To those that say FF14 is not a big dog in MMO's

[Y2K21]

Oh, it most certainly is. And I tested normal/heroic raids prior to bowing out and had very little problems with them in Legion content. Mythic was a little chaotic at points even before the changes but some bosses were doable. This was before we were even able to start leveling again though. After gaining 10 more levels my characters felt weaker which shouldn't happen.

I remember reading that article and being shown the issues -- however, I cant say I see the replication in my own game. I wonder if its more based upon class, as I do play a plater-wearing DPS that tends to have very good survivability. Never had any issues with Visions of Nzoth (have the 5 mask solo FoS on my account) nor pre-nerf Torghast either.

However, a numbers squish does cause chaos and it shows that Blizz devs are lackadaisical about reviewing it on antiquated content. Its a lesson I do not want Square-Enix to follow in their own future numbers squish -- as we know Endwalker will have.

[Awha]

I get for some the competitive / toxic nature of WoW is not enjoyable but that is one if the reasons I enjoy the game. I enjoy both games for different reasons the laid back nature of FFXIV is nice just as I also enjoy the competitive/toxic nature WoW endgame embodies.

That is part of the reason while I would enjoy if they brought in some elements from WoW like mythic + I just do not know if the FFXIV community could handle the type of environment such content fosters. I am not saying it is inherently bad but it broadly seems to go against the vision from SE. Though on the other hand we have ultimate which is good fun and caters to a small group of the community just as feast does. So maybe it would work out I do not know.

[Vahlnir]

I remember reading that article and being shown the issues -- however, I cant say I see the replication in my own game. I wonder if its more based upon class, as I do play a plater-wearing DPS that tends to have very good survivability.

However, a numbers squish does cause chaos and it shows that Blizz devs are lackadaisical about reviewing it on antiquated content. Its a lesson I do not want Square-Enix to follow in their own future numbers squish -- as we know Endwalker will have.

I mained BM hunter, which was survivability incarnate. In Shadowlands, at least at the beginning (and when I left tbh) my hunter was not in a good place. My pets were useless and my CDs couldn't make up for that. So...they died and I died a ton. I don't know what they've done since then though. It was the perfect storm I guess. I wasn't happy with the grinds. I wasn't happy with my class. I wasn't happy about some old content being harder to do than before. Either way, they broke an 11 year WoW vet.

[linayar]

SL just doesnt have continuous rewarding content after loot changes. Lessened loot means less drive to do rewarding content. Maw and Torghast offer no long term rewards for actively doing them.

This is one reason why M+ likely won't work as an endgame power progression content for FFXIV. The current reward structure just doesn't have room to accommodate such a content and not many people would do such difficult content without "proper" reward.

[Y2K21]

This is one reason why M+ likely won't work as an endgame power progression content for FFXIV. The current reward structure just doesn't have room to accommodate such a content and not many people would do such difficult content without "proper" reward.

M+ can work in 14, you just would need to adapt the reward system different rather than RNG loot combined with the Great Vault. If it had some term of special currency tied to it that would be used to buy gear, cosmetics, etc. -- it may fit in more with the 14 style.

That being said M+ can be adapted into a small scaling difficulty where the higher the fixed difficulty -- the better the rewards.

M+ is great design for how WoW works, but it would just require finessing and reworking to mold into the FF14 system.

I mained BM hunter, which was survivability incarnate. In Shadowlands, at least at the beginning (and when I left tbh) my hunter was not in a good place. My pets were useless and my CDs couldn't make up for that. So...they died and I died a ton. I don't know what they've done since then though. It was the perfect storm I guess. I wasn't happy with the grinds. I wasn't happy with my class. I wasn't happy about some old content being harder to do than before. Either way, they broke an 11 year WoW vet.

Thats actually very understandable. I can understand why you would want to -- it does suck that BM was left in such an awful mess from BFA. Its why I like the spec system but also hate it. I like Frost DK but I can also say Frost DK just is plain bad outside of PvP in current content. I like having that openness to swap to keep playing my class -- but also dislike having to switch off something I like to play for something I find boring yet playable.

Its not a fun combo for sure.

[linayar]

Oh, it most certainly is. And I tested normal/heroic raids prior to bowing out and had very little problems with them in Legion content. Mythic was a little chaotic at points even before the changes but some bosses were doable. This was largely before we were even able to start leveling again though. After gaining 10 more levels my characters felt weaker which shouldn't happen. My gear was better. My level was higher. So...where was the increased strength? We were told that nothing would change after the stat/level squishes and that players could do everything they could do prior. This was a lie, and they got caught. Admittedly, this is why I'm skeptical of the changes this dev team is making with Endwalker.

