Instant-gratification, and the "Time Sink Here, Time Sink There" song. VERY LONG

[Yves]

I agree. It seems like the problem is the hardcore vs. casual debate that seems to be endless in mmos. How can the devs reply to this without giving either side the advantage, by letting one side ride roughshod over the other? Some forums, hardcores can treat casuals like filth but if the casuals give back as good as they get, then the moderations start being handed out.

There can be compromise. Just increase the difficulty in exchange with substantially better droprates. If the casuals really just want a more even playing field or better droprate then that will accommodate them. If not, then it's just QQ because it's too hard for them.

I'm in the middle of the road on the debate. The only area that I stand firm is when people just want an easier game. Some content should be easy, some should be challenging. How that challenge is created (droprate vs. difficulty) is where the sticking point should (be if true. ) So far, very few people are approaching it from that perspective.

I'm not going to lie and say that it wasn't a bummer beating Ifrit over 300 times but, at the same time, the feeling when I finally hit 7/7 was great.

[Neptune]

there is a middle ground to be had in it though

yes some things are too repetitive, but thats a common factor amongst all games(let me not get int how a group can do a dungeon in wow for a year and still be missing drops they want)
yet there is an insta factor some people think there needs to be where you do something once, and your done cuz you should get all you need right then and there


the middle ground is what we need, yes you should have to repeat stuff, but the question is to what extent

I believe it might be worth aiming for repeating something only the amount of times you care to while it is still enjoyable, even if there was no reward. How many times would you run Ifrit if there was no drop of any kind? Serious question, please answer.

[TheVedis]

I believe it might be worth aiming for repeating something only the amount of times you care to while it is still enjoyable, even if there was no reward. How many times would you run Ifrit if there was no drop of any kind? Serious question, please answer.

id run it hundreds of times if i had to

thing is i dont play for rewards, i play for fun, and usualy do things with friends only

unlike most im not after the reward but the experience

[Jashynvald]

I agree. It seems like the problem is the hardcore vs. casual debate that seems to be endless in mmos. How can the devs reply to this without giving either side the advantage, by letting one side ride roughshod over the other? Some forums, hardcores can treat casuals like filth but if the casuals give back as good as they get, then the moderations start being handed out.

I don't really believe it's something as simple as just "casual vs. hardcore" as you can build a conceptual design that can accomodate both styles of play without stretching imagination too much. Like having a series of breadcrumbs that would lead to the same goal that can be chopped into smaller play segments (that would be less efficient to run all at the same time) or having a larger activity that requires a larger block of contiguous playtime that would save some time overall in getting to the same point in that it exchanges time flexibility for quicker completion.

The variable in both casual and hardcore arguments is identifying the entitled elements that fall under hardcore (total shutout of casual elements or hooks) or casual (reward given outweighing effort required, invalidating the hardcore style). It's not about SE siding with either casual or hardcore as you can build something to cater to both rather easily in concept but if they were to mistakenly side with an entitled view as a concept then the game would be worse off because of that and the arguments would continue.

[SniperRifle]

I like to call it: Delusional Achievement - (phrase) meaning: obtaining something that leads one to believe they are successful in a certain set of objectives wherein they must obtain numerous of these somethings in order to really achieve the end goal. ie - Requiring a player to obtain 10 Ifrit Totems for just one Ifrit weapon is a Delusional Achievement.

To go along w/ this, just cause I support what you say.

I've always claimed that gear never made the game more fun. There is a novelty that comes w/ getting something new. A games worth cannot be judged in the amount of loot, content, and people that play it. Like a journey and the destination, or an employee and his/her job. It's not what you do, it's how you do it. It's not where you're going but the trip that takes you there.

I think the problem is this is generic content w/ mediocre rewards... The weapons itself are mediocre, but the trip to getting the rewards is just as... Some people love the battles, some hate them, that's not the point of this post. Essentially, you talk to elf dude in Gridania, spam enter through text, spam tapers, spam ifrit, get frustrated w/ boredom because you've done the same thing for x amount of hours and have gotten either a) nothing (worst case scenario) or b) something, a weapon that deals barely a fraction of more dmg then your previous weapon. The game can be beat w/o the Ifrit/Moogle weapons. The weapons are just reassuring, I suppose. Whatever people need reassurance for... the whole reason why they would sit at their comp and redo the same tasks day in and day out in this obvi broken game.

