what makes an MMO fell dead

[Atelier-Bagur]

Very little incentive to interact within the open world.

This is why content such as Bozja and to a degree Eureka, has been amazing. But equally, why it has felt like a slap in the face because they have shown that they're perfectly capable of doing something actually interesting with zones if they so tried.

What would you be progressing towards though? I keep saying, they should just add the bicolor gemstones to ARR, HW, and SB areas and at least keep the effort to keep updating its rewards or crap.

Otherwise the only reason Bozja and Eureka get people is because there's a progression system involved. Otherwise the endgame of that content because extremely lackluster pretty quickly. Yeah there's completing the field notes for a mount but that only gets you so far.

[magitekLuna]

What would you be progressing towards though? I keep saying, they should just add the bicolor gemstones to ARR, HW, and SB areas and at least keep the effort to keep updating its rewards or crap.

Otherwise the only reason Bozja and Eureka get people is because there's a progression system involved. Otherwise the endgame of that content because extremely lackluster pretty quickly. Yeah there's completing the field notes for a mount but that only gets you so far.

a mount you cant use to afk in limsa

[hagare]

a mount you cant use to afk in limsa

what mount can you use to afk in Limsa?

[Kaurhz]

What would you be progressing towards though? I keep saying, they should just add the bicolor gemstones to ARR, HW, and SB areas and at least keep the effort to keep updating its rewards or crap.

Otherwise the only reason Bozja and Eureka get people is because there's a progression system involved. Otherwise the endgame of that content because extremely lackluster pretty quickly. Yeah there's completing the field notes for a mount but that only gets you so far.

Well, there are definitely substantial things that they could do - If they actually had, for example, critical engagements then they could tie this in with something such as Wondrous Tales to then encourage people to go out and interact beyond just relegating it all purely to instanced dungeons or trials.

It's half a matter of having the systems in place beyond just FATEs and expanding the already existing systems, but equally having the incentive factor built in those systems. FATEs are nice but beyond a point, they do get stale, and this also pretty much expands to shared FATEs. Sure, extending them to the older expansions and the base game would be a great start.

But shared FATEs are one of those where the interaction dies pretty quickly. People were doing it in troves then once they were capped it stopped, this was something that appealed to... Not everyone. Perhaps, they could aid in this by being more aggressive with the rewards, or really... Stop being afraid of only having a few select systems for particular avenues... e.g., gearing, or even obtaining rarer items from maps.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Well, there are definitely substantial things that they could do - If they actually had, for example, critical engagements then they could tie this in with something such as Wondrous Tales to then encourage people to go out and interact beyond just relegating it all purely to instanced dungeons or trials.

It's half a matter of having the systems in place beyond just FATEs and expanding the already existing systems, but equally having the incentive factor built in those systems. FATEs are nice but beyond a point, they do get stale, and this also pretty much expands to shared FATEs. Sure, extending them to the older expansions and the base game would be a great start.

But shared FATEs are one of those where the interaction dies pretty quickly. People were doing it in troves then once they were capped it stopped, this was something that appealed to... Not everyone. Perhaps, they could aid in this by being more aggressive with the rewards, or really... Stop being afraid of only having a few select systems for particular avenues... e.g., gearing, or even obtaining rarer items from maps.

Yeah I agree with this, although with some of these avenues like gearing they'll have to balance it somehow in order for it to not be easier than getting gear from savage raiding.

[Listrella]

simple, when there's hardly anyone around in the main hubs, that's when a MMO is dead, FF14 is a logn way from that despite it's problems.

[Renathras]

Yeah I agree with this, although with some of these avenues like gearing they'll have to balance it somehow in order for it to not be easier than getting gear from savage raiding.

I think part of the problem is being terrified of people being able to quickly get ENTRY LEVEL gear, which is just weird. Like the base tome gear - before you upgrade it - is 10 ilevels lower than the upgraded versions, which are equal (I think?) to the Savage versions. So why are we limited to 450 tomes per week which equates to roughly 1 piece of gear a week? What if you could buy a piece for 500 or 1000 Bicolor Gemstones? Considering how many FATEs that would be, this would hardly be game breaking.

"Because raiders will feel pressure to-"

I DO NOT CARE.

Raiders feel pressure to do every bloody thing a game allows for, and it's on them whether they choose to engage in that or not. MANY raid groups AREN'T that hardcore and don't require that, so join one of those. Let other people have their chill grinds that take a lot longer to do but allow them to progress. Or hell, make it a different gear set that is 5 ilevels lower for GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT REASON so the raiders can still feel like special snowflakes, I guess? Just something for gearing to not suck as bad as it does and let people have TANGIBLE progression they can make on their characters outside of raid instances. MMOs need to stop bowing to the whims of, at most, around 40% of the playerbase - if that - making decisions that are bad for the game to appease people that will literally never be happy anyway.

"But only raiders NEED that gear!"

And literally no one ever has been convinced of anything ever by that argument. People want to progress their character. Mount and minion and such farming is one way, gearing is the other. And it's not like it would be gamebreaking to have more ways than "highly capped tomes per week" to achieve ENTRY level gear. Hell, people can buy the crafted versions if they have the money and it's the same ilevel, so it's not like raiders are pressured by that - they often are the biggest buyers!

