Yoshi-P on Character Growth

[Nalien]

I haven't read your suggestions, however, but are you genuinely under the impression that this game offers very little to do? O_O

It has lots to do, just no real reason to do any of it... Most of the reasons are very temporary... Once I've done Binding Coil and seen the story, what reason do I have to go back? After I've got my bird drop, what reason do I have to do Ravana (EX)? The best SE has come up with is new crafting recipes (but I'm swimming in Gil without even trying because of ridiculous things like the Challenge Log and Aquapolis) and Wondrous Tails... Wondrous Tails I look forward to, but it's still only 9 pieces of content a week for rewards I perhaps don't even care for... Need to see how it turns out for now... Even new content ends up suffering from this... Just because of how item level is handled, I've simply stopped caring about it... I'll do stuff I enjoy, but ultimately that's not going to retain my interest for long... I'm not going to grind Sophia, for example... Why would I? I've completely stopped caring about item level these days, it means nothing and pretty much does nothing, what with how easy 95% of the game is...

What I want is a solid reason to do all the content the game has to offer... That's why I enjoy the Zodiac weapons grind these days, it offers solid reasons to do specific content... I upgrade those weapons and I feel like I'm on a reasonably entertaining quest... The reward though... That's where this game keeps falling apart... "Glamour is the true endgame", that saying is very accurate, and I just don't like glamours... I don't like adjusting the look of the weapon I'm using... I like Balmung, I want to use Balmung... Instead I'm using something completely different and just adjusting it to look like Balmung... That's why I suggested replacing character progression with gear progression... Let me level up Balmung, by doing all sorts of content, to a current item level... I'd find that enjoyable, and does it negatively impact new players? They'd still be able to sight up next week and get i250 around the same time as me...

The content itself is also slightly problematic though... Hunts I think are utter garbage, as is Diadem... Palace of the Dead is OK, but it's still wasting a great deal of potential IMO... Even Trials and the like, while usually very visually interesting (and dat music never disappoints), are ultimately getting on my nerves... Another square/circular arena? Snore... Steps of Faith, before it was nerfed, was perhaps my favorite Trial, just because of how different it was and how it successfully created a tense atmosphere that sadly can't really be experienced these days... All the Primal fights have no weight to them, but Steps of Faith did... Sigh... This is going to turn into a Hamlet Defense rant if I'm not careful... Besieged was so damn perfect, why did Yoshida downgrade Hamlet Defense to FATEs instead of upgrading it to surpass Besieged? T_T

And let's face it, creating content takes time and it's not easy. Devs can't make new content every week of the year. The only super long term content that can be given is grind and more grind, and not everyone is into that.

All the more reason to make it last, no? How much time and money went into producing Binding Coil? What's the point of it these days? That has been a longstanding issue I've had with the whole "themepark" approach to MMO development... It's ultimately wasteful... No where is this more apparent than with PvP... Go over to those forums, you'll find no shortage of people who want Seize or Secure to be relevant again, but SE is making the most themepark MMO possible, the decommission old rides and replace them with new ones, and Shatter is kinda crap... I really end up loathing this kind of approach to content when stuff like that happens...

Yes, what I'm suggesting is ultimately a grind, and not everyone is into that, but... So what? If you don't want to grind, don't... If I undertake a long grind to upgrade my Balmung to Lv60 and to a current item level, by doing all the content between 2.1 and 3.4... How does that impact you? If you don't want that kind of grind, just get the current item level weapon through whatever system suits you...

I mean really, with the way progression works in this game... They've set themselves up to fail, at least IMO... They need to churn out new content patch after patch, because simply none of it lasts particularly long... Christ, the final stage of the Void Ark raid isn't even announced yet, and it's already dead in the water IMO... Item level progression is just too predictable, and ultimately just has no impact... 3.4 isn't out yet, and I already don't care about i250+, why the hell will I care about the rewards from the next 24 man raid with that in mind? Item level doesn't give me any sense of character progression anymore, the only thing that does is the Relic quests, and the Anima quest is just really really bad IMO...

It takes them time and money to produce this stuff, and it just goes to waste IMO... I really wish they'd provide a solid purpose to all this stuff, even if it's just an optional grind I can put myself through...

[Clover_Blake]

Yes, what I'm suggesting is ultimately a grind, and not everyone is into that, but... So what? If you don't want to grind, don't... If I undertake a long grind to upgrade my Balmung to Lv60 and to a current item level, by doing all the content between 2.1 and 3.4... How does that impact you? If you don't want that kind of grind, just get the current item level weapon through whatever system suits you...

Ah, I understand if that's the kind of content you personally enjoy. I believe they are trying to cater to that kind of players as well with the long weapon quests. Also, gear progression requires you to cap weekly, so that's another goal that takes at least over a month. I don't know, I understand you'd prefer upgrading the weapon of your choice (like I'd prefer a dyeing system that lets me choose several colours per piece, instead of just one), but the current system isn't bad either, is it? ;_;
I mean, I think this game has variety of content for several kinds of players. Of course people will still have personal preferences on things that could be improved, but it doesn't mean that the game doesn't offer things, or that Yoshida isn't trying. also, the game is being constantly updated too, so maybe more systems that you'll enjoy will come in the future. Just my opinion.

