Curious state of raiding and could something from the early days of XI fix it?

[Ibi]

open world monsters have 2 big problems
1) if the rewards are good enough they'll get swarmed by players
2) if the rewards are not good enough, you won't have enough people to kill it

The first point could be addressed by using a currency-based system of manually spawned, tapped (i.e. only players in the group that spawned it can attack it) mobs. Once the benefit for people outside the group that spawned it is removed, so is (almost all) the motivation to swarm it.

Once that's resolved, the second point because moot, because you can simply make the rewards good enough.

[Lan_Mantear]

open world monsters have 2 big problems
1) if the rewards are good enough they'll get swarmed by players
2) if the rewards are not good enough, you won't have enough people to kill it

1. Let it be a timed or force spawn.
2. Allow only 1 party or an alliance to claim it, preventing all others from engaging it. This will promote competition. Give something for players to be excited about.
3. Make the reward be the current tomestone upgrade material or something of similar value. Don't guarantee a 100% drop rate.

[SendohJin]

The first point could be addressed by using a currency-based system of manually spawned, tapped (i.e. only players in the group that spawned it can attack it) mobs.

sure but that's not really an open world monster as described that makes the world more dangerous.

basically that's just harder treasure maps with better/different rewards.

3. Make the reward be the current tomestone upgrade material or something of similar value. Don't guarantee a 100% drop rate.

i've always been of the opinion that Unhidden Treasure Maps should drop better stuff.

[Warlyx]

popable mobs across eorzea , would be awesome (yeah kinda like maps ) but with a tier system , u kill 123 to being able to pop A, and 567 to pop B , 890 to pop C , and once u kill ABC , u are able to pop X in a personal instance (ex: aquopolis) , u make parties move around the awesome world SE created , kill mobs in the snow , desert , lake , forest...instead of the same rehashed alexander squarebox.....with the same music over and over

[Dzian]

Keep in mind that part of the reason that getting a new piece of equipment in XI was so exciting was that (for most players) it was so rare that you ever got anything at all.

I had a two year stretch from 2006-2008 when I was doing something every night of the week in XI; Dynamis and Limbus twice a week, with Sky, Sea, Einherjar, Nyzul Isle, Salvage, etc. mixed in through the rest of the time. About the only thing my LS didn't do was anything that required camping HNMs.

There were plenty of times where I'd have a stretch of weeks at a time where I wouldn't even see anything I wanted drop, and my gear was far from completed from any of the jobs I played.

There's a trade off here though. I mean yeah sure it took weeks sometimes to get an item. But often that item was an Incredibly valuable piece of gear that would last you a long time. So of course there's excitement when you finally get it. Because it's both powerful and incredibly valuable.

In xiv though nothing has that power or value. Because everything is short lived. That's why you never get excited when you get a drop cos you know it's a piece of junk that'll be replaced in a few weeks there's no sense of value in it.

And it's this that also factors into why the raiding or endgame community in the more modern mmos is so very small. The rewards just don't feel valuable and thus players don't really care for getting them. It has nothing to do with difficulty really. The more hardcore players may like to believe the rest of the playerbase just ain't good enough. But that's far from entirely true. The truth is simply the rewards just aren't appealing enough or valuable enough.

Since XI is a big talking point in this thread. I will point at COP. Widely regarded as one of the hardest mmo expansions ever in its day. And of all time on some sites. Yet the population of players that pushed through its and endgame was much much higher than in modern mmos. some people spent months on some fights and never gave up trying to get the clear because the rewards for clearing it were so valuable that they kept trying despite its difficulty.

So saying players don't raid cos it's too hard is far from an accurate statement. Many dont raid simply because the rewards for doing so aren't valuable or worthwhile.

as far as XI's endgame on the whole it wasn't all a massive time investment. Dynamis was probably the worst in terms of time sink. but A lot of XIs endgame had a relatively low end time investment.
the dreamlands dynamis for example was something like 90 mins max time.
Limbus was typically 45 minutes to an hour.
Einherjar was a very strict 30 minutes.
Salvage was an hour if I recall.
Sea, Sky, ZNMs were all open world so you could do them for an hour if you wanted or 10 hours.

so a lot of these systems would fit into XIV quite well from a time perspective. but I think if Yoshi wants to address raiding popularity then he needs to make it feel worthwhile and genuinely rewarding to do. which is going to be difficult with the games typical content / gear lifespans

[Iromi]

Oh the irony of these "I dont want to play FFXI-2 HD"

Fun fact - you are. You are just playing the extremely watered down version of FFXI. Deep Dungeon is just a very watered down version of Nyzul Isle. Diadem is a watered down Dynamis. Hm..you know, those things were pretty well received in FFXI , over here though I see complaints about the rewards not being enticing enough and the content being boring and redundant. It's more then the content..its this games battle system. No CC, no support jobs make for some pretty boring fights. The Weeping City ones were nice but after doing them a few times they are just scripted and exactly the same. No dynamic stuff...anyway, I'll stop before I write a book again lol.