I think the problem with WoW's stat squish is that the content was not just tuned to the original stat, but also the additional powers and traits that came with your azerite gear in BfA or your weapon in Legion.

One good thing about FFXIV's simpler take on gear is that they only have to worry about new skill level distribution when doing a stat squish, which they have done every expansion even without a stat squish.

M+ can work in 14, you just would need to adapt the reward system different rather than RNG loot combined with the Great Vault. If it had some term of special currency tied to it that would be used to buy gear, cosmetics, etc. -- it may fit in more with the 14 style.

That being said M+ can be adapted into a small scaling difficulty where the higher the fixed difficulty -- the better the rewards.

M+ is great design for how WoW works, but it would just require finessing and reworking to mold into the FF14 system.

It could work if, by finessing, you mean turn it into a side content like deep dungeon where you're more after achievement/title/mount/cosmetic/etc rewards rather than gears that affect power progression.

[Penthea]

Except, Higher keys in M+ actually require meta a lot more often to deal with increasingly more damaging mechanics while maintaining an under-clock timing. The issue with obsession becomes where people try to enforce it below 10+ and think it doesnt make public key running not completely toxic.

I understand that for the purposes of practicality some standards need to be met, however it is known that people often ask for more than is required or absolutely refuse to take anything that is not the best possible choice, even if the difference is small, which automatically leaves out some players. I didn't try Mythic + but I have many friends who have, and even those who had a lot of success with it were often very frustrated with the attitudes of other players. From what they said the Mythic + community is very similar to the raiding community, and I became exasperated with the raiding community in that game a very long time ago. It's not for me.

As much as people want to say that the players ruined Classic, the nostalgia of Classic remains with your own personal journey that you had when you first experience. You will not have that same experience now 16+ years later.

Completely agree with this. You can experience something for the first time only once. I was not expecting to get a first time experience again. I just wanted to play an old game again. It's a shame I encountered enough toxicity that made me want to put it down. Coordinating with people is a must in Classic. There is no DF tool so you have to find groups manually, and you do need to have kill orders and use cc before max lvl. Sure you can just avoid doing dungeons...but experiencing them again is a huge reason why I played Classic, and well seeing quite a lot of unnecessary spite made me lose my taste for the game. That is not to say every single dungeon I did was a bad experience, but enough were that I had to stop playing.

That being said: people who didnt expect that people were going to optimize Classic were going to be in for a rude awakening regardless -- because the private Classic servers had many people doing optimized Classic runs. Classic WoW was also massively easier but more tedious compared to retail. Molten Core being completely finished in HOURS after being open was bound to happen since MC was a rushed raid that barely had mechanics.

Well it wasn't a surprise for me that the old raids were thrashed in a few short hours. The mechanics back then were significantly more simple, people have better internet and pcs now so they don't have connection and fps issues, the engine was modernised so the game runs better, and people know the tactics already. All that combined, of course it was nuked super fast. I completely expected it.

I didn't expect the community to be just as it was before, but I also wasn't expecting a dps priest to get laughed at in Ragefire Chasm, the lowest lvl dungeon in the game, solely because they're not playing holy. The best part was their dps wasn't even the lowest and they still got ridiculed for their choice of spec.

I never played WoW when it was actually in Classic -- but bought into my friends who talked about its fancies and nostalgia. I tried it, and just stopped playing after reaching level 30 -- its boring and tedious as hell. I never had that connection and nostalgia playing it back 16 years ago and to me it felt like a poorly optimized MMO that was moonlighting as an RPG.

The game is a time capsule. Sure the community changed but the core of the game did not. By modern standards Classic is not a very good mmo and I can completely understand why someone would not enjoy it, especially if they did not play it during the time when it was launched. I replay a lot of my old games, so Classic was just another venture into that for me.

[Y2K21]

It could work if, by finessing, you mean turn it into a side content like deep dungeon where you're more after achievement/title/mount/cosmetic/etc rewards rather than gears that affect power progression.

You would either:

1) Have to tune down the progressive rewards to either keep it at levels to match base gear (tomestone/crafted/Bozja) or offer a breakpoint where you can buy "Savage but not as good" gear. Similarily to like how Bozja gear offer max casual gear stat and offer a second path of high-end gearing besides do Savages. Which may require more intuitive balancing.

