Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Neophyte]

Again, LIKE I ALREADY SAID, it's not about the pretty mounts / vanity items. It is about rewarding a player's time. That is not limited to gear.

You are fixated on the superficial and are missing the point.

The feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, the fun of a shared experience, the fulfillment and entertainment in just playing the game. Those are all rewards, too.

And, they are marginalized by how this game treats its balance of accessibility vs. earned exclusivity -- the point that you missed.


One example that many talk about is Coil vs. Alexander. Alexander's normal mode was implemented as a response to negative feedback regarding the gating of content behind inaccessible raid encounters. But, as many including Level 5's CEO have pointed, doing so has cheapened the experience. He wasn't talking about the gear. He wasn't talking about the title. He was talking about our feelings as gamers. Reveals like Nael van Darnus, Louisoix, and Bahamut had more weight and impact when the fights and raid structure more aptly represented the gravitas of their reality. With Alexander, you spend maybe an hour in DF on release night with a bunch of randoms and you're done with it. It's an anticlimactic and antisocial experience. They sacrificed the benefits of exclusivity for accessibility and a lot of people will tell you that it hurt the content.

It's about inspiration. Rewards matter only so far as their value in inspiring a positive emotion. I don't think people play games to feel like complete crap. When you make content less rewarding in every sense, virtually tangible or emotional, there is less room to inspire someone and keep them hooked to the game.

The easiness of Alexander Normal might has to do with it and I won't argue that stepping up the difficulty would be a good thing. To still cater to the casual crowd they could implement temporary HP/AP-boosts like the sanction spell of the GC (i.e. let them do a Task/quest of ~0,5-1h to get a 2h echo-like boost just for the current normal raid) or something like that.

But I think what most people turned of was the overall design of alexander compared with coils... I mean, even when they didn't implement normal mode, what would you think about Gordias' epicness? Well in the end, it's just robots and goblins.
Mide is no Louisoix and Twinkledinx is no Nael deus Darnus and they'll never be.

That, together with the fact, that there was an unusual long period of no new content turned people off, that's for sure. And I won't say anything against giving us 3 dungeons again.

But I don't feel the same about overall design flaws regarding gearing system or longevity of content. It's the same since 2.x, that's true there was no change.. but well that is exactly what I signed up for over a year ago. Titan Ex wasn't 'relevant' aynmore when I joined the game, it was just as relevant as Thordan is now.
E.g. Diadem failed, but not in terms of reward I think, but instead 'cause of the overall design. I.e. I just don't believe Diadem would be good if the rewards for grinding hours of dino Island were "meaningful"... it's still a boring grind and only 'cause I'm 'happy' to get my gear finally (is it really happiness or is it just relief that it's finally over?!) doesn't make the content itself better or worse.

[Brian_]

snip.

If I got to see the final Midas cut-scene after the victory cut-scene post A8S, would it bring Alexander up to the level of Coil? Obviously not. But, would it be infinitely better than watching it after a 10 minute DF fight? Yes.

I'd get to sit there with my static mates and share the moment. Even the dinky little victory cut-scene post A7S was a great moment to share. After weeks of wiping, frustration, and disappointment, seeing Quickthinx fly away and explode had us cheering. Moments like these create bonds between players that form the foundation of the social web of an MMO.

And again, you go back to gear. You just can't look past the superficial. Did I mention gear in this post yet? And yet everything I said was all about the rewards we receive.

Your Diadem example is just proof that you just don't understand the issue. Even though the "tangible" rewards for Diadem on my server are quite good -- the mats sell for quite a bit due to their rarity and grade V materia is always useful -- nobody does it. Why? Because while the "tangible" rewards are quite good, the content is emotional punishment. The first time I did Diadem, I went in with my static after a raid night. While it was pretty fun at first because it was fresh, after the grind set in, we were all falling asleep and couldn't wait for it to be over. The content just didn't reward us with a fun and fulfilling experience.

And, if you think the gearing system or the longevity of content hasn't changed since 2.X, you really haven't been paying much attention. Just a few of many ways it has changed -- T5 and T9 were required for raid tier progression. A4S wasn't and A8S probably won't be. EX primals had their own progression path. 3.X primals don't. In 2.X, primals were required for relic progression. In 3.X, they aren't (at least not yet and probably not ever). Raid / upgraded tomestone gear in 2.X was still valuable during the next tier of progression. Raid / upgraded tomestone gear in 3.X is completely worthless because it just gets replaced by Alex NM and crafted gear. Outside of some specific scenarios, raid / tomestone gear was always BiS until the next even patch. In 3.1, Diadem took a crap on your raid / tomestone gear.