Gears nice, but memories are nicer. And i truely mean that (/sob). Gear itself is a memory. The time you got that sick piece of loot. So long as all a player plays for is the loot, he's gonna sell him/herself short on a ton of other joyful memories/experiences.

[SIZE="5"]Examples!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/SIZE]

• Your first trip to Jeuno/Sky/Sea/Whitegate.
• Long drawn out HNM battles where you could cut the tension w/ a knife.
• Pulling all nighters w/ a bunch of people in your party you just randomly met.
• ... and the time you killed Kil'jaeden for the first time pre Wrath of the Lich King. lol

I know these aren't FFXIV memories, but, I figure you guys can guess why.

If a game dev were to try and replicate the "First time to [random] destination.", try to think what made the trip so special, and not just make a bunch of random places for people to go w/ no purpose other then to read a wall of txt.

I'm not some lovey dovey gamer, I'm pretty competitive n grind the hell out of games in order to do whatever I can to get what I want. I just happen look back to where my nostalgia and inspiration comes from when I chose to continue playing this MMO.

Ishguard has the potential to give people goosebumps the first time they visit. Pending on the atmosphere/music/npcs/rewards/quests/misc goodies.

Not trying to undermine the game devs, sorry.

And I know the gear loot whoring philosophy doesn't apply to every gamer.

[Jin_]

If a dev team puts too much content that results in unknown outcomes players will just eventually put the one real resourcI don't agree that the people asking for heightening drop rates are entirely focused on making the game "instantly" gratifying but they do, at the very least, want to see that their one real resource, time, is not being wasted in vain and putting checkpoints rather than invisible walls on the way to the goal is a better strategy for everyone involved, developer and player alike.

................

[AmyRae]

I'm going to stand for Frustration!

If this forum was about giving players the impression they had a say in redesigning, say, Soccer, this is how it would often go:

"Can we get rid, please (pretty please!!!) of all that wasted effort, and allow me to just stand anywhere, bypassing the defense, and score a goal, even if I didn't move up the field fighting for the ball against them???" It's just such a time sink that I cannot score whenever I want...!! Please, scratch out that pesky rule about off-sides, nooooowww!!! (And while we're at it, can we please get rid of the goalkeeper? He/She makes things soooo much more difficult and TIME CONSUMING!"

If this forum was about giving them the impression they had a say in re-designing Chess, this is how it would frequently go:

"This SUCKS!!! I demand you enable the ability to checkmate without having to spend 2 or more hours devising a strategy to get through all the moves my idiotic opponent insists on placing against me. Allow for my queen to jump pieces like you already did for the knight, and we'll have a winner, and I'll never look back!!! I only have so many hours to play. I'm a casual, not a hardcore."

And if the devs allow them to keep on getting everything they want in this game, we'll soon be reading their printed yells:

"...I want rewards, rewards, rewards, every time I move. Please add bell, totem, weapon and gear showers to happen after every step I take, even if I'm riding my chocobo."

If we don't want the minimum common denominator to turn this game into a similarly depressing rubble of smoldering ash as the one FFXI became after Abyssea, please stop listening to these people. And let's all try to remember that, besides creating the need for strategy, and cooperation, delayed satisfaction increases desire, and when satisfaction finally comes, it's ten times stronger if you feel you went through what feels like a decently proportionate struggle to achieve it. (Nobody is talking about anything resembling ridiculous levels, like Absulute Virtue did, BTW.)

On these forums, over the months, I've read plenty of definitions of what FF stands for. I know nobody asked me, but as far as I am concerned, when I played any of the FF-branded games, it stood for a serious challenge every time, and the great satisfaction of conquering that challenge. Things have never been readily available to FF players.

Someone out there decided that all limits and deterrents were time-sinks; that a "modern" game's function was to gratify, gratify, gratify without obstacles or difficulties, and that any barrier on your way to endless gratification, was a deviant, passée attempt by the designers to squeeze time out of you for their devious purposes; that contemporary game design is not about obstacles, but rather the satisfaction of our desperate desire for constant reward; that somehow we were idiotically deceived, in olden times, and that we had been granted the light of revelation, only recently. And thank the heavens for that, since because of that revelation we have now become aware of the fact that we could do away with difficulty altogether. After all we don't want to be reminded of real life. Hello Kitty Online had the answer all this time!

