Hardcore, easy mode and the XI veteran

[Jennestia]

The difference between a Mage, Cor and BRD and the mark system is that it's a system that's been around in FFs for as long as I can remember -- Mages bought spells at shops, some games it was learned through level up or through items. The Mark system versus the level up system in XI is a grind in itself -- You don't grind scrolls or die, you buy them. In FFXIV, you grind marks to buy your passive class traits, in FFXI you just leveled into them which leveled up as you leveled up. In FFXIV, you actually have to buy multiple tiers.

So yes, XIV actually has a fairly large timesink that people overlook when throwing out the word in conjunction with FFXI.

[elreed]

Nice post, i agree in a lot of stuff with you, but i think you are not getting what people is asking, hard content, not easy to do in 2 months, i want to have something to do for several nights after work, dont give mediocre gear with farmable badges or something like WoW, that killed that game as you say you only needed time to get that semi best gear, and people stopped doing harder content because they already had something a little less powerful than best gear, so in a few words im asking to have harder content less handed out gear and of course to have a really juicy carrot that last longer than 3 months before the new carrot gets there.

Its simple, just make hard chains of quest, hard tactical NM's, dungeons that needs more than one quest to be able to enter and different bosses, farm items to pop NM's, make new areas where you need to complete several task to be able to get there and make them to be open world, i did watch several times how people killed something just to make sure if we were using the best strategy so for casuals that would be a good thing, im not that hardcore but i like when things are difficult to get not because the drop rate but for the things you need to do.

[Abauge_Goga]

I played FFXI and enjoyed it a lot. I also enjoy FFXIV even though my gaming lifestyle changed drastically.

I think someone needs to setup a poll and see how many people can play more than 15 hrs a week. Whoever can't, would be considered casual, and I would be part of that group.

All these arguments steam over between casual vs hardcore players. What is casual? 15 hrs a week? How about hardcore? 30 hrs a week?

What is SE looking for as a solid base of players? Ultimatelly it comes down to money.

Both sides of this argument have good points in it and noone will ever win lol.

[Krausus]

The difference between a Mage, Cor and BRD and the mark system is that it's a system that's been around in FFs for as long as I can remember -- Mages bought spells at shops, some games it was learned through level up or through items. The Mark system versus the level up system in XI is a grind in itself -- You don't grind scrolls or die, you buy them. In FFXIV, you grind marks to buy your passive class traits, in FFXI you just leveled into them which leveled up as you leveled up. In FFXIV, you actually have to buy multiple tiers.

So yes, XIV actually has a fairly large timesink that people overlook when throwing out the word in conjunction with FFXI.

but lets be real here the timesink involved with obtaining marks is quite small.

[Krausus]

I played FFXI and enjoyed it a lot. I also enjoy FFXIV even though my gaming lifestyle changed drastically.

I think someone needs to setup a poll and see how many people can play more than 15 hrs a week. Whoever can't, would be considered casual, and I would be part of that group.

All these arguments steam over between casual vs hardcore players. What is casual? 15 hrs a week? How about hardcore? 30 hrs a week?

What is SE looking for as a solid base of players? Ultimatelly it comes down to money.

Both sides of this argument have good points in it and noone will ever win lol.

I dunno I play anywhere from 20 to 40 hours a week and consider myself casual.

[Sypherblade]

props to the OP...good solid points

Yoshi has stated he wants to turn the game into a more instanced based gameplay. Which I personally think will correct many things stated as problems in the OP.

If done correctly this will become the new form of leveling and end game alike.

You will have the story, the challenge, the rewards, and the decent time frame.

Now seeing how this game is still in the drawing board stages of development with "how does the battle system work." "How are people gonna level." "How is end game gonna be" "How is crafting gonna work into the game." etc etc...

We just have to sit back....chill...and wait for them to give us something. We can make assumptions all day and say they gonna do it this way, they gonna do it that way....but in the end... we really dont know 100%

The reality is the game was launch prematurely (not new info)...they needed another year or two to have a good presentation. So we are just the test dummies. Don't expect anything that will rival other MMO giants for AT LEAST another year...prolly two.

Be patient...its hard i know since its already at your fingertips and you want it to be what you want RIGHT NOW

And it might just be that in the future...but just wait.

[Jennestia]

but lets be real here the timesink involved with obtaining marks is quite small.

Being realistic people would agree that it's still a timesink, that very thing they use to say makes XI a bad a game. A timesink is a timesink in the end. If Timesinks is what made XI 'bad', how is it that timesinks make XIV 'good'? So being real, both games have their equal share of timesinks.

[Tsuga]

The OP is one of the most well constructed posts I've seen on this forum, and it spells out exactly what I've tried to drill into so many people's heads, here.

It's a shame that very few will actually take the time to read and comprehend it.

[Krausus]

Being realistic people would agree that it's still a timesink, that very thing they use to say makes XI a bad a game. A timesink is a timesink in the end. If Timesinks is what made XI 'bad', how is it that timesinks make XIV 'good'? So being real, both games have their equal share of timesinks.

with that definition every thing is a timesink, but I think what the OP is trying to convey is that timesink =/= hardcore, so esentialy he isnt saying timesink is "bad" he is saying using the term "hardcore" for something that isn't hard but is just a timesink is "bad"

[Krausus]

The OP is one of the most well constructed posts I've seen on this forum, and it spells out exactly what I've tried to drill into so many people's heads, here.

It's a shame that very few will actually take the time to read and comprehend it.

I really hope people do it is easily one of the most well written posts I have read on here.