Quote Originally Posted by Reaujien View Post
Why should SE make significant design changes based on arbitrary information though - especially when the basis of this arbitrary information is 100% subjective?
I said my % were arbitrary based on what I've seen in other MMOs and populations, not that SE would make any definitive plans or changes based on them. Again, I've seen enough of these statistics to understand there's a very steep pyramid when it comes to player-base demographics.

Since it seems you want more specifics, we need only look as far back as the FF Player's Polls from Jan/Feb of this year. Certainly you're not suggesting SE ignore this information are you? Again, every company needs to identify their core demographic and SE certainly made an attempt to do so as well in their 1st Player Poll. The usual distinction between casual and hardcore is generally defined by playtime per week, and SE did similar in their 2nd players poll (Item 3): http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...16083b634f7678

Its not the best indication as most polls generally ask how many hours per day, and I think the 1st players poll asked this as well but they perhaps didn't release the results. In any case, 24% of the respondents said they would spend 3+ hours a day on both weekend and weekdays for party-play, so that's a pretty good indication of how many "hardcore" players you are looking at. It also does a good job of illustrating how much of the population might not even experience content if it exceeds their expected playtime amounts on any given day.


Your premise contradicts what you are proposing SE should do. You suggest that SE needs to first satisfy the "other-than-hardcore" 90% of the player population by implementing content that is "other-and-less-than-difficult", but you assert (arbitrarily, I would assume) that the range of difficulty of any given content should be measured by a function of how much of such content has been completed from the "hardcore" (sic) 5%-10% of the entire active player base. So how, then, should SE measure "toughness" of any content if they do not consider this arbitrary 10% which you suggest? Further, how does SE cater to this arbitrary 90% if they, in fact, don't first consider this arbitrary 10% "hardcore" player base?
No, it doesn't contradict anything. It should be obvious what I'm referring to, content that anyone from Rank 1-50 can experience, complete, and enjoy along the way. That's in stark contrast to what Mog wants, content that only 5-10% of the endgame population might be able to clear. Because lets be honest, if 100% of the population could clear it, it just wouldn't be tough enough for Mog, amirite? Also, to be clear, I want more tough content too, but the difference is I understand FFXIV will never get to that point they're cranking out tough end-game content if they don't first lay the groundwork with content for casual players to enjoy along the way.

Sorry, heh, that's 100% subjective... again.
Not really, again, 37% of the population identified lack of content as the #1 problem with this game in January. Item #7: http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...98e4034b898102

40% said they wanted more story-based quests and mini-quests, interestingly, only 10% listed Large Scale PvE as #1 on their wishlist and a paltry 2% wanted more NMs.......