Instanced Content is it killing gaming?

[Nuinn]

My gripe with instanced content lies only within fencing out the community. Nothing "big" ever happens, where the community comes together to join forces and do something, unless Odin or Behemoth pop then the players join their forces to d/c collectively

FATES literally do nothing for me. Good concept but lacklustre exectution. I don't stop to watch people fight FATE bosses as I run to my favourite fishing spot, I don't feel the need to join in, cheer them, throw heals, help them reach unreachable spots (which are currently non-existent, thank you DoL stealth!) etc. Well, I do sometimes if I see someone solo-struggling with certain FATE but those situations are rarer than spotting a female player playing a female Miqo'te.

Those are the things I miss

[Conkuur]

I'm with you Nuinn Fates are good only for leveling and little else. You aren't getting any incentive like a rare drop or just anything substantive other than xp and company tickets.

Instance content by design fences out the community and content. You havent prevented griefing you have only created a new way to do it.

[IzumiRaito]

Open world content is cool, but competing with others for such content is really terrible. Everyone that think camping a hnm with a claim bot against other claim bots is fun, must be suffering from stockholm syndrome.

However, the current open world content (FATEs) doesnt require drastic overhauls, just some small changes:

1. Make HNMs like cancer, svara, "eyes have it" coerthas fate boss, gorgimera, dark devices last boss, odin, behe drop gear or mats that are viable for end game (horizontal progression gear for example), not just vanity.
2. Make the participation rewards (increased % chance of getting complete item, number of crafting mats) scale with real participation - mainly healer gets reward for healing, not dpsing. Also using support skills like songs, virus, eye for an eye etc impact this. And make claim have absolutely no impact on loot.
3. Increase their general difficulty level, mechanics etc.
4. Make them scale the difficulty with the number of participants, but only slightly, for example hmn doesnt focus only the highest aggro target, but attacks random target from x highest enmity targets. x and attack speed scales with number of current participants.
5. In case everyone wipe, make the boss slowly recover hp instead of reset, like 1-2% max hp per second, NOT dissappear
6. Fix the rendering system so that large scale battles are fully accessible on ps3 and lower spec pc (use very low detail models, shadows off, silhouette only display like in TERA)

[Conkuur]

No trade item solves the bot issue not gonna bot what you cant sell. As far as I'm concerned the only loot that should be sellable is crafted items and gathered and trash loot.

My point is you can have a persistent world still use dungeon currency (for personal items) no mob claiming everyone there gets some currency dependent on some dmg healing modifiers on how much you get and the situation works well. if the zone gets overcrowded you can instance another zone which is fine because its all accessible still.

I think GW2 almost got this right. You can fight a dragon with everyone and a chest drops so everyone gets something. They just needed to do the same with non instanced dungeons.

[Bambam]

Man....people just do not want to compete .

[Musashidon]

Man....people just do not want to compete .

the point of a mmo is to play together not against each other. that's what pvp is for.

[Talligan]

I don't mind the instanced content in other MMO's, its just so damn boring in FFXIV. At levelling instances, at least, seem like they're just busywork chores that the player needs to complete. I play a MAR (and am pretty good at it too) but it feels like I just roll my face around the keyboard for 20-45 minutes. Jogging on a treadmill is more fun and rewarding.

[DoctorPepper]

Personally I think lack of content in general is killing the game, thankfully 2.2 is right around the bend and a large handful of friends will be back to enjoy it until that runs out as well. The way I see it is that this game right now is just a starting point for something great, similar to how FFXI sucked pre-RoZ. Right now the level cap is too low and there are too many things that still need to be added to the game but I'm willing to bet that the expansion, hopefully before the end of the year, will revive this game once again for a while. My only hope is that they don't keep killing old content to make room for the new stuff, I would prefer a more horizontal progression with several options for things to do and without the ability to skip entire sets of gear progression but right now that's just a dream.

All that said, the game is doing alright still and better than I expected compared to other mmo launches that failed with even less issues than this one had. The majority of my friends that quit were mostly planning to only quit temporarily while waiting for new content and it makes me happy they'll be back at least.

[Bambam]

the point of a mmo is to play together not against each other. that's what pvp is for.

Oh we are playing together. I'm just playing on the other team

[Fendred]

Instance content has it's place. However, too much of it lessens the point of exploration and content in an open world. There has to be balance for an open world to be meaningful. FATEs aren't really doing that.

I guess all of us who have been playing MMOs for a while knew this was going to happen. In GW2, the only place that is ever visited regularly for grinding out world events is Queensdale, which is the human starting area in Kryta. The rest have been almost totally abandoned by the majority of the player base due to the fact that more people doing events means getting the leveling experience done faster.