The content should be enjoyed by all players?

[Valence]

Content cant be enjoyed by all players ever, so sooner or later someone has to take the L, take EW as example, the whole Expansion was so easy that even Yoshi P said, they were going to easy and increse now the difficulity, so how would you balance that every player is happy?

And i dont know what your issue with Variant was, yea the Rewards were garbage but i enjoyed it, it was for me when it comes down to dungeons a step in the right direction, if they now improve on the rewards so thats worth it to grind, i would be more then happy

This isn't a plea about difficulty. This is a plea about gameplay diversity. Someone having to take the L is a convenient excuse not to even try, because so far the only thing I see is homogenization everywhere. It's not about jobs, everybody agrees there. It's about encounters, and that's especially worrying to me precisely because we were promised a focus on encounters, and yet the focus seems to be into turning everything into the same there too.

My issue with Variant is literally what I stated: it's like any dungeon in terms of pve, there is nothing different except the possibility to run it solo with cheat codes (duty actions). I didn't hate the content and in fact it was chill, but not for its pve. What was chill was exploring every path, because that's the only novelty they had, and guess what shelf life it had? None whatsoever.

Sadly that wouldnt workt, without blaming someone, but just take the story dungeon as example, how many people complained because they are to hard and how they now are stuck and cant prgress the story, if you know go with variant as base dungeon design you really want imagine how much complains and copium and doomium would happen

Are you seriously telling me that Variant is harder than any normal dungeon? Did you try running them in light parties? Everyone with their cheat code duty actions on top? And even without using them, they just behave like normal dungeons. Trash pulls, bosses.
What's with people and difficulty anyway? It's become such a wedge issue that it seems to be the only thing people care talking about those days.

Yoshi-P recently said that after trying to get the balance right and get the game to a perfect state, he had finally accepted that it's not possible because no matter what he does, a section of the playerbase will be upset about it, so all he can do is keep trying.

Interestingly, the WoW director recently did a presentation where they had concluded the same thing. There are subjects where the playerbase is diametrically opposed to eachother and it's impossible to satisfy all of them.

This is a losing mindset. Recognizing that there is diametrically opposed mindsets or aspirations in the playerbase has very little to do with generating variety in gameplay.
In fact, if you don't care and stay ultra formulaic, then you sure as hell will discard huge fractions of the audience because why bother? Not everybody will like it anyway, so just focus on the same exact thing and everything will be good, right?
This may be a good observation to make, but using it as an excuse for not even trying on the creativity level is completely bankrupt. If anything, you know what it sounds like to me? A petulant child pouting because not everybody likes the content.

Also, consider: the more the game will go, the less lenient the audience will be with an unchanging gameplay, because a MMO is like disneyland, the magic fades past a point eventually.

[Hallarem]

Yoshi-P recently said that after trying to get the balance right and get the game to a perfect state, he had finally accepted that it's not possible because no matter what he does, a section of the playerbase will be upset about it, so all he can do is keep trying.

Interestingly, the WoW director recently did a presentation where they had concluded the same thing. There are subjects where the playerbase is diametrically opposed to eachother and it's impossible to satisfy all of them.

Sounds like more P.R chocobo-dung explaining to me. A defeatist attitude too,they are HARDLY trying any new angles or innovations and he's saying "Its not possible to please everyone" OH PLEASE, he's hardly TRIED anything with his team to deviate from their formula. THis is actually laughable.

They haven't TRIED anything properly that deviates from the formula yet, and are trying to GASLIGHT the community to think that they have. WoW actually TRIES new stuff, they got dragonriding, we got what... a mount tilt?

[AvoSturmfaust]

This isn't a plea about difficulty. This is a plea about gameplay diversity. Someone having to take the L is a convenient excuse not to even try, because so far the only thing I see is homogenization everywhere. It's not about jobs, everybody agrees there. It's about encounters, and that's especially worrying to me precisely because we were promised a focus on encounters, and yet the focus seems to be into turning everything into the same there too.

My issue with Variant is literally what I stated: it's like any dungeon in terms of pve, there is nothing different except the possibility to run it solo with cheat codes (duty actions). I didn't hate the content and in fact it was chill, but not for its pve. What was chill was exploring every path, because that's the only novelty they had, and guess what shelf life it had? None whatsoever.



Are you seriously telling me that Variant is harder than any normal dungeon? Did you try running them in light parties? Everyone with their cheat code duty actions on top? And even without using them, they just behave like normal dungeons. Trash pulls, bosses.
What's with people and difficulty anyway? It's become such a wedge issue that it seems to be the only thing people care talking about those days.



