New Direction in Content

[Alex_Lenderson]

I think they just need to make 2 tiers of Raid content - the LFG version where you get the "catch-up" gear, kind of like how current Alexander exists, and then the more endgame oriented version where you take a small group in and spend some time in there. Sort of how WoW's Ice Crown Citadel worked where you went in and fought trash and each boss had a checkpoint where you could pick up again for the rest of the week. I just miss the "raid feel", and arena-based boss fights do not give any sense of adventure. Sure it feels good to finally win after hours and hours of getting everything just right, but that isn't a raid.

Why do you like hours of wasted time on trash mobs? I don't get this at all.

[Kailok]

Why do you like hours of wasted time on trash mobs? I don't get this at all.

Why do you like running the same scripted fight over and over again, spending hours just learning the script instead of involving yourself in truly dynamic content?

Besides, who said it had to be "hours" of time on trash mobs? Noone wants to spend HOURS on that. Make them difficult, make them interesting! Make every mob in there as strong as a B rank I get people don't want to "waste time" - then why not make the trash pulls more interesting in theme with the upcoming boss? Why not make them useful and drop useful things that could benefit your group / fc? Then it isn't as much a waste of time as it is that getting through the trash is also part of the experience of not only getting gear but, say, airship components or crafting materials for your crafters. I don't want trash for the sake of wasting time, I want trash to be in theme with the raid and to be part of the endgame experience, not just dealing with it 'til you get to the boss. I'm not saying put 15 packs of goblins you can easily Deathflare to get past - I'm talking about interesting mobs to fight that drop items that are useful to your raid group. It doesn't have to be Endgame gear to be useful to you.

Hell, they could even take away the singular upgrade material (200 eso -> 210 eso materials) and make them a gathering thing where you need X amount, and by killing trash you are able to farm them instead of them being a drop from the boss. That way even if your group isn't able to progress on the boss, you've still collected upgrade materials that help you progress. Suddenly trash doesn't sound so much of a waste of time, it sounds like a viable experience of the endgame raid. Then they put a checkpoint up just before the boss so for the rest of the week you can hop right to the boss without having to fight anymore trash. Then repeat next week. If you can't handle 30 minutes of useful material farming per week, I don't know why you're doing endgame anyway.

[Kailok]

I'm certainly hopeful that the Exploratory Missions will be a good type of content that lasts a while - My only worry is that it will be truly open-world and will basically just end up being the top-tier FCs on the server taking over every HNM. I suppose it depends on how they go about the rewards from different groups.

[Colorful]

I'm certainly hopeful that the Exploratory Missions will be a good type of content that lasts a while - My only worry is that it will be truly open-world and will basically just end up being the top-tier FCs on the server taking over every HNM. I suppose it depends on how they go about the rewards from different groups.

It's going to be a shared instance, that's all we know so far. I'd imagine it's going to be how Heavensward was on release with the areas being separated into separate instances, except in this case the amount of players will be more limited and you can't choose which one your group is placed in.

[UBERHAXED]

As you said, any time of content released will take a different direction due to the player base (e.g. hunts). I fail to see how this can be solved by SE. Content will come in 2 kinds, those in which you can carry people, and those in which you can't. Anything that is the latter will be called too hard (e.g. : OMG, everyone has to know how to play to game to clear this!!11!!). Anything that is the former is called too easy (e.g. : OMG you can just watch netflix while 23 other people do work). There is content they wish for players not to do this in and they decide to not allow random matching so they can make the fights take more than the dungeon timer to learn. In regards to non instanced content, they might as well not release it because it will be destroyed by the player base on launch. The tactic will always be "throw more people at it (i.e. the whole server)" so it degenerates to content type 1, where you just have people pressing 1 button and watching netflix. When they have countermeasures for this, players will complain that content is "too restrictive".


Would you be happy if they releases Void Ark not on the DF and have second coil difficulty, so you have 23 people out to get you with their voices and shrieks. Or they release it at CT difficulty where 2 parties press 3 buttons and the 3rd party AFK. As long as it is going to be randomly matched, they have to make it so easy that every mechanic of every fight is learnable in the first run. I mean let's be logical here, content will either be clearable in the first run or not clearable in the first run. What do you even want?

[Kailok]

Would you be happy if they releases Void Ark not on the DF and have second coil difficulty, so you have 23 people out to get you with their voices and shrieks.