.

I don't think FFXIV feels dead, since I tend to see people a lot. It's more that the open world is kind of empty, which is true in almost every MMO these days since so much content is instanced. I'm with the people saying that FATEs should give more rewards and they should be CURRENT rewards (you can already somewhat do this with Hunt currency, so why not Bicolor gems? More spamable but slower rate of collection). And also Exploration Zone content (Eureka/Bozja) is some of the best and most fun stuff in the game because of how people will talk, work together, form pick up groups on the fly, and so on. If they could port that concept into the general open world, it'd be amazing.

.

EDIT:

Personally, I think SE made a game that players want and we hate ourselves for liking it.

Some people noted that people stand around Limsa and just pop in/out of duties. Should we go back to having to travel to the duty entrance instead? No more flying mounts. Limited teleports; maybe just 1 for all expansions and then you have to take a ship or some other timesink to get where you want to go?

"no more flying mounts"?

Why is this relevant? I've seen this complaint across MMOs (though mainly WoW), but it's never made sense to me. Flying is fun, gives additional perspectives, screenshot opportunities, and still requires travel time (especially if we go the Burning Crusade route where your first flying mount is slower, +60% speed, vs your ground mount +100%, meaning it's better if you're trying to avoid fights or traveling over obstructions but the ground mount is better for straight line distances with fewer or lower level enemies). It's such a weird fixation that almost exclusively originated from PvPers wanting to gank people in the open world and upset that they weren't allowed to who tried to piggyback on "the open world is dead" issue by attacking one of their pet peeves, people being able to avoid being their gank targets.

We have to travel to Deep Dungeons and it's not terribly convenient while still evoking a travel time and destination. And flying didn't have to be removed for that at all. Eureka/Bozja also require traveling to their entry points.

I do agree that LFD killed a lot of the open world of MMOs, but what it really did was expose open worlds that weren't developed for general content and that players were having to fill with their own. Eureka isn't dead because there's actually things to do in it that lead to tangible progression. Western Thanalan is dead because there's nothing to do there that leads to tangible progression. There's no reputation grind, no currency grind, no high level gathering nodes, no Bicolor gems from the Fates, even the Hunt Marks there don't give current currency other than some token amount of Astronomy. There's nothing to gain by doing the content...so no one does the content.

You log in and spend 20 minutes in a dungeon, because you are making SOME tangible progress for your character by doing so.

You don't log in, teleport to Western Thanalan, and grind mobs or FATEs there because there's no tangible benefit to you for doing so.

Flying or teleports or the rest aren't the impediment. It's that there's VERY little to do outside of instanced content in FFXIV that actually progresses your character. The only thing I can think of offhand is Hunt Trains, or if you're after VERY specific things, farming some mobs (leather/food mats like meat or eggs - which you can buy with Bicolor gems anyway), trying to get an old Relic (ARR) for glam (which isn't exactly "progress" but still something people do sometimes), or trying to get Bicolor gems to buy mats or those hyper rare mount tokens, which is such a grind most people don't bother. Some few people use them to level some Jobs, but it's one of the most inefficient methods possible - Bozja is more efficient for 81-90, and probably now Orthos as well - but it is a pretty chill way (it's how I leveled some of my DPS Jobs).

Don't get me wrong, the Bicolor gem addition was brilliant and they REALLY need to flex that a bit more, imo. It should be like Hunt currency where you can get gear and mats and stuff with it, and since there's a lot to get with Bicolor gems, people will have a reason to farm them. But it's just a starting point, and one that already needs to be expanded into gearing where it currently is not.

When there are actual rewards that people see as tangible and important to them, THEN people will do open world stuff. It also helps when the open world systems allow for it, like Eureka/Bozja allowing party formation.

When there aren't, people don't.

It's as simple as that.

Convenience and flying are irrelevant.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I think part of the problem is being terrified of people being able to quickly get ENTRY LEVEL gear, which is just weird. Like the base tome gear - before you upgrade it - is 10 ilevels lower than the upgraded versions, which are equal (I think?) to the Savage versions. So why are we limited to 450 tomes per week which equates to roughly 1 piece of gear a week? What if you could buy a piece for 500 or 1000 Bicolor Gemstones? Considering how many FATEs that would be, this would hardly be game breaking.

To be honest, the weird part about that point with entry level gear is that we already have it.....with the current craftable gears that you can also further augment them, yet the raiders still act as if gearing other jobs for being able to do savage content is hard? Buddy, what you're actually complaining about here is not being able to obtain multiple BiS pieces for your roles and somehow acting as if its a requirement for raiding!?

Ok I get it, you DO need BiS for Ultimates and Criterion (I think?) and Im not trying to argue that they shouldnt ease up the loot lockout and acquirement for multiple pieces. But at the same time, I cant get behind of the common argument used for it is that its a required grind? Even though the relevancy for BiS is quite short compared to most games. Its all about being the top best in the current time that it somehow matters and to me thats just a sad mentality to have here imo. Especially since like I said, BiS's relevancy is often fleeting due to this game's consistent patch cycles so in perspective its almost pointless.

