Why Casual Friendly Would Stop ARR From Dying

[Chardrizard]

Our dungeons was casual friendly, it can be done in less than 25mins easily. So was primals, it was less than 10mins easily.

everything in v1.0 was made with casual in mind, if you do not like dungeons, that is your own issue right there. The word you are looking for is alternative contents to a content i do not like in order to gear up my gimpself, even though they already did this in FFXIV v1.0 too where a player with mix GC gear and AH gear can come out on top.

I forgot did you also not like to grind GC seals and needs another carrot in stick? so you will continue whining until SE can come up with a content that you likes with a gear of your preferance? even baby Jesus is lol-ing right now.

[Ryokyu]

Sooo.... in essence people who spend more time should continue doing so because they have no life, and people who log in 30 minutes to and hour a day can get the best that the game has available? Sorry I strongly disagree. Don't get me wrong, the game does need casual content. People who don't have the time should have options available, but they shouldn't be handed the best simply because they don't have the time or can't do a dungeon the way it was intended.

Also, not all casuals are frail people with no time. A lot of them kick ass.

i totally i agree with you bro i know people that dont play alot but still are really good player and they manage to have time to do the hardcore stuff and still get the best gear idk what Azurymber is talking about but for me it looks like he wants a WoW game, where u do few things and there u go u have the best gear of the game im really but this SHOULD NOT! BE LIKE THAT GAME! so if you dont like it then go play that kind of game because this one doesnt suit you

[Starlord]

Except for.... Crazy Garuda 0.0. Just me though :P. ( I know I know I must be doing it wrong you don't have to tell me) :P

[strallaalaa]

This thread, and OP's suggestions, are dildos.

are they dancing dildos? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udF86qHLtC0 if you gonna be a dildo at least be dancing dildos.

[Duelle]

Let's face it. Modern MMOs don't last. LOTR, RIFT, SWTOR, GW2, TERA etc, have all essentially died down after a few months of release, to the point where some have gone free to play.

To me, the reason for all these failures is obvious.

Indeed. Poor implementation, lack of forethought in design, lack of content, and irritating bugs.

LOTRO: Niche game. This alone creates a massive challenge. The game appealed more to those who read the books while trying to milk the popularity of the movies. It didn't get much of a chance to distinguish itself, then went free to play.

Rift: Dwindled in subs post-launch due to poor PvP balancing and some class balance issues. The game itself has recovered somewhat, but it's not going to hit anything close to WoW numbers.

TOR: Even now, the game is a mid-stage beta rather than a full game. It's built on a poor game engine, still has several gameplay bugs in-place even now, close to a year from launch. The game world itself feels extremely restrictive, and you basically have nothing to do once you finish your class story. Not counting numerous instances that gave EA and Bioware bad PR like the mysterious disappearance of the unsubscribe option one month after launch, or their latest fiasco of releasing a patch that broke several parts of the game then taking the week off for Thanksgiving, leaving players (both sub and FTP) to just deal with said bugs until the following week when everyone came back to work.

I can't comment on TERA or GW2, though I'm told GW2 has devolved into a game where you'd better play ranged and stay away from melee to be effective. I stopped following TERA after the idiocy over the Elim started. Though the game just has a bad vibe based on the fact that it was supposed to be Lineage III and was supposedly built on stolen game assets.

A lot of people I played with at that time were my age (I started the game with a bunch of friends). Most of the people on the ffxi servers had quite a bit of time to devote to the long tedious leveling up process, but also was in no rush to do so.

I was in linkshells where people didn't hit 75 for years and didn't care. The fun part of ffxi was experiencing new zones, fishing, gathering, farming, talking to friends, doing missions and quests, etc.

It wasn't until WOTG came out that I noticed people rushing to the end.

False. FFXI since even pre-CoP also had the rush to endgame. Hence the obsession with Exp/Hour and all that came with it, including overhunting, "requiring" rare gear with high stats to counter level correction versus IT++++ monsters, and screwing over anyone that didn't easily fit into that mode of play.

