Yoshi P confirmed they CUT ultimate content from 6.0 not DELAY

[Lanadra]

I want to preface my post with the following:

1. I play every game I buy on the highest difficulty. I have the most fun when I'm being challenged.
2. In my long history of playing MMOs, I've always raided at the highest levels.

I want those two points clearly understood before I write the rest of my post. Just so there can be no juvenile rebuttals of "lol casual."

High difficulty content is played by such a small amount of the player base, that developers are starting to re-think the time investment and cost of such content. Even World of WarCraft isn't immune from this. If you go back to the Cataclysm expansion, Looking for Raid (LFR) — which is queueable, beyond easy mode meant for mass audience appeal — came into the game because it was that or raiding was going to go away. Not my words, either, but the developers themselves. Blizzard could only justify the time and resources for raid development if raid participation increased dramatically. The same thing applies here for Ultimates. The Ultimate fights are fantastic pieces of content for players like me who love a challenge. The problem is, such a small number of players experience it, and I think the "cut Ultimates" and the non-commital to them in the future, is looking at this content and them saying, "We probably see those development resources better applied in different content."

So to be clear: as a player who loves hard content, and who loves challenging raiding, we're likely going to see Ultimates weened off because they aren't experienced by enough of the player base.

Seems that you are one among few 'high end raiders' who gets why things like Ultimate are such an easy decision to either can or delay.. exactly because the time developing it is already hard to justify as it is.

Funny enough I'm.. well, not necessarily the opposite as I certainly don't play all games on easy, but I am someone who will never touch Savage and certainly not Ultimate.. and while I can see why it would appeal to some, like Starflake and indeed you as well, from my point of view it really is development resources wasted on extreme minority content that probably only about 1% of everyone will get to experience and even less than that get to complete it.

I think it's also why a lot of people tend to be quick to feel disdain when they see 'high end raiders' like the OP in particular have a go at content that the vast majority of this game's player base primarily plays.

[MPK]

Seems that you are one among few 'high end raiders' who gets why things like Ultimate are such an easy decision to either can or delay.. exactly because the time developing it is already hard to justify as it is.

Funny enough I'm.. well, not necessarily the opposite as I certainly don't play all games on easy, but I am someone who will never touch Savage and certainly not Ultimate.. and while I can see why it would appeal to some, like Starflake and indeed you as well, from my point of view it really is development resources wasted on extreme minority content that probably only about 1% of everyone will get to experience and even less than that get to complete it.

I think it's also why a lot of people tend to be quick to feel disdain when they see 'high end raiders' like the OP in particular have a go at content that the vast majority of this game's player base primarily plays.

So the majority of players enjoy PvP, Mahjong, and Farmville right??!

Man lets look at that Eureka relic completion rate too!!! Wow!!

Man I cant state how grateful I am for SE for spending my sub money on content like that! Thank you square for cutting my one piece of content I care for a year for stuff that even less people enjoy!

[Lanadra]

So the majority of players enjoy PvP, Mahjong, and Farmville right??!

Man lets look at that Eureka relic completion rate too!!! Wow!!

Man I cant state how grateful I am for SE for spending my sub money on content like that! Thank you square for cutting my one piece of content I care for a year for stuff that even less people enjoy!

[Vahlnir]

lol

That gif is amazing. Thanks for the laugh.

[ForteNightshade]

Seems that you are one among few 'high end raiders' who gets why things like Ultimate are such an easy decision to either can or delay.. exactly because the time developing it is already hard to justify as it is.

Funny enough I'm.. well, not necessarily the opposite as I certainly don't play all games on easy, but I am someone who will never touch Savage and certainly not Ultimate.. and while I can see why it would appeal to some, like Starflake and indeed you as well, from my point of view it really is development resources wasted on extreme minority content that probably only about 1% of everyone will get to experience and even less than that get to complete it.

I think it's also why a lot of people tend to be quick to feel disdain when they see 'high end raiders' like the OP in particular have a go at content that the vast majority of this game's player base primarily plays.

I disagree on the resource argument, if only because the devs have outright said 90-95% of Ultimate is reused assets; TEA being the exception. Rather, I suspect it's a lack of manpower and desire. As I said in an earlier post. They give off the impression of simply disliking Ultimate. Even with infinite resources, developer time and the like, it still requires a persona that enjoys designing content that will intentionally frustrate and infuriate players. Take a company like FromSoftware. Their actual advertising slogan for Bloodborne was "You'll die, then you'll learn" or something to that effect. Likewise, they flat out refused to make an easy mode difficulty option for Sekiro despite a large demand for one given how immensely hard that game supposedly is. They clearly enjoy watching players attempt their games, struggle for however long it takes before succeeding. And they're satisficed with losing players who give up. Conversely, FFXIV's team seems far more content developing smaller scale things, or simply lifestyle activities.

None of this I say in a negative light. Both are perfectly fine design philosophies, considering they both work.

My only real complaint with FFXIV's approach is more along what Absurdity brought up. You don't necessarily need extremely difficult content to enjoy it. In fact, I prefer a mixture of everything since I don't always want to log in and throw myself at UCoB or TEA. I do, however, feeling far too much has been dumbed down—specifically job wise. It isn't exactly engaging to play healer when all we do is spam Glare, or that Dark Knight is practically a clone of Warrior. Bard had its whole identity siphoned onto Dancer and so forth. There's a balance I feel they could strike, and they just haven't.

[Themarvin]

I disagree on the resource argument, if only because the devs have outright said 90-95% of Ultimate is reused assets; TEA being the exception. Rather, I suspect it's a lack of manpower and desire. As I said in an earlier post. They give off the impression of simply disliking Ultimate. Even with infinite resources, developer time and the like, it still requires a persona that enjoys designing content that will intentionally frustrate and infuriate players. Take a company like FromSoftware. Their actual advertising slogan for Bloodborne was "You'll die, then you'll learn" or something to that effect. Likewise, they flat out refused to make an easy mode difficulty option for Sekiro despite a large demand for one given how immensely hard that game supposedly is. They clearly enjoy watching players attempt their games, struggle for however long it takes before succeeding. And they're satisficed with losing players who give up. Conversely, FFXIV's team seems far more content developing smaller scale things, or simply lifestyle activities.

None of this I say in a negative light. Both are perfectly fine design philosophies, considering they both work.

My only real complaint with FFXIV's approach is more along what Absurdity brought up. You don't necessarily need extremely difficult content to enjoy it. In fact, I prefer a mixture of everything since I don't always want to log in and throw myself at UCoB or TEA. I do, however, feeling far too much has been dumbed down—specifically job wise. It isn't exactly engaging to play healer when all we do is spam Glare, or that Dark Knight is practically a clone of Warrior. Bard had its whole identity siphoned onto Dancer and so forth. There's a balance I feel they could strike, and they just haven't.

People pay to get these clears with RMT, it is a big down factor for creating such content as well.

[ForteNightshade]

People pay to get these clears with RMT, it is a big down factor for creating such content as well.

People pay for literally anything. I doubt the dev team cares all that much, especially as those willing to shell out the money are decidedly low. If they did care, you'd think they'd be a lot more active banning the multitude of PFs blatantly advertising RMT.

[Avatre]

People pay for literally anything. I doubt the dev team cares all that much, especially as those willing to shell out the money are decidedly low. If they did care, you'd think they'd be a lot more active banning the multitude of PFs blatantly advertising RMT.

While it is easily insinuated that it is RMT, there is literally no in-game proof that is it as those people don't even talk about it in game. Everything is done outside of the game. It would literally be banning on a "hunch" that something isn't right.