In 12 years the game hasn't innovated

[Shurrikhan]

1. Its hard to know if I've understood this correctly because I've no idea what "loss" is in this sense, I've never encountered that term before.

The amount a value goes down.

If you had 500, and it goes down to 300, you lost 200 (40%).

If your effective primary stat value (primary x secondary stat total if it were all Determination) goes down from 9000 to 8000 due to sync, that's an 11.1% loss. So, you'd get proportionately more reward to compensate.

It would further incentivise players to gatekeep

It has nothing whatsoever to do with gatekeeping, only giving optional content that can increase the longevity of content's enjoyability equal reward-efficiency to the more "toxic optimal farming" patterns, as you put it earlier, thereby allowing one to avoid playing the content in what they may see as a degenerative way.

No one is gatekeeping old content or Expert Roulette. Weekly drop caps are still weekly-capped, so this would have zero impact on current Savage tiers.

[Valence]

Plus I'd argue that it is not the place of the customer to always provide constructive criticism. We are customers of a product. If a group loudly enough yells "we are dissatisfied", and the game developers really want to know why, they can send out feedback questionnaires en masse to paint themselves a more objective and streamlined picture without sifting through loads and loads of text. They could also just properly design the exit survey for when people do quit to properly understand why they do instead of assuming its because players don't have enough time to play anymore.

Like, even this thread I made sure not to just say "the game doesn't innovate therefore it sucks", but more "the game doesn't seem to like innovating much with brand new features", which already gives a clear direction of what the criticism is about, and immediately after some people move the goalposts and ask me to come up with the second coming of the mozart's requiem and brand new ideas that have never been in any other MMOs.

In retrospect I don't even know why I bothered replying to those trolls.

Duty support is a regression. Instead of trying to make them play the content, they altered old content and created new content so they can just follow a script.

It is a complicated issue. I only mentioned it precisely because it qualifies for the very few handful of fully new features they have added to the game, much like island sanctuary that was also probably more of a failure than a success.

In principle I have nothing against Duty Support and NPC AIs because not only the players using those do not harm the rest of the game in any way shape or form, but also because it can actually allow players having difficulties with storymodes to overcome them while the devs can't be held responsible for storymodes that literally wall players: in theory, having a NPC solo player mode should provide NPCs able to "carry" players that do get walled, while players using the MMO/multiplayer aspect of the content could enjoy content that's not constantly dragged down by this. On top of it, if it brings more solo player profiles to the game that just want to play for the story and bring more money and resources to the game (provided they don't get refunneled into other stupid projects...), I'm all for it. Those player profiles aren't a problem, they'll play the story in their corner without bothering anybody.

In reality we've seen how this has been executed, and I feel it's been a constant with CBU3 for a long time: it's "good enough" so they won't bother by upping the quality requirements. Duty Support has been suspected to be at the origin of the butchering of old dungeons and I do agree it leans itself pretty well into it - even though I remain staunchly convinced that it's just convenient for the devs because what they have done is just massive streamlining and watering down in order to "modernize" said content to "current standards", which is a very homogenized (some would say "consistent") encounter models. Everything that didn't satisfy to the modern formula, it's being changed to fit the mold.

[Mikey_R]

Perhaps because for the most part they feel like it is speaking to a brick wall.

Like, people HATED the BA way of queueing up to the large scale... What did they do? Solve it with Delubrum where it's a normal instanced duty... What did they do after that? Repeat the exact same mistake as what they did 7 years ago...

The reality is, that they ask us to put feedback on here, then they routinely ignore it or don't actually engage with it at all, then we have people, like yourself wondering why people are not being more constructive with their discussion... Beyond a certain point it is quite literally just a brick wall situation.

It's funny that some people spend so much time completely blaming the player, as if this problem would be even half as bad as it currently is if they actually elected to engage with the feedback properly beyond just platitudes.

Except DR had it's own issues, mainly from the fact that, since it was separate from instances, if you wanted to do it, you had to queue for it outside the zones, so you couldn't do something else on the side. This created bottlenecks where the queue didn't pop, halting all progress. Even now, when it sticks you in after a certain amount of time, if you have a small group of people, you are going to struggle as, last I heard, it doesn't scale well for lower party sizes, just in terms of boss HP. CLL and Zadnor were better in that regard, as they were done via the zone, but if you wanted to do them, you had to wait for it to spawn, then you were lucky if you got in or not.

Forked Tower tried to address these things and it likely would have been more successful if the difficulty was actually closer to CLL and Zadnor. However, since it requires specific phantom job actions to get through, then people made parties to guarantee these things were present. It isn't just the queuing up that was necessarily the problem, but the type of content it was as well. They just were not compatible. Which is why you can force a Forked Tower run with a full pre-made to alleviate those issues.

