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

[Neptune]

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.

I disagree with you that it was worth the time. But that's only because I'm looking at it from the perspective of one week of your life. I know there are some gamers who are willing to game to such a degree that casting an entire week of their lives for one virtual item sounds like the best possible thing they could possibly do with their lives. I have gamed for an entire week before, but for me I'd have to have a great variety of experiences over that week.

Standing aside from judging you, I think the only time sink I support is something like Nyzul Isle weapons. Something where you have an incredible amount of challenges that are very rewarding for short term play but long term is a big time sink. Since people like you are in it long term all-in anyway, I think you should be rewarded for your time. However, it is a videogame and the idea that the best weapons in the game are reserved for only those who can put such an extraordinary amount of time in the game that it requires leaving other aspects of human life behind makes me uncomfortable. So, if you agree with me what do you propose would satisfy you long term players other than having the best gear? Is there another possible reward of your time you can think of?

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.

I think magian trials were another brilliant system in FFXI for rewarding those who liked the long term chase. Incremental tasks makes sense for incremental upgrades. I'm sure this system will make it's way to FFXIV once the game matures. It looks like we're basically getting Campaign and I suspect every system from FFXI will make its way over.