I would be happy if they released raid content for catching up that are easy enough for a PUG group and also have progressive raids that are difficult but not unforgiving for a group of players that regularly raid together. There is nothing that says they can't do both. I fully expected Alexander to be raid-type endgame content but instead it was just more arena-based boss fights which, while fun, lack a certain feeling of adventure that I expect from interesting endgame content. What I want is that feeling of being in an endgame raid, whether it be WoW's ICC or FFXI's Sea and Sky, any of SWTOR's Operations or whatever MMO's version of it you'd like. Alexander is intense, but not interesting. I didn't go in and beat A1S/A2S and then be like "oh neeaaaat! that's really cool!" - Sure, when we won it felt great but that was mainly because we were happy we had finally beaten them and achieved something as a group, not because it was fun to do. Some of the most fun I had in Coil was T1 where there was a mini-boss, a decent amount of trash, and a boss that had actual mechanics that, while difficult, were not unforgiving and overly frustrating. It felt like a mini raid dungeon, and I loved it. Hell, even T3, which had no drops at all, was fun to run through because it was a large space to explore and learn the best route to the bottom. Then you get to T4 and T5 and it's nothing but arena boss fights from then on.

I'm actually quite excited for the Exploratory Missions because it actually seems like the first type of content where my group gets to explore and discover, and it also seems like content that will hopefully last longer than a single patch cycle.

edit: said A1 when I meant T1

[UBERHAXED]

I would be happy if they released raid content for catching up that are easy enough for a PUG group and also have progressive raids that are difficult but not unforgiving for a group of players that regularly raid together...

They already do this. They release a PUG version of Alex, and a dedicated group version of Alex. Your issue doesn't seem to be with the difficulty of fights, but the type of fights. Each fight was unique in there own in Alex, but they also couldn't make different bosses for the PUG version (otherwise it's not the same content in PUG mode, it's completely different and people will complain that fights are locked behind raiding again). Similarly, they couldn't make anything else for the pug version otherwise it would be too difficult for a PUG and they couldn't clear it in one go. Look at T2. It was a reasonable fight, and it was not a fight you pointed out as an arena fight. But as soon as they released the pug version, people didn't do the fight as intended, they wanted to destroy any difficulty that was in the fight. They realized that it was a waste of time to make fights that had some decent mechanics on the DF because people will just exploit what they can. They decided to skip the "find the easy way to exploit the fight" version and just release the easy version. Also as a poster above noted, dedication is not desired. The masses want fights so easy that they can clear in one go, the find what they can do to appear not AFK for the following runs.

Alas, content only lasts as long as someone with reasonable time is able to complete it. They gave everyone unlimited law. People can get all 180 gear playing in 2 weeks. Casually (dungeons drop a lot and the gear cost is low). Therefore this lasted 2 weeks. They put a literal cap on the next set so this can't happen. People complain that it was capped, as if they wouldn't just farm for 2 weeks, get all the gear and say the content doesn't last long. Anything that takes 3 months to do (i.e. some high cost item) people will complain that it takes too long and you can't complete in reasonable time if you wanted to take a break. They have weekly caps and lowered cost to alleviate this and people complain that there are caps. Any content that doesn't take that playing every day for 3 months to complete will, obviously, be completed by people who play regularly in less than 3 months. Then people will complain that the content doesn't last the whole 3 months.

I can guarantee you that SE learns from their past mistakes. They cannot make Exploratory Missions last more than a single patch cycle. If old, "invite as many people as you can so we can faceroll it", content remains relevant when a patch releases, then no one will do the new stuff. Like hunts. Especially considering the next patch will likely be a cap increase. They better not make new stuff in old content, or else this is hunts 3.X style all over again.

[Myrrodin0569]

i think there should be more character restores then just one....on some games there a restore a character every thirty days and i enjoy that just incase i make a stupid mistake and delete it more then once (i know pretty stupid) but it would give us an oppurtunity to get back our beloved characters

[Tint]

Content will come in 2 kinds, those in which you can carry people, and those in which you can't. Anything that is the latter will be called too hard (e.g. : OMG, everyone has to know how to play to game to clear this!!11!!). Anything that is the former is called too easy (e.g. : OMG you can just watch netflix while 23 other people do work).

i think the ex primals are actually content in between. they are not too hard or too easy. we need more content like this :O