The content should be enjoyed by all players?

[Hallarem]

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.

That is still nothing NEW, your examples there are literally the same thing with small tweaks. Its legit become so bad and lazy they are giving out OLD RARE REWARDS like candy, because they can't even design new rewards for their content.

[Jeeqbit]

That is still nothing NEW, your examples there are literally the same thing with small tweaks. Its legit become so bad and lazy they are giving out OLD RARE REWARDS like candy, because they can't even design new rewards for their content.

It may not be new, but my point wasn't that they were all that new. My point was that the technical nuances of the content will never please all players, even if they try to, because of players being on opposing sides generally. They could make brand new content that is way different but once again the technical nuances may upset half the players whatever they do.

There are actually new rewards from this though: the relic weapons, petalodus mount, probably other stuff I didn't get yet.

[PyurBlue]

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

What if the content has more than one level of difficulty? The monsters on the perimeter are simple while the ones deeper inside are more difficult. This would provide options for players and let them choose how they want to engage with the content.

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

The defining factor for me is being able to memorize an encounter. Learning a monster's patterns is fine, it can even be fun to do. When those patterns come out in an unpredictable way I find that much more fun than knowing that A will happen at 30 seconds and B will happen at 60 seconds.

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

FF14 seems to have some kind of if-then logic. Some roles are prioritized for mechanics, but if those roles are not present, a different role can be selected. This could be used make fights a little more dynamic by adding different inputs. Instead of looking only a roles, look at HP or MP and change things up based on that. FF14 is as static as it is by choice. It doesn't have to remain that way.

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?

The trinity itself isn't so bad. What makes it feel out of place is that the roles that comprise it don't naturally fall into their intended niches. The roles have to be hardcoded into the game because of examples like yours.

If tanks were crowd control masters and were constantly interfering with the dragon's ability to use powerful attacks then suddenly it would make sense for the dragon to focus on them.

[Mawlzy]

It may not be new, but my point wasn't that they were all that new. My point was that the technical nuances of the content will never please all players, even if they try to, because of players being on opposing sides generally. They could make brand new content that is way different but once again the technical nuances may upset half the players whatever they do.

There are actually new rewards from this though: the relic weapons, petalodus mount, probably other stuff I didn't get yet.

I agree with you in certain content. Like in Frontline, a small but significant minority of players prefer Shatter/Secure to the actual PvP maps and would be annoyed if they were removed.

But in many other situations, the obvious solution is parallel content with differing difficulties.

Take MSQ dungeons in DT. The high-skill players see improvement over EW, but many still call them braindead. Meanwhile the less-skilled players are getting walled by DT dungeons.

The closest analogy to instanced dungeons in EVE Online are the abyssals. They come in seven different difficulty tiers, each of which comes in six different flavors. They span instances newbies can clear to extremely challenging PvE requiring special ship fits and superior piloting skills. They also have a high degree of repeatability because of a large number of different spawn patterns in each room.

That is PvE in a game known almost exclusively for its hardcore PvP. It is way superior to FFXIV, in the way it allows all players to find an enjoyable niche, from 20+ year vets to someone flying their first frigate.

SE has the resources to provide compelling content for everyone. They choose not to.

[VeyaAkemi]

There are actually new rewards from this though: the relic weapons, petalodus mount, probably other stuff I didn't get yet.

Two new parasols, one black and one white(uncommon), the /twirl emote(very rare), Rectangular Glasses facewear(extremely common), the Tipping Turtle minion(uncommon), and that ugly new hairstyle(extremely common).

Between the /twirl and the parasols, girly aesthetics win this patch.

[CidHeiral]

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.

Pretty much this. There's always room for improvement and the devs certainly make some objectively bad mistakes, but you're never going to please everyone. Trying to please everyone is exactly how we've gotten some of the more maligned decisions in this game, like the current job design.

[ChrysOCE]

All I know is that there's nothing left for me to do as a casual player, and it's debatable if there ever was, and I just got lucky/carried up until now through everything I ever cleared.

But I'm mostly tired of being blamed for everything that's wrong with the game, so fine, I give up, I'm not going to stay here and darken the hallway of the hardcore players like some kind of boogeyman, and they'll have to find someone else to scapegoat from now on.

You know noone is blaming you, personally, for anything to do with state of FFXIV, right? Like, why take on this victimhood?

[Mawlzy]

You know noone is blaming you, personally, for anything to do with state of FFXIV, right? Like, why take on this victimhood?

That depends on who you listen to and what/where you read. The concept of the "filthy casual" ruining MMOs and other games for the "true gamers" has been around as long as the genre. It is, as you imply, completely false, but the myth persists.

[ChrysOCE]

Eh, I'm the "filthy casual" and I'm the reason your jobs are homogenized, your content is "brain dead", your PVP has PVE in it, and now apparently I'm "sniping" and causing wipes in Forked Tower ...despite the fact I haven't even reached Occult Crescent, much less stepped into the raid there. Give it time and somebody will start blaming me for why cross-DC travel doesn't exist yet, why there's no housing on Aether/Prima/Crystal, or that I'm the one hiding all the hrothgar and viera hats.

It's not a "personal" blame in that people are blaming me specifically, but they ARE blaming the group of players I belong to for why the game is in its current state on top of the general accusations of being called dumb, useless, and entitled on a nearly daily basis.

And it's not just on the forums either. I've seen that sentiment on Twitter, and Reddit, and in Discords, and even in-game its self. Shucks, I get a lot of assumptions made of me just because I'm from Dynamis (that I'm stupid or a troll alt) and of course you have the folks who assume I have no room to complain about anything ever because I haven't even finished Shadowbringers, despite how many of the game's problems have existed well before Dawntrail.

After almost a year of being pointed at and told I'm the greatest blight this game has ever known (even though I've only been playing for 2 and a half years), you start to believe it, and doubly so when the developers themselves don't seem like they care if casual players stick around anymore either.

So yeah, I've got like... maybe 3 days left of forum access? And while it probably isn't a productive use of my time to be reading or posting on a forum for a game where neither the creators or community wants me here, or how my bitching and whining isn't going to matter any more than anyone else's, I suppose I felt the need to wail and gnash one last time before I went completely silent, and I'm not pinning the reason for my departure on Square-Enix alone because the playerbase contributed just as much to why I don't want to play anymore.

See, I put everything on CBU3. They are the ones developing the game and constantly miss-stepping on content releases. As much as I dislike FT and the discord requirement, I don't blame the discords or those players. I blame CBU3. Players on both sides are always going to ask for things but no group really has a unified voice, except maybe the unhappy healers. Like you have said before, it wasn't the casual players asking for 2min job homogenization.

I can bemoan the EW relic steps and think it was a complete joke and that there is nothing about those relics that hold any kind of special nostalgia vs ARR/HW/Stb/Shb relics that, for me, took some real time and investment in acquiring. But EW relics wasn't any player group's fault. It was CBU3.

[Raikai]

People will complain because its to hard, you see so or so someone has to take the L

That specific aspect can be countered, or at least made less jarring to any sides by inserting different difficulty modes, which XIV already does successfully where it applies. Even Deep Dungeons in the initial sets of floors that are meant to be tackled with a random party.

This is exactly what the Forked Tower should've got. Chaotic raids as well. I think the only content that can live fine without it are the Ultimates, but because it already brewed a culture of expecting it to be just that.

So yeah, at least with the easy/hard aspect, they do have something applicable.