Patch 2.2, Accessibility, Difficulty Levels, and Throwing Away Content

[Ildur]

I don't think they need help. They just need to grow up and get out of their teen mentality.

[Rekujen]

You guys really need to stop with this "I beat coil when it was hard" nonsense... nobody cares, your "accomplishment" doesn't mean jack to anyone.

You know what matters instead? what you have equipped during a patch.

Wearing Coil 1-5 gear right now? that's your accomplishment, that's when people inspect you and go "wow" nobody is gonna look at your history and go "damn this guy is awesome, he beat 1-5 before the nerf"

2.2 hits, get that 6-9 gear and people will see your "accomplishment" then and there.. that's what you should be looking forward to, not some epeen history of yours that nobody cares about.

[Vantol]

This is the byproduct of this game, and the vast majority of us like it this way. We don't need to inflate an e-peen. We don't care about looking special. We don't care about pissing on the "noobs." We don't care about any of that crap.

I find it funny that whenever I read posts strongly defending current route game is taking in all those threads, it's always synaesthetic. No one else. Not a single soul. Just you. Didn't it cross your mind, that this "vast majority" of yours exists only in your head? And it's actually you and you alone?

On less personal note, I have statistics. Being die-hard fan of Final Fantasy I actually PRed FFXIV not long before release with my own money in a few communities. So I had possibilities to keep track of ~1400 players. Only ~160 of them keep playing, all others left. 88% people out of those 160 log in once per week for Coil only because they feel resposible for their static groups and they would leave this game in a heartbeat for good if not that. Doesn't feel like "vast majority", does it?

Eventually I will make separate thread with more statistics when I get them. So please join discussion by then.

[Worm]

You speak like all WoW-Clone/Theme Park MMORPG or how do you want to call them (in which FFXIV belong) in recent years haven't crashed and burned after a successful start. :P

You're talking like a MMO dev here, when you declare that any modern MMO that didn't become WoW is a failure. And yeah I see your :P there, I just couldn't help myself.

That each new piece of content must drop vastly superior equipment is the mindset that causes older content to become obsolete, not whether content is instanced or not. If new content were to come with different rewards that accommodated different play styles or offered alternatives to what already existed, it makes for a game that has quite a bit of relevant content for players to choose to do and get cool rewards while doing it. The methods used by some modern games and now FF14 make for a game where no one wants to do old content. It becomes a joke to complete because of how easy it is with superior equipment, and doesn't drop anything that anyone wants, because all drops are inferior to whatever just came out. What's left is the only content people care to do at all, which is whatever was just released. Some people might want this style of game, but it's incredibly easy to see why some wouldn't. A game that gets constantly updated like an MMO does has the potential to build itself into an experience with lots of things to do and get some nice rewards while doing them. A game that uses the power creep method becomes only as good as its latest patch, since no one wants to do any old content, as it becomes easily out leveled and unbalanced and has no relevant rewards. We don't even get anything nice in exchange for these methods. It only serves to make the amount of relevant things to do in game feel incredibly restrictive.

You completely dodged the instanced vs. competitive content angle here. I understand why though, because it's really hard to rectify with everything else you're saying. How do you make a instanced game with horizontal progression? Are you saying you'd be happy with this new version of coil if it had ilvl 91 gear and ilvl 96 weapons at the end? Probably not. We have the option of slowly building up to a raid difficulty that most players don't see like Naxx40 or Sunwell. Mind you difficulty includes all attunements, grinding, bugged encounters, resist gear farming, or fingernails that must be pulled out and mailed to the developers. Of course only 5%~ of the player base being to reach this content when it's current doesn't make it obsolete, it makes it obsoleet ... HEH.

Then we have the option of just making the game have competitive non-instanced content, which means either it needs to be HUGE beyond imagining or simply have servers with as few players as there were ten years ago. I really don't think there's much middle ground, games are designed for more load now-a-days because everyone wants WoW numbers, that's it. It's just an inevitable and unavoidable truth. I hope a company comes and builds an MMO for 6 figures, but seeing as Brad McQuaid's latest hardcore vaporware has kickstarter goals up into the millions, I doubt it'll happen. I'd like to see it happen but subbing to games and spending the majority of your time trying to World's Best MMO Soothsayer on the forums isn't going to make people want to make this game, I swear.

