We Really Need To Talk About The State And Path Of FFXIV

[Magic-Mal]

This is entirely subjective. Considering upgrade items are not available until four months following each tier's release, the stat boosts are fairly significant. Nonetheless, I reiterate, why should you get the best gear available whilst doing trivial content? You claim people have no incentive yet you argue to rob that incentive from raids. If I can get i400 gear upon 4.4's release from a random dungeon drop, why purpose does Savage serve? It becomes relegated to "beat it a couple times for fun and never touch it again" because the gear is instantly worthless when I can obtain it elsewhere. Players uninterested in Savage have no use for max ilvl gear. Dungeons have become so laughably easy, you can mass pull at minimum ilvl and hardly break a sweat. All you solution accomplishes is destroying Savage.

You're misunderstanding what I meant. I'll say it again, I'm not talking about getting top-end gear from little dungeons or FATE farms. I know that content needs to have some sort of difficulty or special grind involved to grant gear that's as strong or stronger than the raid gear. I'm referring to new methods to get gear that aren't raids.

The raid system is exactly the same in pattern except the raids are trials now. I'm tired of raids. Or at least Omega. I'm taking about things that could benefit both raiders and non-raiders. 1.0 was that kind of thing. In the end, a high level raider could also get super-powered piece of i210. The difference being that they actually know how to use it. Diadem was the first kind of horizontal progression we ever had. Diadem had incentive. That's a fact. Raids? You do them, gear up. And then what? Nothing that's released in the next 6 months will have any use to you and you won't even get Ultimate anymore(right?). So just quit until raid cycle reset? Where crafted gear is better than your awesome raid gear? I guess if you like it then hey.. but to me it's bad. To me anyway. We need gear worth something. As it stands all gear in the game is released already trash...

Oh, and I also don't like how everything is so easy. I did say that in the opening post after all. So please, understand I'm not talking about getting i380 gear from expert roulette. Howeverrrr if they made something where you had to do 100 expert roulettes to get a piece of powerful gear then maybe I might accept it xD.

As for hating flight in the game, if you don't like it, don't fly then? There is only several short temporary points in the game where you are expected to fly, every other time it's simply a bonus. So demanding that SE remove it comes across as more 'gameplay fascism' - "I don't like it so no one else should have it!" Hey, I dislike PvP and I don't play it, but I don't want it removed from the game either because I know other players do like it and play it. It's all about personal choice.

If you don't want to fly, keep your mount on the ground and run around then (or run around on foot). Don't deny others of that if they enjoy it simply because you do not.

Listen, easier said than done. I didn't demand anything at all and I most definitely said it was just my opinion. It's how I feel. It's like telling people to wear no gear all the time to make things hit harder. Or telling people to only use attacks up to lv60 if they want to kill things slower. Sure, you can tell them that but what are the odds of them actually doing it? And just because they don't want to doesn't mean they're okay with it currently and it doesn't mean there is no issue with the game.

[Dzian]

You're misunderstanding what I meant. I'll say it again, I'm not talking about getting top-end gear from little dungeons or FATE farms. I know that content needs to have some sort of difficulty or special grind involved to grant gear that's as strong or stronger than the raid gear. I'm referring to new methods to get gear that aren't raids.

The raid system is exactly the same in pattern except the raids are trials now. I'm tired of raids. Or at least Omega. I'm taking about things that could benefit both raiders and non-raiders. 1.0 was that kind of thing. In the end, a high level raider could also get super-powered piece of i210. The difference being that they actually know how to use it. Diadem was the first kind of horizontal progression we ever had. Diadem had incentive. That's a fact. Raids? You do them, gear up. And then what? Nothing that's released in the next 6 months will have any use to you and you won't even get Ultimate anymore(right?). So just quit until raid cycle reset? Where crafted gear is better than your awesome raid gear? I guess if you like it then hey.. but to me it's bad. To me anyway. We need gear worth something. As it stands all gear in the game is released already trash...

