Solutions for Content Drought during between Patches & other solutions for Gameplay

[caffe_macchiato]

There is no content drought. There are only players who consume content far faster than intended because they spending more hours a week playing the game than most people spend working their full time jobs. Then to compound their problem, they rush through the content to get the rewards as fast as possible.

Hold on a minute. There's no drought, and yet you tell us to play other games?

I don't want or need FFXIV to be my entire gaming life. That truly would be boring. I have trouble understanding those that demand it become their entire gaming life.

See, here's the thing about those "other games": they don't charge $13 a month. A game that charges a monthly fee should consist of a service that lasts an entire month. And no, I don't mean "more hours than people work". I mean the usual gaming hours, like maybe one or two hours a day. The problem is, FFXIV doesn't even have that. It has content you've already completed, and can complete again and again for the exact same drops with the exact same quality at the exact same rate. Everything is the same.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like old-school games like Super Mario Bros. on the NES where the gameplay was pretty similar. But we've come a long way. And even back then, they didn't charge us $13/mo to beat the same game over and over again.

We are being ripped off. Even World of Warcraft isn't like this. Even those other battle pass games aren't like this. We're the only game with this level of cope and denial. Where people make incoherent platitudes like "endless content" while saying we're supposed to "play other games" due to lack of content.

[Jeeqbit]

See, here's the thing about those "other games": they don't charge $13 a month.

DLC often costs money. So if you only sub for a patch then it's like DLC.

A game that charges a monthly fee should consist of a service that lasts an entire month.

It does. I pay for a monthly fee for Netflix to watch maybe 1 thing. Same with every other subscription service and I think most people use it as little as I do even though they pay monthly.

[IkaraGreydancer]

Hold on a minute. There's no drought, and yet you tell us to play other games?



See, here's the thing about those "other games": they don't charge $13 a month. A game that charges a monthly fee should consist of a service that lasts an entire month. And no, I don't mean "more hours than people work". I mean the usual gaming hours, like maybe one or two hours a day. The problem is, FFXIV doesn't even have that. It has content you've already completed, and can complete again and again for the exact same drops with the exact same quality at the exact same rate. Everything is the same.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like old-school games like Super Mario Bros. on the NES where the gameplay was pretty similar. But we've come a long way. And even back then, they didn't charge us $13/mo to beat the same game over and over again.

We are being ripped off. Even World of Warcraft isn't like this. Even those other battle pass games aren't like this. We're the only game with this level of cope and denial. Where people make incoherent platitudes like "endless content" while saying we're supposed to "play other games" due to lack of content.

Ok say we're being ripped off. I'm gonna call you foolish because you're subbed while thinking this I'd imagine.
I can log in for 5 hours a day each day of the week and choose to do something different each day n fill that time. This is an MMO not a linear single player mario game. That comparison is frankly goofy on to many levels. Point me out and MMO where you aren't doing the same things at some point and I'll call you a liar even still. It's part of the MMO experience. Funny you bring up WoW...when WoW is just like this as well. Except they have even longer "dead periods" and just leave long repetitive grinds there for you.

Is it really cope when people are giving their experience to say that things aren't as you yourself see it? Are these people just in denial? Or do they just simply have a different view and xiv isn't for you? XIV is a supplental game and the way its ran reflects that. You CAN play XIV full time like many currectly do. You can also have XIV in a rotation of games if you want like I do. Don't come here talking about incoherent platitudes when you're here bringing up Mario when we're talking about MMOs and acting like WoW just doesn't have the same situation going on. I could boot a WoW streamer rn and watch them grind the same crap for hours...come on now

[Jojoya]

Hold on a minute. There's no drought, and yet you tell us to play other games?

There is no drought. Not SE's fault if you decide you don't want to do any of the available content.

When you don't want to do what is available, what's the sensible alternative?

Find another game to play.

See, here's the thing about those "other games": they don't charge $13 a month. A game that charges a monthly fee should consist of a service that lasts an entire month. And no, I don't mean "more hours than people work". I mean the usual gaming hours, like maybe one or two hours a day. The problem is, FFXIV doesn't even have that. It has content you've already completed, and can complete again and again for the exact same drops with the exact same quality at the exact same rate. Everything is the same.

Ever stop to add up how much you end up spending on those other games in a month, even though it's on microtransactions instead of an inclusive subscription?

Your $13 a month absolutely does provide you with what you're paying for - access to the game servers to play the content available on those servers at any time outside of maintenance during that month. No where does it state you will be getting new content every month.

What other games are giving you completely new content every single month that will take a full month to complete?

If you only want new content for your money, then don't subscribe except during months that new content is being released. Or better yet, wait until the x.55 patch to subscribe when all the content for an expansion will have been released. Play through to completion then unsubscribe until the next x.55 patch.

We are being ripped off. Even World of Warcraft isn't like this. Even those other battle pass games aren't like this. We're the only game with this level of cope and denial. Where people make incoherent platitudes like "endless content" while saying we're supposed to "play other games" due to lack of content.

We're not getting ripped off.

I'm a lot happier paying $13/mo for this game than I would be paying $13 at my local movie theater to purchase a single ticket to a single movie that lasts 100 minutes and can only be watched a single time for that $13.

If you don't think you're getting your money's worth, then take your money to another game where you do. It's pretty dumb to keep spending your money month after month on something you think is a ripoff.

