This patch dropped the ball hard

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Huh, suddenly everyone is a financial expert.

[MageBlack]

You are all missing the point. The forums are filled with good ideas. They are a dime a dozen, yet no one bothers to give evidence the idea will improve the experience or attract new customers. Why should SE implement your idea if it has no impact on growth or retention rate?

Could you imagine a game where every persons "good idea" was implemented? It would be a mess. What's a good idea to one person is not so good for another. For instance, there was a thread about the DRG AF2 "Please get rid of the belly window!" so the AF2 doesnt have it, and now on or near the first page is a thread "Wheres my DRG cleavage window!" from a different person. Also, we have no idea how a "simple change" might affect the workings of the rest of the game or how "simple" it really would be to implement. None of us are on this particular dev team, None of us know what they are really doing behind the scenes. Sure we can make guesses, some more educated than others, but in the end we just dont know all the details. and the details are important.

"Get rid of GC restrictions on all frontlines" sounds really simple. is it though? I really dont know.

"EXP from open world mobs, let us camp and farm them! Make that EXP so it is a better option." Sounds simple, just up the exp from OW mobs, but how will this affect the rest of the game. Just look at hunts. When they were first introduced they were the quickest, easiest, way to get some of the top tier stuff so they became the path of least resistance and everyone flocked to them. I know mechanics of it were problematic but the Players are what ruin a game more often than anything else through exploitation of that path of least resistance. Same thing happened when FATE's were the best way to level, no one did dungeons, no one was learning their roles, and people just spammed FATE's then complained about it.

I could keep going with more examples of how Players ruin games with their "great ideas" but I think you get the point. But your point was not lost on me, I even addressed it in my previous post, if you read it. I just used this post to expand on the "good ideas" part of your "point".

[Ayanno]

You are all missing the point. The forums are filled with good ideas. They are a dime a dozen, yet no one bothers to give evidence the idea will improve the experience or attract new customers. Why should SE implement your idea if it has no impact on growth or retention rate?

If this was your point, you should've made it instead of harping about financials and which MMO company was more successful.

I'll answer your question with a question: How do you, and SE, know that a suggestion offered here won't improve the experience or attract new customers if they don't try?

Here:

Allagan Tomestone of Philosphy
Allagan Tomestone of Mythology
Allagan Tomestone of Soldiery
Allagan Tomestone of Poetics
Allagan Tomestone of Law
Allagan Tomestone of Esoterics

Six different colors of the same carrot. You speak of impact on growth, and retention rates.....how long do you expect people to chase the same carrot, in the same way, just with a new name/color? How do you expect SE to retain customers under the current "same old, same old" unless they actually try something new.

The people making suggestions, TRUE suggestions to improve the game and not just complainers(yes, they are not the same thing) are people who LOVE this game and want it to last.

Smashing your face against the same wall stops being fun pretty damned quickly. Chasing the same carrot forever, without SE even trying to make it seem different, is going to kill the game a hell of a lot sooner then you, or apparently they, realize.

The amount of people being tired of the same shit, and coming to the forums to criticize that fact, has increased since the expansion. That is not a good sign

I want this game to succeed. I want to play it for the next decade, like I played XI for a decade. I won't if SE keeps giving me the same damn carrot every 3-6 months. I am not the only one.

[Chukkaque]

Well I finished the MSQ and mostly just waiting around for 3.1 so I can continue the MSQ.

[Nix]

snippu

This, holy hell, so much this.

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.

I made a post a couple of days ago about this exact thing. We're playing an MMO, things are always going to be made obsolete so you can aim for the next tier, but there is no variety whatsoever and so much needless gating (Here's looking at you, job specific gearsets + don't even get me started on where crafting and gathering have gone. Many more threads have popped up and their respective OPs have written more eloquently than I could have~) That the game has stopped being fun. I feel kinda jipped because I refreshed my sub for like 6 months right before HW hit (whoops!) because I thought the game would start heading in a really good direction... but honestly I feel like it was indeed money wasted now.

I still have another 5 months left on my sub time. I hope that in this time SE does decide to start listening to players, maybe add a little variety and flavor to the game or I am sad to say that I won't be refreshing my sub. (Don't mistake this as an OMG CHANGE THIS OR I WILL QUIT! post XD, I just feel like my time and my cash would be better elsewhere, and I'm super chill about it.)

People have brought up that "this is the way it's always been! this system has been in place since 2.0!" This is true, and it's also the problem. I think we're well overdue for a shake-up.

Have a wonderful day guys :3

[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~)

[Altanas]

I just want Dynamis not weekly caps.

Would have made nostalgic sense for AF2...

Would have been perfect for gearing alt jobs

[Nix]

I just want Dynamis not weekly caps.

Would have made nostalgic sense for AF2...

Would have been perfect for gearing alt jobs

I hated the asshattery that was bred with dynamis... those waiting lists for d.chap, only to have someone ninja it from you... Q_Q (twice.. it stings!)

But it could be so fun! Overly long, but fun :3

[Kaedan]

If this was your point, you should've made it instead of harping about financials and which MMO company was more successful.

I'll answer your question with a question: How do you, and SE, know that a suggestion offered here won't improve the experience or attract new customers if they don't try?



The people making suggestions, TRUE suggestions to improve the game and not just complainers(yes, they are not the same thing) are people who LOVE this game and want it to last.

Smashing your face against the same wall stops being fun pretty damned quickly. Chasing the same carrot forever, without SE even trying to make it seem different, is going to kill the game a hell of a lot sooner then you, or apparently they, realize.

The amount of people being tired of the same shit, and coming to the forums to criticize that fact, has increased since the expansion. That is not a good sign

I want this game to succeed. I want to play it for the next decade, like I played XI for a decade. I won't if SE keeps giving me the same damn carrot every 3-6 months. I am not the only one.

Sorry, burden of proof. If you want something changed, you have to give evidence that it would be an improvement and that the majority would like it. The shifting of the burden of proof just because you can't isn't an argument. Plus, they have a market research team for a reason. That's their entire job is to research reactions from the demographic.

We have evidence that the current system works: 4,000,000+ players. You may not be personally pleased by aspects, but you can't please everyone. As a business, their goal is to please the largest number of people they can, which often means upsetting the minority.

The forums are never, never, ever a valid or reliable source for anything. For one, it's only an extremely small number of the total population that post here. For two, people come to forums to complain, not to praise. The people happy with the game are playing it and if they have nothing to complain about, are far, far less likely to come to the forums. This is why the forums for every game are filled with negativity and trolls. Because people are loudest when they are upset and want to complain.

So yeah, the fact you see complaints on the forums is no surprise at all, and no indication that anything needs to be changed.