Lack of End Game Content

[Hawklaser]

Eh, this is more subjective I don't feel something needs to be hard to feel like an epic adventure I've found Shadowbringers and the post dungeons very epic and there no more difficult than any that came before, the story and setting are what make that for me. As for floundering, you can argue it's lacking in difficulty but it's not hurt for it. Most people just enjoy moving through the story, seeing the sights and taking in the atmosphere.
As for why they won't make another Castrum Meridium and Praetoreum, its because they were a design mess, MMO's expect you to run their content over and over and those were perfect for a single player game, terrible for an MMO and I disagree with the challenge part, people cheeses and breezed through them even back then it took more work and the mobs didn't melt instantly like they do today but it was no more challenging then than now just longer, they've always been cut scenes masquerading as dungeons save for the trials at the end of Praetoreum and the first phase of Castrum Meridium, those did give some people some trouble.

I understand that the correct difficulty to epicness ratio will be subjective and vary from person to person. Using Superman as a reference, he typically deals with city/world ending level of threats, much like the WoL does, with varying degrees of difficulty depending on the villain of the week, sometimes he might have to assist Batman with a more low level villain, other times he may have to team up with others to stop a galactic/reality level event. It varies for the sake of keeping things interesting. If Superman doesn't struggle to varying degrees across all those different events, some people start to see a disconnect. IE deals with Darkseid, but then has issues with a common bank robber, it just feels horrible and out of place. Now you make a game for Superman, narrative flows right with the scale and challenges, but the game play doesn't line up. Same issue. And in FFXIV, the story is going to the galactic/reality level, but the game play is staying more around equivalence of the street/city level with the very rare step up towards world. And while I am eagerly looking forward to our rematch with a certain someone in the future(I assume we will have one) I also dread it for this very reason. As he screams that he should be up around the Galactic/Reality Level of threat from his actions and the story telling, and I want the fight to have a difficulty that appropriately reflects that. But yet we just got done with a story boss that should have been up there on that kind of level for challenge feel... and there was not much there. Every now and then it can be brushed off, but when it repeadedly happens it starts to break immersion and ruin the overall feel, and for those looking for more endgame challenging content. Its likely at that point, or very close to it.

You might not feel its not hurt for not having the difficulty, but we feel it could benefit from having a little more difficulty dotted about here and there. You might remember these dungeons, Halatali, Sunken Temple of Qarn, Cutter's Cry, Dzemael Darkhold and Aurum Vale? Do you also remember that they were also optional and slightly harder than the other leveling dungeons? They stand out to me a bit more than some of the other ARR dungeons, because they had that slightly higher difficulty to them. Every other dungeon in the game is either MSQ or Tomestone related. When was the last time we had a non-Story leveling dungeon? Did having those dungeons hurt the game any?

And just some fun things to note. ARR 2.0 had 16 dungeons on release(5 not tied to the main story or tomestones) + the first 5 pieces of Coil, and the 3 hard Primals, the 3 story primals plus a couple other trials. Now we get 5 story leveling dungeons, story final dungeon, 2 tomestone dungeons, the new raid, 2 ex trials, plus the story trials.(there might be a couple I'm missing) Do we really need every expansion to have a Story dungeon every 2 levels? Does every expansion need to release with only two Tomestone dungeons and 2 ex trials? Leaving us to a perpetual 5/2/2 content production? Is there any legitimate reason that a couple of those story leveling dungeons be could not be decoupled from the story and used as for a more challenging tomestone dungeon to help set the stage for an 8 or 24 man piece that will be dropping later in the content cycle? Or use the time and resources spent on a filler leveling dungeon to develop an extra trial that might be more satisfying? These are the kind of questions that don't get answered if you just blindly follow what worked in the past.

But you know why people find methods to cheese and breeze anything in MMOs? Its all about how to get the shiny loots the fastest. Nothing more, nothing less. A way could be found to have the nice single player story content that is needed for immersion, as well as the grind MMO's think is always necessary. The grind is pretty much there only to help address the problem of content being consumed faster than it is produced.

That's very noble that you would and honestly I wouldn't be against raiders getting more myself, my point is over the 6 years they have been given more, Ultimate and BA wouldn't be here otherwise and Yoshi has been clear like in the mythic+ question with the staff he can get his hands on, with the resources he has and trying to keep to the scheduled they work on he has to prioritises and he's going to do it based on numbers, so few were clearing the raids they lowered their difficulty but then came Ultimate to composite for those who really wanna push it. BA was a success and sits somewhere in the middle and they'd like to do something with that. Challenging content dose get made as dose content with PVP but it's made to reflect the numbers.

