Crazy Game Design Idea

[CVXIV]

Bozja was praised extensively by both casuals and hardcore players.

Casuals had something to grind, they had options behind their relic, and it offered a good money making method in addition to several desired items like mounts, minions and TT cards. Addressed the majority of issues people had with exploratory when it was Eureka. Had a friendly entry point and death wasn't as detrimental to the experience, nor was the whole 'elemental level' thing present, people liked this.

Raiders both midcore and hardcore praised it, it gave them a long-term goal for a weapon, it facilitated several large scale raids which they thought were appropriately designed. Released the first formal large-scale savage raid, which those doing savage liked quite a lot, eventually leading to many raiders requesting they release or work on savage alliance raids and large scale raids in the future. Also came with duels, which they complemented, granted the RNG factor of getting a duel wasn't the most well-liked decision. Also included lost actions and essences which elevated their gameplay. Critical Engagements were well received.

I don't recall seeing a lot of praise for Bozja personally, but maybe that's just me

People hated the mettle grind and the fact that the relic was loosely tied into the content so they felt compelled to do it if they wanted that weapon

[Kaurhz]

I don't recall seeing a lot of praise for Bozja personally, but maybe that's just me

People hated the mettle grind and the fact that the relic was loosely tied into the content so they felt compelled to do it if they wanted that weapon

It was praised well by both casuals and hardcore players, and not an insignificant amount either... Obviously it wasn't flawless, but then nothing is.. It's like if you get down to it, you could say that any given player in the game has never universally liked content even when it was designed exclusively for them, for example, you can still find hardcore raiders that still complain about ultimates to some varying degree. So obviously there's always issues, but again, point being it was well received by both casual and hardcore players.

It was still ultimately content that was designed for both categories of players, and something that both categories enjoyed.

[Collin_Sky]

Bozja was praised extensively by both casuals and hardcore players.

Casuals had something to grind, they had options behind their relic, and it offered a good money making method in addition to several desired items like mounts, minions and TT cards. Addressed the majority of issues people had with exploratory when it was Eureka. Had a friendly entry point and death wasn't as detrimental to the experience, nor was the whole 'elemental level' thing present, people liked this.

Raiders both midcore and hardcore praised it, it gave them a long-term goal for a weapon, it facilitated several large scale raids which they thought were appropriately designed. Released the first formal large-scale savage raid, which those doing savage liked quite a lot, eventually leading to many raiders requesting they release or work on savage alliance raids and large scale raids in the future. Also came with duels, which they complemented, granted the RNG factor of getting a duel wasn't the most well-liked decision. Also included lost actions and essences which elevated their gameplay. Critical Engagements were well received.

I know tons of people that hated Bozja specifically because the bulk of the content was locked behind hours and hours of FATE grinding.
The raids were good, but almost everyone I play with didn't do them because they didn't want to do all the grind that came before it.

[Toutatis]

What if different players are interested in different things? SE is trying to make content for all the different categories of players, which spreads them thin:
- RPers (housing, furniture, glam).
- Casual players (alliance raids, MSQ, dungeons).
- Midcore players that want grinds, relics, mounts and things like that (lots of mount grinds with hunts, FATEs, beast tribes, scrips, Extremes, Field Operations, etc)
- Raiders (Savage and Ultimate).
- People who want dungeons to have more variety (variant dungeons).
- People who want mythic+ (criterion).
- People who enjoy BA and DRS large scale raiding (Chaos raids).

But by satisfying all these different types of people, it spreads them thin making few of them actually satisfied.

It's amazing to see all that you put into midcore as if midcore is grinds...no, grinds are for everyone who likes to grind and has too much time on their hands. Bozja/Eureka are a perfect example of that and they can be done by causal to hardcore players. Fates (including in Eureka) and hunts are all utterly repetitive, mind numbing and unchallenging content. Critical engagements were fun at first but how many times can you do that? It becomes mind numbing too. I liked doing Bozja once for the story and go back a few times for the raids but not to get new weapons. One was more than enough grind.

Beast tribes midcore? That's the easiest content in the game whether it is battle or DOL/DOH quests. Feed an alpaca, carry a crate and press a key to perform a trick with a flying fish... really? The most casual player can manage that.

The only real midcore content in that list is extremes. Content suitable for former raiders with limited time, people that have outgrown casual battle content or people who want to build up more confidence/experience before tackling harder content (PF is often 90% waiting and 10% fighting) or schedule (fixed time raiding) to accommodate savage/ultimate raiding.

Atm all the fighting content except one ex per patch (unreals are just "refurbished" old fights and not new content) is either causal and totally brain dead or punishing savage that requires watching vids and studying the fights. Extreme content requires one to know their job and be able to move and adapt without being utterly punishing with things like bodychecks (which btw isn't even a fun mechanic as progress of an entire alliance hindered by one person: you don't get to see what comes after, everyone gets obliterated because of a single person's mistake ). Alliance raids, variant, dungeons, normal raids, regular trials are all super easy and interesting only the first and second time around and come with zero challenge beyond that. This game needs more extreme level content.

Variant and criterion dungeons? It was a lost opportunity. You have the choice between brain dead fights (that includes soloing the content) with trash adds that are pure boring damage sponges or savage and savage +, nothing in between. At least give us criterion with rezzes, it would encourage more people to participate and become better players. BA and DRS are closer to extreme than the Chaotic raid. The Chaotic raid would have been much more approachable for those midcore players if the dooms were longer or removed and if there were not those punishing body checks that make you dependent on 23 other people yet it would still be challenging contrary to Jeuno (it's soooo slow with each boss taking all their sweet time to show you what is coming next).

[Jeeqbit]

It's amazing to see all that you put into midcore as if midcore is grinds...no, grinds are for everyone who likes to grind and has too much time on their hands.