[Nalien]

Ah, I understand if that's the kind of content you personally enjoy. I believe they are trying to gather to that kind of players as well with the long weapon quests. Also, gear progression requires you to cap weekly, so that's another goal that takes at least over a month. I don't know, I understand you'd prefer upgrading the weapon of your choice (like I'd prefer a dyeing system that lets me choose several colours per piece, instead of just one), but the current system isn't bad either, is it? ;_;

As I said earlier, I think the idea is to have a game that is both "easy to pick up", and "hard to put down". You want the former so that people can get into it easily, and minus Heavensward being gated behind 2.55, XIV does a great job of that. The later though... No, this game is so easy to pick up, that it's easy to put down... I could quit today and come back for 4.4 and catch up pretty damn quickly... There's not really much here to retain my interest... I continue to play out of good faith for the developers, and just to support them, because things like the world and music are amazing IMO (although the world is woefully underused, the game is more of a glorified lobby for the Duty Finder at this point), it's just the gameplay where things start falling apart IMO... I could sit here and pick apart all the content in this game, but I don't think any of use have time for that... Diadem alone is probably a 10,000 word essay...

Item level, I think, is an absolutely terrible form of progression... If they want to effectively reset progression every other patch, then fine... I get why they do that, it makes the game easier to pick up... Give me some alternative means of progression though, give me something I can work on throughout the game, that perhaps has me doing all sorts of content... Relics Weapons could be that, Relic Armor would be an amazing addition... Right now though, the Relic quests are really quite bad, IMO... Zodiac quests are better IMO, they at least feel like a quest. Anima weapons are just directionless though... I get why they gave us so many options for them, but the result is just that I don't do anything to get the weapon... If I wanted a Zodiac weapon, I had to go out of my way to finish it... If I want an Anima weapon? I'm already bleeding Gil/Grand Company Seals/Poetics/Esoterics because this game throws them at me for pretty much everything... I put no extra effort into my Anima weapon, I just kept PvPing and got all the resources I needed off that... The result is that the grind just isn't entertaining... I want to actually do something for that reward... I'd liken it to climbing Mount Everest... The reward for that is in the doing, but XIV has effectively put me at the summit because, to quote my pedometer "You've climbed X flights of stairs! That's the height of Mount Everest!"

[Knahli]

As I said earlier, I think the idea is to have a game that is both "easy to pick up", and "hard to put down". You want the former so that people can get into it easily, and minus Heavensward being gated behind 2.55, XIV does a great job of that. The later though... No, this game is so easy to pick up, that it's easy to put down... I could quit today and come back for 4.4 and catch up pretty damn quickly... There's not really much here to retain my interest... I continue to play out of good faith for the developers, and just to support them, because things like the world and music are amazing IMO, it's just the gameplay where things start falling apart IMO... I could sit here and pick apart all the content in this game, but I don't think any of use have time for that... Diadem alone is probably a 10,000 word essay...

Item level, I think, is an absolutely terrible form of progression... If they want to effectively reset progression every other patch, then fine... I get why they do that, it makes the game easier to pick up... Give me some alternative means of progression though, give me something I can work on throughout the game, that perhaps has me doing all sorts of content... Relics Weapons could be that, Relic Armor would be an amazing addition... Right now though, the Relic quests are really quite bad, IMO... Zodiac quests are better IMO, they at least feel like a quest. Anima weapons are just directionless though... I get why they gave us so many options for them, but the result is just that I don't do anything to get the weapon... If I wanted a Zodiac weapon, I had to go out of my way to finish it... If I want an Anima weapon? I'm already bleeding Gil/Grand Company Seals/Poetics/Esoterics because this game throws them at me for pretty much everything... I put no extra effort into my Anima weapon, I just kept PvPing and got all the resources I needed off that... The result is that the grind just isn't entertaining... I want to actually do something for that reward... I'd liken it to climbing Mount Everest... The reward for that is in the doing, but XIV has effectively put me at the summit because, to quote my pedometer "You've climbed X flights of stairs! That's the height of Mount Everest!"

The kind of hardcore grind content you describe is certainly far from anything I am interested in, though even with that said, your posts have had my attention throughout. I'm not exactly buying into this doom and gloom rhetoric that people are spewing as a result of this interview but I think you presented your feelings very clearly in a manner that didn't come across as overly biased in either direction. So with that said, I'll look out for concepts like Relic Armour and anything similar in the future and support them a bit more strongly than I would have before. While I love this game, I feel I can understand your perspective and I certainly want to see your grievances remedied along with anyone in the same boat.

(Though I'm sorry to say that I don't believe you'll ever get your """official""" Balmung the way you'd like it).

[Knahli]

Yes, what I'm suggesting is ultimately a grind, and not everyone is into that, but... So what? If you don't want to grind, don't... If I undertake a long grind to upgrade my Balmung to Lv60 and to a current item level, by doing all the content between 2.1 and 3.4... How does that impact you? If you don't want that kind of grind, just get the current item level weapon through whatever system suits you...

From her previous posts, I gather that she is fully supportive of grind content because she knows full well it appeals to certain kinds of people such as yourself, but what she may have been implying is that not everything can be made that way, especially mandatory progression. Considering also that many people whine about certain types of content just being grind after grind, I think she was also alluding to the idea that: "These people demand longevity, but they hate grind!" which is definitely a real mindset among at least some people.

Never mind, haha. Posted at the same time seemingly.