Former WoW player: Suggested changes to FFXIV Raiding end-game

[Cebo]

Any game has to decide on what audience it wants to cater to. It's impossible to please everyone. There's not enough time to make enough content for everyone to get something they want.

Deviate from what had been a successful formula and you end up with a WoW - a game with a player base a fraction of the size of what it had been at its peak with the numbers being masked by a reboot of the original game that's turned out to be more popular than what the game has become.

This is what I don't get though. Asking for more varied dungeon designs and boss arenas doesn't seem like it's catering to hardcore raiders at all. Do casual players really enjoy every end-game dungeon resulting in the same wall-to-wall pull then boss ad nauseum?

And adding a scaling challenge mode to dungeons, where the only reward is extra tomestones, titles, or cosmetics, doesn't affect the casual playerbase. It'd solely be an optional challenge, providing more end-game content to those that want to partake in it, and NOT at the expense of casuals missing out on gear/story. If people don't care for it, that's perfectly fine. They can simply ignore it, just as I ignore crafting or mahjong cause it's not my cup of tea. Why deny the option of having challenge modes to other players?

[Shurrikhan]

Um...you DO know you can get clusters to buy materia?

You realize there is a gil fee for non-80-crafters to actually attach said materia?

And adding a scaling challenge mode to dungeons, where the only reward is extra tomestones, titles, or cosmetics, doesn't affect the casual playerbase. It'd solely be an optional challenge, providing more end-game content to those that want to partake in it, and NOT at the expense of casuals missing out on gear/story. If people don't care for it, that's perfectly fine. They can simply ignore it, just as I ignore crafting or mahjong cause it's not my cup of tea. Why deny the option of having challenge modes to other players?

They could, but that'd be far too efficient and accessible. We here at XIV would much rather split any further development towards casual and non-casual players, as if they were some strict binary, with the likes of quickly-dead minigames like Mahjong and barely-touched (though still quite lucrative, and actually more done than the full BLU experience, for instance) Ultimate encounters, respectively. /s

[Vahlnir]

You realize there is a gil fee for non-80-crafters to actually attach said materia?

A negligible fee at best, but a fee nonetheless.

[Shurrikhan]

A negligible fee

True. But I have to wonder why the materia system was designed as such a banal chore, if not merely to be a gil-sink that further incentivizes omni-crafting.

You (1) make sure to right click - left click (Extract Materia) whenever a gear hits 100% spiritbind and (2) whenever you get a new piece of gear for a given slot, you end up destroying an average of 60% of your old gear's materia in trying to retrieve it, buy replacements with clusters, pay the fee if not an omni-crafter, get your minimal but obligatory stat bonus and... that's... fun?

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Edit: (Max daily posts)

Not the most engaging thing in the world, I can't really argue that. I wouldn't call it a chore though. It's just....kinda there, merely existing.

Fair enough. I guess, I just expect more from something added than for it merely to exist. If it has virtually no impact (i.e., no engaging output), and it doesn't add anything interesting to processes of acquisition (i.e., nor engaging input)... why's it there?

That's same kind of shit people complain about from this or that lackluster feature in WoW. If it does little to nothing more than just exist... why should it at all?

That's not to say I want to get rid of the layer deterministic stats that materia, as a general concept, could provide, just that I'd prefer it be more about the choice and less centered around the mere bloat of this using this menu for to cache this or that otherwise useless item to get this other (unless an a crafter) not-in-itself-usable item to then access another menu to another to another to finally get a pittance of stat via this or that grade of this or that materia, most of which you'll never use unless you've maxed out the latest gear piece's potential for Critical Hit.

[Vahlnir]

True. But I have to wonder why the materia system was designed as such a banal chore, if not merely to be a gil-sink that further incentivizes omni-crafting.

You (1) make sure to right click - left click (Extract Materia) whenever a gear hits 100% spiritbind and (2) whenever you get a new piece of gear for a given slot, you end up destroying an average of 60% of your old gear's materia in trying to retrieve it, buy replacements with clusters, pay the fee if not an omni-crafter, get your minimal but obligatory stat bonus and... that's... fun?

Not the most engaging thing in the world, I can't really argue that. I wouldn't call it a chore though. It's just....kinda there, merely existing.

[Genbe197]

Response.

Um.....

1. Tanks have an interrupt and a silence and is used all the time on trash, to interrupt AOEs to intterupt self buff spells, to stop from using tank busters or heavy aoe dmg attacks, One example that is pretty easy are the little dudes in Il Mheg dungeon who will buff the trees if you don't SILENCE them. Can you live? Yes probably, Did you just make it more annoying? Yes. We don't want too punishing effects in dungeons because then it leads to TOXIC behavior of getting mad at someone for not being 100% on al all times. Its all over WoW if you want that type of TOXIC gameplay where one little mistake in a DUNGEON will wipe you go play that.

2. No...This is so boring trash fights are boring its a raid fight for raids you do bosses, you are basically describing a dungeon. Go play more dungeons if you want trash and bosses....

3. He is literally describing mythic plus with scaling ilvl which is another source of TOXIC gameplay in wow, Oh you havent done a +15 then no we don't want you in this content 50 ilvls below that. If you want cosmetics and challenge once again Ultimate and min ilvl are there for you, but it isnt about that you want higher Ilvl and better gear so you can not include people.

4. and gearing is not toxic like that in FF since the BiS gears are not even customizable. lol I have never had anyone ask about gear beyond Ilvl in FF so this seems like some weird esoteric thing to who ever you play with.

[VelKallor]

You realize there is a gil fee for non-80-crafters to actually attach said materia?

No there isnt and you can meld your own materia after talking to Mutamix. You need a crafter job but you can meld your own.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...melding_guide/

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...t/494c4ff8e5a/

Waking the Spirit - Disciple of the Hand Lv. 19

[DPZ2]

You realize there is a gil fee for non-80-crafters to actually attach said materia?

Nope. The Materia Melder NPCs that attach materia charge a fee, but there is no requirement to go to that NPC. The NPC is for the convenience of players who choose not to pursue a crafting job in-game.

Every leveling crafter except Culinarian has to attach materia to something for the level 20 job quest, with no gil charge whatsoever.

[Seraphor]

1 to 3 I can agree with mostly.
While Dungeons have become rather formulaic for a good reason, they should be able to spread their wings a little so to speak and make the odd dungeon that breaks away from the mold, especially if they're the optional level X0 dunegons.
I wouldn't want Raids to return to the same format as Coils, with a load of trash maps before every boss fight (removing the trash is 100% an improvement), but the way Omega did it with a solo instanced mini dungeon before each tier worked well, giving us a zone to explore before the Raid itself. We lost that in Eden, hopefully Pandaemonium offers this again.
Reverse Echo would be amazing. Maybe it increases the chances of additional/rarer drops by say 5% per 5% Reverse Echo. Current Echo goes up to 20%, so a Reverse Echo having four tiers up to 20% would be pretty cool.

The fourth one I can't really agree with though. I get it, but it's this way entirely for balance, and there really is no freedom of choice in any system that gives you options, there's a meta, and you stick to that meta, there's no other option.

[Yagrush]

No, the game has nothing like what was being requested.

The example was Mastery, a stat available to every spec and useful to every spec, but the effects of which varies by spec. That has nothing to do with Power-but-for-melee-other-than-Ninja, Power-but-for-Ninja-and-Ranged, Power-but-for-DPS-Casters, and Power-but-for-healers. Those aren't job-specific effects. They're the same effect. They're just convoluted to extend time spent grinding.

It feels like you're the only one that actually read my post and replies. Cheers, fam.