My friend the "content locust" :(

[Imapooonu]

I also edited the original post to reflect this sentiment and request.

Thank you in advance, poo

[TrystWildkey]

To be fair, this is 2.1 aka first update from 2.2 We really don't know the final rate of contest upkeep the team will layout.

There is a lot to factor in, and it is still somewhat early to tell.

If they can keep a 2~2.5month major content refresh, it is sustainable...

...but it really hard to say at this point, since we need to know what the team's target goals are.

I almost agree with you. But only almost. It is early in the game's lifecycle, and they do plan to keep up with the 3 month schedule for updates.

However, by this time, we are able to see the foundation upon which each update will be built.

I'm one of the people that has no problem with the amount of content. There is a crap-ton of stuff I haven't done yet.

My dissatisfaction comes from the typeof content, not the amount. Even though it is early in the game's lifecycle, we have enough information from the current game, and from what they've released regarding their future plans, to understand the basis of all future content.

The basis of all future content (so far, at least) appears to be an ever increasing item level. Vertical only.

For people who manage to play at just the right pace, (completing the new content just before the next major patch date) this game is fantastic!

For people who play at a faster pace, they've run out of new things to do before the next patch and get bored. (understandable)

For people who play at a slower pace, their viewpoint varies.
They could be pleased that they'll eventually get where they need to go, since older content will get the echo buff.
Or, like me, it's a 'why bother' attitude. I can either grind out the dungeon runs now, and have completely useless gear in just a couple of weeks, or I can take the easy way out, wait for the echo buff and get my gear later.

There's no challenge for me. I could even just log in for a half hour each day, completely bypass dungeons, do beastmen dailies, and eventually get all myth gear. Wow, fun ><

In addition to the vertical only gear, with very simplistic stats, we know that all of the battle content relies on memorizing the mob's pattern, and memorizing your own pattern for each fight. Now, I'm not saying that this in itself is a bad/wrong decision. It's just not to my taste. FFXI, XIV 1.0 and XIV 1.23 (which are the only MMO's I really spent any time playing) did not rely upon pattern recognition and creation as heavily and exactly as 2.0 does.

To top it all off, because of these 2 aspects of the game's foundation, we can extrapolate that any future classes/jobs will not really deviate from what we already have. All will have a single set of Best in Slot gear, and all will have a single effective skill rotation. They might appear different, but, depending on where you place your skills on the hotbar, you could theoretically play each job by pressing the same exact buttons in the same exact rotation for each encounter.

EDIT: Poo, please don't flag me, I started composing this before your most recent update and there are some good points here that may be relevant to the original discussion. /grovel

[Edellis]

This is the fundamental problem with the 'WoW' model of these games. If the player base has to try to find stuff to make the game less boring, then imo the game has failed at its core.

This is the problem with MMO gamers, who believe that an MMO is some ~*~magical activity~*~ where you do the same thing every day, every month, continuously, for thousands of hours on end, yet is supposed to stay interesting and never get dull, or else it's "bad game design". The game has plenty of content. It has plenty of endgame content too. You've just gotten bored with it. Cancel your subscription and wait for them to add more.


/thread. This isn't a "CURRENT ISSUE IN MMOS", it's literally common sense that development teams aren't global mind readers, and a game's capacity to hold your attention isn't infinite. And the WoW model is probably the furthest thing from a "fundemental problem" any sane person or critic can think of. The fact that many of you have multiple lv50 classes and have been playing since 1.0 are proof that the game is addictive and is succeeding quite spectacularly at its goal.


People complain about how Casual gamers ruin gaming, but i'd venture to say the equally terrible end of that argument is the unrealistically entitled Hardcore gamer who believes everything should take 20 years to accomplish with fun you have to dig for by design. You'd think years of terrible Korean MMOs would have broken us out of that idea, but instead it just seems to create a cancerous niche that just wont go away...


FFXIV ARR is indeed a roller coaster --> you pay for fun, and you get fun, until it isn't fun anymore. The endgame content in this game is not easy, it just isn't impossible. Your sharply honed standards for what is considered "Hard" or "Fun" for an MMO have been conditioned so hard that you can only enjoy a certain type of it.

So you need to understand, that you're the minority. That's why this game is so successful.

[Susanoh]

The friend in this post is perfectly entitled to that opinion. Most of the activities suggested have no relevance to the world itself. They'd be fine as a self created goal for completionists who want to grind out everything just for the sake of doing everything, but when the meat of the game involves almost exclusively self created goals it makes for a game that's not entirely interesting as a whole. I personally love when there's extra things to try outside of what the main part of the game offers but not as a substitute for having a strong base of a game to begin with. If you immediately have to jump to advocating menial tasks like "capping 50k seals" when someone mentions a lack of content, it only reinforces what they were originally getting at.

[Edellis]

I think anyone reasonable would agree that capping tomes/seals/logs/whatever is a terrible incentive to keep playing.

My only point here is, this guy is blaming the GAME for the fact that he has exhausted its content. That literally makes no sense whatsoever.

[kukurumei]

I almost agree with you. But only almost. It is early in the game's lifecycle, and they do plan to keep up with the 3 month schedule for updates.