OR

2) Remove the progressive gearing out of it and make it completely end-game casual content that gradually gets harder offering tiers and seasonal rewards. This may require more planning -- because you would need to decide how to deal with previous season rewards and tiers. You want to keep the content as fresh as possible with rewards or else it becomes antiquated HOWEVER you do not want to lock players out of previously awards either.

Either way requires work and planning -- along with the knowledge that SE has to continuously update rewards for the system. YOu would also decide how you wanted to make it more difficult -- seasonal affixes? more mobs? higher health?. You would also want to decide if you want to do a seasonal rotation of dungeons (perhaps based on a theme).

[Y2K21]

I understand that for the purposes of practicality some standards need to be met, however it is known that people often ask for more than is required or absolutely refuse to take anything that is not the best possible choice, even if the difference is small, which automatically leaves out some players. I didn't try Mythic + but I have many friends who have, and even those who had a lot of success with it were often very frustrated with the attitudes of other players. From what they said the Mythic + community is very similar to the raiding community, and I became exasperated with the raiding community in that game a very long time ago. It's not for me.

And thats fine. Thats why there is multiple different paths to progress your character -- the current issue is if its rewarding for the effort. I dont personally like M+ because I just find it boring and tends to wear out its welcome fast in my mind.

Since M+ is tied to gear progression, WoW players in some facet will try to enforce that min-max or meta method. They do with almost every part of that game -- because of trend following and lack of casual content.

Well it wasn't a surprise for me that the old raids were thrashed in a few short hours. The mechanics back then were significantly more simple, people have better internet and pcs now so they don't have connection and fps issues, the engine was modernised so the game runs better, and people know the tactics already. All that combined, of course it was nuked super fast. I completely expected it.

My favorite moment of all of it was how completely it shut up the Classic supremists who would basically call retail baby-mod easy with claims of how hard Classic was. Im sorry, but you cant claim a game is hard when you end-game boss (for release) is down within HOURS of release.

Again this is happening with TBC, and again -- Im ready with popcorn with how fast things will be done.

The game is a time capsule. Sure the community changed but the core of the game did not. By modern standards Classic is not a very good mmo and I can completely understand why someone would not enjoy it, especially if they did not play it during the time when it was launched. I replay a lot of my old games, so Classic was just another venture into that for me.

Its just nostalgia bait. Its all re-living memories once had as a kid or as a young gamer. Its fine to relive those, but you will always have that rude awakening when the game, its audience, and you have changed since that time.

[linayar]

I understand that for the purposes of practicality some standards need to be met, however it is known that people often ask for more than is required or absolutely refuse to take anything that is not the best possible choice, even if the difference is small, which automatically leaves out some players.

Regarding this, I've never used the feature myself when i was still playing WoW, but I heard that their PF equivalent only gave a list of applicants rather than having slots that are filled. Thus, the "PF starter" has to choose the applicants that would be accepted. If true, that might be why their standard is higher, especially for roles that have many applicants.

The way this happens in FFXIV is when a PF listing sets a min ilvl higher than what the content itself requires (or requiring duty complete for a clear and not a farm), but you're not able to directly compare between multiple specific applicants.

You would either:

1) Have to tune down the progressive rewards to either keep it at levels to match base gear (tomestone/crafted/Bozja) or offer a breakpoint where you can buy "Savage but not as good" gear. Similarily to like how Bozja gear offer max casual gear stat and offer a second path of high-end gearing besides do Savages. Which may require more intuitive balancing.

OR

2) Remove the progressive gearing out of it and make it completely end-game casual content that gradually gets harder offering tiers and seasonal rewards. This may require more planning -- because you would need to decide how to deal with previous season rewards and tiers. You want to keep the content as fresh as possible with rewards or else it becomes antiquated HOWEVER you do not want to lock players out of previously awards either.

Either way requires work and planning -- along with the knowledge that SE has to continuously update rewards for the system. YOu would also decide how you wanted to make it more difficult -- seasonal affixes? more mobs? higher health?. You would also want to decide if you want to do a seasonal rotation of dungeons (perhaps based on a theme).

Yeah, there could be different ways at handling it. But depending on the scale of the work involved, this could mean a reduction in content elsewhere, likely in battle content. So it's a very fine balancing act if they ever want to think about adding it to FFXIV.

I still think FFXIV's 8-player content (as opposed to WoW's 20-player raid) means FFXIV doesn't have as much need as WoW to provide for a 4-player content, especially when people are already saying that the 8-player content is lacking. While it's still easier to find 3 other people, finding 7 other people is not as hard as finding and organizing 19 other people.