How Cataclysm killed WoW is how Heavensward will kill FFXIV.

[Ibi]

Back in the old days of MMORPG (like 10 years ago), killing a boss was more an issue of finding a good strategy for your group and executing it. Nowadays it is more about micromanaging your character while avoiding whatever the boss throw at you ("coordinated rope jumping").

This is the result of a decade long arms race where players constantly overcome whatever challenges developers can implement, leading to the developers having to find some way to outdo themselves.

Take a look at any of the NMs in Sky, which was current end game content in FFXI 10 years ago. The entire strategy for any of them could be summed up in just a couple of lines. People already complain, at length, that Alex normal is too easy, can you imagine how loud the outrage would be if they'd provided something even simpler?

[Craiger]

I think more of the problem is, that everyone played a whole boatload when the game came off(some folks took a week off work for example) and ran out of stuff to do recently because they burnt through it too quick.

I know I wouldn't be done with it all now if I had my friend's 3 hours a day regardless of day schedule. There is no taking off work for him. 3 hours a day. Every day. That's it.

He's still not 60.

Nah... While I did spend a lot of time early on get things done quickly, it doesn't really take that long to do all the content (for one job), not including Savage, which most people do on a schedule a couple of days a week anyways. Not being 60 yet even with "just" 3 hours a day is extremely slow, no offense to him. Unless he didn't start at 3.0's release ofc.

A lot of players blame it on everyone playing too much, but I have barely been online for over a month now... I come online to cap Eso and do raiding. Before that, I really didn't play much either... because there isn't really much that I want to do.

If I spent more time leveling other jobs, did more crafting/gathering etc, then maybe it wouldn't be this bad... but I haven't had to do that in the past. I have leveled gatherers, crafters and other battle jobs, just haven't put much time into them at 60. That doesn't appeal too much to me, and you shouldn't have to do all that just to keep busy.

It took me like 1 week to get through the leveling, gear grind, primals etc... then it was all just weekly caps/loot, and raid at scheduled times. Even if you play a lot less during the beginning of 3.0, you would get through everything very quickly.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't bored right away, I enjoyed it for a while, but it's been 3 months now, and even if you leveled all jobs, crafted/gathered a lot, you would still pretty much don't have anything to do now...

Also, 3 hours every day is a lot of play time at the moment IMO... It was nothing special some time back, but now I don't know that many players that can keep busy for that long (not including being AFK) every day.

[Bremic]

I'm almost somewhat disappointed Skizzle isn't in here summoning a giant meteor made of his disdain for Yoshi-P and the direction the game has taken in comparison to FFXI.

Hahahaha, this... he's on my server, haven't seen him recently though. Used to see him all the time complaining in Mor Dhona and Idyllshire.

[adn]

The problems with Cataclysm aren't even remotely relevant to HW.

Cataclysm had a number of major missteps; bad zone and leveling design, needless development time wasted on "remaking" the old world, and most importantly Blizzard reversing directions on dungeon and raid difficulty.

During WLK Blizzard had made content far more accessible to the point where pretty much everybody was doing it; you could find groups for ICC in trade chat. What Blizzard didn't realize is that once you lower the difficulty bar, you can't raise it back up again or people get really angry and quit, which is exactly what happened.


Blizzard made dungeons and raiding so hard at the start of Cataclysm that people who were used to WLK's difficulty got angry because they could no longer faceroll content. Following this, Blizzard nerfed the absolute crap out of raiding so that everybody could do it again, but by then it was too late. Cata had a lot of problems but many of the things that people point to in Cata actually began in WLK.


Heavensward has an entirely separate problem. The issue with HW is that they spent too much time on the leveling experience and not enough time on the endgame. There is just straight up not enough interesting things to do at endgame right now, especially if you aren't interested in Savage. Although plenty of people are content to mess around with other aspects of MMOs, the bulk of MMO players come for the endgame, and if the endgame isn't good, a lot of people get bored really quick.

[Jynx]

The issue with HW is that they spent too much time on the leveling experience.

Your kidding right?

The game has hardly any leveling experience to speak of it's over as soon as it starts. There is a lack of endgame for sure but in reality a "Bulk" of MMO players don't actually come for the endgame, the developers do need to flesh the entire game out the problem is it's all a linear path to one end.

[adn]

Your kidding right?

No, I am not kidding. The HW zones are twice as large as they need to be at minimum; there are WAY too many leveling dungeons and not enough dungeons at endgame. Gubal, Aetherochemical and potentially even The Vault should be level 60 dungeons and accessible via exro.

And if you don't think the bulk of MMO players come for the endgame then I don't know what to tell you. If that were true then why are 90% of the complaints here about a lack of content at endgame? Nobody complains about the leveling experience not being long enough. Please show me all the threads of people saying BOY I WISH I SPENT MORE TIME LEVELING!


Wildstar and Warlords of Draenor failed because people got to max level, realized the endgame was pretty much crap unless you raided, and quit. Why is every MMO expansion dedicated to expanding the endgame and giving more stuff to do a cap level instead of adding low-level content? There's simply no other explanation: the BULK of players come for endgame. And if the endgame doesn't deliver they get tired and leave. I have never seen anyone quit an MMO over "not enough low-level content" unless it's like a KMMO where all you can do is sit around and grind monsters or something.

[Blissa]

I have been around MMORPG's for a long time, I started in June of 1999 on Original Everquest. And every single successful game including FFXI had one thing in common. They gave you TONS of stuff to do, it was pretty much left up to your imagination on what you wanted to do for that day.

What do we have to do in FFXIV, Crafting which 50~60 crafting is broken and useless if you ask me. A sorry excuse for a raid, and grind 450 eso a week and thats it. Every other game I have ever played if you wanted to get gear for you toon there was no limit on how much gear you could get other then a lock out on the raid, which wasn't a problem because there were several raids that you could do that produced tons of gear. We have one lousy raid!

Another HUGE problem with this game is lack of community. Back in the day everyone knew everyone and if you caused problems no one would group with you. In this game you can be the biggest dirt bag on earth and it dosent even matter because your never going to see those people again.

To sum it up this game needs a lot of work and it needs it quick before it becomes the next free to play game!

[Madruck]

There is a very simple answer to all these responses in regards to all the negative reactions lately.......there is not currently enough content in end game at 60! 2 dungeons, 1 raid and 2 primals, that is all the current player base has to do which is very little. Compare that to 2.5 with over 17 dungeons, over 15 raiding events and not to mention all the primals. Understandably that this was a combo of all content from 2 years, but SE could have come up with more than the little we have to do at endgame for 4 months doing content that rewards something.

[Daralii]

Hahahaha, this... he's on my server, haven't seen him recently though. Used to see him all the time complaining in Mor Dhona and Idyllshire.

Maybe he unsubbed.

Please.

[Zer0]

You're grasping at straws for these wow comparisons. Heavensward has nothing in similarity to Cataclysm. Sure there are some issues, but really the bulk of people saying there isn't anything to do were the ones that powerleveled every single job to 60 and all crafting and gathering too. Of course you're running out of things to do.

Cata was a failure because of it's stupid difficulty changes. Making healers have to "think about mana" all the while making their heals absolutely sucktastic meant you had tons of stressed out healers. It basically caused a mass exodus of all the tanks and healers who all rerolled dps. The raids sucked, and outside them there was virtually nothing to do. This trend continuing to Mop, and WoD, and most like Legion. Sure Final Fantasy has raids, but it's not the ONLY thing to do. Besides expansion just came out like a few months ago. Wait till 3.1 to see what you like about things.