The Future of Serious Gamers in ARR

[LugoSthalsmyd]

ShellQ8 made some great points in his opening post. Some a bit extreme, but that's how it should be. I can see that this topic has already 4 pages in less then a day.

I'm sure SE will take note of this to improve ARR even more. +1!

[Kallera]

Had to stop there. There are a lot of MMO players that make the game feel very much like a job. Anyone who's played an MMO, including XIV, for any length of time has at least heard the horror stories of getting kicked from groups for being undergeared or underskilled, or even for not showing up to weekly events. And Yoshi-P more-or-less encouraged this kind of crap with speed runs and gear checks like Garuda and Relic quests.

Edit: Ok, this makes me sound like a casual. I didn't bother with relic, and shied away from speed runs, but I do have my entire Dungeons achievement section completed, as well as the three Primal achievements. My point was that some linkshells take it beyond hardcore and work you harder than even a full-time job, but they aren't bound by workforce laws and can get away with worse abuse.

There are people that get paid to advance a character as far as they can go, getting as close to 24/7 gameplay by switching accounts between multiple users.

Not that I condone said behavior, but it's part of the gilselling draw to sell characters that already have the work done for you.

And yeah, there are some linkshells that act like drill sergeants, part of the price of high level play is that leaders demand regimented behavior, as it cuts down on the things that go wrong in said difficult fights.

At the same time, Yoshi's plans for fights later on(I'm cool with the idea, btw) trivializes their perceptions of their achievements, which sort of happens anyway.
Let's face it, "World Firsts" may be celebrated by servers for a while, but to the average gamer, it doesn't matter all that much, and what little fame or glory they get dissipates over the long run. I used to see successful Nagafen runs by guilds get plastered all over EQ fansites, only for it to fade away as time went on and people fought Planar Gods or woke The Sleeper, which gave way to other bosses. It certainly earned no pull with the GMs or company, as some eventually found out.

[ShellQ8]

Thank you everyone for replying and taking interest in this topic. I respect and value every single one of your replies. There are a few things I'd like to clarify.

1. Casual Players.

I'm not against casual players, and I think the definition I have in mind and the definition some of you understood are not the same. By casual I mean those people who play an hour a day (not because they're forced to), sometimes 2-3 hours only on the weekends, because they're bored. Or those people who plan to play the game for 2 weeks (or a month) then say goodbye to their accounts. Those people, they want to have everything, and want to get to finish everything in that limited time they chose.

It's those people whom you avoid to have in your linkshell because they won't benefit the linkshell or the members, because they don't share the same plans you have for the group. To them you and your LS are their vacation buddies, then *delete*.. And they might come back a few months later for another short vacation, join the poll, and ask for easier stuff, complain about every single thing that needs some time and patience, then leave again...

2. Serious Gamers.

Being a serious gamer doesn't really require 10+ hours of gameplay every day, if you can allocate time to play 4-5 hours a day, you can be as good as any hardcore player. And I don't think it's impossible - in most cases - to fix your schedule in order to have 5 hours for something you love and want to keep doing every day. That's why I kept saying "Serious Gamer" rather than "Hardcore gamer," even if you got so busy and couldn't login for more than 2 hours a day, you're still a serious gamer and you care about the game enough to make sure everything is running perfectly in it and it's at a challenging level.

Even if you can only play 2 hours a day sometimes, I'm sure you still don't want the game to be easier and less challenging, it will just take you a bit longer than others, but you'll keep up in time, and eventually you might have more time than you thought.

Many of my friends have full-time jobs, married, children, and they still were able to work their schedules out to play 4-6 hours a day, even more hours in some days. (ex. 6 hours of sleep, 7 hours at work, 2 hours with family, 2 hours chores, 5 hours ffxiv with friends, 2 hours whatever)


3. I'm not saying HC/Serious gamers only.

I didn't ask for the game to be completely hard in every single way.. What SE did to bring more casual players isn't wrong, it's their choice and they want to insure a successful launch. I welcome casual contents; they can be fun, easy and quick stuff to do when you're bored. But this content shouldn't be the only thing available; it shouldn't be the main dish - or at least not the only main dish. We want a higher class to aspire to. A chance to go beyond the limit average gamers stop at.

For example, what if SE put this long, hard, and very challenging quest that ends with a fight or a series of fights, something like ( Solo 1000 goblins without dying ) and the reward is: "a +1 to one of your stats points." Most players won't really care about it "It's too hard, and takes too long.. and it's only one point!" they would say. But a quest like this opens new windows to character development, it gives us a chance to make our characters rise from the average character if we work harder than others, a player might plan to finish it once a week. Later in a few months when you see that player, you can tell that even though you’re both warriors, he's much stronger, because he worked hard on his character, it might have been painfully hard, but he could be as strong as 2 people in a few months. or as strong as a full party in 2 years.

A quest like this isn't mandatory, it won't make a huge difference when you do it once or twice, and you're not forced to do it, keep playing the way you like, and the quest will still be there for people who are looking for a challenge and a chance to be stronger.

If you say hardcore gamers are dead, I say they're here and there's so many of them, they're just not given the chance to show themselves.

[Alhanelem]

I'm not against casual players, and I think the definition I have in mind and the definition some of you understood are not the same. By casual I mean those people who play an hour a day (not because they're forced to), sometimes 2-3 hours only on the weekends, because they're bored. Or those people who plan to play the game for 2 weeks (or a month) then say goodbye to their accounts. Those people, they want to have everything, and want to get to finish everything in that limited time they chose.

