Thoughts on what the game needs to do

[Kazgrel]

Entire post invalidated by calling Ultimate a failure, and no, I didn’t clear it nor do I have it unlocked. The world first race for UCoB gave this game almost as much attention during what would’ve been a filler patch at best as the game had at SB launch.

Recognize that content that doesn’t cater to your exact whims doesn’t automatically make said content a failure.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

because someone has the guts to tell hardcore people that their precious thing failed

Guts? No. Delusional sense of grandeur? Maybe.

In your persist whining, you continuously seem to miss the fact Ultimate is comprised of recycled content. They could scrap Ultimate tomorrow and at most you may get a dungeon nobody cares to run, if even that. The only reason Ultimate even exists is due to its cheap development, thus allowing SE to profit from players who otherwise unsub for 3-4 months out of boredom. If Ultimate took several months away from other content or sapped resources which contributed to delays, you could argue about priorities, but it's costing them next to nothing otherwise they wouldn't have implemented it. In fact, this similarly applies to Savage. According to the devs themselves, they design Savage, then omit certain mechanics deemed "too hard" and lower numbers for normal mode. Once again, if Savage were scrapped because god forbid we have content not everyone can or wants to do in a Theme Park MMO, you would gain very little since they would still have to develop each fight for its normal mode variation.

[RiyahArp]

That dungeon "no one cares to run" is better than content no one actually runs. Here is bancho's unofficial census data for who has cleared as of 1/27. Even if you multiplied it by a factor of ten for clears, on NA servers that's barely .5% of server population. (the last number on the right is clears.) Lamia has 7,387 people at level 70, and 2 people who cleared it then. Multiplying it ten fold makes it 20. If you multiply it a hundredfold, that's still barely any percent of the server's playerbase, and NA servers topped out at 92 then. on a server with 11k players at 70. That's the fourth highest total..

The numbers are inexact, but bancho is about as good a source as we have. Even if you gave a generous buffer, very few people will ever touch this content, especially on the NA end. Even on chocobo, if the ratio would hold, 10% of the savage playerbase has cleared it, and it goes steadily down from there percentage wise.

Even assuming much larger participation, this simply isn't going to be anything any real amount of players will do anything but watch. And other content seems to be the same thing; I don't see any real use of bard perform in cities, I don't see much interest in underwater missions, fashion report seems to only be done infrequently, and in general the side content really isn't exciting players.

And we can't build a game where a lot of the content is stuff people watch or just talk about infrequently.

[KaivaC]

That dungeon "no one cares to run" is better than content no one actually runs. Here is bancho's unofficial census data for who has cleared as of 1/27. Even if you multiplied it by a factor of ten for clears, on NA servers that's barely .5% of server population. (the last number on the right is clears.) Lamia has 7,387 people at level 70, and 2 people who cleared it then. Multiplying it ten fold makes it 20. If you multiply it a hundredfold, that's still barely any percent of the server's playerbase, and NA servers topped out at 92 then. on a server with 11k players at 70. That's the fourth highest total..

I knew it. I knew you were going to link this eventually. Pray tell since I am no longer mildly fluent in Japanese, is that Ultimate clears or is that something else?

[RiyahArp]

I knew it. I knew you were going to link this eventually. Pray tell since I am no longer mildly fluent in Japanese, is that Ultimate clears or is that something else?

ultimate clears last from the right, savage clears total third from the right, fourth from the right is prior tier savage clears i believe. Its old, so the numbers need to be multiplied. However i don't think we could extrapolate a 1/1 savage/ultimate ratio. Total clears as of that survey was 2294, 2/3rds of that from JP. If you took NA by itself, and multiplies clears tenfold, thats 2,300 players or so.

If you look at savage clears altogether, the percentage out of the entire population is the second from the right. Most NA servers really struggle to go beyond 6 or 7% total clear rates. Again there will be some rising, but I don't think most servers can reach gilgamesh at 11% clears. I'm not arguing savage any, that;s more than enough to keep many people engaged, but th hardcore audience for NA is a lot smaller than people think, I believe and that will reflect in superhardcore content.

