Final Fantasy 14's grinds feel horrible to midcore players

[KizuyaKatogami]

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

There’s ways to do that with the current expansion content though. Tie some materials behind hunts, fate crystals, implement some overworld quests stuff like that they can use to flesh out the overworld. I know it’s a bit crazy to ask for something…new instead of more reused content but there’s ways, it’s just the fact the devs don’t seem interested in it at all.

[Jennah]

WHAT grind? There's about 4 hours of content a week that can meaningfully advance your character. It's early Tuesday afternoon, and I'm already done again.

[BrokentoothMarch]

WHAT grind? There's about 4 hours of content a week that can meaningfully advance your character. It's early Tuesday afternoon, and I'm already done again.

I mean, if you were paying attention, he presented the Pteradon mount as an example of one extreme while what you're presenting is the other extreme. There being no middle-ground is the problem.

[Shougun]

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.

Yeah... I could be confused, it happens lol, but.. I was also under the same impression that OP was talking about how there are a lot of HIGH HIGH end things to work towards but not as many comfy bumps in the road (for OP particularly middle of the road). Then using a system very akin to what players just saw with SE's "battle pass" pvp as an example which is poster child for basically saying 'lots of things along the way, with mile stone rewards'.

As far as I can surmise OP is not asking for more hyper grind-hardcore content, at least exclusively (perhaps they might exist but reward strewn along the way), and if anything this post would benefit both hyper casuals and the more engaged casual (honestly for me casual and midcore has a lot of overlap). As people who might not make it to the end, cause some of those achievements are pretty crazy, are still getting cool things rather than basically nothing.

I get the sense a few are replying by name rather than by content, or I can't read. /shrug lol

[game_enjoyer]

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.

that's not at all what is being said, not even close. that's not in the subtext of the OP. you are actively looking for the worst, least charitable interpretation of what was said, probably because you felt like it was targeting you specifically for some reason, but i assure you, this isn't about you.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

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.

You are just as bad as he is, I'm just going to point that out.

[SturmChurro]

I don't really see the issue with using things in a game like Lost Ark as an example. Even WoW still has some good things that FFXIV could adopt.

[Sebazy]

Is it really that bad?

The EX primal mount tokens are a pretty reasonable grind now with the Story primal maybe being a little on the quick side whereas 99 tokens on the usual extremes is a solid grind over the course of a few weeks to a month or so.

On the more casual end of things, story issues aside, I think the relic weapon grind with Bojza was absolutely spot on this time round. It has a few properly grindy steps but they only have to be done once, outside of that it's just about right no?

Going beyond those two things the pickings start getting a bit slimmer though, maybe the gold saucer could do with a fresh coat of paint and a new major element to chase.

[Shougun]

I don't really see the issue with using things in a game like Lost Ark as an example. Even WoW still has some good things that FFXIV could adopt.

Haha, Interestingly with the new expansion WoW is working on it looks like it might be taking some hints at the things FFXIV has done well with- while still doing the things that it has done well too. Not to sound scary or anything but such a thing, if the team is serious, SE should take seriously lol.

For a long while WoW appeared to forget the things that made it great while simultaneously ignoring large swathes of it's audience because some specific high power devs had a bias to certain types of content, now they 'might' be awakening to some of that.

[Skiros]

Is it really that bad?

The EX primal mount tokens are a pretty reasonable grind now with the Story primal maybe being a little on the quick side whereas 99 tokens on the usual extremes is a solid grind over the course of a few weeks to a month or so.

On the more casual end of things, story issues aside, I think the relic weapon grind with Bojza was absolutely spot on this time round. It has a few properly grindy steps but they only have to be done once, outside of that it's just about right no?

Going beyond those two things the pickings start getting a bit slimmer though, maybe the gold saucer could do with a fresh coat of paint and a new major element to chase.

I actually think the EX primal mount is a pretty steep grind personally. I didn't grind any single primal mount on my main because it takes way too much effort. 99 tokens is roughly a 20-hour grind (counting wipes and PF shenanigans), and that's not too bad but I dislike repeating the same solved encounters again and again.

For EX primal mounts, I don't think they should change anything currently existing. I grind <=10 times each patch to get a weapon that I need, that's good enough for me.

But primal mounts are an example of a grind that is reasonable over a few months but still feel bad in the moment. Because a lot of players will grind the mount for a few hours since once you stick with a good PF you wouldn't want to leave half an hour in. That is an extremely monotonous activity IMO. Since I only play a few hours a day, I don't grind mounts because doing so will consume basically my entire day.

What I'd like to see is having the game encourage a diversity in activities. People find time-gating annoying but you can encourage people to time-gate themselves. Give people a weekly checklist of various things to do in Eorzea: like do 2x current EX primals, 2x Expert roulettes, 1x S-rank hunt, 2x Gold Saucer gates, craft 2x expert recipes, etc. It exists in the form of Wondrous Tails but people usually cheese that. We just need one for endgame and have it be semi-fixed so people don't just take the efficient way out and do the fastest and yet most boring activities to complete it.

Right now a lot of the game's grinds are best done if you commit multiple hours consecutively to doing it. Like Eureka, Bozja, primal mounts, etc. Maybe it's ADHD but I don't want to do the same thing for more than half an hour when this game has enough diversity of activities for players to pursue. They should encourage that. Make a system that has the player dip their toes in a single activity for 5-30 minutes and then allow them to switch to something else.