This game is in desperate need of persistent progression content for main jobs...

[LolitaBansheeMeru]

Honestly, I think they should create a zone where it works with its own unique combat style for open world for people... The zone would start you out at level 1 of your set job white mage/black image, etc. and in this zone the world/combat would work like xi's Rogues would get to steal for real on creatures/chest would drop that you have to guess the code and you could grind all day farming drops of rare things like weapons and scrolls for that zone that would teach you spells/abilities that only work in those worlds. And in this world ELEMENTS WOULD MATTER - and you could accidently screw up and heal a fire or ice creature with that magic.

A lot of reasons why I still play fix is I enjoy grinding for real.. spamming a dungeon for x drop isn't grinding same for trails/savages to me personally the grind is what makes something fun lot of the reason I play Poe is it's something you can get onto everyday of the week and grind grind grind and you would be rewarded greatly for the work you put into it.

I feel like the way ffxiv tries to appeal to hardcore players is incorrect.. They output savage or ex things to try to simulate it, but this is what I call fake hardcore gaming due the fact this is more about how you function as a team player and timing so if you're in a time zone outside your free company that you like for the social aspect your screwed rather you're a hardcore player or not.

[wereotter]

Give yourself something to do that's time consuming. Do a ARR/HW/SB relic weapon or something.

Heavensward relic isn't really all that hard or time consuming if you've done one before. When I switched mains this expansion, I completed the heavensward relic quest on the new job to unlock the glamor options, took me only about a week to go from start to finish with the biggest obstacle being trying to get enough poetics to finish it all.

[kaynide]

I don’t really think it should have too much more. (not trying to be abrasive, just disagree!).

I’ve been playing since 2.0 launch with breaks for Guildwars and other games.. it never unsubbed. I almost have all jobs to 80 and have spent almost every night playing an hour or so. Super casual, but I’ve never run out of stuff to do.

Now, I don’t do any major endgame content until it’s super old (I do it with my FC almost exclusively), so I can’t really speak to that...but I guess that’s the point if the game: you do you! If you don’t want to level other jobs, pick up a game for a month or two to play after your 1/week drops. I would recommend something very different like a sandbox survival.. or action game like Nier...but yeah, you do you!

[Kraniel]

snip

I don't disagree with you specifically, but i've seen many people giving the same argument in the previous pages, so allow me to use your post as reference.

First of all, i think you're right, but off the point.
Why i think you're right : As you said, there is enough stuff to keep you busy for a long time in the game. Just leveling up and gearing all the classes takes an unrealistic amount of time, and then there are plenty of side activities (Gold Saucer, Eureka, ... other people already mentioned everything).

But, this is not what OP is talking about. They were specifically referring to the fact that, once you're done gearing up your main class, there is no more incentive to continue playing it. And on that point, they are right as well.
Sure, you can do a lot of things after the end game, but none of them require you to specifically play on your main class anymore.

And i totally agree with this point, which is the reason why i keep taking long breaks from FFXIV (not saying it's bad thing to get back to the real world, but that's another debate ...).
I am not interested in leveling up all the classes. I plan on getting a couple more to 80 out of curiosity and stop there because that is not where i get my enjoyment from the game.
Sure, i can do other activities, but what i really want to do is to keep getting better at WHM, and once i'm done getting the Eden Savage gear, this becomes basically impossible (albeit i will keep helping my friends to get through content).

I think the underlying issue is that SE doesn't want to create a too big divide between casual and hardcore players, which is the general trend in recent MMOs anyway. They want people who put a couple dozen hours in to be able to get the same gear as someone who's ready to put more than that.

In my opinion this is nothing more than a political stance to please a part of the player base, and i think if they got rid of it, they would lose most of their player base (although some would argue they might get a more loyal player base ?), but it would also get rid of many limitations that they are giving themselves.

So yeah, basically as long as their target audience remains the same, i don't think they will be able to add "meaningful" content for hardcore players who want to progress even further with their main class.