It's those people whom you avoid to have in your linkshell because they won't benefit the linkshell or the members, because they don't share the same plans you have for the group. To them you and your LS are their vacation buddies, then *delete*.. And they might come back a few months later for another short vacation, join the poll, and ask for easier stuff, complain about every single thing that needs some time and patience, then leave again...

You say you're not against them, but you sure seem to hate them in this post. I think it's wrong of you to assume that they can't benefit a guild/group and come up with a laundry list of things to hate about them. Just because they aren't playing 5-10 hours a day doesn't mean they are sure to be bad players or otherwise are unable to contribute.

[LugoSthalsmyd]

We want a higher class to aspire to. A chance to go beyond the limit average gamers stop at.

Exactly, couldn't have said it any better. Give serious gamers challenges aswell and I truely hope SE won't forget about the serious gamers.

[TrystWildkey]

I've come to the point where I'm just going to link this every time the topic comes up. Enjoy.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...Filthy-Casuals

This was fantastic, thanks!

[TRALYNN]

I've come to the point where I'm just going to link this every time the topic comes up. Enjoy.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...Filthy-Casuals

I think you missed what this guy was talking about. This guys rather hilarious rant was about people complaining about easy modes that don't effect the hard modes. It ends with him saying "unless the entire game is being upended and altered and dumbed down you have nothing to fear". And that is what people are complaining about - the games are being upended and altered and dumbed down.

I don't care hardcore or casual or whatever you are. I like to play with everyone, but I like to play content that is not so easy I could do it half asleep. I'm not saying FFXIV is that easy - we won't really know until it's finished and we all get to play it.

[Hessarial]

So basically, as I'm understanding it, you want only one level of content accessible to only one type of player rather than having different levels of content interspersed throughout the game.

Nothing says gaming developer success like developing content that almost no one gets to experience.

Feeling special about hitting max level died in the early 2000s, if it ever even existed.

I completely agree with this statement. If you want to feel special about hitting max level, go play Runescape where that kind of mentality is common with the 13 year olds that play there "OMG A LVL 130"

In current successful MMO's which Yoshi-P himself said that they are trying to emulate with the unique final fantasy brand, there are 3 kinds of player's just as he stated.

Content, in and of itself is divided into 2 or 3 groups. Group a, the casual scene, the "leveling"/"questing" scene
This content is what all players experience during the leveling process. it puts together the story and introduces and refines gameplay mechanics and types of content. People that only play an MMO for this content are considered "casuals"

The second type of content is where i think 70% of mmo players in the current generation fit. they are the "end game" players. We end game players enjoy our climb to capping our preferred role/profession, but for us, the real game starts when we are able to play the level cap "end game" content. aka the Raids/Instances/Level cap quests/world bosses/achievements and on the other side of the coin, end game PVP players.

This group of players can be broken into 2 categories. 1. the "realm first"'s or "content pushers" these are the end game players that are the first to push through the end game content. this comprises 10* of the "hardcore" population.

The rest of the end game players don't worry about doing it first, rather they worry about getting their guild through it, becoming excellent players, learning their roles, and making good friends and partners doing such. These are the "mid core" players.




The point I am trying to get across, is that, reaching max level shouldnt make you feel hugely accomplished. This is the one area that the statement "the end doesn't matter only the journey" is not true.

We, the 70%, dont live to level, we live to be level capped and enjoy level cap content, whether it be lots of raiding with pvp on the side, or lots of pvp with dungeons with our guild or a mix of proff's and everything else. That is what makes an MMO last. firstly, compelling quest content, secondly, compelling "Endgame" content for that 70% of us who love to clear content with our LS/guild.

We dont want to not be able to all get together on a guild night because half of us are lvl 40 the other are 50 and the other are 1-30 and not be able to play together, we want to be able to all get together and go out an do something, this creates the social aspect of MMO's, the guild/LS and the social culture brought through it.

I dont enjoy sitting at level 30 knowing it will take 3 months to get to 40 while my level capped friends are having fun progressing through the Crystal Tower or doing high level arena's or Guildhests or what have you, while i have to grind away.

THAT IS NOT FUN

FUN- is when i dont worry about it taking 3 months to level because it DOESNT and i know ill be able to enjoy ALL the content (and by this im not saying to make raids easy, no no no, make them hard, make like WoW and scale the difficulty. IT WORKS.)
Ill be able to really get into the game with my friends who are already level 50, and have fun doing it.

What I want in A Realm Reborn is this, and I know a lot of you will agree


I DO NOT want a grind rivaling that of EQ1
I DO NOT want it to take a month just to be able to get into several different types of content
I DO NOT want a huge years long grind gap between me and my level 50 friends.



I DO want accessible content stating at a medium level, scaled to different levels, low level instances AND high level instances, with varying difficulty levels.

I DO want level cap end game raids, well thought out encounters. i want them to be challenging, requiring team work, and harder tier "heroics" dare i say.

I DO want fun PVP on several different scale, be it Arenas, larger scale battles, or war/siege.

I DO want there to be far off hidden reaches of the world to explore, that are hard to explore. (think about the post end game area of Final Fantasy XII, the Henne Mines, the Great Crystal, ect.)

I DO want social systems and structures is place, "content finders" and dear lord can we have chat bubbles, please oh please.


I want to play an MMO with all these features in the world of Final Fantasy, an epic world filled with the landscapes i love, and the insanely cool geographic structures i have seen in the concept art. for me, that would be the pinnicle of an mmo/gaming experience.

Not a field of grind mods so i can reach the fabled "LVL 50" after a month of killing them, looking at you OP.

[Corleone]

Awesome post! I agree 100% with everything you said...I hope the vision of the Dev Team is identical (or close) to the things you brought up here. =)

[TrystWildkey]

snip

Thank you.

That's all I can say to your post.

Thank you.