CBU3. Please respect your players.

[TheDecay]

So then you've already beat the game on hard mode in addition to normal mode?

Are you getting ready to complain about a lack of content in FFXVI as well?

Is this some weird gotcha attempt? Who in their right mind defends a game from locking its harder-than-story-mode difficulty behind completion of the entire game (which by the way is not hard at all if you played an action game ever)?

God of War allowed you to play on the highest difficulty from the get-go. NG+ in GoW actually only made GMGOW slightly easier because of gear carryover.

And yes, there is a lack of content in FF16, since it's 50 hours of movies and 10 hours of actual gameplay, half of which is to fetch 3 tomatoes for NPC #3501.

[Jojoya]

Is this some weird gotcha attempt? Who in their right mind defends a game from locking its harder-than-story-mode difficulty behind completion of the entire game (which by the way is not hard at all if you played an action game ever)?

God of War allowed you to play on the highest difficulty from the get-go. NG+ in GoW actually only made GMGOW slightly easier because of gear carryover.

And yes, there is a lack of content in FF16, since it's 50 hours of movies and 10 hours of actual gameplay, half of which is to fetch 3 tomatoes for NPC #3501.

Why is Savage going to be delayed by at least a week going forward even though in the past they preferred to open it patch day? It's because Savage raiders who are playing a story focused game that's part of a story focused franchise wanted to be able to enjoy the story before they moved into the more challenging version of the content instead of having to rush through it at the start then replay the story later on a different character.


CBU3 has learned that most players don't want to go hardcore challenge mode from day one. They want to enjoy the content at a casual pace first. Not to mention that having the chance to play through the easy mode first gives them a chance to learn and study base mechanics so they're better prepared going into hard mode.

Does it not seem reasonable that they might want to incorporate that information into the design of other games?

If you don't like that design, don't play CBU3 games. Go play God of War. Go play Elden Ring. Stop complaining that a game is easy when all you've experienced is part of the easy mode and haven't managed to unlock the hard mode yet.

[TheDecay]

Why is Savage going to be delayed by at least a week going forward even though in the past they preferred to open it patch day? It's because Savage raiders who are playing a story focused game that's part of a story focused franchise wanted to be able to enjoy the story before they moved into the more challenging version of the content instead of having to rush through it at the start then replay the story later on a different character.


CBU3 has learned that most players don't want to go hardcore challenge mode from day one. They want to enjoy the content at a casual pace first. Not to mention that having the chance to play through the easy mode first gives them a chance to learn and study base mechanics so they're better prepared going into hard mode.

Does it not seem reasonable that they might want to incorporate that information into the design of other games?

If you don't like that design, don't play CBU3 games. Go play God of War. Go play Elden Ring. Stop complaining that a game is easy when all you've experienced is part of the easy mode and haven't managed to unlock the hard mode yet.

Casual difficulty in GoW is harder than hard mode in FF16 while GoW got multiple GOTY accolades and 94 on Metacritic, with a user score of 9.1 while FF16 will get none and languish below 90 with a pathetically low user score of 7.9.

I'm sorry but it does seem like the vast majority of players want something more than the baby mode FF16 offers its players. It's a bit rich you tell players to not play CBU3 games when the developers were actively trying to attract new players - people who never played FF14, never played FF, who are action game fans. You know, the people who play DMC and GoW, which you obviously are not. The devs themselves are trying to cater not to you but to players like me: people who enjoy GoW, DMC, Dark Souls. And my feedback to them is simple: stop dumbing down your game and respect your players. Give them complexity and difficulty and they'll enjoy it.

In fact, with such a gritty and overall excellent and dark story, it's highly bizarre the combat feels like something out of Teletubbies. What kind of players do you think are attracted to the "grimdark", Game of Thrones aesthetics? Animal Crossing players who just want to relax??

[Deo14]

Why is Savage going to be delayed by at least a week going forward even though in the past they preferred to open it patch day? It's because Savage raiders who are playing a story focused game that's part of a story focused franchise wanted to be able to enjoy the story before they moved into the more challenging version of the content instead of having to rush through it at the start then replay the story later on a different character.


CBU3 has learned that most players don't want to go hardcore challenge mode from day one. They want to enjoy the content at a casual pace first. Not to mention that having the chance to play through the easy mode first gives them a chance to learn and study base mechanics so they're better prepared going into hard mode.

Does it not seem reasonable that they might want to incorporate that information into the design of other games?

If you don't like that design, don't play CBU3 games. Go play God of War. Go play Elden Ring. Stop complaining that a game is easy when all you've experienced is part of the easy mode and haven't managed to unlock the hard mode yet.

Are you really comparing MMORPG system, which needs to ensure that all players have enough time to catch up, so everyone can start on more equal grounds, to a single player, story-focused game, where none of that matters at all?

[Jeeqbit]

Got to agree that putting the hard mode behind completion of the game is a strange choice because I wouldn't feel like replaying it. Even in FFXIV I skip cutscenes on alts and I would probably do the same in FFXVI if I played it a second time unless the cutscenes were extremely short.

I won't even be playing it a first time though because there is no PC version and I'll have already watched it by the time there is. But it does look like a really good game and a good story.

Why is Savage going to be delayed by at least a week going forward even though in the past they preferred to open it patch day?

CBU3 has learned that most players don't want to go hardcore challenge mode from day one. They want to enjoy the content at a casual pace first.

Normally I don't disagree with you, but your point isn't relevant to FF16.

The reason people skip the story to do savage in FF14 is because of the pressure of it being a multiplayer game. There are raid teams waiting for you that you don't want to let down by watching story for hours and it puts a real pressure on you.

Even now when the normal modes release a week earlier, a whole party is waiting for me to finish the cutscene and some of them finish it faster than me or skip what they think is useless dialogue and get through it faster than me and I feel I am letting them down a bit by taking so long.

Before the week delay, some of those teams were trying to race as well and they couldn't be certain that the other teams didn't skip. In FF16, different players can race against eachother but it's a story game so all it's going to achieve in FF16 is destroying a large part of what they are playing it for, the fantasy story. A lot of the immediate pressures like a raid team waiting for you in FF14 aren't really there.