Length MSQ from all the expansions - it is getting insane

[R041]

¨

That's what I said? You can't as a new player jump into the latest expansion immediately, you have to go through previous expansions (BFA and Shadowlands now).

I never said anything about speed, my point again, was to explain FF isn't alone in gating new players from the latest expansion.

There's no strict order. You just need to be a minimum level before you get 'Current Expac'.

This is what I wish XIV would do. If they actually had the foresight to accomplish it instead of snowball itself into.. Whatever it is today. lol

[CStrife912]

There's no strict order. You just need to be a minimum level before you get 'Current Expac'.

This is what I wish XIV would do. If they actually had the foresight to accomplish it instead of snowball itself into.. Whatever it is today. lol

I mean I would be ok if they did like a 20 minute clip that plays at the beginning (is skippable for people who want to play etc) that goes through the what happened the expansion prior at least. You could combine that with the 'Unending codex' to bring players up to speed I feel.

[R041]

I mean I would be ok if they did like a 20 minute clip that plays at the beginning (is skippable for people who want to play etc) that goes through the what happened the expansion prior at least. You could combine that with the 'Unending codex' to bring players up to speed I feel.

Nothing will really work with the current setup they have, they had their opportunity in Stormblood but decided it was better to continue the snowball. They even had an example of bad practices by looking at WoW, and continued to just keep copying bad practices. Meanwhile WoW actually evolved past the linear 'Themepark' disadvantages. It's practically more of a Sandbox than most MMOs these days.

It's funny because in ARR-HW, they actually tried to be different, and slowly fell into the trap of conformity and homogenization.

This all tracks with some studies comparing NA vs JP development practices, where JP businesses prefer standardization and long term commitments over moving to match trends and experimenting. Is what it is I guess, just kinda thought Yoshi was gonna be better, but SE pushed them into the same trap.

Blizzard as a business is running with 'Live-Service' these days, and it shows. They're quick to fail and quick to react. The quicker you are to fail and react, the quicker you are to succeed and find what works.
SE is failing to really understand what 'Live-Service' means in today's world, so any failure they have they never react to - They just let it fester and hold everything hostage on a 2 year cycles. They might still succeed, and if it works for them then whatever.

[CStrife912]

Nothing will really work with the current setup they have, they had their opportunity in Stormblood but decided it was better to continue the snowball. They even had an example of bad practices by looking at WoW, and continued to just keep copying bad practices. Meanwhile WoW actually evolved past the linear 'Themepark' disadvantages. It's practically more of a Sandbox than most MMOs these days.

It's funny because in ARR-HW, they actually tried to be different, and slowly fell into the trap of conformity and homogenization.

This all tracks with some studies comparing NA vs JP development practices, where JP businesses prefer standardization and long term commitments over moving to match trends and experimenting. Is what it is I guess, just kinda thought Yoshi was gonna be better, but SE pushed them into the same trap.

Blizzard as a business is running with 'Live-Service' these days, and it shows. They're quick to fail and quick to react. The quicker you are to fail and react, the quicker you are to succeed and find what works.
SE is failing to really understand what 'Live-Service' means in today's world, so any failure they have they never react to - They just let it fester and hold everything hostage on a 2 year cycles. They might still succeed, and if it works for them then whatever.

I wonder if a lot of those live service adapting techniques wont apply to 14 due to their content pool of resources being allocated long in advance and not having the team size that blizzard has to be able to adapt to those reactionary approaches. I do agree they definitely are reactionary as devs but then a lot of that is they are lucky their playerbase took that much of a beating till it finally clicked that maybe their direction isnt correct. The thing is from HW-EW they have consistent growth...playerbase has increased expansion to expansion...its easy to say they fell into comfort and their loop....but the players haven't bitten back enough to change it and to be honest EW is the only time some cracks have formed and whether 7.0 reacts to that is unknown at this minute. If it doesn't change and say the playerbase keeps steady or growing then what does that tell them honestly? I know player numbers are lower in this lul but a lot come back for 6.4 onwards for the long term into 7.0 plus the hype of fanfests will entice people to come back etc so il be curious how the next year goes.

[R041]

I wonder if a lot of those live service adapting techniques wont apply to 14 due to their content pool of resources being allocated long in advance and not having the team size that blizzard has to be able to adapt to those reactionary approaches. I do agree they definitely are reactionary as devs but then a lot of that is they are lucky their playerbase took that much of a beating till it finally clicked that maybe their direction isnt correct. The thing is from HW-EW they have consistent growth...playerbase has increased expansion to expansion...its easy to say they fell into comfort and their loop....but the players haven't bitten back enough to change it and to be honest EW is the only time some cracks have formed and whether 7.0 reacts to that is unknown at this minute. If it doesn't change and say the playerbase keeps steady or growing then what does that tell them honestly? I know player numbers are lower in this lul but a lot come back for 6.4 onwards for the long term into 7.0 plus the hype of fanfests will entice people to come back etc so il be curious how the next year goes.

