Open Letter to the Producer. "On Raiding..."

[MagicofGaia]

I have been loyal to X|V ever since the first letter was released, and was overjoyed when the first roadmap was given to us for the future of the game. I've played since 1.0 Beta and played FFXI for 6 years previous to here among other mmo's. One of the largest passions I have for & in mmo's is "Raiding".

X|V's current options that can be considered 'Raids' are sad at best. 2.1 was a wealth of stepping stone content that would have been nice to have at launch, but the truth is that 1.0 players, and players that raided in 1.0 are left with little to nothing to do 5-6 days a week. I understand the philosophy behind lock-outs, however there is nothing to actively work towards or farm.

I appreciate and commend the mechanics that were constructed for us to tackle, however this past week was our 7th of beating turn 5, and our first week 1 shotting the same turn. 2.2 will bring us some new turns in a (few) months, but 2.1 was filler content that 'should' have been available to bridge the gap between i70 & i90. I understand wanting to give access to your content to all willing players to reach the widest audience therefore earning the highest potential income possible, and to do that inevitably some of the content suffers in difficulty due to the variance in player skill.

The housing prices were a complete insult and the fact that they anticipated and had a 'plan' with it and kept it from the community until we were already weeping in our graves over it was just a kick while we were down. But that is not the core point of this thread.

I freely admit I am more of a hardcore player & raider, but I constructed my FC to be of like-mind, and X|V simply cannot continually deliver what we require to keep high interest. Sure, if lockouts did not exist then the hard pushing players would have all the gear they would require in a few short weeks, and the lock-outs also keep players around and paying money to eventually get back into those instances. But there is no farmable content for the hardcore raiders right now. Turns 1-5 are finished in around 1:30 on Mondays, EX Primals are conquered as well in just under an hour. Since we can only obtain 1 item in CT a week as well, even if everyone passes and you don't roll the item still lands on the floor.

This is a huge deterrent from FC members wanting to even run the instance after they get their item because there is literally no chance for them to better their own gear for any class or even sub-job, and the workaround through another regions server to make a custom alliance is a pile of dren. If we can workaround and make it happen, why is it so hard for SE to enable this as possible by default?

The current policies / mechanics in place to hold raiders back are causing players with high end game ambition to lose interest and making it more difficult to maintain morale, and the housing did not help that at all.

I could reminisce for hours on the love and fun of Dynamis, Sky, Sea, Salvage, Einherjar, etc etc etc or point at several other mmo's with instanced dungeons or raids which offer a wide variety of end game content and rare drops. I also believe that X|V has a lot of potential, especially under Yoshi's leadership and influence. There really are no current hardcore MMO's in existance that are similar in scale and player-base and I honestly feel most of the reason that X|V is still alive is due to ESO's delay of launch and Wild Stars later launch as well. (Not that I am personally considering either) But they have a grace period where there is no other launch competition and the player-base and especially the hardcore raiders are just having to suck it up and bend over while we wait 5-6 days to get to really push ourselves for a grand 2 hours and then wait again.

Dailies, Primal weeklies (another lockout), CT (weekly lockout) are nice little activities, but an mmo they do not make for the most loyal of fans. We ache for a grindstone to smash our faces into. Yes, the drop rate for Darklight in 1.0 sucked but running it and bonding with fellow players and all those hours getting to play and work together was amazing. We need that fire back, Yoshi. We need something we can push, perfect, and work towards. Having these weeklies are fine, having your raiding currency is nice if drop rates do not favor you. But we need that instance with the 1-3% drop rate that we can push for and grind, and practice, and bond together until we're ready to meltdown. Those rarities and victories are some of the greatest moments in my 13 year mmo career, and I hope you can deliver.

(I apologize for not editing my OP and replying multiple times, I was not aware of the work-around)*

[Axidrain]

just a tip. u can bypass the 1000 character limit by editing ur original post

[KiraJ]

I have been loyal to X|V ever since the first letter was released, and was overjoyed when the first roadmap was given to us for the future of the game. I've played since 1.0 Beta and played FFXI for 6 years previous to here among other mmo's. One of the largest passions I have for & in mmo's is "Raiding".

