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

[Controller]

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?

I think the fear is we all seen what M plus and other systems did to WoW. I mean people in WoW don't want it, so asking for it here is like asking a dog to jump off a cliff. It just seems like a bad idea. And alot of people would rather it never be tried at all then for it to be tried but a different way. Pretty much it didn't work in WoW so noone wants FFXIV to even try to make it work here. Also same with dungeons. People say they want crazier dungeons but when dungeons were crazy noone liked them. So people just want things as they are cause changing it can cause chaos.

[Shurrikhan]

Sure let's bring in Mastery as a stat. And also change the way your character works so that you can take only one class/job per character, with three different specs for that job and talent trees, with Mastery changing depending on your spec, since that's the way it works in that game. Let's also make it so players can ignore the story entirely, and add in dungeons with multiple levels of difficulty. And, finally, let's redo the graphics so that it looks as great as that other game

Do you have zero footing? It takes all of half an idea for you to slide down a ten-step slippery slope.

You can have balanced secondary stats without the game turning into WoW.

You can have secondary stats be more impactful without the game turning into WoW.

You can have a job-specific stat (which is not the same thing as job- or role-exclusive names for the exact same effect) that allows one to better engage in some core component of that job to the degree they desire... without the game turning into WoW.

The basic concept of <a more interesting secondary stat> in no way forces WoW into your game than, say, the ability to have your crafting menu open at the same time as you speak to a vendor, not having to spend 4 items to buy an item that you combine with another 10 items bought with another currency to then transform into a further item (i.e., current tomestone weapons), or the ability to queue ground-targeting skills.

In case it wasn't clear, Mastery provides 'spice' for a single specialty (spec) in a class with multiple specs. The Hunter spec "Beast Master" has a mastery that increases pet damage. The Hunter spec "Marksmanship" doesn't really use a pet, and instead increases range and damage. A player can only have one of three specialties at any time. The Mastery on their gear changes effects when they change specs. There is a single set of effects for each of the three specialties for each class.

In a game with zero specialties for a job, it loses it's ability to bring flavor to the game, and can easily be subsumed into your main job stat without having to add yet another stat to gear.

Each spec functions as a job onto itself. Your job IS your specialty. In what way does Beastmasters having effect A, Marksmen having effect B, Masters of Arms having effect D, and Demonologists having effect Z make any difference, whether some share a base class or not, from Samurai having effect A, Dragoons effect B, Monks effect C, Summoners effect D, and Scholars effect E?

Is something so fundamentally different about Scholar and Summoner as jobs, just because they share a base class, compared to all the others in the game, that a Secondary Stat somehow can, fundamentally, only work for them? If not, your point is moot. It makes no difference whether we call them a spec, a job, a class, a profession, or whatever else. They are separately optimized.

[Kaliesto]

Actually there maybe a way to make the dungeons more interesting, I don't know why I never thought about this until now since you brought it up.

Open up new routes with different monsters and bosses via Extreme Mode that were previously blocked in the normal route with better rewards when you complete the duty depending on the routes that were taken (calculating which bosses were defeated in the route you have chosen in extreme mode), this could also make Roulette a bit more interesting too with these new additions.

The bosses will always be the same though, but with higher stats and faster mechanics to really test the players aside from new bosses if you choose to battle with them.

Each Extreme Route Dungeon can have a drop that ultimately leads you getting a mount, gear, title, etc.


Of course certain past dungeons from previous expansions and 2.0 will need a bit of name-changing (changing the names like removing Hard from it, etc) to make the dungeons their own thing.


Alas its too late for such things now, they have set things in stone as it is for FFXIV.

Doesn't really matter what we say, the difference with Blizzard and SquareEnix is SquareEnix bases everything off from a financial standpoint and very rarely do they listen to fans unless its simple requests like they did with the Sage Job Plate recently (weirdly). Now I guess I could be wrong on that, but I never seen SquareEnix Staff ever listen to any major suggestions other than their own circle.

[Cebo]

I think the fear is we all seen what M plus and other systems did to WoW. I mean people in WoW don't want it, so asking for it here is like asking a dog to jump off a cliff. It just seems like a bad idea. And alot of people would rather it never be tried at all then for it to be tried but a different way. Pretty much it didn't work in WoW so noone wants FFXIV to even try to make it work here. Also same with dungeons. People say they want crazier dungeons but when dungeons were crazy noone liked them. So people just want things as they are cause changing it can cause chaos.

