[DEV] Time sinks and satisfaction, a plea from one of your hardcore fans

[MeowyWowie]

That's not to say that NMs can't be constantly rewarding with continued camping.

My favorite NM in FFXI by far was Sozu Rogberry, the Thief's Knife NM (pre force spawn.) Many people never even bothered to camp him because of his 1-16 hour re-spawn rate. And because they never bothered, they never realized that a 16 hour pop was incredibly rare. 1-2 hours was the most common. His drop rate was also among the rarest in the game.

That doesn't mean I sat there doing nothing just waiting for his pop though. In between PH pops (16 min re-spawn) I was farming tonberries, making 500k-1M a day just from their drops and stolen coins. I was constantly moving around, having fun. The only downtime was waiting ~30 seconds every 16 min. And when that knife finally dropped it was like winning the lottery.

I went 1/25 on my first knife after about month of camping which I kept for about a month. Afterwards I sold it for a hefty 60M (well worth my time, considering I was having fun doing it and also making gil in the process.) I kept camping him until SE nerfed the pop and made it forced spawn and 100% drop, making the knife and my favorite NM worthless. After that you never saw anyone down there anymore, for the same simple reason this whole thread is about. It was now far too easy to pop him and the drop was made so common that within a few days everyone had one. They effectively deleted this little piece of content with one simple update.

No matter what type of content they add I can guarantee you two things. Someone will love it and someone will hate it. But if they keep a good balance to please everyone then they'll be much better off because they will attract more players. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what SE was going for in the first place?

If they make the game strictly for casuals and only implement casual content then they're doing the SAME EXACT THING they did with XI, except this time it's for casuals. While the game can still be successful in that regard (XI was,) nothing is keeping them from creating the game for more than just one crowd.

From what I'm seeing, this is the main argument:

Hardcore player-base: I don't like casual content. It's hardly rewarding and does not last long. Keep it, but give us something as well.

Casual player-base: I don't like hardcore content. I don't want to invest the time into it. Please don't add anything like this in game.

Fair? I think not. Not by a long shot.

[Physic]

i helped a friend hunt rogberry, they killed iot a lot, it never dropped, they ended up buying it. In a Solo world, its a ok mechanic, but with competition? I dunno, i think the hour spawn NM gimmick is overated, im not saying hand everything to people, but man, waiting around 2 hours kind of sucks when your alone, and reaaaaally sucks when you got competition.

[Firon]

O.Kote 1/32......... !$!$!$!$!$ LAME

O/100 o.kote try that i just bought cause i was stupid rich but i didn't stop me from camping cause i liked it.

[MeowyWowie]

Ouch, 0/100 on O.Kote? XD I had a friend or two that had that kind of luck with Sozu, but Mee Deggi? Altana must have had it out for you. /comfort

[Firon]

Yeah i got a Aegis shield and couldn't get a O.kote.....

[MeowyWowie]

Shoulda camped with us, we got them on a daily basis Fun times

[Drex]

Disclaimer: This thread is not about Hard vs Easy content. It's not about any type of player being better than another. This thread is strictly about content that is available to everyone and keeps them coming back for more. Please stay on this topic.

I'd like to take a moment to discuss the topic of time sinks. In this post I will make a number of references to FFXI and also attempt to explain, in my own words, why FFXI was designed the way it was and what it means for FFXIV's future.

Why FFXI? Three reasons: It was the predecessor to FFXIV. It is commonly referred to as being one giant time sink. And FFXIV took one of FFXI best concepts and attempted to improve on it.

When Square-Enix released FFXI they revolutionized a certain aspect of MMOs in general. To this this date, the only other MMO on the market that has adopted this change is FFXIV. It is one of the main reasons I prefer FF's 2 MMOs over any other. So what was this brilliant idea of theirs you say? The ability to level every class on one character. So what does this mean for us, the players?

Well, the most obvious result of this change would be the notion that if you wanted to play a new class, you didn't have to make a whole new character. This allowed for players to become more attached to their avatar. It represented who they were in this virtual world of theirs. It made making a reputation for yourself something many people took seriously, and rightfully so.

With it also came the birth of the subjob and armory systems. Two incredible concepts that, while other MMOs have also attempted in their own ways, are still in my opinion the best examples of class flexibility while still staying within the boundaries of roles (FFXIV still needs a ton of work on the latter.) After all, this is a Role Playing Game.

OK so great concept, but what does this have to do with time sinks? The answer, is everything.

Aside from the fact that many of the best items in FFXI lasted for levels upon levels, they also remained the best option for a number of classes together. For example, when you finally got Homam Hands, your PLD DRK and THF all obtained their best TP hands at the same time. Well worth the time and effort you put into getting them. The sense of satisfaction that came with it always seemed like a huge achievement. When you camped Valkurm Emperor for a week straight, hours on end with no drops. Then one day you log on and he is hovering right in front of you, unclaimed, you grin to yourself and begin to kill him for upwards of the 30th time and it happens, "You find a Empress Hairpin on the Valkrum Emperor." Within seconds you're screaming in your LS "OMFG I GOT IT!!!!! WOOOOO!!11!!!1!!" Your THF and NIN were good to go all the way to 70 now. Again, well worth the time and effort you put into it.