X|V's current options that can be considered 'Raids' are sad at best. 2.1 was a wealth of stepping stone content that would have been nice to have at launch, but the truth is that 1.0 players, and players that raided in 1.0 are left with little to nothing to do 5-6 days a week. I understand the philosophy behind lock-outs, however there is nothing to actively work towards or farm.

Oh that thread again.....that's so interesting, tell us more about your sorrows.

[Thunderz]

You can edit your OP and add more

on-topic:

110% agree with you

[Peptaru]

Oh that thread again.....that's so interesting, tell us more about your sorrows.

Oh that response again, please waste 3 seconds of everyone's time by posting your useless response.

[MagicofGaia]

OP fixed* Sorry about that.

[Dyvid]

Snip

It a damned if you do, damned if you don't problem. It takes time and effort to really build a solid End Game scene. FFXI didn't even have Dynamis until the first expansion came out. You didn't even really get a huge amount of End Game options until ToAU came out.

FYI, people will leave when the next flavor of the month MMO comes out. Happens with every time because people are always try to find something they lost when they left their first MMO. It's human nature to look back at thing we hold dear with rose tinted glasses.

[Sylve]

So take the lockouts off and see how fast you get bored with it then. Seriously, If you could run Coil 100 times a week, the 'loyal fans' you're talking about would do nothing by Coil till full i90, then complain that theres nothing to do. When new turns come out, spend a day getting them to farm status and by the second day they have everything for every job from Coil.

Nope. I will defend the presence of lockouts always. They serve as a reminder that theres more to do than the very latest high level raid.

[ArcheustheWise]

You know.... im just going to kick back in my chair and go on a little rant... a useless one as it will be as it will be rendered meaningless in a few days by the myriad of useless posts that the devs will never read... but.. I digress.. *sigh*

Why do we even have to raid? Why is that the "be all end all" to a mmorpg? Why not instead have a real threat that binds players to work together... say some force attacking a city state... where you have to fight back the invaders or you lose that city?

I remember when the first time i saw the starting battle video in ffxi (just as an example) or even ffxiv's meteor fight and how much i wanted to be apart of that massive cluster of people fighting... to fight to not get some silly piece of gear.. but for the pride of having fought off such a force with my friends... and maybe having the npcs nearby cheer us on as they come out of their battle singed houses.

I know all this is possible, mostly due to seeing similar in game stuff in some console games... I just for the life of me don't understand why its been all about the "gear grind" and the "spam this dungeon". I mean if you think about it.. this is a role playing game, some of the dungeons don't have a real reason to be in it story wise. You just go there for exp/gear.

Ugh... just so much potential in mmo's these days wasted.. just to be the next "theme park" that rakes in the money from having people spam dungeons for the next pointless piece of gear..

Sorry for my little rant. Just sick of the same crap in mmos these days, they used to have so much more variety.

[Jubez187]

Are "open letters" the new thing?

Okay but to actually comment on your post: SE cannot actually and factually create content faster than you could burn through it. There are only 2 things to keep content alive and running: insane drop rates, and lock-outs. Also understand that a good portion of people on this game DO NOT hardcore raid as hard as you do (whether it be responsibilities, boredom, etc, whatever). Someone who plays ~2 hours a night does not want to spend it trying to get a .005% drop. If the player plays their whole 2 hours and never gets the drop, they essentially wasted their time. You are saying you're bored because you cap your lock-outs quickly, but had there been no lock-outs you would have been full allagan/i90 3 months ago and probably wouldn't have touched the game since and you would be here making this thread.

I'm not a casual player, but I do have responsibilities and I realize that long gone are the days of insane grinding.

All-in-all we're just waiting for a good balance of ridiculous droprates and currency items. But then that begs the question of "which should be better?" If they're the same strength, then no one is going to sit around and try to grind the drop rate item, it would solely be for epeen to have a super rare item. If the drop rate one is better, then that just puts a huge RNG on determining someone strength. And if the currency gear is better then no one will grind for the drop rate gear (besides for epeen). So the only way the drop rate gear could work is if it's stronger than the currency gear (because that would be the only incentive). Now, in the future SE has to make new content...do they balance it around having the drop rate gear (which we're going to assume is better in this scenario)? No, because that will just make it super hard for the majority of the community who don't have the drop rate gear. If they don't balance it around having drop rate gear, then it will be a cakewalk for the people who have it, and you'll come make this thread again.

Just playing devil's advocate.