Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Sparktacus]

http://www.mmorpg.com/mobile/feature...ame=446&ismb=1

Yoshi-P's recent interview with MMORPG, he had this to say:



He knows what Savage is doing, it seems.

He also knew what he was doing when he implemented it in the first place at HW launch. It was a big middle finger to the 20 people in the world that could beat FCoB within a few days. Meanwhile in the end (I believe someone mentioned earlier) the 6 month mark showed a 5% (?) completion rate), I wouldn't put much faith in CopyPastor Yoshi. Though I do keep trying as well.

I quit back right at 3.1 launch and resubbed right after 3.3. It took me roughly 6 weeks to get caught back up (to 230 and ex primals), however, a raider for the entire time of this game, I decided to stay away from Midas as there was very little point to it. I noticed a few QoL improvements, making top food 3to1 ratios, and fixing the horrible mistake they made with stat potions.

What I liked most was that I went in expecting a weapon to be handed to me for 1000 tomes. I learned that I needed 7 weeks of A8N, nothing hard just time gated, do Seph Ex for 220, or relic was an option but after doing 2.0 relic I said no more mind numbing grinds. I thought to myself, this was a step in the right direction because you had to do the battle content to get a better weapon. I worked my way up to get high enough ilvl for Nidhogg and beat him a bunch to get weapons.

No sooner that I do this, they release PoTD. 230 weapon would have been plenty. But no, they want to keep players til 3.4 so they make it 235 just so everyone will grind it out on different jobs. This showed me they really have not learned much. It also is a bit tiring to see all that work in getting my ilvl high enough to do the EX primals in the first place was pretty worthless. I am not saying that PoTD is bad by any means with that example I am simply agreeing with the well agreed upon point that in this game, the reward ratio is absolute garbage.

They don't want horizontal progression but what about set bonuses that only activate under certain conditions? Mostly something like Cleric's Doublet +10% healing *Only activated in Alex 5-8*

Thayos and Zosia also mentioned endgame ideas from 11, and what was so important about that was there were multiple outlets to get great stuff, and you did not need to do all of them to be a relevant player. Thayos mentioned loving Dynamis (me too), but not doing sea. I farmed sea and sky for triggers for our LS for hours so that the LS members could grow and we could take on bigger challenges. (Another thing 14 severely lacks in that FCs are nothing but social outlets).

With no form of progression endgame the game gets stale so quickly. I am capping to 240 and then who knows, will most likely quit again because what's the point of a game that gives you all this gear with very little content to do with it. They have locked themselves into a corner if all they have for best rewards is going to be a weapon.

This is a fantastic thread, and for the most part it is very refreshing to see so much constructive feedback in here without people ripping each other down.

[Keramory]

I agree the armor/weapon grind has become foolish, and has been so for quite some time. These gear sets don't even provide special conditions (cure buffs / skill buffs/ ect), so collecting anything but the absolute highest ilvl is pointless...and that same gear will be pointless in a few months, every few months. Why bother? I am sitting on god knows how much lore, the pennies and other turn ins for the top gear atm and I can't even be bothered to cash them in. Why? Whats the point? With the next update I'll give my main class the new gear and my side classes the soon to be meh gear.

[Duelle]

What I object to is the idea that the way to fix the game's reward system is just to stuff a ton of rewards into Savage raiding, because no matter how good they are the vast, vast majority of the player base still won't do it.

This is a very important point, but from a perspective I'm not seeing people take into account: difficulty of content and "cost" of entry.

The number of people actively raiding would grow if the content allowed for some leniency in execution (read: varied difficulty modes) and cost of entry was not that high. FFXIV's current systems of tomes and dungeon gear could easily accomplish the latter if the devs felt inclined to make it happen. The former won't happen without varying difficulty tiers and bigger raid instances.

The reason various difficulty tiers are needed is largely to ease people into the content, as not everyone handles jumps in difficulty the same way. Think of it like playing something on easy mode then working your way up in difficulty. Playing a game on normal and then trying hard is not really massive since you've already cleared the game and have an idea of how the mechanics work. Some people will obviously draw the line in their own progress (maybe someone decides to stop at normal mode, while others will push towards heroic for the better loot or because they want the achievement/mount), but the idea of raiding wouldn't be so intimidating to the average person, specially if you have guilds actively bringing people who are new to raids. And believe it or not, lenient mechanics at the entry/post-entry level do act as an encouragement to bring new people or non-raiding regulars because you don't run the risk of a wipe if someone messes up.

