Community expectations

[Reynhart]

MMORPGs have had to work around this problem since their inception. Are you saying that the FFXIV dev team is the only one incapable of creating stat alternatives?

No, that's not what I'm saying. You're right, MMO had to work around that since the beginning. But, at the beginning, players asked for that so games delivered.

The thing is, the most vocal mentality (It's hard to say if it's a real majority, but that's not really how forums work) claims that the new generation of players does not want meaningful choices when building their characters. They don't want alternatives, they wan't the one path. If so, why would the dev team takes time to balance alternatives ? That's not worth it. It's also a reason why they chose to make a normal mode for raids. Most of the ressources are used to design the normal mode, that almost every player does. It's much more useful that designing a whole raid that only 10% of people will clear.

And, now that I think of it, I wonder if it's not part of the reason why we only have two expert dungeons in HW...outside of roulettes, we can assume most people will chose the fastest dungeon to farm tomestones. So why should they bother designing three dungeons if two of them will be ignored after their initial clear ? One dungeon tied to the MSQ, one other for latecomers, and here we go.