This game is on a terrible state right now.

[Ath192]

Now, if you want to argue whether x should come at the expense of y then that's an entirely different discussion, which I frankly don't agree with, however, it just isn't that simple either. So with all due respect, when the implication is that x comes at the expense of y then you will always have a disagreement with people that are happy, especially if that means they like the premise of a particular piece of content and would like to see it's conclusion.

If we were to stick with the premise that people should only speak unless they're unhappy, and should go play the game if they are happy, then we will frankly only end up playing yoyo until we put another group of players in your shoes.

Personally I don't like X coming at the expense of Y, but this has already happened. Exploration was sacrificed at the expense of a poorly implemented IS/VC, and I wouldn't be complaining if those were meaningful, long lasting engaging experiences. I am advocating for longevity in gameplay in general. People who enjoy working towards 1 relic were sacrificed in exchange for making it convenient to those that like to get them all. People who farm all relics are not the majority of players either, so the majority of us are left with an incredibly unfulfilling experience.

In an ideal world innovation shouldn't come at the expense of other systems. And it is true, other people have been put in my shoes, and they incessantly complained things were too hard, too inconvenient, too grindy, too MMOish and they were absolutely rewarded since they gutted the game. So these players have succeeded in putting us in the hole by complaining. It makes sense for us to make our voices heard as well now.

[Absimiliard]

My character doesn't even have ears, and all earrings just clip have into my head/hair in a basically invisible spot.

What I can't figure out is how we ended up with current Au Ra instead of something closer to their epic looking concept art.

[Ath192]

What I can't figure out is how we ended up with current Au Ra instead of their epic looking concept art.

It called cutting corners. I do like current Au'ra however. I would like to see more unique traits in races though.

[Alleluia]

I love the game as it is, for the most part.

Ain't no way I'm grinding for that earring, though. I'm so glad the gyr abanian hair was on offer, however. And I shall forever regret not getting the Ifrit jacket. Hoping they do another of those instead of those earrings. Maybe with Garuda or Shiva. Or at least make the earrings sparkly or something next time.

[Kaurhz]

Personally I don't like X coming at the expense of Y, but this has already happened. Exploration was sacrificed at the expense of a poorly implemented IS/VC. People who enjoy working towards 1 relic were sacrificed in exchange for making it convenient to those that like to get them all. People who farm all relics are not the majority of players either, so the majority of us are left with an incredibly unfulfilling experience.

In an ideal world innovation shouldn't come at the expense of other systems. And it is true, other people have been put in my shoes, and they incessantly complained things were too hard, too inconvenient, too grindy, too MMOish and they were absolutely rewarded since they gutted the game. So these players have succeeded in putting us in the whole by complaining. It makes sense for us to make our voices heard as well now.

Yes, it has, and this is just the simple reality of how budgeting is, unfortunately. You would also be partly correct in this assessment. Yet if I were to be honest, taking into account how much exploratory content I have done, and how many relics I have done inside of that particular facet, I personally wouldn't like to see the reoccurrence of this *yet again* - Unless it means that it is natively in the open-world. So in this regard, I am also happy for Island Sanctuary, if they're able to continually add and innovate to it, just as they did with exploratory content.

Now this is a good comment. However, content nor direction should necessarily be determined by minority vs majority factors. This has been a reason for some of the messes we've had (or ones that I have personally found to be the case), equally, I would say good feedback and counterpoint to this whilst also satisfying people like yourself is that they should have more one-time steps. e.g., as they had introduced the ShB relic. In fact, actually, if you were to discount these steps from the ShB relic, then you would find that a given relic step would take a couple of hours at best, if you were farming for said step, not unlike that for EW. < Discussions like this are also precisely why the logic should not be "People happy should just play and not comment" - Because those happy and content are also perfectly capable of having a productive discussion. - It just so happens the forum discussions are rarely facilitating this.

Everyone should have their voice heard regardless of whether they are happy or unhappy with a product, frankly. The only question is whether those voices match what would be what the developers have for the direction of the game, as their direction and philosophy are ultimately what determines this whole course. I would also say it's disingenuous at best to say that people wanted the game to be less MMO-ish. - I'll be frank with you, sitting in a queue for 25 minutes just to complete first-time MSQ duties is not an ideal situation, and duty support is an appropriate remedy to this. To spout this nonsense is the equivalent of people saying that those who want the game to be more difficult are pivoting for the game overall to be of savage experience. - That is to say, it is both laughable and disingenuous.