TBH, though, the fear that these changes will turn the game into WoW seems like a knee-jerk reaction to any suggested improvements. It's almost as if people forget that FFXIV was WoW-inspired to begin with. A lot of the suggestions in the OP were even in Classic WoW, before it devolved into its current sad state.

For example, I think the scaling difficulty that WoW introduced is a solid system that adds more challenges and longevity to the end-game. But I feel the toxicity that it bred in WoW came from the limited mythic keys and scaling iLvl requirements. Take away the key system and scaling gear, and you just have an optional challenge with no tangible rewards besides titles/cosmetics. People still have their normal duty roulette if they just want to stomp through the dungeons while watching Netflix (much like levelling through Floors 51-60 in PotD). But if someone wants to challenge themselves further, they can stack on incremental difficulty increases to the dungeon (ie. PotD floors 100+). To me, arguing against scaling difficulty in 4-man dungeons is akin to saying having PotD 100+ challenges is bad for the game.

[ForteNightshade]

I think the fear is we all seen what M plus and other systems did to WoW. I mean people in WoW don't want it, so asking for it here is like asking a dog to jump off a cliff. It just seems like a bad idea. And alot of people would rather it never be tried at all then for it to be tried but a different way. Pretty much it didn't work in WoW so noone wants FFXIV to even try to make it work here. Also same with dungeons. People say they want crazier dungeons but when dungeons were crazy noone liked them. So people just want things as they are cause changing it can cause chaos.

... this is, once again, blatantly untrue. M+ is cited as one of the better aspects of WoW and has been routinely asked for in FFXIV. What WoW players dislike about M+ is how they're expected to farm for upgrades that are entirely RNG, and that it's the only way to improve their gear. A FFXIV comparable would be the Atma step except you have no other alternative; not Savage, not dungeons, not raids, nothing. You either farm for an RNG drop endlessly or your progression grinds to a complete halt. Oh, and the next expansion will completely invalidate all that work.

In other words, Mythic+ as a concept is beloved. It's the execution and needless RNG components that are the issue.

Putting all that aside. Refusing to adapt ideas other games have accomplished, even if the implementation is flawed will lead to a stale game. FFXIV literally started off as a WoW clone in concept. So much so, Yoshida outright forced the entire dev team to play it so they understood the type of game they were crafting. So to suddenly throw out ideas WoW has goes against the very decision that created FFXIV to begin with. If you can take from your competition and improve upon where they failed, you're only going to attract more players because you're offering something they can't get in the way they prefer.

[Wavaryen]

m+ is consider the worse thing in wow I agree. Not because of the idea, because of the community, and the punishing nature of failing a run. Ruining a key, and the whole rush timer thing. Mythic + is a good idea, but how they balance it, heck even the community don't do certain weeks for a reason.



Eh does not belong here. I don't want devs to waste time on such features that only a hand full of people would do.

[Shurrikhan]

... this is, once again, blatantly untrue. M+ is cited as one of the better aspects of WoW and has been routinely asked for in FFXIV. What WoW players dislike about M+ is how they're expected to farm for upgrades that are entirely RNG, and that it's the only way to improve their gear. A FFXIV comparable would be the Atma step except you have no other alternative; not Savage, not dungeons, not raids, nothing. You either farm for an RNG drop endlessly or your progression grinds to a complete halt. Oh, and the next expansion will completely invalidate all that work.

But, but, the people who pride themselves on having barely touched it, if at all, tell me it's horrible! It actually killed this one guy's neighbor's goat and badmouthed his cat. /s


Really, though... it's nearly drool-inducing to imagine scalable content without all the WoW-wrapped BS:

No keys. No weekly affixes (outside of maybe light bonuses during Relic grinds, but that'd be dungeon-specific). No Vault. No ilvl crawl.

Just pick the dungeon you want to do, at whatever difficulty level you want to do it. Add, if you want, whatever "Trial" (i.e., a cohesive set of dungeon-adjustment or "Affixes" actually tailored to feel cohesive together) to make some things easier and other parts harder, but generally just... fresh/different. Use the rewarded currency to actually buy the pieces you want, instead of being forced to wait on RNG. Unwanted drops get automatically converted into currency.

/chef's kiss

[Controller]

... this is, once again, blatantly untrue. M+ is cited as one of the better aspects of WoW and has been routinely asked for in FFXIV. What WoW players dislike about M+ is how they're expected to farm for upgrades that are entirely RNG, and that it's the only way to improve their gear. A FFXIV comparable would be the Atma step except you have no other alternative; not Savage, not dungeons, not raids, nothing. You either farm for an RNG drop endlessly or your progression grinds to a complete halt. Oh, and the next expansion will completely invalidate all that work.