In the end, it really comes down to how much time and money they have to spend. But the thing is does it have to stay 5 leveling Story Dungeons, Final story dungeon, 2 Tomestone dungeon, and 2 ex trials + the raid, or could 3 Story, Final story, 2 Tomestone, 2 ex trials, mini raid, main raid work? Or even 3 Story, Final Story, 3 Tomestone, 3 ex Trial, raid. Why the insistance of it always being 5 level, 1 final, 2 tomestone, 2 ex trials, raid? This is where the whole could some of the budget be shifted around comes into play. As there is a little bit more freedom to play with the difficulty when have the classes full toolkit vs having to change it up every 2 levels just for the sake of leveling. Would shifting where the dungeons fall really hurt so much? Especially if there could be a slightly wider spread to the dificultly and a lil more room for the devs to experiment on what does and doesn't work on that front instead of having to play it safe due to the leveling curve?

[BlitzAceRush]

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The problem with your gameplay reflecting the story argument is that you're only looking at one angle, yes it could be argued that bosses should match their power in the story with the challenge but why doesn't X boss just knock me right off the platform? Or why don't any of the many dragons we fight just fly up and never come down? Why can I retry a fight against an enemy thet just killed me? All of those things are just as out of place as a boss being weaker when I fight them as they just were in the cutscene where they handed me my butt, but that's simply the disconnect between gameplay and narrative.

As for the dungeons, you are comparing a games launch with an expansion pack one being the core release the second being an addon. You are correct that the game had several dungeons that were not connected to the main story and some of them were a little harder then the standard ones however 3 of those you listed Cutter's Cry, Dzemael Darkhold and Aurum Vale are retooled 1.0 dungeons so a lot of the work for them was already there, they weren't made from scratch, that was how they got ARR out the door so fast, reusing as much of 1.0 as they could.

As for taking some of the story dungeons away and using them for end game that is a rather large negative change for anyone who cares little for the end game grind but enjoys the story, it may not seem like much but losing those dungeons takes a lot away from the story. Suddenly the light wardens are almost all either solo instances or cutscens, the Fauth? Also either or, you've just taken a lot of the MMO out of the story element of the game and drastically changed how they'd tell the story.
You've also negatively impacted the levelling experience as well, now people levelling their trusts or just other jobs or even their first only have 3 new dungeons to use, making them stuck running the same one for much longer, which is a big deal in a game where you can and many do and level everything on a single character.

This is really the large issue, what you've suggested is a very large change across the whole formula if it goes poorly they can't just ignore or accept it, it could have a large impact, the kind of shake up moving and adding all that around is what they did for 1.0-2.0 where the game was failing, it needed that shake up because of that failure why dose it need it now? You and others say it could make the game better, but many more like it as is, that's the problem here its a risk for no other reason than I'd like this can you try this. They are trying new content all the time just not at the expense or risk of anything else.
Why risk so much when its not only working but thriving when they've still room to try a new thing here or there? That's what you'd have to convince SE but after 1.0 I don't see them being OK with anything with any risk especially when 14 is doing so well and continues to do so.

[Hawklaser]

The problem with your gameplay reflecting the story argument is that you're only looking at one angle, yes it could be argued that bosses should match their power in the story with the challenge but why doesn't X boss just knock me right off the platform? Or why don't any of the many dragons we fight just fly up and never come down? Why can I retry a fight against an enemy thet just killed me? All of those things are just as out of place as a boss being weaker when I fight them as they just were in the cutscene where they handed me my butt, but that's simply the disconnect between gameplay and narrative.

There will always be some disconnect in narrative and gameplay, its why most people engage in a bit of suspension of disbelief when consuming entertainment. But at the point stuff like that crossed the threshold for various people from a moment being classified as Fridge Logic or a Plot Hole, or the big bad having a very timely lapse in judgement breaking their immersion. There are a lot of tropes related to potentially immersion breaking situations, and different ones break it faster for different people, but the power level disconnect is one of the ones I see do it on the most consistently, and the quickest across a number of people, as most of the other things can usually be covered by the Rule of Cool/fun. As its not cool/fun if the Dragon flies away and burns you to a crisp, but an epic fight with one is for example, so more are willing to look the other way for that. Challenging fights can be cool and fun if done right, but when done wrong they can also suck... bad insta death whack-a-mole mechanics, I'm looking at you.

