Lack of End Game Content

[Tint]

Before you say it as well, the above stuff in the casual category does NOT count as something added for raiders just because on a case by case basis, they may do one or a couple of those things. We're talking about difficult battle content.

Yeah, but the stuff you listed for casuals doesn't count for all the casuals either, because they also don't do everything in that list.

You have to compare Gold Saucer against difficult battle content.
Then Lord of Verminion against difficult battle content (wait, why does it count extra?)
Glamour against difficult battle content...and so on.

You can't just throw everything together for casuals and then cherry pick for raiders.

My endgame for example is fishing and completing the fish log. Shall I compare ALL the content of this game against the tiny amount of big fish I will get not earlier than 5.3?


But what am I even arguing? I am not against new hardcore content, I just want to know what other content you (general you) want to have removed from the patch cycle to make room for that. And also wanted to point out that causals don't get that much more actually new PvE endgame content compared to hardcore players. But yeah, more old content gets recycled for casuals, so there is some busywork to do if you want to.

How can I not? I've had more than 15 instances in this thread of casuals bragging about how they have sooooo much to do. So, that being the case, it's interesting that you're so opposed to even throwing a bone to the people talking about how they are STARVING for content. I can't call it anything else but selfishness at this point. You changed the landscape of our game to be easier, and now you don't want to share a single thing with raiders. You don't want to allow them even the slightest bit of joy.

Yes, I have lots of things to do. Because I do lots of different things. If I would only be fishing I would get bored too.

[Zabuza]

Even if people brag, what does that have to do with you? Arguing over what content casuals have does nothing to further your cause. It simply deviates from the point of the thread to ask for a specific type of content.

I'm going to take that as a generic "you" as I have no problem with having more difficult content for people who want them. I do have problem with people mislabeling other types of content as only intended for casuals when there is no reason aside from personal choice (not inability, nor a lack of effort) why a raider couldn't enjoy them as well.

We already asked for our content many times over, but the casuals came in here intensely fighting against us getting anything new. Telling us to leave this game and go to WoW if we want raiding. Telling us we shouldn't try to ask for content that is enjoyable to us, because this game is a casual paradise(ignoring the fact they changed it to be so by complaining until they got their way.) Bragging about their victory in telling us just how much content they have but still being unwilling to give us anything. What does it have to do with me? It intensely frustrating for me because of the reason stated in the previous sentence. I don't believe it would hurt them to allow us a bone. And sorry but, by and large the majority of raiders want to raid. These other types of content are at the least, not their primary interest and in fact likely they have no interest in them whatsoever.

[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.

[LadyKairi]

They didn't, what you are referring to is difficulty which I said has been lowered, however the game hasn't changed, it's always been light on endgame content and Titan was so hard for the same reason he still is, his mechanic is gravity and gravity doesn't age, it doesn't care you're level 80 in full savage gear, your butt is still going in the hole where you will die.
As for your point that casuals get it all, you still have savage and I must have missed where Yoshi went back on his stance that ultimate wouldn't be unsynced so all the casuals could go do it.
Again this game never had lots of high end raid/difficult content and despite the addition of normal modes raiders have more now than they did then.
Themeparks do not have equal distribution of rides, you just got a new coaster last expansion (Ultimate) and a new mini one (BA) They don't add multiple new rollercosters to parks every single year.
This game has never had a lot of what you want, if your FC, friends and all the other parts of the game you don't want to do aren't enough then that's a you problem, not the games problem, it's been this way for 6 years, we all know what to expect.

Yeah, they never had that much end game content, but they used to be harder which took more time to complete. Meaning it kept us busy longer. If they had kept the difficulty, it wouldn't be an issue. However they lowered the difficulty level, so people are completing them faster. If they insist on keeping this difficulty, then they should add something to keep us busy like it used to. They took away the difficulty with nothing in return. While I enjoy Ultimate (it was a welcome addition imo), not everyone is able to beat it, and it isn't even released every tier. For many Savage is the sweet spot, and don't want to bother with ultimate because of the stigma that only the best of the best can do it. inb4 "its still content they can do, not my fault they choose not to do it" the same can be said for casuals. They can do savage, but choose not to. Can't be okay with casuals denying content they can do and then not be okay with raiders doing it.

It is the game's problem. The fact they reduced the difficulty without expanding savage to keep the same amount of time to clear shows that. It took away the balance.

[Toystore]

Yoshida stated that was removed because made normal felt incomplete, exactly the complains people had during SB.

Awesome. So now the one new thing to look forward to as a reward for beating the same boss with the same asset on the highest difficulty was taken away because people complained.

I know a lot of people love Yoshi P. I do not like this guy one bit. He's clueless. I don't care that he's passionate, he's talentless. I will have zero sympathy for him and his team when this game slides down a slippery slope of concessions to the point they can't take any design choices back.

Concessions for casualizing content are entropic. They're a corrosive slime that eat away at different rules of the game. Once you've made one concession in the name of accessibility, it becomes harder to not justify the next one. This is so damn easy to see too. You can watch WoW's snowballing psychological development of lowest common denominator design that started in Wrath to see how this ends up.

When this game becomes as poorly received as BFA because they're choosing to hit the entropic 'free sugar' button now, I'm going to have zero sympathy for Yoshi P. It might take a few expansions, but this kind of psychological appeasement is a hole with no bottom.

[Zabuza]

Awesome. So now the one new thing to look forward to as a reward for beating the same boss with the same asset on the highest difficulty was taken away because people complained.