[linay]

once you're done gearing up your main class, there is no more incentive to continue playing it.

That will always be true as long as people want the hardest content to drop gear upgrade. Imagine if Ultimate/Savage doesn't drop gear but drop cosmetics (whether title, mount, minion, glamour, etc.), but you need to gear up first in order to beat that fight. That would be the only scenario where there is incentive to do something after you gear up your main.

But I assume people don't want to do hard content without being rewarded with actual upgrade to their character, whether in terms of gear or added abilities/traits.

Since that is the case, the incentive then is on your own to make, whether you like clearing the fights again with different people in the party finder or you gear up your alts to clear the fight on your alts or you do other things in the game or unsubscribe for a while until new content arrives.

[Kalise]

That will always be true as long as people want the hardest content to drop gear upgrade. Imagine if Ultimate/Savage doesn't drop gear but drop cosmetics (whether title, mount, minion, glamour, etc.), but you need to gear up first in order to beat that fight. That would be the only scenario where there is incentive to do something after you gear up your main.

Not really.

There exists more to the game than purely Savage/Ultimate content. There exists even more potential content that could be added to the game.

Like, if we just look at things that have already existed within the game itself, they could add:

- New Zones that have minimum item level requirement to access, which contains new FATEs and a new Shared FATE vendor as well as a Raid FATE or several.

- New Deep Dungeons/Floors that are designed around being max level with gear as opposed to being designed to be spammed by DPS jobs to level up.

- New Eureka style content, with an independent progression system but with item level requirements to enter.

If we look at things they potentially could add as brand new content, they could add:

- Something like FFVII's Gold Saucer Arena. Or the Colliseum from Kingdom Hearts.

- Something like Crafting Scrips system, but for combat classes. So people can farm various enemies for scrips to get gear for alt jobs or for glam.

- Battlecraft Leves designed for max level and geared players.

- A prestige system that can reward vanity items.

- A system whereby experience gained on max level jobs can be converted into rested experience to help level alt jobs so you can actually work on leveling alt jobs by playing your main job.

- BLU Log, but for max level normal jobs.

There's much and more they can add beyond this, that would allow for people to gear up their main and then still continue to play them while doing something relevant.

The game doesn't need to be only focused on Raids > Savage > Ultimate as the ONLY thing to do at max level...

[linay]

The game doesn't need to be only focused on Raids > Savage > Ultimate as the ONLY thing to do at max level...

It doesn't, but the other contents don't need the gears that hardcore players would have, and SE probably will never make as many varied content for geared hardcore players as you're suggesting.

[kaynide]

Snip!

I can agree with all that. I don’t really have a main class as my focus is straight leveling everything...so aside from FC events, MSQ and new raids/dungeons, I rarely break out my “main”.

For others who feel similar to OP, how was Eureka for something to do? I never did it past level...10? Something like that seemed to take a lot of time.

[Barraind]

Assume a casual player who plays for 4-6 hours per week. (Only plays on the weekend, and plays 2-3 hours per day then.) How long will it take such a player to go through a patch?

They'll get through everything that isnt designed to be a daily task in the first weekend of playing.

FFXIV is not designed or intended to be played for multiple hours per day, every single day.

Beast tribes, weekly caps, weekly lockout / gated things, wilting timers on plants, harvest timers on plants, and daily resetting rewards say this is incorrect.

[linay]

Beast tribes, weekly caps, weekly lockout / gated things, wilting timers on plants, harvest timers on plants, and daily resetting rewards say this is incorrect.

Of those, only the plants require you to log in daily and that doesn't take more than a few seconds to take care of per plant. The rest can still be done by a person who only logs in for a few hours on the weekend, and only the beast tribe quest (and perhaps daily rewards) will take significantly longer since you can spam the weekly rewards. Either way, it still means a significant time investment to go through the patch content as is without having to add even more content to grind through.