Boring Endgame

[Zabuza]

Mate I'm no game designer at SE, it is not my job to provide new ideas. However I'm a tabletop RPG player and a long time MMORPG player.

Also I'm not complaining that there isn't enough content on FFXIV, but rather that it is mundane and lacks insight.

Perhaps, but here's the thing. WoW's raids are the way they are because the crew at the very top were former EQ raiders. It was their passion. That is why WoW has always had the best raids. Doesn't mean they have the best everything else. Every MMO is weak somewhere. There is a finite amount of resources and manpower available for every MMO company to use. So if SE focuses more on raiding, some other area will suffer as a result. I'm not really sure people would be in favor of more trash in raids. Not unless it had a 1-5% chance to drop some kind of decent loot.

Either way at the end of the day, it's not really that smart to design content for at best 10% of your playerbase while ripping manpower/resources from other things.

Oh sorry, let me go through 1000+ post I created over the years for your benefit. You want to see my idea then dig through my history.

Why would I go through the trouble of digging through 1000+ of your posts to find it? Surely since you're the one who made the posts, you can remember what you said no? Or at the very least you'd remember in which posts you stated solutions. Sorry, not digging through every one of your posts.

As far as raids go, there really are only two ways to do everything you can for raiders. They could make more raid bosses per three month cycle. They could also increase the difficulty to give raiders the illusion of time. If it takes them almost three months to beat ultra difficult raid bosses they will complain about the difficulty instead of lack of content. FFXIV's raid bosses that exist have already thrown so many different mechanics at you, and some people say there's no innovation there, /shrug.

But here, I'll throw out my ideas concerning PvE. This is actually something probably not possible in FFXIV at this point. My idea is to give more power to players. I'm talking about the ability to create mods, outfits, skins, and even maps. No official MMORPG I've seen does this(with the exception of mods.)

A little "game" I've played before called Second Life allows you an unparalleled level of customization on your avatar. This is because they allow players to create outfits, avatar accessories, skins, hair, etc. I'm thinking if an MMO allowed this there would be a lot for crafters to do. They could craft design skins that may or may not sell well depending how popular their design is received. The ability to create mods to polish the interface to sleek perfection is another thing. WoW already has this. I also think players should be able to host their own events in the MMO world, as well as create their own PvP maps or random PvE occurrences. This doesn't solve the raiding issue directly, but it would allow SE to have a treasure trove of content without even devoting some of their resources to creating said content. Players will do it for free, because certain players have a passion for creating these things. In return people have a ton of things to do. Furthermore, being able to host events as a player would truly put the RPG back in MMORPG. The key to implementing this while still retaining the progression is to only offer cosmetic rewards in the player created content, never the official rewards that would have increased stats. People would dabble in these things to check them out, or for the fun of designing. Imagine the amount of outfits and avatar skins if this was implemented. Not a single player would look the same as the other.

I don't think this is possible to implement in FFXIV at this point, but that's my idea for innovation in the MMORPG genre as a whole. To give players some power to create for themselves.

[Stanelis]

Perhaps, but here's the thing. WoW's raids are the way they are because the crew at the very top were former EQ raiders. It was their passion. That is why WoW has always had the best raids. Doesn't mean they have the best everything else. Every MMO is weak somewhere. There is a finite amount of resources and manpower available for every MMO company to use. So if SE focuses more on raiding, some other area will suffer as a result. I'm not really sure people would be in favor of more trash in raids. Not unless it had a 1-5% chance to drop some kind of decent loot.

Either way at the end of the day, it's not really that smart to design content for at best 10% of your playerbase while ripping manpower/resources from other things.

The thing is FFXIV is weak on every aspect other than graphics and art design. While it was understandable during 2.0 (as SE was in a rush), it is harder to understand in Heavensward.

Either way at the end of the day, it's not really that smart to design content for at best 10% of your playerbase while ripping manpower/resources from other things.

In order to improve game design one only need a paper and a pencil (any tabletop RPG player knows that).

[Zabuza]

The thing is FFXIV is weak on every aspect other than graphics and art design. While it was understandable during 2.0 (as SE was in a rush), it is harder to understand in Heavensward.

Sounds like this game isn't for you if you think that.

Open world primal with FC primal summoning.

I could've swore this idea was talked about quite a bit before Realm Reborn even launched. I wonder what happened to it?

[Reaperking386]

Sounds like this game isn't for you if you think that.



I could've swore this idea was talked about quite a bit before Realm Reborn even launched. I wonder what happened to it?

It was. The major problem was that you cannot have a boss that drops loot that can be tagged easily by anyone with out it being contested. They felt fates were a better solution for Odin and Behemoth since it allowed everyone to get good gear at the time without killing it with bots and campers.

