Really SE 40+ kills and no drop?

[Bahn]

I'm not one to agree with Answa, but he's right this time.

Now in any other type of game, I would agree that time spent at repetitive tasks is often a poor instrument to mete out difficulty. It's usually a factor that adds frustration, boredom, tedium to what should be a fun moment. (It's not always true, sometimes it can be even be enjoyably relaxing, but in general, it's usually not welcome).

However, MMOs have the problem of content that runs out fast. At some point, if you want rare, valuable treasures in the game that can't be breezed through by just anyone, you're going to have to use time as a way to keep it that way (rare, that is).

Time is the ultimate difficulty in any MMO. How much you have to waste--I mean--spend is the principle currency of any hardcore player.

I'm not one to normally disagree with you, but I will have to at this time. Strange world, isn't it?

My personal beef with XIV right now is the fact that everything in the game is a time sink (and other posters, I KNOW MMOs are all about time sinks, so cut that argument out please), but it's not masked enough to be an enjoyable timesink; as Pyree just said, just because other MMOs do it doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing to do. Certain tropes for MMOs are indeed good to follow - an Auction House, a PC-friendly UI, easily accessible place to store your loot, etc, but others IMO are not.

The game in its current state doesn't keep you mentally engaged enough to want to keep doing the same things over and over and over again. I know developers put time sinks in the game to keep you wanting to play on a daily basis and to keep you paying your subscription fee, but there is a very fine balance for that line. IMO you could say there's an almost diminishing returns formula to it where as you make a game more grindy, tedious, and boring to play - ESPECIALLY an MMO that you pay money on a monthly basis for - the more players you will lose. SE has to find that fine line where they can keep the content engaging yet not to a point where it drives away players.

Time can be the ultimate difficulty in an MMO, I agree, but it shouldn't be the only means of progression/limitation for an MMO. Blarp made a great suggestion a few posts back: I would agree with a form of loot reward where they make you "work" for the content through stuff that challenges your ability to play over the course of several days (or even weeks), rather than challenges your mental capacity to deal with a silly RNG - that is a great way to keep you engaged and playing without reducing the game down to a lottery roll.