Anyway, everyone has seen me post a thousand times on stuff I'd like to see. Force pop NM from XI and 1.x XIV (so that was already a thing in FFXIV..so more like again, can we have it back please?) what else..uhh, how about some actual FC content? Shoot, at this rate I'll take some of the XI end game then what we have now..which is 4 bosses that hardly anyone ever does with really lackluster rewards.

[Yamimarik]

/snip

Well you can try to spin it all you like, but this is not in any way shape or form Final Fantasy XI 2 HD... sorry about it.... but it just isn't. It's based more on the modern MMO's, and literally (aside from the Final Fantasy namesake) has nothing to do with FFXI in the slightest. Diadem, is a special kind of... thing. It had the potiential to be great and grand, but.. it just didn't live up to hyped expectations. I never saw Diadem as just Dynamis (seriously where is everyone getting Dynamis from?)

Again I played FFXI for 11yrs I would know if I was playing a "watered down" version of XI. It's funny how you always come into threads and always going on about wanting to have this from XI or that from XI. Obviously if the squeaky wheel is squeaking... I mean seriously, if you are in so much desperation to have XI brought here (and not trying to sound cliche) legitimately why are you not playing FFXI right now instead of XIV? I don't understand at all... so enlighten us all.

I do NOT want to see NM, HNM, or any thing of that sort EVER make it to FFXIV. That is a part of XI I truly detested and am grateful it doesn't exist here. Honestly it just doesn't have a place in todays modern MMOs. NOW... on the other hand the ZNM's (Zeni Notorious Monsters) was the SO AMAZING right direction for NM's when they finally brought those out for FFXI. I would GLADLY support something similar over here, force popped NM's under certain conditions not only was fun and amazing, but gave people an actual reachable and obtainable goal to go after. It was fun content, many people actually participated in it, (even after Abyssea came in and WoE was coming in and such, people were still doing ZNM's least on Bismarck.)

You can try and hide behind the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses all you like, but FFXI was not a perfect game. It will always remain a top FF game for me personally, and an amazing game in it's own right that I absolutely adored and respected. I had many years of fun with friends and the content I personally enjoyed. But I can take a step back and see that there were many flaws, mostly which are things you keep trying to bring up and others as well wanting to make a return back into this game. Like NM's, things like more "versatility" in jobs like with support jobs and such... yet in FFXI, and we ALL know this, only a VERY FEW selective jobs were even allowed to do most if not ALL endgame content. I really never want to see the job imbalance issues EVER over here. Yeah we've had our shares of issues and tweaks and fixes.. but never to the extent that happen through out all of XI's and still ongoing lifetime.

[Ibi]

sure but that's not really an open world monster as described that makes the world more dangerous.

I'm not sure how much of a relationship there is between making the open world more dangerous and improving the structure of endgame.

It's possible there an argument that it would improve the game as whole, but that's doesn't seem to be relevant to the thread topic.

There's a trade off here though. I mean yeah sure it took weeks sometimes to get an item. But often that item was an Incredibly valuable piece of gear that would last you a long time. So of course there's excitement when you finally get it. Because it's both powerful and incredibly valuable.

Some people prefer less frequent but more significant rewards, some people prefer more frequent but less significant rewards. You're unlikely to convince someone on either side of the debate that the other viewpoint is evidently superior.

And it's this that also factors into why the raiding or endgame community in the more modern mmos is so very small. The rewards just don't feel valuable and thus players don't really care for getting them. It has nothing to do with difficulty really.

This argument gets thrown around all the time in discussions like this, but I've never seen any evidence produced for it that goes beyond anecdotal.

Since XI is a big talking point in this thread. I will point at COP. Widely regarded as one of the hardest mmo expansions ever in its day. And of all time on some sites. Yet the population of players that pushed through its and endgame was much much higher than in modern mmos.

