How would you feel about end-game gear only being useful for 3 months?

[Azurymber]

Final conclusion: Better, well formed alternative solutions would go a long way to making your arguments more valid. In their current form, you've come off as a broken record and a mere contrarian that has no interest in being happy with the game. I know this is not true about you from what I've seen so far in this thread.

Maybe this will provide some insight to others and restore a bit of peace to this thread.

On the other hand, the ad hominem attacks will flay me where I stand. Either way, it's just the internet, it's just a game, it probably wasn't worth the 20 minutes it took to write this whole post.

-- Krin

Side notes that didn't fit in anywhere:

* Game Design is a very weird field. They want to break stereotypes, but teach stereotypes. In the end though, creating stereotypes for highly represented play styles in the world at large makes for very good game designers. Game Design is still an art that requires raw talent, but tempering that talent with an understanding of how People Who Are Not You define the all powerful Fun in games is invaluable.

** RMTs in this context really don't matter, the true RMT issue is Gil for real money and items for real money. This is a game breaker. I've noticed myself that the in-game economy is completely decoupled from Gil inputs, but it appears that things are still balanced, at least on Karnak. An Optimal Rank 11 gladiator weapon sells for 30,000 Gil, which is about 15 rank 10 leve quests, which feels about the right pacing from other elements of the games. (2 days at full out do everything possible and a bit of grind.) However, the fanatical fight SE has against RMT's is another post entirely.

I really wanted to avoid debate in this thread, but you're argument is really really wrong from a neuroscience or psychological standpoint so I felt I had to respond.

While I understand where you are coming from, having experience in game design is just that... experience in game -design-. and not necessarily what makes a game successful. You don't seem to be aware about much economic or psych/neuroscience theory, since your arguments ignore some very key things about human nature. It is scientific fact that human beings in general, generate happiness from relative gains (ex. you're happy when you get $50 and your peers get $10 more so than if you and your peers all get $50). That is to say, in general, humans are happy when they have more than others. Put another way, people are happier when they can be an "elitist jerk."

You may not like that, but it is essentially the reason why capitalism has proven the most successful economic model. If people did not have a general interest in becoming "elitist jerks" then there would be no incentive to take large risks or no incentive to attempt to make as much money as possible. So in essence even if you don't believe the 100s of experiments done across the planet in every culture, capitalism is still a very strong proof of the statement (as the capitalist motto is 'greed is good'. and not in the sense that its good to be greedy, but that greed leads to economic organization that improves the lives of everyone)

In this game...
Because people are happy being elitist jerks
there is an incentive to become elite
thus an incentive to continue to play the game.
thus an incentive to continually pay for the game
leading to a successful game.

To propose a casual game where everyone can get everything easily is essentially going directly against human nature and creating a game that doesn't instill happiness or promote incentives for continuous play.

You might argue "but wait, FFXIV will attract a niche market of people who don't fit into the relative-gains category"

But right now FFXIV is a free -casual- game where its quite easy to get everything. Yet the game is essentially a failure.
Without incentives or ways to become an "elitist jerk" people will do new raids for a week or 2 and then quit until the next patch again.
If this game had amazing quests, or something that makes people want to come on for the sake of story or gameplay then yes, the game -may- be able to be quasi-successful in casual-mode. But it doesn't....

So at this rate, the game actually alienates the average MMO player (either the 'elitist jerk' or the 'wannabe elitist jerk')
And doesn't provide any substance to keep the non-elitist player around

So knowing that people like being elitist jerks. who do you think this game will appeal to? The type of people who play games like farmville and the sims?

I really do understand your position from a game design point of view, but at the same time you ignored human behaviour. Game developers cannot dictate human nature. Human nature is genetically coded into us as a result of evolution. So to develop a good game it is necessary to take psychology, neuroscience, cultural anthropology, etc, into account.

And personally I'm a casual player interested in storyline and couldn't care less about gear. Notice all my guides are solo-related.
But I do have an understanding of incentives and such being an economist.
And just because this is a game doesn't exclude it from the simple facts of life
People want to be better than others. If you don't give them that opportunity they will go to another game.

And i fully realize that you talked about the whole elitists needing casuals which shows you do understand that concept. But the point is, even the casuals WANT to be elite. That's why the FFXI model worked. Items like Byakko Haidate and P-charm were good for YEARS. Meaning even if your a casual you would work towards them and get them over time. Then when you had them, you gained that happiness of eliteness for years, making you want to play the game and "show off".

And if you disagree and think most people just want to have fun, then explain why SE shouldn't just create a "cheat" mode and let people alter their levels and choose what equipment they get from all the equipment in the game.