Please, Developers, Please! Put an end to Easy Mode thinking

[AmyRae]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you aren't a professional video game industry analyst, and if you are then I am truly sorry for you and your unfortunate choice of career. I don't think they need to make the game WoW-casual exclusive in order to have enough money to develop a game I would enjoy.

Not to mention if they don't develop content that I can enjoy=I'm not playing it=I don't care.

If they exclusively develop content you enjoy, you won't be playing that either, simply because there's not enough people like that around to support the game.

Hardcore players are a dying breed. The people who used to play hardcore have (mostly) grown up and now have jobs, kids, and/or sex to worry about, not logging in 3 a.m. every night for a few hours for a chance to slay a rare monster. And kids have grown up with casual games like WoW and simply can't be convinced to take a step back from that.

You're going to have accept that at best hardcore players will have to co-exist with casual ones and not everything is going to be as hard as you like it to be. There's just no market for big name hardcore MMOs anymore. The mainstream wants casual play.

[Rhomagus]

I agree and disagree.

Should there be difficult content: Yes, definitely.

Should everything be difficult to acquire just to impose a false sense of accomplishment: No.

The 'personal chocobos' aren't really all that personal. I'm hoping that they'll implement some female chocobos as all of the rental and company issued chocobos are male and then we can get into the intricacies of former Final Fantasy titles.

As of right now though, no, you shouldn't have to do anything to rent a chocobo. That idiotic four hour waste of life in XI was absolute BS in my opinion, and the raising aspect in XI was a bit over the top, especially for the randomness in outcomes and reward involved.

Tone down XI's breeding requirements and make getting the desired outcome a little less random and I think you have a fairly balanced chocobo system. Honestly though I'd rather they get the battle/armory/job system foundations pinned down before adding more intricate events.

As of right now I'm okay with the simple implementation but I do hope they have something more in store in regards to chocobos and airships.

[Rutelor]

I agree and disagree.

Should there be difficult content: Yes, definitely.

Should everything be difficult to acquire just to impose a false sense of accomplishment: No.

We're talking video-game accomplishments here, not real life. All sense of accomplishment in games is based on artificially imposed difficulties, obstacles that someone planted. But that doesn't make the exhilaration that comes with vanquishing them less real. I'm not talking about arbitrary difficulty, but cohesively deployed hurdles that are part of system, make sense within the world, and contribute to its sense of depth and complexity.

Think of Chess: you could've devised easier moves for the horse, say, with less restrictions... but that wouldn't be as much fun, would it? Besides, the horse moves in a way that is consistent with the stylized world of the 8x8. And if you capture a key piece, or escape from an ambush, by using it's peculiar, artificial move pattern, the sense of achievement is extremely gratifying, because it was not easy. I still remember the immense thrill of beating RDM Maat in FFXI. I want to feel like that again. I worked for months to do it... i gradually improved my equipment, my tactics, and my reflexes. I learnt to play my job at another level, and I became a good RDM

Game designers should not be operating in routine mode, they should be catering to the enjoyment of the genre aficionados by being supremely in touch with the way they think and the things they like and by anticipating the direction their collective taste is moving in, before the player base even knows where it wants to go. What we want them to do is challenge themselves to devise captivating, fun mechanisms for us to explore. Not send us to kill 5 dodos that are parked somewhere waiting for us to do so.

[AceofRains]

So I guess take off tracers and describe location in the quest description?
Easily done... if we had more diverse areas

[Ayden]

Sorry if someone posted this before.

Anyone thinks Yoshi-P should add more aggressive monsters into the fields?

In FFXI, even in South Gustaberg (a starting area), players that are in the level range would always watch out for Quadavs and Goblins.

Presently we just run freely through most areas (especially lower rank areas) without the need to see what are in front of us.

[thepinksupervisor]

Okay what i said earlier kind of came off wrong but what i am trying to get at is that can't we have casual and hardcore at the same time?

@whoever wants an end to easy mode. But if everything is hardcore how are the casual people who only go on for like 30 mins -1 hour accomplish anything?

[Murugan]

Okay what i said earlier kind of came off wrong but what i am trying to get at is that can't we have casual and hardcore at the same time?

@whoever wants an end to easy mode. But if everything is hardcore how are the casual people who only go on for like 30 mins -1 hour accomplish anything?

We can have both sure and that is what the team is trying to do. However most Casuals see "casual content" as being devoid of all challenge/effort and that kind mentality simply cannot exist in a game that will be enjoyable to people who do not play MMO's as merely distractions from their dreary lives.

There should be stuff in the game that takes more than hour, but there can be plenty of stuff which can be done in only a short time. The thing is that a player shouldn't be able to experience everything in 30 minutes to an hour. If a player can log in get a personal chocobo, gain 5 levels, and get some of the best rewards in the game by doing little more than walking into a dungeon in that one hour. Well yeah that is going to make a pretty lousy MMO. Of course the people who are demanding that kind of a scenario are still better than those casuals who would simply like all of it to be simply bought in a cash shop.

[Synapse]

I just been seeing Contents being added only to end a week later. I'm not sure what 'breed' of gamers enjoy things ending in 1 week and adding a copy paste of the same content as a new content with small adjustment. If these keep the new 'breed' interested i have a lot of business idea.

I think i will still give this game another 8-9months, same time it took FFXI to get better. If it doesn't change ill just stand aside, look for challenging things and let the new 'breed' entertain themselves.

[Nikita]

Lol ummm, they have been adding in casual-friendly content for a year now. If you don't like it, why are you even posting here after all of this time? That's like... touching a stove that is turned on over and over, wondering why your hand is burning, and getting frustrated that it hurts.

Obviously they will be adding in more content that requires effort, but I doubt we will ever see it at the extreme level of FFXI. Right now they aren't focused on you. Their main focus is foundation work and things to do for entry level players so that when the PS3 version launches, people will actually buy it (and stick with it). Stuff for us will come eventually, and I am currently taking a break while I wait for more content to be added so I can have a little more fun leveling up. If anything, you at least have the Ifrit battle to look forward to, and Beastman Strongholds look tough, too!

[DoctorMog]

Guys,

This is not a "TURN FFXIV HARDCORE" request.

We want SOMETHING that isn't casual. Not the whole freekin game.

Give the people that ARE hardcore a "bone" so to speak.

So stop the "Hardcore vs casual" debate. Its not the issue.

The issue is that ALL of FFXIV is casual. There is NO hardcore content for us.