From all interviews they wanted a 2~2.5month cycle. This may or may not have changed

12/14 is 2.1
we are 2/14

so we are on 2 months right now. Given the new years is a traditional slow down. It's entirely too early to see their designated goals.

What's in the content does matter, but not as much as you think. There is always a consumption of "any" content. No matter what. That's what make the WoW model such a surprise.

They can have an intern design something half baked, and people would still do it to past the time, and call it good.

There needs to be a mixture here.

And more needs to be said for "movie" content like hildibrand, that offers nothing but story and humor. Yet people will keep their subs just to wait for the next episode.

In terms of programing effort for hildibrand. It is a matter of days with a few interns, and very good story board employees directing it. (Basically just on those alone, they can stuff into any update and people will be fine with it)

[Imapooonu]

EDIT: Poo, please don't flag me, I started composing this before your most recent update and there are some good points here that may be relevant to the original discussion. /grovel

No worries mate. I didn't flag anyone. It just needed to be said again because this:

“There is partial responsibility inferred to the topic creator/original poster to direct the discussion of the thread they create in a manner conducive with regards to the main idea of their post.”

And again forum, stating your opinions to help justify a point of view is fine. It is almost humanly impossible to be on topic all the time. I care about what I post, and the points of views people share with me when engaging.

However, any “chest thumping” “you’re wrong and stupid” or “Only an idiot xyz” conversations will be flagged. The thread has not gone down that path again yet, but it seemed likely. Hence my preemptive warning.

It’s really the only reason I said please and thank you. And again…
THANK YOU ALL FOR CONTRIBUTING!!!

......................................................................

EDIT

I take it back, I just flagged two. They'll get to them (not yours only the comments deemed harassment worthy)

[Susanoh]

I think anyone reasonable would agree that capping tomes/seals/logs/whatever is a terrible incentive to keep playing.

My only point here is, this guy is blaming the GAME for the fact that he has exhausted its content. That literally makes no sense whatsoever.

Losing interest because the game hasn't provided a lot of meaningful content is a reasonable gripe. When most content is meant to be completed very quickly and easily to get to "end game" and then there isn't a ton to do there either, the only thing left to do is create goals for the sake of having goals even if they don't have any effect on the world like the thread creator has done. While some may be into that sort of thing, it's understandable that not everyone is.

[Sirantha]

<snip>

While I can see why people would be frustrated that they've completed the existing content many times over, that is still unique to those people, regardless of how many there are. The game is not just aimed at people who can play for many hours every single day, but also at people who only have an hour or two per day, or even only a few days a week, to play, but still want to accomplish things. Now, I'm not saying that means SE shouldn't introduce more content for the people who DO have the time, but I'm honestly pretty surprised that people expect the devs to simply pull content out of their backsides. Introducing a few new dungeons each patch is actually pretty awesome, and they're also adding mini events to keep players interested. If that doesn't interest the people who are frustrated, that's simply too bad. Devs can't please everyone, right?

[Yurimi]

I couldn't be bothered reading through 14 pages of posts so I am going to keep based on what I have read.


I come from FFXI, a game where content grew with each patch and expansion where sidegrades were the norm and there was always that one item to improve your set... have an Optical Hat for your evasion set thats nice but if you want to really make a good evasion set you need to go camp a Lv. 24 Hairpin for that extra 3 AGI yes a low level item was better than a higher level one even if only slightly.

The ammount of content grew over the years you were not stuck doing the same thing with artifical locks on everything making it impossible to progress your character... hey you did dynamis and its a 3 day lockout thats ok limbus is a 3 day lockout too thats the next night both of those done how about einherjar hey look you now have events 6 nights a week that are on lockouts. The kicker is these events were released YEARS apart but still relevant. and if you werent doing events you could go do small stuff like salvage or nyzul. You could go do big stuff like sky sea HNM's or go camp regular NM's to get that drop you want. the reason there was so much content in XI was because stuff didnt get outdated so (until abyssea and the level cap increases that saw waves of payers leave the game and SoA which made the game pretty much a ladder grind) you always had something to do something to better yourself and over the years what you could do grew it wasnt tossed aside and left to be empty worthless stuff that you will only do once because you HAVE to do it.

Does this game have content... yes.. it has a lot of filler content that I find zero point in doing because I finished gearing my healers and I dont enjoy other classes. I play a game to have fun but I find myself simply logging into MSN: ARR edition because now its simply get that better iLv. item which I can only do 1 day a week. I am used to having a myriad of content placed before me ala FFXI pre abyssea. Sadly all I have here is empty content that leaves me feeling less and less inclined to do anything. I have hope this game could go somewhere but I have zero hope that it will go somewhere if it continues to keep dropping old content so that all you have to do for 3 months is what was just released.

EDIT(1) Its actually gotten to the point I have picked WoW back up again just to use as filler and honestly when you are playing another game just because 1 doesnt offer you enough to last more than 1-2 days a week I find something wrong there.

EDIT(2) I should point out that I work full time and then some and I also have a life outside this game both social and not game related (I tend to go through at least 2 books a week) so this is generally all done in the course of about two 3-5hr play sessions each week outside of just chatting with a couple friends (and anyone on leviathan who frequents gridania has probably seen me almost always sitting in the same spot doing a whole lot of nothing though recently I changed spots)