The issue with gear and progression isn't raids or anything it's simply the lifespan at which content is designed.. and that includes raids. the moment 4.4 lands even the top tier gear raiders have from sigma scape will be trashed by crafted gear with a few melds tossed in. the other issue is the gear stats ahve been dumbed down and simplified so much that the only option they have is just keep throwing out bigger numbers. and that ultimately makes all previous content obselete and expired... when you look at it this game actually has a shed load of content. yet players never have anything to do. because 99% of that content is obselete and a total waste of time... everything is trash or dead on arrival not because of raids but because of design. even if you ignore the rewards content is still DOA. the ridoraa lighthouse is an i335 raid released at a time when most player are 360+ it's obselete content before you even look at the rewards....

the main reason gear is governed by raids is because of the pace at which content is made obselete.. if you allowed hoh or lighthouse to provide better gear than savage raids then all you succeed in doing is increase the power creep massivly. which in turn would only serve to kill content even faster....

Oh, and I also don't like how everything is so easy. I did say that in the opening post after all. So please, understand I'm not talking about getting i380 gear from expert roulette. Howeverrrr if they made something where you had to do 100 expert roulettes to get a piece of powerful gear then maybe I might accept it xD.

No Way.. many people i know dont even touch expert these days or dungeons at all. grinding them 100 times for a gear reward would just be another monotoous unfun grind. braindead easy just time consuming...
instead of make it easy and grind it 100 times just make it harder it is called "expert" after all. make it actually challenging and people wouldnt be so mind numbingly brainless when they did it. and would feel more accomplished at the end. where as currently nothing is ever satisfying its just another chore ticked of the endless list.

you mentioned player retention and how the game loses many players because the levelling experience is so dull and the msq is so bloated with crap.. what about the other side of the game? many of my friends and contacts have stopped playing because of the endgame structure and game design. everything is ridiculously easy that its never satisfying when you clear a piece of content. a patch lands you enter the new omega raid and within a couple of hours you've completed it all.. they add a new dungeon and players just rofl stomp it.. and get literally nothing from it.. there's no satisfaction in getting gear or rewards either because it's all so incredibly bland and worthless junk that will be tossed in a month or glamoured over in minutes because it's ugly as hell all it really does is boost your strength or int by a few points.. wowwwwwwww.. nothing ever actually changes.... look at spell speed as a stat. a level 50 blm with something like 300 spell speed casts flare at the exact same speed as a level 70 player with like 1500 spell speed. so what does that stat actually doooo... absolutely nothing..... and that is a major factor of why stats are soo boring and uninteresting... the game just isnt a rewarding one to play and thats why retention is so bad. everything is soo easy that theres no accomplishment or satisfaction in clearing it. and often the lack of difficulty actually destroys the sense of atmosphere the story tries to create.

even in ARR the garlean empire was meant to be this major threat to eorzea because they were so strong and unbeatable it would take the whole eorzean alliance to even stand a chance.... yet 1 level 50 player could run around the castrum in mordhona or the one near vesper bay and absolutely roflstomp the whole place... completely destroys the strength the tension the stories tries to create.. heavensward was the same and stormblood was even worse... the plot made it out to be this really difficult task to retake that bridge where minaago glamours the flag. this whole big build up and tension creating and knock knock courier at my door put my controller down go to sort out my packages make a sandwhich come back duty complete.... probalby like 6-8 minutes of not even being in the room and i still roflstomped that fight....

i think its also why people complain about so many players being so bad because so much of the games content would actually take more effort to fail than it would to suceed.. when it's that easy why the hell do players need to up there game.... and when the rewards for everything players do are nothing but junk trash that players don't even care about whats there motivation to improve... there's no incentive..

the other issue is the devs never seem to actually listen to the players. they might hear them but they don't listen..

it's like eureka. what players said was they wanting some endgame content like XI's endgame. structured content with purpose and objectives and stuff like how most of ffxis endgmae was built. what the devs heard was "stuff......xi... stuff" and what we got was basically a vlakurm dunes exp grind and the devs said that is what we asked for......

