A friendly warning to SE: Do NOT turn FFXIV into an Asia Grinder!

[Xatsh]

I would caution keeping this game just like every other westernized mmo that has failed as well.

Where you beat a whole patches/expansions content in a month then you have to unsub for 2 months to wait for the devs to add more content which will take a week to beat. That is a good way to get people to jump ship off your mmo for greener pastures.

The grind is a required element of MMOs. It is something the west has failed to learn and why almost every mmo made in the west outside WoW has failed hardcore within 2-3yrs.

Game needs both. You cannot be handed everything on a silver platter. And Difficult content is not the answer, ask the people beating turn 9 if it is still hard or taking weeks to beat a 2nd time... bet they say no. You cannot have long lived content without some form of grind (Work) involved.

This game is currently made up 100% of throw away content... it is just bad mmo design in general.

[Gormogon]

Well if they are gonna do the same thing as 1.0 but in a different way they aren't helping themselves.

Just wish Square-Enix would stop restricting their players and themselves with the way the approach handling content.

[Daniolaut]

When I started to play ARR (as my first MMORPG) in February, I was completely blown away by the beauty and the main storyline. When patch 2.2 came out, I was very pleasently surprised about the content that comes after the main quest (esp. Hildibrand). However, after that, the production values seriously went downhill. Playing the same dungeons again and again and again, repeating the tasks the wild tribes give you again and again and again, the Atma crap (finished it, but definitely will never do that again), and now the Novus impertinence.

SE, when finishing a grindfest like Atma, at least give the player a pretty and long cutscene! I am starting to remember that for the price of 3-4 months subscription of FF14, what I got by paying ~40€ for FF13.3 was: A great storyline, about the same amount of FMV than the whole FF14 content released so far, and complete (!) voice acting in even the most trivial encounter. Your very own company shows that, in terms of production values, you CAN do better if you want (need?) to.

In case you think "oh well, one player yells, just ignore him", here is my prophecy about what will happen in the upcoming months if you proceed this way:

- More and more players will realize that only the names and Levels of their weapons and bosses change. Chasing numbers is not a long-term motivation.
- When the previous grind content is nerfed two months later (like you do now with the Myths of the current dungeons in relation to the cost of Animus maps), the following will happen:
- a) Wait for a patch, then subscribe for a month
- b) Grind new content
- c) Unsub
- d) Wait two months until next patch
- e) Go to step a).

Of course, you could introduce a penalty for returning players (like a reactivation fee or something like that). But that would surely backfire in that players will not return at all.

So, SE, hear my plea:
- Release MEANINGFUL and non-cheap content for the players to play between the big content releases
- Make the release cycles shorter. I would like two medium-size releases every 45 days much better than one big release every three months.
- Do proper voice acting, at least in all the cutscenes. Everything else looks rather cheap these days.

EDIT: Just to clarify: I do NOT have a problem with grinding per se. But I do have a problem if it is used as a cheap excuse for missing content, or for content with very poor production values.

The grind is good. Its fun. Its an RPG.

Whats not so good is the reward for the grind.

Gear becomes obsolete a maximum of 3 months after acquisition, (thats if you obtain the best gear possible on day one of content release) plus there is no wonderful cutscene after obtaining an Atma/Animus/Novus etc. Its "here you go have fun."

It would be very very nice to get a small story/cutscene, and then have the item last longer than 2-3 months. Animus isnt even as good High allagan nor Novus but it takes 5 times the time. Lets face it nothing in this game is hard, its all just time. If you spent the time you spent farming Novus, in coil, you'd have turn 9 cleared. those people who think coil is actually hard are very silly.


Edit:
One way to solve this?

Give us something to do for the gear we obtain. Between patches include a piece of content that takes that "hard earned gear" and put it towards a guildhest (or some other content such as skirmish or something..) that grants 20k gil per player (full party of 8.) that has item level sync to the highest level gear for that patch. (So you cant simply out gear it and clear it easier come the next patch.) Or grants 500 myth and 100 soli. Or some other similar reward. (Cracked Materia, gil, tomes, seals, something thats worth it and puts the gear to good use.)

Hell they could probably even be lazy and make it an exact copy of the hardest fight of the current patch (turn 5 before 2.2, turn 9 of 2.2 etc.) with the boss having more hp and deal more damage in relation to being capped on gear.

I.E. Something RMT's cant do that rewards players for spending time capping gear each patch that isnt "throw away" such as things we need regularly to keep playing (gil, food, materia etc etc.)

Can even make the 'content' a leve so its not "spamable."

[Ultimatecalibur]

How bad is the grind in 2.28 really?

Just doing once per day rewards content you can get the following:

Duty Roulette (Expert): 80 Soldiery, 50 Mythology, and a Mysterious Map
Duty Roulette (High Level): 20 Soldiery, 100 Mythology (30/120 if you don't get AK or WP)
Duty Roulette (Low Level): 5 Soldiery, 100 Mythology
Duty Roulette (Main Scenario): 100 Mythology
Duty Roulette (Trials): 10 Soldiery, 70 Mythology (14/80 if you get ARR:Hydra/ARR:Chimera/BotBB and 16+/85 if you get a HM Primal/Thornemarch)
Beast Tribe Dailies: 42 Mythology (6 tier 2 quests)

These guarantee that you can get between 462 Mythology and 515 Mythology per day, 115 to 131 Soldiery and 1 Mysterious Map.

Just doing these and successfully opening every chest you should get all the Alexandrite you need for a Novus weapon in 48 days.

Considering that it is only day 3 of the patch, people seem incredibly impatient.

[Gormogon]

people seem incredibly impatient.

Those 48 days aren't guaranteed since infusing has a chance to to fail because infusing isn't 100% all throughout all the infusion process. Keep in mind that's 48 days of constantly grinding.

Sure you can make it less days by farming through FATEs but the overall experience is unpleasant.

I was initially planning on doing a minimum of 3 Alexandrites a day.

Yet at this point I'll probably stick to the dailies unless I get a farm party instead of wasting my time through the unpleasant farming process and enjoy my time doing something else.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Those 48 days aren't guaranteed since infusing has a chance to to fail because infusing isn't 100% all throughout all the infusion process. Keep in mind that's 48 days of constantly grinding.

Failed infusions don't eat Alexandrite, just the Materia.

[Vahlnir]

Failed infusions don't eat Alexandrite, just the Materia.

If this is true I can let out a sigh of relief. There's a near-endless supply of materia. Not so much Alexandrites.

[Jon_00]

Grinding in a MMO. No way. What a surprise.

Whenever I see this I die inside a little. Genres evolve over time, why should the MMO stick to the traditions of grindy content when other genres look to improve?

MMOs in the day were grindy, that doesn't mean they should be now.

[Gormogon]

Failed infusions don't eat Alexandrite, just the Materia.

Yeah and materia isn't cheap for me. I don't do spirit bonding and I ain't spending that kind of gil on materia. So that fail process is gonna affect my overall chances on Novus.

[Vahlnir]

-snip-

I don't know the economies of any other servers but my own, but even with the optional (though the fastest) way to get materia, gil is really easy to get and/or replace. Between retainer ventures, daily roulette queues, challenge log completions and treasure maps, I've been able to make a substantial amount of gil in the past few months regularly. I don't craft and only gather for treasure maps. The price of the grade 4 materias are somewhat outrageous but I don't see them staying that way forever, and the lower grades are fairly cheap. All of this said I know everyone is different and have varying styles of play. In the meantime I'll continue to gather Alexandrite and purchase/infuse the lower grades and work my way up. The only thing limiting your chances is yourself in a sense. Also, no system is perfect and like other things it can definitely be improved.