Speaking of which. Do you have any source for that claim or any actual numbers to back it up?

The fact that they had to adjust the fights on multiple occasions suggests that a not insignificant portion of the population weren't able to push through.

Besides which, though the missions for CoP were challenging, the majority of XI's actual endgame content itself wasn't even in the same ballpark as XIV's in terms of difficulty.

So saying players don't raid cos it's too hard is far from an accurate statement. Many dont raid simply because the rewards for doing so aren't valuable or worthwhile.

I'm pretty sure there was an 81-page thread about Coil that included many people saying quite specifically that they don't raid because it's too hard (either in terms of the content itself or in terms of the organization/scheduling involved).

I don't recall a similarly lengthy thread of people saying they didn't run Coil because it wasn't rewarding enough, but I'd be happy to be corrected.

the dreamlands dynamis for example was something like 90 mins max time.
Salvage was an hour if I recall.

Dreamworld Dynamis is an hour initially, plus an extra hour if you beat the boss. Salvage is 100 minutes.

so a lot of these systems would fit into XIV quite well from a time perspective. but I think if Yoshi wants to address raiding popularity then he needs to make it feel worthwhile and genuinely rewarding to do. which is going to be difficult with the games typical content / gear lifespans

On that, we are in agreement.

[SendohJin]

I'm not sure how much of a relationship there is between making the open world more dangerous and improving the structure of endgame.

It's possible there an argument that it would improve the game as whole, but that's doesn't seem to be relevant to the thread topic.

i didn't bring it up, the person who posted before me first did.

[Welsper59]

Well you can try to spin it all you like, but this is not in any way shape or form Final Fantasy XI 2 HD... sorry about it.... but it just isn't. It's based more on the modern MMO's, and literally (aside from the Final Fantasy namesake) has nothing to do with FFXI in the slightest. Diadem, is a special kind of... thing. It had the potiential to be great and grand, but.. it just didn't live up to hyped expectations. I never saw Diadem as just Dynamis (seriously where is everyone getting Dynamis from?)

I think this is where a bit of miscommunication might be happening. Did you know that modern MMO's pull from older ones and (sometimes) try to make it "their own"? Likewise those older games might also pull from previous stuff. While it's not entirely accurate to say it's 2.0 XI, it's very broadly exactly that.

Again I played FFXI for 11yrs I would know if I was playing a "watered down" version of XI. It's funny how you always come into threads and always going on about wanting to have this from XI or that from XI. Obviously if the squeaky wheel is squeaking... I mean seriously, if you are in so much desperation to have XI brought here (and not trying to sound cliche) legitimately why are you not playing FFXI right now instead of XIV? I don't understand at all... so enlighten us all.

I do NOT want to see NM, HNM, or any thing of that sort EVER make it to FFXIV. That is a part of XI I truly detested and am grateful it doesn't exist here. Honestly it just doesn't have a place in todays modern MMOs. NOW... on the other hand the ZNM's (Zeni Notorious Monsters) was the SO AMAZING right direction for NM's when they finally brought those out for FFXI. I would GLADLY support something similar over here, force popped NM's under certain conditions not only was fun and amazing, but gave people an actual reachable and obtainable goal to go after. It was fun content, many people actually participated in it, (even after Abyssea came in and WoE was coming in and such, people were still doing ZNM's least on Bismarck.)

What do you think The Hunt is? Just because it has a name to it, doesn't mean it's magically different from something that exists in not just XI, but other games as well. Hunt mobs spawn at timed intervals from ToD too (a term with a long history in XI).

You can try and hide behind the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses all you like, but FFXI was not a perfect game. It will always remain a top FF game for me personally, and an amazing game in it's own right that I absolutely adored and respected. I had many years of fun with friends and the content I personally enjoyed. But I can take a step back and see that there were many flaws, mostly which are things you keep trying to bring up and others as well wanting to make a return back into this game. Like NM's, things like more "versatility" in jobs like with support jobs and such... yet in FFXI, and we ALL know this, only a VERY FEW selective jobs were even allowed to do most if not ALL endgame content. I really never want to see the job imbalance issues EVER over here. Yeah we've had our shares of issues and tweaks and fixes.. but never to the extent that happen through out all of XI's and still ongoing lifetime.

Pulling qualities from previous games is exactly what is comprised within XIV. This does, despite your denial to it, include XI. Thus people asking for things from XI isn't an unreasonable request to make, just as your approval of ZNMs shows.