Brian from Work 2 Game is leaving FFXIV

[Kaurhz]

You got 100 casual players for every 1 hardcore player. The casual player only pops in every few days a week but substains a frequent sub, the hardcore player plays everyday as long as theres endgame to be had but drops their sub when there is nothing left. Who would you make the game more comfortable for?

Well, this is ultimately a bad perspective as there is no reason they cannot in some way, shape, or form cater to both audiences, which I would argue that they do -- They just have issues incentivizing content beyond just potentially one-time play things. e.g., pick up your loot and go. - This has been and always will be their biggest flaw for both casual and hardcore players alike in adding that replay factor.

That being said, some people do inevitably need to accept that beyond a certain point (most especially if you have invested thousands of hours into a game), then keeping that same attachment is very difficult, and to a certain point, it is just better to seek a new game out with a novelty factor, and this is not about ignoring or deflecting criticism, but simply a logical choice, again, beyond a certain point.

[Deveryn]

Well just like goodbye threads dont see why people feel like forums are the place for it. Simple fact is anything people do for long period of times has the risk becoming mundane. Simple fact is he would rather play an mmo that just came out this past year so its shiny and new during his free time. If thats where he finds enjoyment then so be it hopefully he it keeps his enjoyment for another decade or longer.

Very true. Anything can get old and boring over time, especially if you're not giving yourself breaks and/or getting worked up on here.

[Ransu]

Yes we have party finder, but xiv 2.0 and on was designed around more than just that. In world of Warcraft, vanilla especially, it was all about exploring the world, partying with random players, adding them to your friends list. Dungeon needs were basically built around chat and meeting to get it done. They eventually implemented meeting stones which was nice.

The moment party finder was implemented, there was no need to socialize and communicate for dungeons in WoW.

Ya spamming the chat with LFG was soooo social *eye roll.* The anti DF crowd will never make sense to me. DF didn't hurt WoW and the notion that it did is beyond ridiculous.

[SeiyaSoiya]

who? good riddance

someone who has been playing the game 10 years longer than you, for starters

[Ayuhra]

To be fair FFXIV does have problems in terms of not taking risks. I don't think they need to reinvent the wheel but they need to look at the connective tissue between all of the systems and game modes introduced since ARR.

Nearly everything is self contained or instanced which makes the game feel smaller. For example I think it would be cool if we had more difficult world bosses (FATES) that dropped fun cosmetics and Triple Triad cards. It would be cool if there were treasure chests in the world, and jumping puzzles (GW style but less intricate since jumping in that game is way more precise) and I would love it if I could see gathering nodes in the world as a combat class and automatically swap to a gatherer when approaching them. Seeing a notice that I would need to be x gatherer type at y level would make me want to gather more.

Basically, let the open world be a connective tissue instead of something that you just run through to get to the next cutscene. I think this would make the game feel more alive without actually having a negative impact on endgame flow. If they want to shake it up further from there they can but right now I'd consider the open world FFXIV's least used feature. Looking literally any other MMORPG would give them ideas.

Open world stuff is also great for story foreshadowing. Seeing Fandaniel's spires at the end of Shadowbringers was exciting to me. They rose against the skybox and I just stared at them wondering what horrors they'd bring (the answer, of course, was not many but that's a separate rant).

[Absimiliard]

Ya spamming the chat with LFG was soooo social *eye roll.* The anti DF crowd will never make sense to me. DF didn't hurt WoW and the notion that it did is beyond ridiculous.

Not only did it not hurt WoW, its introduction caused a huge spike in people actually doing content. There's a reason Wrath was the most popular expansion. Those numbers didn't really start to thin out until Cata, but I mean... Cata. Who could blame people for leaving?

[Ivtrix]

someone who has been playing the game 10 years longer than you, for starters

yeah but the community hates content creators all the time for some reason

when long time players like Brian announce they are quitting, you listen the F up

[Aword3213]

To your biased standard perhaps.

I guess I am.

Yet I'm not the one claimed to be giving "constructive critisism." But hey, gotta look pretty when we complain, so we call it "constructive critisism."

[Jeeqbit]

They just have issues incentivizing content beyond just potentially one-time play things. e.g., pick up your loot and go. - This has been and always will be their biggest flaw for both casual and hardcore players alike in adding that replay factor.

Right, but if it has replay value it might cause content to progressively add up chores for you to do with each patch. Meanwhile, although some people burn through to the rewards in hours or days, some other people take a lot of time to do it because they have less time to play, so if they increase the time it takes, it becomes a lot more of a grind for more casual players.

They could make almost all content somehow level up alt jobs or give aetheryte tickets. After all, this makes people praise POTD, HoH and Bozja. Would that really be enough though?

For example I think it would be cool if we had more difficult world bosses (FATES) that dropped fun cosmetics and Triple Triad cards.

We usually have two that they put effort into the mechanics for in each expansion. Every area usually has one and some of them drop cards, but they hardly have any mechanics and I have not particularly identified any in EW so maybe they stopped doing them. Some of the EW fates have had better mechanics than previous expansions by using some features like the ones used in Skirmishes, but nothing that exciting. I think that S ranks are more difficult, personally, and they have filled this space for me.

More would be good, but SE doesn't seem to want a major amount of open world content. They made the bare minimum to make it exist (hunts, treasure and sightseeing log) and add more once an expansion and that's it. Fates, gathering, leves and beast tribes contribute to it, but they are driving you into instances for most things.

It would be cool if there were treasure chests in the world, and jumping puzzles (GW style but less intricate since jumping in that game is way more precise)

Technically there are these so I assume you mean they should be different than they are. Most of the jump puzzles have to be in city states because we can just fly to them everywhere else. The treasure chests only appear after using an ability.

[Ayuhra]

Right, but if it has replay value it might cause content to progressively add up chores for you to do with each patch. Meanwhile, although some people burn through to the rewards in hours or days, some other people take a lot of time to do it because they have less time to play, so if they increase the time it takes, it becomes a lot more of a grind for more casual players.

They could make almost all content somehow level up alt jobs or give aetheryte tickets. After all, this makes people praise POTD, HoH and Bozja. Would that really be enough though?

We usually have two that they put effort into the mechanics for in each expansion. Every area usually has one and some of them drop cards, but they hardly have any mechanics and I have not particularly identified any in EW so maybe they stopped doing them. Some of the EW fates have had better mechanics than previous expansions by using some features like the ones used in Skirmishes, but nothing that exciting. I think that S ranks are more difficult, personally, and they have filled this space for me.

More would be good, but SE doesn't seem to want a major amount of open world content. They made the bare minimum to make it exist (hunts, treasure and sightseeing log) and add more once an expansion and that's it. Fates, gathering, leves and beast tribes contribute to it, but they are driving you into instances for most things.

Technically there are these so I assume you mean they should be different than they are. Most of the jump puzzles have to be in city states because we can just fly to them everywhere else. The treasure chests only appear after using an ability.

Chests being tied to logs is something I don't like. Having some tied to logs when you want that to be your focus? That's fine.

I wish there were chests you could just find.

I guess what I am getting at is FFXIV lacks the MMORPG moment of "What is that over there? I am going to get myself over there and find out." You need to be doing something specific to find things like the map system or be in your gatherer class. That content is there but you cannot accidentally trip into it.

(Jumping puzzles is something GW2 has but I'll grant I'd forgotten for a second that we have full on flying mounts in FFXIV and to get something like "flight" going in GW2 you need to master a gryphon or skyscale. GW2 prevents you from mounting up or using your glider when at a jumping puzzle)