Who else is bored? Same Content and Formula...Was SB a waste of money?

[MicahZerrshia]

I play FF14 because I love the music of Nobuo Uematsu,

psst Nobuo doesn't do the music for ffxiv, Soken does. Nobuo only did a handful of new tracks and some of the ones you hear they rehashed from version 1. But Soken has been doing the music since Yoshida came on board. I think all he did for SB was the main theme.

[Aldora]

Most of your examples are either old contents or contents not targeted at end game level.

If WoW Legion keeps coming back as an example, it's because it gives things to do to end game players. And this is precisely where FF14 fails again this expansion.

If you're someone that enjoy going through old contents or mini-games, I can see how FF14 would keep you interested for some time, however if you wanna play your main at end game level, you don't have much to do.

That’s correct, however for most of the examples given, new content will still be released throughout the Stormblood patch cycle. For example, what we know already:

• 6 New Dungeons will be added to the expansion
• By releasing 2 less Dungeons (compared to the 8 additional dungeons we received through the Heavensward patch cycle) they created the required resources to create “new types of content we’ve never seen before”, so they are working on something new for this Expansion.
• More “Versions” of Omega will be released.
• A new 24-Man Raids (“Return to Ivalice”) will be introduced
• Eureka will be introduced
• A new Palace of the Dead will be introduced in Stormblood
• Stormblood introduced Treasure maps in the Lost Canals

The points listed above are (types of) content which will be released through the patch cycle of Stormblood.

You are correct that most of the content available is meant for the general populous of the game and not necessarily for the raiding community. If you are only playing this game for the end-game content, then yes. You won’t have a lot to do right now.

However, we are still at the beginning of the expansion and more content will follow. We don’t know the details of the content which will be released through the patch cycle, so we can only hope that there will be more (different) types of content introduced for the raiding community.

People are currently talking about a 3rd difficulty level for the current Omega Raid, which is meant to challenge the experienced hard-core raiders. We haven’t gotten the exact details yet, but that would be a good development for the raiding scene.

You can also run dungeons at different difficulties, something that a lot of FF14's playerbase has been asking for, harder 4-man content. Then you have raid with 4 difficulties covering every kind of players, where I would argue that FF14 only covers casual and hardcore players.

The “Mythic”-system that WoW uses to increase the difficulty of their dungeons, is something i also would like to see introduced within FFXIV.

On the other hand, “old content” doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not worthless. You can still have fun with the Coil and Alexander raids, Primals or even the ARR dungeons by running it with the “minimal iLVL” option marked at the settings of the duty finder.

Most people have run the content so much with maxed out iLVL gear, that they basically burn through every existing encounter with their eyes closed, or simply not bothering with the mechanics used within the encounter. However, by running the content at minimal iLVL, chances are that you won’t be able to ignore mechanics or skip phases, making you experience phases you probably have never seen before.

People would shrug at this comment and say that it’s not worth it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not there, in case you want to spice things up a little.

You say how you felt going through the same content in WoW while leveling an alt was a chore, how is it different in FF14?

The main reason why i said that leveling an alt was a chore in WoW, was because i had to redo “everything” like progressing through the same quests in order to progress through the game, unlock (gated) content (through story progression, reputation or currency) i’ve already played with my main character, gathering gear, etc.

In FFXIV i had to progress through the story and unlock each individual duty once with my main job and after switching jobs, the only thing that was holding me back from accessing the duties was the level if the job i switched to. As i leveled my main FFXIV Job, i’ve gathered gear for other jobs which i would store at my retainers for later use.

Whenever i wanted to switch things, i’d simply have to switch jobs. If i wanted to level, i had several things at my disposal from the get go. This made progressing through the game a more pleasant experience in general.

World Quests are good in WoW because they give you a reason to be out there. You see the new areas, every day you may end up in some corner you didn't see yet. They don't all offer the same kind of gameplay, there are quests for crafters, for gatherers, for pet fighter lovers, for pve, for pvp, etc. I'm not referring to the rng part right now as that's another debate, but you cannot argue that they succeeded in having people in their world.

I agree with that. FFXIV tried to mimic the “World events” from Guildwars 2 and on that department i’d say they succeeded, but not flawless. What WoW did with their World Quests is add more variety in the quests they offer as well as the rewards they offer and FFXIV could learn from that.

But, on the other hand, in the end it will still be content meant for the casual player which will only remain interesting for a limit amount of time. Which we can say for most of the content which will be introduced in MMO’s. That’s basically the nature of playing an MMO.

Then you have weekly quests with evolving areas.

FF14 doesn't do anything with its areas. You get hunts and gathering. Whereas Stormblood has the perfect setting for this. It wouldn't be hard to imagine an area like The Lochs offering weekly quests where we'd help rebuild Ala Mhigo for instance. Little by little we'd see the zone changing until finally we could enter Ala Mhigo.

