Final Fantasy 14's grinds feel horrible to midcore players

[Kolsykol]

Why are MMO players so threatened by people comparing their MMO to another? Seems like every time I bring up a system in FF14 that is better than Lost Ark's I get the same type of response there too.

Then make the point without using Lost Ark as an example.
Because there are obviously going to be comparisons when you use it.

You act way more threatened by people disagreeing with you or making comparisons about the two games that you yourself compared that isn't in favor of the game you're trying to praise.
If you don't want people to push back against your example then don't use it as an example it's not even necessary.

TBF, if SE banned all our bots, our population would probably take a hit too. Lucky for us, we get to keep ours!

I rly doubt we'd notice it at all rly, I do think there's obvious bots running around which is annoying but it's in a different universe altogether it's on such a small scale rly.

[Ransu]

Forcing you to do pvp is the definition of awful. Though it could be worse, at least you can just mess around and eventually get everything

No ones forcing you to do anything....If you don't like pvp then don't do it. You don't have to have every single damn reward in the game.

[Ritsuka-55]

on the grinds I agree, it's either ARR level of mindnumbing grind or the other extreme of it, and ironically what both things have in common is that neither is fun.

[Lyth]

Most of the really time-consuming grinds are actually aimed at the 'midcore' playerbase. They don't take a lot of skill to achieve, but you can patiently chip away at them over a longer period of time and feel good when you finally achieve them because of the relative scarcity of it.

What players always forget is that if something is easily obtained and isn't skill gated, then everyone is going to have it and nobody is going to value it.

[KizuyaKatogami]

My problem with the grinds in this game are both how they’re done and what we’re rewarded with. When i think of a grind for this game i immediately think of relics. Last expansion the relics were basically just here,even though you paid for this expansion, we’re gonna have you go back to every past expansion to upgrade your relic and run the same raid 20+ times per relic. All for a weapon that’s stats are typically mediocre.

[Kaurhz]

My problem with the grinds in this game are both how they’re done and what we’re rewarded with. When i think of a grind for this game i immediately think of relics. Last expansion the relics were basically just here,even though you paid for this expansion, we’re gonna have you go back to every past expansion to upgrade your relic and run the same raid 20+ times per relic. All for a weapon that’s stats are typically mediocre.

Not that I disagree but a very common criticism of Eureka was that it in fact had players forced into a singular area of the game that they may or may not have liked. In other words, to get relics, engrossing yourself in Eureka exclusively was the only way. They addressed this by allowing players to engage in other activities. In this regard, people got what they asked for. The content they picked really just made the most logical sense, if I'm honest

[Ralphe2449]

Translation: "I want a game that solely caters to high end hardcore content and I dont want casuals to have fun cool rewards earned through long grinds because only I deserve cool rewards because I am l33t and do high end group content"


WoW is awaiting for you, it treats casuals like 4th class citizens so exactly what you are looking for.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Translation: "I want a game that solely caters to high end hardcore content and I dont want casuals to have fun cool rewards earned through long grinds because only I deserve cool rewards because I am l33t and do high end group content"


WoW is awaiting for you, it treats casuals like 4th class citizens so exactly what you are looking for.

I mean, that's not exactly what he said, and I like to discount our resident trolls as much as possible.

I do think the game could use a better spread of rewards, it does tend to go extreme with some of the long term achievements without having anything really worthwhile in the middle.

On the other hand, a lot of stuff is pretty easy to grind out so in a way it balances itself. There's just nothing directly in the middle.

[Ralphe2449]

I mean, that's not exactly what he said, and I like to discount our resident trolls as much as possible.

I do think the game could use a better spread of rewards, it does tend to go extreme with some of the long term achievements without having anything really worthwhile in the middle.

On the other hand, a lot of stuff is pretty easy to grind out so in a way it balances itself. There's just nothing directly in the middle.

That is what was implied though.

Let's say they create more hardcore high end group content rewards like he asks so he "has more things to do"
And let's say they either remove or severely reduce the grind on many other cool rewards that werent gated behind high end group content

So now the casual/solo/etc players dont have any worthwhile achievements or anything to get because the game now fully caters to high end group content and gives scraps to casuals/solo/etc players, exactly what has happened to wow.

He might not say it directly because it looks extremely ugly but that is what he is asking for.

Thankfully after hearing Yoshi P. say he wants to create more content for solo and casual players I am happy to see he is not following WoW's example.

[Alaray]

I do like having breakpoints in long-term grinds that make you feel, at least somewhat, rewarded for the current time put into it - it also lets you, maybe, think about getting "up to ___" as it's what's worthwhile to you. And, over time, if there's some other chase thing in the structure you'd want you can build it a little further -- kind of making it more like a ladder than "Start Point A" and "End Point Z" without any other letters between as it currently is in XIV.

An easy-to-make example for XIV might be something like an achievement to complete all of the currently available Ultimates, but you still have the achievement from each individual one along the way (with title/weapon rewards). Breaking down the long term goal into a series of small term goals that still feel rewarding to do.

The example of Lost Ark's collectibles was something I actually really enjoyed in Lost Ark. When I wanted to, I could go around collecting things up until I was at a point I was happy enough with (usually, Skill Point potions) and by the time I hit that part of the structure, getting more didn't feel particularly time consuming to go off and do (vs. 500k points in Every Category in Restoration with nothing between 0 and the last 500k. I already bought out the scrip store, because I made the bad decision of grinding Saint of the Firmament and didn't think about Melds/Food almost the entire time. And that was just because I thought "wouldn't it be funny if someone who has no idea what they're doing can be in the top 10").

Mokoko Seeds were also kind of fun in a run-around-to-explore way, though I also just like collecting dumb things in games.In some ways, I wish XIV had more collecting of items that you could show off the fruits of the labor from -- housing items, glamour items, etc... a little more often. The Triple Triad mount is kind of what I think of for things like that, though there aren't like little things along the way (tbh, some kind of triple triad wall poster for completed sets, maybe, would be kind of cool?)

But the tiering of long term achievements with steps along the way that make you feel rewarded for the time-so-far spent is nice. And sometimes can be geared towards introducing players to content they wouldn't otherwise have touched by providing some incentives in that way (I'd consider the current PvP battlepass an example, considering I ground out the entire thing on two characters I pushed up to Crystal-tier and I still play PvP in casuals on random jobs. Before this update I played, maybe, 1 Feast Game - though I'm also predisposed to half-way decent PvP since I enjoy PvP games).

Basically, I do agree with the idea and I also do think (as someone else mentioned) cooler stuff to spend achievement point things on would be nice.