This is a losing mindset. Recognizing that there is diametrically opposed mindsets or aspirations in the playerbase has very little to do with generating variety in gameplay.
In fact, if you don't care and stay ultra formulaic, then you sure as hell will discard huge fractions of the audience because why bother? Not everybody will like it anyway, so just focus on the same exact thing and everything will be good, right?
This may be a good observation to make, but using it as an excuse for not even trying on the creativity level is completely bankrupt.

And thats the Point maybe it was a community misunderstanding? Improved Encounter Design could still mean just the difficulity and based on the current Tier the Difficulity increased drastic.
I still dont get what you want for improved encounter design? I mean i said it in another thread a few weeks ago i said it here again, you will ALWAYS have DDR because if its random if i have to go left or right doesnt change the fact that i go left or right and have to learn what happens when i go left or right, MMOs are script based game, i play for more then 18 Years now MMO and it so many i was part of Hardcoregroups, even in Blade and Soul i have 2 EU first there and i can tell you DDR will always be and was always be part of MMOs.

So maybe just tell what YOU expect from improved counter design or combat general?

Btw its not an excuse, but take as example in EW the Island Paradise i hated it so much so i did take the L and im not the only one, you cant and will never be able to create content where everyone is happy not in a game like FFXIV where even people cry because so have to join a Discord or have to Communicate in the Chat, so how would you make everyone happy?


And yea i did the Variant, even the Savage Version and i saw more then once People struggling there

[Valence]

Are you saying that deep dungeons are scripted DDR? Or pvp? By your definition, those would not be eligible to MMO content, so what gives?

I also don't think a lot of people liked Island due to the weird spreadsheet simulator, which seemed to be a very common complaint and bringing people asking who this content was for, again. But if there was enough people that enjoyed that content, then I actually consider it a better success than everything that we've gotten so far in DT, because it did something new and tried different gameplay. On the ultra casual side? Sure, not my thing, but at least it tried, and gave something to ultra casual players that wasn't pve (fates, dungeons, or raids), wasn't crafting, wasn't questing. Deep dungeon is another good example of this, but it is a dinosaur at this point.

[AvoSturmfaust]

Are you saying that deep dungeons are scripted DDR? Or pvp? By your definition, those would not be eligible to MMO content, so what gives?

I also don't think a lot of people liked Island due to the weird spreadsheet simulator, which seemed to be a very common complaint and bringing people asking who this content was for, again. But if there was enough people that enjoyed that content, then I actually consider it a better success than everything that we've gotten so far in DT, because it did something new and tried different gameplay. On the ultra casual side? Sure, not my thing, but at least it tried, and gave something to ultra casual players that wasn't pve (fates, dungeons, or raids), wasn't crafting, wasn't questing. Deep dungeon is another good example of this, but it is a dinosaur at this point.

Island Paradise was just an example, but take as example, they do something completly new, never seen before, then they make the combat in it easy, what would happen? people which actually like even a small challenge start to complain, if they make it a bit harder what happens then? People will complain because its to hard, you see so or so someone has to take the L


PvP is a different matter, thats not something i consider counting in the direction "Improved Encounter Design" and heck yea even Deep Dungeons are scripted, i mean the Monster will always do the same, they will always cast the same, the Bosses will always cast and do the same, there is no randomness, if you learn what A does you will always know how to react to A which is a form of DDR, the only Randomness there is if a other monster joins in or not

You know what goes against the DDR in MMOs? i saw a few days ago a video about a new game where you fight a monster and with every fight the monster learns through KI your movements, your attackpatterns etc etc etc and trys to counter it and improve on it, so every fight is something new and every fight will be harder because the monster learns from you, THAT is randomness THAT is against DDR and that is something you will never see in FFXIV

[Jeeqbit]

Sounds like more P.R chocobo-dung explaining to me. A defeatist attitude too,they are HARDLY trying any new angles or innovations and he's saying "Its not possible to please everyone" OH PLEASE, he's hardly TRIED anything with his team to deviate from their formula.

They have genuinely gone in a full circle trying to please everyone:
- Wait times between NMs = complaints
- No wait times between them = complaints

- Big relic grind = complaints
- Big relic grind, but not as big = complaints
- Relic grind but new content = complaints
- Relic grind both new and old content = complaints
- Tomestone handouts = complaints
- Full circle repeat = complaints

I do believe that in many cases it's possible to satisfy both sides of the playerbase when they are opposed by giving them an option/choice. But there are going to be situations where you actually just have to choose one or the other as a game designer.

[Mawlzy]

As I've opined before, I'm starting to wonder what SE's notion of what "the community" actually is is: there seems to be a massive disconnect between what "the community wants" and what the vast majority of players I interact with are actually experiencing.

