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

[MeowyWowie]

Hardcore and casual are both terms invented by players. There are no concrete attributes tied to them. Hardcore does not mean players that are better than everyone else. Casual does not mean players that want everything easy. Stop bringing this up.

However, I personally play for the gear grind. I love working towards that next goal, it's what keeps me coming back. This is something that I think would qualify me as a "hardcore" player. Many casuals play for the fun of the game or perhaps the community. Everyone plays for their own reason, it doesn't matter what it is. Everyone enjoys hard or challenging content.

The problem here is that there is nothing worth playing for if you play a lot. Everything is obtained extremely fast and quickly leaves many of us with less and less things to do in game. If you didn't like the way XI did something, how would YOU improve it? We get it, not everyone likes to sit in one spot for hours for a pop. I have yet to see any real solutions from any casual players to improve this other than "instance this, or make things spawn faster." Those are not solutions, it's a cop out and still leads to the same problem.

FFXIV was marketed as a casual game and should remain one (hopefully that's the last time I have to say that.) That's doesn't mean it can't have content that takes longer than a week to beat. So instead of telling us to stop trying to turn this into a hardcore game, which we're not, share some of YOUR ideas which you think would please everyone.

[Duelle]

The problem here is that there is nothing worth playing for if you play a lot. Everything is obtained extremely fast and quickly leaves many of us with less and less things to do in game. If you didn't like the way XI did something, how would YOU improve it? We get it, not everyone likes to sit in one spot for hours for a pop. I have yet to see any real solutions from any casual players to improve this other than "instance this, or make things spawn faster." Those are not solutions, it's a cop out and still leads to the same problem.

Sitting around rewarded people for having lots of free time to play the game and for being able to schedule their lives around pop windows. That's not fun, and instead leads to the game intruding on real life.

Instancing content means you can still grind for gear, but don't have to worry about in-game conditions like pop windows. I've done gear grinding before, and we would schedule one to three nights a week to raid. That's doable, long term and can keep us busy for a prolonged amount of time. It's not a cop out, its a solution that keeps people busy while giving those of us who otherwise would not an actual shot to see content.

FFXIV was marketed as a casual game and should remain one (hopefully that's the last time I have to say that.) That's doesn't mean it can't have content that takes longer than a week to beat. So instead of telling us to stop trying to turn this into a hardcore game, which we're not, share some of YOUR ideas which you think would please everyone.

Rep grinds would be one way to do it, as it introduces pacing. The Shattered Sun Offensive base near the end of TBC and Argent Tournament Grounds near the end of WotLK went a step further by making rep grinds that were paced through daily quests.

They actually have a decent opportunity to do this with the introduction of the jobs, provided they actually decide to back the jobs up with lore. I figure a group, organization, order or something like that for each job to work your way up through rep and job-related quests. Granted, that is very unlikely given what we currently know, but still...

[Kiara]

Rep grinds would be one way to do it, as it introduces pacing. The Shattered Sun Offensive base near the end of TBC and Argent Tournament Grounds near the end of WotLK went a step further by making rep grinds that were paced through daily quests.

They actually have a decent opportunity to do this with the introduction of the jobs, provided they actually decide to back the jobs up with lore. I figure a group, organization, order or something like that for each job to work your way up through rep and job-related quests. Granted, that is very unlikely given what we currently know, but still...

Hi Duelle,

I never played the games you speak of, but wouldn't the early info we have on the Grand Companies of Eorzea be something like what you're talking about? They hint at doing various quests for the Grand Companies and eventually earning rare Items / Equipment, etc. (so possibly reputation / ranks as you work your way through the Company you choose.)

[LifeStop]

There's a reason timesinks have a negative meaning attached.

Sitting around waiting for the Valkurm Emperor wasn't work. It was waiting around like a dingbat, when you could have been doing something else. Once he actually spawns and you get the pull, he isn't even that hard to kill. Why people think that non-boss NMs in FFXI are hard is beyond me...

A better way of introducing meaningful content would be to create quest lines where you have to solve some difficult puzzle(maybe as a party or a community), or defeat several challenging enemies within a set time limit as well as other limits like no magic or something, or maybe just a boss rush dungeon to finally reach a chest or have a chance to lot for some rare gear. The reward should be in a challenging fight coupled with a cool piece 'o loot, and maybe some storyline or something.

I agree. Pride and reputation should be built from completing difficult tasks, and not simply putting in more time than other players.

Sure, camping an easy (but hard to claim) NM in ffxi showed dedication, but it took little skill and was often so tedious that it made me question if I was still playing a game. Some days I felt as though I had taken on a second job for which I would never be paid.

I know not everyone enjoyed it as much as me, but I really liked Nyzul Isle & Sea access (pre-nerf) in FFXI. I hope that similar content will be added to FFXIV.

[MeowyWowie]

Rep grinds would be one way to do it, as it introduces pacing. The Shattered Sun Offensive base near the end of TBC and Argent Tournament Grounds near the end of WotLK went a step further by making rep grinds that were paced through daily quests.

They actually have a decent opportunity to do this with the introduction of the jobs, provided they actually decide to back the jobs up with lore. I figure a group, organization, order or something like that for each job to work your way up through rep and job-related quests. Granted, that is very unlikely given what we currently know, but still...