In closing, the above games floundered and took hits due to mistakes in implementation, bugs, and lack of content. The second won't be an issue with XIV provided the alpha and beta testers do their best to find the issues and report them. The third may not be an issue if the developers deliver on the amount of content they have repeatedly mentioned. The first one is key, and I can't say whether it'll create issues here or not.

The moral is not to discourage having content that appeals to casual gamers, or to not take them into account when designing the game. The moral of this era of MMOs is that you can't get away with releasing games with notable bugs and holes in game content. Fans are less forgiving of mistakes, especially big ones now that there are plenty of options around and about.

[Sylkis]

Worthwhile read

Well said. Not often do I see a post without feeling dumber.


About gear:
Gear is only proof of an accomplishment. It's the accomplishment that's what you're showing to other people when you wear it, whether it's skill , luck or time investment. It's what distinguishes you from the other 10000 players.

Take away the accomplishment and it becomes another piece of GC gear (no offense).




P.S. could OP be trolling? Ah, I already fell for it...

[Ryokyu]

While I can appreciate everything that you've said in your post I'm going to have to disagree with you. All of the games you have listed aren't bad in the sense that they offer a mediocre playing experience.. but bad in the sense that they are virtually the same game repackaged for the most part.

A long while ago a point was reached where things became stagnate. You might not agree with what I have to say but I've seen it first hand as I'm sure everyone here has. Whenever a new game comes out literally everyone will flock to it except for the more avid players of whatever game everyone else came from. They'll have their fun in the first few months because everything is new and shiny.. but after a certain point, generally around the endgame point, that luster will wear off and a great deal of players will just abandon ship.

And honestly.. I think it's kind of childish to blame the developers for the current formula that's implemented. We have no one to blame but ourselves.. this is what the majority wanted, content that can be consumed in a matter of minutes. I really hate to bash World of Warcraft because it did bring in a whole new generation of players if you will. But at the same time most of those players are people who have absolutely no right to be playing these kinds of games in the first place.

Here me out before you start up your flamethrowers. First of all lets take a look at what an MMO is and stands for.. Massively multiplayer online. Simple, right? It must not be though because as the years pass I see more and more games pulling away from that and into a more solo oriented experience. Minimal interaction.. minimal cooperation. I just can not see the logic in it.. I can't see the logic in someone who plays these types of games casually, I'm talking maybe an hour a day, and demanding that they have access to everything the game has to offer by themselves. And when they don't.. the game is unfair and just sucks.

Now don't get me wrong. I believe that there should be content for every type of player regardless of if they play casually or hardcore. Variety is the spice of life after all.. but more and more I see, forgive me for the language, bitching and moaning because a certain type of player doesn't have the time to acquire a weapon or piece of gear that they want. It's extremely self-entitled behavior that I'm seeing more and more and I don't like it. Why? Because it's the reasons these types of games suffer a shorter and shorter life cycle.

I too played FFXI and I loved every minute of it. Now it did take awhile to level up and that in itself required a lot of time each night.. but when it came to endgame there was literally something for everyone. Dynamis, Limbus, Sea, Sky, Assault.. etc... I played for a lot of hours every night but you know what's the one event I didn't do? HNMs.. it required way to much time for my liking. But the thing is.. I didn't complain that I couldn't acquire the gear from doing HNMs because I could still play/enjoy the game without the things it had to offer. It didn't negatively effect my experience not having a piece of armor from one of those HNMs.. so my question is, what happened to that rational? As I said before.. way to much self-entitlement now a days.

What I see you effectively trying to do is cater even more so to those people who honestly have no right playing MMOs. I do agree that dungeons/raids should have different modes(Easy/Hard).. but what you're offering it to warp that kind of content into something completely different to suit those who only have maybe an hour a day to play. That's wrong... create NEW content for those types of players to consume.. don't change everything else to suit them because all you're doing is alienating the more moderate/hardcore audience, and those are the people who are going to stick around.

