Current State of End-Game Contents - A Blog Post from A Japanese Player

[Xine]

Apparently nobody has ever played around with the RPGMaker series. Instead of being completely randomized, skills mobs/bosses use can be given a percent chance of them being used, and if programmed like they do in FFXI/XIV and other games, add new skills after certain a HP%. Its randomized to a point but not entirely random and definitely not completely scripted. Personally I have fun with random fights like that, having to memorize fights is a pain in the ass and my memory doesn't work that well.But given how the game has "move out of this giant orange circle or die" mechanic, its a little boring. Reacting works just fine for me a majority of the time (assuming my connection doesn't decide to lag like it has since 2.28 dropped) and I can move out of anything just fine knowing ahead of time where my "safe areas" are (think stacking on Titan HM/EX to have more room open for dodging WotL.)

However all that aside, the OP states that he, as someone who consistently clears SCoB, finds the idea of "team jump roping" boring. Which if anyone hasn't figured out by now, is where this thread should be, not talking about "make the game easy mode". There's a massive difference between hard fun and easy fun, just as there is hard boring and easy boring. If something is easy, yea its fun to some people, but that same easy thing, is boring to other people. It should be mentioned there is no possible way to EVER satisfy everyone and there will ALWAYS be someone who has a complaint. This is a fact of life. The only other option is to satisfy the majority since the majority is what keeps these MMORPGs alive for more than a few months or even a couple of years.

Back when a majority of WoW and FFXI players were on their own games so-to-speak, there were people who enjoyed FFXI for what it was, a long grindfest that offered random challenges and rewards for time spent, while at the same time had enough content that casual and mainstream players could enjoy while the "hardcores" went out and did every single bit of content there was in the game. I never played WoW, but the mass majority of WoW players who started playing FFXI complained about EVERYTHING that FFXI was. The difference from what I've heard from a majority of people who played WoW and went to FFXI said "WoW is boring, everything is too easy and people do nothing but attack each other" (be it physically attacking in game or verbally.) Ever since Abyssea came out FFXI started heading in that direction, easy mode. FFXIV started out as a severely punishing and about as much of a grindfest as FFXI was pre-ToAU. Once FFXIV went into 2.0/ARR, it went easy mode.

One thing people do need to keep in mind is that FFXIV: ARR is a new game, it had to be rebuilt from the ground up, old irrelevant content/items/equipment was trashed and simplified. Severely punishing mechanics and content was eased (See Garuda Hard Mode in 1.0 vs 2.0). Graphics, equipment, UI, terrain, everything about the game was completely changed and worked in to the new graphics engine and the terribad lagfest that was 1.0 was fixed into 2.0. No, there's not a massive amount of content in the game right now unless you want to play all 9 jobs and gear them up to i110 with their Relic Weapon Novus and High Allagan Weapons (why you'd want both is beyond me, but some people are completionists.) However just doing that for one job is almost impossible at this point in the game due to the limitation of only being able to enter SCoB and clear each turn once a week. Given that, you DO have the option to do other things in the game, it's just that repeating the same old content we do have gets boring, therefore people stop playing and some ultimately quit altogether.

If anyone really expects a game to "get better" overnight, or even a single player to "get better" overnight, then you're all in for a world of disappointment. That shit don't work. Want a lot of content for the game? Give it a few years to accumulate new content. Practice makes perfect, but time makes a masterpiece. The current content gets boring after you clear it every single day/week. Personally I'm getting sick of the same 3 dungeons in Duty Roulette Low Level. I wish they'd eventually add in a few new dungeons for leveling so people aren't spamming the same exact dungeons all the time to exp and level up. Anyone remember XI? Sure there was the "usual camps" people went to for leveling, but there was about 3-5 or more different camps people could use to get their exp. But as I just stated, I don't expect it to come overnight or even in the next patch, maybe the first expansion at the earliest.

But back on topic, this thread was created with the intentions of discussing how to make content more enjoyable and hopefully getting rid of the "team jump roping" in the future. Since we don't know how the devs plan on easing T5 and some of the other "hard" content currently in the game with the 2.3 and 2.4 patches and beyond, there's really no point in saying making it a bit more randomized in the future could make it more enjoyable and easier or far harder and more boring than it is already. Although in my own opinion, watching people fly across Bahamut's hand to divebombs is probably the funniest thing about that fight, but it does suck when they hit the wall and insta-die. But as much as I hate to repeat myself and the OP, casuals are the majority of the game's population, the more of them that quit, the longer it'll take to get more, better quality content. If enough of those casuals and mainstream players quit because they can't do what they want to, or they stop having fun, this game will eventually die and there will be no more game for you to play. If you're too stupid/blind/ignorant/retarded to understand that, there is no hope for you. I'm sorry. And this just in, FFXI content was somewhat randomized like I mentioned earlier where certain skills had a higher percent chance of being used than others and casuals still managed to faceroll the content with "power in numbers" and there was other harder content that was similar that only the "no-lifers" could take down (See Pandemonium Warden and Absolute Virtue pre-Abyssea.)

Edit: On the topic of relying on randomness to complete things in this game, 3* crafting can be considered RNG (Random), gathering for HQs is also RNG. You want your Heavy Wolfram Cuirass HQ'd? You need to rely on RNG even with all HQ materials (Hasty Touch method or hope for an HQ with the "safe" method.) The game's percentages are a percent chance that something will or will not happen. Such is the nature of percentages in this case. So lets say you give Titan say a 5% chance of using Mountain Buster (aka Table Flip), there is a 5% chance he will use it at any given time in the fight. However in the event Yoshi explains as his reason for going against this idea, he has a diminishing chance of using Mountain Buster back to back, and the percent diminishing with each use. You want to stray away from Randomness so the majority can clear content? Look again at Crafting HQs. Granted this can be argued that it's supposed to be hard and not everyone can do it. Well.....T5 is meant to be hard and not everyone can do it regardless if its randomized or if its made a completely scripted fight as we have (note however I am simply using it as a reference and nothing more, any fight can be used in its place here and I mean ANY.) If we seriously want to argue the difference between a fight being random is too hard for people to adapt and react to, HQ Crafting and Gathering should also be looked at. Yes, the 3 options available in the game (Crafting, Gathering and Battle) are different, but that's beside the point, the point here is randomness and reliance on the RNG, why its used for HQ Crafting and Gathering and why its NOT used for Battle mechanics. Personally I don't have an issue with how Crafting and Gathering is done, I believe its perfect the way it is save for not being able to craft/gather anything of any great importance save sub-par gear. Just thought this should have been mentioned since Randomizing fights and how its "too hard for casuals" was also mentioned as a way to "attack" how it could make fights more fun and entertaining or thrilling than simply executing your DDR skills.