Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
If you can think of another solution as cost-effective as literally just turning casual content into difficulties of the players' choice, such that one can progressively challenge themselves through the whole, fluid span of upper casual, midcore, and into top-tier content, then by all means we can work from that instead. For myself and clearly many others here, that's the only example of stupidly cost-effective design for that purpose we've yet seen in an MMO.

Now, we could start first and foremost from Necrologos pages or TT cards or elemental crystals or marks of the zodiac or materia or whatever else and flesh that source out until it reaches an engaging and cost-efficient solution applicable to providing midcore content, but that source-to-result idea is just going to require far, far more detail to even bring to a point others can discuss than backward-facing or big-picture design as can be easily summed up by notable (almost meme-worthy) examples like "Mythic+". That's why you see it so often, especially from players who feel like XIV's gameplay development most lacks a sufficient focus on the big picture.

I'm right alongside you in detesting game elements translated directly from one game to another. But backward-facing design is probably our best framework for discussion for where we are now. We can find the best way to get to what we want after we know what it is we want.
It's hard for me to discuss ideas as I'm very much content with what we have, so I'm not really looking for something else. In that sense, I'd rather leave it to the dev to "surprise and delight" with something new if and when they can, and then I'll decide once I get to know more about it.

The only thing I can address for now are things that I already know I don't want, like Mythic+.