Yeah, I mean XIV could obviously do some things correctly. I think playbase will stay steady for a bit just because of natural online game progression, and not necessarily because XIV is getting better. People are concerned that their reaction time to anything is just way too slow, especially this year when we're getting a lot of 'Live-Service' M/MO games. So imagine all of these other games coming out that actually offer a living, breathing experience and somehow managing to keep it fresh every week, or month.

It kinda feels like XIV is only a few bad decisions away from losing players and losing momentum. They're almost too safe. Not very exciting. It's like putting your stocks in Microsoft. Slow and steady, but not actually fun. So when that dips you know it'll take a very long time to get back up to pace.

I'd rather have a game that pisses me off half the time but fixes them on a monthly basis, than a game that pisses me off and takes 2 years to MAYBE resolve itself. You know? lol

I also kinda find it sad that even while 6.0 was releasing, we were saying "Yeah, but 7.0 will fix all these problems just wait" .. Most people aren't going to wait? Things need to change now. It's like all the changes they're doing over the past few years are just trying to scrape the bottom of the Single Player barrel, like they already gave up on the Live-Service race.

It's also pretty strange how XIV is still making dungeons and zones the way they are - For a business that's all about saving money, they really clutch the design philosophy revolving around throwing it away. Like what's their goal? How does Yoshi advocate spending money on them? "Yeah, so.. We have these zones and we're spending X amount of money on them." .. "Oh, what do players do in them? Uuhh.. Marketing and zone music!"

[CStrife912]

Yeah, I mean XIV could obviously do some things correctly. I think playbase will stay steady for a bit just because of natural online game progression, and not necessarily because XIV is getting better. People are concerned that their reaction time to anything is just way too slow, especially this year when we're getting a lot of 'Live-Service' M/MO games. So imagine all of these other games coming out that actually offer a living, breathing experience and somehow managing to keep it fresh every week, or month.!"

I mean I agree with what you say about other live service games coming out that could adapt to change much quicker. I don't feel like I can form an opinion on direction or if they are doing something too safe till the release of 7.0 It is easy to say variation of content Endwalker has approached things differently whether that is successfully is a matter of opinion (For me its brought good content types but it needs to invest in the long term viability of them)

If 7.0 and the 7.X series sticks the same then I agree there will be a decline or loss of players due to that staleness. I think it is impossible for them to course correct anything right this minute especially with their resources dedicated to say the visual update or duty support. We have spoken about them letting players start at an expansion but I think duty support could be a stepping stone to allow that. If we let people start from current, those that choose not to may struggle with queue times down the line so duty support allowing players to naturally progress through the game from the beginning will be a good thing for instance.

Like I said above I call certain users negative nancies and I know you yourself can sometimes come across that way but I at least know yours comes from a place of passion and concern and offer good rebuttal and not belittling haha. I am going to keep an eye on the market for the MMOs this year because Blue Protocol looks like a nice filler patch lul MMO to play (If its not infested with p2w)

[R041]

I mean I agree with what you say about other live service games coming out that could adapt to change much quicker. I don't feel like I can form an opinion on direction or if they are doing something too safe till the release of 7.0 It is easy to say variation of content Endwalker has approached things differently whether that is successfully is a matter of opinion (For me its brought good content types but it needs to invest in the long term viability of them)

If 7.0 and the 7.X series sticks the same then I agree there will be a decline or loss of players due to that staleness. I think it is impossible for them to course correct anything right this minute especially with their resources dedicated to say the visual update or duty support. We have spoken about them letting players start at an expansion but I think duty support could be a stepping stone to allow that. If we let people start from current, those that choose not to may struggle with queue times down the line so duty support allowing players to naturally progress through the game from the beginning will be a good thing for instance.

The reason I've been frustrated lately - And I think this is the best analogy I can come up with.. Is that for as long as myself and others have been playing (Like yourself), it feels like Yoshi is kinda pulling us all out to sea in a slow rowboat, and after so many years, we look back and we see there are people on that shore that want to reach us and have fun. But they either have to swim for 300 hours or pay for a jetski. Anecdotally, most people I know can't reach the end of that 300 hour stretch unless someone hypes them up. It's not naturally backed up by it's own brilliance. You basically have to give up on your friends and expect that the only people you'll probably play with in the end, are those that managed to make it by themselves somehow.

We also can't really comprehend how long 300 hours of single-player gameplay is, in a game promoted as an MMO. Or at least it's difficult for me to comprehend because I didn't play that way. I was rowed out slowly over that decade as it was an MMO, playing the MMO bits.

It's cool that they're going back and fixing old content, but what does that actually say about their priorities as an MMO? It probably says, they don't care and they're comfortable with charging for a single-player experience. They don't try to change how the MSQ plays, it's all been the same. Nothing gets 'better'. The story, arguably at some beats does get more interesting. But the MSQ ultimately never actually gets better mechanically. So they seem somewhat happy with their decision to just keep this 300 hour stretch of solo gameplay. It's weird, and it's dug itself into some strange deep crevice of linear themepark. Except the main attraction is a rollercoaster that rides on a rail at the same speed for hours, and sometimes does a loop or turn once every 5.

[VelKallor]

They're quick to fail and quick to react