You have enough casual/fluff content now, how about that endgame progression SEnix?

[Amused]

In other games, most people raid because they're "forced" to do so, not having any other means of meaningful progression. Truth be told, the raiding community is the (vocal/passionate) minority there, as not everyone enjoys it as we do (regardless of our aproach for both loot-challenge-fun, and time investment). Most players just want to play the game, improve their characters, and even unfold the game's story, all in the somewhat living world of a game that "never ends" (MMOs). Usually, raiding is for them just the only alternative they have to achieve that, so they have to cope with it.

Over many years I've seen quite some requests of people asking for more small-team content as an alternative instead of fully focusing on raids, and with reason I must say. There has been an obsession in theme-parks over making their endgames fully raid-oriented disregarding any other kind of content, and that not only does not suit everyone's tastes, but ends being a bit weary for many others as well. There're many resons for that, starting with people's tastes, as I said, and ending with the dramas and/or drawbacks related to having to deal with more people, for example (the later is one of the reasons why I think that we won't see any hard content for more than 8 players). For these players, ARR is a breath a fresh air, as every patch brings them something else besides raids, raids, and more raids, even if they like them.

Personally, I find both Syrcus Tower and the new dungeon and hardmodes fun (and all the other quests too!), so these are all welcome as that's my main reason to play games. I can understand that those of you more "closed" to or centered in just raiding might not be happy at all with this approach, but you have to keep in mind that here it's numbers what matter. Yoshi-P chose this design direction about having the current balance over all kinds of content and not focusing a lot into hardcore raiding on every patch, and it seems that it's working for him and his company (regardless of the actual sub numbers).

10/10 post.

[Ooshima]

While I agree that currently after each group won T9, they barely log in anymore, and seem my friends not interest much of Ramuh either because they said level 100 item only. But I want to ask "who are you" to tell other that their argument are weak or bad? This is all simply opinion vs opinion.

Yeah I was quite surprised too. The FC that I am in is a hardcore FC that guns for Server firsts and have consecutively achieved them such as 1st Twintania and 1st+2nd Nael, but when I logged on Day 1 2.3 and said "so have we claimed server first Ramuh EX" and everyone was like uhhhhh haven't unlocked it, some went for crafting, some went to CT2 for glamours, most went straight for marks because they cannot be bothered with i100 gears lol.

I think if Ramuh EX drops i110 accessories, things would be different.

Personally I am enjoying CT2 and the new dungeons. More fun, pretty places, and the runs feels much more shorter and neater with some nice looking gears for glamour. Probably farming them first and try out marks and frontlines at a later stage. Should be some decent stuffs to do after the weekly T9 clears.

[Dano]

cut them some slack, they just released a new patch. More difficult content will be available in 2-3 months. Even when i've cleared 2nd coil i find that there's much to do in this new patch to catch up on sub/alt jobs.

edit: but i agree there needs to be alternative to coil for endgame gear.

[Pyreflye]

the most successful MMO on the market done Casual, Hardcore and PVP right and oh look... it peaked at 14 million SUBS ... whereas ... here... 2 million registrations with a brand like final fantasy.

Right, the MMO that has been out for almost 10 years. Pretty fucking unfair comparison, right?
Where do you think FFXIV will be in 10 years with the amount of content we'll be getting.

2 million subscriptions for a fairly new MMORPG is a hefty feat, considering how the majority of the market is drifting towards F2P, and nearly every recent subscription based MMO has completely failed and gone F2P,

You talk about others being delusional, but you are the only one coming across like that.

[HeroSamson]

I hope they make cloud of darkness so hard that the elite players cry and say please nerf it, Just like in SOA expansion for FFXI I remember all the elite players were like boo hoo deal with it, they are making it for elite players and then when they all started to play.

They were like omg Square nerf it, it needs nerfing we arent that elite.

Second time I seen elites cry for something, because the 1st time is the same crap they are asking for now.

[RygaenYuui]

Second time I seen elites cry for something, because the 1st time is the same crap they are asking for now.

It's actually funny to see this occur; there's no pleasing these kinds of players. I honestly think the dev team is doing a really interesting job by adding both really simple content and then really hard content. But catering to both casual and hardcore players takes time to develop.

XI CoP was nerfed many years later as there were still people who were max level who could never complete it because they lacked the skill and perhaps even the time to do so (These guys eventually quit the game lol). Doubtful that it will ever happen since certain dev team members who had no real idea about MMOs are no longer responsible for the development, but I think they need to make something as brutally difficult for XIV as a mainstay for the game.

[Algin]

I love the fact, that they are adding all the new stuff. Due to my working hours, I've no chance to get into FC raiding team or even into a static, so anything more than like T4 will be hard to do in pugs. Yes, there is always something new for me - hunts, relic hunting, sighsteeing, crafting, maybe I'll just level few new jobs...

It's so much refreshing after some other games, that released patches like - 1 go for raiders, next one is for PVPers, next one for some QoL issues, and new content was released so very slowly (yes EA, you ruined the ToR, as there was nothing meaningful to do in anything after Oricon). I hope they will keep up, and release more stuff that for you is fluff, for me is main game content.

Of course that doesn't mean, that I'd like to see just a fluff. I totally understand OP and I hope he and other minded players will get their hardcore raiding dungeons, so they can enjoy this awesome game too.

[Dwill]

I hope they make cloud of darkness so hard that the elite players cry and say please nerf it, Just like in SOA expansion for FFXI I remember all the elite players were like boo hoo deal with it, they are making it for elite players and then when they all started to play.

They were like omg Square nerf it, it needs nerfing we arent that elite.

Second time I seen elites cry for something, because the 1st time is the same crap they are asking for now.

Can't be worse than the dozens of times I've seen casuals destroy anything remotely challenging in every MMO they touch.

This is a game that can be played on both sides.

[Staris]

Although i agree we need hard 24 man raids, the current end game is created for ppl that have LIFE. If u are raiding every day 8 h per day its ur fault for exhausting content faster than devs can make it.

we have a couple people in our turn 9 clear group, (11 clears so far!), who log on for 2 hours a week to raid and then log off.

For progression we only did 9 hours a week. (3 days 3 hours).

i110 and waiting for new content.

Maybe your just bad?

[Valanthe_Liadon]

A couple thoughts:

1) 4-man zones could absolutely be as challenging as some raids, if done correctly. An example of this was the original Nizara in Everquest II. (Note that EQ2 has 6 player Dungeons, not 4 due to group size.) However, you would then run into the issue of needing specific classes for specific zones. (I've seen a lot of people upset about being excluded from Brayflox HM speedruns, so I don't think it's necessarily the way to go.)

2) Having both 8-man and 24-man versions of Coil would be a neat idea. You could do what you do in CT and instead of having 2 loot boxes per, you have 2 loot boxes per alliance. You could also add mechanics to the 24-man that require different sorts of coordination than the 8-mans. TOR did this well with 8 and 16-man raids.