Request: More challanging / difficult content. PLEASE

[akisato]

well 90% of the MMO market is already a wow clone and they all failed do you really want another wow(a.k.a the endless instance grind)? look at swtor only thing that it has going is full voice quest & choices other than that its a pure wow clone next wave of mmo's are gonna be wow clones it never ends. hopfully SE sticks to the roots and not become another linear game.

SW - wow clone
Tera - wow clone with boobies & korean grind fest
GW2 - solo like the first we'll find out? only reason GW1 is still alive is because its F2P.

ok if wow clone is bad then why is FF11 clone good?

[Kaizlu]

well 90% of the MMO market is already a wow clone and they all failed do you really want another wow(a.k.a the endless instance grind)? look at swtor only thing that it has going is full voice quest & choices other than that its a pure wow clone next wave of mmo's are gonna be wow clones it never ends. hopfully SE sticks to the roots and not become another linear game.

SW - wow clone
Tera - wow clone with boobies & korean grind fest
GW2 - solo like the first we'll find out? only reason GW1 is still alive is because its F2P.

And yet, all of them will most likely do better than XIV. It's one thing being different for a reason, and another being different "just because". Sadly, the only thing that can "kill" WoW is Blizzard themselves.

btw - Tera is far from a WoW clone, I'm playing the JP version right now and the whole thing is way different than other MMOs. Also, the game "flopped" in Korea because it didn't have enough grind (funny huh?). Same with GW2, seems too different to be a WoW clone. The only one in that list is SW:TOR.

From all the posts, I seem to agree more with Xianghua. I wouldn't care if it took me a hundred times to defeat Ifrit or Moogle, as long as I could do it on my schedule and not have long cool downs.

[Biggs]

I wouldn't care if it took me a hundred times to defeat Ifrit or Moogle, as long as I could do it on my schedule and not have long cool downs.

Go ahead and add "and its fun every time I attempt it" to that statement and I couldn't agree more.

[Biggs]

Then that is your opinion. What I am saying is people need to understand SE's intents.

I would normally counter-argue that SE needs to have a better understanding of what players want, but I feel like that argument would be beating a dead horse. If there were more to do in the game, than by all means, give me all the gifts you want. But I am am one of those silly players that hates seeing time wasted on crap like that when there isn't anything to do in game. I feel the exact same way about the holiday events. I am not saying that there isn't a time or place for this stuff, there TOTALLY is, and I enjoy it. But all we do as players is wait (and now pay) in hopes of it getting better. I dunno, seeing stuff like this crap come out when the game still needs so much work just pushes my buttons I guess. I am all for ANY content at this point that has substance, and would welcome more content that has a higher level of technical difficulty. Sadly we can't expect them to provide us with any of that until they finish working on the basic elements of the game building up to the launch of 2.0. I hope to be pleasantly suprised with the 1.21 content.

[Rokien]

I'm with biggs ^.^

[Avraym]

Some really well put comments in this thread.

It is really dissapointing that crafting is ultimately the best gear in the game, and this is coming from someone who is taking the time to level up my crafts.

In my opinion, they should make some bosses drop craftable matts for a recipe. The item is craftable and tradable only to those who were in the party at the time.

or

Make the matts/finished item auctionable, but the item it crafts, requires a key item from the boss itself ( If you complete the boss, you are then eligible to equip the crafted item )

The above method could also be included to make HNM or NM's serve some purpose in this game other than achievements.

Either way this makes end game gear harder to obtain, but still encourages crafting as a required element of FFXIV (Which is both Tanaka's and Yoshida's vision)

[Cthulhu]

This has been a great thread so far. It's had a lot of good ideas tossed out. Some of my favorites:

Finding the right balance between crafted and U/U drops. I went into Darkhold 1 night because well, that's all I needed to. There is absolutely no incentive for me to ever step back in there once I finished my quest. Personally I feel we should see something like this; crafted < crafted x1 meld < U/U < crafted x2 meld. From what I've read on these forums a lot of people agree about putting U/U around there. Some have suggested moving U/U above even x2 meld but I think that's a little much. For example if I wanted to x2 meld Cobalt Mitt Gauntlets +AP +Str for DD it would cost me on average just under 5 million gil (that's buying the worst tier IV materia) on my server. Making 5 mil is a much larger time investment than running DH or some other instance a couple of times.