glamours another one.. players have asked for a glamour log for years and quite often came up with detailed ways that would literally take no server resources at all... and what the devs gave us was some highly messed up glamour dresser with some major restrictions that were just blatently uneccessary and for some reason uses like 100 times more resources than it needed to.

diadem was another players hated it told the devs why. the devs closed it down. spent some time on it apparantly listening to our feedback and then reluanched diadem 2.0 and it was everything players hated from the first one and they somehow made it even worse... then players went and said they hated it and told the devs why... and then we got eureka which is diadem 3.0 everytihng players hated and made even worse.... and now we got pagos which i hear is basically diadem 4.0 and people still hate it for the exact same reasons..... are the devs actually listening.....

they really need to change up the formulae and make content relevent for longer than a single patch.. ramp up the difficulty. increase the value of the rewards. and they'd probably find players find the game to be alot more rewarding and satisfying and that would probalby do a lot for player retention.. if the game is rewarding. players will continue to play it..

they need to bring eorzea to life as well. i've said in threads before ffxis vanadiel was 100 times deeper and more dynamic and living than eorzea. and vanadiel is almost 20 years old... how the hell can eorzea be so static dead and lifeless.. technology has advanced so much but the game world has gone backwards not evolved...

in ffxi literally everything you did impacted the whole game world in some way. it was dynamic and ever changing based on player actions.. eorzea never changes.. oh look a fate... ignore it or complete it. makes no difference at all. nothing you do ever does

the other issue is that many of XIVS problems have been the same ones players have complained about ever since ARR. players said way back then that the treadmill was horrilbe that the vertical progression was dull and stats were meaningless. the comabt system was crap... and back then players would flame the hell out of anyone who said such things but more recently a lot more people agree. its like players are opening there eyes and seeing waht these players said years ago...

[Edax]

The issue with gear and progression isn't raids or anything it's simply the lifespan at which content is designed.. and that includes raids. the moment 4.4 lands even the top tier gear raiders have from sigma scape will be trashed by crafted gear with a few melds tossed in. the other issue is the gear stats ahve been dumbed down and simplified so much that the only option they have is just keep throwing out bigger numbers. and that ultimately makes all previous content obselete and expired... when you look at it this game actually has a shed load of content. yet players never have anything to do. because 99% of that content is obselete and a total waste of time... everything is trash or dead on arrival not because of raids but because of design. even if you ignore the rewards content is still DOA.

In theory, the random routlettes was a system to solve this. If evenly spaced out, you'd only do a repeat once every 2-3 weeks if you did it everyday and you got a universal currency that helped you. Yet somehow when I was leveling my Dark Knight in Stormblood, the leveling roulette sent me to Sunken Temple 4 times in a single week, which only made me take a good long break from tanking. The system definitely could use some work.

there's no satisfaction in getting gear or rewards either because it's all so incredibly bland and worthless junk that will be tossed in a month or glamoured over in minutes because it's ugly as hell all it really does is boost your strength or int by a few points.. wowwwwwwww.. nothing ever actually changes.... look at spell speed as a stat. a level 50 blm with something like 300 spell speed casts flare at the exact same speed as a level 70 player with like 1500 spell speed. so what does that stat actually doooo... absolutely nothing..... and that is a major factor of why stats are soo boring and uninteresting... the game just isnt a rewarding one to play and thats why retention is so bad. everything is soo easy that theres no accomplishment or satisfaction in clearing it. and often the lack of difficulty actually destroys the sense of atmosphere the story tries to create.

Yeah, stat inflation is really bad. It was amazing how when playing the original KOTOR game, just getting +5 Strength gave my character such a massive boost in damage. Whereas in this game, if I add +100 Strength to my character, I don't even notice a difference. If feels like all that's left to care about is the gear level, and that's somewhat just a matter of prestige now. While some other games might give you actually game numbers to tell you what +1 Strength does, the character menu in this game only tell you what the stat does and what number it is. I think you have to use 3rd party sites to even know what the numbers even mean. I'm not surprised most casual players don't even care.

[Magic-Mal]

Snip...

While I was mainly talking about new player retention, I completely agree with pretty much everything in your post. +1.