[Shougun]

What I can't figure out is how we ended up with current Au Ra instead of something closer to their epic looking concept art.

I LOVE their concept art. /LOVE/.

Au Ra as is.. is okay. Don't hate it but like.. the concept art... It was very cool looking.

Adding a third set to the clans that were 'wild', always felt more achievable opportunity for more options than say new races entirely (as animations and other things normally need to come too). For example say the Au Ra who were isolated in the mountains that just happened to have a void portal at it's core, and hence ended up near voidkin looking. Miqote that are kind of furry, etc. Lalafell could have the little moogle race or potentially Yuke (mammet). Add dynamic body meshes, akin to many korean MMOs, and we'd have a party lol (dynamic to achieve skinny Roe or say a bulky upright Hroth- rather than painted on muscles there would be actual depth, etc).

[Ath192]

I would also say it's disingenuous at best to say that people wanted the game to be less MMO-ish. - I'll be frank with you, sitting in a queue for 25 minutes just to complete first-time MSQ duties is not an ideal situation, and duty support is an appropriate remedy to this. To spout this nonsense is the equivalent of people saying that those who want the game to be more difficult are pivoting for the game overall to be of savage experience. - That is to say, it is both laughable and disingenuous.

Not disingenuous at all. MMOs are meant for player cooperation. Putting Bots in to replace people is taking the multiplayer out of the equation. Even if you feel differently about it. Part of this challenge, to get other players to cooperate with you to achieve the desired goals is a staple of MMO culture.

There is a reason you can't do savage and bigger raids with bots, so when they add bots to 4 man dungeons, it is a dilution of this formula. No matter how convenient you may find it. This sort of thing is also what partly gave purpose to guilds and free companies, wherein belonging to one added the benefits of a pool of players that could help you and you could become friends.

[Shougun]

Not disingenuous at all. MMOs are meant for player cooperation. Putting Bots in to replace people is taking the multiplayer out of the equation. Even if you feel differently about it. Part of this challenge, to get other players to cooperate with you to achieve the desired goals is a staple of MMO culture.

There is a reason you can't do savage and bigger raids with bots, so when they add bots to 4 man dungeons, it is a dilution of this formula. No matter how convenient you may find it. This sort of thing is also what partly gave purpose to guilds and free companies, wherein belonging to one added the benefits of a pool of players that could help you and you could become friends.

I think that's true for older MMOs and their design but a very clear group of people developed around the time of WoW that were multiplayer-lite but just liked existing in a living game space. At this point I wouldn't say it's a majority or minority, unsure, but I can say its tangible enough that you consistently see across multiple major MMOs an attention to that group. Also why some people are mentioning Second Life since there is likely strong overlap into that sphere. Which can create conflicts.. "I want this epic player combat, it's going to be hard, we're going to have to practice for weeks, and temporarily it'll be stressful but when we win we will jump out of our chairs!!" another player: "I want an engaging story and to feel and look cool without being stressed, and I find that stressful". I don't really think either are wrong, though they can conflict. For sRPGs I think having difficulty options that you can tailor to your style is fantastic. Even with Elden Ring where it's a "hard game" technically secretly added A LOT of ways to make it easier, hard enemy-- find out they are weak to holy.. now it's an enemy you face roll. For multiplayer it's a lot harder, but generally I feel a rolling mountain helps.

Also why I suggested I think itemization might technically be backwards to how perhaps difficulty should be- currently your skilled players get gear that makes content less engaging and are usually stuck on that treadmill until X months, meanwhile content is either designed for the players with worse gear who don't have that or the players find it too challenging and it'll have to be nerfed. In many ways it still sounds backwards as I type it, but I wonder if it would not be better to make the harder gear have less defense but more offense.. and even add potentially other systems where the game recognizes players abilities (like higher chance to drop mechanics on more achieved players, not 100% mind you). Would mean horizontal-lite like progression but your level 80 casual armor might have more defense and okay offense while the level 80 savage gear would actually have worse defense but more offense.

