New Direction in Content

[Tint]

Content will come in 2 kinds, those in which you can carry people, and those in which you can't. Anything that is the latter will be called too hard (e.g. : OMG, everyone has to know how to play to game to clear this!!11!!). Anything that is the former is called too easy (e.g. : OMG you can just watch netflix while 23 other people do work).

i think the ex primals are actually content in between. they are not too hard or too easy. we need more content like this :O

[T2teddy]

But people barely do them any more because you can get better weapons in Idyllshire.

[Kerrigen]

Not to mention Bismarck was implemented in a completely pointless way and only exists as a gate to Ravana, making it obsolete on arrival. It's Ramuh all over again.

OP is spot on. I know this is a modern theme park MMO but it looks like the devs completely lack any foresight and aren't trying very hard to keep anything relevant for more than 3 months (well unless next patch is late...). Not like they really can make alternate paths and content anyway as the itemization is more dull than ever in Heavensward. There's no attempt to create any variety and I don't think it's even possible with such a simplistic and safe character growth system.

I really hoped 3.0 would bring about some breadth and depth and it was a complete let down in that regard. It's like no lessons were taken from past mistakes. When you think about it, the boldest thing that had been done was probably implementing a raid token system. :|

[Nestama]

i think the ex primals are actually content in between. they are not too hard or too easy. we need more content like this :O

And to not have them become obsolete content right after said content is released (Bismarck EX and eventually Ravana EX. Especially if you don't plan on levelling alts... and Ramuh EX, before the rings were buffed).

[Xairos]

As many have stated, this claim to make balanced, always fun, adventurous content is really really tricky: SE is working within the scale of ilevel and how that relates to "power" in this game (i.e. the only power in this game is ilvl), as such the player base as a whole will rate content in terms of that scale:

"Does this help me get stronger or not?"

What SE has to do is pull our attention away from that objective and do it in a manor that doesnt feel like a band aid being ripped off. To the point of challenging content: remember Steps of Faith, before that Pharos Sirius, before that the nerfs to Amdapor Keep and trash gating? Remember the time when we as a community fought to have the trash mobs become relevant for killing? If the challenge is too much, we will fight to have it "re-tuned" to a more repeatable level.

Anytime content is introduced the player base will find the most efficient way to get their reward. There is a very fine line that must be found to make content repeatable, challenging, worth-it, and fun. It seems like at best, we can pick two or three right now.

My gripe is mostly at ilvl and how it has changed the way we as a community approach content. Coil, CT, old lvl 50 gear like AF is completely left behind. So much content is not worth-it that Pony Farm parties that players would once have to pay to clear sit empty in the Party Finder. To me this comes down to a very static and immutable gear<>power system; There is no pay off for players to run this content anymore and Mounts and Minions aren't gonna cut it.

[Havenae]

The problem, basically, is that they're using content models that are extremely outdated.

This is an opportunity for SE to stop playing it safe and perhaps become a little more inventive .Their entire problem is they only seem to want to engage in design concepts that have worked in the past for other games, mainly World of Warcraft. This would be fine if it were not for the problem that many gamers are tired of this same dynamic of, "raid raid raid, get gear, wait three months, raid raid raid. get gear. wait thee months... " We've done it all before, I've done it before. I know many people who have no interest in it anymore. I do not have any interest in it anymore either.

Now I know there'll be people pop in and say how I'm playing the wrong genre of games. (I've been playing MMOs for about 20 years, I dont think so.) or how this isn't going to change so anyone who agrees might as well quit.

Yeah, it won't change if we dont force SE to step back and take a perspective check. There's nothing wrong with questioning why this genre won't evolve, in fact it should be expected. SE is using the same content model WoW has used for 11 years. That's over a decade ago. It's time for a change.

[Kailok]

Yeah, it won't change if we dont force SE to step back and take a perspective check. There's nothing wrong with questioning why this genre won't evolve, in fact it should be expected. SE is using the same content model WoW has used for 11 years. That's over a decade ago. It's time for a change.

Definitely, that is the entire point of this post - I'm hopeful that they will at least consider changing things up so that the content we have to work on lasts longer. It's upsetting that Heavensward only just released a few short months ago and a bunch of players are dropping off. Something has to be figured out.

[Kailok]

Exactly. It's a huge bummer that Bismark essentially is just another Ramuh where it is just a gate before the Primal everyone wants to fight. I don't understand why they both couldn't be difficult enough for i190 fights. People could / would have been able to make their way to that content without the 175 weapons offered from Bismark because you can easily upgrade from 170 to 180. It become a useless fight outside of needing to do it for Ravana, which sucks given they probably spent a lot of time conceptualizing and designing that fight only for it to be basically useless within 2-3 weeks after release.

[zosia]

Because then the people running Savage will get all uppity that their raid should always have the best gear no matter (see: Exploratory Voyages). I'd appreciate 205 gear at the very least though, along with weapons. Why don't we get weapons with CT-like raids? =(

We don't already, explorations will have the best gear. Raiders don't get anything casual players don't get, so might as well just put 210 gear in void ark since 210 gear will be coming out of void ark anyways. Whats the point of trying to create an illusion of fairness.

SE should just give out max ilvl gear every patch.

Similar to now, the vast majority of people did not beat coil in it's release patch because it (mainly just the last couple of floors) was too hard. People then just didn't end up bothering to do it. Then complain that there is story behind the series. This is first coil too.

I am still raiding and the story DOES suck. It's indefensible. The story was one of the worst told thus far in the entire game.

Would you be happy if they releases Void Ark not on the DF and have second coil difficulty, so you have 23 people out to get you with their voices and shrieks. Or they release it at CT difficulty where 2 parties press 3 buttons and the 3rd party AFK. As long as it is going to be randomly matched, they have to make it so easy that every mechanic of every fight is learnable in the first run. I mean let's be logical here, content will either be clearable in the first run or not clearable in the first run. What do you even want?

Then SE should have done two version of void ark, normal and hardmode. Just scale up the damage and healing required to clear the instance. Make failed mechanics actually wipe the group. Bamn, hardmode without a huge amount of dev time required. Put normal in DF and make savage only enter-able by a premade group. The hardmode versions of the reward could be 210 (nothing special in the current meta) and the gear could be dyable. The rest of the rewards would be the same.

Casual players can have their snooze fest and players that want content with teeth could have it. This solutions literally takes nothing away from any player. It might take, what? Another month to retune void ark for hardmode? If that?

[Kailok]

Then SE should have done two version of void ark, normal and hardmode. Just scale up the damage and healing required to clear the instance. Make failed mechanics actually wipe the group. Bamn, hardmode without a huge amount of dev time required. Put normal in DF and make savage only enter-able by a premade group. The hardmode versions of the reward could be 210 (nothing special in the current meta) and the gear could be dyable. The rest of the rewards would be the same.

Casual players can have their snooze fest and players that want content with teeth could have it. This solutions literally takes nothing away from any player. It might take, what? Another month to retune void ark for hardmode? If that?

Honestly, I'd be very much up for this. I'm really itching for a progressive endgame raid. They could even make it an 8-man version or something that provides a lot of challenge for a single group. But that's just an idea.