In other words, Mythic+ as a concept is beloved. It's the execution and needless RNG components that are the issue.

Putting all that aside. Refusing to adapt ideas other games have accomplished, even if the implementation is flawed will lead to a stale game. FFXIV literally started off as a WoW clone in concept. So much so, Yoshida outright forced the entire dev team to play it so they understood the type of game they were crafting. So to suddenly throw out ideas WoW has goes against the very decision that created FFXIV to begin with. If you can take from your competition and improve upon where they failed, you're only going to attract more players because you're offering something they can't get in the way they prefer.

But that's what I meant. The only example people use is what it is currently in WoW.. so when they talk about it being somewhere else THATS what that recall. And thats what they DON'T want. Noone is talking about the idea.. they are talking about what it is. And what it is noone wants. That's what I was talking about. Now if those people who I keep hearing from on the WoW forums and youtubes and everything else never touched the content then they could've fooled me. Asmongold is one of those people. If it's THAT hated then I agree. If SE can make a version of that that isn't what is in WoW then kool... But the only example we have is what is current. And THAT is what noone wants.

[Controller]

But, but, the people who pride themselves on having barely touched it, if at all, tell me it's horrible! It actually killed this one guy's neighbor's goat and badmouthed his cat. /s


Really, though... it's nearly drool-inducing to imagine scalable content without all the WoW-wrapped BS:

No keys. No weekly affixes (outside of maybe light bonuses during Relic grinds, but that'd be dungeon-specific). No Vault. No ilvl crawl.

Just pick the dungeon you want to do, at whatever difficulty level you want to do it. Add, if you want, whatever "Trial" (i.e., a cohesive set of dungeon-adjustment or "Affixes" actually tailored to feel cohesive together) to make some things easier and other parts harder, but generally just... fresh/different. Use the rewarded currency to actually buy the pieces you want, instead of being forced to wait on RNG. Unwanted drops get automatically converted into currency.

/chef's kiss

Once again the issue you have is least from what I've seen... noone is talking about the idea. They are talking about what it is. And what it is noone wants. Hell people WISH they had what we have. I've seen it time and time again. You go on the wow forums and they complain that they want what we have and wished the systems they hacve never got to the game. We are spoiled compared to them. I dunno.. just seems like people here are looking over there with the grass is greener idea.. and me seeing people like Asmongold and other WoW creators leaving WoW for things you guys are asking for. So unless I'm missreading everything I'mma side with no.

Plus we HAD harder dungeons ... and look what happened. WE have a VERY EASY mode for STORY content. How'd we get here? Because people complained about STORY CONTENT. They aren't going to give you harder 4 mans when we have people who can't even defeat a story boss. Besides there's deep dungeon, savage, extremes and ultimate. If you need more then this isn't the game for you cause again... when it was harder people complained.

[Shurrikhan]

Once again the issue you have is least from what I've seen... noone is talking about the idea. They are talking about what it is. And what it is noone wants. Hell people WISH they had what we have. I've seen it time and time again. You go on the wow forums and they complain that they want what we have and wished the systems they hacve never got to the game. We are spoiled compared to them. I dunno.. just seems like people here are looking over there with the grass is greener idea.. and me seeing people like Asmongold and other WoW creators leaving WoW for things you guys are asking for. So unless I'm missreading everything I'mma side with no.

Plus we HAD harder dungeons ... and look what happened. WE have a VERY EASY mode for STORY content. How'd we get here? Because people complained about STORY CONTENT. They aren't going to give you harder 4 mans when we have people who can't even defeat a story boss. Besides there's deep dungeon, savage, extremes and ultimate. If you need more then this isn't the game for you cause again... when it was harder people complained.

Except you're relying on conflation. The problems most people have with M+, for instance, are rarely anything core to M+. It's keys. It's the vault. It's the drop rates. It's the reward scaling. All things exterior to the gameplay itself.

And it's not that no one ever talks about the idea of progressive or player-chosen or scaling difficult in dungeons. I have. Forte has. More than a dozen threads by now have. The problem is that the conversation is so frequently derailed by those who go out of their way to ignore the contexts of the requests and harp on already-known problems external to other iterations of the system in question. At this point, a quarter of all avenues likely ever to be available to an MMORPG can be condemned merely by half-understood association to WoW. It's stupidly reductionist.