There's really only three things I can think of at this point that could consistently hold water -

a) that SE really isn't aware of the situation (and is only just now waking up to it because Japanese players are getting fed up much more vocally now)

b) that SE doesn't consider the casual endgame player to be a priority demographic anymore because of the gameplay cadence - in other words, in a game like WoW, it is much more important that the game let you bring along a newly recruited friend to endgame content, because you are brought to endgame content so quickly that most would quit after one month's sub for want of meaningful stuff to do otherwise. In a game like XIV, endgame activity is much more confined to existing experienced players because of the MSQ (barring boosts or cutscene skipping (NUUU DON'T), a new player a month in is probably still making their way through Heavensward, maybe moving on into Stormblood ... in any case, nowhere near even unlocking endgame content.

c) that SE is tacitly but deliberately catering the game to Discord communities and streamers (motivation unclear, perhaps to reduce customer service load by forcing people to fit in with specific player communities in order to play, and hoping the misfits will just quit? Reminds me of the Guild Leveling system Blizzard added in Cataclysm and eventually scrapped)

Or d) The whole disaster stems from a false assumption in the director's post linked by Valence.

It seems SE aims to design content enjoyed by as many people as possible. That's fine. Where they slip up massively is the assumption this can be achieved with the same content.

In the case of FT, the solution is glaringly obvious. On OC release, you include a version of FT at the level of regular alliance raids with a sane entry system. Either concurrent with that or later, you release FT Savage, perhaps along the lines of the current version, because apparently part of the player base enjoys contrived organization.

[Gwenkatsu]

a video about a new game where you fight a monster and with every fight the monster learns through KI your movements, your attackpatterns etc etc etc and trys to counter it and improve on it, so every fight is something new and every fight will be harder because the monster learns from you, THAT is randomness THAT is against DDR and that is something you will never see in FFXIV

You mean an intelligent boss? One that simply ignores the tanks, kills the healers first, next the DDs, and finally the tanks? Now that sounds like a real fun concept. /S

The MMO holy trinity is an absurd concept in and off itself, as the tank can uphold the illusion of being the biggest threat even against the most intelligent enemies.
Imagine being the dragon. There is this one guy in full body armor who scratches you a bit with his sword, and that other guy who hurls fireballs at you that really REALLY hurt. How dumb would you be to ignore the fireball guy, and keep hitting the armored guy - for the entire fight?

[Striker44]

As I've opined before, I'm starting to wonder what SE's notion of what "the community" actually is is: there seems to be a massive disconnect between what "the community wants" and what the vast majority of players I interact with are actually experiencing.

There's really only three things I can think of at this point that could consistently hold water -

a) that SE really isn't aware of the situation (and is only just now waking up to it because Japanese players are getting fed up much more vocally now)

b) that SE doesn't consider the casual endgame player to be a priority demographic anymore because of the gameplay cadence - in other words, in a game like WoW, it is much more important that the game let you bring along a newly recruited friend to endgame content, because you are brought to endgame content so quickly that most would quit after one month's sub for want of meaningful stuff to do otherwise. In a game like XIV, endgame activity is much more confined to existing experienced players because of the MSQ (barring boosts or cutscene skipping (NUUU DON'T), a new player a month in is probably still making their way through Heavensward, maybe moving on into Stormblood ... in any case, nowhere near even unlocking endgame content.

c) that SE is tacitly but deliberately catering the game to Discord communities and streamers (motivation unclear, perhaps to reduce customer service load by forcing people to fit in with specific player communities in order to play, and hoping the misfits will just quit? Reminds me of the Guild Leveling system Blizzard added in Cataclysm and eventually scrapped)

I'd add one other possibility to consider - we as people have a natural tendency to group with other like-minded people, meaning the "vast majority of players I interact with" are really an infinitesimally small grain of sand in comparison to the larger playerbase, but are all similar in their own gaming personalities. Quick version - SE has the big picture of the larger playerbase, whereas we as individuals have only the smallest, smallest, smallest little snapshots of it.

WoW actually TRIES new stuff, they got dragonriding, we got what... a mount tilt?

WoW's dragonriding was the result of them getting absolutely trashed when they tried getting rid of flying completely.

[Mawlzy]

I'd add one other possibility to consider - we as people have a natural tendency to group with other like-minded people, meaning the "vast majority of players I interact with" are really an infinitesimally small grain of sand in comparison to the larger playerbase, but are all similar in their own gaming personalities. Quick version - SE has the big picture of the larger playerbase, whereas we as individuals have only the smallest, smallest, smallest little snapshots of it.

Such selection biases of course exist, although I think you're vastly overstating the degree.

But the really amazing thing about DT is the wide range of the player base that SE has left disillusioned.

As Amarande says, the nature of the content released since last July seems to suggest SE has no interest in catering to non-raiders. Whether they are trying to force non-raiders to raid, or have concluded this whole "story-driven MMO" thing is way too difficult and FF14 is going to become a raid simulator, only they know.

Many of us will not stick around to find out.