Making the coffer drops from SH more significant. I have no idea why the devs made only Sent gear non U/U and meldable. I think the coffer drops should all be adjusted to be non-U/U and meldable. You want double meld MotMH? Sure, spend the time to farm 5 of them or pay someone who did.

World Spawn NMs dropping crafting mats. I have no idea why this was abandoned. Battlecraft goes out and kills big nasty dragon. Scale drops after fight and this is taken to the linkshell's best crafter. DoL makes a gnarly shield out of it and presents it to the linkshell's Gladiator. This seems so natural an idea for this game yet they put it on the back burner. Of course these items should also have a materia slot on it (You guys spent how many hours hunting that dragon before you got that x2 meld shield?). Time and Effort overcoming significant difficulty should yield a big reward.

Now of course the problems with some of these ideas are they will lead to a rise in RMT. A casual player without hours to spend really wants that shield so he buys some gil and is instantly gratified. How does the dev team allow for these great collaborative items to be created without also creating an incentive to pay RMT for a short cut to the reward? Making everything U/U drops from difficult endgame content means you just cut out almost all incentive for anyone to ever touch DoL and DoH.

Is there any way we can have our cake and eat it too?

[AndySolace]

Go ahead and add "and its fun every time I attempt it" to that statement and I couldn't agree more.

Hands up, I first read this as sarcasm, and was a little disappointed. I thought it was another "you'll only find something else to complain about" comment.

Then I thought about for a moment re-read it and figured, you know what, I personally spent years in XI fighting the same Sky, Sea, HNM mobs over and over and over. Camp SW, Camp DI, move to HQ Kings and camp them. And yeah actually, every single fight was fun. Losing a claim was a bitter disappointment, but that just made winning one all the more satisfying, and enjoyable.

I actually do not agree entirely with the post you yourself quote though. Cooldowns and scheduling are requirements in my opinion for the successful organisation of events and the people that play them.

If I know that once a week I'm going to do Dzaemel Darkhold, then I can organise either logging in and turning up to the event, or give people notice that i'm busy because i'm off to the pub this Friday for a beer. This allows them then to find a replacement for me and still do the event.

Spontaneous (spelling?) events are fun, sure. "Hey LS, who wants to do Darkhold I still need speed run o/." Problem is having the people online, and available without notice. Yes, it happens that sometimes 7 people agree and you can run along to do it and go home again, but you cannot run an event-based LS on this principle. A social shell, yes of course. But if you're a player only interested in having a social shell then you wouldn't be interested in events and their scheduling, so its a natural reaction.

A counter arguement I guess would be simply a statement of what currently occurs: Yes you can do Moggle every 15 minutes, but that doesn't stop anyone scheduling 6 runs on a Tuesday night. Ergo the time-sink element is not required for scheduling purposes anyway.

This is fine, but not all events can work like this. Not to mention the fact that there will always be people who play to beat new content ASAP, and make guides the next day. This REALLY annoys me to be honest, as it means that people get stuck in a routine within hours of new content being released and eliminates the creative tactical thinking from 90% of the population. Imagine Moggle had even a 15 hour cooldown, rather then 15 minutes. My LS beat it on their 14th run, on the second day after release. That's basically two weeks of developing stategies, attempting new things, experimenting. Instead we see BG post a guide within a couple of days after 100+ runs and suddenly everyone is Archer or GTFO. What happened to those without that job levelled?

Perhaps I deviate slightly from my original point, but its all related to the instant access we have to any content at the moment. With content at its current technical level, we need less access to it to make it more time involved. Increase the amount of time we have to develop LS-specific (or even server specific) strats, increase the amount of time those of us who study the game have to discuss and engage with new content and increase the relative challenge of the content.

If Joe "Casual" Bloggs complains he can't aquire the bestest sword in the game because he only plays FFXVI 2 hours a week and only wants to bother with an "event" of sorts on his single 50 once a month... Instead of making the game to straightforward for the rest of us, perhaps someone should stand up and say, "hold on, maybe he shouldn't have it anyway."

