Nerfs are making the game less fun for "many" hardcore AND casual players

[MasamuneBranford]

Nearly 9 months if we're being accurate.



I'm still struggling to understand how the OP has much time for "challenging" content anyway, it sounds like he simply wouldn't have the time to dedicate to something like a coil2 static. That really is the issue that i'm struggling to understand, if you don't have time for challenging content, chances are you were never going to get it done without it being nerfed anyway.

Read two posts up and then tell me I'm referring to coil2 / twintania / etc. I'm talking about 99% of the other content that was fun (for seemingly everybody) to begin with which is no longer fun due to unnecessary nerfs.

and if we're really being accurate - the nerfs didn't happen today. They happened in March.

[MythToken]

If they didn't add the buffs/nerfs you would never catch up. These are designed to help players exactly like yourself catch up to the new content.

If they left it the same way, you would be stuck on twintania for months, at that point new content would be out and you would just be getting to T6.

So the echo is to help players exactly like you, who don't have time to play as much as hardcore players.

The fact that you want to fight the content in its original form is another matter entirely, and can simply be bypassed by clicking it off. There doesn't seem to be any real problem or merit to your gripe.

[Arkista]

Clearly many of you didn't read my entire post. My main complaints:

1) nerfs happen too fast. Not enough time to get to the challenges if you're a casual player (All of 2.1 has been nerfed within 3 months).
2) Some content should have i-level / stat caps. I'm not talking about roadblock content - I'm talking about content that was fun for everyone before - and is now just a snooze.

Again what Nerfs are you on about? Adjustments to HV? Yes some players have a hard time, But HV should never be a problem anyways. How did they Nerf Titan/Garuda Ex?? What adding in an optional Echo Buff?? An optional feature is not a Nerf. To my knowledge Extreme Primals didn't get a nerf. 3-6 months for minor adjustments and adding in that optional Echo Buff to content, Is more than enough time.

If SE adds stat caps to any content outside of a level synced dungeon, You can bet that a lot of players would be pissed and not do the said content if they don't have to.


TBH I don't think you know the difference between Nerf and optional buff. You say you're a casual player but enjoy a challenge? I'll tell you again Turn off your Optional Buff and put on some lower ilvl gear if you want to cap your stats.

Here is what would be a "Nerf"

T1 no adds for ADS, Caduceus doesn't Regorge, He doesn't gain Stacks and -10% damage.
T2 No more Rot, No more Buffs from other Nodes.
T4 Dreads don't gain stacks anymore, all mobs HP reduced by 10%, Pulse Wave removed.
T5 Conflag/Fireball damage reduced by 50%, Dive Bombs damage reduced by 25%, twisters removed, Death Sentence damage reduced by 50%.
Titan Ex Landslide doesn't knock you off, only one add spawns, Weight of the land damage reduced by 50%.


Those would be considered "Nerfs". Now what we had was some minor adjustments made and then an optional Echo Buff.

[MasamuneBranford]

Arkista - you're missing the point. When there was an I-level 90 cap - I'd say roughly 95% of the content was tuned perfectly to offer a fun experience for the overwhelming majority of players. 5% was challenging content. I'm not referring to the challenging content (I'm completely fine if twintania or titan extreme received a nerf. Those were legitimate road blocks).

I'm referring to the fun dungeons that everyone runs for duty roulette on a daily basis. These definitely need an I-level cap so they offer a fun challenge rather than an absolute mindless grind. I'm referring to trials from trial roulette where a buff is completely unnecessary. If a party wipes - the win shouldn't be handed to that party (I don't want extra help for content that was fun to begin with). It's unrealistic to assume everyone in a party is going to show up with lower stay gear and turn off their buffs - so please stop suggesting that.

[MasamuneBranford]

With the implementation of I level 110-115 gear - I level caps should be implemented to preserve the challenge for dungeons / trials that were fun to begin with. With the huge incentive to earn myth tomes - I\\'d rather be doing fun daily roulette dungeons rather than mindless daily roulette dungeons.

[Suellen]

Clearly the term nerf being used in a broad sense here is bothering people. So let’s use a different term. I’ll call it Content Decay. This game has really bad Content Decay. There are a few factors which cause Content Decay.

Factor 1: Item level and steep vertical progression.
Now pretty much all mmos have some amount of vertical progression. The genre is based on the idea of a constant progression on ones avatar after all. But the problem in FFXIV is that the vertical progression is way too steep. We have already doubled our item level during end game (AF gear at 50-55, current end game at 100-110) and it hasn’t even been a year yet. This is a problem. The stat bloat on our gear is going to have a strong effect in how we perform in end game content. Content that was designed for people in AF gear is going to seem stupidly trivial for people in current 100-110 gear.

Factor 2: Echo buff
This buff blanketly increases everyone’s stats yet even more. I know the usual counter argument is that the buff is optional. But that’s a load of bleep. I’ll get into why at the end.

Factor 3: Mechanic changes, Encounter Nerfs
There have been changes and nerfs to the old content. Many of which I argue the validity of. Why AK was nerfed to the ground will forever be baffling to me. But AK, Thornmarch, and coil have all received mechanic nerfs from what I can recall off the top of my head. There may be others.

Now going back to factors 1 and 2. How does this effect new and casual players? They after all will be in lower tier gear and as people like to point out they can remove that echo buff that’s “optional”. Well Carbine did some research on mmo trends when making Wildstar and they shared some of their findings. What they found is that 60% of the mmo playerbase at large play solo. That’s right more than half of mmo players out there opt to play solo. What that means for end game in a lot of games is that most people end up pugging. They aren’t in statics or in guilds they do all their end game runs with. They jump into that easy to queue dungeon finder and pug. I would argue this is particularly true for casual players.