[KaivaC]

ultimate clears last from the right, savage clears total third from the right, second from the right is prior tier savage clears i believe. Its old, so the numbers need to be multiplied. However i don't think we could extrapolate a 1/1 savage/ultimate ratio. Total clears as of that survey was 2294, 2/3rds of that from JP. If you took NA by itself, and multiplies clears tenfold, thats 2,300 players or so.

Here’s the thing, Riyah. You linked that, but that is where your entire argument completely collapses on itself. The numbers there do not prove anything about ‘failure’ or the game being built around Ultimate. The truth is that less than 10% of the entire player base is even capable of clearing Ultimate. Nobody’s building the game on Ultimate – you often complain about raiders not having anything to do. They have Ultimate if they want to go after that challenge. Assuming that they’ve beaten V4S in the first place, or V8S for the current tier. Again, this is a bragging rights title.

Aside from wanting another golden weapon, there is literally no other reason to challenge Ultimate Bahamut again once they’ve cleared it. And like the elite often do, they will unsub until the next raid tier. This has nothing to do with retainership and very little to do with getting new subs for the game. All that other stuff you mentioned, that’s an issue with the majority of the content. Ultimate has zero to do with the lack of interest in FFXIV once players complete MSQ and whatever else they want to do after a patch cycle is released.

There is absolutely no correlation between Ultimate and the droughts that happen every single patch cycle. None whatsoever.

[AxlStream]

Besides, is Ultimate really a failure for being exactly what it set out to be? Extremely high end content that about only 1% of the player base could ever clear? Isn't that what YoshiP even said it would be back in the day? Seems to me it does just that. It's not because it isn't meant for everyone that it isn't a failure. Eureka isn't meant for everyone, the only reason it is popular is because one of the most enticing piece of content is locked behind it, the relic weapon. Without it, I know many players, myself included, that wouldn't even step in there.

[Aomine1992]

Ultimate was successful in the raid community and twitch I loved it but I have to agree it failed as longevity content as it didn't last long after the first couple weeks parties seemed to vanish along with the content my static just stopped playing the game but than again I don't think that was the intent in the first place and it was meant to provide more of a challenge for those not challenged enough in regular savage....

[Remedi]

Besides, is Ultimate really a failure for being exactly what it set out to be? Extremely high end content that about only 1% of the player base could ever clear? Isn't that what YoshiP even said it would be back in the day? Seems to me it does just that. It's not because it isn't meant for everyone that it isn't a failure. Eureka isn't meant for everyone, the only reason it is popular is because one of the most enticing piece of content is locked behind it, the relic weapon. Without it, I know many players, myself included, that wouldn't even step in there.

Ye, his plans for SB was to make raiding more approachable for everyone while giving something to do to the high end players, which if you ask me or some of those players he FOR NOW succeded, the next ultimate has high expectations to live up to

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That dungeon "no one cares to run" is better than content no one actually runs.

If that were true, why did Square Enix opt to develop Ultimate in lieu of two dungeons per patch cycle? In fact, Yoshida, himself, acknowledged community perception towards dungeons has largely deemed them "boring." Furthermore, they insist the omission of a second dungeon actually had nothing to do with Ultimate.

Going a step further, the precedent has already been established if content were overwhelmingly poorly received they would either make adjustments or abandon it entirely, not remain "committed to a cycle of content when they designed it." Were your statement in any way accurate, why did they immediately adjust Midas after Gordias' disaster, only to subsequently nerf Savage wholesale from Creator onward? Your scenario posits they are simply ignoring Ultimate being a failure and damaging their own financial position by maintaining development on it for at least one more iteration. By such logic, either they are grossly incompetent or Ultimate succeeded in precisely its goal.