So, they did listen to feedback, but they went about the implementation wrong. Which is why there also needs to be some community input as to how they would like things to work, so the devs can use that in their decision making.

I actually made some. Notably one on itemization with some inspiration from the diadem, also indulged at some point in the past in trying to offer a couple of ideas for what certain jobs like RDM could play like in threads about job identity.
I have also suggested a lot of changes and adjustment notably on the MCH job over the years, of which a lot were shared by the community as a whole, and some were brand new ideas of my own.
I do think I have been rather prolific and constructive on what should be changed, improved, or made better in the pvp sub section as well (and not just on job balance, for example UI, etc).
I just made two days ago another thread in this very general discussion on how I'd improve on the dronebits feature from CE.

You see, this confuses me. You say you are willing to give feedback and how things can be improved in some areas, but why are you now resisting giving that feedback in this area.

I really don't understand how everything you said here even applies to that thread in particular.

This whole things started when hydralus said 'I'd love to see some innovation from the people who complain about the same thing all the time.' Of which you responded by insulting him, then saying he didn't provide a constructive contribution, the implication behind that being that you yourself have. I double checked the topic and it was all just you complaining, but nothing constructive about the complaints. It was a pure pot calling the kettle black scenario, so I called you out on it, even telling you why nothing you have done was constructive.

Now you could have responded by providing said constructive feedback on the topic, but you didn't. Even something as simple as defining what you meant by innovation in the sense of this topic would have been a good start, but instead, you claim you don't want to make a 'multipage long full game design document with detailed features and gameplay brick', which is nowhere near what has been suggested. As has been said, you have provided feedback on other areas of the game, they likely aren't full game design documents either, so why are you assuming this is the case here? It is just inconsistent.

As for cherry picking, I don't read everything on the forums, but the vast majority of the posts you make that I see are just negative, often throwing around the good old 'DDR mechanics' which, in my opinion, means nothing. If you don't want that stigma, you have to be more consistent in how you approach things and yes, I am fully aware I am likely seen as the prick that comes along and just criticises ideas. But, as you yourself has said 'I'm ready to hear your ideas so we can discuss it and bounce over it then.' and that is all I am doing. You might not like the fact I want concrete definitions to work off of, but to me it is important to make sure we are working off of the same concepts. With that said, to get this topic back on track, how are we defining innovation as there has been several ideas floating around in this topic and what would you like to see that would make you think, oh, this exploration zone isn't just hunts and fates, or whatever piece of content you want to provide feedback on. The devs might or might not listen, but unless ideas are floated around, then there is no chance they will listen.

Tone aside, if someone handed this to me I would have a bit to work with... It's really up to the developers to determine what to infer from the feedback.

But this is where proper feedback is needed. If you can influence the direction the devs go in, by providing a basic system that could be built upon, especially if it gets feedback from many members of the forum, you are more likely to get something that you might enjoy, rather than just leaving it up to the devs and it turns into the roll of the dice whether it is something you want or not.

Haven't you been on threads where Valance has given break-downs of the problem and even spit-balled particular solutions?

Either you're leaving out your specification of 'in this thread' or this seems an ill-warranted claim.

If I have, I have forgotten. If there are ideas I like, I tend to just like the post and not comment further, however, it does come down to the point of, if they do it in other posts, then why not here?

[Valence]

You see, this confuses me. You say you are willing to give feedback and how things can be improved in some areas, but why are you now resisting giving that feedback in this area.

What is this thread if not feedback? This has to be bait at this point.

then saying he didn't provide a constructive contribution

Nothing constructive about it. Purely written as ragebait.

the implication behind that being that you yourself have. I double checked the topic and it was all just you complaining, but nothing constructive about the complaints. It was a pure pot calling the kettle black scenario, so I called you out on it, even telling you why nothing you have done was constructive.

And you are wrong. I do think that this thread is constructive and laid out perfectly well the foundation of what I criticized. Sorry that you cannot see it even after explaining it to you again and again.

How about we agree to disagree? This is growing tiresome and going into circles.

Even something as simple as defining what you meant by innovation in the sense of this topic

I did multiple times. If you can't read it, won't read it, or can't or won't understand it, not my problem at this point.

This has been a recurring pattern with you in every single one of my threads, and even if I'm ready to admit that sometimes what I bring up may not always be the clearest, people get it after a few clarifications or posts. Only you seem to be constantly stuck in a loop asking for it to be explained again and again and asking for definitions that you only do consider valid if they strictly follow your terms and expectations.

This is specifically why I am staunchly convinced by now that your posts carry ill intent.

As for cherry picking, I don't read everything on the forums, but the vast majority of the posts you make that I see are just negative, often throwing around the good old 'DDR mechanics' which, in my opinion, means nothing.

