Something you may or may not have known...

[Magis]

When are people going to stop using subscriber numbers from early WoW as the barometer for success for mmos?

Wait, so you talk about WoW having 12 million players... and then say don't look at the time when those 12 million were gained? Wut....

That was just one of those flukey cultural phenomenon that was never going to be sustainable and will never happen again. You can't necessarily make the connection that numbers dropped due to content. It was never going to retain that many players regardless of the path they took with it. And in this day there are far too many options for one game to gain that many subscribers again. Almost every game that releases now has some kind of online multiplayer.

Cool beans, so then why did you bring up their sub numbers?

[Galgarion]

When are people going to stop using subscriber numbers from early WoW as the barometer for success for mmos? That was just one of those flukey cultural phenomenon that was never going to be sustainable and will never happen again. You can't necessarily make the connection that numbers dropped due to content. It was never going to retain that many players regardless of the path they took with it. And in this day there are far too many options for one game to gain that many subscribers again. Almost every game that releases now has some kind of online multiplayer.

Pretty much this. WoW at its peak was a flavor of the month with a lot of gamers, no different than Rock Band or Guitar hero. It was a trend: and you can't predict when a trend will start or end.

[Jodou]

I don't mind challenge, as countless hours spent on the Souls series have shown; I do mind when RNG takes the place of challenge. If I had one complaint about this game, it would be RNG being the go-to mechanic in their design. Atma wasn't interesting, desynthing is annoying, and fishing is just a pure slot machine with zero thought put into it. Those are just some of the rougher examples of what has royally pissed me off. And don't even get me started on my 115 weapon that has yet to drop in 15 weeks of clearing. . .

[Kaethra]

WoW actually used to be challenging and enjoyable to play...then came the burning crusade.

The leveling content got easier, some easier dungeon content existed. But to say the entire game got easier was false. For example, the sunwell plateau 5 man dungeon, especially on hardmode was much harder than any vanilla dungeon. Even harder than 5 man pre-nerd Scholomance and Stratholme. Same thing in WotLK, the ICC 5 man dungeons were insanely difficult, usually requiring specific people to clear, or outgearing them. Those dungeons weren't routinely cleared by PUGs unlike Scholo, Strat, and BRD.

And the reason I say this will lead me to my response to the point you made.

Instead of whining and complaining about every new "challenging" thing that comes along, why don't we instead provide suggestions and creditable feedback that doesn't consist of "nerf this!" Or "Change this so we can do that easier!" on current content and suggest newer content?

Thoughts, opinions, comments?[/QUOTE]

I would suggest looking at what people are actually complaining about first. Yes the majority are probably going to complain its too hard, or this or that needs to be nerfed. But don't lose sight on real suggestions.

For example. There's been some suggestions to change certain mechanics so they are STILL challenging, but not as punishing and a little more forgiving to mistakes. Right now there is a multitude of mechanics in the game that will punish 8 players for a small slip up of 1. That's not challenging, thats annoying. There's a big difference between the two.

I've made suggestions before as well on how they could approach changing fight mechanics, without making them easier. Make them challenging without being annoying. Here's on of my examples involving Titan Hard Mode. Now... I say Titan Hardmode not because I think it specifically could be changed. But because the majority of players have experience with it.

Take his abilities and take them off a pattern. Titan will do certain abilities in each phase, like normal. But the order is now random. Now the emphasis is on reacting to the content, not memorizing it. Next... the heart phase. Instead of a instant party wipe on a heart failure. Instead you go to a modified phase 5. What happens here is Mountain Buster AOE's the party. This modified phase 5 last 30 or 45 or 60 seconds. Once this is done, Phase 4 heart phase begins again and you have another shot at getting it down. Get it down, and a normal phase 5 begins.

Of course all his damage on his abilities will have to be adjusted so you don't roll poorly on a string of abilities and cause a party wipe because of bad luck. But now you have a fight that isn't the same over and over, and only ever changes because gear is worse or better.

If they don't do this. This is what you will have happen:

Content comes out.
Best of the best beat it.
Content gets nerfed
Mainstream gets through it.
Next Major Patch comes out.
Repeat

That's what WoW does. And yes, FFXIV is going that route as well.

With my suggestion, this is what is intended to happen:

Content comes out.
Best of the best beat it.
Mainstream struggles.
Mainstream gets it down eventually.
Next major patch comes out.

No nerfing needed. Your average player eventually learns to get it down, sheerly by learning their own class mechanics as it applies to the situations. And they potentially become better players for it and join the ranks of the best. Not all will of course. But more then they do now.

[Sessurea]

The problem in ff now ( for me ) is that pug groups barely even try to get through hard content. <-- worst I seen in any game tbh for this. Last time I saw pugs really trying to go for it was wayyyy back in titan hm. The same pug group stuck with it for 3 hr, and we eventually got it. Why? Because they needed to clear the damn content for their relic. I queue for mog EX ( which I need to access ramuh ), full o' trolls and idiots who wont even read a guide, even a warrior who didn't have provoke. I'll keep trying though...

So whats the morale of this story? STOP RAINING TOP TIER GEAR ON PEOPLE FROM FACEROLLABLE CONTENT LIKE DUNGEONS AND HUNTS......now wasn't that amazing? Imagine only option to get an i100 neck was through mog and scob, you think I'd still be meeting predominantly ill-prepared people in DF? No, u godamn can be sure of it.

So why then, do se continue to rain endgame gears on people? One type of ppl will continue down the evergreen road with his static, and all everyone else has to do lol dungeons to get gear almost as good? This game is broken beyond belief. The sad part is, people are satisfied to gain a good ilvl from tomes and idle in mor dhona all day. As if they beat the game in some way. And I think SE are disgustingly capitalising on this single aspect in order to retain their precious casual players. "keep playing guys, we give u free ilvl, ur sooooooooo pro". Right....

I think SE NEED to toughen up. And smarten up too. People have zero incentive to even try. In the above example, why put an i100 neck in an extreme primal, and gate a new extreme primal behind it ? When people will just get the i100 soldiery , upgrade it with hunts, and then they are amazed with themselves like it's a great achievement.

And this all really sux. I take a break from the game, and come back a month ago. Got titan ifrit levi and t5 all out of the way pretty quick. ( was actually amazed to have gotten titan done ) and now I wanna progress to ramuh and t6. But I can forget about Ramuh until god knows when because SE locked it behind redundant out of date content. Yh, thanks for that.

[Spetsnaz]

I don't consider anyone complaining about atma to be whining... It's broken content that isn't challenging or fun.

[Kaethra]

I don't consider anyone complaining about atma to be whining... It's broken content that isn't challenging or fun.

I was thinking about this. And I thought of a solution for Atma. Make them obtainable through ventures. You send the poor sods to fate grind for you. At say 12 hours per Atma, it would take longer, but at least it wouldn't be boring. And the challenge would be identical. The Atma quest unlocks a special Atma venture. They come back with the Atma and a few hundred grand company seals.

[Ilitsa]

FFXIV will be doomed to the same fate as WoW.

Doomed to over 7.5 million subs 10 years later, raking in $1,350,000,000 in subscription fees alone yearly?

I think there are worse outcomes.

[DenariusJay]

Got titan ifrit levi and t5 all out of the way pretty quick. ( was actually amazed to have gotten titan done ) .

I'm amazed too. How did you pull that off? Titan EX makes me wanna suck on a shotgun. That's one ludicrous fight right there. I may hold the record for most wipes...

[Sessurea]

I don't consider anyone complaining about atma to be whining... It's broken content that isn't challenging or fun.

Be careful, the forum knights will come fart their "instant gratification" nonsense at you.