As for the dungeons, you are comparing a games launch with an expansion pack one being the core release the second being an addon. You are correct that the game had several dungeons that were not connected to the main story and some of them were a little harder then the standard ones however 3 of those you listed Cutter's Cry, Dzemael Darkhold and Aurum Vale are retooled 1.0 dungeons so a lot of the work for them was already there, they weren't made from scratch, that was how they got ARR out the door so fast, reusing as much of 1.0 as they could.

It wasn't so much the quantity, I was pointing at. Just that not all of them were easy across the whole curve. Or tied to endgame grind or story progression. While I didn't point it out, the nine 2.0 Story dungeons were also spread out to be about every 4 levels. If you don't count the first 15 levels, which is basically tutorial. 5 levels or so if you do. So we went from having 2 story dungeons per 10 levels to 5.

As for taking some of the story dungeons away and using them for end game that is a rather large negative change for anyone who cares little for the end game grind but enjoys the story, it may not seem like much but losing those dungeons takes a lot away from the story. Suddenly the light wardens are almost all either solo instances or cutscens, the Fauth? Also either or, you've just taken a lot of the MMO out of the story element of the game and drastically changed how they'd tell the story.
You've also negatively impacted the levelling experience as well, now people levelling their trusts or just other jobs or even their first only have 3 new dungeons to use, making them stuck running the same one for much longer, which is a big deal in a game where you can and many do and level everything on a single character.

Its not a bad thing they put so much effort into the narative. I like the narative. And who said they have to move the level cap every single expansion too? Or move it 10 levels every expansion?

But honestly, the fact that the content is really easy to the point that an undergeared PF PUG with no coordination and communication at all can take down the vast majority of the content on its first attempt blind has done more to take the MMO out of MMOs, than shuffling a dungeons placement around ever will. What got me hooked on MMOs, was actually having to communicate and work together with other people to figure out how to overcome varied content. The story they could tell however they see fit, with as many dungeons as they see fit. But sticking to the same comfortable formula for every expansion and content patch is a bad idea.

XI's Chains of Promathia is a great example of trying something different. I thought it was a wonderful expansion, it just had two small problems from being great. Limited inventory space, and little incentive to help people clear it once you were through it. The two issues compounded each other as had to have appropriate level gear for it, and with no incentive to help others no reason to waste valuable inventory slots holding the gear. So you essentially had to form a static for it, making it very unfriendly to PUG. Yet CoP is one of my favorite expansions for XI even though I didnt get to complete it when it was current.

This is really the large issue, what you've suggested is a very large change across the whole formula if it goes poorly they can't just ignore or accept it, it could have a large impact, the kind of shake up moving and adding all that around is what they did for 1.0-2.0 where the game was failing, it needed that shake up because of that failure why dose it need it now? You and others say it could make the game better, but many more like it as is, that's the problem here its a risk for no other reason than I'd like this can you try this. They are trying new content all the time just not at the expense or risk of anything else.

Why risk so much when its not only working but thriving when they've still room to try a new thing here or there? That's what you'd have to convince SE but after 1.0 I don't see them being OK with anything with any risk especially when 14 is doing so well and continues to do so.

Just going off your join date, as its more around the 2.0 release, did you actually play 1.0? Do you know what the big fiasco of 1.0 was? 1.0 wasn't failing. It flopped, and it flopped hard. They shook things up out of respect for the Final Fanstasy Franchise, and us the Players. Other companies more than likely would have just pulled the plug and walked away. They were under no obligation to reboot and rebrand a project that flopped that hard.

The biggest fiasco of 1.0 from my point of view was the laggy and unresponsive UI, lack of a few basic UI features they should have had such as being able to sort your inventory. Things they should have known and been able to use from XI. Then to top it off, while it had very nice graphics at the time, it felt more like we were playing a Beta Version of the game not an actual full release with a number of other minor things that cropped up too. This compounded with the excedingly sparse story and lore content. Which then lead people being extra critical of everything else. The battle system, character atributes/resistances, gathering/crafting, everything. Other companies would have just killed it right then and there. SE earned a lot of respect from me from how they handled XIV from that point on. Out of all of 1.0's issues, you want to know the only thing I wanted to see fixed? The UI. I would have been perfectly happy had they added more content and slowly made some minor adjustments to the base systems instead of going the more WoW clone route they did with it. I don't think they needed to do as big of a risk as they did back then.