dev1031 You are losing your main playerbase by making things too easy/fast/casual

[ManekiKanji]

I stick thumbs up to them being access if only if its chanlenging, xi content and story missons was really fun, but i can say the majoritys of tackling said content was not actually fighting in great epics battles, were the actual difficulty was having the people and time to do such things as im sure theres enough people who's had some sort of pro longed horror story being stuck on something for a long time in that situation.

[solracht]

Um how does casual = money?

Who are they going to make any money off people who don't even play and are just going to leave in a few months?

Are you dense?

3 million players for 1 year < 500k players for 8 years.

No one bitched about ANYTHING in XI EXCEPT casuals.

You logic keeps on revolving around two extremes, which makes the entire thing fall apart. Here, let me help you:

-If the content is being made for casuals, at the right pace for them, they will not leave after 1 year, because they'll never be done with content. If content is being made for them, they'll have fun with it. One year later, they'll still have things to do. Hardcores will finish and leave in frustration as they're eating through that content really quickly, however. No arguing there.

-Keeping people around is the most important thing to do, but do you know what also helps these games quite a bit? Getting new people in past the initial release. If the game is user-friendly, new-player-friendly, and if people feel like they can catch up to the current players to do events with them, new people will keep on flowing into the game. FFXI did a horrible job at drawing new people in.

Having a stable and smaller playerbase is for sure better than having a huge playerbase that completely dissapears after a short time, but you seem to assume only the two extremes work.

Hopefully next time you throw numbers around, you'll keep these two things into consideration. I'm not expecting you to adjust your numbers to something that makes sense, but maybe they'll change just enough so you don't look like an idiot.

I mean, looking at your example (not that it's built on the right assumptions or anything): even keeping 150k players past that first year, with small player influxes whenever an expansion comes out (as it would not be catered to a minority) would give them more money.

[JakeRoon]

They are running a business, the MAIN player base they hope to capture is the 12 million casual gamers out there. Are they willing to lose 30,000 hard-core players over that kind of cheddar.....

You can bet you Krakkan Club +1 they are.

The culture of mmo gaming was changed forever by games outside of FFXI, to a more casual fair. In doing so those game makers made ridiculous amounts of money, while providing a product to millions of gamers that they love and adore.

You might as well be arguing that we should get rid of airplanes and take Zeppelin's again. Were zeppelins awesome! YES! But, they were also slow, inaccessible for the general public, and had a tendency to explode horrifically when things went wrong.

[Visch]

You logic keeps on revolving around two extremes, which makes the entire thing fall apart.

And this game hasn't been an extreme change in comparison to FFXI? How is going from 1~3 hour lotto pops for a level 7 pair of boots to instant repop and people STILL COMPLAINING ABOUT IT IS TOO HARD FOR THEM not extreme?

If content is being made for them, they'll have fun with it. One year later, they'll still have things to do. Hardcores will finish and leave in frustration as they're eating through that content really quickly, however. No arguing there.

Then who is this content made for? Because most of these NMs are just up walking around a day after. It looks like everyone is hardcore then huh?

If the game is user-friendly, new-player-friendly, and if people feel like they can catch up to the current players to do events with them, new people will keep on flowing into the game. FFXI did a horrible job at drawing new people in.

Isn't it a problem already that it takes absolutely no effort or thinking or learning to get 50? The stuff you would learn just from partying in XI would make you a better player and prepare you somewhat for endgame events. Guildleves teach you to do nothing. You just act like a drone and kill 5 puks. And you want to make it even easier to get more people? Why even have a leveling system then?

Hopefully next time you throw numbers around, you'll keep these two things into consideration. I'm not expecting you to adjust your numbers to something that makes sense, but maybe they'll change just enough so you don't look like an idiot.

And you don't look like an idiot? Honestly. How are my numbers wrong in anyway? FFXI had about the same 500k subs for about that time. The other number is figurative. It is to prove a point of exactly what you just said.

I've said before probably 20 times in previous posts on every thread that there needs to be balance.

[Kallera]

They are running a business, the MAIN player base they hope to capture is the 12 million casual gamers out there. Are they willing to lose 30,000 hard-core players over that kind of cheddar.....

You can bet you Krakkan Club +1 they are.

The culture of mmo gaming was changed forever by games outside of FFXI, to a more casual fair. In doing so those game makers made ridiculous amounts of money, while providing a product to millions of gamers that they love and adore.

You might as well be arguing that we should get rid of airplanes and take Zeppelin's again. Were zeppelins awesome! YES! But, they were also slow, inaccessible for the general public, and had a tendency to explode horrifically when things went wrong.

Or hardcore samurai vs casual everyday infantry.

:cues dramtic failed samurai charge scene.:

[solracht]

And this game hasn't been an extreme change in comparison to FFXI? How is going from 1~3 hour lotto pops for a level 7 pair of boots to instant repop and people STILL COMPLAINING ABOUT IT IS TOO HARD FOR THEM not extreme?

I'm sorry that you consider mid-level gear that you're going to outlevel and make useless in no time something worthy of spending 3-4 hours on, which you could use for leveling instead.

The fact that most of that gear is better than our current rank 50 gear means nothing because there aren't any real endgame events or gear out, and attributes don't even work right now. Don't bother telling me that they could be considered "endgame" right now.