Can you elaborate a little more on this? I'm familiar with the term Rep Grinds but I don't know exactly what they were.

I never really got into WoW. I had a number of rl friends who played it, but after trying it myself I quickly realized it wasn't for me, for various reasons. I'm interested to hear more about this, if you would be so kind.

[Duelle]

I never played the games you speak of, but wouldn't the early info we have on the Grand Companies of Eorzea be something like what you're talking about? They hint at doing various quests for the Grand Companies and eventually earning rare Items / Equipment, etc. (so possibly reputation / ranks as you work your way through the Company you choose.)

Then thing is that there's only three grand companies and we are somewhat bound to one for the most part. Once you're done with them there's not much else.

Can you elaborate a little more on this? I'm familiar with the term Rep Grinds but I don't know exactly what they were.

I never really got into WoW. I had a number of rl friends who played it, but after trying it myself I quickly realized it wasn't for me, for various reasons. I'm interested to hear more about this, if you would be so kind.

Well, the various interests in the game had a faction attached to it that you could grind rep with by doing things relevant to those factions. Like in vanilla WoW the events in Silithis involved the Cenarion Circle, which was a group of Druids leading the charge into that zone's raid instance. Doing quests for members of the CC gave you reputation with that faction, larger amounts for one-shot quests, and small amounts for repeatables (only when done the first time), and tiny amounts (5 or 10 points) for killing members of the Twilight's Circle (which are the antagonists in that region).

The scale went from Hated to Hostile to Unfriendly to Neutral to Friendly to Honored to Revered to Exalted. Took around 84,000 rep points to go from Hated to Exalted, and one-shot quests at most usually gave between 100-250. Granted, most factions usually had you start at Unfriendly or Neutral, though things like the Brood of Nozdormu (a faction of dragons that were also involved in Silithis) started at Hated and would attack you on sight until you killed enough enemies inside the raid instances to reach Neutral, at which point they would actually talk to you (since aside from the "Only One May Rise" quest and some repeats, there was no other way to gain rep with them).

Dungeons in TBC also had rep attached to them as you usually had one faction that was involved in three dungeons, and killing things in those dungeons gave you rep with that faction (like all three Hellfire Citadel dungeons gave rep with Honor Hold). WotLK introduced Championing, in which you did entry quests to get you to Friendly with a faction and had to grind the rest of the way to Exalted by killing mobs and bosses inside any 5-man instance so long as you're wearing that faction's Tabard.

What I call quest-hub reputation is what I spoke of when I mentioned the Shattered Sun base and the Argent Tournament Grounds. Both of these were hubs for daily quests, and you could only gain rep for their respective factions through the daily quests available at those two hubs. Since you started at neutral, you usually have two or three quests open to you at the most, but more opened as your rank with that faction went up.

Lastly, you have raid instance reputation, which I've only seen first-hand with the Violet Eye and the Ashen Verdict. You could only get rep with them by killing enemies in Karazhan/Icecrown Citadel, and the latter played a hand in putting together the Legendary (equivalent of Relic/Mythic) Great Axe, Shadowmourne.

Those two also had a neat little thing to encourage you to continue grinding mobs in those instances: an upgradeable ring that became stronger the higher your reputation rank was with either faction.

Note: To clarify, I don't want SE to copy this formula word for word, but to take the general idea, give it their own twist and go from there.

[MeowyWowie]

Very interesting. The whole concept almost reminds me of a mix between FFXI's fame system and GTA's gang loyalty system, except more rewarding. I especially like the Hostile > Friendly aspect of it, generally speaking.

I would love to see something like this in XIV, though implemented in their own way of course. Provided the rewards are always worth the effort, I can see myself spending a lot of time with something like this. Thank you for the clarification, Duelle.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

Very interesting. The whole concept almost reminds me of a mix between FFXI's fame system and GTA's gang loyalty system, except more rewarding. I especially like the Hostile > Friendly aspect of it, generally speaking.

I would love to see something like this in XIV, though implemented in their own way of course. Provided the rewards are always worth the effort, I can see myself spending a lot of time with something like this. Thank you for the clarification, Duelle.

I'm fairly certain it was hinted that the 3 grand companies were going to have a sort of reputation system attached to them. Completing quests with each company is supposed to raise your standing with them. Although I believe it's going to be more similar to FFXI's campaign ranking system than WoW's reputation system.

[Ava]

Only read the OP, but as a casual player I'd love to see some type of magian trial system put into FFXIV. We have NMs, we have a huge game world with tons of monsters some people have never even seen, etc. Give us some magian trials to run to those random corners and grab some nice loot. Maybe do something like this for class-specific gear.

[Firon]

There is nothing wrong with open world NM's at all. They only have to remove the windows and change the mobs pop timer to an static 27 hr pop or something like that so the mob rotate thru different game times. MeowyWowie NEVER even suggested pop windows even be brought back she just wanted some open world NM's to hunt if you do it this way no one has to stand around.

Every time someone says open world NM's someone always comes running in saying i don't wanna stand around She never stated anything about standing around