[TomsYoungerBro]

There is no drought. Not SE's fault if you decide you don't want to do any of the available content.

When you don't want to do what is available, what's the sensible alternative?

Find another game to play.

Then why does the game arbitrarily limit content to pad its lifecycle to keep people subbed? Surely if the monthly fee is such a steal, then the content should be able to speak for itself. And if Yoshi P is fine with us taking a break when we are done with we want to do, shouldn't he just be fine with people finishing the content at their pace and unsubbing?

When 6.2 released with the savage tier for instance, I would've loved to unsub for a couple months once I was done with the content...However, I still needed to stay subbed because I needed to gear my main job and at least an alt job in the same role (just grabbing another weapon basically) in preparation for the ultimate that comes out in 6.3 which requires the best in slot gear. For me personally, this patch is great because the ultimate came out (though there were plenty of bugs this patch...), but last patch the game arbitrarily limited myself and other raiders to do a raid weekly in preparation to do the actual content we want to do later. those lockouts are still in place in this patch...

The concept of "do what you want and then unsub til later" doesn't work with this game. Housing demolition, Unreal trial rewards, Alliance raid, Savage tier, tome cap, etc. all are in place to keep you subbed despite the content. With all the flak Island Sanctuary got last patch, imagine if it also didn't give you any XP from gathering materials on your island. You could not control any of the pace at which you ranked up, and it was just a time-locked "here is your XP, come back later for more" content. It would've been even worse . Yet they allowed a very slow "grind" method that let people speed up the process if they wanted to put the time in, but was not required. Those that rarely gathered when ranking up got their XP at their pace, and those that had some more time on different days (or a lot of time) got to rank up at their pace. That is not how any of the weekly/daily/etc. content I mentioned above work.

[Jojoya]

The concept of "do what you want and then unsub til later" doesn't work with this game. Housing demolition, Unreal trial rewards, Alliance raid, Savage tier, tome cap, etc. all are in place to keep you subbed despite the content.

So which is it? Is there too much to do or not enough to do?

"Do what you want then unsub until later" works far better in this game than it does in other MMOs. Content here doesn't become obsolete the moment a new patch is released. There are always players who haven't done it yet or want to do it again if you go looking for them. You're at no risk of losing anything other than a house by taking a break from the game, and players can always get an apartment instead of a house if that is a concern for them.

It comes down to "are you having fun or not?" If you're not having fun, why are you here? Why are you not playing another game that is fun to you instead?

The root of the problem is "content." When you don't create a finished product, you just trivialize the product itself, and it becomes a treadmill.

We know what the content release cycle is. It's very predictable.

If you feel like content being released isn't finished, then wait until you feel it is finished before resubbing.

Others appreciate the staggered release because they don't have 40 hours a week available to play. The staggered schedule allows them to mostly keep up with the few hours a week they do have available.

[Absurdity]

Even those that have been playing for over a year are overwhelmed by the amount of content they haven't even touched yet.

Is this supposed to be a serious argument? Of course people who have only been playing for a year have an overwhelming amount of things to do, this game is in it's 4th expansion.
If 7 years of additional releases could be done within a single year I would be asking myself what people were paying money for the entire time.

So which is it? Is there too much to do or not enough to do?

"Do what you want then unsub until later" works far better in this game than it does in other MMOs. Content here doesn't become obsolete the moment a new patch is released. There are always players who haven't done it yet or want to do it again if you go looking for them. You're at no risk of losing anything other than a house by taking a break from the game, and players can always get an apartment instead of a house if that is a concern for them.

It comes down to "are you having fun or not?" If you're not having fun, why are you here? Why are you not playing another game that is fun to you instead?

The answer is within that same post.
Depending on what content you enjoy there is not enough to do but "Do what you want then unsub until later" doesn't work either because said content is timegated.

Want to do Ultimate? You can't just unsub until that releases, you better farm savage every week to even be able to enter. If that's all you care about you spend maybe 3-5 hours in the game every week but you still have to subscribe for several months.

Want to get the Unreal mounts? Same thing, you can't just grind it out an then unsub, you have to stay subbed for several months despite only logging in for 1-2 hours to get your weekly Unreal clear done.

[Reinha]

See, here's the thing about those "other games": they don't charge $13 a month. A game that charges a monthly fee should consist of a service that lasts an entire month. And no, I don't mean "more hours than people work". I mean the usual gaming hours, like maybe one or two hours a day. The problem is, FFXIV doesn't even have that. It has content you've already completed, and can complete again and again for the exact same drops with the exact same quality at the exact same rate. Everything is the same.

People who complain about lack of content are always those who haven't done much of the content that exists. You have 43 mounts and as someone with 4 times that amount I know there is a lot of content you've not done or you've barely tried. Now of course you don't have to be a mount collector and get the grindy ones if you don't like it, but some of the ones you are missing are almost handouts for showing up. Custom deliveries, island sanctuary, ocean fishing, tribal quests, unreal trials, A/S ranks, big boss fates and so on.

It's like someone who puts an aetheryte, a garden plot and a stable on their yard, never uses any of the 3 and just teleports to limsa for the retainer bell. VS someone who creates a stunning designer house interior that took dozens of hours and millions of gil. Those two players are never going to agree on how engaging the housing system is.