I know a lot of people love Yoshi P. I do not like this guy one bit. He's clueless. I don't care that he's passionate, he's talentless. I will have zero sympathy for him and his team when this game slides down a slippery slope of concessions to the point they can't take any design choices back.

Concessions for casualizing content are entropic. They're a corrosive slime that eat away at different rules of the game. Once you've made one concession in the name of accessibility, it becomes harder to not justify the next one. This is so damn easy to see too. You can watch WoW's snowballing psychological development of lowest common denominator design that started in Wrath to see how this ends up.

When this game becomes as poorly received as BFA because they're choosing to hit the entropic 'free sugar' button now, I'm going to have zero sympathy for Yoshi P. It might take a few expansions, but this kind of psychological appeasement is a hole with no bottom.

It's just par for the course, really. Casuals keep complaining that anything we like to do excludes them, so it's not 'fair'. Then it's somehow fair to gradually take away everything we enjoy so that they can feel included. Why don't we nerf Ultimate too while we're at it? Let's make EVERYTHING easy until raiders have nothing left in this game. Because god forbid casuals feel excluded when they have a ba jillion other things to do in this game, right?

[RareItems]

Black Desert Online doesn't have any Dungeons or Raids. All it has for endgame is Open world PVP. Yet it just surpassed GW2 in terms of active players. It's already catching up to FFXIV and WoW lol despite its many flaws.

FFXIV needs Fun Repeatable content that can be accessed by a majority of players easily. Kinda like Eureka instances but with a Frontline PVP aspect to it. Join anytime, leave anytime, no queue times. No gear restrictions, rewards you with great items xD.

Doing roulletes everyday is hardly fun xD.

Yes FFXIV only charges 14.99~32 dollars a month not like BDO where you can probably expect to waste 400 bucks a month, but i'm pretty sure they can make this happen.

[Mezzoforte]

We all know Final Fantasy has a formula for each expansion. The question is, is it enough to keep max level players sated.

Scottzone breaks down his thoughts in the below and articulates it better than I can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJPGDmkb-j8

In my opinion, Shadowbringers overall is a fantastic expansion, with rich story telling, awe inspiring visuals and songs that are pieces of art. Unfortunately, once you hit max level, have acquired your extreme and tome gears - one can find themselves asking, "Is that it?".

Eden Savage is a much needed and welcomed addition, but 4 fights don't feel like enough end game content to keep a player busy. The game feels like it needs content between Eden Normal and Eden Savage.

I know new tomes are coming out in 2 weeks, but farming old content for tomes doesn't feel like enough.

In every other MMORPG I played, I never ran out of content to do at max level within less than two weeks of an expansion. There was always plenty to keep my max level busy and challenged.

Am I alone in wishing that we had more to keep our max level classes busy? I feel like the game offers so much "along the way to 80", but it just stops there and wants to level something else.

The game has grown substantially over the years and has definitely attracted more like minded people who are used to having plenty of options of end game content in its competitors.

In the interests of the games longevity and continued support of its subscribers, its a conversation worth having.

I'm interested in knowing what other players think who have experienced other MMORPGS at max level. Do you find yourself running out of things to do at max level? Obviously this excludes things like, leveling, old content etc.

If not - please provide examples of the kind of content you play at level 80 that keeps you busy.

This has been known since the game first began. The issue happens when people like that scott guy try to turn FF14 into WoW. This game's "endgame" has always been more tilted towards socializing/player made events/glamour/crafting/leveling. There was never a particularly hardcore focus on just running endgame raids even though that is something that can be done, you can tell based on the amount of it they release it is only a small portion of what is going on. Thus when you look at the game through the rosey tinted glasses of HOPING WoW got fixed so you could go back to play it, the game definitely won't measure up since WoWs only endgame focus is raiding, raiding, raiding.

TDLR socially oriented story focused MMO lacks content outside socially oriented story focused content. Surprise. This isn't WoW.

[MonteCristo]

Black Desert Online doesn't have any Dungeons or Raids. All it has for endgame is Open world PVP. Yet it just surpassed GW2 in terms of active players. It's already catching up to FFXIV and WoW lol despite its many flaws.

FFXIV needs Fun Repeatable content that can be accessed by a majority of players easily. Kinda like Eureka instances but with a Frontline PVP aspect to it. Join anytime, leave anytime, no queue times. No gear restrictions, rewards you with great items xD.

Doing roulletes everyday is hardly fun xD.

Yes FFXIV only charges 14.99~32 dollars a month not like BDO where you can probably expect to waste 400 bucks a month, but i'm pretty sure they can make this happen.

God i would love a change like this....just give us a zone to be free/create some fresh end game experiences /problemsolved

[Avraym]

This has been known since the game first began. The issue happens when people like that scott guy try to turn FF14 into WoW. This game's "endgame" has always been more tilted towards socializing/player made events/glamour/crafting/leveling. There was never a particularly hardcore focus on just running endgame raids even though that is something that can be done, you can tell based on the amount of it they release it is only a small portion of what is going on. Thus when you look at the game through the rosey tinted glasses of HOPING WoW got fixed so you could go back to play it, the game definitely won't measure up since WoWs only endgame focus is raiding, raiding, raiding.

TDLR socially oriented story focused MMO lacks content outside socially oriented story focused content. Surprise. This isn't WoW.

Nobody is saying it is WoW. Whats surprising is that the formula doesn't change AT ALL to accommodate even slightly for the increase in raiders and new players that are flocking from other MMORPGs.