As the game's raids are right now, bringing someone new to something like Savage is like throwing a fresh lv100 at Mythic Archimond. It's largely unthinkable and obviously a daunting task to some.

[auren_23]

Not true, i haven't finished 3.3 story and i play every single day, i just like to take my time and do other stuff, not just rush though the story, hells I got to lvl 60 on my Paladin just by doing old Zeta weapon without touching a Heavensward area. Point being people play differently and like different things out of the game

[Brannigan]

Tomestones from dungeons buying max ilvl gear was the biggest mistake the dev team ever made. It instantly killed any dungeon gear that comes out after the expansion launch and takes away a lot of the impact of 24 man and 8 man raid gear. Instead of something like "oh well I got this belt from hunts, this helmet from a dungeon, these pants from Ifrit, and this sword from the 24 man" you get "I ran the same two dungeons 6 times a week for 6 weeks to buy all of this gear."

GG SE plz god no RE in 4.0

Here's a hint for 4.0 SE: not all drops in a certain zone need to be equal and you don't have to put FULL SETS EVERYWHERE. It's okay if a dungeon or even a raid doesn't drop helmets. You can put them on other content. I did Nidhogg EX once when he came out but I had no reason to because even if I did play alts I already had weapon tomes and upgrade materials coming out of my ears. It's also okay if some items in a zone are better than others! Oh, this dungeon drops level 250 swords but level 260 rings, etc. Similarly, if a few top end slots can't be obtained without entering the a raid that's alright too because it might entice people to go try it out when it gets easier. If you do it right, it also means you don't have to completely eliminate the entire previous patch's content every time you patch in something new.

Also give us some interesting gear. Speed/Crit/Det are so bland.

[Hyperia]

Savage raiding and its extreme difficulty has scared away (quite literally) most of my friends who used to play the game. It should have been reserved for the final tier of raiding to give extreme hardcore raiders something to do in the down time. I have always said that they should do raid progression more like this:

* Patch X.0: Hard mode raid is released, tuned at midcore raiding.
* Patch X.1: Hard mode raid is nerfed to normal mode so casual player base can experience the raid in story mode.
* Patch X.1: Hard mode raid is buffed to Extreme for the players who want to amp things up and get cool titles.
* Repeat cycle of new raid at X.2 released at hard mode.

Replace "Savage" with "Extreme" for the harder raids for players. Savage has become tainted by bad memories and hard feelings in the 3.X series and should be avoided. Ask your marketing people if you don't believe me, once a word is tainted, it should be avoided.

[PandaHugs]

I always wondered why they let content die or gear become worthless.Give 2 weekly quest like the one in 2.0 EX with the exception of you get a primal catalyst. This catalyst can be used to bump up a primal item level by 10. Quest one would be 2.0 and allow you to take old primal weapons/acc to 180. Quest 2 would be able to take you from 180 up to 235 and you would need to clear up to latest primal. Then as new ones come out they can add new catalyst. I think this is simple and give lots of goals to work towards. older primals become more casual and gives midcore something to work towards outside of raid. Also allows for multiple gear sets to run different content if you wanted. they could also add glamor or materia or whatever else people want.
Also would make Midas NM crafted level should be at 240 this gives hard core more options to fill slots as needed to push content and keeps old Midas with echo worth going into. I would also only make new times 245 and then upgraded 250.

[Tanathya]

I got back for the free login (of which I used a total of 2 hours, if that), and it was almost literally empty everywhere. Now I'm not saying the game is in bad shape, but it's been on this path for a long while now. I left 3 months ago, and I tried to miss the game, but I don't. I want the game to be as successful as it was when it came out, but I just don't see it happening if they continue with this mentality.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

While I still have misgivings towards horzonital progression, as it is more often just an illusion of choice, the devs do need to do something to combat gear stagnation. Take dungeon gear, for example. It's wholly worthless outside glamour since Alexander Normal offers better and its minimal ilvl entry requirement is only 200; esoterics get you that. If they want to keep vertical progression, they can't keep handing out gear left and right that renders other avenues pointless because people will just ignore that content. Even the Anima weapon suffers from this. Someone in one of my linkshells pointed out how the effort required compared to say, farming PotD or even running Nidhogg EX for a near equivalent weapon just doesn't compare properly. I mean, I'm all for multiple options for gear progression, but there just seems like a lack of balance to it sometimes. Stat or proc bonuses would at least feel different even if it didn't change the dynamic a whole lot.

[Istaru]

They could always do something like this for the relics again...



Some of the bonus stats wouldn't really work for how the game is now, but they could do something similar.