The same can be said for nearly everything in the game. There was a reason the best stuff took so much time to obtain. Nothing could compare to the satisfaction you felt when you finally got your hands on it. Byakko's Haidate, Optical hat, Kraken Club, E. Body, Relic weapons, the list goes on and on. There was always new goals for you to complete, and you knew that if you kept at it you would be handsomely rewarded. You wore that gear proudly as you walked through town. It represented the dedication you put into obtaining it. And in turn it further added to your reputation, if that was something you cared about.

Sadly, this is not the case in FFXIV. When you obtain anything in this game the satisfaction is barely there. I don't think I've ever seen anyone extremely excited when they finally got what they were after. The only thing that comes close is making a +3 weapon or tool, and even that is kinda meh. Nothing takes more than a day to obtain if you really put effort into it. When you do finally get it, it's nothing special. Everyone and their mother already has it anyways. There are no real goals. Everything just seems like your essentially watching a movie and you know exactly what to expect.

For any game other than FFXI and FFXIV I can understand why the instant gratification works. For every new character you make, you have to do the same things over and over again. It only makes sense that items should be easier and quicker to obtain. That's a perfect concept, for those games. But this is not the case for FFXIV.

If you're not the type of player that plays to be the best you can or you don't care about getting the best gear then something like this shouldn't bother you. I'm not saying make everything take time and effort to obtain. There should be plenty of decent and easily accessable options for everyone. But for the best stuff in the game, make us work for it. Give us goals, long term goals. Give us a reason to continue playing, something that is rewarding in both an emotional and material sense. We want to feel like we actually accomplished something sometimes.

Square Enix, your multi-class per character concept was probably the best idea out of both of your FF MMOs. Time sinks like those stated above only work to compliment it. You CAN make this game cater to everyone if you choose to, it's all about finding the balance. If you want to keep any of your hardcore playerbase much longer this is the way to do it.

With 1.18 just around the corner, I'm really hoping that this is something Yoshi-P and the dev. team took into consideration. This coming patch will be the make/break for a lot of players. I'm sure if it's just more of the same, you will lose a very large portion of your hardcore fans, myself included. I mean, the whole reason you copied FFXI's races was to let FFXI vets to feel comfortable transferring, wasn't it? Well, I can assure you they don't want a hand holding, easy-mode, free loot give-a-way MMO. You're doing a great job in a casual sense, just don't alienate the rest of us, please.

To the players: Please like this thread if you agree with me. Share your opinions on the matter. What are your ideas for making this game enjoyable for all players? Soon the battle system overhaul will be complete and SE will begin to pump out content. What do YOU want to see?

Edit: Added disclaimer

/like

Hope devs read this and think about it....

remember Meowy that the new mmo-gen are lazy and they dont want work hard to get things....

to try to explain why the game would be better with a "ffxi-system" to those guys is demoralizing.

Goog luck.

[MeowyWowie]

/like

Hope devs read this and think about it....

remember Meowy that the new mmo-gen are lazy and they dont want work hard to get things....

to try to explain why the game would be better with a "ffxi-system" to those guys is demoralizing.

Goog luck.

Lol you are more right than you know. This thread has proved that over and over again. Hopefully the devs are a little more understanding though. Thanks for the support! ^^

[MeowyWowie]

Bump.

It's Monday and the reps are back in town. If possible I'd like to see a response from the devs on this.

Will we ever see any rewarding content that lasts longer than a few weeks or am I just wasting my time?

It doesn't even have to be in the near future, just in general. Comments from the players are one thing, but something concrete from the devs would be nice. Even a simple Yes or No would suffice.

[Draven]

I've said this on numerous occasions. SE has a talent for taking things from one extreme to the other in their MMOs. It's very frustrating but eventually, it should be ok. With XI there was the extreme forced grouping in order to actually level and then later down the line they implemented more ways for players to solo as well as group for leveling.

XIV should be no different. Right now we're all looking at the extreme casual style gaming that they've so far provided for us. But I'm quite confident that with enough time after the core game content has been fine tuned, they're going to have that extra time and thinking for more styles of players like the hardcore crowd (or no lifers as I tend to think of them ;-P j/k)

Time sinks are great for side content but not for primary content. What I mean is, players shouldnt be obligated by the game or community to go perform some seemingly endless task in order to play the game efficiently. No player should be forced to spend hours and hours on end to complete something the game designers made in order to move on to something more significant to the game experience. And players also shouldn't be expected by the community to go wait and fight for hours and hours for example to claim a NM and pray for the drop you need to be respected in the game.