So, pretty dead lately....

[TheUltimate3]

Out of curiosity, but what content could they possibly make that will make people "not bored"?

[Glasya]

Out of curiosity, but what content could they possibly make that will make people "not bored"?

To reiterate,

"FFXI" might be a dirty word around here but the developers could stand to take a few leaves from its book. Notorious Monsters, dungeons you explore within a time limit, dungeons in the overworld, frontier work helping out NPCs and defending caravans/fortifications from legitimately dangerous mobs, enemy raids on towns like XIV used to have with the Atomos events in 1.0.
I say all that and I've never actually played XI. But I wish I had. Because it sounds awesome.

You've also got stuff like the Gold Saucer.
Here's another idea: Add combat GATEs to the Event Square rotation. Then add Battle Square as a sort of roguelike Light Party dungeon with dynamic iLv scaling and increasingly difficult waves of enemies with RNG-handicaps. Make the final boss harder than Savage Coil/Alexander even without handicaps and award like 1 million MGP for clearing it all (with the assumption people wont for a long time). Then add slightly sub-raid level gear to the MGP vendor so it's a viable method of obtaining gear. Any worse than the equivalent of i200 in the current patch cycle, or without auxiliary effects/procs, and it's pointless though.
The reason people love FFVII's GS is because the rewards are good and the minigames are fun in their own right. XIV's is an embarassment, and all the protracted RNG/grind bullshit does is alienate people. Yoshi is deathly afraid of people having fun, but if Chocobo racing were more like Mario Kart I'd be playing it right now.

[TheUltimate3]

To reiterate,
Here's another idea: Add combat GATEs. Add a Battle Arena as a roguelike Light Party dungeon with dynamic iLv scaling and increasingly difficult waves of enemies with RNG-handicaps. Make the final boss harder than Savage Coil/Alexander even without handicaps and award like 1 million MGP for clearing it all. Then add slightly sub-raid level gear to the MGP vendor.

And how does any of that equate to fun and will last x amount of months between patches?

Just bouncing from these ideas. Combat GATEs will just go the same as normal GATEs, big for a month then forgotten.

A battle arena wouldn't be bad, except I honestly cant see them getting dynamic ilvl scaling to work (it will either be really hard or braindead easy. No in between), but it'll still be hot for a month then fall off. A final boss harder than Savage Alexander but the end rewards being sub-raid level gear? Yeah that'll never happen (Like really. It can't.)

The idea of putting gear for MGP is an interesting one, I'll give it that. But these ideas (at least to me) don't seem to fix whatever the problem people have is. They can add this, and people would still get bored and complain there isn't anything to do.

[Glasya]

And how does any of that equate to fun and will last x amount of months between patches?

The onus is on SE to create and implement ideas to keep people amused. I'm just spitballing here. Ultimately people are looking for something to work towards that isn't a horrific grind of stuff they've already run a million times (see: the relic, which didn't have a single unique fight/dungeon aside from Chimera/Hydra).

A smorgasbord of different content should be available when one logs in; "Do I want to do X? Or do I want to do Y? Or Z? They're all viable forms of progression."
I know it's a pain in the ass to implement/balance, but we really need auxiliary effects and procs on gear. It's the only way to inject any kind of variety into endgame gear. And when you have diverse gear you can create different ways of handing it for individuals to gear up in-tandem over the long-term.

[Xatsh]

The onus is on SE to create and implement ideas to keep people amused. I'm just spitballing here. Ultimately people are looking for something to work towards that isn't a horrific grind of stuff I've already run a million times (see: the relic, which didn't have a single unique fight/dungeon aside from Chimera/Hydra).

A smorgasbord of different content should be available when one logs in; "Do I want to do X? Or do I want to do Y? Or Z? They're all viable forms of progression."
I know it's a pain in the ass to implement/balance, but we really need auxiliary effects and procs on gear. It's the only way to inject any kind of variety into endgame gear. And when you have diverse gear you can create different ways of handing it for individuals to gear up in-tandem over the long-term.

The issue with gear is the devs need to try to perfectly balance everything.

It is a trade off in the end. Do you want perfect balance between all jobs within a role or do you want uniqueness and the ability to add more variety.

Yoshida has made it known his views are balance is extremely important more so then variety. For me I would rather have imbalance to a degree if it removes the restrictions.

Atm our stats on gear you can literately figure you by taking a excel spread sheet and dragging columns down. That is poor game design in my eye. IS it balanced yea, but it is a bad thing in the end the loss is just too great.

Honestly in the end Balance only matters in PvP. If you try to balance everything in PvE you remove something from the game. Not only should we have a large variety of stats. Why is there no elemental weaknesses, dmg type weaknesses (We have the resistances in the stat menu already so it is built into the game), Why does the environment and weather not effect the spells/attacks. Older mmos did this, why is a state of the art mmo so stripped down of features? It all comes down to over worrying about balance. Perfect Balance for PvE is a bad thing.

[TheUltimate3]

The onus is on SE to create and implement ideas to keep people amused. I'm just spitballing here. Ultimately people are looking for something to work towards that isn't a horrific grind of stuff they've already run a million times (see: the relic, which didn't have a single unique fight/dungeon aside from Chimera/Hydra).

And that is the big issue. How to make a grind that doesn't feel like a grind, because lets face it, there is no way you can make content that lasts x amount of months and make it not a grind. This is an old genre and quite frankly I don't think that's possible to do anymore. The old grinds people have done in FXI would probably feel like horrendous grinds if implemented today. The old grinds I did do in my early WoW days I was very much aware were grinds.

And I personally don't care for auxiliary procs and effects. Light knows I don't want to have to spam a dungeon for a specific piece of gear that will be required for something.

[Glasya]

This already exists. Your problem is that you don't like the variety that has been offered.

