A3S nerfs incoming

[RiceisNice]

and that SE will make the right decision with information they have on hand. Impossible to disagree with that.

Phone posting sucks. This right here is my greatest concern because ever since 3.0, the content being released has felled short of my already mediocre expectations. Top that off with yoshi's conflicting or questionable responses lately, I'm starting to lose faith on if he even has a vision on what the game should be, or is he just throwing out whatever and hope it works. Don't forget that the developers had thought FATEs were very popular and that people liked it because of the amount of participants, when in actuality it was the fastest way to gain exp since nothing else was available.

[Colorful]

snip

It seems to me that Yoshida is trying to replicate successful ideas from other MMOs, but his team just doesn't have the man power to do it properly. FATEs would be Guild Wars 2 dynamic event system, which is great in its own right but FATEs seem like a shoddy and unfun replica, whereas it worked nicely in Guild Wars 2 due to the game being designed with them in mind. The normal mode raiding would be a replica of WoW's LFR, but that's different in that they have large scale raids and as such can stagger the release of each wing in LFR by 2 weeks, LFR also has their own armour set, the mid tier have their own, and Mythic has its own improved armour set based off the design of the mid tier sets, but usually far nicer as they're significantly harder to obtain. I'd guess FFXIV's Diadem was meant to be Dynamis? I don't grindy concepts work in today's MMOs though, not to that extent anymore. No one wants to stay in an enclosed area farming a set of mobs for 90 minutes.

[RiceisNice]

...

There's nothing wrong with taking things from other mmo, especially if it works. But they need to understand the how and why behind it, as well as actually making it work. If I think back, most everything I can say about their game features are lacking in innovation or dynamics, but could've done much more if they had put the time and/or resources into it.

-FATEs? Dynamic events are great. Hell, WoW even does this now for WoD; I'm only in the first area and it's a hell lot more diversive than what we have in FFXIV. The former has you doing various objectives at once which gives considerable amount of EXP and currency, but in return they're a lot more scarce. The latter has them in such numerous numbers, but they're all essentially "kill X" "kill boss", and 'gather item" and give relatively low exp compared to everything else that is available. It's so easy to burn out and see the repetitive nature of it when you slam your head at it when you run out of quests. And don't even get me started on FATEs being required for CT, animus and atma.

-Raid, I don't mind the fact they tried to make more than one difficulty mode, but again they seemed to have misplaced what the players actually want. They overshot who the appeal was supposed to hit, and I feel that some servers have taken an unrecoverable hit as a result because of the mass transfers. Their raiding formula seemed to have worked for coil during 2.0; midcores were able to clear, hardcores cleared within a week, casuals would eventually get in as the content gets nerfed and still has the novelty of new content, at the same time, savage mode savage was still there. Come 3.0 they skipped stepped 1 completely and right into step 2 and 3.

-Diadem. Again the concept was great, execution leaves a lot to be desired. I'm damn sure they did not want this to be a 90 minute grind fest because the other aspects of it become under utilized (caves, open-world spawn triggers) or does not necessitate an actual party cooperation (gathering/fishing).

To me, 3.0 in general has been pretty disappointing once you get past the novelty of it being an "expansion"...if you can call it that after you get through the level cap. Other people have said it and I'm starsting to lean toward it, it feels like a patch we paid for rather than a honest-to-good expansion; there isn't much of new gameplay changes, the new jobs (esp AST on release and MCH compared ot BRD) feels really meh, especially when you consider that they added ninja in a content patch, not an expansion and pulled it off fairly well with it's own identity. While it had problems with numbers, those can be easily tuned with hotfixes, at least compared to trying to dehomogenize BRD and MCH's gameplay (unless they intended for that, which I don't feel is the right decision when it comes to adding jobs)

Combine that with the fact they, by their own admission, is adding less content from what we have now (dungeons, trials, story) to implement more new content (LoV, diadem) and flunking the former, it just leads to a very, very broad game with no focus. Once get past the novelty of it being "new", you utlimately go back to doing the same thing. I've honestly felt like I've exhausted what 3.1 has to offer after a week, sans farming thordan weapon for my other jobs that I probably will level out of boredom (which I did in 2.5 before 3.0...so welp)

The same was said about "The Steps of Faith" but be honest to yourself: No one who said something about how faceroll easy it was or that it would be a shame did that content often! They were complaining because random dutty and they were aiming just for the bonus stones... As if you would "farm" outdated content... We all know how "The Steps of Faith" ended and no one ever cared about it... same will be with thordan, as it was back with ultima!

The circumstances behind the two content are entirely different though. SoF was DF content that needed to be completed to progress. People were not willing ot invest into the time (and still won't) if they got it in their trial roulette because of the liability of the fight when you have to wait 10 minutes for a reset on an unrecoverable fight. Heck, farming SoF wasn't even a thing. Same with ultima dropping I80 rings when Myth rings were available since the patch before ultima's bane.

Thordan on the other hand, is not DF content and drops i205 weapons. People would still be farming it the same way they'd farm Ravana (even when eso weapons were out, some would like to gear their alts). This would still be the case if Eso is still weekly locked and they added gobdips...espesically for MCH who has a rather garbage eso weapon that is honestly not a good upgrade (if not a downgrade for some people) to heavensfire.

[Yukiko]

(..) The circumstances behind the two content are entirely different though. (..)

You try very hard to find justification.
It was not only SoF and you did not read the part about ultima... whatever, its fact and you can read in forum!
I do not compare anything, i just say what was said back then from other content and players ALWAYS remain silent after it has become outdated -> Look at Bismark weapons... or Coil

Edit: Lets make a test -> Try to find players for ultima and then ask them why they joined

[RiceisNice]

Edit: Lets make a test -> Try to find players for ultima and then ask them why they joined

You'd still get different results compared to asking players for ultima when it was released versus now, and thordan now. You started comparing as soon as you brought up Ultima, who arguably didn't have much of a reward going for it at the time since it was going lower Ilvl gear than what was already available. The reason for nerfing SoF is entirely different for nerfing Thordan (if there is even going to be a nerf).

[Yukiko]

You'd still get different results compared to asking players for ultima when it was released versus now, and thordan now. You started comparing as soon as you brought up Ultima, who arguably didn't have much of a reward going for it at the time since it was going lower Ilvl gear than what was already available. The reason for nerfing SoF is entirely different for nerfing Thordan (if there is even going to be a nerf).

You should search the forum, i am not comparing - look at date in forum postings - players acted same as now!
Search for Ultima or Coil or ANY other content that got nerfed...
All i was comparing is to predict it will end SAME as it was with the others - just confirm it with your research in forums if you do not believe!