On less personal note, I have statistics. Being die-hard fan of Final Fantasy I actually PRed FFXIV not long before release with my own money in a few communities. So I had possibilities to keep track of ~1400 players. Only ~160 of them keep playing, all others left. 88% people out of those 160 log in once per week for Coil only because they feel resposible for their static groups and they would leave this game in a heartbeat for good if not that. Doesn't feel like "vast majority", does it?

Eventually I will make separate thread with more statistics when I get them. So please join discussion by then.

Please tell me you are going to post data from your Guerrilla PR activities and pass them off as meaningful, I can't wait.

[Maye]

I don't honestly understand why people are terribly upset about this, the demographic of players who can take legitimate offense seems like it would be rather small.

**Players who are both capable and interested in defeating Twintania as she is right now, but haven't yet been able to put forth the effort to do it.

I can understand being upset the content is being nerfed in this manner, and I believe with the echo buff system it may be possible to still do it without it and experience it in its original intensity. As with all content in a game such as this, it's being passively nerfed over time as players are able to acquire better equipment by CT, myth tomes, coil runs etc. anyways. At any rate I feel like this player would be interested in challenging coils 6-9 as well.

**Players who beat Twintania before (twisters nerf/2.1/2.2/x weeks of myth) patch.

I fall into this category and I don't care if she's nerfed. 14 kills later(I play 2 chars, before people call me out) I still don't have a single allagan weapon and I look forward to playing new content/raiding coil with more FC mates than my 7 static members and teaching them the Twintania fight etc. I don't care if my current accomplishments are invalidated, there will be new challenges coming with the next patch and I look forward to playing them. By the time 2.2 comes I will have been killing Twintania for 3 months, what part of this is impressive anymore?

**Players who haven't beat Twintania but want to experience the whole story.

There are a lot of reasons this can happen. Maybe you aren't the best player, sure. Maybe you have an unfriendly work schedule and can't form a static. Maybe you've been busy with school. Maybe your static had drama and fell apart. Maybe you can only play for 1 hour at a time. etcetcetc -- Eventually these players should be allowed to beat Twin. Twin is 6 month old content at this point and I don't see an issue with that.

Are people really just so caught up on others being able to get allagan loot that might not normally be able to as easily? At this point they can gear an entire class by myth alone to be i90. A piece of allagan loot is not really something to brag about....

[Scarletyoshi]

I don't understand the value in doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Are there really people who want to do the endgame content out now 4 years from now? These are people that exist? Why wouldn't they want to do what's new? I just don't understand why people are so attached to content they've done already hundreds of times, as we are constantly reminded.

To each his own I guess.

[Maye]

I don't understand the value in doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Are there really people who want to do the endgame content out now 4 years from now? These are people that exist? Why wouldn't they want to do what's new? I just don't understand why people are so attached to content they've done already hundreds of times, as we are constantly reminded.

To each his own I guess.

It just feels like "I walked up hill in the snow both ways so new players should have to as well" type of mentality. I don't really understand the type of player who wants their Allagan Weapon from an unnerfed twin to be relevant 2 years in the future... what kind of value does that put on all the gear released in two years if it's worse than something you already have?

[Scarletyoshi]

It just feels like "I walked up hill in the snow both ways so new players should have to as well" type of mentality. I don't really understand the type of player who wants their Allagan Weapon from an unnerfed twin to be relevant 2 years in the future... what kind of value does that put on all the gear released in two years if it's worse than something you already have?

I know. It's like someone feeling they got ripped off because PS3's are $150 now when they bought theirs for $699 a thousand years ago. You got to play with it for a thousand years before the people who got it for $150! If you thought you were making an investment then you suck at investing.

[Amiantos]

-words-

Wait a second...you tell them that what they think is the majority isn't because what you want to think is? Can we see these so called statistics. Who am I kidding you won't post in this thread or you'll just ignore me.

[Malamasala]

Yoshida doesn't understand what makes a MMORPG endgame (or a MMORPG in general) last. Exclusive content is good, hard content is good, it gives people something to work toward, a feeling that there is always a world and content behind everything.

Actually I believe he does know, since he has made one for adults with a life. You on the other side seem to still believe MMOs should be for kids who ignore school and should require a ton of time and work.

Exclusive and hard content is a waste. Only thing you need is fun content.