This patch dropped the ball hard

[Fendred]

Money speaks. You have no evidence your ideas will work to improve the game's growth and retention rates. The issue is not with good ideas, they are everywhere. The issue is finding good ideas that are actually worth implementing.

Eh, money shouldn't really be relevant to the discussion. A game can be amazing, but end up tanking if it used more money in its development than it can get as a return investment. Wild Star is a good example of that, as it was well received by critics and players, but tanked to F2P nonetheless. Similarly, a game could cut many corners, but have excellent presentation and still be a financial success. Then you have games that can be terrible, but were financially successful due to brand name. FFXIII is a good example of that. The money gained from sales is the result of a lot of factors, some of which can have an effect disproportional to whether the game is actually considered good to its intended audience.

[Delily]

Eh, money shouldn't really be relevant to the discussion. *snip*.

Money is literally the reason FFXIV exists. Everyone has all sorts of ideas on how to improve the game, but no one is capable of proving those ideas will attract new customers and retain existing ones. The teams working on the game have plenty of work to do. If you're going to make a suggestion, bring some proof it's worth implementing.

[Fendred]

Money is literally the reason FFXIV exists. Everyone has all sorts of ideas on how to improve the game, but no one is capable of proving those ideas will attract new customers and retain existing ones. The teams working on the game have plenty of work to do. If you're going to make a suggestion, bring some proof it's worth implementing.

Its this very mentality that caused the decade of the WoW clone.

[Colt47]

Money is literally the reason FFXIV exists. Everyone has all sorts of ideas on how to improve the game, but no one is capable of proving those ideas will attract new customers and retain existing ones. The teams working on the game have plenty of work to do. If you're going to make a suggestion, bring some proof it's worth implementing.

Do you have any idea how many people bring up money, and how superfluous that comment even is? They could be more successful if they implement changes that make people happy, therefore make more money. All you are doing is saying "Well I like the way things are so I'll just say money speaks and be done with it since it makes my comment sound more legitimate."

Also, burden of proofing this discussion as well? How about not reaching for low hanging fruit.

Honestly, you are coming off as not really wanting to be in this discussion, given how hard you seem to want to shut it down.

[Rafaelhades]

They could be more successful if they implement changes that make people happy, therefore make more money.

This would be correct if not for the fact that people will never be happy. These forums are proof of that. No one will ever be satisfied and once 10,000 complaints have been silenced, 10,000 more will take its place, all in the name of "We want this game to be better and last decades."

I'm fine with work in a game, I love having attainable goals that are enjoyable to reach! The problem is though, doing literally the same darn thing over, and over, and over (grind tomes, spend tomes, 24man raid, rinse/repeat) is getting so freaking old now.

It's an MMO. You go in expecting to do things ad nauseum. Outside of giving you tomes for each step you take in game, grinding will always be repetitive. Hell, we can even go a step further and say all games are repetitive. Until that day when the devs have an unlimited pool of cash and a rotating group of manpower to create new content every week to keep the game "fresh" for everyone, someone will always find things stale.

Everyone is against gating, but I'm curious of the alternative people have in their minds to extend the content we are given to keep it "fresh" all the way to the next patch. Lower drop rates simply means you're doing that content even more. Guaranteed drops for everyone shortens the lifespan of said content. More dungeons doesn't fix the issue. More events eventually start being similar to each other, leading us back to the original issue. Something "new" we haven't seen before in any MMO? I ask, "What haven't we seen yet?" And how long until it's deemed "same ol' same ol'" and we go back to saying "been there, done that, NEXT?"

I've always thought relic armor progression culminating in a quest that allows you to choose from a list of ability upgrades that could be switched like "loadouts" would be a good alternative, but if they were to implement this, there would be no need to develop armor drops in newer content. All they need do is add more quests to increase relic armor ilvl to match new content requirements. Any other gear would be simply glamour.

Then again, people would be complaining that they're being forced into one job because that relic armour with perfect combinations of ability upgrades are job specific (just look at Diablo 3). Maybe introducing an NPC that you trade tokens to to infuse ability upgrades into your current gear? But then you have to grind the same content for said tokens...

Hm...

[Nix]

It's an MMO. You go in expecting to do things ad nauseum. Outside of giving you tomes for each step you take in game, grinding will always be repetitive. Hell, we can even go a step further and say all games are repetitive. Until that day when the devs have an unlimited pool of cash and a rotating group of manpower to create new content every week to keep the game "fresh" for everyone, someone will always find things stale.

I understand this well, I've played MMOs for many many years. But honestly, out of the many games I have played, this one feels like it's one of the worst when rehashing content. It doesn't feel challenging or even have flavor to it. We pretty much wait around for the inevitable crush every 6 months when they bring out a new tier gearset, so we can grind our tomes again on a small handful of dungeons, to get our new gear, which will be obsolete again in 6months time.

Content doesn't have to be rotated in every week to keep the game fresh, but having real longevity to content instead of tomecapping folks so force them to only gear at a certain rate, whether they are skilled players or not (let's face it, the 2 dungeons we do have for decent tomegrinding aren't exactly difficult).

Let's take FFXI for example; while the game wasn't exactly casual friendly way back (You did have to put in some hours!), there were many ways to gear up the jobs you chose to play. There were gods in sky, jailers in sea, dynamis, salvage, assault, limbus/temenos etc etc. There were timed gates on certain content (dynamis lockouts for example) to stop you from being in there every day (though that has changed now, and the lockout is 24hr iirc), there was still plenty of content that allowed you to gear up your jobs. Min/maxers could grind for BIS gear, sink some gil into some nice sets (Here's to you, Marduk <3), while others could get some pretty decent sets elsewhere too that didn't require that you sold your first born and lived the life of a monitor-bleached hermit.

To sum it up, there were many ways to skin a cat (sorry, Miqo'te).

Here, not so much. Same technique, but every 6months or so, the name (of the tome) changes.

I'm not sure if I'm articulating my point well XD I'm sorry, I'm super brainfried from studies. I guess what I want to say is, I wish there was some REAL longevity in the content that didn't rely on forcing everyone to a grinding halt in order to make the content last longer. Right now, with us only being able to really truly gear one job at a time (since no job-shared equipment), it's going to take us muuuuuuuuuuch longer than in previous expansions, especially for those of us who use multiple classes. The effort for one set is pretty high (3.5 months I think someone worked it out to earlier), now repeat this for every battle/magic class you play. That's just abysmal @_@;. I can understand if this was a game that focused on you playing one class only, having a great grindfest for one gearset... but this game touts the fact that you can do everything from one character, so it feels like punishing us for that choice when this kind of system + lockout pops up (to this extent).
I guess the grind would be a bit less painful if there was variety in such content, but really there isn't. We've been grinding what... 2 dungeons, and a 24 man raid since the earlier days of 2.0 (though I can't remember the date that our first 24man came out off the top of my head!)

Sorry for rambling, have a wonderful day guys!

I have to admit; I do love it when we, as a playerbase, can have rational discussion><!


Forgot to add this (I'm good at forgetting...): I agree with you, what you say about people never being happy XD What is good for the goose, may not be good for the gander, I think the saying goes -_o

It would be nice if we could find a happy medium though XD (I wiiiiish~)