Complain about endgame being easy (don't bother complaining if it's accessible though) when the first endgame event comes (which will probably be after the job/combat/stat rehaul, things that would affect the balance of the game quite a bit), or at least when they tell you how it's going to be.

Then who is this content made for? Because most of these NMs are just up walking around a day after. It looks like everyone is hardcore then huh?

Yea man I'm so surprised nobody is killing NMs in a game where nobody is playing right now.

Isn't it a problem already that it takes absolutely no effort or thinking or learning to get 50? The stuff you would learn just from partying in XI would make you a better player and prepare you somewhat for endgame events. Guildleves teach you to do nothing. You just act like a drone and kill 5 puks. And you want to make it even easier to get more people? Why even have a leveling system then?

Lol. Not even worth saying anything else to someone who honestly thinks that. The difficulty curve in FFXI certainly didn't warrant the speed/annoyances of the leveling system, I'll just leave it at that.

And you don't look like an idiot? Honestly. How are my numbers wrong in anyway? FFXI had about the same 500k subs for about that time. The other number is figurative. It is to prove a point of exactly what you just said.

What did I just say? That your numbers themselves prove you wrong, when you take the smallest bit of logic and assume that a very small playerbase (100-150k players out of the intial influx) will stick around past the first year?

I've said before probably 20 times in previous posts on every thread that there needs to be balance.

No, what you want is not balance.

[Visch]

I'm sorry that you consider mid-level gear that you're going to outlevel and make useless in no time something worthy of spending 3-4 hours on, which you could use for leveling instead.

The fact that most of that gear is better than our current rank 50 gear means nothing because there aren't any real endgame events or gear out, and attributes don't even work right now. Don't bother telling me that they could be considered "endgame" right now.

Do you just not read and make stuff up? NO ONE EVER SAID THIS WAS ENDGAME GEAR. I was comparing these NMs to NMs in XI that would drop level 7 gear and would be a lotto pop every 1~3 hours.

Obviously you're going to outlevel it and it's just something fun to get to level in. But the point is in XI these items had value because they were time consuming to obtain. These new items in XIV have no value at all because anyone can get them in less than an hour.

Complain about endgame being easy (don't bother complaining if it's accessible though) when the first endgame event comes (which will probably be after the job/combat/stat rehaul, things that would affect the balance of the game quite a bit), or at least when they tell you how it's going to be.

No one is talking about endgame. Why do you keep bringing this up? In the state the game is in anything that would even be considered "endgame" is years away.

The problem is that the instant repop window sets a precedence for future NMs.

Yea man I'm so surprised nobody is killing NMs in a game where nobody is playing right now.

Now I'm starting to doubt you even play this game OR read the forums.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Content-SUCKS.

Lol. Not even worth saying anything else to someone who honestly thinks that. The difficulty curve in FFXI certainly didn't warrant the speed/annoyances of the leveling system, I'll just leave it at that.

The speed and annoyances of the leveling system? Having to play with other people on an online game is an annoyance? I thought it was the whole point of playing online.

What did I just say? That your numbers themselves prove that you're wrong, when you take the smallest bit of logic and assume that a very small playerbase (100-150k players ouf of said 3mill) will stick around past the first year?

What? This doesn't even make sense at all. What logic is saying how many players of how many will stay for how long? It's all figurative besides the number from FFXI.

No, what you want is not balance.

What I want is the game to be more like XI. XI was balanced. If you don't think it was balanced then that is your opinion based off of never actually playing the game and just listening to others who too didn't play the game.

[solracht]

Hey Visch, it was fun getting you to go CAPS, bold, underline and color on me but I have to get going, probably won't remember to check this thread tomorrow.

Have fun teaching these newbs how to spend 4 hours to accomplish silly things in videogames when there are no MMORPG developers left that agree with that.

EDIT: Ok, I guess just one thing:

The speed and annoyances of the leveling system? Having to play with other people on an online game is an annoyance? I thought it was the whole point of playing online.

Spending months grinding for no reason but to get higher, while taking hours to set up groups if you were the wrong job is what I considered an annoyance. None of this taught you anything about how you should behave in endgame either, considering subjobs and playstyles used while killing random mobs had nothing to do with the strategies used in most NMs or events.

The FFXI player was not a super-beast forged by the hardships of the leveling system, sorry if you thought so.

[Visch]

Hey Visch, it was fun getting you to go CAPS, bold, underline and color on me but I have to get going, probably won't remember to check this thread tomorrow.

Have fun teaching these newbs how to spend 4 hours to accomplish silly things in videogames.

Well I guess this makes it obvious now that you do not read what other people write. No one said this was endgame. No one said they wanted everything unbalanced for hardcore players.

If you're not going to even read what other people write and bring up unrelated topics over and over based off your own personal bias then how are you going to make any constructive argument? You shouldn't even be on these forums.

[Zkieve]

The FFXI player was not a super-beast forged by the hardships of the leveling system, sorry if you thought so.

Sorry to bump into the discussion but this statement is true ,not wrong like you said.At least compared to any mmo up to date on the "old" ffxi pre leve sync , if you were 75 it DID meant something. I nearly have two 50 on here and it doesnt mean a thing.