This has been debunked umpteen fucking times already.
After reaching 60 and hitting your stride, besides Alex Savage and Esoterics capping there is literally no other form of valid Battlecraft progression. Crafting is its own thing and is so exclusive, limited in utility and disproportionately expensive it doesn't factor in here besides for the likes of Lucrezia and Elysium.

And that is the big issue. How to make a grind that doesn't feel like a grind, because lets face it, there is no way you can make content that lasts x amount of months and make it not a grind.

Again, this is an issue SE needs to resolve.
And when I mentioned gear procs and whatnot those should ideally be available through means other than dungeons. Like Gold Saucer gear for example. Say there's "Godbert's Gloves of Healing" that give "+10% HP restored when using Cure II/Adloquiem/Benefic II". Make them cost 150,000 MGP, add in the aforementioned Battle Arena/combat GATEs and BAM, there's something for WHM and AST-players to do in their spare time.

[Ashkendor]

Xatsh, your listed main class is PLD. Do you play it often? How do you enjoy the variety of being useless dead weight in Alexander?

What does this even have to do with anything that they said? I mean, since your main is listed as Dragoon we mayaswell ask you how you enjoy the variety of floors that Heavensward brought you to tank. :P

Paladin has problems. We know this. Do we really need to bring it up in unrelated threads?

Again, this is an issue SE needs to resolve.
And when I mentioned gear procs and whatnot those should ideally be available through means other than dungeons. Like Gold Saucer gear for example. Say there's "Godbert's Gloves of Healing" that give "+10% HP restored when using Cure II/Adloquiem/Benefic II". Make them cost 150,000 MGP, add in the aforementioned Battle Arena/combat GATEs and BAM, there's something for WHM and AST-players to do in their spare time.

The only problem is that something like that would rapidly turn from "something to work toward in your spare time" to "something that has to be ground out so you don't get kicked from parties for not having it".

[Nadirah]

Again, this is an issue SE needs to resolve.
And when I mentioned gear procs and whatnot those should ideally be available through means other than dungeons. Like Gold Saucer gear for example. Say there's "Godbert's Gloves of Healing" that give "+10% HP restored when using Cure II/Adloquiem/Benefic II". Make them cost 150,000 MGP, add in the aforementioned Battle Arena/combat GATEs and BAM, there's something for WHM and AST-players to do in their spare time.

You mean "is required for healers to do in their spare time".

That's what we mean by "wary about things that will be mandatory.

There's a reason why in WoW, the class gear sets, they're used over better itemized pieces. Those bonuses do things like that. And they become *mandatory*.

The legendary cloak from last expansion, the ring from this expansion. They have useful procs. They become mandatory.

[Obysuca]

I don't want to have to spam a dungeon for a specific piece of gear that will be required for something.

But see, then it'd give you more to do. Rather than get on, do 1 expert a day to cap by saturday and getting all 4 alex loot on tuesday, you could get on and go "I'll do expert, then get my alex loot, then work on getting X and Y pieces for whatever job." Sure, you can say it'd be a grind, but that sort of grinding feels more worth it in the end, rather than the current grind we have now of "Go get i200. Got the full set? Congratulations! That gear is junk now, here's i220!" I can bet you, a cure potency+10% hands would... hands down (pun intended) beat something of a little higher ilvl.

What does this even have to do with anything that they said? I mean, since your main is listed as Dragoon we mayaswell ask you how you enjoy the variety of floors that Heavensward brought you to tank. :P

I say this joke to a FC member all the time lol He complains how he's always coming drk for things and I told him that he can come drg if he wants. He complains how then we might get bad tanks and I told him that if he came drg, he'd still be tanking something :P

The only problem is that something like that would rapidly turn from "something to work toward in your spare time" to "something that has to be ground out so you don't get kicked from parties for not having it".

I know this is going to draw the torches and pitchforks back, but in a way, that would be a little better than what we have now if you think about it. Look at all the people who are 15-20 ilvl lower than the required amount to get into content and just slap on tank accessories and what not. In the end, we would have better geared people, so content could be cleared easier (if you don't count the just plain bad people who refuse to learn and just bash buttons).

I'm going to sound like a jerk for saying it, but if those people refused to farm that specific gear to gear themselves better, resulting in a better (not skillwise) job, which might end up causing the people who actually want to clear the content, to keep wiping because that person won't do a simple task, then they should be kicked. I can't tell you how many times I've been the nice guy and gave people way too many chances, then the pt ends up dying. Like Titan hm in 2.0 and anything thats not a faceroll fight, whenever the pt leader kicked the poor players and replaced them, we finally won.

It would teach people to pull their own weight and not expect to get carried through content, causing unneeded stress and wipes for people who want to clear it. Don't have X gear? Looks like you're not ready to tackle Y content. It would hopefully also teach some of these entitled kids that life doesn't always work out for them. If you don't have the stuff required to clear the fight, then you're not getting it done. Right now, all XIV teaches them is that if they do 1 dungeon a day, they can get full i200 and go get carried in a fight and learn nothing.

Additionally if someone's bitching about having to do a grind that, at worst takes a couple days, he probably doesn't deserve a static slot.

^ This. It feels like people these days whine and moan if they have to put in any amount of effort, when back in the day, if you had to grind for something, even if you didn't like it, you sucked it up and got it done.
The community back then also made grinds fun too.

Like XI's grind to 75, sure, you can say it was a long and boring grind, but you always had people to talk to. You could make jokes, have fun conversations and make friends all while doing it. It felt like less of a grind then.

Grinds today (like XIV) are all about not being social, not making friends, not having a good time. Look at leveling a new job. Practically no one even says "Hello!" anymore and only speaks up if someone screws up, sometimes they don't even do that and just leave.