New Direction in Content

[Kailok]

This is going to be a long thread so bear with me. If this is a repeat thread, I apologize and hope someone will link me to the proper thread. I used the search function and was unable to find anything related to this issue so please let me know.

I'm making this thread because it has been a long-standing issue for not only my Free Company, but also many friends and players I know that are currently taking a break from the game until 3.1. Everyone is hoping this new content in 3.1 will be the saving grace to bring them back and keep them busy for the next 3 months, but that hope is diminishing with the knowledge of how the current patch cycle of content releases and is then left behind. I've spoken of this with others at length and I'm hoping to have a response regarding this from SE. I know they very likely have a roadmap of current plans for battle content, but if it is never discussed it will never be fixed. FFXIV holds a deep place in my heart and I want nothing but the best from it and I can't help but notice the drop in players between patch cycles.

The post ended up being too long so I'm going to put each of the issues in the following comments. Again, if this is a repeat post, please link me to the current post as I've tried to find something on this.

The Issues:

1) Content is designed only to last until the next patch period. We grind out the things we are given, finish them in 2 months, sit around waiting and bored for the last month before the next patch comes out and then we do it all again.

2) Current Content basically just involves slamming your head into the wall until you complete it due to being either too grindy or unforgiving. Arena-based Boss Battles are a perfect example of this. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good boss fight, but there is no feeling of adventure when you go into a fight just to end up right at the boss and then attempt to complete the fight over and over for hours until you get it down to farming it. I want a boss to be at the end of a relatively difficult raid dungeon with checkpoints. There should be spectacle, there should be a sense of adventure and intensity in endgame raid content outside of just being able to complete your DPS checks or be crushed for it.

When they announced Alexander was going to be the new endgame and that we would be going inside and fighting Goblins, I was so hyped up thinking they were finally turning it around so that we could actually do dungeon-type endgame content. But I was disappointed, it just turned out to be more boss fights with no real trash, and even if they did have trash (A2, for example), it was basically just a couple of packs until you got to the boss. You weren't delving into some deep and awesome dungeon, you were clicking a button, showing up in front of a boss, and wiping until your group got to the point of being able to call every little part of the incredibly scripted fights.

3) Current Raid Content (the CT series, Void Ark) is used as "catch-up" content instead of being the content that is considered true endgame. Why is it that the content with the most sense of adventure and spectacle is held back by being content that people eventually take for granted because they have to grind it over and over with people they don't know instead of going in with a group of friends, or your FC, or a static, and taking on these challenges as a group that can formulate strategy and work together to overcome this difficult dungeon content. Personally I think they just have a weird system. They come out with content to push toward, such as Savage, then months later come out with content used only to catch up so you can do more savage. Where instead they could have released Alexander Regular first, then Void Ark, and then afterward released Savage in a clear line of progression. But instead we get new content that is only there to make it so we can clear previous content that people are already getting tired of.
Why not, instead, release the raids with a regular mode and hard mode, that way progressive raiding is a thing again, and then add something like Savage later on. They don't have the same rewards, Savage clearly comes with the best gear in the end, but then the raids don't feel so useless because half the population already has better gear anyway.

4) No true form of content to occupy ourselves with outside of "Endgame" aside from grinding 2 dungeons and primal weapons (more arena-based boss fights). I'm no FFXI apologist or "white knight", but they had content outside of endgame that was fun to do and you could level with and grind currency while doing it. They had Besieged and Campaign, both types of content that weren't endgame and kept people entertained for a long time. Sure, we have Gold Saucer with Lords of Verminion coming up, but even when Gold Saucer came out it was basically forgotten about after a couple of months and the same will quickly happen with Lords of Verminion aside from the small faction of very dedicated minion farmers.

Initially we had thought that Hunts were going to be a good type of content like this, but in reality it turned out to be open-world content where instead of the community coming together it was more of a race to get there on time before the hordes of players destroyed the Hunt. That's fine, we all got used to it and the community created Linkshells and we dealt with it, but it had potential to be something much more.

We used to have content in 1.0 called Hamlet Defense in which you defended various different outposts from waves of Beastmen hordes. Why was this removed? Why could we not have something like this where the city-states are attacked by Beastmen and winning would include seals or some sort of bonus reward. The story has us believe that the Beastmen are intent on fighting us but the only way they are waging war on us is by summoning the Primals, which clearly no primal has ever actually attacked anything other than the 8 dudes who go to stop 'em.

5) PvP - 30+ minute queues are not acceptable. I understand they have said they won't get rid of the current frontlines GC requirements due to lore reasons, but you could also implement new types of PvP that would allow it to be team vs team instead of GC v GC. Hell it could be Red vs Blue for all anyone cares, as long as it gets people doing PvP more regularly and making it more accessible. In SWTOR they had Huttball which was team-based and it was a super fun type of PvP content. You could also include Attack / Defense type PvP content where the two groups take turns attacking and defending a fort where you could put up structures and defenses and the attacking team needs to get past these defenses and to the core of the fort before the end of the match.

TLDR; The direction that SE is going for their content basically gives each new type of content a short-lived shelf-life and that needs to be fixed. We need content that lasts, is fun, and keeps people around in between patch periods.

* I didn't know how to put the entire post up without multiple comments but now I do and deleted a few comments under the initial post. Please disregard!

[zosia]

I will never understand why they need to make void ark catch up content. It should be integrated in such a way that the players who have been subscribed throughout 3.0 have a better incentive to run void ark outside glamour and alts.

They already put 210 gear in void ark by virtue of twine and coats, they might as well make the 200 gear 210, the casual crowd will love it.

OP: you can use edit to go over the character limit in a single post.

[Kailok]

Thank you, i'll make the adjustments now!

[Colorful]

I will never understand why they need to make void ark catch up content. It should be integrated in such a way that the players who have been subscribed throughout 3.0 have a better incentive to run void ark outside glamour and alts.

They already put 210 gear in void ark by virtue of twine and coats, they might as well make the 200 gear 210, the casual crowd will love it.

OP: you can use edit to go over the character limit in a single post.

Because then the people running Savage will get all uppity that their raid should always have the best gear no matter (see: Exploratory Voyages). I'd appreciate 205 gear at the very least though, along with weapons. Why don't we get weapons with CT-like raids? =(

[Kailok]

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.

[Rufalus]

The difficulty of the savage raids makes them straight to the point, boss fights, so you don't have to go on a long journey back to the boss every day your group attempts them. Difficulty also being the reason it's kept down to 8 players since coordination in larger groups is harder and the big alliance raids with multiple sections are kept as the casual catch-up difficulty tier.

3.x series already stated as the time they are introducing new kinds of content, with exploration missions being the start of it. Randomised relevant loot; big areas to explore with FC; NM and HNM battles. Can't say they aren't trying.

I know a lot of people like myself who log on every day and are satisfied no matter how much time has passed since the last content update. We craft things, help each other leveling alts, do roulettes (not just expert), collect glamors, etc. The pvp queues on my data center can still be almost instant at times. It varies a lot.

[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.

[Kailok]

And yes, with PvP it can vary a lot - sometimes it'll instant queue but most of the time I queue up and it says the average wait is over 30-35 minutes. I think the general disinterest in PvP is because of the queue times and lack of variety in gametypes.

[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?