Melbourne International games week Interview about content

[genuine_stranger]

FF14 also can include gatcha char progression like "Do 15 times CT3 in order to gain 1 token and this token give you a 10% chance to upgrade your tome weapon from i720 to i722" but I dont think that actually real content

You know what?
I fear the devs would think that this would be a great idea.

The biggest issue is that they are hell bend on balancing the shit out of the game.
Yeah, yeah, but rAiDiNg AnD nEw PlAyErs.
I don't care. Exclude raiding from this.

Cap my stats for duties, allow me to have my full job kit in all instances, and give me gear with stupid effects that would allow me to have an infinit manapool for BLM so I can run around and nuke everything.
Give me gear which reduces my gcds to 1sec on melees.
Give me an effect so that my healing skills apply buffs.

Then give me an endless dungeon akin to DD, with an ever increasing difficulty and let players loose. The further they progress, the more, idk, tokens they earn to exchange for whatever gear they want.

[KernCadfan]

You know what?
I fear the devs would think that this would be a great idea.

The biggest issue is that they are hell bend on balancing the shit out of the game.
Yeah, yeah, but rAiDiNg AnD nEw PlAyErs.
I don't care. Exclude raiding from this.

Cap my stats for duties, allow me to have my full job kit in all instances, and give me gear with stupid effects that would allow me to have an infinit manapool for BLM so I can run around and nuke everything.
Give me gear which reduces my gcds to 1sec on melees.
Give me an effect so that my healing skills apply buffs.

Then give me an endless dungeon akin to DD, with an ever increasing difficulty and let players loose. The further they progress, the more, idk, tokens they earn to exchange for whatever gear they want.

This... give me ALLLLLLLL of this....

[ovIm]

Then give me an endless dungeon akin to DD, with an ever increasing difficulty and let players loose. The further they progress, the more, idk, tokens they earn to exchange for whatever gear they want.

Imagine that. An actual Roguelite Mode DD, where every floor your clear gives you a chance to buy a ridiculous buff as you described, that utterly changes your playstyle. Things like "spells do not cost mana, but cast time is increased by X%" or "Damage done is reduced by X%, but you gain a life leech effect". Clear the floors to the finale and get rewarded with endgame currency and tokens for glamour and endgame worthy gear.

Every new patch introduces new buffs and debuffs, additional floor layouts, new mini bosses to encounter.

A true endless alternative mode where every week, the game records how deep players have delved into the dungeon, and the top players get extra tokens before the ladder is reset. the further you delve, the stronger enemies become.

would that not be absolutely amazing?


I've been pondering about endgame possibilities in FF14. What if we were to get a new area each patch, a full map catered to max level players where quests give you weekly tomestones, and fate chains that, if done, reward the community with access to exclusive vendors for a certain amount of time?

What about a true frontline kinda area, no time limit, where the more players do fates and slaughter mobs, the more area is being made available, with a grand chest at the end? Every day, the area gets reset, and players can attempt to clear their way to the prize again, with the enemy horde actively pushing the border back.


yes, I am going on a rambling offtopic rn, but my point is - there are ways to make people want to play the game, that add to what we already get. And I am no game designer, these are uneducated spitball ideas. A game designer would most likely be able to bring even better ideas forward.

[Voidmage]

F2P

I fully agree and want to add something.
It’s not just the content and release schedule of f2p that has become better but also the presentation and usage of gameplay to present the story.

In Genshin 5.1 you have a nationwide war and have to decide where to go. Those decisions have consequences and NPC’s die.
You also can always see the status and death count on the map.
That’s what the invasion of Tural should have been. Instead we get cutscenes.

In FGO Mash can’t use her ultimate in the lostbelts because of story reasons and gets something else. Here the story has direct influence on the gameplay.
When we were breaking down from the excessive light in Shb? Nothing.
Why no longer cooldowns or HP reduction for the story fights?

This is something FF14 has kinda lost. Interesting mechanics to make the presentation better.
Remember the candles in Hauke manor?
Nowadays they only overuse “down for the court”.
In from the cold was the big exception and something I give them huge applause for.

F2P have become a big thing in the market and are completely good without spending money or if anything then maybe just as much a month as for ff14. It shouldn’t be reduced to loot boxes. That’s just not the case anymore for the best of them.

