Thread: Patch 2.2, Accessibility, Difficulty Levels, and Throwing Away Content

Originally Posted by Taruranto

You speak like all WoW-Clone/Theme Park MMORPG or how do you want to call them (in which FFXIV belong) in recent years haven't crashed and burned after a successful start. :P

You're talking like a MMO dev here, when you declare that any modern MMO that didn't become WoW is a failure. And yeah I see your :P there, I just couldn't help myself.

Originally Posted by Susanoh

That each new piece of content must drop vastly superior equipment is the mindset that causes older content to become obsolete, not whether content is instanced or not. If new content were to come with different rewards that accommodated different play styles or offered alternatives to what already existed, it makes for a game that has quite a bit of relevant content for players to choose to do and get cool rewards while doing it. The methods used by some modern games and now FF14 make for a game where no one wants to do old content. It becomes a joke to complete because of how easy it is with superior equipment, and doesn't drop anything that anyone wants, because all drops are inferior to whatever just came out. What's left is the only content people care to do at all, which is whatever was just released. Some people might want this style of game, but it's incredibly easy to see why some wouldn't. A game that gets constantly updated like an MMO does has the potential to build itself into an experience with lots of things to do and get some nice rewards while doing them. A game that uses the power creep method becomes only as good as its latest patch, since no one wants to do any old content, as it becomes easily out leveled and unbalanced and has no relevant rewards. We don't even get anything nice in exchange for these methods. It only serves to make the amount of relevant things to do in game feel incredibly restrictive.

You completely dodged the instanced vs. competitive content angle here. I understand why though, because it's really hard to rectify with everything else you're saying. How do you make a instanced game with horizontal progression? Are you saying you'd be happy with this new version of coil if it had ilvl 91 gear and ilvl 96 weapons at the end? Probably not. We have the option of slowly building up to a raid difficulty that most players don't see like Naxx40 or Sunwell. Mind you difficulty includes all attunements, grinding, bugged encounters, resist gear farming, or fingernails that must be pulled out and mailed to the developers. Of course only 5%~ of the player base being to reach this content when it's current doesn't make it obsolete, it makes it obsoleet ... HEH.

Then we have the option of just making the game have competitive non-instanced content, which means either it needs to be HUGE beyond imagining or simply have servers with as few players as there were ten years ago. I really don't think there's much middle ground, games are designed for more load now-a-days because everyone wants WoW numbers, that's it. It's just an inevitable and unavoidable truth. I hope a company comes and builds an MMO for 6 figures, but seeing as Brad McQuaid's latest hardcore vaporware has kickstarter goals up into the millions, I doubt it'll happen. I'd like to see it happen but subbing to games and spending the majority of your time trying to World's Best MMO Soothsayer on the forums isn't going to make people want to make this game, I swear.

Originally Posted by Vantol

On less personal note, I have statistics. Being die-hard fan of Final Fantasy I actually PRed FFXIV not long before release with my own money in a few communities. So I had possibilities to keep track of ~1400 players. Only ~160 of them keep playing, all others left. 88% people out of those 160 log in once per week for Coil only because they feel resposible for their static groups and they would leave this game in a heartbeat for good if not that. Doesn't feel like "vast majority", does it?

Eventually I will make separate thread with more statistics when I get them. So please join discussion by then.

Please tell me you are going to post data from your Guerrilla PR activities and pass them off as meaningful, I can't wait.