[Rilifane]

snip

I don't think you get it.
Did you ever actively tried to raid on alt classes in PF?
Because the way you talk about it sounds like you didn't and you're completely missing the point and the true issue here by trying to make it into a "you all just want to feel super strong, what a sad mentality". The issue isn't that we don't have any entry level gear - the issue is that 610 won't be enough to even join parties for long.

You will be able to join even parties for the last floor in 610/ "entry gear" for a few weeks tops.
But reaching the last floor within a few weeks in PF is already quite the feat in PF and unlikely to be done on your alts. But past these first few weeks the ilvl to join will increase fairly quickly. You'll see 610 for the 1st floor but 615-620 is common for the 2nd and 3rd and you'll rarely see anything below 620 for the last floor, even if it's just getting past the door boss. People filter by ilvl after a few weeks.
"But gear doesn't mean someone is skilled!" - no, but people prefer to have an idiot in good gear over having an idiot in bad gear. It's not rocket science. And 610 is really pushing it for 3rd/ 4th floor, you need to be more than "okay" to pull that off, especially when your entire group is around that ilvl.

Until the catch up patch that introduces alli raid and upgraded crafted gear, you are extremely limited when it comes to gearing alts and can't nearly gear them fast enough to keep up with the ilvl filter in PF.
You can make your own group and set ilvl lower or set it to a point you don't reach yourself. The first unfortunately attracts a lot of people that make clearing extremely difficult to downright impossible and the latter is a dick move.
Source? Experience with PF for 4 tiers (ShB 1-3 and EW 1).
In an ideal fairy world, everyone would happily welcome people with 610 into parties for the last boss and everyone would play well enough to pull it off. But we don't live in that fairy world, people set ilvl requirements (most of them are perfectly reasonable too, not talking about 625 for Carby here) and people can't be trusted to play well enough to get a p8s clear in 610. I wouldn't even trust myself to play well enough to get a p8s clear in 610 and I consider myself a fairly good player.

Then there's the issue with needing the gear for Ultimate and more than once they made class changes that either significantly affected balance with Ultimate release or there were details people couldn't know before and both can lead to having to switch classes. Like the buff limit in TOP making DNC and SGE a really bad choice purely because they spam a lot of fluff buffs on the entire group. If someone has to, for whatever reason, switch class shortly before Ultimate releases, they're screwed because they'll be miles behind the rest of the group and have no way of catching up quickly. Full upgraded crafted isn't enough here; I had people in Ultimates that were behind in ilvl and it's a pain to keep them alive through some mechanics or even impossible depending on the patterns.
There are times when someone is on their own for a bit and you need a bit of HP to make it through that mechanic. Vit pots are on a 4,5min cooldown and can't solve it all.

But even ignornig all the logical arguments for easing the restrictions and making the gearing progression more alt-friendly - what is so bad or "sad" about enjoying having good gear? Does it affect your enjoyment of the game? Should nobody enjoy temporary things (like good gear)? Is it a morale thing here that enjoying having good gear = bad? Should you not have something just because it isn't written in the TOS that you need it?
I'm not a shiny hunter, I care so little about gear that I volunteered to get my shinies last in our static. But if others enjoy it, why not?

[Atelier-Bagur]

I don't think you get it.
Did you ever actively tried to raid on alt classes in PF?
Because the way you talk about it sounds like you didn't and you're completely missing the point and the true issue here by trying to make it into a "you all just want to feel super strong, what a sad mentality". The issue isn't that we don't have any entry level gear - the issue is that 610 won't be enough to even join parties for long.

You will be able to join even parties for the last floor in 610/ "entry gear" for a few weeks tops.
But reaching the last floor within a few weeks in PF is already quite the feat in PF and unlikely to be done on your alts. But past these first few weeks the ilvl to join will increase fairly quickly. You'll see 610 for the 1st floor but 615-620 is common for the 2nd and 3rd and you'll rarely see anything below 620 for the last floor, even if it's just getting past the door boss. People filter by ilvl after a few weeks.
"But gear doesn't mean someone is skilled!" - no, but people prefer to have an idiot in good gear over having an idiot in bad gear. It's not rocket science. And 610 is really pushing it for 3rd/ 4th floor, you need to be more than "okay" to pull that off, especially when your entire group is around that ilvl.

And right by the first couple of sentences you've just proved my point. The issue here are parties. PARTIES. Aka groups of people whom restrict the player base to their high standards. This is the same kind of hardcore raiding mentality that people give a lot of flak towards the WoW community and it seems the same is done in FFXIV.

Now I realize we cant fault PFs that make groups like this because anyone can do whatever the hell they want; if they want to farm they want to farm, but its also a social problem that its mostly relegated towards the community if the mentality is centered around getting fast clears. And personally it seems like the playerbase wants the dev team to babysit them to solve this problem for them rather than the community deal with their own problems and thats what I mean its sad.

Its sad that the mentality funny enough are the playerbase gatekeeping themselves rather than the game itself, and honestly this is an issue thats difficult to tackle because like I said there's reason for both sides here.