Goobbue is a thank you gift, fine I understand it. My personal opinion is that the best part about that ride is the music; I love it. Thank you for it. But Primal weapons are NOT gifts, they should be worked for and hold an achievement status. They should not be given to everybody. The developers didn't sit around their table one day drinking coffee saying "hmmm I know, lets gift everyone in the game all the best gear so they look pimp but leave out any reason for them to actually equip it!"

Much more... "Lets make it hard to get the best gear in the game, so they look pimp, feel a sense of 'I've achieved something' when wearing it, but give them no other reason to equip it!" Lol, I jest. But you see the difference?

Currently, without making content harder to beat, there must be a limit to our access in the form of a time and/or effort investment, to make current challenges live longer. This is really what the keystone farming was all about, I think.

Also, as I led in bed last night after making this thread something struck me. A simple suggestion that would make content that is currently out a worthy challenge, and can also be applied to to any and all future relevant content. Specifically i'm talking about the current dungeons, and their rank requirements for entry. The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak has an entry requirement of rank 25, and grants level 30 gear from the three bosses. Level cap it. Make it a capped instance, at level 30, and work from there. Dzaemal Darkhold has an entry requirement of 45, and grants gives gear that is used at level 50. So Keep it capped at 50. How many times have people done the 25 dungeon and just switched to a 50 either at the end or upon entry. WHAT'S THE POINT?! Particualarly as there are likely to be new players asking for help with these dungeons now. It ruins it for them.

I don't have all jobs at 50, but I have all my DoW and DoM to 50. That's my choice, fine. But if a level 35~40 dungeon is released, me and many people like me will cakewalk it. Unless its capped at 40. In which case, the challenge remains.

I fully understand that this will not be popular with everyone, but it will ensure that new players get the 'full experience' because they won't be with people 25 levels higher then them, (35, if you count the r15 dungeon Shposhae, however that's much more of an open world 'zoo' that allows a sneak-peak at the extremely impressive Lone Coeurl), and means that whenever the level cap increases, current challenges will still remain. Are The Dev Team seriously expecting us to re-run a 25 dungeon at level 60+ just to aquire a piece of 30 gear for a new job that's released?

Level cap us, nerf our stats. Make life difficult. I honestly wish this was an original idea of my own, but of course it isn't. Its been done before, and was imho hugely successful.

*hits the "Post Quick Reply" button* lol'd...

[Zezlar]

ok if wow clone is bad then why is FF11 clone good?

Probably because there is only one FFXI whereas WoW has itself and about a billion spinoffs now.

Aside from that I have to agree with the OP. Too many things are not difficult enough. Look at Chocobo Caravans for instance. Throw a THM in there to basically annihilate every mob besides the mites and you win the entire session.

I also don't believe that crafting items should be better than rare/ex unless they are HQ with double meld+. Rare/ex simply needs to be better and in some instances harder to obtain. The materia system was a great addition to the game but I think that system also screwed the pooch a little. One should NOT be able to add 3/4/5 melds on one piece of gear (if you are even that lucky). I also believe that the stats for current materia are simply far too high. All of the rare/ex gear are not even in the same league as a basic piece of gear (besides the primal weapons) with one tier iv materia on it. Please nerf materia when you fix stats for 2.0

They need to make rare/ex better, and at LEAST allow one materia slot to be added on.

[tachikoma]

Everyone can agree that we need more challenging content I'm pretty confident no one wants it any easier right now. Everyone also seems to agree that crafting for the best gear is not a good idea and comparing it to "I died 100 times on the most epic raid ever to get my sword of champions" vs "I got lucky and tripple melded str gloves cool story".

As previously stated some simple solutions: Allow U/U gear to be melded, improve U/U gear stats, introduce new materia or top tier materia to drop from instanced content or to be created from U/U gear.

My extra idea: add in achievements for specific kill conditions, the 5chest speed run in DH was a great example. Short order for moogle is another. Now just improve the drops or add more unique drops to those special conditions to give the most dedicated players something to do. ex. Short order moogle > only way to get the sword. something like this would go a long way toward keeping content worthwhile.