Cheap and Easy ways to keep players entertained (devs please read)

[Lambdafish]

I decided to create this thread due to the overwhelming outburst towards the patch delays, as well as the general consensus that the game is becoming bland. I get that developing content costs money and time, but there are very easy ways to keep players entertained that does not take much man power and resources. Feel free to add your own suggestions.

- Add mounts (flying or otherwise) and minions to Bismark and Ravana. Like primals before it, this would encourage players to go back to this content and make it semi relevant again. As the only mid-core content, this is a very necessary step, and primals should be relevant for the entire patch, not just for 3 weeks until eso comes out, or in bismarks case, until you beat it once.

- Make old ponies able to fly. This would make the old primals relevant again, and would give people who gave up on their pony farm to come back at the chance to get these mounts that can now fly.

- Add a coil mount as a rare drop from T13. This would give people a reason to go back to T13 and farm it again, ideally this would only drop if doing the content synced.

- For the love of Hydaelyn, add esoterics to more content. This in turn makes the current content more exciting, and makes the fractumreap nightmare more bearable.

- Planned Gold Saucer challenge log should have been introduced earlier, again, reminding people that Gold Saucer exists.

- Add more reason to do the sightseeing log - suggested by Alipoprocks

- Relic quest in 3.07 or 3.09 (which would be this week for example) - suggested by Alex_Lenderson

- Add the relevance that SCOB savage never had. I always found that titles was a mistake for this content, and while its a bit late now, my complaint back in 2.3X was that SCOBS should have had actual rewards such as minions, mounts, and barding. My idea was that from this content you would be able to get a minion of Rafflasia, Melusine, Avatar, and finally a Wind up Nael (garlean armoured version, not dragon lady version, or maybe a minion of both). Ideally these would only be rewarded for beating the content synced.


I realise that its too late to do this now, and the devs will have to ride the wave of angry players all the way to November, but the general idea is to prove that this could have very easily been avoided without creating a tonne of dungeon content, or story content or new gameplay in order to compensate, its all about making content relevant.

[DragonFlyy]

The "outburst" about the patch delay has been generally people okay with it since the Dev team needed some time off. Haven't really heard many people say the game is bland. Funny enough, the people that say it's "getting bland" or "boring" are usually the same people that only focus on one aspect of the game.

[Alipoprocks]

The "outburst" about the patch delay has been generally people okay with it since the Dev team needed some time off. Haven't really heard many people say the game is bland. Funny enough, the people that say it's "getting bland" or "boring" are usually the same people that only focus on one aspect of the game.

Sorry, I have to disagree. The other parts of the game have been out for a long time and have already been explored by players that have been here continuously and for a long time. Yes, there is a lot to do if you are new to the game.

Also, titles don't interest me. I don't even use a title. For example, if there was a better reward for the sightseeing log, I would do it.

[Alex_Lenderson]

I have more than enough things to do... but adding Relic earlier than November would give those saying 'I got nothing to do' something to do.

[Lambdafish]

I have more than enough things to do... but adding Relic earlier than November would give those saying 'I got nothing to do' something to do.

I forgot about relic, I'll add it to the list

The "outburst" about the patch delay has been generally people okay with it since the Dev team needed some time off. Haven't really heard many people say the game is bland. Funny enough, the people that say it's "getting bland" or "boring" are usually the same people that only focus on one aspect of the game.

Sorry, I have to disagree. The other parts of the game have been out for a long time and have already been explored by players that have been here continuously and for a long time. Yes, there is a lot to do if you are new to the game.

This isn't about whether you do or don't agree, this isn't a complaint thread. The fact is that players aren't happy and the devs have done nothing about it, and the statement of "we took a break, so the game will be delayed" is not what players want to hear when they have potentially paid hundreds of (pounds, dollars, euros) to play the game, and that loyalty is not respected. This thread is designed to point out things that could be done easily to give players things to do.

For example, if there was a better reward for the sightseeing log, I would do it.

I'll add it to the main post

[PotatoWafflez]

The ponies have already been confirmed to be getting the ability to fly in 3.1 I believe? or at least they will fly at some point between now and 4.0 but they confirmed it ages ago.
I assume they will add new primal mounts at the same time as this seeing how the original ones didn't start with them either and I assume this is to pad out the longevity of the content by adding it later so you have a reason to go back instead of just farming it right from the start.

They should really rework sightseeing so that the original system can be used for something else maybe something to do with more in-depth lore telling and just have the old sightseeing work like HS so people aren't gated by waiting for the right time of weather at the right time of day that would make it much more accessible and people might bother to do it without a bigger carrot on a stick, as the barrier to entry on it is stupidly high for what it is.

