.:::More Combat Less Cosmetic:::.

[Tolmos]

For me, I can never have enough fluff. When I first got into ARR, and hit level 50, I ended up quitting because of the lack of a glamour system and the god-awful armor that being a scholar put me in. I loved the class, but despised the look. I looked like Baryshnikov trying to cosplay as Harry Potter.

I finally returned to ARR when glamour was introduced. The ability to customize the look of my character until it suits me, perfectly, is part of what I love about the game.

I do agree that some more substance would be nice as well, but I'd prefer if we don't tone the fluff down TOO much... =D

[Lambdafish]

You might be a hardcore player and if that's the case then there's Savage content that is by far the hardest thing in the game, that can be done over and over given you have a static raid group, not something that could interest me since they seem to be maniacs!...

You shouldn't assume that Mature is a hardcore player, as nothing they have asked for is akin to savage difficult content. Battle content doesn't have to be hard or inaccessible, and while housing and cosmetics might interest you, they are supposed to be rewards for accomplishing something, and what people are asking for are more interesting and engaging ways to get rewards rather than being overrun by just cosmetics

[Claymore65]

Keep in mind, Dev resources are not this "Magical" thing they can interchange between different types of content. Even with cutting/changing funding it won't necessarily lead to more content. The "fluff" concept artists cannot simply be transferred to create more battle content. Neither can the 3D model designers, or even the software programmers assigned to those teams. Even if you did "cut the "fluff" budget, it wouldn't necessarily mean we'd get more battle content. It would take a long amount of time to properly train new/transferred engineers, acquire new battle content designers, and even just adjust to the new team dynamics. Plus, if I remember correctly they're even attempting to get more battle content designers, but finding people both experienced in MMORPG game design, fluent in Japanese, and willing to move to their headquarters is difficult. SE is probably not producing "less dungeons" out of laziness, they're probably making as much as they can within the time frame allotted. Players (myself included) vastly underestimate the amount of time, money, and effort that goes into pretty much any piece of game content. Game development is a very, very tricky thing to understand, and I can't claim to understand their development process. Just understand it's never as simple as "less fluff" = "more battle content". That is absolutely not how game development works.

[Theplatter]

I've waited 3 years for that to improve, I thought it would after 3.0, but it seems to have gotten worse. Perhaps after 4.0, but I'm not holding out hope

FFXV and FFVII remake (episodes) say hello.

[Krazymagic]

couldn't agree more. Ive been preaching this for a while. FFXIV feels like its becoming so heavily focused on fluff. Just look at the forums on any given day, the entire front page will fluff related discussion. Emotes, minions, glamour, mounts. It feels like majority of the things that drive the game are fluff. Ive been saying this game needed meaningful open world content for years.

[Lambdafish]

FFXV and FFVII remake (episodes) say hello.

I was watching the FFXV uncovered like it was a big pile of burning money

snip

You don't know that this is how it works. The XIV team is based in the SE building in Japan, in the same building that other SE games are made. Many people move about and work on different games at a time when not needed, and this is how budget can be distributed, game developers typically are not paid a set salary, but rather their contract is per game, rather than per year, and it is easy to get laid off/move around between projects. In an MMO, I assume that patches work the same, and if the budget for a particular patch is distributed to have more fluff than battle content then the people talking about %s are right. You are also correct that the fluff staff can't work on battle content, but the way it likely works is that people move between projects, and people from other projects come onto the team if needed.

Look up Ubisofts 'Limbo' room, its a sad and scary thing

[DPZ2]

I tried farming them mobs myself, its tedious and inefficient.

Really? I used to eat some food, take out the chocobo and whack on mobs in HW Coerthas for half an hour at a time, picking up skins at the rate of about 1.5 per minute. At the end, I would go back to Foundation and sell those items for a pretty penny.

Of course my retainers couldn't do that, except for the Archer (miners and botanists can't bring back leather materials), and he would only bring me back 5 skins an hour while I was under level 60.

[VargasVermillion]

Pretty much how I feel. I do think that the most recent patch has done a better job than usual, with weeping city being more interesting and more than purely catch up content, and as simple as PoTD is it still has a point and judging by how many people are still doing it I can see SE expanding upon it with more variety in it's mechanics.

Biggest issue for me personally is how samey the dungeons are over all other than art style. I feel since the nerfs to the original level 50 dungeons they've just been making really simple maps with pretty backgrounds as what was mentioned earlier in the thread, with some exceptions here and there. The 2 dungeons we got recently are pretty decent. I feel like they're almost getting to the right spot, they just need to press forward a little harder and in some cases put their foot down if people complain about something being too hard when it really isn't.

[Cojika]

Funny how people refer to "fluff" content as inferior to "battle" content even though anything "fluff" is more lasting if not permanent while "battle" stuff gets replaced every/-other patch. E.g. minions, mounts, outfits are there to stay forever while that x-ilvl item will be replaced and only for your retainers to wear after the next patch. And can only be of value as "fluff" item to glamour over.

Some of us are here to actually play the game(dungeons, raids, trials, etc), not to stand in Limsa or Idyllshire emoting all day and playing dress up. I don't care about glamour, minions, or "cute" things in games. The amount of fun I can get from staring at minions and glamour is the furthest thing from permanent.

I understand SE is catering to what people are asking and paying for, but as others have said, this game needs to find a middle ground when it comes to battle and fluff content. I also understand that they're having funding problems for whatever reason(read somewhere that some of the staff went to work on FFXV, idk if that's true), and like someones else said, I'm hoping 4.0 fixes it.I'm not going to get my hopes up though.

[Lambdafish]

They just need to press forward a little harder and in some cases put their foot down if people complain about something being too hard when it really isn't.

Something amazing happened in 3.3. We as a community put our foot down on this behavior. I remember the mountains of threads saying Nidhogg HM is too hard, weeping city is too hard, and we as a community fought back, threads saying that this was the best patch in a long time and the word that Bayonne got back to Yoshi P was "NA loves the slightly more interesting and challenging content" (also weeping city (savage) was mentioned and joked about xD).

3.4 is soon, lets be vocal about the content we love, rather than ask for more fluff (I want Eddas dress etc.)