Lack of End Game Content

[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.