[Lambdafish]

The ponies have already been confirmed to be getting the ability to fly in 3.1 I believe? or at least they will fly at some point between now and 4.0 but they confirmed it ages ago.

Yeah, there is some content on this list that has been confirmed by the devs (flying ponies, relic quest), but the point is that this content could easily come out in a smaller patch (3.05, 3.07, 3.09) and is enough to keep players interested in the content in the game that has become tired and irrelevant. By delaying it to the bigger patch, there is now a vacuum of no new content, and the game needs something to fill the gap right now.

[PotatoWafflez]

Yeah, there is some content on this list that has been confirmed by the devs (flying ponies, relic quest), but the point is that this content could easily come out in a smaller patch (3.05, 3.07, 3.09) and is enough to keep players interested in the content in the game that has become tired and irrelevant. By delaying it to the bigger patch, there is now a vacuum of no new content, and the game needs something to fill the gap right now.

So the fact that it is confirmed but not in the game yet somehow makes the content irrelevant? When you can currently go and farm them? Unless of course you have all the ponies but at that point the content is already moot to you anyhow.

I assume you also aren't stock piling materia ahead of time so that if they do add another materia stage for the relic you are already sorted?

What about minions do you have all of those? For Lords of Verminion?

There's plenty of things you can be doing now for later.

Even if they added new content it would be burnt out by the time November rolled around save for the relic quest in theory but even then it would probably end up being some horrible horrible RNGfest that is designed solely to tie you over till November and beyond because you'd still have months to wait for the next stage and no one wants that.

[Lambdafish]

So the fact that it is confirmed but not in the game yet somehow makes the content irrelevant? When you can currently go and farm them? Unless of course you have all the ponies but at that point the content is already moot to you anyhow.

That's not the case at all, but its all about incentive for the playerbase. There are a lot of people that got bored of pony farming or never started because they missed the bandwagon of people interested because they raised the drop rate. This lack of players doing the content makes doing the content more difficult. If they made them fly, then suddenly everyone who doesn't have them, wants them. You are also directing this at me personally, when the thread is designed for the player-base as a whole.

I assume you also aren't stock piling materia ahead of time so that if they do add another materia stage for the relic you are already sorted?

I was not aware that they announced the way that the new relic works, that's not content for the player base to do, that's blind assumptions

What about minions do you have all of those? For Lords of Verminion?

I try to collect minions as and when I can, but there aren't any minion rewards that can be worked towards (see suggestions that have been made) other than rare dungeon drops and crafting really (exception being the gobwalker minion, which I'm sure a lot of people have the material drop for as A4 is easy to farm)

Even if they added new content it would be burnt out by the time November rolled around save for the relic quest in theory but even then it would probably end up being some horrible horrible RNGfest that is designed solely to tie you over till November and beyond because you'd still have months to wait for the next stage and no one wants that.

Again, heavy assumptions to do with the relic quest, and the idea of this thread is to discuss ways in which content wont be burnt out by November, which in the current game seems to have suffered from.

Your entire post seems to suggest that the content of the next patch should keep the playerbase entertained right now, when actually we don't have that patch yet and are stuck waiting, we have very few details as to the content of the patch that can be prepared for, and the rest is baseless assumptions that the majority of the playerbase would take with a grain of salt

[Hyrist]

SE won't be doing anything substantial about this because they anticipate exactly what you're doing. They know the majority of you will come back in November when the patch comes out, and they know they'll get more subscriptions to make up for the permanent losses.

There is a delusion of self-importance that persists among a customer base that does not translate into practicalities on the corporate side of things. An individual or a subset of people don't want to hear that they're not important, that they're an expendable commodity already figured in some marketing's numbers, but it's there. It's the PR's department to talk to the talk to get you to feel like you're special. And while if we all lived in an ideal world something like that would be possible, the developers, executives, and staff all know it's just not possible within their constraints.

Of course you won't hear such things from them, because stating the stark truth is bad for business. Terms like "Please bear with us" and "Look forward to it." and "We apologize for the inconvenience." are coined to calm the overly temperamental, and expectant. In spite of the fact that some of the developers would love to wring your little necks once in a while, they genuinely want to further develop a game that their fans will enjoy, and your money, in spite of you not being a fan in their eyes, helps with that.

So, chill out. Find a therapist who's job it is to listen to your rants. Go play some other games if getting ready for the patch doesn't suit you. This isn't a big deal and frankly, it seems like most of you guys could use a little unplugging.