Certainly it's a spectrum rather than specific labels on each type of person but I feel people who have the old school view feel like the title is failing it's purpose when in reality there is just a surprisingly large amount of people who want to be able to enjoy multiplayer content but also enjoy multiplayer-noise (which means it may or may not be multiplayer but that players do exist in the world space, like doing a dungeon with a group of people and all you see is "o/" "gg").

People who are more on the noise end of things may want to simply have a good "o/" or even less (just walking by someone afk'ing in Limsa) before they reset the next day, and not the fuss that goes along with learning a savage / ultimate. Then when they want to be with people they can simply take one of those FC shouts, or talk to someone after a hunt / fate.

Not that I'm opposed to the idea of multiplayer content or concepts lol, it is a major feature of the game and remis not to take advantage of where it makes sense. . Just that I think there are a lot of people who just want / need the noise and are satisficed at that. Personally I usually incorporate them as a stage at some point in ideas and try not to skip that step.. (given I love the rolling mountain at some point the multiplayer element will likely be 'optional', but not entirely always true- like when I suggest the FC hamlets and FC hamlet defense / stronghold assaults and FC vs FC type content).

[Kaurhz]

Not disingenuous at all. MMOs are meant for player cooperation. Putting Bots in to replace people is taking the multiplayer out of the equation. Even if you feel differently about it. Part of this challenge, to get other players to cooperate with you to achieve the desired goals is a staple of MMO culture.

There is a reason you can't do savage and bigger raids with bots, so when they add bots to 4 man dungeons, it is a dilution of this formula. No matter how convenient you may find it. This sort of thing is also what gave purpose to guilds and free companies, wherein belonging to one added the benefits of a pool of players that could help you and you could become friends.

Part of that 'challenge' is being sat on duty finder, or on Party Finder for 25 minutes waiting for players in order to progress in a mandatory facet of the game, and thinking that this is an abysmal design is an equivalent of players directly asking for a less MMO experience? No...

Let me put this in another way... If players requested more difficult content, and the developers' solution was to provide a disproportionately balanced raid like Gordias or Midas... Does this therefore mean that players asked for a tragically balanced raid, just because that was the result the devs elected to go with?

Players complained and didn't like the fact of how tragically inconvenient it was for a mandatory facet of the game. The developers came up with this solution themselves, and the reality of this is that this feature was already embedded in the game in 4.1 with squadron support. The only difference is that it isn't locked behind GC, and is eventually expanded to mandatory facets of the game.

Yes, the reason you cannot do it with savage and larger-scale raids is that they're an optional facet of the game (bar crystal tower) and not mandatory for the game's progression. They haven't even added them to the optional dungeons for that matter. e.g., Wanderer's Palace, Sunken Temple, and Aurum Vale.

[Ath192]

Part of that 'challenge' is being sat on duty finder, or on Party Finder for 25 minutes waiting for players in order to progress in a mandatory facet of the game, and thinking that this is an abysmal design is an equivalent of players directly asking for a less MMO experience? No...

Let me put this in another way... If players requested more difficult content, and the developers' solution was to provide a disproportionately balanced raid like Gordias or Midas... Does this therefore mean that players asked for a tragically balanced raid, just because that was the result the devs elected to go with?

Players complained and didn't like the fact of how tragically inconvenient it was for a mandatory facet of the game. The developers came up with this solution themselves, and the reality of this is that this feature was already embedded in the game in 4.1 with squadron support. The only difference is that it isn't locked behind GC, and is eventually expanded to mandatory facets of the game.

Yes, the reason you cannot do it with savage and larger-scale raids is that they're an optional facet of the game (bar crystal tower) and not mandatory for the game's progression. They haven't even added them to the optional dungeons for that matter. e.g., Wanderer's Palace, Sunken Temple, and Aurum Vale.

It's not the devs fault you are having a hard time finding people to do things with you. But yeah, I would argue that MMOs are based around finding people to do things with, and in my honest opinion that should be mandatory. Now, if this were a single player title then yes that would be super unreasonable.

As such, instead of the devs inserting bots I would argue the onus is on you to socialize and network within the MMO to achieve your tasks. Your view on this issue is one of instant gratification or bust, and to me I view that as entitlement.