FFXIV has done something similar with that as well. For example, the evolution of Mor Dhona, the Ixal Beastmen camp and Idyllshire. For the most part, Mor Dhona and Idyllshire evolved with each patch, both in appearance as well as the dialogs/banter from the NPC’s within these camps. Even in Ishgard, the dialog/banter from NPC’s changed over time. For Stormblood they can do the same with Rhalgar’s Reach and/or Ala Mhigo.

Bottom line is, if you enjoy end game content, FF14 is terribly lacking in that regard and I really hope they will finally address this during 4.x cycle.

For people who only enjoy end-game content, i agree and we can only see what SE has in store during the 4.x patch cycle. However, from a general point of view i do believe that the game has a healthy amount of content for players to do.

I would like to see only new stuff for a while, make things from scratch, recycle nothing.

It really depends on what you call “recycle” when you say “make things from from scratch, recycle nothing”. For the most part, areas, dungeons, Raids, etc were made “from scratch” within the expansion. They are following the same formula with it comes to the type of content they released for the expansion, like 2 dungeons and a new tier for the 8 man raid in the even numbered patched, then 1 dungeon, a new tier in the 24 man raid and something different (PotD, Diadem, something unannounced) with the odd numbered patches.

They do reuse mechanics within dungeons, raids, etc because players are familiar with them and know how to deal with them. However, with each dungeon, raid, etc they will add a different mechanic or add a twist to an existing mechanic to throw people off. I don’t believe that’s a bad thing to do.

But, what would like to see as “new stuff” when it comes to content to play? (Outside of the glamour you’ve mentioned in your post) What would be an encounter you’d like to see / do?

[TheRealMadruck]

psst Nobuo doesn't do the music for ffxiv, Soken does. Nobuo only did a handful of new tracks and some of the ones you hear they rehashed from version 1. But Soken has been doing the music since Yoshida came on board. I think all he did for SB was the main theme.

Your right Micah...but I would state that it is in the same style though.

[mylam]

I actually find myself not playing as much in SB.
I stopped playing before HW dropped then came back in 3.5 and had a really fun time as there was so much content to catch up on.
For SB, I'm just not feeling the same excitment.. I think part of it revolves around the story so far, which has been just ok to me; feels kind of disjointed to be honest. Probably why I haven't really had the desire to go through the story asap.

That and I've only unlocked 1 SB dungeon, so everything feels repetitive.

Anyways, not saying I'm bored, but just not feeling as excited with this expansion as I thought I would be. It's still early so plenty of content still to come and work towards. But for now, I just have minimal desire to log in and run a dungeon or two, do a couple boring MSQ and level up. I hope the story does get better, that will go a long way to help me want to log in more... I just got to Yangxia, everything before that was such a slog. Absolutely hated the Ruby Sea part lol.

[Niraves]

The problem for me isn't really a lack of content, its a mind-numbingly repeatitive cycle of the same content over and over. Cap your tomes, do your raids and then... grind levels on other jobs, because you're gated behind weekly caps and resets for your main job. You want an alt job? Well, shell out millions of gil to buy crafted gear that will be obsolete within a few short weeks. Nothing to do? Bored? Go grind palace to level more jobs you won't be able to gear at max level, or do content you've done five thousand times but do it with crap gear for the 'fun' of it...

[Sandpark]

I keep reading here and another post that the weekly caps hinder gearing other jobs.

What if?

What if SE matched the character slots per server to the current maximum job/classes in game?

The hardcore that desire to progress further faster with longer play would be able to bypass the limit through playing alts at the cost of having to unlock content once again each time.

But the casual who likes the limitations can still be on an even playing field in terms of raw maximum power(same max item levels and actual levels)even if they stick to one character.

As far as a new type of content. I see inklings of potential of freshness in various contents, but progression or variations seem to get the short end of the stick due to the realities of a budget and timelines. It's not like other mmos are coming out with something never seen before in mmos all the time.

The latest GW2 xpac has different mounts with different skills, one jumps, one skims water, etc. But the type of content doesn't look too different on the vids I saw.

[Ralf2]

It really depends on what you call “recycle” when you say “make things from from scratch, recycle nothing”. For the most part, areas, dungeons, Raids, etc were made “from scratch” within the expansion.

Change the most part to all part and I would be happy. Example of what I call recycle: In The Temple of the Fist the Coeurl monsters. In Kugane Castle the Joi Kiyofusa/Harakiri Kosho is basically a Dullahan. For the love of god do they really need to reuse up to 7 years old things?(Yes 1.0 stuff)

[AlphaFox]

Honestly I am bored. I login and run a leveling dungeon roulette then log off for the most part. Not interested in the crafting so I am just kinda meh about it all now. I enjoy the new classes but probably going to drop for a bit myself.

[FabricioRF]

o/

[Remedi]

Forgive me if I've misread; but are you actually asking for an RNG loot system?

As said It's not something easy to explain, the short answer is No, the long answer is maybe.

I think that a side activity that can give you gear outside of dungeons could be good for the game, peersonally I think that having too much of the gear coming from guaranteed tokens didn't help the longevity of the game.

edit: tbh I should make a wall text to explain what I mean not sure if ppl are interested in it however, it's just an opinion afterall