Then maybe the ones not doing it are casual?

Fates (including in Eureka) and hunts are all utterly repetitive and unchallenging content.

I agree about FATEs (except the super boss FATEs). I do not agree that hunts are unchallenging; the bodies everywhere say otherwise.

Beast tribes midcore? That's the easiest content in the game whether it is battle or DOL/DOH quests. Feed an alpaca, carry a crate and press a key to perform a trick with a flying fish... really? The most casual player can manage that.

They can, but in my observation it's not casual players doing it; it's the players that spend more than a day playing after a patch ie. the ones who would prob do a field operation. Easy to spot familiar players.

Variant and criterion dungeons? It was a lost opportunity.

Maybe, but it's still an effort SE made to answer specific community requests. I didn't say they had 100% succeeded at that necessarily.

[Hallarem]

What if different players are interested in different things? SE is trying to make content for all the different categories of players, which spreads them thin:
- RPers (housing, furniture, glam).
- Casual players (alliance raids, MSQ, dungeons).
- Midcore players that want grinds, relics, mounts and things like that (lots of mount grinds with hunts, FATEs, beast tribes, scrips, Extremes, Field Operations, etc)
- Raiders (Savage and Ultimate).
- People who want dungeons to have more variety (variant dungeons).
- People who want mythic+ (criterion).
- People who enjoy BA and DRS large scale raiding (Chaos raids).

But by satisfying all these different types of people, it spreads them thin making few of them actually satisfied.

This is an issue of them having:

- lack of budget / will of the management/investors to solve the issue
- lack of will from the team to solve the issue
- lack of a team in terms of bodies working to solve the issue
- lack of a proper vision behind them driving them to solve the issue
- lack of skill to solve the issue
- lack of technical capability to solve the issue

Among other things. Because all of those are solvable. But because we are dealing with a handicapped company / team in one way or another of those above reasons. We are getting this "pick one, or two, we arent getting all of them" "Oh wait time for content grows again" "Character customization? Hats for your "complete" new races, hah! No chance buster" retirement home of an MMO. I can't wait to see Koji Fox and Soken singing in wheelchairs for 15.0.

All jokes aside. I don't think this game deserves a sub system anymore its subs are riding on "replay the MSQ or do everything that was in former expansions", but alas the MMO market is pretty dry. It's either this or WoW unless you want a major downgrade. Without any proper competition, both fill a niche, so in the worst case scenario FFXIV doesn't even need to try. People here will complain, myself included and nothing will change in any reasonable amount of time.

Only game that could even dream of competing is WoW or the Riot MMO (r.i.p)

[Toutatis]

Then maybe the ones not doing it are casual?.

So to you midcore is just people with infinite time on their hands? No, that's just people with a lot of time on their hands. I just want good fights that are not brain dead. Something that is clearable in PF in an evening or two. Atm the only fights that suit lifestyle are extremes and there is just one fight per patch. I would have loved a real alliance raid at that level. Did Jeuno right after it came out in the first hours of the morning before starting work and we didn't even wipe... I have zero interest in grinding ad nauseam (like what's the fun in doing the same critical engagement for the 50th time?).

[Supersnow845]

To be fair while the entire collective field content isn’t midcore it does hide the closest things to midcore we have in this game

The 5 field content raids (except maybe DRS which is legit a savage especially before you could blow it away with rays) are basically the closest we have to midcore content in this game. Like besides its stupid entry requirements BA is the most quintessential example of midcore content in this game and while dal, CLL and DRN lean more towards “difficult alliance raid” they do have some curveballs and messy content that feels more midcore, stuff like TA’s complete lack of care about killing you with her temperature mechanic or Diablo armament actually doing raidwides that need to be mitigated to properly survive.

Once you go any higher you start enforcing PF, that alone doesn’t necessarily make it hardcore alone (as easy extremes are not hardcore) but the enforced PF does drag it down

[Jeeqbit]

So to you midcore is just people with infinite time on their hands? No, that's just people with a lot of time on their hands.

Maybe there could be a grind category in what I said. But it would be pointless to make one and here is why.

SE makes seasonal events, MSQ, alliance raids, normal raids. Easy to see people return for a day in droves then vanish for these. So clearly, they are actually for casual players by definition.

Then they make content where people are made to play for more than a day. That is beast tribes. Why? Because they have to keep logging in again and again and again to rank up. At a certain point, those players stop being casual and you notice you spotted all of them doing all the other content too, like field ops.

And then what kept people doing field ops for more than a day? Some sort of grind, somewhere, otherwise they'd be done in a day.

I did forget to mention Island Sanctuary and content like that. It's hard to really say where that sits. I'm sure people into grinds will do it. But would a casual player? Hmmmmmm it'll probably be ignored now unless they have a thing for sims or want to decorate an island.

From SE's perspective it seems far more broad. They just seem to see:
- casual content that does 2% damage or is done very quickly
- hardcore content that takes lots of prog or is time-gated

I just want good fights that are not brain dead. Something that is clearable in PF in an evening or two.

I agree (as I put just above this quote). I do think that people attribute the wrong design goal to content though. For example, people will say the same thing about criterion (that they just wanted it to be cleared with randoms quickly) but not be as crazy easy as variants. But that wasn't their goal, because the feedback they were responding to was obviously the people saying "mythic+" or "multiple pathway dungeons" all over the forums.

Might be similar with chaotic because the issue with Endwalker was it being quiet and solo, and this most definitely brings a lot of people together to spend a lot of time together progging and go through strife together.

[Gurgeh]

give the people what they want and they'll still find something to complain about

I agree with what your saying entirely, but you missed a full stop. Also, you missed a capitalization.