an empty shell of what FFXIV is supposed to be and if they had got done what they needed to do in the 6 month time frame they had originally given themselves we wouldn't be where we are now. I think at launch they had purposely put in low SP/EXP and fatigue at launch to slow us down so we wouldn't have so many R50's by the time the 6 months was up and the PS3 release shipped, however Yoshi P. has changed that now we get loads of SP/EXP everyone is flying up to R50 and now wondering why they have nothing to do when they get there.

i do see your point with this, but the point is if they feel the changes are that major then no new content should be added. do not try to say that the rebalancing issue is only applicable to high level players. if the changes are minor enough for them to easily fix low level mobs then the same should apply to high level ones. 1 mob to rebalance is a mob to rebalance afterall no matter what level mob it is.

[AlexiaKidd]

i do see your point with this, but the point is if they feel the changes are that major then no new content should be added. do not try to say that the rebalancing issue is only applicable to high level players. if the changes are minor enough for them to easily fix low level mobs then the same should apply to high level ones. 1 mob to rebalance is a mob to rebalance afterall no matter what level mob it is.

Exactly which is why they are adding as little as they have to across all level ranges throughout the game. The only reason I singled out End Game is because that is what this thread is about well that and the lack of challenge and why it hasn't been implemented yet. Once the battle system is finalised and in game I would expect either one of 2 things to happen:

1 - We start getting big changes and content much more rapidly.
or
2 - They will announce the PS3 launch date and will still try and hold as much content back as they can for that so they can wow everyone with one huge expansion and build up huge hype for it and the coming release.

Either way Yoshi said that Septemeber would be when he hopes new players and old players would come back so this is probably what they are aiming for PS3 release but obviously they won't announce it until they are sure everything will be ready by then as they can't afford to mess that up.

[darkstarpoet1]

Exactly which is why they are adding as little as they have to across all level ranges throughout the game. The only reason I singled out End Game is because that is what this thread is about well that and the lack of challenge and why it hasn't been implemented yet. Once the battle system is finalised and in game I would expect either one of 2 things to happen:

1 - We start getting big changes and content much more rapidly.
or
2 - They will announce the PS3 launch date and will still try and hold as much content back as they can for that so they can wow everyone with one huge expansion and build up huge hype for it and the coming release.

Either way Yoshi said that Septemeber would be when he hopes new players and old players would come back so this is probably what they are aiming for PS3 release but obviously they won't announce it until they are sure everything will be ready by then as they can't afford to mess that up.

i'm not so sure i'd classify 20 nm's with fully made gear drops this month would be considered little content. as i and others have asked why weren't 2 of the 20 added for the high class.

[AlexiaKidd]

i'm not so sure i'd classify 20 nm's with fully made gear drops this month would be considered little content. as i and others have asked why weren't 2 of the 20 added for the high class.

I was not really talking about the NM's they added but complete systems like the Company system. I am sure the NM's already have their alternate setups and balance in place ready for when they battle system changes. As for the gear they drop you can already see the shift in the stats they have with pieces having ATK+ as opposed to STR+, DEX+ and so on.

I imagine the Company system will be like what Campaign was to FFXI but much more fleshed out and with many more new bell's and whistles. If they had implemented that now then something like that would take much more time to rebalance than what the NM's would. Also at higher levels you would expect the tactics needed to fell these NM's to be much more involved so this is probably another reason why higher level ones were missed this time around. They most likely have them ready to go just are waiting for the battle system. They already stated they will have high level dungeons ready for it when it is implemented so we shall just have to wait and see.

[Rentahamster]

Things like PUG's different fighting stances to give it different attack/defend tactics all sorts of things were all pulled at the last minute.

Actually, that's still there.

[Ostia]

This is a carebear MMO, the only hard content, is grinding lol

[AlexiaKidd]

Actually, that's still there.

Is it oh well at least they got that in lol I have a R32 PUG as well so it's quite worrying that I didn't know that ^^

How do you change the stances then?

[Verecund]

It still really confuses me as to why they even considered releasing the game like this.....