#nofunallowed

[Gallus]

Well, to be fair, I had fun with chocobo racing (and I'm having fun), I could use having more than one racing chocobo at a time (server space? xD), but hey...things are not perfect. As for sightseeing log........duh, I don't know how you guys can find that fun...go into a spot...and, that's it lol, of course you'll be burnt out after doing so repeatedly <.<. That's my definition of antifun.
Triple triad is ok, not perfect either (tournament and 4 star cards being useless <.<).
My biggest issue with Gold Saucer at the moment is how the MGP currency is useless now. We got a new hairstyle, a cloud strife card (meh), a fenrir mount (useless because it can't fly) and a few mediocre at best glamour weapons and gear. It's been like this for months, would it hurt too much to add anything a bit more relevant there? A flying mount perhaps? Or give use a battle square where we can use our MGP, train our rotations against bosses/mobs and then obtain battle square points which we could exchange into say GC seals, draconian-xpotions (NQ), level 55 food (NQ), etc.
Don't make it gamebreaking, but at least give MGP some sort of minimal relevance if someone is committed about getting them.

[ElHeggunte]

My biggest issue with Gold Saucer at the moment is how the MGP currency is useless now. [...]

Well they did just announce that they're adding new stuff to GS and making tweaks to MGP, so we'll see.

[Lemuria]

Wow, they gave casual players Alexander Normal, and they don't even want to play it, What a shocker!!!! Of course endgame sucks, you beat all of it in 2 weeks!

The fact you can beat it in 2 weeks says it all, really. But way to totally ignore most of his point, or maybe it went over your head?

The complaint in this thread is that the 'fun' content is often just as much of a grind as the core content. That's just bad game design, and there are really no excuses for it. The whole point of 'fun' content is to have something to do when you're burned out from the grindy core content. It's intended to be a diversion. A bit of fun to keep you amused briefly and not intended as a focal point in the game.

The only thing that even comes close to this in FFXIV are the mini-games in the Gold Saucer which are over in about 2 seconds and are basically timing games. The complaints leveled at Triple Triad are entirely justified, since what was meant to be a bit of fun became an arduous card hunt where you can't even use half your deck until you've found tons of new ones. Such restrictions were never in the original TT game, and they certainly don't apply to any of your NPC opponents.

Also you can get 80% of the TT cards pretty easily, theres nothing stopping anyone from enjoying TT with friends or NPCs.

Yeah, let's ignore the fact that dozens of NPC's play with multiple 4-star cards and need to be beaten upwards of 20 times to get a single card, and it's never one of the good ones. Let's casually gloss over the fact that buying card packs inevitably results in getting countless repeats before you find the one you need. And let's hide the fact that many cards are only available as rewards for beating certain in-game dungeons or battles as a rare drop.

The fact that I haven't even hit my 60-card milestone, must be because I haven't been trying hard enough and nothing to do with the rarity and unavailability of the cards in question. Sure, why not?

I think you're too buried deep to think objectively on this. You need to be able to pull yourself away and look at the big picture. It's not supposed to be hardcore content, it's fluff content intended for fun. There's no shame in having game mechanics designed purely to kick back and relax, but the restrictions placed on TT make it difficult to do anything with. Heck, you can't even play a casual match of TT in a sanctuary unless it's one of a handful of designated locations!

See the wood for the trees, won't ya?

[Whocareswhatmynameis]

See the wood for the trees, won't ya?

Yeah, ok sure! We will just have to agree to disagree. If they made all the cards easy to get people would be complaining that the devs need to make more cards because TT is pointless. Either way, most of the cards are very easy to get and there are a few that are difficult to try and encourage people to play the game more often.

Like everything else you choose how to spend your time. You can play TT casually for fun or you can go super commando and grind it out 8 hours straight to try and get the cloud card.

[D-vide]

Yeah, ok sure! We will just have to agree to disagree. If they made all the cards easy to get people would be complaining that the devs need to make more cards because TT is pointless. Either way, most of the cards are very easy to get and there are a few that are difficult to try and encourage people to play the game more often.

Like everything else you choose how to spend your time. You can play TT casually for fun or you can go super commando and grind it out 8 hours straight to try and get the cloud card.

I'm sorry, but the claim that most of the cards are easy to get is simply not valid. Saying that the Cloud card only needs a super commando 8 hour grind is a terrible misjudgement.

And playing TT for fun means playing an awkward handicapped version. The chess example of playing with 20 pawns against 20 queens definitely applies. The extreme gating of TT isn't necessary.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

Progression grinds attached to Chocobo Racing, TT and Sightseeing log were the reasons I didn't even consider doing it because I'd rather spend that time on leveling, raiding or gearing up. OP is totally right.
What was supposed to be a distraction ended up being progression for no reason other than "it's MMOey that way".

[Moonleg]

go super commando and grind it out 8 hours straight to try and get the cloud card.

I can earn maybe 100 MGP a minute with a specialized deck against specific opponents.

That's 6000 MGP per hour assuming they don't have a window of opportunity.

That's 48000 MGP in eight hours.

To hit the million MGP required to buy Cloud I would have to play like that, nonstop super commando, for ten thousand minutes. Do you have any idea how long that is? It's 166,67 hours - or rounded off, it's a full week NON STOP SUPER COMMANDO TRIPLE TRIAD against the same opponent. Over and over and over until my eyes bleed. No bathroom breaks. No food breaks. No sleep. A FULL WEEK.

That is not fun. That is grind for grind's sake.

[Terribad]

I just want to be able to do quests with my friends instead of having to disband everything 3 minutes.

[Duelle]

Then we got Triple Triad.

As far as triple triad goes, I'm not surprised it was designed around grinds.

I mean, let's look at it as a base concept. Triple Triad is a side-activity that's designed to take a while (even as far back as FFVIII it would take you a while to get 100% completion on all cards, not including the questline to beat the king of cards). Mechanics-wise it's not a game that has standard units in a matter of speaking. It's not like blackjack or old maid or trumps or go fish, which are limited by a standard 52-card deck (meaning you can play as long as you have a 52-card deck). The more "strong" cards you collect, the bigger your chances of winning. And as is common with collectible card games, it becomes less a game of luck/skill and more a game of what deck you choose to play with.

Since your deck has such a strong effect on your chances of winning, it is logical to make that part of TT take time to achieve. In addition, unlike FFVIII and FFIX (which have a finite number of assets), FFXIV is constantly growing due to being an MMORPG, so its longevity has to span beyond what we saw in VIII and IX (read: more assets in-game = more cards = more time involved in completing a collection and putting together a deck). Atrophy happens to be the antithesis of collectible card games (hence why Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh revise rules and constantly add cards), so making it finite would go against the whole point of a CCG. Likewise, CCGs by nature take a loooooooong time to complete a collection (this is why you see rare cards going for ridiculous prices in comic book shops and e-bay).

tl;dr - Triple Triad is designed along the lines of collectible card games in real life, and as such will take a long time to collect cards.

[Asierid]

As far as triple triad goes, I'm not surprised it was designed around grinds.

Not to mention it was a grind to begin with in 8 in order to get anything decent.

The only thing I wish they did was allow us to use whatever deck we wished in order to farm cards (And able to abolish the Random rule, but eh).