The Ifrit Fight is Dangerous to the Community.

[Richard_BG]

completionists normally have the will and drive to do what it takes to complete a game. not gameshark it up.

[Murugan]

Then, can we agree on this one thing?

If Square implements the scaling difficulty option, without infringing on the rewards, prestige and value of the hardcore mode, can you respect that gameplay design decision?

(People who complain about the hardcore option are fair game for heckling, though!)

Scaling diminishes the accomplishment of simply having tough fights to begin with. You really think "Hey I beat Ifrit" feels the same as "Hey I know we beat Ifrit 1 star, Ifrit 2 star, Ifrit 3 star, Ifrit 4 star and geared ourselves up with all the variations of drops within, but we just beat Ifrit 5 Star!!! What a rush beating a fight we beat at a slightly lower difficulty so many times..."

Plus balancing it is a nightmare, what do you just give the mob % more damage and HP per level, until what point? Until you need the gear from the lower versions to beat it (or at least most do), this isn't innovative it has been done in other MMO's and the results were not good.

This game needs a variety of content so that those who don't enjoy coordinating with a group can do other things other than try and ruin the game for people who do.

[DoctorMog]

I believe I already described the general idea of the programming side of things...it's not a HUGE adjustment. Just a few adjustments to the loot tables, stats, and adding a dialog box offering the options.

This isn't a painstakingly-accurate 3D model of the Titanic being coded into the game, people.

If you knew anything about game programming, you WOULD know that there is a LOT more to it than just a few adjustments.

[SilvertearRen]

Actually, how about I put it this way. You already have your "experience" or "encounter" with Ifrit. Based on the storyline, you later found out that you didn't really defeat Ifrit (R30).

Thus the R50 "Hyper" encounter was designed for "harcores" who are willing to put it the time and effort and really vanquish Ifrit once and for all. Thus your "wants" and "needs" do in fact infringes on my preferences of not having an alternative dumbed down/adjusted Ifrit for those who aren't willing to put in the same amount of work.

Because that wouldn't do Ifrit justice, the "real defeat" of Ifrit should be hard (if you can call it hard) and challenging. If you do not posses the same skill level and perseverance, you are not fit to defeat the real Ifrit at its full strength, meaning you SHOULD be squashed over and over until you learn how to not stand in fire.



No, because Ifrit does not deserve to have a dumbed down alternative lore wise, just so you can experience his demise.

How about we try re-framing this discussion in the context of endgame content in general, like Dzemael Darkhold and any/all future dungeons?

Would you still be open to difficulty options for dungeon raids?

[DoctorMog]

How about we try re-framing this discussion in the context of endgame content in general, like Dzemael Darkhold and any/all future dungeons?

Would you still be open to difficulty options for dungeon raids?

He seemed clear to me.

Are you fishing for a yes?

[Alhanelem]

All I can say when I look at this thread:

Heaven forbid there should be any content at all designed for the hardcore player. Doesn't everyone who plays this game deserve to have something in it that challenges them?

[SilvertearRen]

If you knew anything about game programming, you WOULD know that there is a LOT more to it than just a few adjustments.

Really? From my experience, it usually is a copy/paste operation, and then tweaking that new set of data along with the necessary hooks to ensure that it starts up properly, before pushing it through testing.

There is probably an in-house tool for creating dialogue options and other functions that are associated with the kind of features I'm talking about.

Let's use Oblivion for an example. They have a construction toolset. If I wanted to take a boss fight and weaken him, and put him in a new dungeon, I can simply copy his data, paste him into the new dungeon, alter his stats, and then add new dialogue options to the NPCs that point the player to the new dungeon.

Honestly, I think you're trying to blow a lot of hot air out of your arse. And it's a lot of hot air. No game developer creates a game entirely in a programming language, and that includes NPC data, dialogue functions, etc. The backbone of the game is in programming language along with the construction of a data communication system that ensures everything works together (like a database for MMOs), then a middleware solution (like the TES Construction Set) is created or imported into the system, and that middleware solution is used to further develop the game.

Now that I've said that, I really think you don't know crap.

He seemed clear to me.

Are you fishing for a yes?

Primal fights and dungeon/raid content are two entirely different beasts.

[Answa]

What I was referring to when I used the dictionary definition, was generally the social aspect of being an obstructionist. Basically, "Saying No for the Sake of No."

You know, like the scrubs in every country's legislature that likes to stomp all over the other side's toes just because they hate their guts regardless of the content of the bill that's on the floor.

(Analogy: Gamers say no because they wanna say no to a proposal suggesting that a pre-existing feature be altered, or because they hate the type of player the proposer is.)

Answa, quit being a troll. Keep your snark outta my thread, will ya?

Snark be fun. And that's not what people are doing. They're saying this:

No because it is a waste of resources better spent on MORE content.

It's quite far from the sentiment you're talking about.

[SilvertearRen]

Snark be fun. And that's not what people are doing. They're saying this:



It's quite far from the sentiment you're talking about.

Waste of resources? As far as I know, programming such a simple adjustment to pre-existing content shouldn't take a huge chunk of manpower. I've already described my estimated manpower costs for such an adjustment.

However, building new content with this featureset in mind will certainly add a bit more to the manpower cost, but not by much. It gets easier down the road especially if they're using a code template for the Primal fights.

[Murugan]

How about we try re-framing this discussion in the context of endgame content in general, like Dzemael Darkhold and any/all future dungeons?

Would you still be open to difficulty options for dungeon raids?

What don't you understand about the fact that difficulty options does affect everyone.

So I'm strugging with your Dzaemael Darkhold 2.0 which has 5 difficulty options.

• Being in an endgame shell we try the 5 Star version first.
• We die.

Now do we:

1. Do the incredibly easy dumbed down versions developed for Casuals which drops gear that is "slightly less powerful" than the rank 5 version but still better than what we have giving us an edge in the fight?
2. Keep bashing our heads against the wall on the fight because we are "hardcore" and we don't have to do the casual versions.

Most people are going to choose option 1 because despite the fact that they may feel a sense of "accomplishment" going for the hard kill first, this other route is much easier and therefore it is irrational to waste everyone's time just so you can feel some ultimately useless "accomplishment". By the time most shells do kill the "hard version" that accomplishment and excitement they might have felt has been ruined by all the other versions.

How about instead they give us alliance content which is always difficult (since most anti-challenge casuals complain about getting together 18+ people too), and give you semi-challenging group dungeons with maybe one or two challenging single group encounters every now and then.

Or if that is still too much of you spam events like Conquest/Besieged where you don't really have to contribute at all. Why do you have to infringe on our content and try and change it to fit you, you would throw a fit if we tried to make the entire game more challenging for example like reintroducing Maat so that everyone has to kill him to reach a new cap

Edit: <aybe they took Maat out of FFXI since I quit or dumbed it down (like they did just about everything else), but originally he was a very tough solo fight *for some classes* that everyone had to complete to reach level 75.