A request for Endwalker Dungeons (No more Undertuned)

[Rinhi]

Yet here we are, with the game more popular than ever.

amount of players =/= quality of the game

[Poporito_Popoto]

amount of players =/= quality of the game

Amount of players = $$$ for corporation big into $$$

Largely due to WoW flying to close to the sun and having essentially rapists on payroll. But yeah we're definitely doing well and it was all because the game was super good in every single way.

Because there are only two MMos out there.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Amount of players = $$$ for corporation big into $$$




Because there are only two MMos out there.

Only 2 MMO's out there? That's probably the most delusional and laughable thing said in this entire thread.

Also. amount of players doesn't immediately equate to more money. The logistics of corporate finances maintaining and developing an online live service game would fry your brain if you actually think it's that simplistic. Even more so considering this title has an infinite free trial version that a considerable if not majority of your new players are playing on.

[ItMe]

But name ANY RPG where the game doesn't get progressively harder as you go through the story.

How about Chrono Trigger?
Skies of Arcadia?
Paladin's Quest?
There are plenty of RPGs where the player's power outprogresses the difficulty. The game doesn't get harder because it can't keep up with you.

Heck, there are also plenty of RPGs made to be broken. So long as you understand the game you'll absolutely trivialize them. We all have our own examples of games we just obliterated as soon as we got our feet under us. Mine are FF8, P3, Strange Journey Redux, and P5.

How about RPGs like Harvest Moon?

There are also games that don't actually have their mechanics evolve, like Dark Cloud and Dragon Quest 1. It's just about your numbers keeping up with the enemies and the game not checking to see if you've ground to be level appropriate like FF14 does. There are RPGs that don't get harder, they just let you wander into areas unprepared.
How about them?

What about games about achieving horizontal progression like Legend of the River King?
Or, heck, frickin Pokemon?
Brock is tough because you don't have many pokemon you could catch to use against him, and unless you're playing Yellow you can't catch anything with a type advantage against his pokemon. But by even midgame you have so many options available to you (and access to much more powerful pokemon than the caterpies, pidgy, and ratatta populating the early areas) that the game not only doesn't get harder... it arguably gets easier.

What about Breath of the Wild?
You can run to the final boss from the very beginning, you can challenge literally any aspect of the game from the moment you start your file. None of them get harder as you progress. None of them scale to you. And through the entirety of the game you only become more capable of tackling them.

Do you have an issue with this example or that?
Do you want to argue with me on any game I've bought up?
Let's not fight.
This post is not trying to sidetrack this thread with big discussions about other games.
I'm just trying to shotgun out enough examples that anyone who reads this post sees there are most definitely good, well made RPGs that do not get harder as you progress.
Heck, some of them are even quite popular in spite of (or potentially because of) their nonexistant difficulty curve.

[Poporito_Popoto]

Only 2 MMO's out there? That's probably the most delusional and laughable thing said in this entire thread.

Also. amount of players doesn't immediately equate to more money. The logistics of corporate finances maintaining and developing an online live service game would fry your brain if you actually think it's that simplistic. Even more so considering this title has an infinite free trial version that a considerable if not majority of your new players are playing on.

Comprehension fail.

[ItMe]

It doesn't really need to be decoupled from levelling or discourage being ran repeatedly, but it doesn't make sense in a dungeon format because [...]

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of exploration vs. combat or leveling vs. level-cap content.

Heck, I might argue that all content needs just four things:
[...]

Perhaps you're right...
I just feel like if a player is in content for a reward (exp/tomes) that is acquired at the end, players won't NOT dash through it when their prize only exists at the end.

[Shurrikhan]

Perhaps you're right...
I just feel like if a player is in content for a reward (exp/tomes) that is acquired at the end, players won't NOT dash through it when their prize only exists at the end.

There will always be some degree of rush, but there are obviously resource structures that can optimize something which, or be anchored around what, doesn't feel much like a mad dash to that reward. Part of that has to do with denied control and perhaps even more with intrinsic enjoyment.

And (if I'm reading your tone here and elsewhere correctly), yes, it is of course better for a content to stand on its own merits (enjoyment from the play itself) than by virtue of its rewards (extrinsic reasons for enjoyment), but the thing is those two sources aren't at all mutually exclusive. All that particular matters is, again, that first criteria. If the content appeals to some via intrinsic value and to others only via extrinsic reasons and those would each encourage competing behaviors, then you have an issue.

[Nethereal]

Because there are only two MMos out there.

Doesn't sound like you have a place in this conversation if you don't know the largest reason ffxiv gained so much popularity in the past 2 months was because of what happened with WoW and the free advertising that came with streamers leaving.

[ItMe]

If the content appeals to some via intrinsic value and to others only via extrinsic reasons and those would each encourage competing behaviors, then you have an issue.

Maybe it has been done successfully elsewhere and I'd be more aware of potential solutions if I were more experienced with this genre, but I'm at a loss for how this issue can be avoided in an MMO.
(Not that the extreme streamline approach that FF14 has is necessarily a good substitute for a solution)

[Nyarlha]

Doesn't sound like you have a place in this conversation if you don't know the largest reason ffxiv gained so much popularity in the past 2 months was because of what happened with WoW and the free advertising that came with streamers leaving.

The thing is, the rising popularity of FFXIV started way before that. The game has always been on an upward slope and the last big boom we had before recent events was ShB release. You could say that the more accessible the game got, the more it grew.

Overall, I find it hilarious that people who complain about the difficulty/muh job complexity seem to be washed up softcore players who are not full casual but won't set foot in EX+ content for the challenge.

Guess what :
- Casual don't care about dungeon/job complexity, they are too busy huffing paint.
- Midcore/Hardcore players don't give a sh* about dungeons and stuff like BotD/Enochian upkeep or positionals that are trivials to them (as talked about in a recent Mogtalk with Arthars and Xeno).

And these two categories of players vastly outnumbers the local crying forum goer community.