So new and casual players are, more often than not, seeing content in pugs. Pugs with members that are in stupidly high gear scores. Pugs that are all collectively using that “optional” echo buff. A new player today trying Garuda HM for the first time in no way shape or form is having a similar experience to those that ran Garuda HM back at launch.

Now this is somewhat inevitable. Factor 1 isn’t going to go away it can only be lessened through good design. And some can say Factor 3 is inevitable for encounters that end up as major roadblocks for pug groups (Such as Titan Extreme and Turn 5).

So while yes this can’t be helped ultimately it CAN be controlled and lessened. This is something developers should want to control as it helps extend the life span of their content for both new and old players alike.

I’m all for a stat cap for content as a way to try to curb Factor 1 but I do recognize others might rage at such a measure. But Factor 2 is really unnecessary for a lot of the content in the game and only worsens content decay. Factor 3 I also would say aside from maybe some of the changes to coil have been completely unnecessary as well. And that’s what gets me so impassioned. Seeing these changes occur and watching the Content Decay go to shit.

[Foo01]

...

So new and casual players are, more often than not, seeing content in pugs. Pugs with members that are in stupidly high gear scores. Pugs that are all collectively using that “optional” echo buff. A new player today trying Garuda HM for the first time in no way shape or form is having a similar experience to those that ran Garuda HM back at launch.
....

I’m all for a stat cap for content as a way to try to curb Factor 1 but I do recognize others might rage at such a measure. But Factor 2 is really unnecessary for a lot of the content in the game and only worsens content decay. Factor 3 I also would say aside from maybe some of the changes to coil have been completely unnecessary as well. And that’s what gets me so impassioned. Seeing these changes occur and watching the Content Decay go to shit.

All this talk about content decay is bogus. Factors 2 and 3 are made-up nonsense.

What is so wrong with newer players playing the content in the newer ways? There is nothing wrong with it. Stuff change and evolve. And whole notion of content decay is just pure fiction. The changes are made to those because it keeps them fresh. And it doesn't need to be at the difficulty level they were when only the select few can clear them.

SE made the right decisions to make the game more inclusive and over time allow more content to be accessible to more players. Only the elitists want the high barriers as they are so the the elitist can imagine that they are the special snowflakes, and deny access to rest of the player base.

[Suellen]

I'm sorry but Content Decay is very real imho and does have adverse effects to the playerbase. A couple weeks ago I saw a bunch of threads pop up with "why are ffxiv players so bad?" "this game is full of baddies". Part of the reason of this perception is content decay. New players don't get the same opportunities to learn the game as those who learned at launch. At no fault of their own they are basically carried through the leveling process and through a good chunk of the end game. We learn through our mistakes. We learn through trial and error. When people win an encounter regardless of their mistakes they don't learn. And then they come to the current content and appear bad again to no fault of their own. They didn't get the same opportunities to learn the games mechanics as others did.

MMO mechanics are a constant building process. The tricks you learned in Encounter 1 will help you in dealing with Encounter 2. This is why in an earlier post I compared it to math skills. If you haven't learned fractions yet you aren't going to understand geometry. While a kid who master fractions front and back might find geometry easy to learn. Forcing the kid who doesn't know fractions yet into geometry isn't doing anyone any favors. Sure maybe a new player wants to hurry up and join where they perceive a good chunk of the playerbase being. But if they haven't learned the game mechanics, they will be hit with a very toxic community, yelling insults out of frustration to the new player. I've seen it happen time and again.

And all of this is ignoring the core point of the thread which is that there are just people out their that like challenges. These aren't changes to keep the content fresh as you described. These are changes to make the content trivial so people can "catch up" nothing more. I can't think of anyone that would describe the nerfs to AK or Pharos Sirius as "fresh". The changes were simply to ensure guaranteed clears and faster clears.

I'm not an elitist nor is the OP. We both acknowledge there are instants where there is a high barrier to entry or roadblock for some people. (See Titan EX and Turn 5). I even acknowledge that the nerfs to Coil to make it more DF friendly were more than likely necessary. But the overarching lets just trivialize everything equally with content decay tactics across the board is just bad design imho.

[Bizniztyme]

FUN!!!!! It's sooooooooo subjective.

[Foo01]

I'm sorry but Content Decay is very real imho and does have adverse effects to the playerbase.... We learn through trial and error. When people win an encounter regardless of their mistakes they don't learn. And then they come to the current content and appear bad again to no fault of their own. They didn't get the same opportunities to learn the games mechanics as others did..

They will just learn on the new content by trial and error just like you did. The don't have to held up learn those on the old stuff and be stuck with "unable to progress"/"no progession". BTW you can learn geometry without fractions, the Greeks figured out geometry without fractions or the decimal systems, of course those same Greeks being the smart folk they were also figured out fractions separately. There are many ways to learn, and many ways to learn math, it does not have to follow some set system like the stupid U.S. K-12 system. So similarly in game, players can learn on whatever content whichever way they like.

Reducing barriers on old content, a.k.a nerf, is not a bad thing. It lets player play thru a learn little something, just not let them be stuck there, so they can get be stuck with where everyone else is stuck. That is not a bad thing. And there is still plenty to learn in WP and AK too, while you are at it, especially for the first timers. And SE is keeping it fresh by making it accessible. Content decay is a nonsensical label assigned to stuff by elitists.