And you're free to think so. Much like a lot of people are free to think they agree with it. Surely you must have noticed a lot of people actually throw it around more than me, yet you seem obsessed with me doing it.

Frankly, I don't give a crap about your opinion about it, if that makes things clearer?

[Kaurhz]

Except DR had it's own issues, mainly from the fact that, since it was separate from instances, if you wanted to do it, you had to queue for it outside the zones, so you couldn't do something else on the side. This created bottlenecks where the queue didn't pop, halting all progress. Even now, when it sticks you in after a certain amount of time, if you have a small group of people, you are going to struggle as, last I heard, it doesn't scale well for lower party sizes, just in terms of boss HP. CLL and Zadnor were better in that regard, as they were done via the zone, but if you wanted to do them, you had to wait for it to spawn, then you were lucky if you got in or not.

Forked Tower tried to address these things and it likely would have been more successful if the difficulty was actually closer to CLL and Zadnor. However, since it requires specific phantom job actions to get through, then people made parties to guarantee these things were present. It isn't just the queuing up that was necessarily the problem, but the type of content it was as well. They just were not compatible. Which is why you can force a Forked Tower run with a full pre-made to alleviate those issues.

So, they did listen to feedback, but they went about the implementation wrong. Which is why there also needs to be some community input as to how they would like things to work, so the devs can use that in their decision making.
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But this is where proper feedback is needed. If you can influence the direction the devs go in, by providing a basic system that could be built upon, especially if it gets feedback from many members of the forum, you are more likely to get something that you might enjoy, rather than just leaving it up to the devs and it turns into the roll of the dice whether it is something you want or not.

Have snipped out the parts relevant to mine.

I am not saying it was exempt from issues, but the simple fact is they resolved much of the complaints presented with BA by making the ones inside the zone to be essentially alliance raid level difficulty.. You enter in and for the most part with CLL/Zadnor you can just throw corpses at it, and DR didn't really exhibit any issues until the Endwalker, at which point the content was larger outdated, which is the exact same thing Forked Tower is/will suffer with, where the content is only propped by Discords. You are never going to get an evangelic solution that solves all issues. The feedback on BA versus the feedback with DRS should have told them everything they needed to know.

if is a massive flag here, the fact it isn't is irrelevant... After they tried relatively high-end with BA, and the issues people had and still have with sniping should tell you everything you need to know about why it wasn't going to work... Alleviating the issues was something that was introduced later on, and granted, they did listen to feedback -- This is once again where experience should have told them that this should've been the initial implementation.

and again, the issue here is they ask people to leave feedback on the forums, and then for the most part the feedback left on the forums is ignored. See my initial point, really.. Nothing here is given the slightest acknowledgement, so people will still scream into the void... It's not until something kicks up a big enough storm that they even bother considering it... It took nuking a certain plugin and handing a C&D before Yoshi admitted that his approach to class fantasy does not work. Also hence why we saw Forked Tower get addressed (Past experiences should have told them that the initial on-patch implementation would not have worked.

---

Proper feedback requires proper acknowledgement, and not just platitudes of "We understand we took it too easy" -- This is still a massive issue unless you raid.

I don't disagree with it on surface level, but a basic system is only as good as whether the feedback is actually acknowledged.

[Kohashi]

Where one draws the line on "innovation" is arbitrary. If you're just gonna say.. rather reductively imo: "oh x isn't new, it's just y with z" then yeah, nothing will ever be innovative to you.

5k posts from someone who apparently, doesn't enjoy the game is hilarious.

Now that's real talk. It's funny to see them still posting the same things they always do, still not enjoying the game, and still complaining about it. Caught up in a loop of self-inflicted misery and posing as the victim.

[YumieYumiki]

Where one draws the line on "innovation" is arbitrary. If you're just gonna say.. rather reductively imo: "oh x isn't new, it's just y with z" then yeah, nothing will ever be innovative to you.

"Just y with z" is not innovative. One can always delude themselves into thinking that this constitutes "innovation", but it doesn't change reality.

[Valence]

Now that's real talk. It's funny to see them still posting the same things they always do, still not enjoying the game, and still complaining about it. Caught up in a loop of self-inflicted misery and posing as the victim.

What's real talk is assuming that I'm not enjoying the game. Keep deluding yourself

[Kohashi]

What's real talk is assuming that I'm not enjoying the game. Keep deluding yourself

I think you lurk in the forums more than playing the actual game. I think at this point, you just keep the sub running to be able to post here.

[Kaurhz]

I think you lurk in the forums more than playing the actual game. I think at this point, you just keep the sub running to be able to post here.

Is multitasking a difficult concept for you? There a very few activities in this game that require ongoing attention, so it's very easy to play and post, or play and watch YouTube/Netflix etc.,