My unpopular opinions on modern mmo

[SugarPuff]

I invested a lot of time earning various items in FFXI and my first reaction as a new player here in FFXIV was astonishment at the accessibility of most rewards because my "normal" was looking at a lot of stuff as simply unattainable due to the level of dedication required.

Occasionally I do miss getting a comment every now and then. Something along the lines of "Oh, wow, you have such and such!" But overall I prefer variety, even though it makes anything rare much less ostentatious. It's boring to me when the majority of players have the same general look because so much is very difficult to obtain.

[Liam_Harper]

Modern MMO's, perhaps gaming in general, just feels like the developers are lost.

Gaming itself isn't easier. As seen with how easy people find WoW Classic in modern times, they're mechanically far more complex. Bosses used to be tank and spank for fun, now you have essays for mechanics. The huge difference is we have so much information at our fingertips, we like to use it and some players today go very indepth into figuring things out.

Developers today haven't caught up with this major change in gamer trend. The gaming market is more split nowadays. We have players who have pushed themselves over the years, analyzing, learning, improving, and want content to mentally stimulate them, and players who are on step one and entirely new to it, developers want to please them both simultaneously and it's impossible. It's why we, as a community, never seem to agree on anything and opinions tend to be mixed. So many things in modern games today feel like experiments, like the developers are trying to figure out what the modern gamer as a whole really wants. We get this frustrating mix where some things are pathetically easy and the developers insist they want it that way to include everyone and then other things are intentionally tedious to make it "exclusive" or because "it's intended to be that way, even if most dislike that".

The constant experiments are very frustrating. Content we love is always changing, either in-depth content being simplified to be "accessible", features we love being removed or gated for reasons to push something else, relaxing content being changed and pushed towards niche audiences. You can't settle on a piece of content and say "I like doing this, it's fun, this works" because the developers are near guaranteed to tinker with it or even remove it next patch or expansion and take it away from you so someone else can have it. Very often the players they give it to don't like it that much either, then no one has it anymore. It's happened in every game I've played lately and it's happening in ShB too.

[linay]

Aditional retainers if you are a crafter.

Story skip potions if you wanna make an alter.

Best mounts and glams are there too.

Idk, sounds like FFXIV isnt that innocent soul you are trying to paint here.

Unless "cash grab" is just a synonym for making a profit (and if it is, then there is nothing wrong with it, so "innocent soul" it is), then those are not what makes FFXIV a "cash grab."

These are: fantasia, name change service, transfer service.

That's all. So depending how often you pay for those, then FFXIV may or may not be a "cash grab" for you.

[Erendis]

No I don't, and no it won't.

S ranks have spawn windows. At most I'm in a zone for the 10 minutes it takes for people to get there and kill it, and 10 minutes is being generous. Don't get me wrong, it will take hours and hours and hours upon many hours to get all the necessary kills, but it's because of the 80 hour spawn timer, not because it's engaging open world content. Using something that's massively timegated as an example is a bad example.

Guess you don't do spawning. Almost always there are open windows and hunts to spawn. We spend a lot of time out in the world spawning. The only downtime is after maintenance. Then you get a break to do other things.

[Vahlnir]

You mean all that entirely optional stuff?

Those fiends.

Optional yes, but all of it exists to make money knowing full well people are going to pay them regardless of the price. Some of it (like retainers) should be available in game instead of adding to one's subscription fee. Optional retainers are a cash grab.

[Thayos]

No reason to be involved with your own community/guild/fc.

This is my biggest problem with FFXIV.... by miles.

[linay]

Optional yes, but all of it exists to make money knowing full well people are going to pay them regardless of the price. So...cash grab.

So cash grab is just making a profit? Meh.

[Vahlnir]

So cash grab is just making a profit? Meh.

Basically, but I wasn't finished editing my post.

[linay]

Basically, but I wasn't finished editing my post.

Optional retainers give you more inventory space, more slots to sell on marketboard, more retainers to do ventures.

This is why I put my list above. Most things that are sold offer you more, so it's to be expected that you pay more. The only things that don't offer you more are fantasia, name change service, and transfer service, as you're paying to lose something for another.

[Elladie]

No, I'm not. Everything is 80, so there is no reason to go out and do any of those things.

Also, yes, I could and have gathered, but even at most you're in the zone long enough to gather your timed node and then you're gone. WOW SO OUT IN THE WORLD AMAZING.

Except not at all.

2 minutes of gathering in a zone for node pops is hardly being out in the world.

Except that I'm not just gathering timed nodes, I'm gathering all kinds of mats. Silver ore and effervescent water, albumen, black albumen, mythril ore, silex, electrum ore, oak logs, flax, pigments, I could go on as this encompasses all the game zones except maybe the absolutely starter ones. I also fish all over the place tho my fisher is only lvl 72 so I'm not just fishing for mats but also XP. I also farm skins and other material from mobs. I enjoy it, and a lot of my enjoyment comes from BEING OUT IN THE WORLD!! I have some fantastic screenshots of views and sunsets and stuff.

If you choose to buy your materials or whatever you do that means you don't HAVE to go out in the world, that's on you. I play the game like I live, I do things because I enjoy them, not because they're efficient or profitable or challenging. There is stuff to do in the world but people choose not to do it. That's fine, but don't complain there's nothing to do.

I wouldn't be against more Eureka type content - i.e. Battle content in an over world setting - but I enjoyed Eureka. If they did more of this, you would hear the outraged screaming in Zodiark's prison on the moon. There is a reason there isn't more of it, and the outraged screaming is why. Poor SE, they just can't win I guess