I know you're not really badmouthing those of us who can play for a longer period of time but it's kind of coming off that way. I'm sorry.. those who can only play for an hour or less a day have no business being "elite" in the gear sense. A lot of hardcore players have children and jobs to tend to as well but they still manage to be "elite". I don't like your idea of fun either, but that's what the majority sees it as anyway.. in order to have fun you HAVE to acquire something. That's not fun.. that's just wanting things.

I haven't really gotten my point across the way I'd like but I think you can get the general idea. The hardest content should offer the best gear. And you know what... if certain people can't do that content that's to bad. It's not going to kill them not having the best piece of gear the game has to offer. There should be endgame content for everyone.. ranging from 30 minute events to upwards of 3 hours.

Pretty much though the self-entitlement has to stop. Look at it this way.. you wouldn't buy a gym membership if you didn't have enough time in the day to go to the gym. So why would you buy an MMO, knowing they are time sinks, and expect different?

There should be content for anyone but not for everyone.

damn you on the right point! thumps up for you totally i agree with you

[Ryokyu]

Unfortunately, gamers these days seem to want games to cater to their own wants and needs, rather than catering to the level of involvement requirement set by the game itself. Yes, you are paying for the service, but you paid knowing full well that you are getting what you paid for. You don't rent a hotel room, then bitch because you only stayed there 2 days out of a week because you paid for a week. You don't bitch at the paintings and flowers they put in the room because you should have checked it out to see if you can adapt to it.

Casual friendly is fine. It has always been so in FFXIV, even in 1.0: you had coliseum gear, giantsgall gear, GC gear. Heck, a simple double meld went a long way. Those are not hard to get - 2 rounds of Skirmish, and you can potentially have 4 weapons. A few Operation leves, coliseum gear is yours. 1 hour of caravans = 3k seals, or even at the later stage of the game, Atomos and his crystals.

It's come to gamers expecting the best for minimal participation. Kind of pointless - you don't expect to go to a high level restaurant if you don't have the lifestyle. You don't expect to be a lawyer without the qualifications for it. What makes you think you can have end-game gear if you don't have the skill or time to do so? Maybe you should change your play-style. Change your play-times. Heck, change games to another game which is geared towards less play-time.

Fear of change. Fear of adaptation. Fear of compromising. Fear of losing and falling behind. That's what this generation has become. All about it familiarity and entitlement, in almost every topic and discussion there is here.

damn another great post i agree with you too so many well comment

[RoyalSibby]

Let's face it. Modern MMOs don't last. LOTR, RIFT, SWTOR, GW2, TERA etc, have all essentially died down after a few months of release, to the point where some have gone free to play.

Since when was GW2 ever Pay2Play? Rift is Still P2P, SWTOR was fucked, i dont even consider it a MMO. Never Played LOTR so im not saying anything, and Tera is still P2P.
The only games you listed that went from P2P to F2P are SWTOR(Because EA/Bioware sucks) and LOTR.

Your Argument is invalid.

[Virtuso]

@ NoctisXZ

I agree with most of what you posted.

However I don't agree how you go as far as to slander a certain group of gamers, especially those that like the Final Fantasy franchise and is willing to give it a try on the console. I don't believe FFXIV ARR is just an MMO, I believe it is also an RPG. In my opinion it should feel like a Final Fantasy RPG, with MMO aspects, thus calling it a MMORPG. That is all I have to say.

Agreed, Yoshi-P and Wada both made it clear repeatedly that XIV is meant to be a return to glory for fans of the series, not just for XI fans. Yoshi-P himself stated that XIV is an RPG first and foremost. He wants XIV to be seen as worthy of the "Final Fantasy" name, not just the "Online" name.

The Seventh Umbra Era storyline diffidently showed how he's taken the storyline direction very differently from XI's story lines. He's also stated how he wants FF fans not used to MMO's to feel welcomed to trying out XIV, designing party content with them in mind by starting out solo, then small parties then full parties with the LFG tool to make it so solo players can still progress in party content without having to join a link shell.