[BlaiseArath]

I feel like you are wrong. Story is amazing and content is wide to everyone. It just depends on what appeals to you or does not. If nothing is appealing to you find a new game that does. Isn't that the MMORPG dream? Find a game that meets your standards? Because asking it to change for you is like a girl saying "I am going to change him."

I think I brought this up, its not that the game itself isn't fun, its that it has little to no replay value in its content. Doing something the firs time, sometimes even the second or third can be a thrill and enjoyable, but they design content so you'll be doing it a hundred times between expansion, yet the content itself feels like it was designed to be done once and never touched again. Its almost counter-productive design. Each thing is an awesome experience in itself. Yes Ravana was fun, Bismark was fun, even the 2.0 primals were fun.. the first few times... but its the only thing you'll be doing for months on end, it becomes "not fun".

So yah, they're not entirely bad but it feels like they have no time to consider, or just don't care to consider, "How can we keep this fresh the 30th time they do it?". It just seems or feel short sighted. I've already said how they could fix this in previous posts before... but some basic examples on how they could fix dungeons---

*-Add Multiple pathways, with different bosses each path. Perhaps 3-4 per dungeon, chosen at random when you enter the dungeon via Duty-Finder/Roulette as to prevent the "Go quickest route" runs. Its random unless you pre-make, then you can chose when entering (like undersized parties). Guild Wars 2 does this with their dungeons (though you can chose them, each has a daily reward so people do them all).
*-Mix up the mob groups that spawn for each path. Maybe have a handful of possibilities each path with the general difficulty remaining the same.
*-Perhaps add "Mini-Bosses" that sometimes spawn in place of a normal mob pack. These bosses would then drop a chest possibly containing a dungeon armor, or some (Unique dyes), even a chance at the dungeon exclusive minion.
*-Some people like puzzles, maybe one of the paths could have fewer enemies but with puzzles to solve to progress.
*-Spice up boss fights. They don't all need to be Square/Circle dodge mechanics. Something like Steps of Faith/A2 where some people are constantly doing a certain mechanic while others fight the boss... though maybe a little simpler for the sake of it being a dungeon and not a raid. Given time I could imagine some fights but on the spot, no. And that doesn't mean I can't think of any, SE has months of time to design fights... give me 2 months and I think I can design a couple dungeons as well.

There are a handful of ways they could design content for longer life... And I think this would improve the game as a whole. While the above ideas would eventually become common knowledge, at least theres a strong chance no two consecutive runs would be exactly the same. Each time would at least be a "Which path do we have this time?" "Will there be a Mini-boss? Will he drop the minion?", "I wonder if we'll be doing the puzzles this time?". Adding even some small amount of variety to the dungeons like that would go a long way to increasing their replay value. It wouldn't make them infinitely replayable, but it would definitely be more replayable than before.

When your game revolves around doing the exact same content 100 times to gear up your multiple jobs, that content needs an element of random to add variety and keep it fresh for longer. Its not a difficult philosophy to understand.

[Reaperking386]

The thing is FFXIV is weak on every aspect other than graphics and art design. While it was understandable during 2.0 (as SE was in a rush), it is harder to understand in Heavensward.

I feel like you are wrong. Story is amazing and content is wide to everyone. It just depends on what appeals to you or does not. If nothing is appealing to you find a new game that does. Isn't that the MMORPG dream? Find a game that meets your standards? Because asking it to change for you is like a girl saying "I am going to change him."

[Stanelis]

Sounds like this game isn't for you if you think that.

I'm not the only one who think that actually. But yeah I won't keep playing the game for long if improvements aren't made (I'm waiting to see how will be alexander savage, but with the clear lack of insight of normal mode alexander I fear the worst).

Find a game that meets your standards?

As stated, no MMORPG, currently, fill the gap left wide open by the shift of MMORPG from RPG to clunky action games initiated by blizzard in wow in 2009 (and the issue is the same in FFXIV).

Game companies would rather make mobile games or MOBAs.

[Zabuza]

As stated, no MMORPG, currently, fill the gap left wide open by the shift of MMORPG from RPG to clunky action games initiated by blizzard in wow in 2009 (and the issue is the same in FFXIV).

Game companies would rather make mobile games or MOBAs.

So admittedly, this is more of a problem with the genre than with FFXIV. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. The casuals make up the majority, and they love this type of game.

[Dyvid]

But here, I'll throw out my ideas concerning PvE. This is actually something probably not possible in FFXIV at this point. My idea is to give more power to players. I'm talking about the ability to create mods, outfits, skins, and even maps. No official MMORPG I've seen does this(with the exception of mods

Here is one on the materia system and one about relic armor appearance. We give SE tons of idea but they just seem too caution still.

[Goodberry]

Perhaps, but here's the thing...
<snip>
...I don't think this is possible to implement in FFXIV at this point, but that's my idea for innovation in the MMORPG genre as a whole. To give players some power to create for themselves.

Excellent post!