What comes out of these demands are nothing but ritualized paths of "fools' pleasure," in which you convince yourself you're fighting, but you're not! Actually, there's no way you can lose the encounter... it's just so that you think you're battling a monster, but you'll beat it no matter what. Don't they see it? Isn't THAT the real time sink?? Why don't we, instead, skip the battles, sign on and collect our rewards for the day, then chat a bit, and log out?

It's a Hyperbole, of course. But what it stands for is not the game I want, and I know neither does the great majority of the legacy FF players; nor the great majority of the legacy MMO buffs anywhere.

I say to the devs:
"Send the minimum-common-denominator players back to Free Realms, where they belong. You'll gather plenty of a following, believe me."

To the immediate-returns players, I say:
"I mean, if you don't have the time, the focus, or the willingness--amidst credit-card-debt woes, parenthood duties and your two jobs--to play chess, I totally understand it... And I truly sympathize with you. Totally. I often stand in your very shoes. But please, stop lobbying for Chess to be modified so that it resembles Parcheesi. Rather, why don't you just go play Parcheesi instead?"

I suppose we can look forward to one whole year of posts like this with hardly any casuals who are playing the game anymore to say otherwise. Your depiction of what casual players want is inaccurate, inflammatory, and despicable, but there's no reasoning with you, so I won't bother.

FFXIV 2.0 is doomed if you're listened to, though. You're only shooting yourselves in the foot by saying stuff like this. And I know you don't believe me, so whatevs.

Have fun trying to kill Final Fantasy by making the game inhospitable to greater numbers! You only have yourselves to blame when the game folds from a lack of players due to your unwillingness to share.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Agreed. The Legendary Weapons in XI for example, when I finally got my Gungnir I was the happiest person in the world! But the best thing about it was that it wasn't really 'hard' it was just having to fulfill a series of checkpoints, like in a race (except the only driver is you). And if anyone says that Legendary Weapons in XI were not 'hardcore' content well then maybe that person needs to (re)attempt to get one.

While it did take years to get one of them, the memories along the way, the "blood, sweat, and tears" so to speak, made it all the more gratifying when I finally got the item. Now that being said the Primal Weapons are hardly at the same level as the Legendary Weapons were (in comparison to the other weapons in their respective games) So the task to obtain them should not nearly be as long to obtain. I would say to REMOVE weapon (completed) drops from the Ifrit Fight entirely, instead make just the Totem drop.

Upon Victory:
+1 Totem 100%
+1 Totem 5-50% (this Totem's % will vary on the time it took to win, higher % for the faster the fight)
+1 Totem 5-50% (based on the total amount of damage the party took through out the fight; not the remaining HP; the lesser the total damage taken the higher the %)
+1 Totem 5-50% (this Totem's % will vary depending on how many successful and complete combos where landed on Ifrit; the higher the number of complete combos the higher the %)

Make it require 15-20 Totems to obtain ONE weapon of your choosing from an NPC. There now you have your 'casual' (I suppose) and hardcore (I suppose) blended into a balanced fit. Hardcore players should (since you'd think a hardcore player to be more skilled, or at least used to) get more Totems per run getting their weapons faster, while a casual group might take a little bit longer.

Also with requiring 15 (min) Totems it would take a static group of players ~75+ runs (average of the high and low) and if you require 20 (max) Totems it would take a static group of players ~80+ (again avg high/low). I personally don't see anything wrong with a system like this. Its rewarding, it allows for progression, and more importantly it gives people a sense of "moving forward" every time they win.

[AdvancedWind]

I got it now.

OP will wait till post 1.000 to deliver the actual song, asking for it before that point would be wishing for instant gratification

[Neptune]

id run it hundreds of times if i had to

thing is i dont play for rewards, i play for fun, and usualy do things with friends only

unlike most im not after the reward but the experience

That wasn't too terribly illuminating. You didn't answer!