What I’m trying to say is:
FF14 needs to look at what the competition does. Be it gameplay or story presentation and actually take the same notes that they did in the past from this game.
I think the devs have talent but it’s the template schedule that holds them back massively.

[Volgia]

While that's certainly part of the reason, I think there is one important factor to consider is as people get older, they tend to become better with recognizing the value of money. The younger me would usually throw 50-60$ at a new 8-12hours long games without much thought despite having very little me. The current me, despite having a lot more money, are now only buying games which I believe offering me good value. That is why my original argument is mainly about the value offered by FF14.

There is a saying: in business you try to find the maximum amount of money you can charge the customer right before they turn away, and offer the least amount of service before the point they gonna complain. And I can't help but notice FF14 has been trying to do that for years (i.e extending patch time and decrease amount of contents), and now reaching and cross over that breaking point. Especially with how competitors are now offering better value.

I don't think it's about value, tbh, I know people who have played WoW for years and they endured Worlds of Draenors and Shadowlands, and are still going strong. These people are going into their mids 40s, and a lot of people stayed there because of the community they made, not the value the game provided. I think the people that retire out of FFXIV will do so regardless of how good or bad the content and the story are (I still think the MSQ is inconsequential in this matter).

If FFXIV has a weakness as an MMO to make people stay it lies more on how little there is to do as a community, it's a 90% solitary game as it is rn, there's just no content other than savage and ultimate that forces you to play with other people in a meaningful way, you're unlikely to bond over normal raids or dungeons where the content is so easy you can do it with your eyes closed, the less friendly ties you have to the game the more unlikely you are to come back to it.

[Jeeqbit]

Imagine that. An actual Roguelite Mode DD, where every floor your clear gives you a chance to buy a ridiculous buff as you described, that utterly changes your playstyle. Things like "spells do not cost mana, but cast time is increased by X%" or "Damage done is reduced by X%, but you gain a life leech effect".

They are at least capable of that because this is the sort of thing we had with Logos/Lost Actions, just they are restricted to a specific area. All they would have to do is bring those sorts of effects beyond those areas.

[Supersnow845]

They are at least capable of that because this is the sort of thing we had with Logos/Lost Actions, just they are restricted to a specific area. All they would have to do is bring those sorts of effects beyond those areas.

They can’t even seem to understand why people liked those systems either considering they dumped the incredibly in depth list action system to give us variant actions which is just insulting

[KurenXIV]

They can’t even seem to understand why people liked those systems either considering they dumped the incredibly in depth list action system to give us variant actions which is just insulting

Honestly I feel this is a large part of the problem.

The dev team doesn't understand why players like something OR dislike something.

For example: the relic grinds of old.

On a surface level you could see people hating to do, again for example, the books for a relic.

However, that's only taking the feedback at face value.

Perhaps its less about the GRIND and more about the KIND OF GRIND that is being required.

This can be seen as the same for field operations, maybe players disliked certain aspects of it but not aspects of something in the open world to do with players and work towards as a whole.

They really need leads that can discern feedback and understand what certain players like or dislike about something and be able to act on it and be able to act far more quickly than "well maybe its something we can get to in 2 years...." because that just won't cut it anymore.

[Jeeqbit]

They can’t even seem to understand why people liked those systems either considering they dumped the incredibly in depth list action system to give us variant actions which is just insulting

If I'm to guess, it's because they think most people don't understand them. We had a major problem in DR where people just didn't bring Lost Actions at all or the concept overwhelmed them. Or maybe they just didn't level high enough to use them.

I can understand the argument of just saying tough, they should learn them, because that's what I do myself, but it probably doesn't help convince SE to put them in the rest of the game when people just ignored them in DR.

[Supersnow845]

If I'm to guess, it's because they think most people don't understand them. We had a major problem in DR where people just didn't bring Lost Actions at all or the concept overwhelmed them. Or maybe they just didn't level high enough to use them.

I can understand the argument of just saying tough, they should learn them, because that's what I do myself, but it probably doesn't help convince SE to put them in the rest of the game when people just ignored them in DR.

And there is the crux of the issue

If you can’t figure out the “damage to up by 80%” with zero downsides then you should not be catered to

This is why the modern jobs are pure trash